WordPress MU

I currently cant get WordPress MU working on my host, becuase of lack of Virtual Server Support, and probably many other factors.

Can anyone recommend a host that will definatly run WordPress MU? One that you guys might use for example.

Thanks

asmallorange.com and site5.com both helped me with the wildcard dns and I have beta sites working well on both.

I agree with febwa1976, asmallorange is definetly a great host.

http://www.servage.net

I had no problems whatsoever. You have to enable .htaccess support in the control panel. Otherwise my WPMU worked on my first try.

They have great support and usually answer questions within the hour. Also, they set up my account (with new domain and all) in less than 2 days - and I ordered on a sunday :)

I'll 2nd the site5 recommend.

This is all great, its good to hear that MU will work on site5 as I liked their hosting, but couldnt commit knowing that MU might not work.

asmallorange looks good, but they seem expensive compared to site5, Servage looks good too, but it doesnt look like they have rails support.

Site5 has everything at a good price, with WordPress MU support, so thanks everyone!

Maedi

Just make sure you ask customer support to turn on virtual subdomains - it's not on by default.
Also, if you're planning on running MU, don't get the bottom-line package unless the domain for MU is the main domain for that account.
I can verify that MU with vhosts works on their "true multi-site" plan.

Yay, im very thankful for that extra info.

I'm almost certainy going with site5, they confirmed that MU would work too, so thats iced the cake.

I do plan on going with the "extreme multi-site package", as without the multi site feature I would not be able to run blogs on fake sub sites?

Anyway, Thanks for confirming
Maedi

I do plan on going with the "extreme multi-site package", as without the multi site feature I would not be able to run blogs on fake sub sites?

I'm running my copy of MU on a standard CPanel account with only a single main domain and a pair of addons. (MU is on the addon.) Note: That's not a reseller account but a normal shared hosting one.

The biggest question you have to ask your host if they will modify your DNS account for you and add in the wildcard. I know some hosts will not do this as 1) It's an added feature which they could probably charge for and 2) they don't like making modifications to their setup or are afraid to for security concerns.

I use finishhost.com for my personal accounts. (For annoying legal reasons, i can't host my own sites) They've been very responsive and willing to help out. Very quick on tickets as well.

I'd offer my own services but I contract my level 1 support out and we're at the maxinum they we have contracted out. (Actually we're 56 over.)

Hope this helps,
-drmike

For some reason, at Site 5, in their bottom-level account with add-on domains, MU won't run. Believe me, I tried. There's just soemthing about the set-up for the accounts with add-ons domains that the wildcards, MU or the htaccess didn't like.

I think (I'd have to check) they said to turn on the wildcard I'd need the next level up, which was the "true" multi-site account. It was no hardship upgrading either, as the next package up was a better deal anyway. Still on Cpanel, yes, but their "multi-site" thingy means each add-on domain can have their own Cpanel and you can allocate whatever you want to it.

Sure! Besides the hosting service of WordPress, you can register a 100MB free hosting serivce of SnappyHost or you can apply a paid hosting, their service is good...

Website: http://shn2.com

Deleted spam by RossH. The site he was pointing to was rather pointless anyway as it offered no reviews, just links to a large number of hosting sites with 'These guys are great!' "reviews".

For the record, I no longer recommend finishost.com and think they have gone out of business.

I use Polurnet.com for my hosting. They have cheap prices, multiple domain support and probably the best customer service I've ever seen. You gotta ask them to setup a wildcard DNS for you, but they did it for me with no problems and everything worked fine.

synhosting.com is pretty good as well. That's who I'm currently using.

> Servage looks good too, but it doesnt look like they have rails support.

Servage just added support for Ruby on Rails :)

I really learned to love Dreamhost during the last days.

They have very great features even on the smaller packages like SSH access, ruby on rails, unlimited databases, 200GB space, 2 TB traffic and lots more stuff for just $7.95 a month. I'm with them for a short time but i love the products.

Site 5 has been in love with Ruby (on rails even) for months.

Hostgator was helpful in setting up wildcard dns sub domains.

Just chat with HostGator Live Support. They DO NOT provide wildcard dns help for Reseller account.

@Honewatson: could you confirm about it? Thanks.

Hi,
If you are on shared hosting, can you post the number of blogs\users you have?

Um, folks. Let's not add in affliate codes to links in this thread please. I've now removed three and a post. I don't want to have to get a hold of Donncha and get someone banned for spamming. :)

Actual links are fine though.

And, for the record, I would not recommend either Dreamhost or Servage. Anyone offering what amounts to an entire server for less than $10 a month is not someone to be trusted.

Thanks DrMike for removing them. Affiliate links are fine on your own (non wordpress.com) blogs but please, not here!

I'd recommend http://linode.com/ but it might be more than you're willing to work with. I use their VPS to host my sites. There's no control panel for installing software, but you can install whatever distribution of Linux and possible a BSD you like and tune the living daylights out of the kernel! It's just like having your own dedicated server!

That said, without some serious caching you'll run into trouble because physical limits are limits, no matter how many features you have. You'll need to have a decent amount of RAM, etc ..

Not a problem.

For reference, a VPS is a virtual server or a server that's been divided up amoung users. Sort of like shared hosting but you have complete control (and I mean complete) over your portion instead of relying on someone else to manage the box.

I like VPS's as well although I wouldn't recommend it to the casual user or most of the folks around here. No offense entended but if you're having issues with editing a file or installing a theme, a VPS would also cause you issues. A VPS is basically a mini server if you want to look at it like that.

I run a pair myself for off site DNS servers but I don't offer the service myself.

For the beginning user, I would recommend using either a shared or reseller account on an honest host and learning as much as you can about the software first, letting your service grow and then going from there.

hope this helps,
-drmike

But... why not dreamhost?

Badlagar, you may have missed the "Anyone offering what amounts to an entire server for less than $10 a month is not someone to be trusted." :)

Sort of like "I'm going to lease to you the entire city of New York, you use as much as you need but I'm only going to charge you $10 a month." It doesn't work.

Just bandwidth, rack fees, electric, OS, backend, and loan payment no less than $60 a month as a host to put a box online. How can Dreamhost do that for $10?

Ok drmike, i agree with you, but people with accounts in dreamhost (and no big number of visits >100000/day) have no problems... i think if you waste 1 tera of band wight you cant be in only one server... and you must to change your website of dreamhost (or buy one of the dedicated that he offer).

Dreamhost call people saying that they offer xteras and xgigas of disk (its publicitary), but if you have a normal webpage, i think that dreamhost servers are stable and cheap.

(sorry for my english... i hope you understand me ;))

people with accounts in dreamhost have no problems

A quick search via Google and over at WHM shows that's not totally true. As well as our spammer logs.

But, to be honest, ever host has it's pissed off clients and those that sing it's praises.

To add my two cents, I've been with DreamHost since this past January and have been impressed with them as far as shared hosting companies are concerned. They've been very helpful and quick to respond to my requests. The previous companies I've used hardly ever replied or could communicate effectively when they did.
The way it always works seems to be, they offer you a huge amount of space and bandwidth fully knowing you'll never get close to the limits and that's why it costs like 10 bucks a month. If every hosted account hovered around the limits implied it wouldn't work for anyone. Just how the shared hosting business works.
Most importantly, hosts such as DreamHost allow you to build a business or presence online before you have to take on the full dedicated hosting costs. Unless you have the next fad website ready to go live you probably don't need to spend hundreds a month in hosting fees.
So use them to get started, but when you start getting real visitors, you'll need to switch to something else.
---------------
Hey, since I'm here, anyone care to go read my other post and give me some advice? lol

The test of a host is in the bad times, the exceptional, unusual things that cause servers to crash or become extremely slow and other strange stuff.

My first host was fine, and cheap, but after a year, things got slow, there was lots of downtime when I viewed the sites on my account. Then there was a hard drive crash, uh oh, RAID would have been good. They had a backup made 2 years previously (no other backups), fortunately the MYSQL dbs were fine. And finally a little while later there was a week of downtime as they switched to new servers.

Any host can keep a few computers running, but those that can sail through the bad stuff come out tops in the end. It took me too long to change away from them, I'm glad I did. Now with asmallorange (all good) and getting interested in site5 (much cheaper) from this thread.

Sorry for that affiliate stuff. didn't know about it - should not happen again :)

@drmike: Sorry to say that but did you had bad experiences with dreamhost or is your negative recommondation based on assumption only? I'm not in any way related to dreamhost (apart from the fact i'm a paying customer *g*) but i chose dreamhost primarly for one reason: Their plans are nearly flat. Of course i wouldn't host my most important domains on a plan for just 10 bucks, but with this plan i don't have to worry about traffic issues or if i need another database for something to test or stuff. If then one site on this cheap plan doesn't run that fust i expect it to run that doesn't really matter to me. That's not something i could have expected.

But apart from that: i'm with dreamhost for some time now, and didn't have ANY problems. Not with the speed, not with the features. I learned to know lots of webhosts (even the really expensive ones) which whome i ran into problems within every little thing.

I think it would be a good idea not to blame some companies just because their prices seem to be low. There wouldn't be some bigger bloggers relying on dreamhost if their performance would be sooo bad ;)