Hello,

I'm going to be developing an ASP.NET MVC application, and just want to share it with some friends until its ready to be released.

I'd prefer to only spend $100CDN or so a year. I know this isn't a lot, which is why I'm looking at shared hosting, I know I'm not going to get anything great.

I'm not worried about bandwidth since only a handful of people will have access, but for disk space I'd prefer > 1GB and preferably MSSQL. I know MSSQL is going to bump up the price quite a bit, so its not a deal breaker. Of course .NET 3.5 SP1 and AJAX is a must though.

So far I think the best I can find is either discountasp.net or ************.com (er, I can't post the name?)

Apologies if this isn't the right place to post this, but when I clicked the Offers section the Shared link seems to be broken.

Since you're looking for Windows hosting, moved there. ;)
A name that appears as *** means it's censored for some reason. We can't say specifically why, however.

I just tried a few ways to reached the shared offers forum and had no issues. Can you be more specific?

Thanks for the move bear, sorry about that.

I didn't mean the Shared Offers Forum (Didn't actually know there was one), on the Web Hosting Forum theres an announcement that links to webhostingtalk[.com]/request.php and when I click in the upper left to the Shared link I get a 404 error.

Your requirements are quite doable and you should be able to find a decent host within your budget. I'd recommend you to browse through few pages of posts here in Windows Hosting section to come up with a list of recommended Windows hosts.

Good luck!

Rick

Actually I was just taking a look at your hosting company. I hear favorable reviews from StackOverflow.com which is good enough for me.

Although I'm a little embarassed to ask this, how exactly does one manage a Windows host? I'm use to PHP hosting where I just use FTP and MySQL and for .NET I've used VPN connections and Remote Desktop so I have direct access to the entire server.

I'm guessing thats not how it works with you :P

Although I'm a little embarassed to ask this, how exactly does one manage a Windows host?

You would FTP your site/application files over FTP in the same way. And also import or build your MySQL database in the same way via PHPMyAdmin or scripts.

So there is no difference with a Windows host to a *nix host in regards to that.

Actually I was just taking a look at your hosting company. I hear favorable reviews from StackOverflow.com which is good enough for me.

Although I'm a little embarassed to ask this, how exactly does one manage a Windows host? I'm use to PHP hosting where I just use FTP and MySQL and for .NET I've used VPN connections and Remote Desktop so I have direct access to the entire server.

I'm guessing thats not how it works with you :P

You will be able to upload/download files through FTP as you normally do with Linux hosts. Additionally, you can perform various IIS level functions (changing ASP.NET mode, PHP version, default documents, etc.) from within the control panel and hence you do not require Remote desktop access. Additionally, IIS 7 also comes with a handy Remote Management tool whereby you can connect to IIS remotely from your desktop and manage your website from your desktop.

If however, you do require Remote desktop, you can consider Windows VPS solution.

Thanks!

Rick

For dev purposes you are actually better to get a VPS. You have limited visibility with a shared plan and also no control how things are setup on the server. VPS will allow you to install applications right on the server and make the changes necessary. Good luck!

For creating MVC-based Web applications, I recommend developing on your local machine or on a VDS/VPS. You can install SQLExpress for free.

Will the final product be used internally or be available to public over internet?

I'm not developing it online really, I'll be developing it locally and putting it online for a few people to test.

The final product will be public, but I need help with the user acceptance testing, which is why I just want a cheap place to host it so people across the country can take a look at it.

If you need remote desktop access then you will need to look at either a VPS or dedicated. A shared hosting provider is not going to give you remote access to the shared server. But if that isn't required (which is how it sounds) then a shared hosting account should be fine.