I was looking for a server with PHP 4+ and MySQL. I initially signed up with vservers.com. I just moved to atjeu.com. Here is my experience if anyone is considering them.

Vservers has great sales people. I signed up for a Virtual Server for $55, and it took them 5 days to set up my account. But they were running a beta of PHP that wouldn't be upgraded for a while. Could I have upgraded it myself? In any case, the beta didn't work, so I cancelled. I told them I would rejoin if they got a stable PHP, because their sales staff is so nice. They charged my credit card for the setup fee, but didn't charge me any of the monthly fee. That seems reasonable to me.

I looked into iServer at this point, they were okay. A decent virtual server for $99 was what I wanted (and they offered PHP 4). But they required so many contracts and signatures (you have to fax in a photocopy of your credit card, then mail in the photocopy along with original signatures on a few documents), that it seemed uncomfortable to me, so I didn't pursue it. Contracts contained text that implied or stated that if you pre-pay for a number of months and decide to cancel, they have the option to keep a chunk of your money as a fee (I'll pay month-to-month, thanks).

Atjeu is small, and I like that. When I returned a sales call, they greeted me by name, just from recognizing my voice I guess (or caller ID). I got a 500 mhz dedicated server with 160 megs RAM and 25 GB/transfer for $150/month (this is overkill for me, I just have some high demands of PHP 4, and this was about the only way to get what I wanted). The server was online 2 days after I ordered. However, after snooping some server files, I discovered that the server had only 32 megs of RAM. So I emailed them about that a few hours ago, and haven't heard back yet. Their servers are offline now (including ghosttowns.com, the server that a member of this forum -- Comanche, I think -- hosts there). Despite this, I'm optimistic. I expect this is a bump in the road. They seem like a small group of good people. And it appears to be a good deal, so I hope this is where I can successfully launch my site.

If you're interested in using either company, hopefully my experience is helpful information for you.