6 ms·

Ask YC: Shared hosting providers that don't suck?

19 points by rms 18y ago

Looking for something under $10/month: Can this get me shared hosting with decent latency and reasonable uptime?

rms 18y ago
Dreamhost seems popular and cheap, but people also like complaining about them.
- bprater 18y ago
  Been using them for years now, no major complaints. They stay on top of Rails tech, which is really cool. I wouldn't risk a business site with them, but for fun piddly sites, I dig 'em.
  - petercooper 18y ago
    Seconded. Dreamhost seem to get quite a bit of flak due to their size, but I have an account with them for "secondary" stuff and it works excellently for that. I'd only use my own dedicated servers for the proper stuff though :)
    - rochers 18y ago
      I also use Dreamhost for my secondary stuff. It's great as a staging server although you don't have full control over the server. If anybody wants $50 off the first year (that makes it reeeeeeallllyyy cheap per month), you can use the promo code LIFEHACKER. For virtual dedicated, I use Slicehost (http://www.slicehost.com http://www.slicehost.com) to host The Photo Stream (http://www.thephotostream.com http://www.thephotostream.com) and they have been excellent for the past two months.
      - arthurk 18y ago
        Or use "WPDH2" as a promo code and get some additional storage and bandwidth (http://www.dreamhost.com/wordpress.html http://www.dreamhost.com/wordpress.html) I've been using Dreamhost for a while now (to host my blog) and it has been pretty much okay but I wouldn't host any critical stuff on it. WebFaction (http://www.webfaction.com http://www.webfaction.com) and Slicehost (http://www.slicehost.com http://www.slicehost.com) are pretty popular lately (although not _that_ cheap). I would probably go with webfaction for a django app.
- markbao 18y ago
  On DreamHost right now. Went down a few times, but not a big deal - uptime for my server has been crystal the past few months. You'll hear that "DreamHost sucks" all the time. Keep in mind that they host around 700,000 domains, and operate thousands of servers, so there will be an inevidably huge amount of people complaining. (Of course, people don't usually rant about how great the service is, so that gets lost in the noise.) The fact that they're a lot more transparent (http://www.dreamhoststatus.com http://www.dreamhoststatus.com) than a lot of providers is good, but only makes people complain more (The thinking is: 'It went down! I must complain about the service being terrible.' rather than with traditional hosting providers, where you probably weren't aware of the downtime, unless if you personally experienced it.) My suggestion: if it's not mission-critical, DreamHost is a good, very reasonably priced choice.
  - jakewolf 18y ago
    A recent gem from http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2008/05/21/blingy-problems/all-comments/#comments http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2008/05/21/blingy-problems/al...
    - avinashv 18y ago
      Holy crap, that's been over a week. I pity the fool who put something mission-critical on there.
- mk 18y ago
  Dreamhost has their problems, but like someone else commented they are very open about everything. Whenever I have had a problem their tech support has responded pretty quickly and fixed whatever was going wrong. I'm pretty happy with them overall. I only use it for my blog, and as a test bed for some stuff. I'm not sure I would run anything important there.
- pierrefar 18y ago
  DH is crap. Them being open does not detract from the fact that their servers keel over every time your site gets a bit more traffic. I left them and never looked back. Also stay away from Joyent. Depending on your needs, Media Temple might work. And a friend swears by Royalty Hosting although I haven't tried them. I'm playing with Mosso at the moment and they seem good.
rbarooah 18y ago
GeekIsp has been very solid for me. Reasonably priced, communicative, and modern.
tpimental 18y ago
I've been using 1and1.com for a while now and am still happy.
crystalarchives 18y ago
I use WebFaction and am very pleased with them. They support hosting multiple sites on one account, PHP, Rails, and Django while having extremely fast and helpful customer service. The latency is good, although not blazing, and I've had perfect uptime so far since I signed up six months ago. My plan is $9.50/month and allows shell access (the clincher for me), 80 MB RAM, 10 GB HD, and 600 GB bandwidth. I definitely recommend them. http://www.webfaction.com/?affiliate=pillarofeden http://www.webfaction.com/?affiliate=pillarofeden * Disclaimer - this is an affiliate link.
- rms 18y ago
  How do they define application memory? This sounds like a partially managed VPS, or at least is metered similary. Does Apache count as memory use?
  - crystalarchives 18y ago
    I don't think so, I think it's for Rails and Django pretty much. I've never had an issue although I only run Rails.
- quickpost 18y ago
  WebFaction + Django here - very satisfied.
- yawn 18y ago
  Ironically, webfaction is currently down right now--I can't access my sites.
jakewolf 18y ago
asmallorange.com
- crystalarchives 18y ago
  Asmallorange is also extremely good, I used to use them but I couldn't find a way to host multiple sites, which was crucial for me.
  - jakewolf 18y ago
    You must have been with them a long time ago. http://asmallorange.com/services/hosting/features.php http://asmallorange.com/services/hosting/features.php
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
dkokelley 18y ago
I've been using hostmonster.com - $6.95/month (2y contract) They offer "unlimited" hosting and bandwidth now, which means until it's not worth hosting you anymore. I have about 7 domains with them and they've been pretty reliable.
- alexk 18y ago
  Agree. I was with hostmonster for a year and was pretty satisfied with their support and services.
technoguyrob 18y ago
I use Lypha for my PHP/Perl hosting. They have the most featured, spaceous, and bandwidth-plenty service I've ever seen for a price like $4/month, and I haven't seen a downtime in months (not to mention the support is great). Get Dreamhost if you want Python/Ruby. Otherwise, get Lypha. http://lypha.com/hosting_plans.shtml http://lypha.com/hosting_plans.shtml
nreece 18y ago
JaguarPC.com for PHP/MySQL ... been with them for over 7 years
uruzseven 18y ago
I've been using http://www.websitesource.com http://www.websitesource.com for several years now. Uptime is good for a shared host. I would actually recommend hosting your mail elsewhere though. I use the free version of Google Apps which works perfectly.
jshen 18y ago
you get what you pay for generally. I'm not sure what you mean by "suck". Most hosts I've used had very little downtime, but you aren't going to get a lot of cpu/memory resources for under $10. I personally would never get a host that doesn't give me shell access, not sure if you care about such things. I can only guess what you mean by "suck".
- rms 18y ago
  Low latency is what I am looking for mainly, since it seems like most places have acceptable downtime. I was on Media Temple grid host at one point and it was just slow. I don't want that in a host.
  - jshen 18y ago
    I use slicehost. I haven't payed attention to the latency, but I've never noticed my site loading slowly.
wave 18y ago
I think http://www.hostgator.com http://www.hostgator.com has a reasonable service and good customer service.
natch 18y ago
he.net is wonderful, and has very, very low latency connectivity. No fancy GUI control panel (at least not that I've noticed), just plain ssh access to a good shell and you're on your way. They answer the phone on the second or third ring, a real human, maybe because most of their users are good enough not to need any support. That being said, I'm now looking for a new provider too, because they host only one domain for the cheap accounts.
kilowatt 18y ago
NearlyFreeSpeech has been pretty kickass so far--no downtime that I've noticed. I don't exactly move any traffic, but since you only pay for the bandwidth you use, it's perfect.
pragmatic 18y ago
What type of hosting are you looking for? PHP, ASP.NET, Python, it really depends. I've had different experiences with each. For plain old php, bluehost seems alright. However, may I suggest that if this hosting provides your sole source of income you look at a virtual host. I've used http://www.servint.net/ http://www.servint.net/ for a ton of wordpress blogs and it's pretty good. I've also "moved up" from plain jain asp.net hosting to dedicated hosting. If you're depending on this as a source of income I recommend you get a dedicated host. In the long run it will pay for itself. Good Luck!
ComputerGuru 18y ago
I highly recommend LunarPages. Best thing is their low latency and modern systems. They're one of the few with a lot of clients yet almost universally positive reviews.
pistoriusp 18y ago
Webfaction.com

19 points by rms 18y ago

Looking for something under $10/month: Can this get me shared hosting with decent latency and reasonable uptime?

rms 18y ago

Dreamhost seems popular and cheap, but people also like complaining about them.

bprater 18y ago
Been using them for years now, no major complaints. They stay on top of Rails tech, which is really cool. I wouldn't risk a business site with them, but for fun piddly sites, I dig 'em.
- petercooper 18y ago
  Seconded. Dreamhost seem to get quite a bit of flak due to their size, but I have an account with them for "secondary" stuff and it works excellently for that. I'd only use my own dedicated servers for the proper stuff though :)
  - rochers 18y ago
    I also use Dreamhost for my secondary stuff. It's great as a staging server although you don't have full control over the server. If anybody wants $50 off the first year (that makes it reeeeeeallllyyy cheap per month), you can use the promo code LIFEHACKER. For virtual dedicated, I use Slicehost (http://www.slicehost.com http://www.slicehost.com) to host The Photo Stream (http://www.thephotostream.com http://www.thephotostream.com) and they have been excellent for the past two months.
    - arthurk 18y ago
      Or use "WPDH2" as a promo code and get some additional storage and bandwidth (http://www.dreamhost.com/wordpress.html http://www.dreamhost.com/wordpress.html) I've been using Dreamhost for a while now (to host my blog) and it has been pretty much okay but I wouldn't host any critical stuff on it. WebFaction (http://www.webfaction.com http://www.webfaction.com) and Slicehost (http://www.slicehost.com http://www.slicehost.com) are pretty popular lately (although not _that_ cheap). I would probably go with webfaction for a django app.
markbao 18y ago
On DreamHost right now. Went down a few times, but not a big deal - uptime for my server has been crystal the past few months. You'll hear that "DreamHost sucks" all the time. Keep in mind that they host around 700,000 domains, and operate thousands of servers, so there will be an inevidably huge amount of people complaining. (Of course, people don't usually rant about how great the service is, so that gets lost in the noise.) The fact that they're a lot more transparent (http://www.dreamhoststatus.com http://www.dreamhoststatus.com) than a lot of providers is good, but only makes people complain more (The thinking is: 'It went down! I must complain about the service being terrible.' rather than with traditional hosting providers, where you probably weren't aware of the downtime, unless if you personally experienced it.) My suggestion: if it's not mission-critical, DreamHost is a good, very reasonably priced choice.
- jakewolf 18y ago
  A recent gem from http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2008/05/21/blingy-problems/all-comments/#comments http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2008/05/21/blingy-problems/al...
  - avinashv 18y ago
    Holy crap, that's been over a week. I pity the fool who put something mission-critical on there.
mk 18y ago
Dreamhost has their problems, but like someone else commented they are very open about everything. Whenever I have had a problem their tech support has responded pretty quickly and fixed whatever was going wrong. I'm pretty happy with them overall. I only use it for my blog, and as a test bed for some stuff. I'm not sure I would run anything important there.
pierrefar 18y ago
DH is crap. Them being open does not detract from the fact that their servers keel over every time your site gets a bit more traffic. I left them and never looked back. Also stay away from Joyent. Depending on your needs, Media Temple might work. And a friend swears by Royalty Hosting although I haven't tried them. I'm playing with Mosso at the moment and they seem good.

rbarooah 18y ago

GeekIsp has been very solid for me. Reasonably priced, communicative, and modern.

tpimental 18y ago

I've been using 1and1.com for a while now and am still happy.

crystalarchives 18y ago

I use WebFaction and am very pleased with them. They support hosting multiple sites on one account, PHP, Rails, and Django while having extremely fast and helpful customer service. The latency is good, although not blazing, and I've had perfect uptime so far since I signed up six months ago. My plan is $9.50/month and allows shell access (the clincher for me), 80 MB RAM, 10 GB HD, and 600 GB bandwidth. I definitely recommend them. http://www.webfaction.com/?affiliate=pillarofeden http://www.webfaction.com/?affiliate=pillarofeden * Disclaimer - this is an affiliate link.

rms 18y ago
How do they define application memory? This sounds like a partially managed VPS, or at least is metered similary. Does Apache count as memory use?
- crystalarchives 18y ago
  I don't think so, I think it's for Rails and Django pretty much. I've never had an issue although I only run Rails.
quickpost 18y ago
WebFaction + Django here - very satisfied.
yawn 18y ago
Ironically, webfaction is currently down right now--I can't access my sites.

jakewolf 18y ago

asmallorange.com

crystalarchives 18y ago
Asmallorange is also extremely good, I used to use them but I couldn't find a way to host multiple sites, which was crucial for me.
- jakewolf 18y ago
  You must have been with them a long time ago. http://asmallorange.com/services/hosting/features.php http://asmallorange.com/services/hosting/features.php
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

dkokelley 18y ago

I've been using hostmonster.com - $6.95/month (2y contract) They offer "unlimited" hosting and bandwidth now, which means until it's not worth hosting you anymore. I have about 7 domains with them and they've been pretty reliable.

alexk 18y ago
Agree. I was with hostmonster for a year and was pretty satisfied with their support and services.

technoguyrob 18y ago

I use Lypha for my PHP/Perl hosting. They have the most featured, spaceous, and bandwidth-plenty service I've ever seen for a price like $4/month, and I haven't seen a downtime in months (not to mention the support is great). Get Dreamhost if you want Python/Ruby. Otherwise, get Lypha. http://lypha.com/hosting_plans.shtml http://lypha.com/hosting_plans.shtml

nreece 18y ago

JaguarPC.com for PHP/MySQL ... been with them for over 7 years

uruzseven 18y ago

I've been using http://www.websitesource.com http://www.websitesource.com for several years now. Uptime is good for a shared host. I would actually recommend hosting your mail elsewhere though. I use the free version of Google Apps which works perfectly.

jshen 18y ago

you get what you pay for generally. I'm not sure what you mean by "suck". Most hosts I've used had very little downtime, but you aren't going to get a lot of cpu/memory resources for under $10. I personally would never get a host that doesn't give me shell access, not sure if you care about such things. I can only guess what you mean by "suck".

rms 18y ago
Low latency is what I am looking for mainly, since it seems like most places have acceptable downtime. I was on Media Temple grid host at one point and it was just slow. I don't want that in a host.
- jshen 18y ago
  I use slicehost. I haven't payed attention to the latency, but I've never noticed my site loading slowly.

wave 18y ago

I think http://www.hostgator.com http://www.hostgator.com has a reasonable service and good customer service.

natch 18y ago

he.net is wonderful, and has very, very low latency connectivity. No fancy GUI control panel (at least not that I've noticed), just plain ssh access to a good shell and you're on your way. They answer the phone on the second or third ring, a real human, maybe because most of their users are good enough not to need any support. That being said, I'm now looking for a new provider too, because they host only one domain for the cheap accounts.

kilowatt 18y ago

NearlyFreeSpeech has been pretty kickass so far--no downtime that I've noticed. I don't exactly move any traffic, but since you only pay for the bandwidth you use, it's perfect.

pragmatic 18y ago

What type of hosting are you looking for? PHP, ASP.NET, Python, it really depends. I've had different experiences with each. For plain old php, bluehost seems alright. However, may I suggest that if this hosting provides your sole source of income you look at a virtual host. I've used http://www.servint.net/ http://www.servint.net/ for a ton of wordpress blogs and it's pretty good. I've also "moved up" from plain jain asp.net hosting to dedicated hosting. If you're depending on this as a source of income I recommend you get a dedicated host. In the long run it will pay for itself. Good Luck!

ComputerGuru 18y ago

I highly recommend LunarPages. Best thing is their low latency and modern systems. They're one of the few with a lot of clients yet almost universally positive reviews.

pistoriusp 18y ago

Webfaction.com