Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

musicpenguy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 29, 2006
1,817
725
I am looking to start hosting around 4 websites - I can find Mobile Me for around 65 Dollars a Year I am curious what the best/least expensive service would be to host a few websites.

I won't be using Mobile Me other than Web Hosting and perhaps Find My iPhone features

Thanks!
 

capecod565

macrumors member
Oct 28, 2009
60
0
Cape Cod
Web Hosts

I use MacHighway, they have inexpensive all the way up to the more complex packages.
They are fine for me and my classmates, and they have phone tech support for those of us who are fairly new at web stuff.
Jane
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,419
43,308
Mobileme is really designed for the user who wants to host a small static site. Its rather slow, has now scripting/database connectivity. You can't do PHP or other server side scripting so its not a great host if you're looking to do anything beyond iWeb.

I'd recommend checking out web hosting talk There's so many hosting companies that you can easily go with a company that is not a good fit for your needs.

I personally went with medialayer and found them to be excellent. A little expensive, but you do get what you pay for. Great service, fast service, ability to host multiple domains.
 

IgnatiusTheKing

macrumors 68040
Nov 17, 2007
3,657
2
Texas
You can do more than iWeb (quite a bit more) with MobileMe hosting your site, but he's right about no PHP. Plus, since you're looking for JUST web hosting, MM is probably not for you because it really is only worth the money when used as a total service. Its worth comes when you view it as a "sum of its parts" rather than when you view the parts individually.
 

chiefroastbeef

macrumors 6502a
May 26, 2008
909
0
Dallas, Texas/ Hong Kong
I've had MobileMe for the past year, I used it for an iWeb website and sharing files over their server. In my opinion, MM is absolute trash, the web hosting is slow, doesn't support serverside includes or php (like the posters have said). And mainly the file sharing is flawed, uploading files doesn't work 60% of the time, it'll upload to the very end, but would not finish, a big waste of time. Dropbox is an MUCH better alternative, and you get two gigabytes for free.

As for webhosting, I have since been using fatcow.com and LOVE it. They are easy to use, their website is very intuitive to use with great tutorials, and if you email them with a question they answer very quickly. I think it costs me $55/year.
 

Milton H

macrumors newbie
Nov 24, 2009
2
0
Hi,

When choosing a web hosting company one need to check their support services. Before you take out sign up with a hosting company, ask them if they provide SMTP/POP3 which you need to set up email accounts. If you want one or several e-mail addresses with your website the web hosting company needs to provide SMTP/POP3 setup.
 

dmmcintyre3

macrumors 68020
Mar 4, 2007
2,131
3
Hi,

When choosing a web hosting company one need to check their support services. Before you take out sign up with a hosting company, ask them if they provide SMTP/POP3 which you need to set up email accounts. If you want one or several e-mail addresses with your website the web hosting company needs to provide SMTP/POP3 setup.
Not necessarily, you can use Google Apps for your email. I hate moving my email. I hope I did it the last time when I moved to Google Apps.
 

elitesouth

macrumors member
Nov 24, 2009
67
0
Savannah GA
I'd hop onto Dreamhost — cheap shared hosting, and you can have a lot of domains pointed to it. It also comes with all the bells and whistles you'd need for email hosting and one-click installs.

Web hosts are a dime a dozen... just pick one with great support, and you'll be okay.
 

HostColor

macrumors newbie
Jul 10, 2009
10
0
I agree that anyone who is about to sign up with a new web host shall track their support first. When I want to purchase anything online I always search for the provider's business record. Any well-established online business have to have reviews, partnerships, and to be part of any community. This helps prospective customers to find out whether the business is reliable enough.
 

elitesouth

macrumors member
Nov 24, 2009
67
0
Savannah GA
I agree with you, HostColor.

Also, with a shared hosting provider (the cheaper ones), take a look at which control panel they offer. There are a number out there: cpanel, plesk, etc.

Also also, if you're curious to know how many customers they (roughly) have, head over to http://whois.sc and look up their domain name. Then click on Registration and look at the nameserver.

When I looked up Dreamhost, for example, I saw that their primary and secondary nameservers hosted roughly 930k+ domains. This doesn't mean they have over 900,000 customers (since you can park multiple domains on one account), but it's a small indicator. Do not, however, let this be your only indication of whether or not you should register with a certain web host.

If you do decide to sign up for Dreamhost, you can use a promo code I made (elitesouthmacr) to get a free domain. Use this URL (http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?355606) and enter the promo code elitesouthmacr to get a free domain.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.