Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Reliable shared hosting for a good price. Does it exist ?

[polishruben]

Hi everyone. This is my first post here.

I am aware of multitude post in this forum, and I could just take a break from work and go through them all - to find out what people say about good hostings and where to find them; but I hope that there will be a few people who would point me to the right place, without going over the gigabytes of data here..

So here is my story:

1) I have been with ipower.com for around 4 years now. On the beginning, where I didn't have too many needs the host was OK. Very friendly vdeck ( much better than cPanel IMHO ), great features, etc, etc. ( big space ). But once my company started growing, I realized the downtime, problems with e-mails, php, scripting in general and AMAZINGLY terrible customer service. The idiots on the chat-support rooms, don’t' have a clue about anything, plus they talk to 4-5 customers at this same time. So it looks like that:
me: hi
them: hi
me: my FTP isn't working. could you troubleshoot it ? ( my domain name here )
pause
pause
..2-3 minutes..
hi: I will be happy to assist you, have you restarted your computer sir ?

.. you get the idea.
The phone service is even worse. Yesterday I requested the free upgrade from 10 GB to 50GB ( they just start offering that ). The REP told me to back up my data, and then I will have around 20-24 hours time period where I could upload it to my new server, and then they will update the DNS..

I started downloading the back-up, and within next 60-70 minutes I was cut off, because the DNS tables were updated. I couldn't even download the full backup.
When I called them back, they wanted 50$ for "Restoration fee" - even though, it was their fault.

Ok.. so I said. Enough. Time to look for folks that have intelligent service, reliable, fast, with good features. I don't mind even spending a few extra bucks on that. What I am looking for is really basic:


1) Linux hosting
2) Around 5GB-10GB of space.
3) E-mail accounts ( don't need more than 100 )
4) Anonymous FTP support
5) GREAT CUSTOMER SUPPORT. I want to talk to people that are not rude, I need someone who knows what I am talking about ( not like that one idiot from Godaddy, who was claming that my PHP scrip is not working because I had in the code word "javascript" ) I don't want to be on the phone 30-40 minutes before I can talk to customer service.

I am looking for a service that is known for reliability. Last night I saw mosso.com > but they are too $$$ and not sure if this would fit my need at this moment.

I was thinking maybe about eleven2 or bluehost? What's your guys idea? Please help. I don't want to search on google, because most of the top ranking sites are basically stupid ADs for the hosting companies that pay big bucks to be #1.

I feel like this forum is my last resort for finding out, whats really good out there.
thank you for reading it.

[MrRadic]

Well, another one that wants to move over from a budget host. Look to be paying at least $10-$15 a month. As for reliability -- just ask for proof, any host that knows what they're doing actually tracks their uptime. Next for support, the best and only way to find out how knowledgable they are is to actually ask them questions.

One thing I think you should modify on your list..."Linux Hosting" -- remove that. Windows can do everything Linux can but offers EACH SITE its own process, so if another site was to eat up resources or completely crash, it wouldn't affect the rest of the server or any other sites on it.

And remember, you get what you pay for -- if you don't need 1000GB of transfer, don't be looking for it!

[Cirtex]

Hi,

Well since you mentioned reliable hosting and you only needed 500mb transfer, I don't think you would nede a big package with 750gb bandwidth for $7 when you can get a smaller package with maybe 5gb bandwidth for $7 and most likely the 5gb host would be providing a bit more than the 750gb host due to the price/quota difference in terms of stability and support.

Again thats not true in all cases but if you really need so little bandwidth, try to up your budget a bit and look for a host thats a bit more business suitable and ofcourse somewhat more expensive as in less storage/bandwidth. Be sure you also do some research via WHT and dig around for reviews and so on.

Good luck

[Oceanworld]

You need 5GB-10GB of space but transfer of 500MB. That gotta be wrong, right?

[polishruben]

sorry, I removed the transfer since it is not very crucial here. Most of the companies within the space range I need, will offer adequate transfer.

what I am looking for is reliability and customer support that is GOOD. ( I know the word is quite broad, but yes - I mean GOOD )

[polishruben]

MrRadic - the Linux was there for PHP that I use extensively. That's why I wanted Linux. I had an experience with a hosting that offered windows that supported PHP, but it was terrible, and I switched back to pure linux.

if there is something new that I don't know about, please let me know. I will reconsider.

btw. - thank you for your fast responses. I will re reading all of them, and hopefully I will make the decision soon after

[TRIBOLIS]

Do a search bluehost, it has poor reviews for cpu usage, I'm not sure. I don't know any web hosters with small (500mb) transfer and large spaces?

Edited: If you really want excellent support, make sure you have a good budget. Then you've got a reliable host, for example! My Tips: email to sales/support and see how long they response. Some hoster's sales is not 24/7.

[ScottJ]

Yes move away from overselling budget hosts and reliability and support normally will increase greatly. Make sure to search for reviews about your next host before you sign up. WHT is a great place to start that search.

[Jedito]

Take a look to http://whreviews.com/
There's a list of "Honests Hosts" created by one of the moderators of this forum based on reviews here.
You'll find additional usefull information there.

[polishruben]

sorry I just realized. the 500mb was wrong of course. I removed it.
I don't care about featured-blown hosts, what I care is a small-medium size hosting that provides great customer support and reliable FTP, uptime and e-mails..

just that.. But I guess that's what most of the folks out there are looking for.
Thanks for replaying guys. Every replay is a learning experience for me.

[MrRadic]

Originally Posted by polishruben

MrRadic - the Linux was there for PHP that I use extensively. That's why I wanted Linux. I had an experience with a hosting that offered windows that supported PHP, but it was terrible, and I switched back to pure linux.

if there is something new that I don't know about, please let me know. I will reconsider.

php support for linux and windows is identicle, as a matter of fact we have a few php scripts that we rely on.

[polishruben]

maybe I had a bad experience with that one place.
we tried to use flash+ php to send mail, and it was giving us all source of problems. .. even the tech support, couldn't help us out.. so we simply switched to linux - and everything worked fine.

some of the scripting is a little different for php running on windows, isn't that true ?

[AbsolutelyFreeWeb]

I'm sure you find what you look for here. Just don't go mainstream, big companies tend to be like that, imho serious smaller companies every customer is much more important, ehich makes them provide better service.. and of course you get what you pay for, so don't go with too cheap.

[polishruben]

I just want to update you guys. After your comments I started looking and I am right now evaluating hostgator.

I will let you know if everything is fine. So far, the speed is great, the customer support is very quick. I like it.

Hopefully it will stay that way. If so I will bring them many all of my 40 customers