
Ask HN: Are you still using shared hosting for anything? - mattbgates
While there is plenty of cheap alternatives for your VPS or Cloud server, I&#x27;m curious for those who are using shared hosting, if at all, what are you using it for?
======
featherverse
I wrote an article about this called Shared Hosting is Bad for Business. I
pointed out that shared hosting as a business model depends on the failure of
it's customers' websites. You can't run 1,000 high traffic websites on a
single server, typically, but you can run 1,000 no-traffic websites on a
single server.

You see this in practice because basically every shared hosting provider will
disable your account if your website starts using more than it's quota of
system resources.

Some providers go so far as to say their service is unlimited but obviously
that's false, there are several physical limitations no matter what hardware
is being utilized.

~~~
jmathai
Don't many businesses have 'no-traffic' websites?

~~~
overint
A typical local business website probably gets a few hundred hits a day, which
is pretty much nothing.

~~~
konschubert
And it does not mean that the website is a failure.

------
laci27
Well, I can tell you that hosting WP sites on a shared host is a big pain in
the ... . When a client get's hacked, everyone on the same server (or at least
same IP) get's 'tested' for WP vuln. and hacked as well. I found 8 WP accounts
hacked in a similar way, on a shared server, one after the other, with the
server correctly configured.

Smaller (local) shared hosting companies are good because they offer quick
support and are easy to setup. Larger hosts with overcrowded servers and
unlimited plans are very bad. Back to your question: shared hosting is good
for small sites, local sites that don't have that much traffic (<100k
uniques/month), which actually most sites are. As mentioned, smaller hosting
companies will notify you if you overuse the server and recommend
alternatives. Larger hosts will just block you (but that's ok, you knew what
you paid for when you signed up...).

~~~
jraby3
Can you recommend some good local hosts?

~~~
gameofcode
127.0.0.1

------
unixhero
The real question is, on October 2017 which shared webhost can you
recommend???

I am with Inmotionhosting on their business plan and that has been working
fine. They support postgres in addition to mysql which is nice. Other than
that nothing special, only that it works and they don't hassle me. It's not
very cheap though... USD200 per year.

Hosters scrapped:

\- Servage.com

\- Greengeeks.com

~~~
gbuk2013
As mentioned in the other comment, I’ve been using Funio for years and I’ve
had a good experience. My needs are very simple in this case as the site is
mostly static pages with a small bit of PHP here and there. They’ve added
Let’s Encrypt support recently, which is nice.

------
SyneRyder
I'm still using FutureQuest for my main revenue generating website, about 20
years later. I'm still extremely happy with FutureQuest, sites have been very
reliable & responsive and I've only had two small downtime incidents in those
20 years. Their support still has that 'small business' feel where you know
all the staff by name & they know you & your account personally.

I keep my random experiments on Dreamhost, because I can throw an idea onto
the one Dreamhost account to see if it gets any traction. But I'm not happy
with Dreamhost's reliability or performance, I often can't even log in. As
those sites get traction, I migrate them over to their own FutureQuest
account.

------
lonk
VPS,PaaS, Cloud servers are also shared hosting, difference is providing
os/container level isolation instead of user account type isolation. So, yes
everybody still using "shared" hosting.

------
gbuk2013
I’m still using a Funio shared hosting account for a site I am looking after
for someone. ~35GB of data and ~11k page views a week. I have a VPS for my own
use but in this case it’s very convenient to have a nice Panelbox UI that the
onwner can access to make changes himself (he is technical enough to write
HTML by hand but not technical enough to manage a server). Price wise it is a
bit cheaper than a realiable KVM VPS and the service has been very good for
years.

------
joshmn
Anecdotal: Ease of use has always been a major selling point for shared
hosting, now more than ever. Not everyone wants to be a sysadmin, and John's
Pizza sure as hell doesn't know what a VPS is. They just need a simple
WordPress install.

~~~
featherverse
> Ease of use has always been a major selling point

You're right, but that doesn't mean people need shared hosting, it means
people need managed hosting.

Shared hosting is a gimmick model designed to make hosting companies rich
based on the concept that 99% of websites will be failures.

And it is _nothing more than that_.

~~~
rightos
By your own description, doesn't that make it a great model in "99%" of cases?

If you outgrow it, sure, but your odds of a small business or little WordPress
blog outgrowing such a thing are quite small. Paying more might not make sense
in that "99%"of websites.

------
eimg
I have some small company websites (mostly Wordpress, 100-200 visitors a day
with few dozens active email) on a single share host at DreamHost.

The cost is higher than some VPS. But their panel (and managed hosting
service) is very nice and I have no apparent problems.

Although I might choose a DigitalOcean VPS to host new websites, I don't have
immediate plan to move away existing websites from DreamHost share host.

------
Haydos585x2
I use shared hosting for my personal site and a few low traffic client sites.
I use it for my site because it's WordPress and I don't really want a high
risk application running alongside some of my other more secure projects. I
use it for client sites because they don't get much traffic and it's very
cheap meaning I can keep their costs down.

~~~
kyriakos
Wordpress is quite secure on its own, just stay away from plugins

------
chubot
My blog and source downloads are on Dreamhost:

[http://www.oilshell.org/](http://www.oilshell.org/)

It's been working pretty well. It's apparently held up to being on the front
page of HN 4-5 times, which generates a large amount of traffic (more than any
subreddit it's been on, which is quite a few). It's probably around 50,000 -
100,000 HTTP requests in that day. Being on HN attracts both humans and bots.

Although that's around 1 per second average, it's pretty concentrated in a few
hours. But it's not like they can't handle 5-10 requests per second for a
single site. It's all on a single machine, but I'm sure their machines can
handle thousands of requests per second. It's probably pretty unlikely that
more than a few sites on the box get even 1 request per second.

Occasionally people do run wget over the site, but that hasn't seemed to
matter either.

------
justinucd
I use Siteground for a few wordpress installations - support is excellent and
performance is reasonably good - plans are reasonably priced and haven't had
any issues. That said, I don't run any intensive applications, just self-
contained systems.

~~~
dazc
I would say support is excellent if you have a problem the rep already knows
something about or you get someone who's interested in fixing your issue.

The problem I've just had hasn't been resolved because the rep jumped straight
in with what he thought the solution might be. He obviously never read the
error message that I pasted and continues not to read or listen to anything
that contradicts his theory.

The fault has been marked as resolved by him 3 times now even though it isn't
fixed.

This is a problem I have experienced with many well known hosting outfits.

It is why I don't recommend any shared hosts anymore because they are all
competing on low price and just about acceptable customer service.

Siteground are one of the better options but the chances of having a similar
issue can't be dismissed.

------
Animats
I still have about 5 web sites on HostGator shared hosting. They don't get
much traffic, and the cost of keeping them running is very low.

~~~
janitor61
I quit using Hostgator after they modified their cPanel to prevent you from
installing your own SSL certificates and forcing you to buy their own
offerings. Seems pretty underhanded (even GoDaddy lets you manually install a
LE cert)

------
cdevs
Used hostgator when I was in college it was fun installing a php based
terminal I could connect to through the browser and snoop around the rest of
the shared hosting files outside of where I was "suppose" to be.

------
tomduncalf
Yes, for a few smallish sites I’ve built for clients in the past. The reason
being that they are low traffic, the client doesn’t want to spend a huge
amount on hosting, and I don’t want to be first line or support for any issues
they may have with the hosting or responsible for patching/security as I would
be with a VPS.

I’ve been using TSOHost who are a U.K. based company who seem okay. There have
been a few issues in the past but their support is prompt and helpful, the
hosting reasonably flexible, the prices low, and they have coped with the
traffic, so can’t conplain too much.

------
xiconfjs
Yes, I have my private domain including email with 1&1 since 1998...the site
itself is nothing special but I‘m to „unmotivated“ to transfer all the mail
accounts to my own servers...so yeah ;)

------
kaiku
I use a shared host for some personal projects, clients, and friends.

Most people I know aren't tech-savvy and want WordPress or small no-frills
HTML website and the ability to upload files through FTP. I want email
forwarders and mailboxes that are easy to configure, regular database backups,
no-hassle SSL certificates, and decent email support.

I've been using Pair for about 10 years and I've been happy.

------
laurentdc
Some old clients running Wordpress sites, mostly company landing pages.

------
psergeant
Was cheaper to set up an
[https://forms.mydomain.com](https://forms.mydomain.com) to handle a few
pieces of formmail type stuff for an otherwise static site (on Cloud Cannon),
than use any of the forms as a service things. Using Hostgator for it.

------
rurban
70% of the world available websites run on shared hosting. Most small to
medium businesses run on shared hosting.

Disclaimer: worked for Cpanel, which is powering those sites.

------
wolco
It's been a year since I moved the last domain off of hostgator.

Reason I used it so long is email/mail server. Since moving to a vps some
emails don't come. Usually important ones that used domain verification.

~~~
fraXis
What did you like and not like about Hostgator?

I was with Rackspace for years, but Liquid Web bought their cloud site service
and I am not too fond of the support I have been getting from Liquid Web and
am looking to make a change.

~~~
featherverse
I've had to deal with Hostgator on a number of occasions and I can tell you
they don't know how to utilize SSH keys their systems are misconfigured and
their support people are clueless.

Also I believe they're now owned by EIG which is a corporation that owns a
thousand crappy shared hosting companies and is universally reviled in
professional circles.

------
jon-wood
Anything I would previously have used shared hosting for (so static websites)
now just gets thrown up on S3, a Cloudfront origin put in front of that, and
after that I just stop thinking about it.

------
xylon
Most shared hosts are scams that dissable your account if you get any traffic.
But Mythic Beasts is great I host 5 websites on them for the cost of a panini.
They host my email too, works fine.

------
kyriakos
I have clients on godaddy who refuse to consider any alternatives so
unfortunately I have to deal with shared hosting.

------
ericob
Check out webfaction.com.

