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Mac Hosting Recommendations

ryanflucas

ryanflucas

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 28, 2006
146
17
Milwaukee, WI
I currently use 1and1 and I'd like to move to a hosting provider that is more Mac friendly, and hopefully has support in the US or Canada. My site is small, currently built on iWeb, but I plan on re-writing it in a new application I'm yet to choose.

I went with 1and1.com years ago because they were cheap, and while I don't want to pay alot more, I can handle a bit. I currently pay $70 a year for hosting and 2 domains.

One of those domains I don't need, but I plan on adding 2 more. All domains point to the same site, which is http://www.ryanflucas.com

I would like to keep my yearly hosting & domain costs at $120 or less per year. So far I'm considering Fatcow & MacHighway, but I'm open to other suggestions.

Any reviews/recommendations?
 
What do you mean Mac Friendly? Is there a way for a provider to not be Mac Friendly? Does iWeb use some sort of proprietary publishing system?

http://webhostingtalk.com is a good source, just look for positive reviews in the shared hosting forums and you're probably golden :)
 
There's no such thing as Mac friendly. It's just a web server. All you need to know is if it supports the technologies you use (ASP, PHP, MySQL etc). iWeb is static so pretty much anything will do.

I (and many others) will thoroughly recommend A Small Orange.
 
to the original poster would please tell us why you are not happy at 1&1 I was thinking of signing up with them. I would like to avoid a problem if possible.
On other recommandations on this thread I looked at small orange it looks a little pricey compared to godaddy or 1&1

Thanks all for your comments
 
Aea said:
What do you mean Mac Friendly? Is there a way for a provider to not be Mac Friendly? Does iWeb use some sort of proprietary publishing system?

http://webhostingtalk.com is a good source, just look for positive reviews in the shared hosting forums and you're probably golden :)
Click to expand...

I would like to have a hosting provider that basically knows what a Macintosh is. Thats the easiest way to state it. I know enough technical know-how on my end, but if I ever call with a support question, I would expect the person I speak with would know enough to steer me in the right direction.
 
Mitou said:
to the original poster would please tell us why you are not happy at 1&1 I was thinking of signing up with them. I would like to avoid a problem if possible.
On other recommandations on this thread I looked at small orange it looks a little pricey compared to godaddy or 1&1

Thanks all for your comments
Click to expand...

I signed up a few years ago with 1and1 when I was using a Windows XP based PC (later a Vista PC). I used their promotional software package at the time and online interface to design and publish the site.

Years passed and I switched to Mac. I use Firefox to access the web interface, and while I would expect everything should function like it did before I switched, it doesn't. The 1and1 control panel has a 60 second or less timeout. I walk out of the room and come back and it's logged me out due to inactivity. Support claims it's a security feature that I can't have disabled. Also, their FTP access crashes if the transfer takes longer then 3 minutes. I was able to replicate this on any machine, even my Vista one. A friend mentioned I could upload a txt file to their server in my account to disable this, but I should contact them for specifics. They say that this is not the case, and my computer is the problem. I called back and said I used Vista and was told I needed a full license of WSFP Pro, of course they tried selling me.

I know it has nothing to do with me using a Mac, but as soon as I say that I am a Mac user, they refuse support. I was told that they do not deal with Mac's and that my first problem was having one. I was told that I would need to access their control panel using a Windows based PC or I could not continue using their hosting unless I didn't want support. Even things not dependent on the system I have, that are entirely web based, I was told would not work via a Mac OS based machine.

With that in mind, I'm considering other hosting companies that either don't care what type of system you use as they work well with anything, or are trained in Mac basics so if they try and give me instructions, they know what the hell they are talking about. :p
 
Go Daddy Works Great!!

Great customer support. They help you as long as you need it. Never try to get you off the line for taking too long. For best results always use a Linux server. It has worked perfectly for me and my iWeb site http://www.trickracing1.com Very good prices too. ASO prices WTF?
 
Ryanlucas,
Thank you for all the info you posted on 1&1 I will stay away from it.
 
As another pov, I've been with 1&1 for about four or five years now, always on a Mac, and always tremendously happy. Yeah, the free tools are PC-only, but that's the case with all hosting services. Who needs 'em, anyway? I've got (Linux-hosted) three domains, two MySQL db's (of 25 available), just use Cyberduck for all my FTP needs, and they just keep adding features & goodies for no extra cost. I'll never hit the bandwidth or storage limits (they keep getting increased for free, too). The customer service has always been pretty responsive and took care of any problems I had (extremely few) correctly & promptly. I pay about $60 a year for it all.
 
Now you make me rethink my decision "again".
According to the op it sounded really bad, and it scared me but maybe his experience is not the norm. I have not yet switched but I must decide soon so I'll keep watching with an open mind.
 
Just for a little detail, my package includes
  • 2 domains (plus one more I bought)
  • 100 subdomains
  • 1200 POP or IMAP mailboxes
  • 25 MySQL databases (100 MB each)
  • 120,000 MB Storage
  • 1,200,000 MB Transfer / mo.
  • PERL, Python, PHP Support
  • Built-in RSS & Chat
And a lot of little things I don't even use. The screenshot below shows the Admin front end. Super easy to manage.
 

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If your looking for a solution that provides good telephone support I'd say GoDaddy is a good solution. I've used then to host a few sites (http://www.the solutionguys.com/forum) among others. Their biggest problem (IMHO) is that their website is a mess! Hard to find solutions, difficult to know where you are in the process of getting help. The web site is so difficult that if I don't find what I want in a few minutes I go give them a call. I've never been on the phone for more then 20 minutes and have always gotten the answer I need. Their prices are in line with others and my pages load relatively fast. I Hope this helps.
 
iWeb hosting

I like MacHighway (http://www.machighway.com/) a lot. Lots of different packages to choose from and yes, they know Macs. I had never designed a site before and struggled a bit and their support staff is friendly and knowledgeable.
 
Here is some information on my host. For me, one of the most important things is a host that allows shell access. If you want to automate updating of your content shell access might be the easiest way to do it.
 
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