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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Sydney, Australia
    Posts
    6
    I've used many webhosts over the years and have run into various issues from which I've compiled my key wants:
    Reliability - availability of mail & web are both just as important - I've had a few hosts who have great HTTP uptime, but mail can go down for hours and is not covered by any SLA. Prefer clustered solutions using a NAS, or at the least RAID-1 (or 10). I recognise downtime is inevitable, I care more about the impact of single component failure and recovery time.
    Control Panel/Security - I'd prefer the host to have a custom control panel (i.e. not cPanel/WHM, Plesk/Parallels, DirectAdmin, H-Sphere etc). I really like DreamHost's panel, in particular their model of arbitrary combinations of shell users and domains underneath them. I like to use this to separate installs of untrusted software (such as MovableType, Wordpress, Gallery, Joomla) into their own user accounts so that if one gets compromised it doesn't hose everything. Need multiple domain hosting.
    Disk - 2GB sufficient, 3-4GB preferable.
    Bandwidth - 10GB or more (I don't really use more than 2GB but prefer not to worry about overage)
    Price - I'm happy to pay US$20-30 for a premium service.
    Support - I'm technically savvy and only need for support to be responsive to technical questions & issues (i.e. reporting downtime).
    To provide some background - I'm currently a customer of both DreamHost and Media Temple (gs). DH sucks because their uptime is completely unpredictable, I have kept it only because their user/domain model is convenient for toying with untrusted software. (mt) was to be the ideal host but reliability of their (gs) service is crap despite all the claims about superior architecture. Additionally they don't allow separation of users/domains and I don't want to host multiple 3rd party apps in the one account. To their credit (mt)'s support is extremely responsive and the company as a whole are very transparent about outages but they simply have too many technology issues.

  2. #2
    I use http://www.vectorlevel.com and I think they'd suit your needs just fine. The owner, Orien, is incredibly active here and the service I've received from him has been the best I've received for any service in my life.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Sydney, Australia
    Posts
    6
    I had previously considered VectorLevel but they use DirectAdmin, and AFAICT there is no way to separate domains under different users, hence all my 3rd party apps would end up running under the one account which is a security no-no.
    I've looked at a lot of hosts and ruled out most of them for this reason. I'd love to know if I'm wrong though.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Baltimore
    Posts
    181
    How about pairlite? http://www.pairlite.com
    edit: seems they don't have the multi user you request however..

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Surrounded By SigSpammers
    Posts
    587
    I like Dreamhost's panel, too. Have you tried H-Sphere before? That's a good one. Years ago I used a Alabanza host and didn't like that panel--so custom isn't always a good thing. Also, make sure someone claiming a custom panel doesn't really mean a slightly modified CPanel.
    Steadfast is a good H-Sphere host that's been around a long time and has a lot of good reviews here. If I had to sign up with a CPanel host right now I'd probably go with Liquid Web.
    If separating things is really important, you could always go with a reseller account and create a separate account for each domain.
    One thing's for sure... stick with a host that's been around a long time. A lot of the "quality" and "reliable" sigs you'll see below posts around here link to domains slapped up a few months ago. Also avoid any of the hosts that show up to tell you which of their competitors to avoid, or try to pass off their own marketing crap as advice.
    The hosts that have offers in the offers section will probably be along soon to tell you to check there... but it's rare that there's anything there worth checking out. The only thing that section is really good for is checking to see if a host you already know you want to deal with is offering a special.
    In any case, any of the hosts you'd likely end up with probably have money-back guarantees, so you can try them out and see for yourself.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    2,357
    Have you checked out www.precisioneffect.com ? They use a custom panel called PrecisionPanel.
    They offer some selective packages that should suit what you're looking for. Give them a look. Good luck!

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    7,325
    I had previously considered VectorLevel but they use DirectAdmin, and AFAICT there is no way to separate domains under different users, hence all my 3rd party apps would end up running under the one account which is a security no-no.
    I've looked at a lot of hosts and ruled out most of them for this reason. I'd love to know if I'm wrong though.
    The large majority of shared hosts won't be able to separate users as you'd like. Dreamhost is one of the few who does provide that functionality. As Mike suggested, if you absolutely need separate users, I would look for a reseller account.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Sydney, Australia
    Posts
    6
    How about pairlite?
    edit: seems they don't have the multi user you request however..
    Thanks for the suggestion. This is much cheaper if I was to give up on the multi-user thing and settle with pair.com (their other disadvantage was charging $5 per additional domain which pairlite takes care of).
    I like Dreamhost's panel, too. Have you tried H-Sphere before? That's a good one. Years ago I used a Alabanza host and didn't like that panel--so custom isn't always a good thing. Also, make sure someone claiming a custom panel doesn't really mean a slightly modified CPanel.
    Heh yeah I'm getting really sick of that. I've looked through about 30 hosts in the last day and played with all of the demo panels I could find. Some try to hide cPanel quite well, but regardless of how it looks basic cPanel won't provide multiple users without WHM.
    Steadfast is a good H-Sphere host that's been around a long time and has a lot of good reviews here. If I had to sign up with a CPanel host right now I'd probably go with Liquid Web.
    Aye I looked at both of those but TBH I really hate cPanel (I used it at a number of previous hosts). Not to be rude as I know a lot of webhosts are on here but generally the use of purchased control panel seems to correlate with a lack of technical clue.
    If separating things is really important, you could always go with a reseller account and create a separate account for each domain.
    Yeah that's a possibility I'd only be forced down that path if I absolutely can't find a host that fits my need. Besides compromising what I really want, it also would indicate settling for a host that doesn't have the technical clue or willpower to make such things possible.
    Have you checked out PrecisionEffect ? They use a custom panel called PrecisionPanel.
    Thanks for the suggestion but I had looked at them yesterday and ruled them out for the multi-user reason.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Posts
    1,238
    Vectorlevel.com is exactly what you are looking for.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Paradise
    Posts
    12,052
    Have you checked out www.precisioneffect.com ? They use a custom panel called PrecisionPanel.
    Looks an skinned version of DirectAdmin to me.
    In Hsphere and Plesk unless you use a reseller account you'll have all the additional domains running under the same user than the main account too.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Sydney, Australia
    Posts
    6
    In case its of use to others I tried out Concentric.com's shared hosting service. Its technically interesting - they have some uber jail setup which allows the user to define "zones" which are pretty fine grained ACLs. However its quite painful to use, not least of all because their control panel is quite crusty looking. Also when I went to rsync 1GB of photos over it kept stalling after 200MB. I wasn't sure why but I've closed the account anyway.
    I ended up going with http://apisnetworks.com/. These guys satisfy all of my requirements, came well within budget, and the owner appears to be very technical. I like their no nonsense setup - simple RAID-1 standalone machines that aren't oversold nor overloaded. Also, I put in a support request over the weekend and it was responded to within 15 minutes! So far so good.

  12. #12
    Aye I looked at both of those but TBH I really hate cPanel (I used it at a number of previous hosts). Not to be rude as I know a lot of webhosts are on here but generally the use of purchased control panel seems to correlate with a lack of technical clue.
    Hopping that's just a general statement, as we use cPanel because it is what is in demand and if you don't give customers what is in demand, then it makes it beyond hard to compete in this industry. We offer cPanel for it's stability, easy host transfer features, and proven track record in the industry. cPanel 11.24 was a great step towards a true performance control panel as well, effectively speeding up part of the bloatware in the cPanel. It's a very mature product, it's bound to have some bloat, to satisfy the masses. We saw it as a bad business decision NOT to offer cPanel as we felt it would be handicapping ourself in the industry.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Sacramento, CA
    Posts
    3,657
    Precisioneffect does use a skinned version of DA.
    I know you are against commercial control panels, but of them, I think DA is the best. I like that it separates each add-on domain into a whole new folder rather than a sub-folder of the main account.
    As for separation, a reseller account is the way to go. Again, another plus for DA is that their reseller panel is part of the main panel and is only a link away. It's much simpler to use than WHM and WHM and cPanel don't even look like they come from the same planet. I find it quite cumbersome to have to login to another panel to administer the separate accounts.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Buffalo, NY
    Posts
    2,638
    Precisioneffect does use a skinned version of DA.
    I know you are against commercial control panels, but of them, I think DA is the best. I like that it separates each add-on domain into a whole new folder rather than a sub-folder of the main account. That's correct, it is DirectAdmin based.
    With a DirectAdmin reseller account, you'd be able to split up your domains across separate accounts as you're interested in doing. It's only if your account is created on the user level that you cannot separate them.
    While I can't recommend any hosts offering reseller accounts on DA, that's definitely my control panel of choice as well.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Victoria, Australia
    Posts
    36,941
    I ended up going with http://apisnetworks.com/. These guys satisfy all of my requirements, came well within budget, and the owner appears to be very technical. I like their no nonsense setup - simple RAID-1 standalone machines that aren't oversold nor overloaded. Also, I put in a support request over the weekend and it was responded to within 15 minutes! So far so good.
    Good luck, let us know how it works out for at a later date

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