hosting for DSB

[admin2]

We get a lot of questions from new customers about where to host their DSB site.
We don't know what to tell them since we are not dealing too much with hosts. We can tell them what to avoid: godaddy, yahoo hosting and network solutions. They're not bad hosts but they're too rigid when dealing with customers or they're not offering everything DSB needs to run smooth (cron jobs for example).
So if you had good or bad experience with a hosting provider please let us and others know about this.

[marcia]

Westhost is a very good host.  They offer VPS technology, but no adult.  Another good one is Spry, which is another VPS, they allow legal adult content.  Then there is LiveHost.  Shared hosting with almost unlimited everything.  Great prices!

[doug]

I use ASmallOrange

Their support is excellent and they have been extremely patient and professional with any issue I had. Additionally, they have active forums which other ASmallOrange users assist with problems if you so choose to use that resource.

Unlimited MySQL databases was on of the features I use most.

[rtt1969]

ADMIN EDIT:
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Another customer reports that hostforweb limits the emails you are allowed to send to 20 / minute and discards the rest.
This is unacceptable even for medium sized sites.
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I use www.hostforweb.com,  been using them for 10 months and never had a problem.  Usually my downtime is only about 1/2 hour to 1 hour per month, and for the month of November, I haven't had any downtime.  My monitoring service shows 100% uptime.  I use siteuptime.com to watch over my site.

If I had to change, I might consider hostgator.com

I tried iicinternet.com  and they drove me crazy.

I tried hostsave.com  and at that time they weren't compatible with the dating site, might be different now.

I tried superrack.com  and they just totally disappeared on me, never knew what happened.  Lost my money.

I tried yahoo and I just didn't like them at all, cancelled an hour later.  They might be ok, but I didn't think they were any good for a dating site.

[sillywabbit]

I have been using livehost.net for almost 2 years now....
Thomas is top notch!!
The service is great...  The price is great!!
I wouldnt change for nothin!

Ann

[admin2]

You could also say about hosts to avoid and the reason - what was your experience with them. That could be helpfull too.
For example godaddy.com does not allow ANY kind of cron job now for shared hosting and they should be avoided.

[Peter2]

I use Imhosted.com and they have been very good. 5Gb of storage and 150Gb of bandwidth per month on shared hosting.

[admin2]

DSB works on Yahoo but they only allow 1 DAILY cron job. Not more than 1 and not more often than 1 day.
Plus there seems to be some sort of buffer: there's a few hours delay between the moment you upload the files to the server and the moment they are actually published.
Just found out that it doesn't allow you to upload .htaccess files and files containing '~' in their names.

[keith]

Hi

Im with PowerVPS, service is brilliant, teckies very good, been with alot of VPS suppliers,

They helped me set everything up, rDNS, SPF records everything......

like to say - stay away from Transnexis VPS, terrible service, more like shared sold as a VPS very slow network

Keith

[ShadowMachine]

I have been using In Motion Hosting (http://www.inmotionhosting.com) for well over a year for one of my sites. In that time I have migrated two more sites to that host from the abominable 1and1.com. I have tested several scripts at In Motion from Mambo to dating scripts that I won't name here, several  forums and photo galleries, and various other PHP/mysql based scripts. I can't find one thing about In Motion to complain about. Techs seem to be knowledgeable although I've had very little contact with them due to the fact that things just seem to work on their servers. They do offer 24/7 toll free phone support and live chat support during business hours. I believe they also have servers on both US coasts.

1and1.com seems like an incredible deal with their very low prices. Keep in mind that with 1and1 shared hosting you will have the opportunity to deal with an older version of mysql which can be problematic with some newer scripts. I believe 1and1 is running some older versions of other software also. The last project I took on with a 1and1 hosted site was to rewrite some URLs for search engine/user friendliness. Mod_rewrite is enabled on the server I was using, but there was something about the Apache installation or some module that just wasn't configured properly. It is possible that they are running PHP as a CGI, but I never really figured out what was going on there. I just cancelled the account and migrated the site to In Motion.

There are some pretty good hosts out there. I've found one in In Motion Hosting. My advice, though, is to steer clear of 1and1 and save yourself a lot of headaches down the road.

[haveachat2001]

I agree
There are some pretty good hosts out there
and Im with http://www.granitebelthosting.com and have been for the last 2 years  i have had no real problems only a couple of set-up issuses
that they sorted for me so i have no complaints
they are run linux shared hosting that works with all the features you need ,
 
BE carefull about the Large space and b/width for low price they rarely give you any features that you need to run an affective site

[admin2]

Stay away from http://www.globalhosting.com if possible. The application works on their servers but they're amateurs. Basic problems take ages to solve, there are problems with the database, slow (or too loaded) servers.
Maybe it was just an isolated incident but don't say I didn't warn you.

[maverick]

Hey Dan;

Just out of curiosity I went to their site, man their dedicated servers seem a bit pricey for what you get, and they don't even list or detail exactly what comes pre-installed on the server, and a $99 setup fee??

http://beachcomber.net/
I've had a dedicated server with these guys for about the past 5 years or so with no problems whatsoever. Never had to use their support very much but on the occasions I have, the responses were real quick, usually within a few hours. Their dedicated servers are semi-managed and monitor 8 ports 24/7 for server failure. Most servers come standard with 1500GB of bandwidth (triple what global is offering) some higher-end servers even come with as much as 2000GB of bandwidth, with NO setup fees or contracts.

Doing a quick price comparison what you get for about the same amount of money.

- 3 to 4 x the bandwidth
- 3 x the storages space (hard drive)
- 2 to 3 x the ram
- faster processor

and a whole lot more, including excellent support!

[sallyb]

Hi All

Was asked to comment on hosting, even though my experience is limited to very bad ones so far.

Avoid: webfusion and easily.co.uk  I sent a total of 12 emails to easily with various requests for help, entitled "Help" & "Need Assistance". I eventually received 12 identicle replies - this is your username & password (now bugger off and leave us alone we have your money and are not giving it back) - oh ok I added the bit in brackets but they may as well have said this. Also pre sales said yes they support x, y & z, whereas after sales in fact did not support any such thing. And this was before I even got a site installed.

My efforts to find a new host started with getting the requirements for DSB and sending them to 14 hosting companies and seeing what came back. Only one sent a decent, personal, reply answering my questions. The rest all said yes we do. Whereas totalchoicehosting.com bothered to copy and paste each of my questioned and provided detailed answers to each - now that is the service I am looking for. No idea how they will perform as my site is not installed yet but would suggest if you are looking and have more technical knowledge than me, they may be somewhere to look. They have a forum too which is great for non techies like me.

[sallyb]

by the way, would be interested in peoples views about my choice if you have time to look but if it's bad news be gentle with me, there is only so many hosts you can go through in 6 weeks.    I got the Silver service to start with.