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Web Hosting Companies? Recommendations??

R

robotfist

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 7, 2007
141
276
Anytime I try to search for reviews on web hosting companies, all I get are pages and pages of fake websites citing "Top 10 Web Hosting Services" with some advertised company placed at the top.

Can anyone here recommend a reliable, fast, web hosting business that isn't a trillion dollars but delivers fast enough throughput to host videos on?

What I'm looking for is:

Multiple Domains (I would like to host 3 - 4 domains off of it)

Large Storage (Unlimited would be nice)

Fast Throughput (I don't need to stream HD video or anything, I just want people to be able to download files quickly, and watch buffered video)

Medium bandwith limitations (I don't expect high traffic)

Easy control panel (such as CPanel)

Thanks
 
Hmmmm...

I've been with a company called MXHUB for a while. But I just noticed that the deal I've been getting doesn't seem like a very good one. I've been paying $10/month for just 3 GB of space and 40GB of bandwith. I checked out the sites you guys recommended and they are half the price of what I was paying and that's with unlimited storage space. I think I was getting hosed.
 
I learned long ago to use one company for DNS registration and a another for the hosting. I had one company that did both and then they went belly-up, it took me forever to get my domain name back.

That being said, I use 123CheapDomains.com for my DNS registration and TotalChoiceHosting.com for web hosting. TCH uses CPanel and for $4.00/month I get MYSQL, unlimited email/FTP, 40GB throughput and 1.4TB of storage. I'll admit my personal site isn't very big, but I've been with them for a very long time.
 
robotfist said:
I've been with a company called MXHUB for a while. But I just noticed that the deal I've been getting doesn't seem like a very good one. I've been paying $10/month for just 3 GB of space and 40GB of bandwith. I checked out the sites you guys recommended and they are half the price of what I was paying and that's with unlimited storage space. I think I was getting hosed.
Click to expand...
I had been using dotster for my domains, but recently stopped, not because I didn't like them, but because I closed my company doors and went from 14 URLS to 2. So now I have my domain registered with my hosting provider. They have been in business for a long time and I'm not worried about them going out of business.

And yes, robotfist, I think you can do better as far as what you are paying.

It can be a hassle changing hosting providers, especially if you are using oscommerce or other packages like that that require a new install and migration to move over. I recommend doing, as the OP is, as much research up front to try to find a provider that meets your requirements and has a good reputation so that moving will be less likely in the future. (Speaking with the voice of experience. :eek:)
 
Fake Hosting Reviews

redwarrior said:
It can be a hassle changing hosting providers, especially if you are using oscommerce or other packages like that that require a new install and migration to move over. I recommend doing, as the OP is, as much research up front to try to find a provider that meets your requirements and has a good reputation.
Click to expand...

It's a HUGE pain the in ass. And that's probably why I've been putting it off for so many years. But now that I've crunched the numbers, I really want to change. Unlimited disk space sounds great, especially since I upload large multimedia files to my FTP for clients all the time.

However, finding reputable reviews is proving difficult, since the web is completely inundated with artificial review sites of hosting companies. So far, the only information I trust has been found here or on similar forums.
 
robotfist said:
So far, the only information I trust has been found here or on similar forums.
Click to expand...
Well, my recommendation of Arvixe is based on recent personal experience. :cool:

From what I've witnessed, their customer service is second to none. They have tech support working around the clock. Whenever I've submitted a support ticket, the turnaround is under one hour. Plus, they have helpful support agents available 24/7 for online chat.

Their use of WebsitePanel vastly simplifies website maintenance tasks; with Arvixe, there's no logging in and having to navigate through four or five confusing screens to find what you need (as for example with Register.com or Rovin.net).

Arvixe is based out of the UK btw, if the physical location of the hosting provider's head office is of importance to you.
 
I'm a happy customer of Doteasy.com, located in Metro Vancouver. Their free deals are good value, though it sounds like you will need one of the paid packages. Their site may not be best looking, but I've always received good customer service from them, and good value.
 
One note regarding the "unlimited" packages: if your business depends on making content available to customers, avoid them. All "unlimited" means in the web-hosting business is "unlimited until we've decided you're using too much, then we charge you whatever we want".

There's also other related gotchas in "unlimited"; for instance, Site5's "unlimited" storage has a limit on the number of inodes (essentially files + directories) on the account. Thus the amount of storage actually available is restricted by the size of the files. You may also encounter specific ToS restrictions against serving media files and/or streaming video. In any case, you want to find out WHAT the actual limits are before you sign up - if the host is evasive about the rules, that's a bad sign.

Even with the above note, I'd still recommend Site5 if your needs fit within their restrictions; they've got a pretty slick admin interface and have always been responsive to service tickets.

Moving up, if you're delivering a lot of content you may want to start looking into more professional content-delivery solutions - for instance, the Amazon CloudFront system. Sure, you're paying by the GB for transfer, but Amazon isn't going to unexpectedly call you one day and say, "we don't like how much data you're using, so we've quadrupled your bill".
 
AxiomaticRubric said:
Well, my recommendation of Arvixe is based on recent personal experience. :cool:

From what I've witnessed, their customer service is second to none. They have tech support working around the clock. Whenever I've submitted a support ticket, the turnaround is under one hour. Plus, they have helpful support agents available 24/7 for online chat.

Their use of WebsitePanel vastly simplifies website maintenance tasks; with Arvixe, there's no logging in and having to navigate through four or five confusing screens to find what you need (as for example with Register.com or Rovin.net).

Arvixe is based out of the UK btw, if the physical location of the hosting provider's head office is of importance to you.
Click to expand...

Hello,

I am the operations manager at Arvixe.com and appreciate the recommendation and feedback. Just a quick note that we are not from the UK. We are based out of Santa Rosa, CA in the US.

If you do encounter any issues with our services, please don't hesitate to let me know.
 
Hey guys, I am also looking for a good web hosting company.

So far it looks like I may choose Arvixe.com but I will look into them more.
 
You could use Amazon S3 together with their Cloudfront system, or just the latter itself with your own hosting. Reliability is fantastic.
 
chris200x9 said:
1and1
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+1

I've been happy with them for 3 years. My sites don't have much traffic but 1and1 is reliable and support is just fine.

I can't recommend dot5hosting. I was with them and left, unhappy. They don't have their administration -- billing, etc. -- together at all. Support is silly.
 
I have used an outfit called InMotionHosting for a number of years now with good results.
Every time I call them, someone knowledgeable answers and walks me through my mistakes.
Very helpful and accessible.
 
snberk103 said:
I'm a happy customer of Doteasy.com, located in Metro Vancouver. Their free deals are good value, though it sounds like you will need one of the paid packages. Their site may not be best looking, but I've always received good customer service from them, and good value.
Click to expand...

Me too. Great service.
 
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