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Hosting - which provider?

  • Posted on: January 27, 2005
  • In: News
  • Comments closed

I’ve been using Bargainhost as a hosting provider for a couple of years now. Their Standard package includes PHP, 5 MySQL databases, 100Mb of space, 3GB of traffic a month and other stuff such as subdomains etc. All for ?51 a year.

I’ve got a couple of projects coming up which, as they’re being built with Expression Engine, require a similar server setup. So, my question is to you, which provider would you recommend that has a similar, or better, spec for the money (or less)?

Comments

I?m on TextDrive, which is fantastic but not the cheapest around, nor perhaps the best for suggesting to clients.

I?ve been hearing good things about A Small Orange: the Tiny plan offers 75Mb/3Gb for $30 per year, and the Small plan offers 400Mb/10Gb for $5 per month. All plans seem to include unlimited MySQL databases, email accounts, etc. (But I?m always suspicious of the word “unlimited.")

Software versions aren?t the most recent though, if that matters to you.

cboone's Gravatar

cboone
Thu 27th Jan 2005
at 8:18 am

I use diyhost (http://www.diyhost.co.uk/) which give 1GB disk space 20GB bandwidth, and all the usual stuff, for 49.99 GBPs per year.

bbm's Gravatar

bbm
Thu 27th Jan 2005
at 9:06 am

I personally use A Small Orange for three of my sites. It is very reliable and like it was mentioned above, you get a lot of features for very few dollars.

As far as the unlimited databases, that seems to be totally true. I’m currently running about 6 without a hitch. They are very quick in responding to support tickets. Usually within 10-15 minutes. They do not do ASP.

They also use a referral system so that if you refer people to them and you are hosted on their server, you will receive one month of free hosting for each referral. This is an awesome deal. I highly recommend them to anyone. Also, if you want to use me as the person that refer you, I wouldn’t exactly hate it. :)

David Lee Hemphill's Gravatar

David Lee Hemphill
Thu 27th Jan 2005
at 9:40 am

I also use A Small Orange, and have been extremely satisfied with the quality of their product.  I’m currently on the “Small” package and it more than meets and exceeds all of my expectations of a host.

And I concur with David’s remark, when they say unlimited, they mean unlimited.

Jeff Smith's Gravatar

Jeff Smith
Thu 27th Jan 2005
at 11:28 am

I use LunarPages.com:
- $90/year
- 1Gb of space
- 40Gb of traffic
- MySQL / PHP
- Sub domains
- etc…

Lucas's Gravatar

Lucas
Thu 27th Jan 2005
at 3:41 pm

Hi Mark

I used Bargain Hosts for a while but found them quite flaky in their customer support so moved over to Fasthosts. They offer 3 packages which all are at reasonable prices, standard, business and professional. It all depends what you require:
http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/hosting/

Alternatively you could look at a Reseller Account which they offer found at:
http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/resellers/

For me personally the experience with Fasthosts at all levels has been very good and I would highly recommend them.

The choice is yours Mark!

Graham Sanders's Gravatar

Graham Sanders
Fri 28th Jan 2005
at 1:18 am

Thanks all, keep em coming.

Small Orange is looking pretty good for my requirements. With it being in the US doesn’t really bother me as most of Bargainhosts support is outsourced to India anyway!

Mark Boulton's Gravatar

Mark Boulton
Fri 28th Jan 2005
at 2:59 am

Take a look at Dreamhost. Mike Davidson of Mike Industries is on it, as is Todd Dominey of Whatdoiknow.org, and a whole slew of other people. TONS of space, TONS of bandwith allowed, and other goodies.

For value of money, plus generally good support, Dreamhost doesn’t seem to be beat. I just recently signed up the other day because they’re having a 777 promotion (technically over, but the code still works) where you get a pre-paid one year for $9.24, and after the year is over you get charged the regular $9.95/month (pre-paid one year) price. Or, like me, sign up for a two-year plan and they STILL give you a discount that worked out to be approx $4.34/month for two years (pre-paid, mind you). :-)

If you do decide to go on Dreamhost, please use me as a referral! :-)

Lea's Gravatar

Lea
Fri 28th Jan 2005
at 8:26 am

i use mediatemple for myself and all my clients. service is great, the servers are reliable, and i have EE setup many times on their servers.

paul's Gravatar

paul
Sat 29th Jan 2005
at 3:49 pm

I use http://meirhosting.net and find their hosting and customer services good and friendly. Reseller hosting starts at ?71 a year for 500mb 10gb/month.

I was with diyhost.co.uk but found it quite slow and the connection would dropout often when I was ftp-ing. Customer services are not so good. They make it difficult for you to cancel the automatic subscription for payment and offer no refunds once it is gone.

jasmine's Gravatar

jasmine
Thu 14th Apr 2005
at 2:01 pm

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A picture of Mark BoultonI'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for Agency.com in London as an Art Director before working as a Senior Designer for the BBC in sunny Cardiff. This was all before I took leave of my senses and formed my own design consultancy, Mark Boulton Design Ltd.

I've got a thing about grids and typography and occasionally ramble on about them to anyone who will listen.

If you're after simple, clean and effective web design; let me know.