WordPress MU

The most recent posts I've seen on this subject are nearly a year old, so I thought I'd give it another whirl.

I've been with Bluehost for about two years, with a straightforward WP installation. While their customer service is excellent (it really is), the amount of downtime is becoming unacceptable for a growing moderate-traffic (1,500-2,000 visitors/day) site.

I am also considering transitioning the site into multiuser (WP 3.0 has WPMU functionality built in, woohoo!) and Bluehost has informed me that they wouldn't be able to handle it if the site grew substantially.

SO . . .

Who would you recommend for hosting, and why? What's your experience been?

Cost is a concern, so scalability is important. Stability is also important. I do have to retain my domain name.

My server-side experience is limited to cpanel admin.

Thanks for your advice and recommendations!

Heh. I kinda answered this at the other forum. :D

You can get cpanel on manged vps hosts. I've found *in general* most vps hosts are more stable, secure and more knowledgeable & helpful sales staff.

(not sure I can list specific ones)

I can point them at what I feel to be an honest review site: http://lowendbox.com

Haven't seen an affiliate link in a review yet although they do take advertising.

Shoot, what's the name of that big webhosting forum..

webhostingtalk.com ?

they're usually quick to ferret out the bad from the good.

they're usually quick to ferret out the bad from the good.

Actually I had a lot of problems with hosts from that site (One was one of the moderators and I averaged a 23% uptime for the 6 weeks I had a server with them.) and is the major reason why I started owning my own hardware instead of leasing.

Be sure to review the reviews and comments. Stay away from any of the "review sites" on the net as most of them are nothing but affiliate link listing. (If you see godaddy, yahoo, bluehost, and hostgator listed as being the best, chances are those are just affiliate link sites. All of those pay out about $100 or more for a legit signup.) Also stay away from any site promising you unlimited or huge amounts of space and bandwidth because as soon as you get any load, they'll boot you.

Also stay away from any site promising you unlimited or huge amounts of space and bandwidth because as soon as you get any load, they'll boot you.

those are usually shared hosts tho.

eapps.com
wiredtree.com
vps.com
linode.net (I think?)