I've made a Social Networking site based on Drupal and I'm now looking for a place to host it. My budget is of 100$ and i'm thinking of buying a premium hosting plan or vps or maybe even a dedicated (if the budget allows) for 1 month, in order to see if the site will have any success. The hosting company must have an option of upgrading the hosting plan so the site's growth will not be limited.

An other alternative would be bluehost but from what I've read they are a total rip-off.

My special requirements are: php5, mod_rewrite and imagemagick installed, SPF domain records or any other method to avoid the email going into the spam folder. mhash and mcrypt are a bonus but not a must.

Anyone can suggest me a truly professional hosting solution for my needs? I don't want the months spent into developing the site gone to waste because of a bad hosting company that suddenly decides they want to suspend my account.

Have you posted this question in the Drupal forum?

I'd be intereseted in the information you get here but I think you'll get very good information from fellow Drupal hackers.

Have you posted this question in the Drupal forum?

I'd be intereseted in the information you get here but I think you'll get very good information from fellow Drupal hackers.

Question posted in the Drupal forum at node/243562 (can't post full link cause of the five posts limit)

Question posted in the Drupal forum at node/243562 (can't post full link cause of the five posts limit)

Thanks. Drupal is an amazing tool. I wish you well with your site.

Go for medialayer. They have a nice option for your requirements.

Your requirements are very modest, and since you're just seeing if it will be successful, you shouldn't have to look hard for a host.

I can currently recommend UberHost (http://uberhost.net)

Hi,

Rather than starting with a VPS - Dedicated server,
Go with a Shared, then if it becomes big (and you still don't need to upgrade) you can spend what you "earn" on advertising.

Also if it got to the stage were you're nearly going over there biggest plan then step up to a reseller, or VPS, then move up.

No need to make a jump straight to a Dedicated server.

Believe me, i know from experience.

Also, most sites aren't successful in the first month....

I've sent a mail to downtownhosting's sales support asking some questions and i'm going to go online with uberhost.net support. At the time of posting, i thought all good start-up shared plans have to be paid for a full year but now i see i can also order for 1 month. I was thinking that, instead of paying 100$ for a full year and end up upgrading to dedicated after a few months, i'd rather start with a vps or something and then upgrade.

Uberhost's cheapest plan is cheaper than downtownhosting and i think it fits my requirements. I'll go chat live with them then go search for some reviews and will post my decision here in a while. Others please post suggestions in the mean-time.

Thank you!

Hi,

usually "cheap hosting companys" Are overselling, thus making websites slow, i would go with a more expensive host with great support than a cheap one with little support!

Hi,

usually "cheap hosting companys" Are overselling, thus making websites slow, i would go with a more expensive host with great support than a cheap one with little support!
I wouldn't call Uberhosts cheapest plan "cheap". For the price and space/bandwidth allocations, I would say it's modest.

I too would start with shared hosting and go from there. There are great, small, shared hosting companies out there, you just have to search them out!

You can start with VPS but make sure that you'll not spend too much on your project before make sure it is successful enough. A popular project on Drupal may require a lot of resources so you'd need a whole server, but it is still better idea to start with quality shared hosting.

If your going to start with a VPS or dedicated check out liquidweb, lunarpages, and hostgator.

I decided to go for a shared hosting plan. I talked with downtownhost support and they limit emails sent per hour to 400. I couldn't find any reviews about uberhost so i'd rather not use them. Anyone can suggest a hosting that could handle the email or a workaround to sending the emails? My site sends emails when users registers, on private messages, on add to friends requests and also allows users to register to content and receive email notifications when that content updates.

Thank you!

All decent shared hosting plans have similar limits on rate of e-mail sending. When you approach the limit the site will also be using significant resources so at that point you'll probably want to upgrade to a high-end VPS or dedicated server.

But unless your site is wildly successful I wouldn't expect that to happen within the first few months. So, go for a shared plan from a host with a reputation for handling dynamic sites (I'd suggest MediaLayer) and upgrade when you really need to.

An other alternative would be bluehost but from what I've read they are a total rip-off.



From my own personal experience with Bluehost (http://inetintegrity.com/weblog/?p=1), I will second what you have said.