[Closed] So who's good for web hosting nowadays?

Not [url= https://www.google.com/search?source=ig&rlz=&q=%60and1+scam#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=1and1+scam&oq=1and1+scam&gs_l=serp.3...17493.17493.0.17541.1.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.les%3B..0.0...1c..5.psy-ab.xb__KZDT1T4&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43148975,d.ZWU&fp=21db5693843b2497&biw=1215&bih=675 ]1and1[/url]. Get a cheap dell of ebay install ubuntu server and host it yourself. Takes about a Sunday afternoon to get up and running. Helps if you have a static IP from your ISP mind.

Edit - £200 pm! how big is ur website?

Are you after a plain host or a VPS?

Hosting yourself is not a good idea for a corporate site or anything that needs to be reliable...

I use 1 and 1 but amazon seem to be amazingly popular at the moment.

£200 PM!!! Are you serious!

I have the highest package on tsohost for £45 a month and have 150gb monthly bandwidth , unlimited databases, 10gb storage. The response time on their email is absolutely ridiculous. Emailed them once on Christmas eve if I remember correctly, some stupid question, bout 11pm at night. 5 minutes later I had a reply.
Honestly unbelievable, can't recommend enough.

https://www.tsohost.com/product/cpanel-hosting

Are you after a plain host or a VPS?

Well, the only important site really is the business one - others could easily be moved to cheap hosting anywhere. But even £10pm with 1&1 seems to get unlimited domains.

The original argument for our own server (and hence the high cost) was for reliability, but now with cloud servers I guess that's much less of an issue.

The company I'm with want £250pm for a cloud server - probably way over what I need.

I'll have a look at tso and Amazon, thanks 😉

Try [url= http://www.uk2.net/web-hosting/ ]these[/url] peopls, I've used em for years

apart from reliability

This is the all important question. How reliable does it need to be ultimately defines how much you pay. Pay any less and its all blue skies until you find out how fit for purpose your chosen solution really is.

It also depends a little on how the back end of your site is built. If it is e-commerce with lots of database interaction you might not find a shared host responsive enough. If the content is largely static then you really don't care too much.

You might also want to watch where the host is (tso look as if they are US). I found my site looked a bit slow for average page load on analytics until I realised that was only for visitors who were a long way away (actually, specifically Nepal screwed it up). Your site is super zippy at the moment - nice 🙂

The main website is static HTML - pretty old school 😉 There's a SQL database for the order system, and a few other bits and pieces like a Wordpress blog. Nothing fancy, nothing server-heavy.

I'm not fussed about lightning speed, just as long as it works most of the time...

I recommend these guys...
34sp.com

I've been using them for more than 10 years.

They know their shizz.
Their support is superb.
Their prices are competitive.

I have about 10 sites hosted with them.

I cannot recommend them highly enough.

SB

I use GoDaddy for one site which is around a tenner a month. Normally there are a couple of hundred visitors a day rising up to a 1000 sometimes. Pages seem to load quickly and I've always been able to get them on the phone quickly if there are problems. They have a european presence in Germany I believe? I'd like to move to something a bit more responsive for when we are updating the site but am still looking

However I also know that there are better hosts out there so wait a bit and you may get better suggestions

Easyspace.com - and they are down the road at kelvin science park if you need to knock on their door.

40 quid a year.

That's a good point - I've used them for domain registration so it'd be simple. How are they for reliability? I'm hosting a website for my Dad because he didn't get on with Easyspace - not sure what package he was on, though.

Another vote for [b]tsohost[/b]. Two basic Wordpress sites with them (£30 a year or something ridiculous) as a bit of a test. Really fast and consistent.

They pick up the phone and actually know stuff, it's a revelation!

(I'm still with 1&1 for a lot of my legacy sites and they're kind of fine unless something goes wrong, when they become a pain).

The only danger with tsohost is that I can see them getting bigger and losing the personal touch, but at the moment, that hasn't happened.

Edit:bencooper - £200/month for what you describe is seriously crazy. I bet the £19/year option at tsohost would even manage that!

Well yes, that is a worry - I joined the company I'm with when they were tiny, only two people renting rack space in the Docklands - now they've gone all big and "enterprise" 😉

We have a hosted server at Netcetera - costs £70/month.

It's one of these with some upgrades;

[url= http://www.netcetera.co.uk/servers/dedicated/2200DC/ ]http://www.netcetera.co.uk/servers/dedicated/2200DC/[/url]

They've been very responsive to questions and we've had no downtime.

Try [url= http://www.tagadab.com/ ]http://www.tagadab.com/[/url] - You'll get a VPS from them for much less than you're paying now.

Massively reliable also.

Thanks, I'll have a look at those two as well 🙂

I'm coming around to thinking that perhaps I don't even need a server, just hosting - the other hobby sites I host can easily be punted off onto separate £20/year packages.

the other hobby sites I host can easily be punted off onto separate £20/year packages.

Unless you hobby sites are getting serious amounts of traffic just put them all on one package. Most hosting packages allow add-on domains meaning you don't need to pay for hosting of each site.

Have you looked at [url= http://aegishosting.co.uk/hosting/ ]Aegis[/url] I've got a couple of company sites with them and I believe a few others on here do so as well.

Take a look at Bytemark, lots of flexibility when it comes to virtual machines and decent bandwidth allowances too.

Thanks everyone, I've had a good chat with TSO - looks like I can get everything I need for £5 per month!

I know this makes me sound very old-fashioned, but cloud servers are very cool - pick Linux or Windows on the fly, install Wordpress with one button press, stuff like that.

I use tiger tech - http://www.tigertech.net for a website I run, I personally didn't choose it, the person who did all the design and set up did, but they have been very reliable and very helpful to me when I've needed them.

I recommend these guys...
34sp.com

Never known a host fall over so often.

We've got two hosts in the Maccuiskie household, one for my business one for my GFs, the idea being if one falls over we've still got SMTP through the other host and can keep some correspondance going in and out

Ms Maccruiskeen has been with 34SP on a Prohosting package, I've been on unlimitedwebhosting.co.uk. Both cost the same (around £3 - £4 per month) but 34sp charge extra fro SMTP and have recently throttled it requiring a dedicated paid for SMTP for each domain hosted.

Its a good job we've had that redundancy of two hosts because 34SP falls over all the fricking time. When everything is tickity boo they're perfectly nice to deal with but when it hits the fan they're hopeless. They're worst trait being when you email support from account A to tell them account B is not receiving incoming mail..... they reply to account B.

We've had a loss of service with them pretty much monthly. At one point we were down and with all IMAP email vanished for about a fortnight. So just last week we through in the towel and we're moving everything to Unlimited who are cheaper, simpler , have lightning fast support and have been disruption free for the last 3 years.

I'm coming around to thinking that perhaps I don't even need a server, just hosting - the other hobby sites I host can easily be punted off onto separate £20/year packages.

You just need one host package, then host different domains on it

You just need one host package, then host different domains on it

Aye, that's what I've just signed up to with TSO - moving over the less important sites first to have a play with it.

Keep an eye on your site load time (I think you are using ga?) once you are on shared hosting. I tend to find it is brilliant for a while, especially when you first start, then starts to slow down as your host gets shared with more sites. A phone call usually fixes it

As I understand it that's not an issue with cloud hosting? Because all load is shared across multiple servers, we're not sharing one particular server with anyone.

[url= http://www.dreamhost.com ]Dreamhost[/url] here. Been using them for 8 years now without issues. Plenty of options, pay by paypal, PHP5 support on all plans.

In the end for 50 quid a year you're not going to get the same performance as your 1400 a year so there will be a performance drop. The only question is whether or not it is noticeable. In the end every web request has to be served by a physical server somewhere and if that is overloaded for some reason performance will drop. Normally the hosting company will see this and spread the load around but not always

True. But I use about 15Gb of data a month, the £5 TSO account gives me 150Gb per month. So I don't think that will be a massive problem 😉

try evohosting - they're brill, home plan - 5 mysql db's loads of free scripts, 30Gb a month for £65 a year.

highly recommended

[url= http://www.evohosting.co.uk/ ]evohosting[/url]

[url= http://www.evohosting.co.uk/web-hosting/home ]plan[/url]

Hope it works out bencooper - I'm slowly moving all my stuff over there.
This is one of my Wordpress sites hosted by TSO for example:
(admittedly it's very simple)
http://barrattlegacy.co.uk/

I recommend [url= https://www.vidahost.com/ ]Vidahost[/url] - never have any problems.

Don't skimp on hosting and avoid 'unlimited' packages for 3 quid a month or whatever as they're usually shite.

If SEO is important to you try to get your own IP and avoid shared servers - if you sharing with a blogspam site google WILL penealise you.

It's remarkably simple - I've already got www.catchingphotons.co.uk and www.transientplaces.co.uk already transferred over. DNS changes percolate through a lot more quickly than they used to 😉

Are the photos yours Ben? They look amazing.

Thanks, yes, photography is a hobby I'm vaguely trying to turn into a business 😉

Good luck with it.
I've tried to use photography in my design business too. It's worked pretty well so far.
Your building panoramas look very appealing. I can imagine companies going for that.

Another vote for TSOHost - I use them for my photo sites and never had a moments issues with them. Echo the comments about fast and knowledgable support.