[This is part of the Blogging Foundations Starter Kit Series.]
Sweet! You’ve made it thus far, but let’s recap and trace our steps on how you got here:
- You know, like a pro, ‘What a Blog Is‘ and the definitions.
- You know why someone should blog.
- You have a good idea of your blogging persona.
- You feel equipped knowing about all the different blogging platforms out there, how to choose the right one, and you are aware of the one that I like the best.
- You’ve prepped for your new domain name / blog name strategically and even have begun using these domain name services to find the best one.
- You’ve made up your mind as to whether or not you want to blog on a free service or a paid service – you’re going “pro” with your own hosting provider!
So, now you just have the find the right hosting provider to get started, right?
Well, there are tons of options out there and this is just a list of a few that I’ve tried myself or used for clients. Ready to take a look?
Here you go…
List of Recommended Hosting Providers:
Again, please note that you are ultimately responsible for doing your research and making sure you choose the right service for your new blog!
If you need some help here are 5 Sites and Tools to help you start that research!
Here are some things to remember when viewing this list:
- Do your research! There’s more stuff to consider than just these few items!
- Not all situations and needs are the same.
- There is no “perfect” hosting solution. Period. Never forget this.
- I used to use VPS for TentBlogger and the service, when it was working, was good. They failed me in epic style though. Read this post for more details. I’m actively looking for alternatives now.
- I now use Firehost and they are kicking serious booty! They are the subject of my Ultimate WordPress Hosting solution post as well.
- I have given MediaTemple a top score simply because I use it for my large blogs. Most (if not all) new bloggers will not need that for a long time.
- Personally, Dreamhost has an amazingly simple interface and 1-click installations and I recommend them all the time. I have a promo code, ‘TentBlogger‘ for an extra free domain for life right here!
- I actively use Site5 as well for some software development projects. Love their service as well! This one is a great alternative to Dreamhost.
- My “TentBlogger Score” is on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being perfect. Remember that there are no perfect hosting providers!
Ready? Here you go!
| Service Name | Cost per Month (Max Discount)? | Free Domain? | Space per Month (GB)? | Bandwidth per Month (GB)? | TentBlogger Score? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dreamhost | $8.95 | Yes | Unlimited | Unlimited | 8 |
| VPS | $20.00 | No | 5 | 250 | 3 |
| HostMonster | $5.95 | Yes | Unlimited | Unlimited | 7 |
| GoDaddy | $2.99 | No | 10 | Unlimited | 8 |
| Host Gator | $4.95 | No | Unlimited | Unlimited | 7 |
| MediaTemple | $20.00 | No | 100 | 1000 | 9 |
| 1 and 1 | $3.99 | Yes | 10 | Unlimited | 8 |
| BlueHost | $6.95 | Yes | Unlimited | Unlimited | 8 |
| Site5 | $4.95 | Yes | Unlimited | Unlimited | 9 |
| Dotster | $4.00 | Yes | 10 | 300 | 7 |
| WebFaction | $5.50 | No | 10 | 600 | 7 |
| PowWeb | $3.38 | Yes | Unlimited | Unlimited | 6 |
| Page.ly | $14.98 | No | 5 | 10 | 5 |
| AN Hosting | $5.21 | Yes | 625 | 6250 | 6 |
| Network Solutions | $3.46 | Yes | 50 | 500 | 6 |
| LunarPages | $3.95 | No | 5 | 50 | 3 |
| WPWebHost | $2.50 | Yes | 1 | 5 | 2 |
| WestHost | $4.00 | No | 50 | 1000 | 5 |
| UK2.net | $1.60 | No | 500 | 1000 | 6 |
| 100TB | $8.16 | No | 70 | 10000 | 6 |
Wait… Where’s #20?
You might have noticed that I’ve only technically listed 19 providers instead of 20. What’s up with that? The 2oth option is creating your own server and hosting solution yourself, which no new blogger would ever need.
But, it is an option, just not a reasonable one.
Love to hear your thoughts! Am I missing one that you absolutely love? What are you using and why?
[This is part of the Blogging Foundations Starter Kit Series.]
I’m using New Blog Hosting.com. @PeterPollock was a guy I connected with on Twitter.
It cost $45 per year (includes domain) and Peter literally set the whole thing up for me because I had no idea what I was doing. As far as all the statistical stuff, I have no idea.
I do know that Peter has went far beyond what he should do to help.
neat! i’ll have to check that out.
I have the best customers in the world!
Thank you for the kind words, Michael!
hah! that was pretty neat, right?
I will have to agree that Peter DOES have the best customers in the world, being one myself.
Not only does new blog hosting provide excellent service for a very reasonable price, but Peter Pollock goes above and beyond what I would ever get from another provider. In addition to helping me create my website (using the standard theme, which rocks), he was also instrumental in designing http://billycoffey.com, an author website which has been highlighted at Writing seminars as a shining example of what an effective author website should look like. I have recommended Peter to several people, and have heard nothing but wonderful things.
Aww, thanks Katdish.
See, I was right, I have the BEST customers.
Just to clarify what Katdish said though, I’m not a designer. She’s the creative, artsy one, I just do what she tells me!
yeah. i figured.
that’s such a glowing review!
I’m not sure of the details because it has been so long since I signed up, but I am only paying $1.95/month for my hosting. It may have to do with me paying for multiple years at a time.
Rocco,
Apparently you are using dreamhost.
D’oh. I guess I should have mentioned that important detail!
Hey John — I’ve signed up with JustHost and have had success with it for the last year. They have great 24/7 support, Unlimited Space, Unlimited Transfer, Unlimited Domain Hosting, Unlimited E-Mail Accounts, Unlimited MySQL Databases, FREE Site Builder, FREE Domain for Life, FREE Instant Setup, Anytime Money Back Guarantee, for only $6.95 per month. Plus if you sign up for three years at a time, the price drops to $3.45/mo right now. I’m able to host all my domains on one account for one monthly price. Good thing I became a JustHost Affliate!
thanks tom for that! will check them out!
(removed affiliate link)
I’ve had trouble with JustHost in 1.5 months after I signed up with them. They say everything is unlimited but if you use just a little bit more server resources they’ll tell you they can’t host you anymore.
I encountered the same problem. Except I was with them for 1.5 years. They said I was using too much of their resources.
Without warning they suspended my account and recommend that I get hosted by another company (friends or them, not sure)company for an outrageous price of $139 a month! Right now my mad blogging skills earns me a total of $0 a month.
I was using WP super Cache so I am not sure how I was using too much resource.
I would just stay clear of just host!
very sorry to hear this. man… that stinks!
Nice of you to give dreamhost a good score considering their recent activity.
Personally that’s what I use, and I’m finding I like it pretty well. I really like their support wiki which I’ve used several times already. What I don’t like is having half a billion passwords for every single thing I do… svn repositories, mysql databases, htaccess, ftp access etc… I imagine that is unavoidable no matter what hosting you use.
brian,
yeah. i have to set my pride down and just admit that they do have a great service and i’ve set up so many people with them, which is a good thing.
if i’m ultimately interested in the betterment of the bloggers and saving them some money (which I am) then i might as well include the services that are great, including them!
That’s very big of you. I’m so proud
hah. pwn.
I signed up for Media Temple. The reason being is I purchased 2 domains in addition to ones I already own. People may look at the $20 per month price tag as being a bit much, but you can host up to 100 domains for that one price. Their admin panel is super easy to use and navigate.
yup. love them!
I would of course recommend looking locally for a good host. As a Swedish guy I’ve found a great host that’s native Swedish. Binero. It’s much better to have a support to go to that understands your own language when you’re trying to ask for help.
I do not know what you think about trying to find a local web hosting firm for native English speaking guys. Maybe there isn’t that much to gain for you guys ruling the world…
fredrik,
that is a great idea! i’m not sure it would work so well here since there are so many…?
man, that’s a neat idea.
My site is hosted with Dreamhost and it’s free! A few years ago they gave away free hosting to anyone who had an old Geocities page. Guess what? I had one and now have free hosting for life with them.
I’ve used 1and1.com in the past and was surprised at what they could offer at such a low price. The fact that you can get a free domain name too makes it a no-brainer if you just want to have a personal blog.
wow. that is awesome. i had no idea that they did that!
John, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on hosts that claim to offer “unlimited” disk space and bandwidth. Personally, I think it’s at the very least disingenuous. We all know at some point they will cut you off; they’re not going to host a blog like Mashable for $5-$10 a month. IMO, hosting companies ought to be up-front about what point they’ll cut you off. Your thoughts?
Also, the trend among big hosting companies is to cut costs by overselling server space and outsourcing support overseas, which leads to poor performance and support. I don’t see them in your table, but did you factor server performance or quality of support in your ratings?
definitely, but the context of this entire series is the “new” blogger. unless that new blogger blows up like gangbusters, those aren’t issues. And, if they do (which is a great issue to have) then they’ll be able to manage that cost-wise.
but, i definitely understand your concern and I am well aware of those issues. you and I though are more educated about all of this than 99% of the intended audience.
this blog post is neither perfect nor complete nor authenticated by a board of server/hosting non-partial executives and advocates… so, it is what it is!
thanks paul.
>>this blog post is neither perfect nor complete nor authenticated by a board of server/hosting non-partial executives and advocates
LOL! Not trying to bust your chops or anything.
My first point was when a company tells you “unlimited” space/bandwidth when it’s really not, personally I think it becomes an ethical issue. Bloggers may want to ask themselves, “Do I want to do business with a company that misrepresents its services?” I was just curious if you view it that way too.
fun, right?
personally? I think this is far beyond what this post was intending to do and provide support for. and, you may feel burned from an ethics perspective but i don’t (as much as you do apparently). which is fine, there’s nothing wrong with that. i don’t excuse them of it though, but all new bloggers (and i do mean ALL NEW bloggers) won’t have issues with space or bandwidth.
Paul,
I agree with you completely… and some of the companies actually have a very low limit. They cover it by saying somewhere in their terms and conditions that they will cut people off if they are hogging server resources (which they put bandwidth under).
I take the opposite route and advertise that my clients can have 5Gb of bandwidth per month although in reality I happily give them 15Gb or even more if they need it.
John’s right though – most of my clients, who have been blogging for 12-24 months use less than 2Gb per month.
neat business. how long have you been doing this? do you re-sell through any service?
I’ve been hosting since 2004. I initially aimed at small churches and charities but have recently opened up newbloghosting.com to target people who want to move to a new blog.
The business is very small. I guess in business you have the option of staying small and very personal or going big and risking losing the personal touch. I know all my customers by name and by the name of their sites… and that’s the way I like it.
I’m here to help them succeed as best I can.
I don’t resell… that would just create more headaches than I need
so you have your own servers and collocate locally?
With the size of my client base, it makes financial sense to run a VPS at the moment. I have one which can be immediately upgraded in terms of processors, hard disk space and RAM and I’m upgrading immediately whenever necessary to maintain service speed and keep everything running smoothly.
I also have a reseller account on a Windows server because a small number of my clients insist on running apps which run better on Windows. I’m trying to ween them all off of it but I have it there to provide the service they need.
Although the servers can happily handle bigger sites, I am targeting the smaller individuals and organizations because I want to help people get online.
I charge $35 per year per hosting package to make it as affordable as possible.
wow. that is awesome!
Thanks!
Oh, and I forgot to say… my family is trying to raise enough money to buy a well in Africa (http://nothingtogive.com/2010/03/websites-for-wells/) and as part of that, I’m putting #$15 from every new hosting plan purchased into our ‘Well fund’.
I’ve now added in the free branding/landing page!
Every blog hosting plan comes with one.
Great list of resources. I’ve tried quite a few of these (and a few not mentioned).
I now use Media Temple for all of my own stuff and HostGator for all of my clients.
I used to use Mosso (purchased by Rackspace and now called the Rackspace Cloud) when I hosted more sites simply because of their white-label billing and admin panels. However, you really do need someone who is a Linux admin to help you set it up properly.
I absolutely LOVE Media Temple and HostGator for the control you have over the servers and their support. That’s part of why I can’t stand 1and1.com and GoDaddy.
definitely have had some experience with mosso. didn’t stick with them though.
I’d be interested to hear more about your personal metrics. For example, why did Hostmonster score a 7 and Dreamhost score an 8? Are there any metrics behind your numbers?
general offerings provided by the solutions as well as my personal experience with them for blogging.
A gotcha with some hosts is unlimited disk space and bandwidth, but very restrictive limitations on file upload sizes — like <20MB.
definitely. great comment and thanks for bringing it up.
The 20th provider … sweet. That’s what I do. I have a number of clients that sit on my MT server, so I’ve spun my wife’s blog (and my business site) on the same spot. Soooooo … in a round about way, it costs us nothing!
Good stuff … keep it coming.
I use BlueHost and have been pretty happy.
sweet! any others you’ve tried?
I have been using dreamhost for a lot of people and have had great experience with them.
I will say bluehost is the worst for me. They seem to have a lot of problems monthly. Very annoying
dang. good call kyle. thanks for adding your 2 cents.
I’ve been with Dreamhost for 2 years, but since Amazon just released their free tier stuff (http://aws.amazon.com/free/), I’m going to start checking that out!
was just checking this out last week!
Awesome! I don’t think the micro EC2 instance that you get would be enough for any of your Church blogs b/c of the RAM, but that’s plenty for a small/medium size blog!
true. true.
for smaller blogs it would be great… i’m going to have to investigate further on this one.
Hi John! Do you have any experience with iPower? A friend of mine recently recommended them. I would only be running two small blogs (one personal one and one for my writing portfolio) and I’d be using the WordPress platform.
I do not directly (that’s why I didn’t list them). they look ok. if what you say is true and you only need two, then honestly i’d probably look into dreamhost.
I’ve been using InMotion recently, which has gotten really good reviews and is priced about the same as BlueHost, who I’ve been really happy with in the past.
Craig,
thanks! i’ll look into it.
I prefer GoDaddy.
good man.
Of all the talk about hosting, I am really surprised at how little talk there is of 1and1. I have had zero issues and I have purchased several domains and use a handful of hosting packages. The tech support has always been fast and accurate. You can even call them in the middle of the night and talk to a living, breathing person. Not to mention they have awesome prices.
1 and 1 has gotten some rave reviews. definitely.
Perhaps this can be another blog post or topic but curious why you axed Intense Debate on Hyatt’s conversion to Standard. Looks great BTW. Seamless look from his old theme to Standard. Really shows that Standard can be skinned out nice.
simple: because the native comment system in wordpress is just fine… and it’s much much faster, less dependencies, and with social sharing already present, unnecessary.
Makes sense. I’ve thought about dropping it from my blog too. Seems to slow things down.
it’s also a serious pain the @$$ to migrate off of with tons of “left-overs”… ugh. moving mike’s site off of it left us with 5000+ comments to moderate and untold amount of spam to sift through.
I use Fused Network, been with them since they started up some years ago, and the founder is a friend of mine. They give amazing support.
ah. having a friend in the business can be challenging…! and very rewarding too!
John, I’ve heard you should not have use the same company for your registrar and web host. Do you agree?
yes, i’ve heard of that argument,… but most of the instances where this has happened is with smaller companies going out of business taking the hosting and registration with them.
as long as you register and host with one of the “top” guys, i think it’s safe to do so.
i feel pretty comfortable keeping them in the same place.
in terms of speed – are these solutions all equal? Apart from processor power and disk access – once the packets leave the building, do any of these hosting solutions play a role?
yes, they do. i’d honestly start with the top-rated ones for best performance.
John, forgive me if you’ve covered this….is WordPress not considered a host? Why would you need to go through one of the companies you’ve listed above?
you could, but this list is for self-hosted (obviously) who desire control. that was the context of this post.
see this list of things to consider:
http://tentblogger.com/10-key-considerations-when-deciding-between-a-free-blog-service-and-a-self-hosted-one/
Now John, when you say “small” blogs, how do you define that?
I would be running one wordpress blog for my professional writing portfolio, so it probably wouldn’t be updated as frequently. But I would be running a second wordpress blog that would be more of a personal site. I would probably be posting there 3-4 times a week. I don’t post a ton of media, though I do try to add at least one photo to each post.
What host should I go with? (considering that I’m on a copywriter’s budget, haha!)
One of the big considerations for you is how many readers you reasonably expect to have.
If you’re going to have over 500 readers reading every post you write then you should probably not go for any host who gives you less than say 15Gb of bandwidth per month.
Unless you already have a large audience though, when starting a new blog you probably won’t have anywhere near that number so providing you keep the filesize on your photo’s reasonable, any of the hosts mentioned above would most probably be fine, at least for the first year or two!
thanks for this peter!
i think peter’s got a good point… but any of the hosts listed above would do just fine, for almost any definition you can come up with.
go with the cheapest and easiest. again, dreamhost might be a good start.
i’ve always been with justhost and have never had a problem
sweet! that’s a good thing!
I was/am with dot5hosting [no link]. We had our church on Godaddy for a while but due to the fact it seemed to load slowly, the ad campaigns they use, and the account was controlled by someone that we were never able to communicate with we switched to Dot5Hosting. Within the last six months they initiated a non-scheduled “maintenance” on the database at 10:30 AM Sunday morning. Just as we were going online to do our live broadcast. NOT GOOD. Since you have ranted about how great MT was we are giving it a shot. I really really like the “english” tech support. I still use dot5hosting for my personal blog but plan on moving to MT or Dreamhost.
I believe the basic fundamental rule is “you get what you pay for” in this business.
yes. without a doubt. you pay for what you get…!
Little late to the convo, but I just completed a migration from GoDaddy to Lunarpages at the recommendation of a good friend of mine.
So far, everything is going well. The service was great. Very patient with me and then even transfered my MySQL DB twice because I had posted to my GoDaddy DB after they had copied it over.
My move off GoDaddy was primarily due to their advertising. Kinda hard to have your Christian blog hosted by a company that uses T&A to sell hosting. My personal beef with them, for sure, but I also wasn’t impressed with the performance either.
So far, I’m very happy with Lunarpages.
great to hear joe! i’ve heard a few good things with lunarpages!
I decided to go with DreamHost, based on this review… On MLK weekend, they happened to be offering a special with one year hosting 90% off! #win!
Thanks for this review!
darius,
that’s awesome! nice move!
I’ve had good experience with Site5 in the past, but currently have my sites at Hawkhost.com. Check them out. Good prices but amazing support/service (if ever needed).
sweet! will check them out.
Any problem hosting multiple domains on one dreamhost account? I’m doing that with hostgator now, and it’s setup sort of like a subdomain. You still get to it via jesushatespapyrus.com but the file structure looks more like a subdomain. Not a big deal (I don’t think) but I’ve had some bumps with hostgator. Of course I hate thinking about the process of moving everything over to a new host.
I don’t know anything about Dreamhost but the process of moving to a new host really isn’t hard.
Don’t let that hold you back at all!
you should help him….
I was actually thinking of offering when I wrote my reply.
Michael… if you’d like a hand, I’m happy to help!
I may very well take you up on that. Sounds like dreamhost will be much friendlier with multiple domains as they are each treated separately (not using cpanel).
I’m really being reminded why I have developers that take care of all this for our clients. I’m just not a techie anymore (though probably still a geek).
my strategy is to find people who love to do what i suck at. synergy…………..
I use cPanel for my hosting business and that’s probably the biggest frustration I have with it.
The way it handles two sites per account is horrible.
I get around that partly now by using WHMCS to create centralized user accounts but it’s not ideal.
When you do make the switch to dreamhost, just let me know (you can email me through peterpollock.com) and I’ll help you copy everything over.
nope. not any problems. i have a lot…. and when i say that, i mean….. a lot.
Hey, John, you mentioned that you wrote this for new bloggers, but I think some ancients like me might be reading this series, as a tutorial on how to move to WordPress (I’m at Typepad and like it, but find it limiting and a bit old-fashioned). When you all comment on bandwidth and how it’s not “unlimited” for reals, I get a little freaked out. I don’t want my blogs down for even a minute (they’re profiting). Do you mind recommending which hosts are good for those of us who already have traffic, or for those new bloggers who plan on making it big right away?
(For reference: I don’t know what it’s measured by, but have over 40K pageviews from over 16K uniques each month on my biggest blog, if that matters)
Hi Lori,
I don’t want to freak you out any more than you already are, but moving from TypePad to WordPress is… let’s say… fun.
Don’t let that hold you back though… There really shouldn’t be any major hurdles. I just moved a client over to my server this week from TypePad and while it’s a different process, it was also fairly painless!
Almost everything I’ve heard about Dreamhost suggests that they’re an excellent choice of host. I would probably suggest them.
that’s some great traffic numbers!
That’s what I thought!
peter (comment above) also helps host and stuff.
Thanks, John.
John,
You have an incredible website that is going to help my business a lot in the years to come!
One question: Linus or Windows with the webhost?
Does it make a lot of difference?
Thanks,
Todd
linux, apache is the typical setup.
but, you’ll find under the hood of tentblogger that i’m using a custom implementation of litespeed.
I use site5. Great.
cool. for how long?
John,
Have you looked at Omnis? They are my host, and now provide cloud hosting, unlimimted domain hosting for one low fee, unlimited bandwidth, great tech support, and a variety of other options. I’ve been with them for 10+ years with no problems.
i have not… link?
I use Omnis as well but recently I’ve been considering switching to VPS.net or Media Temple though. I haven’t had any real trouble with Omnis, however their customer support leaves much to be desired.
Who would you go with between VPS.net and Media Temple if you had to pick one for a smaller site/traffic. I just want something thats scalable for when my traffic picks up.
Here’s Omnis’ link. I’d be anxious to hear your opinion of them John
http://www.omnis.com/
either one could be fine. i think the prices are similar, right?
Yep, same price $20/mo.
choose your poison.
Digging VPS the more I think about it.
Hi John! Since this is my first comment ever on your site, I just want to say “AMEN!” to someone finally not afraid to speak out for Christianity. We need more of you! (Also, as a side note, your little girl holding the sign for new subscribers is downright precious!!!! I wanted to subscribe anyway, but she sealed the deal!) Anywho, on to my question: I am starting a new blog and have been researching different hosts. One of the hosts that pops up at the top of every review I find in Google is iPage. I haven’t heard anything about them. On the WordPress site, they had several “suggested” hosts, with Bluehost at the top, but after finding your handy dandy “Who is Hosting This” link, I now see the majority of my fave blogs are on Dreamhost. So now I’m leaning to Dreamhost, but want your opinion on iPage first, since it’s continually reviewed so highly. Thank you in advance for your time!
ipage is ok but i’ve never used them for an extended period of time.
I’ve had nothing but problems with Dream Host. They are trying to tell me my personal blog needs to go to their level 2 vps (meant for a top 100 blog) because of how much memory my site is using…
I had MUCH better luck with Go Daddy to be honest. (As much as I wish it weren’t true.)
go try godaddy then.
Nah…GoDaddy’s whack to….
What kind of memory?
Hard Disk space? or RAM on the server?
apparently a combination of a few things.
Seems odd.
The site doesn’t look desperately bandwidth intensive.
Of course… it could be the theme he’s using
he’s having a fringe-case… it’s really odd.
Yah…don’t get me started!
I just realized that Dreamhost offers free hosting to non-profits!
http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting-nonprofit.html
Looks like a might have to make the switch from Omnis
this is true…!
Sweet post!
What do you think about ipage? They usually get pretty high ratings. I use them and am completely satisfied, but can’t really speak out of experience since this is the first hosting provider I ever had.
i have no personal experience with ipage. i just listed those that i’ve used historically.
I’ve been having problems with godaddy. The same problem has been reported by other customers for several months and we keep getting the same response from tech service. Dreamhost is a little above my budget but I am considering site5 although $45 a month sounds very reasonable too. Think I’ll wander over to Peter’s site and see whats what
GoDaddy DEFINITELY has to go…
yeah… they do have some problems… but, can work for some people.
Yikes I better pay closer attention. The above should say $45 a YEAR not month lol
If you are on a very restricted budget like myself it’s also important to be wary of the ads for hosting services. Some of them say things such as $xx.xx a month, but don’t mention that the price advertised is if you pay for a year or more in advance. It’s not dishonest, but may surprise you when you hit the “checkout” button. As always, read the fine print
yes. i totally agree. don’t wan to get “stuck” with a relationship that stinks!
I’m using hostgator. Service and support is excellent. I went through a selection process after discovering Yahoo web hosting was not very wordpress friendly. Ended up going over to hostgator.
and how long have you been with them?
I feel like theres some medium sized providers that offer better quality hosting a support than the ones listed. MediaLayer.com is great if your willing to pay big bucks for great hosting. If your looking for something cheaper, then HawkHost.com is a nice option. Almost all the hosts listed offer “unlimited hosting”, which doesn’t exist and just confuses customers, leaving them uncertain of their limits.
I run http://SharedHostingRevealed.com if you want to check it out for more information or to grab a free Ebook about hosting.
taking a look… thansk chris!
I want to change hosts ASAP.
Should I go with Media Temple or VPS ?
Also, how come you you have VPS listed twice, one with a 10, and one with a 6?
Thanks bra
…? that is weird… i’ll correct that!
LOL…so are they a 10, or a 6 then?
obviously a 10… right? i use them for tentblogger!
I thought I’d add that I’ve had great success with Site5. I found out that DreamHost has an “F” with the Better Business Bureau (which is the lowest grade you can get.)
Turns out the got a new CEO recently and I think they have had tons of problems recently. Perhaps their “service” isn’t’ what it once was. Just an fyi.
http://www.la.bbb.org/business-reviews/Website-Hosting-Services/New-Dream-Network-LLC-in-Brea-CA-13131294
i think every hosting company would get an “F”… that’s just the nature of server and hosting services. you can google a “nightmare” experience with all of them. it is what it is.
We (OurChurch.Com) have an A+ rating with the BBB. We have a link to our BBB listing in our site footer for everyone to see and to contact the BBB if they want to. Granted we’re not as large as DreamHost, but we make it a priority to address customer issues before they get mad enough to go to the BBB.
that’s nice paul, but BBB used to be an important criteria but no longer has relevance in high tech.
actually, i’m not sure it ever had relevance in high tech.
John, I think like all recommendations, the BBB is relevant to those people who trust them. People trust your recommendations because they trust you. Generally speaking people trust the BBB a lot more than ads, company websites, and online recommendation sites that get spammed with phony recommendations.
Do you have an alternative to the BBB you find more trustworthy for high tech?
eh. i still think it can make sense but i know first hand how bogus BBB is… my first startup had BBB and one irate and ridiculous customer complained so hard that they dropped us out of it because he had political leverage. that was the last time i trusted BBB as a worth-while organization. what a fraud.
That sucks. Maybe you should file a complaint with the Better B, er… never mind.
The bigger question, though, is how can one compare the customer service of one hosting company to another?
With many companies claiming to offer “unlimited” disk space and bandwidth, price becomes the only quantitative differentiator. But when your server is down and all you get on the phone is voicemail or clueless offshore call center, all of the sudden that $2/mo you saved doesn’t seem like all that great a value. Wouldn’t you agree?
it’s honestly a crap shoot at times. it’s just my personal opinion but BBB isn’t a reliable source for tech comparisons.
for example, with rick’s experience with dreamhost is a fringe-case. i’ve referred literally thousands of people there and they are doing great. but it takes one person who has a fringecase to file a complaint with bbb.
Actually that’s not the case. For instance Site5 (who I use now) gets an A- from the BBB (http://www.bbb.org/denver/business-reviews/internet-web-hosting/site5-in-denver-co-90103890) what’s nice about the BBB is they use a matrix to score and grade businesses. It’s neutral, ad opposed to just googling for “nightmare stories.” They don’t just take some ones word for it; they investigate, rate down town, look at how the company responds to issues, etc. I think most people view the BBB as much more trustworthy then random goggle searches.
Just thought I’d share. I wish I would have read BBB reviews before using Dreamhost. I would have learned there are lots of folks who had the exact same problem (and response by Dreamhost.)
BBB is bunk. i can’t believe you actually trust that organization for business rankings. you missed the point.
Hi John,
I heard about your blog from Susan (your sister-in-law and my sister) and have been learning some greats things about possibility delving into the world of blogging for profit. I blog for fun right now but am starting to get a consistent 1500 pageviews/day and thought it would be great to turn this into a hobby that pays.
I saw this post (20+ great hosting solutions for your new blog) and was wondering which site you’d recommend more: dreamhost or site5.
Thanks in advance for your advice!
Eun
if you’re starting out dreamhost might be a good place. easy to use and to start!
Hi,
I have just recently started a blog on computer games with my friend. We are using blogspot now, but are thinking of changing to WordPress soon. We’ve considered GoDaddy, that you recommend, but recent reviews online are terrible – it seems they often bill people for services they did not order, and often “steal” domains. Can you share your opinion on that one?
Now we are looking at iPage and that one seems a better deal (or at least more decent company). Any thoughts on that one?
BTW, since I am commenting for my first time: it is a very nice, and extremely useful blog. Thank you for your effort. And sorry for screwing your average time on site metrics – I simply can’t close that window
.
Regards,
Adam
adam,
don’t use godaddy. use some of the other ones.
Thanks. I’ve decided to use iPage and until now it’s fine. Not the fastest, but reasonably reliable and the support is great.
Cheers,
Adam
Hey John! I was wondering if you could tell me what you think of FatCow? I use them for hosting, but occasionally my server will slow way down – I’m thinking it’s a back end issue (lots of plugins), and not the hosting, but I’m not sure.
Thoughts?
never used them…
Question to John and anyone willing to answer: Our blog is a DIY blog that is growing pretty quickly and uses a LOT of pictures.
This week we’re making the move to WP and Standard Theme from Blogger. At the rate we are growing, in the next year we could easily have about 5000 page views per day and thousands more photos added. Will Blue Host or Dream Host still be OK, we really have no idea.
Thanks,
Ken and Jennifer
i think these are cheap places to start… but 5000 a day is awesome…! perhaps a bigger one like site5 or mediatemple…?
Yesterday I started the migration process from Blogger to WP. After reading some pretty negative reviews about Dream Host, I opted for Host Gator instead. That was a mistake.
I spent all day trying to get Host Gator’s Web Disk to work, among other things. After 12 hours of tweaking, re-tweaking, booting and re-booting, loading this and loading that; searching forums for info and submitting help tickets, Web Disk still would not work with Vista.
I then signed up with Dream Host, and in just over an hour everything worked with Standard Theme running!
wow! now this i love to hear!!!!!!!!!
Update: Dream Host is anything but a dream. My blog is off-line so much that I can only imagine how many visitors I’ve lost over the last few months. Today alone my blog has been down going on eight hours.
Time to go host shopping again. Anyone have any suggestions?
Site5 has been great for me the customer service even moved my site from dream host at no additional charge!
Eric, thanks so much. I I’ll look into Site5 right away.
sweet!!
We get around ~50,000 uniques a month, do you think site5 will still work well or should we go to media temple? Dreamhost keeps dying on us!
wow, that’s great! dv can scale on MT. site5 can do well too and can scale. dreamhost is too small for you now!
Eric, I love your site! Although I won’t be trying the SPAM sushi any time soon, I will be digging around in the vegetarian category.
serioulsy!
Hey John,
I just signed up with DreamHost using the TentBlogger promo and got a FREE URL for life… Thanks, man!
awesome! congrats!
Glad you gave Site5 a 9 because that’s what I purchased. I did research, but you still wonder if you got a decent one.
Hey John, What do you think about Servint and Liquid Web? A few really large blogs I visit use those two hosting companies.
I am launching a website with BuddyPress soon, I hope, and I was wondering whether to choose Site5 or Dreamhost? Thanks
i’d probably do site5.
Thanks John!