I love all the one-click features on the Dreamhost control panel, and I even enjoy all the fun & games they get up to, in a strange way. However, the time has come for a new, improved, and more reliable host to step-up to the challenge. So, as a Web Appropriate reader/visitor, I’d love to know which web hosting provider you entrust with important task of serving your sites, blogs, & apps, and why you chose them over everyone else. Is it the price, is it the support, is it their understanding of your favourite development platforms?
Or do you have any recommendations for alternatives to Dreamhost? My specifications are as follows (in case you need a little more info):
- They don’t have to have the one-click installs; I’m just about capable of handling WordPress, MySQL, and even Rails deployments now.
- They don’t need to be UK-based (most UK outfits seem to be pretty sub-par; I had quite a bad experience with Fashosts/UK Reg, and that was without even having a live site running on their servers!).
- A good customer service track record, and compatibility with the latest versions of PHP, MySQL, Django, Rails etc (I appreciate Rails can be tricky with shared hosts). I think these two go hand-in-hand; your ability to launch a site on a new web development framework can seriously suffer through less-than-optimal customer service!
- Decent scalability through their pricing structure, i.e. their cheaper services are as good as their high-bandwidth services.
Any suggestions will be much appreciated.
It seems adsense has beaten your readers to it… It’s suggesting one.com
Unless you’re targeting a Eurpoean readership, get something in the US, not least to take advantage of the dollar.
I also had trouble with Fasthosts/UKReg - can’t recall exactly what now, mainly that they were aimed at people who don’t really know what they’re doing. No way is that me! They have their own easy-to-use Fasthosts-branded control panel instead of just sticking cpanel on there which will let you do more (and would help them lower their prices), and they insist on only one domain per developer account in case you confuse yourself…
Anyway, that’s no help to you. As a one-up from shared hosting I have a mediatemple.net grid account - cool stuff, but a bit too cutting edge to rely on it unfortunately.
I’m currently trying to set up a Joyent Facebook accelerator, just to see. That has a serious boot-your-own-webserver-mate angle, but it’s working so far!
BTW Neil, send me an email saying what you’ve been up to (other than looking for hosting).
Dan
Thanks Dan. Media Temple seems to be a fav among the pros, along with RackSpace (excluding the issues 37 Signals have experienced). It’s looking like DreamHost are going to be hard to beat for an all round combination of cheapness, flexibility, and the occasional billing incident/downtime/upgrade problem.
I noticed your request for a Java programmer on Facebook. Sounds interesting, and the pyramid pic certainly added to the mystery….
Will drop you an email soon. We need to catch-up at another OCC soon, that’s a given.
Just one word: WebFaction
They look like the new cool kid in the block but they’ve actually been around for 5 years.
They have one-click installers for WordPress, Rails, Django etc.
They’re by far the best host for Django and other “agile” tools (just search the Django google group).
They have a great customer service and they have very little downtime.
Well, if Jeff Croft recommends them! They do sound like a great alternative to DreamHost though, especially if they’re focused on the latest development frameworks (unlike DH).
Do you host any sites with them, Bruce?
I’ve been with Media Temple for over a year, and am very happy with them. Reliable and good support. Dreamhost has been good to me in the past as well.
Site5 is good for cheapo *shared* PHP/Rails hosting - I’ve been with them over two years and had only one issue with downtime. Unlike Dreamhost who seem to go down for a couple of days every quarter.
For Rails specific hosting, EngineYard is the big dog and Brightbox (http://www.brightbox.co.uk/a/dplsk) is the new UK-based kid on the block (although, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve worked for Brightbox so I’m biased).
I’ve heard good things about most of the Rails specific hosts. Engine Yard seem to be a firms favorite, if you can afford the bills…
NewsCred is hosted on MediaTemple and they have been awesome. Their pricing is great as well, but what really sealed the deal was the amazing customer service. I rave about them constantly…
WestHost (http://www.westhost.com) hands down.
I’ve been with them for 7 years and have never once had a problem. Their VPS technology is by far the cheapest in the industry and their 24×7 voice support has been invaluable.
If you’re looking to really customize your hosting experience I have found WestHost superior to other hosts. I looked to move hosts and it was between Site5 & WestHost because I wanted Ruby on Rails, but Site5 doesn’t offer a true VPS experience at the same pricepoint as WestHost. Likewise, when Site5 says they will roll something out, it never rolls out on time. WestHost has an excellent history of providing timely version rollouts, has an outstanding control panel, and since it’s a VPS…if you want a newer version sooner than WestHost offers it…you can install it yourself.
I am currently running Ruby 1.86 with OpenSSH and mod_rails on my account. That configuration of Ruby was compiled from source by me so that I could install mod_rails.