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DreamHost alternatives for Drupal developers?
June 8, 2007
I hope this is not a complete mis-use of our new Lullablog, but since I haven't yet gotten around to making a Drupal site of my own (sad...), and since this is related to Drupal development (I know of at least one other high-profile Drupal developer directly affected), this seemed like as good a place as any to post about it. :)
So for those who were not aware, 3,500 of DreamHost's FTP accounts were recently compromised, including yours truly's. Since I had a 14-character, mixed upper/lower/numeric/symbol password, and only ever connect via SSH/SFTP and never Telnet/FTP like some kind of n00b, I knew this had to be something stupid on their end. And it was. They're storing customer passwords in plain-text. Brilliant.
This being only the latest (and most egregious) in a string of incidents over the past couple years, I'm finally fed up and am ready to move. The question is... where?
DreamHost does have a lot going for it for someone like me: a geek with a few hobby sites and a bunch of half-finished development projects. Specifically, there are a few features that would be very difficult to live without:
- Runs Drupal. :P
- Unlimited MySQL databases ... a must for setting up sandboxes.
- Unlimited domains/subdomains ... I have something stupid like 30 domains.
- Unlimited SVN repositories
- SSH access
- PHP 5
- Ruby on Rails
- Misc. other languages; java, c, c++, python, perl...
- A unlimited e-mail aliases (including catch-alls, which I <3 for spam tracking)
- A bunch of storage space, which the e-mail addresses may take from freely
- IMAP
- Webmail
I don't really give a crap about the 800TB of data transfer and "One-click installs" and what not. Bleh.
Some features I wouldn't mind adding onto this:
- Anti-spam features for e-mail
- PostgreSQL
- Phone support
Some features I specifically don't want:
- Dedicated hosting/VPS: I don't have enough time in my day to worry about making sure the software on my web host is up-to-date; I want a host I can trust to handle that.
- 10,000 BAZILLION THINGS FOR $4 A YEAR!1!1 ... no GoDaddies, no 1and1s, none of that crap.
Since it's just for hobby projects I kind of don't want to pay more than $40 or so a month, but then again I'd also love to never have to move again, so I'm flexible.
How about it? Any suggestions? :) What are other Drupal developers using for their remote testing sites?
Comments on this post will automatically be closed three months from the original post date.
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What's your budget?
I use a company called A2B2 (www.a2b2.com) and have nothing but positive... err.. ness to say about them.
Their tech support is swift and polite. Their server (for me at least) is responsive and reliable (from home I usually have a 20ms ping to it).
As its a VPS, I can install whatever crap I want onto it. You get a choice of linux distro's to chose from. Dont wanna run full apache? Then dont - install or even compile your own from source.
My package I got provides me with (per month) 600Gb transfer, 15Gb HD (for OS, Apps and sites), 1Gb off-server (but same datacenter) FTP backup, 512Mb guaranteed RAM (burstable to 1Gb I think), 1 static IP and free reboots and reinstalls should I break anything. I pay about £18 (say about $40) a month for that. I can host as many site on it as I like (obviously within techinical resource limitations, eg RAM limit due to number of apache processes spawning, etc).
As for domains - I purchase a domain from 123-reg and point it at the server. Domains are piss cheap, a .co.uk is only £2.59 + VAT a year (about $6). I'm sure you guys know of cheap US based .com domain sources which you use.
To sum up - I recommend A2B2 to whoever I know. They're great. You can have a 1 month rolling contract OR you can have a 12 month where they offer you either a discount, double RAM or extra bandwidth or HD (I cant remember which).
I'm in the UK datacenter but they also have a US one too AFAIK.
They also have a sister site - www.cheapvps.co.uk - which is a little cheaper than A2B2, but they equipment is slightly lower end.
I hope this helps :-)
PS: Not sure about phone support - but their ticketing system is pretty good. You can upgrade your service from minimal support all the way up to complete support. Depends on budget.
PPS: Above, $ refers to US Dollars. I dont know what the £ to Canadian Dollar exchange rate is.
Webhosting
Well, I ended up running my own server after a lot of disappointments with shared hosting - so I can't really recommend a good host to you - I do have one piece of advice, however: Avoid MediaTemple.
I used them until 2006 where one of my sites suddenly got hit by a DDoS attack - where they without warning or any kind of information at all closed down my account and all associated domains (not just the one being DDoS'ed).
I only found out because a friend of mine called and told me that our website was down. And when I contacted MediaTemple to find out why I hadn't been informed at all, they told me my phone number was incorrect (which it wasn't) - why they hadn't bothered to send an email wasn't answered at all.
It was at that point I decided to be my own webhost...
ixwebhosting.com
I have DH, but I also have an account at ixwebhosting.com. They have provided good service and have understanding phone support for people like me. If you are looking for Java support you really narrow your search.
IXwebhosting...what to
IXwebhosting...what to say?....Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...Awful...
...Is that enough?
They moved locations and I was moved onto a server that went from zero downtime to downtime being measured in days while a friend of mine had zero downtime.
Needless to say I moved everything away from them.
Shocking Service.
Maybe JaguarPC?
I've been using JaguarPC's Gigadeal for a long time and recently set up some Drupal installations there as well without problems. They're cheap but not that cheap and for that price I think it could be worth checking out (I think they have money back guarantee).
You have to check with them for the "Unlimited SVN repositories", I'm not sure about that, otherwise they got all of you're other feature requests afaik. They also have their Semi Dedicated plan wich works like normal shared hosting, but far less accounts on one server for i higher price.
jaguarpc gets a big fat red F
I initiated an email conversation with their sales. They didn't bother to actually read the questions I put to them. What I got in reply was some nice knee jerk reactions and mild insults, which I just returned in kind along with a brief explanation as to why they won't be seeing a nickel out of me.
The responses were from an actual human and they were quick, but that's as far as the positive aspects go. I intend to avoid them like they're plague carriers and I suggest anyone else considering them do what I did - query them about the specific things you need from them first. It may very well keep you from getting burnt.
Site5
Site5.com has been a reliable and intelligent shared host solution for me for several years.
I have seen glowing reports and horror stories about Site5. In my own case, I now have 2 reseller accounts for their current special of US$140 / year.
They have the added bonus of SVN server and client installed (on one server it wasn't, but customer support put it in in a couple of hours). So you can use one domain, for example, as SVN server for your projects.
Their customer support is very good and personalized.
Their community forums are pretty good.
They have PHP5 and PHP4 installed (you can specify which in the .htaccess) so you can mix and match.
They seem to comply with what you want, even with their $5 / mo. special. (unlimited what-have-you).
The reseller accounts probably give you the most bang for the buck though.
They have fantastico, but I of course install Drupal by hand.
My experience has been consistently good over the years.
+1 on Site5
I manage a fleet of dedicated servers and 55 domains, but guess what? I don't want to deal with setting up sandbox/dev servers either and I still want that level of service.
After getting screwed by another cheapo ISP Donny Nyamweya recommended Site5. They had the service available immediately, gave a static IP, answer their phone and say they don't overcrowd their machines and indeed the box I'm on at least always has plenty to give.
I've got sandboxes galore there right now.
Note: While they have that $5/mo deal that's with a 2 year contract and for a goofy config. I just go month to month (no setup charge) and set up an account per project. That way we can mess around, give all the contractors full access to do their work and tear it down once dev is over and it's deployed to production servers.
Caveats: I have not had a real problem with them (yet), so I don't know how they are when there's an actual problem; I don't use their email, just sandboxing sites/modules.
Another +1 for Site5 Reseller
I've had a Site5 reseller account for about 7 months now and am pleased with the service. All the tools necessary, servers aren't oversold, tech support inquiries (ticketing) get a response within 15 minutes and resolutions not too long thereafter.
Another +1 for site5
been using site5 for about a year for a few small sites and my personal sandbox. I've had no problems using many domains, many databases, etc... All of their maintenance and any downtime was accompanied by plenty of communication and advanced notice. Overall I've been very happy with them, especially for the ~$100 a year I pay.
I agree on Site5
I'm a current Dreamhost client who is also moving to Site5, but not because of the ftp debacle. Dreamhost is just too slow on the mysql end. One day everything would work fine and the next day, all my Drupal sites would crawl or be totally offline. Every time I complained, things would get "fixed" but then the problem would return a few days later.
I've already moved one account to Site5 (www.5seasonsbrewing.com) and queries are running almost 100 times faster. The website is quite snappy now. I've heard a few horror stories about Site5 but they have been quite old. Nothing lately, and in fact, Site5 is moving to the top of some web rating sites. They seem to have everything needed for full Drupal support and they have PHONE SUPPORT. yay!
-1 on Site5
We had a number of sites shut down by them. They claimed the sites were using excessive resources ... even a Drupal 4.7 site that had 146 hits that day. Their servers were oversold and often had astronomical server loads. Talking to their tech support was like talking to a traffic cop. With page load times in the bottom 25% according to Alexa, we picked up and moved everything last year. Shared hosting is just not worth the headaches. You're not saving anything, especially if your business is on the web.
Interesting experience
Your review of Site5 matches some I've read from a year ago. When did you leave?
On the other hand, most experiences within the past 6 months have been positive.
I wonder how much of this goes to new accounts going on new, more powerful servers vs. older accounts that are stuck on ancient equipment?
Plus, we all know that every hosting business goes through overgrowth and adjustment periods.
I'd love to hear if you know of anyone else with current Site5 problems.
I use site5 too and I have a
I use site5 too and I have a small drupal 5.x website which average ~1000 page hits per day. The site was shutdown for 4 times in April, due to excessive use of CPU resource. However, I am glad that site5 each time notified me promptly and reactivate the website in a few hours upon request. So I am still using site5 because of their quick response and willingness to work with me on the problem.
I do wonder why a small drupal site would consume 60%-70% CPU resource at times. Is it something with drupal itself? I tried to narrow down the problem by disabling different blocks/functions. Looks like everything goes fine after I disabled drupal search.module and use google search instead. After that my site has been running smoothly for 2 months. I am not sure if search.module was the problem, but it seems to have solved my problem. (knocking wood...)
BTW: Another thing I like site5 is their multi-site plan. Each domain has its own control area, so I can easily grant full admin access to co-maintainers.
-1 on Site5 for me too
I had recommended Site5 to a friend building a drupal site about a year ago. I have some sites on Site5 and have found that the management UI is great compared with others I have used. But, the experience for my friend was far different. His Site5 server crashed. They were able to fix it the first time, but it crashed again!! This time, the backups were corrupted, and everything was lost -- EVERYTHING! The note from Site5 said: 'Unfortunately, after several rounds of integrity checking it was discovered that the backups for oracle are corrupt and unusable.' OUCH! And, since my friend hadn't been saving everything locally on his machine, he's had to recreate everything from scratch.
Plus, I've found the same thing as you, when I run 'uptime' from the shell, the load averages returned are really high.
I'm working on a new Drupal site now which I expect to have a decent traffic load, and I've decided to go with Pair.com. They've been around forever, claim to be hosting 190,000 websites, and are very reliable. Here's the current 'uptime' from my Pair server: "up 155 days, 11:55, 1 user, load averages: 0.66, 0.90, 0.87". They cost a little more than the many many "everything for nothing" hosts, but the reliability is worth it for me. I've got a Drupal (4.7) site I've had on Pair for more than a year and it's been flawless.
+1 PAIR.com
Before getting my own box I had used PAIR.com for years. Solid service, the boxes were not overloaded and the support was good. They have added phone support for many account levels but I never had to use it. They aren't the cheapest folks but they are solid.
Another for Site5
I've spent way too much time looking into this as well. In addition to shared hosting accounts at various other places I have a couple of site5 accounts and have been just as pleased with them as any other shared hosting company. I have not been able to find a company that provides the same combination of features and reliability for anywhere near the price.
+1 for site5
I have had quite a good experience with the site5 reseller packages.
yes indeed another +1 for site5
I've been with site 5 for a while now and have there multisite deal, very impressed with all they offer. As shared hosts go it's the best experience I've ever had.
uptime is good, preformance is good, features are great, technical support is great and fast...
I love em.
They also have a blog and a community forum and stuff like that which is also nice from a shared host (gives em a personality).
No theme song though to my knowledge :(
-1 for Site5.... err... make it -10!
I also use a reseller account on site5.
After too many down-times and extremely heavy loads on the servers (ran uptime and got crazy, legendary loads of +410 !!), I finally got in touch with someone who explained to me why it is like that:
They promised us many times that this is the last time, and they even announced a cooperation with another big hosting company, but nothing happened.
They DO have great support - quick and efficient, but when all your (and your customers') sites are down, you begin to ask yourself if the great support doesn't only cover for terrible infrastructure.
WebHostingTalk Forums
Angie,
I have been right where you are now. Disappointed and really concerned about stability and support of a shared hosting provider. I have hosted with about 4 shared hosting companies over the years with many problems each time before realizing that Linux VPS was the way to go. VPS may not be for you, because you have to take on the responsibility of manging the server.
Check out WebHostingTalk Forums at http://www.webhostingtalk.com/. This site is very active and you can get a good consensus on a hosting company's reputation, quality and value. This site is also a great place for support questions.
Thanks,
Mark
WebSiteSource
I've been using WebSiteSource's shared hosting for quite some time now. No SVN, unlimited DB or RoR there though. The main reason for choosing this ISP was that it has dedicated anti-DDoS firewalls (some fancypants Cisco hardware). That has saved my site multiple times now!
Recently I switched to a VPS from WebSiteSource. They use HSPComplete for the control panel, which kind of forces you to use the built-in Apache (2.0), PHP (4) and MySQL (4.1). Fortunately, since it's a VPS, you can simply install XAMPP and get rid of all of that. It takes 5 minutes to install that. You may want to tweak the XAMPP settings though, since it's optimized for local usage, not for production web servers.
512 MB guaranteed RAM, burstable to 2GB, 10 GB space, 300 GB traffic, 35 USD/month (if you pay for 2 years, 40 USD if you pay for one year).
Performance, uptime and support are good, control panel could've been better.
Glad I moved from Dreamhost
Glad I moved from Dreamhost to a dedicated server before this happened, I would have been pissed.
I don't get it why you can see in plain text sub account passwords in the Dreamhost web panel, this screams security hole in my head, at some point the password is unencrypted (*IF* it is even encrypted on the server side within Dreamhost's web panel). I never agreed with the notion where you can see passwords in this manner, it is convenient however in my opinion insecure, if a user forgets their password or for any reason needs to see their password, a password reset procedure should be followed, and not some sort of password retrieval where you can actually see the actual password in plain text on the website.
That's my two cents anyways, tell me if I'm wrong.
Plain-text passwords in Dreamhost Web Panel
Ahhhh!!! I know, I don't like that! Why do they do that?
Drupal and Hosting
Angie,
I agree with Mark about the Webhostingtalk forum being a good place for opinions. Though they may not be aware of the full requirements for Drupal so you may need to add one more thing to your list. As you know, you likely not only need to ask for unlimited quanity of database but make sure they give the database privileges you need. If you're talking budget hosting for your sites...you'll be surprised that not everyone offers you CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES and LOCK TABLES.
I've recommended a VPS for Drupal (link to my blog) VPS and although a little more work...less worries. Lately though, I've been playing with Drupal via a cheap shared hosting account and wrote about it recently. It's a challenge...but so far so good.
I'm curious as to what you folks recommend for your clients? I've only designed for a couple Drupal sites for others and just put them on my VPS since they were low traffic. It seems to me, that it's very easy to recommend a hosting plan for Drupal that either is overkill or not enough.
Shared hosting
I had dreamhost and I hated it. I tracked it with http://mon.itor.us and it would always give slow response times. I have since moved to site5 and love them. There tech support is awesome too. I high recommend them.
Open Source Host
I have used http://www.opensourcehost.com/ for an extended period of time. They are Drupal friendly. In addition they actively contribute back to the open source community and will give 10% of your hosting fees to the open source project of your choice https://www.opensourcehost.com/mos452/content/view/32/53/ .
Hosting
We are using an hostgator.com reseller account for all our Drupal projects.
They offer a lot of packages to fit your needs.
Charlie
OCS Solutions
We're using a smaller host http://www.ocssolutions.com for our drupal church website.
One thing that stood out about them was that they were one of the 1st ones a few years ago to support PHP5, MySQL5, SVN, and Rails, and have SSH shell access.
I've been very impressed by their technical support - always 10 minute response time, even at 3am with having to move my SVN repository around to get it working.
They don't have gobs of space, but they are very tech friendly, which is worth more IMO.
Steve T.
Site5 or Mosso ...
Hi
I currently have about 25 sites at site5, spread across all thier servers, about 2/3 are Drupal sites, all get under 2000 visits a day, most just a few hundred visits.
and yesterday was the first time I had any real trouble. One of the servers ( Morias 91% uptime, ouch ) lost a drive apparently and it took about 15 hrs to restore. Bummer, but it actually went rather smooth to get things back up and running, just way way too long. I had two clients on that box, and got a few calls.
I have been doing a lot of searching and it seems so far on the semi expensive side MOSSO is very attractive, and on the very reasonable side, site5 , even with the few issues I have had, and they have one other server ( Detmer )with 2 different clients that seems to go offline often, is where I am staying so far.
The pros outweigh the cons by a wide margin.
Uptime link for site 5 servers.
http://www.site5.com/support/uptime.php
MOSSO
http://www.mosso.com/pricing.jsp
BK
PS
Keep those wonderful podcasts rolling along, thanks!
This comparison just about says it all
I've got one Drupal site on Dreamhost and an almost identical Drupal site on Site5.
Check out this comparison from mon.itor.us:
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l56/zoon_unit/Dreamhosttest.jpg
The graph on the left is Dreamhost, the graph on the right, Site5. Make note that the scales of the graphs are different. Pay particular attention to the avg access time in ms. The Site5 website is well over 11 times faster. (and this is only one day, I've had much worse problems with Dreamhost in the past)
+1 for WebFaction
By far the best customer support I've ever seen.
Their servers seem very stable and their Drupal installer is even open source !
The only thing that's missing from your requirements is phone support but whenever I've had a question I've always received a response within a few minutes.
Media Temple
Hi,
I used Dreamhost in the past. Same issues. Since a few months I moved some sites (e.g. this Drupal-based one http://www.office20user.com/) to Media Template (http://mediatemple.net/).
Control panel looks nice. Rater cheap. I do get the improssion that the site is sometimes slow. Might be related to the limited number of visitors.
Frederik
HostMonster
I've used HostMonster since I started with Drupal last year, and I have two friends that use HostMonster for Drupal, and we've all been pleased with their service. I got a good price, and they are very responsive whenever you have issues or questions. They have just about everything you mentioned (as far as I can tell).
I found this in drupal.org
I found this in drupal.org forums, http://www.webmasters.com/web_hosting.htm. Looks nice, but no SSH
Webmasters.com
I'd long maintained a site on Webmasters.com and eventually convinced the site owners to let me Drupalize their site. To my surprise, Webmasters.com handles Drupal pretty well. The lack of SSH is sorrowful, but, on the whole the site runs well.
You do have to watch out for mod_security. See http://drupal.org/node/139267 and http://drupal.org/node/131941 .
mlsamuelson
High CPU usage by Drupal
I have been using Drupal for one of my sites called
100rupees.com
The problem I faced is high cpu usage by drupal scripts. This causes supension of my hosting account. Greater the modules on the site, more will the chances of exceeding the cpu usage limit. Now I have changed my hosting to hostgator.com. But I am still in suspence whether my this move will be better for my drupal powered website.
Host Gator and Media Temple
I've been with Media Temple for about a year now and I'm really happy with their service. I gave DreamHost a hard look. But they obviously over-sell their services. And, I didn't want to hear "you get what you pay for" from someone once the sites went down.
I am also with HostGator (http://hostgator.com). I really like their plans and their service is good. HostGator is supposed to be the new "DreamHost" according to some web forums.
Nate's host
No one had mentioned my host yet, so I thought I'd chip-in here also.
I'm using a2hosting.com.
I think of them as a host for experienced developers. They always keep their PHP and mySQL on the cutting stable versions. As well, they offer various features which many other hosts don't offer: SSH, Ruby on Rails, CVS, SVN, Trac, SSL certificates, and other things most people don't use but I find indispensable.
I've never had extensive trouble (which should say something), but during minor issues their email support has been very quick. I moved from Lunarpages about a year ago, and have been thrilled with the superior experience on A2.
Conclusion
Hi Angie,
I was wondering if you have reached a conclusion based on these and other suggestions.
Is there any host that you would recommend?
It seems that finding reliable, affordable (say $15 - $40 US dollar bracket), professional hosting for Drupal sites, while keeping maintanance tasks low, is something that is much sought after.
Please let us know what you decide
Hey Angie,
I was glad to see this discussion because I was about to change from 1and1 to dreamhost and at least now I have some more information and other companies to check out to make a more informed decision.
Please let us know who you decide to go with. Who are the other lullabots using for their hosting services.
Dan
Read about Drupal hosting
Some of you might find interesting an article about Drupal Hosting at themegarden.org.
Affiliate links
You really should disclose that most, if not all, of your links have "affiliate" written all over them and you're probably making money with your recommendations. It's standard practice to disclose this or else one's reputation suffers a hit. Please practice FULL disclosure. Thank you.
+1 for full disclosure
Common practice.
-1 for mediatemple
-1 for media's shared gridserver hosting. At the beginning it was fine, but for the past couple of months my sites have been obscenely slow.
@Angie, have you decided anything? Please post a followup when you get a chance. We're eager to hear.
PAIR dot COM
I have been quite happy with pair.com for about eight years now.
I'll second a -1 for (mt) also - vitualization doesn't have to mean slowwww.
MyriadNetwork Anyone?
I have heard excellent things about MyriadNetwork, as well as HostDime. Anyone here with experience with these hosts?
Better coupon for
Better coupon for dreamhost.com
TRY90 will give 90$ off when signing up for 1 or 2 year hosting plans
dreamhost does ok
Dreamhost is slow but then again its shared hosting..
I use my account for testing and svn and a bunch of other non essential stuff..
Things promise to look a bit better soon with dreamhost private servers. You pay more but you can get isolated CPU
http://dreamhostps.com is the link.
dreamhost promo code LESS97 will save you $97 off sign up ..
Shared hosting that allows secure configurations?
I might be the "other high-profile Drupal developer directly affected" Angie mentioned to in her original post... ;) I, too, have been suffering on dreamhost for over 1.5 years now, and am actively seeking alternatives.
I just signed up at site5, partially based on all the glowing reviews here, but I've immediately run into a rather major failing of their regular hosting plan -- there's no way to configure it securely. :( In particular, you only get 1 shell user, and the httpd processes for all of your domains run as that same user. So, it's impossible to configure sites on site5 such that they don't have write access to themselves, which is a pretty fundamental security precaution.
I created a ticket with their (supposedly ultra-responsive) tech support to ask if/how it was possible to securely configure my sites on their servers. I asked this:
Over a day later, I got the following reply:
Huh? "advanced access rights" like "don't let httpd write to the source files that httpd is executing" requires a dedicated hosting solution? WTF?
For all of dreamhosts (MANY) failings, at least they made this particular problem easy to solve, even on their ultra cheap plan. You can make as many shell users as you want, and for each domain or subdomain you host there, you just select what shell user you want httpd to run as, what version of php you want, etc, etc. So, all of my domains run as different users, and none of them run as the users that own the underlying files.
hostmonster wants me to fax them a copy of my drivers license before i even get shell access at all. I'm assuming they don't let you solve this problem, either. No thanks.
So, does anyone know of a hosting company that:
A) Lets you configure your sites securely so they don't have write access to themselves,
B) Isn't dreamhost,
C) Gives you decent space and functionality without costing too much?
None of my sites are particularly high traffic, though I need a lot of space and bandwidth (sound files, etc -- i'm a musician).
So far my efforts at finding a new home have failed. I *really* don't want to go back to being a sysadmin again on a VPS, I just wish it wasn't so hard to get basic security from a shared hosting account. Ugh.
a2hosting also fails this test
a2hosting's tech support replied to a similar inquiry:
Great, so every site at a2hosting runs as the same user. Granted, that user ordinarily doesn't have many rights, but just pray your code doesn't rely on anything in /tmp. :(
More info: hostgator and inmotion both fail
After yet more tech/sales support inquries, I finally got the news from 2 other possible hosting providers:
Another big 'no thanks' to both of the above... *sigh*
Looks like I either get to stick with dreamhost's terrible performance and support, swallow my concerns about having my files directory world-writable so 'nobody' can attach files to it, or pay 4-10 times as much $$ and then spend a few hours a week as my own sysadmin on a VPS. Joy.
dww, these followups you're
dww, these followups you're posting are invaluable. Thanks for helping get these questions answered.
VPS or dedicated is the way
VPS or dedicated is the way to go. I can't imagine going back to managed hosting.
Angie, feel free to participate ;)
Looks like your readers were super helpful with lots of suggestions. Its your turn again.
Who did you decide to go with, what were the findings of your own research?
Used code TRYMAX , gives max
Used code TRYMAX , gives max discount + 2 free life long domain registration + 1 free unique IP
Anybody tried Drupal Value Hosting ?
Hi,
Any has tried Drupal Value Hosting ?
Is it as fast as they claim ?
Thanks.
Interested in knowing who you chose for hosting
Angie,
I'm also interested in knowing how the hosting change turned out. Please let us know.
Curious minds want to know
Many of us are in a similar situation. What host did you decide upon?
Two additional options
Hi Angie,
I've been looking for a Dreamhost replacement due to the poor MySQL response times and these are two options that look promising.
http://www.slicehost.com/
http://www.webfaction.com/
Yeah! Update please
I'd love to know who you ended up with. I went with Site5 back in October 07 and now am having a ton of problems and I'm not even running Drupal ;-) with them.
Hostgator
Been using hostgator for a while..works great, and love their support:
Found some current Hostgator Coupon Codes to save some cash when signing up: 1. “jury” - $9.94 OFF 2. “webhostingunleashed” - $9.94 OFF 3. “hgc25? - $9.94 OFF
Enjoy the savings!
License test
"hostmonster wants me to fax them a copy of my drivers license before i even get shell access at all. I'm assuming they don't let you solve this problem, either. No thanks."
I think that all of them what to send them a copy of your driver's license test that is obligatory.
Crazy info! Thanks for
Crazy info! Thanks for sharing, dont stop writing!
Right now I am trying out
Right now I am trying out www.slicehost.com. I have not generated an opinion, however I can tell you it's real, full-featured VPS.
I'm not used to running a server from scratch like this, so from a security standpoint I'm kind of curious...
I use cron to notify me
I use Slicehost and am running an Ubuntu Gutsy server. I have a cron job set up that runs an
apt-get upgrade --simulate upgradecommand and emails me the results. This will do a dry run of an upgrade on the current version (which shows you the available security updates). This way I can see what will change and then go in and do the apt-get manually when I have time - I'd rather not have it updated things on its own.I'm sure there are fancier, more sophisticated scripts you could use but this one works well for me and I have kept everything up to date easily. Of course, if you compile things yourself then you need to check the security notification methods available for the software and make sure you keep track of them as well. I've pretty much stuck with Ubuntu distro stuff so that I don't have to deal with that extra hassle.
Go with VPS
I know you said no VPS but its by far the way to go. I'm was so sick of all the junk that happens on shared hosting that I made the switch. I found this Linode Review helpful and ended up switching to them. I've discovered it was way easier than I thought and I spend less time maintaining it than I did on shared (since w/ shared I was always having to figure out what was killing the CPU or memory usage). I say go for it - just switch to VPS!
see this article.. Drupal
see this article..
Drupal 5.x slow on dreamhost no more!
Mosso/CloudServers
Mosso is the 'new kid on the block' for a number of us - I have been using Site5 for a good while with impressive stability (remember - this is shared hosting). I have been using Mosso / Rackspace Cloud and I can say that it offers lots of flexibility and control since you get your own server slice and do not have to worry about what the next guy is running. This is much like VPS hosting or dedicated servers with the advantage of scalability within minutes (much like 45 seconds).
The cloud servers are not for the completely faint of heart since you get a blank server and you have to install Linux and setup a LAMP server stack before running Drupal. But it is much simpler than attempting to do the same on Amazon EC2. However, once setup, you can backup and then replicate the LAMP stack or event he drupal setup as a template across multiple server-instances
Hostpc
I use hostpc.com for most of my drupal sites. Including some blog aggregator that use extensive cpu power. Happy so far. Some of my sites include mustwatchvideos.com and clipped.in
All my problems finished
All my problems finished when I discovered clook, their service and package is flawless!
Recomendations
Does anyone, Angie or otherwise, have any recommendations for sites that have a lot of content and downloads? I have a Visual Basic 6 Download site that has a bunch of articles, tutorials, and source downloads. I love using Drupal for it but I always had trouble with shared hosting. I now use a VPS but I'm curious if others found a different solution.
only hosting company Ive ever moved to from a hosting company i
The only hosting company Ive ever moved to while being hosted at a host that i was happy with.
i recommend http://jbservers.net
Usually I move hosts when the hassle of moving outweighs the lack of service at my present hosting company.
Jbservers.net is the only hosting company i have ever made the move TO when i was other wise happy with my current host. The reason. Direct support from people who know what they are doing. no "your ticket has been passed on to our technical team" responses.
Drupal needed 96M for something, one support ticket and the memory was bumped to 128M.
really good.
They take the hassle out of it.
SHOCKING service with JBservers.net
I have just had a domain stolen while with JBservers.net, instead of opting to help me out and even explain how it could happen they chose to stop replying to support tickets and even to close others with no explanations, just closed them.
That was the final straw for me and I am now looking for another host.
Shocking service after being with them for around two years. So things are obviously bad at JBservers, so beware!