Ok,
I am down to five webhosts: midphase, ******, powweb, startlogic, and site5. I am looking at cost, web space, bandwidth, and support/reliability. If you have had any experiences with these five hosts (good or bad) please let me know. Please do not suggest another company, there are too many to choose from and it was tough enough to get down to these five!

Thanks in advance!
Tony

This will never fail you

Your new host (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/search.php?s=)

Yes you can try for WHT search feature. But what is that you are more interested in. Is it the price, reliable support or the speed. You can choose accordingly. Also you can see for some reviews for these companies. And WHT will be better for this.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/search.php?s=

How did u test these companies' support/reliability before you reached to this shortlist??

Honestly speaking it looks as if you have shortlisted on basis of more space/bandwidth for less price... may be u didnt.. just felt so :)

Please read more reviews about all of them here at WHT

my vote goes to midphase

On these forums, Site5 has the better rep than the other listed hosts.

However, they're all larger and well established companies. They're all going to have relatively strong uptime as they invest a lot into their network infastructures. Now, which one is going to provide you with the best support? The search feature everyone is pointing you to would likely hint Site5 over the others.

They're all going to have relatively strong uptime as they invest a lot into their network infastructures.Uptime is one thing, performance another. Just pointing out that this can also be an issue and should be investigated accordingly, especially if the site to be hosted is relies heavily on the use of databases.

I think the bottom line here is: what are you going to do with it?

Honestly, for the features, ****** has the best overall combination and I think they have a free domain special going on (the other offer that normally).

I use Site5 but I have a reseller account and would want more from a Reseller plan. They have terrific speed, reliability and support.

PowWeb is a great choice if you're going to be sharing large files like photos, video, or audio.

Sometimes it's not even the feature set but people just really "like" the company. Folks at Lunar Pages and DreamHost seem to have great brand loyalty.

This forum is extremely useful but sometimes it helps to see features compared side by side.

Frankly, the uptime and service are not earth shatteringly different among the hosting companies. If a web hosting company stinks at service and reliability they die. I've always tried to match my bandwidth and storage and price requirements and it's worked for me.

<<Signature to be setup in your profile>>

I agree that out of those I would definitely take Site5. This after sifting thru customer reviews on scores of hosting companies.
Another good choice would be Micfo, for instance.

I can only comment on ****** that it appears they oversell - use care with them - lots of down time

Found out after I moved two of my sites there and used the whois site here http://www.whois.sc/ only to find out my site was sharing a server with over 620 other sites....

Canceled my account two weeks later and took 6 weeks for them to honor their 30 money back garuntee.

Can't comment on the rest, never used them.

I have one site running on ****** (******.com).

Plan:

Commerce Pro
(check the official site for detail)

Mails::(

I like the ability to have multiple e-mail addresses, but sometimes you can't access the mail server although the ****** Support says the servers are working fine.

HTTP/HTTPS::(

Commerce packages come with SSL enabled. HOWEVER, it is not mentioned that SSL is not your OWN DOMAIN but ******. Even if you pay $25/month, you will not get your own SSL certificate of your domain. You will have to access your HTTPS like this...

WHT says I can past the link after 5 posts...what a stupid rule... Sorry folks for not being able to give you the detail here. I may be back after 5 posts...

Databases::)

It supports MySQL and DB numbers are not limited.

Support::bawling:

Their support site is not optimized for its main taget. I think "ease of browsing" is somewhere out of their mind. OTHO, iPowerweb's support page has LOTS of information helpful to you.

They have 24 hours live support chat, but 80% of chance, you will have to wait about 5 min to get response from the operators. It seems ****** outsources its live chat support to somewhere like India (I am not to blame India, I buy their skills, but for sure, they are lacking communication skills, flexibility, and wide-range of computing knowledge) , as I have seen the operators NOT ANSWERING my questions properly, and don't answer questions not in their handbooks.:angry:

I remember, when I have asked the operator if I could install Tomcat, then he replied me..."Is it a program?" which is something hosting techs should at least know what it's about.:rolleyes:

So, if you want to use ******, and need the support, don't use the chat. You will receive satisfactory answers from submitting support tickets.;)

Right now I would go with ****** because they're offering a free year after a rebate. I think they have the best combination of features for a low price.

Are there companies that offer better service and speed? Yes, in some cases though such things are all case dependent but generally Site5 is great if that's your key thing. You'll pay a bit more for it. All decisions of value in web hosting and in life are ultimately subjective.

Cannot comment on any of the others but startlogic does not have any support that I have managed to speak to, seems like tele operators only and with the amount of down time I have faced this is a real problem.