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Advice for hosting services

6 points by endlessvoid94 ↗ HN
I'm interested in continuing a small web startup, and my server now only supports PHP. Does anyone have recommendations on good hosting companies that offer good packages with lots of feature support that doesn't cost too much?

17 comments

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DaniFong
I'm going to plug for http://www.faradic.net/

It's a small company, but it's run by a Princeton PhD student who happens to be an industry expert in security. And he's very nice. Just ask him for what you need. Say Dani directed you.

(Yes, he's a cofounder =) )

ryanpc
What, to you, is "too much"? And what features do you want supported?

Additionally information will help us make an infinitely more precise recommendation :)

endlessvoid94
I don't know how much is too much.

I'd like to be able to use what languages I want without changing hosting plans. My plan now is just PHP. I want access to python in particular, but also to keep my options open for possibly ruby or lisp in the future.

MySQL installation is essential.

I basically want to be able to experiment alot and use many different technologies (not anything .NET though).

rms
http://www.slicehost.com is just about the best you can do for $20/month, except they have a waiting list now. You get your own slice of Unix to do whatever you want.
SwellJoe
Joyent Accelerators ( http://www.joyent.com ) are flexible, and they're the "official" Ruby on Rails host. They also happen to offer the best control panel (Virtualmin, of course). The only negative might be that Accelerators are Solaris systems--I don't have any complaints about that, but if you're accustomed to Linux, it might be a bit of a learning curve.

Slicehost ( http://www.slicehost.com ) has a good reputation. Their Xen systems are not over-subscribed and they know their business.

Media Temple (http://www.mediatemple.com ) had a good reputation until recently...but I'm sure it was a temporary setback. They're technically savvy. They're using a kind of quirky virtualization layer (Virtuozzo) which, when over-subscribed even a little bit (and sometimes even when not), exhibits serious memory issues.

Gridzones ( http://www.gridzones.com ) is another Solaris zones based host, and they have some reasonable plans. It's a smaller shop, so probably gives more personal service. Tell Phil that Joe from Virtualmin sent you (I dunno if it'll get you a discount, but he'll be happy to hear from you). They start at $15, which is hard to beat (you probably want more space than that, though...). They're also Virtualmin friendly, when appropriate (i.e. when you have enough space/memory for full service hosting).

If you're wanting to spend a little more, The Planet and Server Beach both offer dedicated boxes starting at around $69, I think. I've used both for years with very few complaints.

chaostheory
I've been with Media Temple almost a year now, but I recently dropped it because they were having major problems this week (which gave me a headache since it was right before the YC submission).

yeah Mediatemple has it's pros: - really good customer service (24/7) phone support - an out of this world web admin ui (nothing compares) - decent pricing

Unfortunately I can't recommend it because in the end it's about having a reliable and relatively fast website of which MT is not known for. Even with a grid server account maxed to 1GB and a separate database instance, it's still somewhat slow (and this is when their network is not being attacked...). Their technology looks really good theoritically but in real life it just doesn't work...

jamesbritt
> Joyent Accelerators ( http://www.joyent.com ) are flexible, and they're the "official" Ruby on Rails host.

WTF? "Official" Ruby on Rails host?

SwellJoe
From RubyOnRails.org, at the bottom of the front page:

"If you need hosting, Joyent is the official Ruby on Rails host, offering fantastic plans with a knowledgeable staff. Whether you need shared or dedicated hosting, these guys are experts in Ruby on Rails. For alternatives, see the wiki for a full list of Rails web hosts."

Not sure how much more obvious, or less of a WTF, that could possibly be.

jamesbritt
Wow. Well, TextDrive sure had a short reign.

Thanks for the pointer.

But the idea of an "official" Rails host still deserves a WTF.

SwellJoe
TextDrive == Joyent. They were acquired a couple of years ago (or more). The founders of TextDrive are still involved, as far as I know (we still deal with the same folks we always have, though there's a new tech or two that we talk to).
davidw
site:news.ycombinator.com hosting

It's been discussed before. I've been happy with Layered Tech.

shahper
hostingPride Networks, http://www.hostingPride.net - is also a good shared webhosting company. They support both php4 & php5. They are new in the market, but their management is quite dedicated to their job.
patrickg-zill
How much do you want to spend? If you have $69 a month or so, get your own dedicated server (try to find one that is not solely using bandwidth from Cogent). If you want to pay less, go to webhostingtalk.com and look over the VPS Offers section.
rob
I'm not affiliated with them (I do have a $10/month account there), but http://www.medialayer.com/ has been excellent and incredibly fast for shared hosting. They run the Litespeed web server with PHP5, eAccelerator, and Zend Optimizer. The only downside is the price: you don't get much bandwidth, but this can be had as a good thing since it means they don't oversell. My blog [link redacted] is running on it, but it's new so there's not many posts. SliceHost is great if you know how to manage a server -- $20 a month with full access.
prakash
peer1, rackspace, serverpath, ev1, dreamhost, joyent, amazon s3/ec2 -- hosting comes in various flavors and at various prices.

check out the forums at webhosting talk: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/

My recommendation would be to start with the cheapest & most flexible option that fits your requirements, get your feet wet and then move up the chain.

jyot_singh
If you are looking for Java hosting then www.kgbinternet.com is excellent. I used to pay close to $15 before the CAD (Canadian dollar) got stronger. Still, they are much cheaper and better than other hosting services.