My host, VibeHost, who I have been with for a few months, is down again. This seems to be a regular occurence that happens every few weeks and lasts several days.

When they are up, the hosting is great. The servers are fast, the package is affordable and full of options, but lengthy downtime is unacceptable.

---------------<edit>---------------- VibeHost is Back Online!!----------</edit>--------

Is this to be expected in a economy hosting plan, or is my host having serious issues? This is the first host I have gone with outside of Canada, where I used to use Magma.ca. Their plans are not the cheapest ($22.95cdn/month - but very few features), but they are truly 99.9% up. When they do go down, they are usually up within minutes, not days. The reason I don't want to go with them is that they are pricey and do not support Control Panels and true sub-domains.

I use my site mostly as a portfolio for work, but also as a development server that is made available to customers to see the progress of their work.

The question is: Is anybody with an 'economy' host who is reliable and full featured (ASP support - apache asp is fine, Control Panel, Sub-domains, database etc.) or do I have to look in the plus-10$/month field? I don't need massive amounts of bandwidth or space- just reliability!! :)

When I say 'reliable' I mean REALLY 99.8% uptime, and when they are down, it's only for a short time. Also, it would be nice if host sends emails when there are problems etc. and somewhere to go where I can find out what is going on (separate forum that does not go down). When Vibe is down, their main site is down as well, and I can't post trouble tickets, etc.

Sigh. I knew it was too good to be true :(

Thanks in Advance!

Scroll down to the bottom of this page to see why Vibehost is (and will be) down untill they get a better (or more honest) provider.
http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=88538&perpage=30&highlight=timmy&pagenumber=2
Yes, I'm afraid 'less than $5 mo.' hosting may be too good to be true.

Doh! Damn you Timmy!! Damn Youuuuuuu!!! :angry:

Let me rephrase the question:

Is there anybody who has been with a host for more then 6 months who is:

1. never/almost never down?
2. costs less then $10 month
3. supports all the goodies? - asp, database, control panel etc..


Thanks!

PS: Kyle@vibehosts, if you're reading: What is the plan/scoop for your VibeHost customers?

$10 will get you much better hosting and support.

We have stopped doing plans for less than $6 now - We like to maintain standards :)

Yes, I do know of a good host for about $10 a month that is almost never down. but . . .
It was not my intent to chase customers away from vibehost, so why don't you first contact him, and tell him you are willing to pay a bit more so he can afford to get a better provider?
I also know of a very good reseller host with almost no downtime too. :D

A hosting company can make money and provide good servicewith 5 dollar plans. We have been in the reseller hosting business for two years now. We charge 5 dollars per domain and .50 cents per MB of drive storage. Quite simple. And it makes money for both the reseller and the network/server operator.

I have a handful at the lower cost end who have so far proven to be reliable. Dixiesys springs to mind, as does supanames.co.uk, and affordablehost has also not let me down yet. No probs with any of these so far.

It's hard work finding them because I have been let down by quite a few and ended up leaving them. Squareinternet, edgehost and bargainhost fall into the category of being down far too often.

All these are just my personal experience, but if you work hard on this board you will find plenty of other stories.

Hi Jenni,

Thanks for the input. I've heard some good things about those companies too.

I was actually thinking of going with PhantasyWorksHosting after reading a whack of great posts on them. But...

I go online to check em out one more time, and their site is down!!!

Sigh. :(

Anyone else have any recommendations?

$10 (or $9.95) seems to be the baseline for decent webhosting. If you sign up with a lower priced package, then don't expect a full hosting package. Sub $5....you get what you pay for and a lot less! :cool:

That seems to be what I'm finding here, but the only thing is that many of the $5 accounts have a $10 account 'big brother'.

What's to stop the $10 account from being down when the 5$ account goes down? Are more expensive accounts on different servers/connections?

Do some hosts have their forums/help desk on separate servers so if the main one goes down, customers can still contact?

PS: Anyone have any other recommendations on reliable, inexpensive hosts?

Do some hosts have their forums/help desk on separate servers so if the main one goes down, customers can still contact?Hosts with more than one server do.

That is a very important question to ask a host. How can we communicate if your main site/server is down? How many servers do you have? What means do you use to communicate to your customers in the event of a server failure.

Everyone will have downtime at some point...those that haven't yet....will. The question is how do they communicate during the problem? What do they do about it? How quickly are problems resolved?


Originally posted by Scout141
That seems to be what I'm finding here, but the only thing is that many of the $5 accounts have a $10 account 'big brother'.

What's to stop the $10 account from being down when the 5$ account goes down? Are more expensive accounts on different servers/connections?

Do some hosts have their forums/help desk on separate servers so if the main one goes down, customers can still contact?

PS: Anyone have any other recommendations on reliable, inexpensive hosts?

Im telling you folks. 5.00 dollar reseller hosting works and works well. The key is not to buy retail hosting at a very low price. There is no incentive for the company to support it properly

$5 hosting, with reliable service is possible. We opt to charge a bit more and provide fanatical support to our customers. The only companies I would be worried about are the ones that charge like $1 a month or in that neighbourhood.

Well see THERE is the key.

We would NEVER provide 5 dollar hosting on a retail level with full support. Money is a motivator. People are not motivated to work at supporting someone for less money than what it costs me to eat at Subway

Scout please e-mail me at kyle@vibehost.com with all your info and I'll transfer your account so your done with this

Nevermind its up and fine

Back Online! :)

Unfortunately, as I had no idea how long VibeHost would be down for, and I needed a site ASAP for work, I have opened another account with another host.

Since I paid for a full year with you guys, I am going to keep my account anyhow and use it for something less mission critical! As the package/speed etc is great, I'd like to stick around and see if the stability gets better to match it.

I'll send you an email to discuss more details.

Cheers, and thanks for all the tips folks :)