I'm currently using JaguarPC. I'm having some minor problems, and they're having an image problem lately, so I'd like to see what my alternatives are in case I get fed up and want to switch.

I want a reliable host that's been in the business for at least two full years. I'm willing to pay $10-15/mo. It's for a small-medium sized site.

I won't go into what other features/allowances I need. It's easy for me or anyone to check those kinds of things on the host's site. Mainly, I'd just like to know of some hosts that I should be happy with, who give quick support and don't screw their clients by cutting corners. I'll of course check through all the posts about that host here, and if there's significantly negative comments, I won't go with them.

One specific requirement: I need access to *full* monthly raw logs.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Ummh, you might want to go with HTTPme.com. I know they've been around for a year, and AussieBob, is a regular forum and member, and a very nice guy. There is also Vortech (vortech.cc), they've been around a while also.

:wavey: Hi squeebo - welcome to WHT! :)

Let us know how you get on with your search ...and I'll post you a nice list in a moment.

Originally posted by iamdave
Ummh, you might want to go with HTTPme.com.

I don't think httpme have any plans for "$10-15/mo"?

(Sorry for all these posts)

Here's my longlist - I can't vouch for how long any of them have been around. List is (very) roughly in order of reputation. The list is biased towards those that allow addon domains but I'm very very intersted in *full* access to raw logs too...

MyAcen
DixieSys
Enhanced
CyberShouts
United
Acunet
Hostabox
Echolima
HostingTycoon
HostMagik
TinyButler
Dot5
MarkedOffHosting
5DollarHosting
AllAbout
Always
EconnHosting
Excel
HostingTycoon
HostMagik
Long4Net
R2Host
HostStation
DarkTides
Phantasy
DigitalHost
SBYweb
HostDepartment
Dathorn
XStream
Citadel
LavaHost
CBSHost
SurgeHost
EbizAlive
Erice
HostMagic
Wizards
DownTown

I haven't tried these, but I can tell you that they have an excellent reputation and have been around over 2 years.

1. site5.com

2. Futurequest.com - though I think their cheapest plan is $20

http://www.hostmatters.com
http://www.hostcaters.com
http://www.can-host.com

can be added to your list too

Greg Moore

And www.affordablehost.com

If you want two that have been around for more than 7 years, I suggest you try:

www.pair.com
www.he.net

I know neither of these really need a plug, but I know Kevin (sigma on these boards) is very helpful and is a really good representative of pair)

Now, if you are willing to take a chance on a host that has only been around for 3 years :D, then I second SWR's recommendation of AffordableHOST, Tina is also a valuable member of this board, and she runs a great operation.

PowWeb.com (http://powweb.com/webhosting.html)

Please note the obvious: This is not an invitation to post about your company and spam the forum.

F5Hosting was okay when I used them.
Now I'm using eMegaWeb.Net and they pretty much rock. Network is quick, servers are quick, support is good, my only compliaint is Plesk. Sure it's stable, but it's butt ugly. C'mon guys from Plesk, give it a nice design.

Originally posted by inogenius
F5Hosting was okay when I used them.
Now I'm using eMegaWeb.Net and they pretty much rock.

Neither of these hosts meet squeebo's primary requirement:


I want a reliable host that's been in the business for at least two full years. I'm willing to pay $10-15/mo. It's for a small-medium sized site.



Domain Name: F5HOSTING.COM
Created on: 04-MAY-01
Expires on: 04-MAY-03
Last Updated on: 20-AUG-01




Domain Name: EMEGAWEB.NET
Created on: 29-Jun-01
Expires on: 29-Jun-03
Last Updated on: 23-Jun-02

My favorite hosting company, Need A Dot Com, has been around at least 7 years.

Neither of these hosts meet squeebo's primary requirement:

Actually according to the emegaweb site, they have been around since 1999, which would make them 3 years old. However you are correct about F5, they have only been around for a year and a half. Both, however are pretty reputable hosts.

Originally posted by Toolz


I don't think httpme have any plans for "$10-15/mo"? Oops, missed that part.

Originally posted by The Laughing Cow
Chicken . . . . . . . . You should PM or email him your feelings on it. He just cleaned up the thread is all. Getting rid of the spam; he got rid of the posts that addressed it.

<<MOD NOTE: Odd how people answer emails in the thread in which their post was removed. Happens all the time... I personally don't get it, but...>>

Originally posted by Chicken
Please note the obvious: This is not an invitation to post about your company and spam the forum.
Great....now you tell us....:D :o

Originally posted by iamdave
Oops, missed that part. You also missed the part that he hasn't been around over two years.
Although each year of WebHostingTalk is equal to 2.5 years without.

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
You also missed the part that he hasn't been around over two years.
Although each year of WebHostingTalk is equal to 2.5 years without. No, I didn't, I said they've been around for a year.

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
Although each year of WebHostingTalk is equal to 2.5 years without.
Aint that the truth!! :D

Thanks for the replies!

I've now looked at the ones mentioned (except that long list...I might go through it later), and a few look pretty close to what I want.

Site5 looks pretty good. So is 100 accounts on a 1.9ghz Athlon with 1-2gb memory on a Linux machine pretty decent? Not too much load? But they don't seem to have a web board for their customers. Bad sign.

One of HostingMatters' servers appears to be having a problem, or else there's a bug on their website. And I don't like their sales pitch.

pair.com seems to measure bandwidth by the day. Bad on the pocketbook should there be sudden traffic spikes (which I have).

he.net (Hurricane Electric) looks alright. I'm wary because of how part of the name is a natural disaster. It makes me imagine their lines being blown down by a huge storm. One strike against them, for picking that name.

F5hosting and emegaweb are so cheap that I'm not going to even waste my breath being skeptical of them. :)

akashik, not mentioned, sounds good and has been running over two years. Have they been doing alright?

If people have more suggestions, I'll check them out!

Originally posted by squeebo

akashik, not mentioned, sounds good and has been running over two years. Have they been doing alright?


Naaahh...Greg is a big scammer ;). Seriously, I have not hosted with them, but I can tell you that Greg really knows his stuff, nad is very helpful on these boards. If you do a search you also won't find any complaints about them on this board, which is a strong testimonial.

Originally posted by squeebo
Site5 looks pretty good. So is 100 accounts on a 1.9ghz Athlon with 1-2gb memory on a Linux machine pretty decent? Not too much load?
It depends on what those 100 accounts are doing. 1 site can bring a server to its knees.
But they don't seem to have a web board for their customers. Bad sign.
Yep, they have a forum. http://forums.site5.com

Originally posted by uuallan
Naaahh...Greg is a big scammer ;). Seriously, I have not hosted with them, but I can tell you that Greg really knows his stuff, nad is very helpful on these boards. If you do a search you also won't find any complaints about them on this board, which is a strong testimonial.
Yes indeed. :)

Originally posted by squeebo
F5hosting and emegaweb are so cheap that I'm not going to even waste my breath being skeptical of them.
Can't vouch for Emegaweb but F5hosting.com I can. Would not be a client of theirs for more than a year and a half if they offered poor support or service. And I get a much better deal than new clients because of "locked plans."

Greg:

The Akashik site says:


Gain control over your website with our fully featured control panel. From e-mail addresses to raw log files, it's all available, all the time.


As raw logs is one of squeebo's main stated requirements - and nobody has really addressed this yet - could you confirm that it's all available, all the time?

(Pls see the other thread on Raw Logs (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=93507) )

Raw access logs are downloadable on a daily basis as a tarred file. Last 300 visitors are recorded as well as webalizer, AWstats and Analog for statistic packages.

Unless a webhost elects to switch them off they're available anywhere cpanel is. Nick's done quite a bit of work on making stats available to cpanel users, and I'm fairly sure there isn't a control panel that gives that much access. Beyond that I can't imagine someone would require much more. I personally rarely look at webstats, but we do have a few people hosted who blow a cylinder during those odd periods when webalizer doesn't update for a day :)

Domain Name: AKASHIK.NET
Created on: 17-MAR-00
Expires on: 17-MAR-04

since it was mentioned. Not quite three years now. We've been doing alright ;)

Greg Moore

They way I construe that answer it's not "all available, all the time". Just like has been documented elsewhere it sounds like there's no way you're going to get your logs for the last day or two of every month.

Pls confirm

Originally posted by squeebo
he.net (Hurricane Electric) looks alright. I'm wary because of how part of the name is a natural disaster. It makes me imagine their lines being blown down by a huge storm. One strike against them, for picking that name.

Or maybe the name shows how powerfull they are ;)

Hi Greg,

If I host with akashik, would it be possible for me to have the logs backed up on a monthly basis instead of a daily basis, or some other way such that I wouldn't have to download, extract, and combine 30 log files to make a month?

How long are the daily logs stored?

If Webalizer misses some days, and the logs for every day are archived, wouldn't Webalizer not record stats for the days it misses?

Is Webalizer run immediately before the log backup?

Are Webalizer and the log backup run atomically? Or is the backup a feature of Webalizer?

And you use cpanel, right?

Originally posted by Toolz
They way I construe that answer it's not "all available, all the time".

Actually Toolz makes a very good point and one I haven't given much thought to until now. The quote you mention is more in regard to access to the control panel and the accounts then specific parts of it. If someone such as squeebo is looking for log files as a priority then it could well be considered misinformation. We'll have to look at rewriting that I think.

squeebo,
Webalizer is the heartbeat of cpanel's stat recording. AWStats reads it's information from that, and the domlogs are affected after the Webalizer run. In our case, cpanel then clears the domlogs to maintain room in the /usr directory. Anyone used to working with cpanel knows logs can make for a lot of work towards the end of a month is they're left to build. If /usr fills up then files can longer be written to it, and problems start to happen.

In our experience if webalizer doesn't run then the logs aren't cleared. From time to time it does occur, but a manual run of the logs generally gets moving again without loss of data - a kick in the right direction you could say.

Now, in all honesty it appears that your number one requirement is log file data. The use of your own statistics script may be a better idea than to rely on cpanel - one that you can configure to your specific needs, rather than to live with the possible shortcomings of a system aimed to the greater good of a shared hosting environment server-wide.

While we think we offer a great service, it's not going to be for everyone. I'd much rather make you aware of a possible issue beforehand before you go to the trouble of signing up and moving your domain.

Greg Moore

Originally posted by squeebo

pair.com seems to measure bandwidth by the day. Bad on the pocketbook should there be sudden traffic spikes (which I have).


When we started out, everyone expressed traffic in terms of "per day". Describing it that way, however, is not meant to imply that the traffic is restricted per day, or that having high traffic on any particular day will result in an additional charge.

All of our traffic allowances are based on the daily average over the course of a month, with the highest day dropped which does a little extra to accommodate unusual spikes.

Just clarifying. Sorry it wasn't more clear.

Kevin

Originally posted by sigma


When we started out, everyone expressed traffic in terms of "per day". Describing it that way, however, is not meant to imply that the traffic is restricted per day, or that having high traffic on any particular day will result in an additional charge.

All of our traffic allowances are based on the daily average over the course of a month, with the highest day dropped which does a little extra to accommodate unusual spikes.

Just clarifying. Sorry it wasn't more clear.

Kevin
Thanks for clarifying it; but I don't like that either, and that was a negative for me when I looked at Pair.

Anyhow, I don't think Pair fits what the user asked for.

BTW, I meant futurequest.com above, NOT futurerequest.

Originally posted by chrisb

Thanks for clarifying it; but I don't like that either, and that was a negative for me when I looked at Pair.

Anyhow, I don't think Pair fits what the user asked for.


I was responding to squeebo about the bandwidth, but since you brought it up, what don't you like? Do you find it confusing or just think it's somehow a worse deal?

I don't want to self-promote, but I also don't see any requirement mentioned by the original hoster that pair doesn't meet. Perhaps you could clarify that as well?

Thanks,
Kevin

I thought the user specified $15 a month, and I didn't think you had a plan that cheap. Maybe I was wrong.

What I didn't like was your daily bandwidth, but maybe I don't understand it. Monthly transfer amounts just sound more flexible and better.

For example, say I buy 20 gigs transfer per month. That way, I can use 3 gigs one day, 1 gig one day, 1 gig for the next 5 days, 5 gigs for the following week, and I use the remaining 10 gigs in the last 2 weeks.

Originally posted by chrisb
I thought the user specified $15 a month, and I didn't think you had a plan that cheap. Maybe I was wrong.


http://www.pair.com/pair/shared/basic.html

Okay, I'll stop or people are going to think I like a host :D.

Back to the topic of hosts that have been around more than two years, be weary of many of the hosts that heavily frequent webhostingtalk and say they have been around for more than two years as, lets be honest, lies are the norm with what I see here.

I've only heard good things about pair, haven't checked their prices but remember that webhostingtrash prices are mostly hosts which time after time fail.

Originally posted by The Laughing Cow
.....but remember that webhostingtrash prices are mostly hosts which time after time fail.
How is reality with pricing determined?

Bob,

I think we all know of the downward spiral prices seem to be in via spending time here. There's a mini universe here where the rules of rational thinking don't often apply. I personally don't find it the norm, but maybe the percentage of 'bottom feeders' are higher here than elsewhere about the net.

The 'reality' as I see it from my view on the world is a lot of people with little overhead, and very cheap servers (a luxury you and I don't get at NAC).

Reality with pricing is always costs + profit = total. Maybe some of these people get things cheap, and don't want to make any money. I don't understand it either of course. :D

Greg Moore

Originally posted by chrisb

What I didn't like was your daily bandwidth, but maybe I don't understand it. Monthly transfer amounts just sound more flexible and better.

For example, say I buy 20 gigs transfer per month. That way, I can use 3 gigs one day, 1 gig one day, 1 gig for the next 5 days, 5 gigs for the following week, and I use the remaining 10 gigs in the last 2 weeks.

The explanation I posted here was that our traffic allowances are based on the daily average over the course of the month. That is mathematically identical to having a monthly total allowance. Except by not counting the highest day in the calculation, it gives the user a little benefit of the doubt.

So if an allowance is 200MB/day, that's exactly the same as 6000MB/month if there are 30 days in the month, except that on any one day, you could have used, say, 50GB, with no penalty.

We could switch to the "per month" model most other hosts use these days (and have already done so for dedicated servers), but users would lose the "highest day doesn't count against you" benefit.

I hope this is more clear. If not, can someone else please explain it so I don't feel like I'm self-promoting?

Thanks,
Kevin

Originally posted by Aussie Bob

How is reality with pricing determined?

I'd of thought you, of anyone would know that.

Buying 10 lots of Y for a price of Z and selling 20 lots of Y for a price of Z doesn't really add up financially, hence why a lot of hosts who seem to think they can run a hosting business solely from a forum fail.

I'm always interested in seeing folks perceptions of reality explained. :D

That's like me asking you the price of fish.

Originally posted by The Laughing Cow
That's like me asking you the price of fish.
Not sure what you mean by that. :confused: :)

It was implied.

What is this thread about? :confused:

I'm pretty sure it was about looking for a host that has been around 2+ years. Don't quote me on that though :eek: :D

something about the best place to buy fish and chips I think... :)

Greg Moore

No it was the price of fish, chips were not mentioned. That's like comparing X with Y :D

" how much is the fish ? " ( scooter ):D

Originally posted by akashik
something about the best place to buy fish and chips I think... :)
Hmmmm, a tad off topic :D but there's this great fish and chips shop around the corner. They use a tad too much salt though. :D

So long and thanks for the fish! :D

Looks like you guys are trying to get your post count up around Chickens? Either that or you really love fish.:rolleyes:

Originally posted by Monte
Looks like you guys are trying to get your post count up around Chickens? Either that or you really love fish.:rolleyes:
Probably both. :D ;)

Originally posted by sigma


The explanation I posted here was that our traffic allowances are based on the daily average over the course of the month. That is mathematically identical to having a monthly total allowance. Except by not counting the highest day in the calculation, it gives the user a little benefit of the doubt.

So if an allowance is 200MB/day, that's exactly the same as 6000MB/month if there are 30 days in the month, except that on any one day, you could have used, say, 50GB, with no penalty.

We could switch to the "per month" model most other hosts use these days (and have already done so for dedicated servers), but users would lose the "highest day doesn't count against you" benefit.


Great explanation. I understand it now. So, your model now sounds better to me than the standard monthly transfer that most hosts offer.

Originally posted by chrisb

Great explanation. I understand it now. So, your model now sounds better to me than the standard monthly transfer that most hosts offer.

The only downside being that it required explanation :(

Kevin

Just wanted to clear up, our address used to be emegaweb.com/hosting (Emegaweb.com was registered in 99) and laster we moved to emegaweb.net