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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    19

    Smile Arrhh. Procrastination! Any thoughts on my shortlist of hosts?

    I’ve spent a long time researching hosting with the last couple of weeks mainly going through WHT and also webhostingjury.com. My general knowledge on hosting has improved greatly over the last couple of weeks (looking at one of my first posts here really made me realise this) and I’m very glad to have found this board and very grateful to the members that share their knowledge and experience!

    Anyway, I’m based in the UK. My budget per month is around £15 ($25-30 USD). Space, around 1 GB+. Traffic, around 15 GB. A lot of this depends on how they take off, it would be nice to have the problem of too many visitors!

    My requirements are, more or less in order of importance:

    * Multi site hosting for at least five sites (linux/unix).

    * Good speed and uptime (99.9% minimum).

    * Good support (problems may occasionally happen but how they are resolved is key).

    * cPanel + fantastico (I’m new to multi-hosting and really like that they feature many of the software packages that I want to try out).

    * Growth potential (easy to upgrade to bigger and more powerful packages).

    * More than one IP addresse would be a bonus as well but that may be expecting too much.


    If you’d like to know what I’ll be hosting:

    * Ecommerce site (CubeCart, ZenCart or OSCommerce – another matter that’ll no doubt take weeks).

    * Photo gallery site (maybe Coppermine).

    * PHP/MySql database (fairly large database and potentially popular).

    * Potentially, a couple of general html, flash, image and music based sites.

    * Potenially, a CMS (I can’t even bear to think of which one at the moment).


    My current shortlist, kind of in order (packages are in brackets):

    * LiquidWeb.com (Pro) – Polite and professional answers to some questions. Fairly quick to respond as well at just over 30 mins and just under 2 hours.

    * HostGator.com (Swamp) – Good reviews and very good deals.

    * MKHosting.co.uk (Enterprise) – My only UK based choice. Site design isn’t to my liking, neither are spelling mistakes (I feel bad to say this as it seems overly fussy).

    * FluidHosting.com (Large). Great reviews all round. Seemed good through live chat. But, they use Hsphere and don’t seem to come with the scripts that Fantastico do which is a shame.

    * JodoHost.com (Titanium) – Good deals (especially the five IP addresses). Does the fact they are based in India make any difference? Also, Hsphere again.

    * Also rans were PowerVPS, Site5, Zen.co.uk, 1and1.co.uk, Fasthosts… Are there good hosting companies that don’t often get a mention here?

    Sorry for the length of this post. If you have any thoughts, experiences or opinions, please let me know! I really appreciate it.
    Last edited by hifive000; 09-07-2006 at 07:44 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    7,406
    Hi,

    Your budget seems very reasonable and I understand your main concern isnt storage/bandwidth but more towards the 99.9% uptime and quality of service. You should take a look at UnitedHosting.co.uk as they're based in the UK with servers in the US and UK.

    Be sure to check out WHT for reviews on hosts you have an interest in and do some research.

    Good luck.
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  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Richmond, VA
    Posts
    3,119
    Out of your list, I would choose HostGator. I've had experience with them in the past, and I was very pleased. However, I will say that that is also the only host I have used on your list- perhaps another one of the providers you listed offers superb service as well.
    Daniel B., CEO - Bezoka.com and Ungigs.com
    Hosting Solutions Optimized for: WordPress • Joomla • OpenCart • Moodle
    Data Centers in: Chicago (US), London (UK), Sydney (AU), Sofia (BG), Pori (FI)
    Email Daniel directly: ceo [at] bezoka.com

  4. #4
    i would certainly reccomend MK Hosting, i have 2 sites hosted with them and nothing but good quality service

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Posts
    1,909
    UnitedHosting.co.uk is good stuff. Hostgator or Liquidweb would be good.


  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    53
    All the hosts mention are good, except 1and1.com. They have some rude tech support. location of your hosts should not matter much.
    EHOSTONE INC
    Ultimate Hosting Solution!
    http://reseller.ehostone.net

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    19
    Thanks for your thought and opinions. My original post seems so long, looking at it now

    Yeah, I forgot to mention unitedhosting.co.uk and a couple of others in the also rans. United seemed good but space/traffic/value ratio wasn't quite as good as the others. I wasn't sure about what control panel they were using as well.

    My top three right now are, HostGator, LiquidWeb and MK Hosting.

    LW do a free SSL (not sure when or if I'll need it) and give one dedicated IP. They only allow five sites though (I wish they allowed just a few more!).

    HG allow more than five sites and can do a dedicated IP for $2 per month extra which is still considerably cheaper than LW.

    Both have been fast to reply to questions. I think HG were quicker. It's looking like it could be HG right now but it's late here and I'm going to sleep on it and hopefully sign up with someone tomorrow!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Boston
    Posts
    411
    Host Gator is good.

    Site5 had some bad reviews recently, so be careful.
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  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Hanoi
    Posts
    4,309
    you might want to contact Idologic, Dotable as well. They are highly recommended through posts on board.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Island of Oahu, Hawaii
    Posts
    677
    From your list I can personally recommend JodoHost. They are extremely reliable and their support team is good. BTW, H-Sphere is an awsome control panel. I think it kicks butt over cPanel IMHO.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    19
    Thanks for your posts everyone. I appreciate your time! It's tough to make that final decision and it can come down to the smallest of details or margins. My latest shortlist was www.HostGator.com, www.LiquidWeb.com and www.MKHosting.co.uk.

    And... I'll be hosting with HostGator (I think!!!)

    www.HostGator.com - Swamp package offers unlimited sites and the most space and traffic for the least money at around 40% less than the other two.

    www.LiquidWeb.com - Pro package offers the least space (2.5 GB per month) and traffic and only allows five sites. I've got an absolute minimum of five planned. Probably six though and a max of eight. They guaranteed 100% uptime though which was the only site I've come across to do so.

    MKHosting.co.uk - Enterprise package was most expensive out of the three and offered the least traffic (65 GB per month). Were extremely fast to reply to a question (under five minutes!) but I couldn't find enought other opinions or feedback compared to the above two.

    It's been tough getting to here but I've learnt a great deal and know that I have two really solid back ups incase I do have problems with HostGator. I'll let everyone know how it's going (incase it may be of interest) in a couple of weeks or so.

  12. #12

    Is HostGator legit?

    Quote Originally Posted by GlobalWebDan
    Out of your list, I would choose HostGator. I've had experience with them in the past, and I was very pleased.
    I was one click away from registering a half dozen sites on HostGator, then decided to check out what people were saying. When I used Google to search newsgroups for HostGator, I almost fell out of my chair. There were loads of complaints that either HG was spamming in search of business or that HG tolerated spammers on their servers and other complaints, also.

    I was very disappointed, because their offerings looked very good. Does anyone know about this?

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Richmond, VA
    Posts
    3,119
    This is just not true. HostGator does not send spam messages to get new clients. I also know for a fact that they do not allow spammers to use their services - you can check the TOS and see this for yourself. Can you post some of the links where you found this information?

    Please be aware that you cannot believe everything you see online.
    Daniel B., CEO - Bezoka.com and Ungigs.com
    Hosting Solutions Optimized for: WordPress • Joomla • OpenCart • Moodle
    Data Centers in: Chicago (US), London (UK), Sydney (AU), Sofia (BG), Pori (FI)
    Email Daniel directly: ceo [at] bezoka.com

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by GlobalWebDan
    Can you post some of the links where you found this information?

    Please be aware that you cannot believe everything you see online.
    Since I don't have enough posts here, this board isn't allowing me to include links or URLs. So I'll try it this way:

    Go to groups.google.com. Run 3 searches:
    * HostGator
    * HostGator +spam
    * HostGator +experience

    I hope you are right and the comments are wrong. I've become very nervous about recommending hosting to my clients, because some of these companies turned out to be real turkeys.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Posts
    647
    With regard to HostGator allowing spammers, that is definitely not the case... they have some of the most restrictive policies on email usage of any host around and will shut down any site that sends more than 200 emails per hour. They also shut down unthrottled email sending, telling you to send only 1 per 6 seconds, and do not allow you to send ANY unsolicited emails, even if you have purchased a targeted list. Many things HostGator may be, but a spammer haven they are not.

  16. #16

    Going with HostGator

    Well, I signed up with HostGator for one of my own sites. So far, so good. The setup and account creation went smoothly, and their knowledgebase is among the best I've seen for any ISP (the Welcome message didn't say what the names of the POP and SMTP servers were, but I found the info easily enough). And they actually answer the phone and speak English, which is another plus.

    Friday evening is when I'll change the nameservers. Then it's goodbye to Web.com/Interland/Crooks-R-Us forever.

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