Does anybody know of any good Java (JSP/Servlet) hosting companies with a good reseller program?

Thanks,
kewltrader

Only one I knwo is http://myservlethosting.com/ :)

http://www.cwcs.co.uk & http://www.webfusion.co.uk are probally the best ...

kewltrader, I've been doing some Java/JSP stuff recently and after going through some JSP hosts (including the ones posted, thanks for the links guys), it seems that it would almost be cheaper in the long run to buy a cheap dedicated server and just setup everything yourself. There are some really good tutorials on setting everything up. There is one atDevShed (http://www.devshed.com) which is really helpful, also I think the setup isn't that hard to do anyways.

Just a thought. :D

Is this JSP/Servlet stuff really that good? It seems that even Sun is having problems putting together a reasonably stable installation.

June 4 2001 they announced availability (i.e. official support) of JSP/Servlet for the Cobalt servers: http://emea.cobalt.com/about/press/2001/010604.html

But now look at their products, RaQ4, RaQ XTR, etc. does any of them ship with JSP/Servlet or is JSP/Servlet available as an option? NO.

Then see the Cobalt Java for RaQ page or just look at the URL: http://developer.cobalt.com/java/java.raq.php They are using PHP for their own stuff, very encouraging, really.

Ok, now read what they have to say about this JSP/Servlet stuff, provided by Sun for Sun hardware nota bene:

This development software is being provided "as-is", without any support. This development software may not be appropriate for everyone. Before deploying on a production system, you should first evaluate it on a development system to see if it meets your needs. If you have been using any previous versions of Java™ on your Sun Cobalt™ server appliance, you may see some differences in how this latest version works.

It sais that the folks at Sun are themselves unable to get the thing working, doesn't it?

Then there's apparently a developer forum for information: http://developer.cobalt.com/forum/signup.php (again, PHP). But when you want to look at it you find that it's actually a mailing list. Damn they are not even able to tell a forum from a mailing list....

So, now, is there any good reason to give this JSP/Servlet stuff a try?

>So, now, is there any good reason to give this JSP/Servlet stuff >a try?

For the average host, I'd say no. Any company deploying Java Servlet applications will likely be a large, well-funded one given the expense of developing in Java vs. something like PHP. I daresay those companies would probably be using their own servers colocated somewhere, and not shared servers or even leased servers.

It might be cool for a host to over Java hosting accounts to a developer population, but this is definitely a niche need. I dunno. I bet Allera could tell us. His company has java hosting.

Looking for peoples actually doing shared JSP/Servlet hosting I keep having an eye on MyCgiServer.com, it's a freebie thing and fully dedicated to JSP/Servlet only. But there again, I have the impression that they don't make much progress overall, had plenty of stability problems and all, I bet if Horst (that's the guy behind MyCgiServer, located in Austria by the way) was able to get the thing running reliably, he'd offer biger accounts for money. But he doesn't which means to me he isn't happy with the performance of his systems, yet... (and it's at least a year that they switched to all java)

Assuming Sun was refering to Java/JSP implementation on a Raq, then I can see why they wouldn't trust it very much. Raqs are very good for simple setups (Apache/PHP/mySQL) but when adding a few complex layers (Apache/Tomcat/JRE) Raq's are not really made for that. On much more standard servers like for example a Debian or Red Hat environment (or Solaris for that matter), the Java platform is much more stable and reliable.

Also Java development doesn't cost anything at all. Tomcat, JDK, JBoss all these Java tools are totally free, and there are a bunch of Java/JSP tutorials online. I've been learning about Java for the web recently and find it's a very efficent language for projects that require something a little more complex than PHP.

"Also Java development doesn't cost anything at all. Tomcat, JDK, JBoss all these Java tools are totally free, and there are a bunch of Java/JSP tutorials online. I've been learning about Java for the web recently and find it's a very efficent language for projects that require something a little more complex than PHP."

There are plenty of costs to factor in aside from software. The hourly rate for experienced Java engineers easily exceeds what a PHP coder can command by 2.5-3 times. Supply probably has something to do with it; Java2EE has only been around for what 3 years? In contrast, PHP is much easier to pick up as it doesn't inherently enforce the OO design and coding methodology like Java does.

I'm a Java fan myself, but let's not kid ourselves. It's a powerful, mobile language that comes with a price. It is well suited for large projects where code/object reuse is necessary and where portability is a high consideration. I doubt it would be make sense for the average Mom and Pop site to use Java.

For what it's worth, you can run Caucho ResinCMP on a Raq without much difficulty at all. I have successfuly installed it with full JDBC support for MySQL without any trouble. Tomcat is good, but Resin is very very fast with full support for XML/XSLT/XPATH, and many other goodies.

Oh yeah, the server I have ResinCMP running on is a RaQ4i with 512 MB RAM. One of the real benefits is that you can set up each site to have its own VM.

Scott

Yeah, JBoss must be awesome, I already heard that, looks like Sun is going to tolerate their using the J2EE brand without having purchased the J2EE certification suite and I guess now with MS pushing this .NET stuff, the open source stuff might play an important role in upholding Java market share. I wonder how long until an open source .NET clone arrives...

For open source .NET stuff, see the go-mono project at www.go-mono.com. It's coming along nicely.

Scott

Going back to the original question, DowntownHost (http://www.downtownhost.com) offers servlets and they do have a good reseller program.

You will also find the owner, Jedito, is a member here.