Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Host for Wordpress Blog

[PhillTheChill]

I am hosting a Wordpress blog that currently uses 30GB of bandwidth per month. I want to introduce a forum as well so will probably need 50GB per month for now. But would like it expandable to 100GB in the future.

My requirements are:

No hidden CPU Limitations/No unreasonable resource usage restrictions.
Equipped to handle large surges of traffic.
No Overselling, able to use full allocation.

AND PROBABLY:

LiteSpeed - Does it really make a difference?

I have looked at MediaLayer, but they only provide upto 50GB transfer.

SecureServerTech looks good but uptime is only around 99%

At the moment Steadfast Networks looks the best.

My budget will be $20 for 50GB tranfer and $40 for 100GB of transfer, but this is not fixed and I would prefer quality over price.

Control panel does not mater but uptime does.

TIA

[ATH-Sean]

Thanks for a detailed idea on what you require, A shared host would be good, Maybe moving up to a VPS later I suppose would be best.
I not sure on Lite Speed ...

Is your Budget Monthly, Quaterly, Yearly ..?

I would go with cPanel as a Recommendation, More Common with Linux.

[E.Emile]

Hello,
Have you seen the offer section in this forum?

[PhillTheChill]

Originally Posted by E.Emile

Hello,
Have you seen the offer section in this forum?

Yes I have, but a lot of the company's I have never heard of. That's why I wanted recommendations.

[PhillTheChill]

My budget is monthly.

$20 for 50GB of bandwidth and $40 for 100GB, but as stated this is flexible as I would prefer quality over price.

[ATH-Sean]

Yeah, Pretty much cause they are all or a Majority of them are. Medialayer is excellent, As you say they do not go above 50GB ... In that case you are best to not go an overseller.

But look at it this way, You cannot guarantee a host will be around forever, though some smaller hosts are able to help you faster and usually have faster servers as they are not over crowded.

Also in the above post, $20 a month is good though you could get great quality with less than that say $10-$11 monthly.
But I do agree with your point of Quality over Price.

[JLHC]

No hidden CPU Limitations/No unreasonable resource usage restrictions.

Now that is a good requirement. I am sure you can get a good host based on that requirements as well as budget.

How much space will you need?

[ATH-Sean]

JLHC is also right, What sort of Space Requirements are you after ..
I am sure there are some really good reliable hosts around that are happy to help you out dude.

[johnny-l]

Originally Posted by PhillTheChill

At the moment Steadfast Networks looks the best.

Hmmmm ... I am not so sure about their shared hosting, as webserver is decent, but mysql seems bloated.
Their q/p ratio is very good anyway, you can't ask for more for such low prices, but I have experience of them suspending websites very easily for a few hours surge in traffic and ask you to switch on a vps. So i wouldn't be so sure about your specific requirements.

Anyway, being more generic, as I hosted almost only wordpress in the past 3 years on a number of servers, shared hosting, vps, dedicated, and therefore I have quite an experience with that software, I know if you use a caching system (wp-supercache) to sustain spikes almost any reputable host with a decent i/o on their servers will do fine.

In the past I liked a lot MediaLayer. Then I would also reccomend: PAIR.COM, FluidHosting.com, and successfulhosting.com.

I also like a lot nearlyfreespeech.net, you pay only thebandwitdh you use, so it scales very good :-)

As "application hosting" is quite expensive, as you've seen for the 50gb price of many providers, if your bandwitdh is mostly media-related (jpg, video) I then would consider to offload it to cdn systems like amazon S3 (just because it has a wordpress plugin), or (if you bother to upload any medias manually and hotlink them) any other cheap hosting provider, this way you could save a lot of bandwitdh and use your expensive application-hosting allottment only for real content (=text).

If you don't like caching, like me, then the best option is a vps with custom software (i use nginx+php-fpm), and no control panel at all. You can't imagine how much wordpress traffic I have managed to push through a simple xen 128mb vps, so starting from a 256mb xen one (cfr. slicehost, linode) would be really flexible in your case, and you have lot more bandwitdh than any 20$ hosting package would offer. But of course you need a huge technical expertise in that case, and I guess you haven't got it.

[ldcdc]

LiteSpeed - Does it really make a difference?

It does only if the host uses it for performance enhancing goals, rather than maximizing the number of accounts that can be hosted per server. Now, Litespeed does come at a cost, and a higher price and/or a higher number of accounts per server may be necessary.

I have looked at MediaLayer, but they only provide upto 50GB transfer.

Which is a wise thing to do on their part, if they're to ensure that the server's won't be overwhelmed and customers will be able to use all that they've been allocated in most scenarios (as opposed to being cut off for using too much CPU/memory etc.).

No Overselling, able to use full allocation.

Overselling does not mean that you can't use the full allocation. Proper overselling should ensure that customers can get what they paid for, while standing by resources are kept in check. From that POV, "no overselling" and "green hosting" can be considered enemies.

IMO your budget and requirements point to the cheaper side of application hosting, where some risks may still be part of the game. Thing is, price is a somewhat reliable measurement of what the host is prepared allow you to use in terms of computing resources. The smaller the price/data transfer allocation ratio, the smaller your chances of using all the data transfer with a CPU hungry application. Caching would be a smart thing to employ in order to mitigate that.

[PhillTheChill]

JLHC and JetWash - I will only need minimal space 1 or 2 GB.

johnny-I - Thanks for the info on Steadfast Networks, I won't use them then.

ldcdc - Who else does application hosting upto 100GB transfer at a higher price?

[ATH-Sean]

Suppose their are hundreds of Small hosts that can manage that, Not sure the overseller would be anything good for you ... I recommend start small mate, You say you just use upto 30GB at the moment, I would start with a Host that offers this and see how your 1st month goes, If you need to upgrade then contact your host for upgrade information.

I would not jump into the deep end straight away, your choice tho.

So I would start at say 30GB - 40GB and see how it all goes.

* With a Host I am not sure of one at this time, Some research is the Key.

[Jedito]

Probably a VPS or Semi-Dedicated if you want to get access to more server "resources" it's going to be the path to follow.

[InveHosting]

Originally Posted by PhillTheChill

No hidden CPU Limitations/No unreasonable resource usage restrictions.
Equipped to handle large surges of traffic.
No Overselling, able to use full allocation.

Hi!

Like others have said, that is a really good requirement. Most hosts don't tell you exactly how much CPU you can use, or how many accounts per server or anything like that. So, that requirement will definitely weed out the crowd of hosts.

The no overselling is a good requirement as well. There are quite a few hosts out there that don't, and they are quite a lot who do.

Also, your budget is very reasonable, and honestly you shouldn't have a problem finding a good quality home for your blog. Another thing you might want to check on too, is the support. Do they have the support methods that you're interested in? Are the support times good?

I wish you luck in your search!

Thanks!

[InveHosting]

Originally Posted by PhillTheChill

JLHC and JetWash - I will only need minimal space 1 or 2 GB.

johnny-I - Thanks for the info on Steadfast Networks, I won't use them then.

ldcdc - Who else does application hosting upto 100GB transfer at a higher price?

Hi!

This is just my opinion, I don't think you need a VPS just yet. I think it would really be overkill just yet. Like others have said, I'd start small, and work my way up. 1-2GB and 30-50GB of traffic is a reasonable specification for shared hosting. You can definitely find traffic in excess of 100+ GB. I've seen a few non-overselling hosts offer it. It's definitely out there.

Good luck!