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Finding A Good Host (27 posts)

  1. DailyTestimony
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I am looking for a good VPS or Dedicated Host that is not too expensive. Any suggestions?
    Trying for under $60 per month without sacraficing too much.

  2. Trent
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Personally I run MT (dv) service, but for that price you might want to check out the host Andrea_r uses:

    http://futurehosting.biz/vps.htm

    Trent

  3. moorezilla
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I use a vps from slicehost and have been happy. I'm not affiliated with the company; I'm just a customer.

    http://www.slicehost.com

    Andy Moore

  4. jackiedobson
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Gotta admit that slicehost sounds very honest:

    Do you offer an SLA?

    Not for Slices and here’s why: most hosting SLA agreements are just plain silly. They promise things like 99.9% uptime, but downtime excludes: scheduled maintenance, network outages, hardware failures and software trouble. Well what exactly is left to cause downtime? Here’s our SLA: we’ll do our best to keep your machines running smoothly for as long as possible and get them up ASAP should something go wrong.

  5. DailyTestimony
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I see...I do prefer a whm/cpanel interface though since thats what I have on my shared hosting right now.

  6. MrBrian
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Knownhost.com or jaguarpc.com are the most reliable and highly praised on webhostingtalk.com for cpanel/virtuozzo setups. They literally never have downtime, and if they do it's back up in 2 minutes. I even got a christmas card from knownhost. I'm personally with amerihosting.com though because i have learned to hate cpanels memory usage and enjoy the lxadmin control panel and hypervm setup much more (and it's a lot cheaper).

  7. Farms
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I prefer cPanel too but would use them based almost entirely on their SLA :)

    Gotta say the other two don't look too promising, anything that offers 210Gig Bandwidth for $8 a month is, erm, just doing the silly sales thing... gimme somethinghonest any day.

  8. cougartime
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I use site5.com (http://www.site5.com/hosting/) and get 15 TB a month bandwidth and great service

  9. lunabyte
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    And you'll get kicked off, too.

    Just ask Andrea, she's living proof. In fact, MU is against their TOS now.

    MU just isn't for shared hosting, light testing aside.

  10. demonicume
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    second what luna says. i've been getting by on blue host. but i have to continually prune my install. 1 week ago, an upgrade to firestats almost got me kicked completely. these guys have a different idea of what 'unlimited bandwidth' means. trust that. i'm looking for a good VPS right now. if someone could give me an idea of whats a good amount of space for a wpmu site with >200 users, i'd appreciate it.

  11. lunabyte
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Um, yeah. Firestats is a resource hog. I dropped it like a bad habit.

  12. Farms
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    http://futurehosting.biz/ have been pretty good for test environments - not sure about load but I reckon they'd manage it.

  13. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I'm on futurehosting.biz now - get one of their mid-sized account there demonicume.

    Yeah, they manage just fine. Recently I was having some issues, and after a couple upgrades we finally narrowed it down to the box it was on (oops).

    They've been fairly decent.

    cougartime - when your site gets any size come back and let us know how that worked out for ya.

  14. Trent
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Are you using a dedicated or VPS account Andrea?

    Trent

  15. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 16 years ago #

    VPS but quickly moving towards dedicated. :D I've got more than one site there, and plans for a couple more MU-based sites. Even in a closed system, I'm gonna need the extra memory. I'm at almost a gig of RAM and over a million hits a month on my main MU install. And it's a niche with limited signups.

    I'll note that not once have I topped any bandwidth or space limits. It's always been memory or CPU processing. Others can (and will) verify the same.

    Just trying to save some people some heartache so they can start off on the right foot. :)

  16. Trent
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I noticed almost immediately that Bluehost and Dreamhost were going to be a nightmare just running WPMU for my own domains for 50,000 hits a month for CPU and Memory issues.

    After reading what lunabyte said about MT I went with their grid service and it would have been fine for awhile. At least it allowed "spikes" in resources with taking my sites offline. That being said, it was going to be memory and cpu problems without a skeleton install. Since I have a tendency to go overboard on plugins and functionality, I just quit screwing around and went to the Dedicated Virtual service.

    I am personally learning as fast as I can, but until my optimization and coding is up to par, it is best to go with more resources. I can expand to 1 Gig of RAM in 60 seconds if I need to and that is nice to know.

    Cheers,

    Trent

  17. podcastnyc
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Dreamhost has a 'private server' option that offers the features of a virtual dedicated server. There are separate options for web servers and MySql. It appears to be really simple to dial up your guaranteed RAM and CPU. I'm not using this yet but considering it when I do the official launch of my new MU-powered site.

    http://www.dreamhostps.com/

  18. Trent
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Interesting read! Nice to see Dreamhost trying to access the vps market ;)

  19. lunabyte
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    "Dreamhost has a 'private server' option that offers the features of a virtual dedicated server."

    Sorry to burst the bubble, but it's not an option for MU. It still uses their shared DB servers. Got that straight from their tech support, who explicitly said for any serious use of MU over a couple of blogs, get a dedicated server.

  20. MrBrian
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    What's with all the dreamhost fans? Didn't they have a security breach like 6 months ago where a hacker gained access to 3,500 FTP accounts and used them all to spread porn links.. I thought they were done for, but apparently all you have to do is offer 10000TB of bandwidth, for only $5.

  21. nolageek
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I work for webnethosting.net and I'm hosting geekdc.com specifically to work out kinks and make sure it plays nice with WPMU since I have two other low volume sites I want to move here.

  22. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 16 years ago #

    And they are not cheaper either. Comparing the dreamhost vps to futurehosting.biz, DH is more expensive at least in the higher ranges.

    And that's *with* a cpanel license at FH.

  23. podcastnyc
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I don't know that there was a bubble to be burst. I'm evaluating different options and doing research while I put things together. Nothing emotional about that process.

  24. lunabyte
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Not really sure what there is to evaluate.

    Server level software needs, well, a server.

    Some will say a VPS will do, but I honestly can't recommend one without issues of conscience. Sure, for a couple of blogs they'll work out (although slowly), but any serious attempt at running MU needs its own private box.

    MU makes you a web host, looking at the big picture. Web hosts don't get a shared hosting plan for $5 with specs (space/bandwidth) higher than multiple servers combined and run their business. MU is no different in this aspect.

    Of course if your site has no traffic, no users, no usage then it doesn't really matter. But, who wants a site like that?

  25. podcastnyc
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    There's plenty to evaluate when looking at potential hosts for community site. I look at the server specs they are offering. I look at the tools they provide to help you manage domains. I compare the short term and long term prices for similar offerings. I check around and see what people are saying on their blogs about the service I'm looking at. I ask people I know personally to let me in on their experiences.

    For some implementations a dedicated server will make sense. For others it won't. If someone is implementing MU (or Drupal or Joomla) for the first time and has modest aspirations for growth there's no reason why they can't do that without having to spend several hundred dollars a month for a managed server. If the site grows to a level of traffic that warrants a server then that move can always be made.

  26. lunabyte
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    That's what I said. Low traffic, low use. (Like hosting your own handful of blogs under one roof instead of 3 or 4.)

    But, something many people aren't aware of is that MU also doesn't comply with a lot of shared hosts TOS by (usually) one or two things. A) Giving out "accounts" (read as blogs, hosted domain, etc.), or B) By its resource usage. Sometimes it's both, and more.

  27. freshestnoob
    Member
    Posted 15 years ago #

    The futurehosting.biz cc processor is bouncing my credit card for reasons nobody knows.

    I'm currently checking out jaguarpc. They've got great rates even better than futurehosting. and there's this +50% account lifetime HD and RAM bonus they've got.

    I just hope things work out with them.

    That said, everyone trying to run MU should heed Lunabyte's advice.
    If you are test-running over a few blogs (1-7), you can run your shared hosting account. Else, get a VPS.

About this Topic

  • Started 16 years ago by DailyTestimony
  • Latest reply from freshestnoob