US Web Hosting Sites

[psuphoto09]

Hi All!

I am looking to get a website & domain soon. I need something relatively cheap. I've been looking at some places but am confused as to what is offered.

What companies do you guys use? (Not godaddy please, heard horror stories). And is the domain name, webhosting & email included in the price? If not, about how much do you pay for each per month?

Thanks!

[amccomis]

It runs the entire spectrum.

From $5/month to $50/month. What's your budget? I have accounts myself ranging from co-location boxes I own to virtual hosts on shared servers.

PM me and I can give you some details...

[Karl C]

...Not godaddy please, heard horror stories...

Many here, including myself, have great experiences with GoDaddy. Any company will have disgruntled/unhappy customers. There's a reason why GoDaddy is one of the leading domain registrars and web hosting companies.

Why not try them first and determine for yourself whether the "horror stories" are actually true.

Good luck.

[souporman]

dreamhost.com (http://www.dreamhost.com). I've used them for 4 years now and love em :) Loads of storage & bandwidth, and you can host multiple domains with a single account. I don't think they're the cheapest, but around $10/month if you pay yearly.

[archaeoman]

Yep, DreamHost (http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?72739) is fantastic. You'll also get your first domain registration free. Everything is included and has a great feature (among many) called One Click Installs. Programs like WordPress blogging software can be installed in, literally, one click. I've had 4 hosting companies since 1998/99 or so and I will never leave DreamHost (http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?72739).

You can also host unlimited domains and sub-domains for free. A big plus for me when I was looking for a host.

I have been with them since 2005 with no problems.

Good luck.

[picprinter]

A friend told me of a problem with GoDaddy. It appears that you "rent" your domain name from them, you don't own it. That makes GoDaddy an OK choice if you intend to host with them as well. Should you decide to move your domain to another host you can run into major problems transferring the domain to the new host. He eventually was able to transfer his domain to his new host but had to pay a transfer fee to get ownership of his domain. I have a friend who had excess space on a server which I rent from her. . . she charges me $100.00/year. . . . . her space is rented from a major hosting company and the reliability is great. . . .

[Karl C]

A friend told me of a problem with GoDaddy. It appears that you "rent" your domain name from them, you don't own it. That makes GoDaddy an OK choice if you intend to host with them as well. Should you decide to move your domain to another host you can run into major problems transferring the domain to the new host.

I think that's incorrect. If you purchase a domain name through GoDaddy, or another registrar, you own the name. There is no "renting" involved. It sounds more like a way for GoDaddy to offer other services to go with domain registration. They charge whatever transfer fee the feel is appropriate and the transfer process, IIRC, is defined by ICANN. Glitches do occur but I can't see GoDaddy being so obstinate and difficult with domain transfers. Bad news travels fast and if the story was true, GoDaddy wouldn't be successful.

However, in the end, the domain is owned by whomever paid/registered the name.

[tracknut]

A friend told me of a problem with GoDaddy. It appears that you "rent" your domain name from them, you don't own it.
That's absolutely untrue.

Dave

[Lionstone]

CrystalTech is another solid option (www.crystaltech.com).

[scotteisenphotography]

www.vistapages.com

[transcend]

Dreamhost is horrendous. Their servers are slow, the downtown is monumental, the internal network (to mysql servers etc) is horrendous for response time and they break more stuff than I have ever seen at a "professional" hosting company.

It is so bad, they have a blog now to keep customers up to date.
http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/

See about issues here:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Horrible_Dreamhost_Downtime

Hosting can range form the pathetic (see above) to extremely good. You really do get what you pay for. I use liquid web for my clients who are not on dedicated ($600+/month) servers. Their plans vary between 15-25 a month, they have 24hr phone support who is extremely competent and they will bend over backwards to keep clients happy.

[archaeoman]

Dreamhost is horrendous. Their servers are slow, the downtown is monumental, the internal network (to mysql servers etc) is horrendous for response time and they break more stuff than I have ever seen at a "professional" hosting company.

It is so bad, they have a blog now to keep customers up to date.
http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/

See about issues here:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Horrible_Dreamhost_Downtime

Hosting can range form the pathetic (see above) to extremely good. You really do get what you pay for. I use liquid web for my clients who are not on dedicated ($600+/month) servers. Their plans vary between 15-25 a month, they have 24hr phone support who is extremely competent and they will bend over backwards to keep clients happy.

That post was almost 2 years ago and had 2 responses. :rolleyes:

I have over 20 domains with them, since 2005, and have never had downtime that wasn't announced because of internal upgrades etc. Of course everyone, with EVERY service, is going to have issues. It's certainly not the norm with DreamHost...and the fact they have a blog..so what? It keeps people informed. I've gone to it before when my sites weren't accessible, and it turned out not to be a problem with DreamHost, but an issue elsewhere. DreamHost support=quick to reply, resolves any issues.

[mson]

I use Downtown Host and have been happy with them so far. I registered my domain through GoDaddy. I have also heard good things about Dreamhost. Take a look at the Web Hosting Talk forums, there is a lot of good info there.

I would recommend you get your domain from one company and your hosting from another. If something goes south with one or the other it's easier to move to another company.

[haisai-ojisan]

Many here, including myself, have great experiences with GoDaddy. Any company will have disgruntled/unhappy customers. There's a reason why GoDaddy is one of the leading domain registrars and web hosting companies.

Why not try them first and determine for yourself whether the "horror stories" are actually true.

Good luck.

I second that! I've been through 5 different hosts before going to GoDaddy and had some decent service and some bad. Bu I've had nothing but great service from GoDaddy. Not once had I noticed any downtime and if their FAQ doesn't have the answer that you're looking for, their customer service is prompt and courteous.

I will admit that their site is a little confusing and I can get easily lost when trying to look for something. But I think the reason for all the clutter is because they offer so much for so little.

Give them a try and my bet is you will not have to look for another host. I can't remember the cost I pay because it is so little. If I remember correctly, $10 for a year for the domain and around $6 a month for the deluxe (or was it standard) plan server space.

[transcend]

e never had downtime that wasn't announced because of internal upgrades etc.

Are you for real?

They have continuous downtime, lose backups, blow powerbars etc. They are a monumental failure as a hosting company and are the laughing stock of the industry. They are, however, laughing all the way to the bank on suckers money. Avoid at all costs.

This is from their own blog. This is typical dreamhost nonsense. It was down for 2-3 hours. That is simply unacceptable.

"Dreamhost firewall error (Resolving)
Due to a typing error on our primary router while trying to block a denial of service attack, DreamHost is currently offline. This includes all email, web hosting, etc. A technician is about 15 minutes out from our datacenter to undo this mistake.

I apologize for this mistake. I was intending to be editing our non-live access-list, and edited the live one by mistake.

Update 9:54 PM Pacific: We have unblocked the firewall and our routing is coming back online. Sites should start working again as soon as our router finishes loading its tables. I use “resolving” because it is still processing the routes."

Here is another good one. Notice it took over 3.5 hours to fix the first time, and it wasn't actually resolved.



Posted 1 week ago (March 19th, 2008 at 11:37 pm PST) by jordan
Severity: High Resolved: No
We are currently having a problem with a filer which has crashed and is recovering at this time. While this is happening some customers in the blingy cluster will experience problems loading their websites/email. We apologize for the outage and service is expected to return to normal as soon as the filer recovers.

UPDATE 3:01:AM PDT

The filer has finished recovering and all services are back up and running. We are working with the filer vendor to find the source of the crash to prevent any further outages.

Update 24/03/08 10am: We’re working on the file server again to alleviate the load that’s causing problems with web, mail and mysql services. Sorry about that.

Update 27/03/08: We are doing emergency data moves to quell the stem of problems recently caused by your file server. During these moves, your data may be inaccessible. We are moving as we can off as fast as possible. Very sorry about the continued inconvenience!
They can't even bill correctly (at $5 a month, how do you screw this up?)

There was a huge debacle about a year ago where they over billed clients by over $1 000 000 total. There are criminal and civil lawsuits pending from that disaster. They withdrew hundreds of extra dollars (Usually $500 on $5/mont accounts) from accounts of MANY customers, and took over 2 weeks to repay many of them causing overdraws etc.

Also their "support" is laughable. Email only, business hours only and half the time they don't resolve anything and are belligerent to boot.

I have a few clients who signed longer term contracts for some reason, they are hating life. Avoid at all costs.

[archaeoman]

I can only speak for my experience. I'm happy, and have been since 2005.

I won't get into a pissing match here but after 2 minutes of looking I came up with the following quotes about Liquid Web. I can post quotes as well ;)

And the point isn't that Liquid Web is bad but that each and every company has issues.

Uptime on LiquidWeb is horrible. It seems like every day my site is unavailable for a few minutes here and there. I've logged outages of over an hour as well. When my site is up, it is slow. Their pricing and features are ok, but if you have daily visitors to your site, don't rely on the shared hosting at LW. It's crap.

and another

Slow connections for mail/FTP, frequent downtime, and rampant rude bastardism by terminating accounts for using NetPBM/ImageMagick (followed by "we just wanted to get your attention" explanations) -- I've experienced it all. I'm glad to have moved to a new host.

and another

I have been with LiquidWeb for almost a year and I know that I will not be going back. They have, without a doubt, the worst customer service I have ever encountered. For example, one time I opened up a support ticket with them and immediately got a response that they were working on my problem. I waited a few days, added another message to the ticket, and nothing. I had to wait another week before I got a response, much less a solution to the problem. Another thing, if you use MySQL or PHPNuke or any spin-offs, don't use LiquidWeb. They simply don't go together.

Now here's the worst thing yet. LiquidWeb claims that NetPBM uses up too much of the system resources, and can't be used. They don't even give you a way to monitor the amount of the system resources you are using. NetPBM is very popular, and is used by Gallery, which most PHPNuke users are familiar with. I can hardly imagine it using up any noticable amount of a web server. LiquidWeb must have some pathetic machines.

My site has been down at least a few times a month the entire time I have been with them. It is usually shorter then an hour, but it happens CONSTANTLY. If you have any respect for yourself, go to another host. There are cheaper better ones out there.


These and other negative postings on just one review site HERE (http://www.webhostingratings.com/plans/Liquid_Web-Reviews.html)

They have good reviews as well on that site, as well as others.

My only point being that everybody has their critics. Who knows, I might be just as happy with them. :p

[illm4k3uscr3am]

Are you for real?

They have continuous downtime, lose backups, blow powerbars etc. They are a monumental failure as a hosting company and are the laughing stock of the industry. They are, however, laughing all the way to the bank on suckers money. Avoid at all costs.

This is from their own blog. This is typical dreamhost nonsense. It was down for 2-3 hours. That is simply unacceptable.



Here is another good one. Notice it took over 3.5 hours to fix the first time, and it wasn't actually resolved.


They can't even bill correctly (at $5 a month, how do you screw this up?)

There was a huge debacle about a year ago where they over billed clients by over $1 000 000 total. There are criminal and civil lawsuits pending from that disaster. They withdrew hundreds of extra dollars (Usually $500 on $5/mont accounts) from accounts of MANY customers, and took over 2 weeks to repay many of them causing overdraws etc.

Also their "support" is laughable. Email only, business hours only and half the time they don't resolve anything and are belligerent to boot.

I have a few clients who signed longer term contracts for some reason, they are hating life. Avoid at all costs.

Actually, they are stealing business daily from GoDaddy, Site5 and many many other companies. To the point where if you say you are switching to DreamHost the current company will offer you half a year or so for free (My experience with GoDaddy). I have been with DreamHost since 2005. I have around 10 domains hosted with them. Within those years, I have sent around 50 email, many of them not even about downtime. It is preposterous for you to slander a company when users of this forum apparently have little to no problems with them. When they have downtime, your server is fixed or partially online within a hour or two. They get web and MySQL servers online first, which is more crutial to a website than anything else. The rest come online slower.

Other hosting companies have tried to sue DreamHost because they have IT specialists, Program Specialists, and Support Specialists leave said companies and work for DreamHost (I think it was BlueHost or LunarPages that tried to get the buy back).

They host over 600,000 domains, they know the business, have been in it since the beginning, and are growing daily. GoDaddy host millions of parked pages, and that is how they make their money. GoDaddy is barely making money to start with, GoDaddy also has been known to take high priced and visited domains.

Here is a experience of mine with GoDaddy. The server or hard drive I was on apparently died, so all my files were lost including MySQL files. I had the option to keep my hosting and upload all the files again, or PAY $500 F'ING DOLLARS to have them go into a database of backups and grab mine and reupload it. They say they make backups every hour, but you have to pay to get them. I actually went to court with GoDaddy over that, so they might have changed that policy.

At dreamhost, if I delete a file or mysql database, I hit on button and it restores them to a hour later. Everything is automated at DreamHost. GoDaddy, you make a email and HOPE it goes through while someone in front of a computer approves it and boom it maybe online. It takes around 1-3 minutes to create a email account, I have seen it take upwards of 24 hours. While at DreamHost it is instant. Also, GoDaddy telephone support goes like this....

Guy - Thank you for calling GoDaddy tech support how may I help you.
Me - My files are missing.
Guy - Ok, that is bad. Do you mind holding while I contact our advanced hosting support to find out the problem.
Me - Sure!
Guy - Ok.
Hold Music - Which GoDaddy does have some really good hold music, no lie.
Guy - Well, it seems as your password was not strong enough and someone hacked your website.
Me - My password was AbCdEfAbCdEf200871140&@!*, that is not a EASY password to crack, sorry.
Guy - I am sorry sir, there is nothing we can do.

After ALL that, I talked to a supervisor and all I got from him was a email. legal@godaddy.com, and that is when I flew down to Scottsdale and took them to court.

I would also be interested in knowing when you use DreamHost, they redesigned their entire control panel.

The billing problem was done this year, every company has billing issues. EVERY company, including GoDaddy. They refunded all the money, and if you experience charges for overage fees or anything of that nature all you had to do was fax them the amount of your overage fees and they sent you a check in the mail. Mine came the next day after I sent the fax. It's $5.00 at 667,524 domains, which all are not billed at $5.00 sadly. Yea, I could make a few errors myself on that one.

DreamHost is also looking and experimenting with Phone support on select accounts, so sooner or later it will offer support over the phone. If you send a email it is answered within 2 hours, the longest I have waited was 1 hour and 45 minutes. Also support is 24/7/365, I emailed on Christmas and they responded 10 minutes later, so no.... No business hour support.....

The laughing stock of the hosting industry are all these little web hosts that offer 100 mb of webspace for $20.99 a month.

Hundreds of competitors have tried to take the business away from DreamHost within the past 10 years, and have failed miserably.

On another note, if your server has a high load at DreamHost you can simply request a server cluster change that takes around a hour or two. I am on a server cluster with 10 other sites, they are all my sites. While at GoDaddy they throw around 2,000 to 3,000 websites on one server cluster..

[souporman]

I just wanted to back up my recommendation of Dreamhost. As mentioned, I've used them for about 4 years now and host 5 sites on my one account. I seem to recall once having an issue with one of my databases which was resolved within an hour, and any downtime (of which there probably was some) was so minor that I don't recall.

I do admit that I was over billed in that debacle but it only took a day or two to get my money back. They even credited my account when I told them that their mess up had cost me ~£10 due to conversion charges. Hardly something to fire up a class action law suit over, unless you're looking to make a quick buck I guess.

And for a bit of history, I've been a web dev for 9 years now (man, gettin old!) and have used about 15 different hosting companies over that time. Most of those companies don't exist anymore, and the ones that do I wouldn't choose over dreamhost even if they were half the price ;)

My only initial complaint about Dreamhost was their old (proprietary) control panel, but their new one is heaps better, if not a bit unorthodox. As illm4k3uscr3am said, you have full control over everything with thier control panel. I don't need to email tech support if I want to modify a zone file or create a new sub-domain. You just do it, and within a couple of minutes the results are there. Their monthly newsletters are a bit goofy as well, but it's kind of nice in an industry where everything is so uptight.

(note: I don't work for dreamhost, and I didn't provide any referral links so I don't have anything vested in the recommendation. Just giving my opinion :))

[psuphoto09]

thanks for all the input, good and bad. It is much appreciated!