Affordable Shared, VPS and DS Hosting Provider Reviews

There are endless hosting solutions out there with endless options for you to choose from. The most common question that I get on e-mail is what I recommend for hosting. Beginners usually look for shared hosting providers and the more advanced users usually ask for Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a Dedicated Server (DS) hosting providers. This month alone, I've had about 10 colleagues writing me, and so I figured it's time to put that forwarded e-mail into a post. I will only write about the hosting providers I have personal experience with and I take absolutely no responsibility for anything written here. If  you're serious about finding a web hosting solution, then you should look around and read other people's reviews.

Virtual Private and Dedicated Servers

Over here, I only have one review, which I've so far been very happy with - Hostforweb. If you're looking for an affordable VPS/DS solution, I strongly suggest you give them a try :

• Cost: VPS start from 40US$ a month and DS starts from 130US$ (less if you pay for a year in advance), payable through Paypal.
• Includes : All I needed from my VPS/DS provider, but you should check their specs to see that they meet your requirements. I believe they're the best value for money out there.
• Pros : Greatest support I got so far, fast servers.
• Cons : There must be some, I just haven't found them yet.
• Coupons : "hfwsaleoffer" will get you 5% off any account type.

Shared hosting

Please note : I strongly recommend that if you're running more than a small-size Drupal/Joomla/full-CMS site (1000+ pageviews) that you completely skip the shared hosting solutions and go straight to low-end VPS. It will save you time, effort and eventually money.

I will start from the end. For a shared hosting provider I use and recommend Anhosting, which is the low-end offers of Midphase. Here's some general information (August 2007):

• Cost : 6.95$ a month if you sign-up for one year.
• Includes : more-than-you-need everything.
• Pros : Relatively OK CPU/RAM restrictions. Support with on-line chat and 24x7 on-call. Support has shown an okay response time and have usually been supportive and knowledgeable. Great value for money.
• Cons : Uptime is not 99%, but that also true for other shared host providers. Some ISPs from some countries, like 012 in Israel, suffer extremely slow access to Anhosting's servers - I have absolutely no idea why, so check access to Anhosting from your country.
• Coupons (till the end of 2007) : ANHOST911 for 2 months off, GOTAPEX-ROX-BIG-DISCOUNT for 3 months off.

Next up is Siteground. I'll put it plain and simple - I recommend against Siteground and I've had some unpleasant experiences with them not meeting what their sales promised, BUT - they do have a few pros worth mentioning:

• Cost : 6US$ a month if you sign-up for one year.
• Includes : more than you need storage and bandwidth, but only one domain pointer.
• Pros : The fastest e-mail support I've seen. You'll get the first reply within minutes, giving you a detailed answer or notifying you of when they'll respond later. The support seems to be very professional. Sites do have impressive uptime figures.
• Cons : One domain pointer only, no room for more than one site. Insane account restrictions, like - PHP timeout is set unbelievably low so you're going to experience PHP timeouts alot and it's extremely frustrating when using their CPANEL/mySQL import-export. Support interface is extremely limited and frustrating.
• Coupons : Talk to sales and tell them you're a Drupal user. They have some months off or discount for those.

Next up is Dreamhost, which I believe almost everybody knows one way or another. Once again - I recommend against them as I've found their service to be extremely frustrating. Personally, I can't work with an only e-mail support that replies after more than 24 hours :

• Cost : 8US$ a month if you sign up for two years. 10US$ for one-year sign-ups.
• Includes : Yep, all you'll ever need. A different interface than the usual CPANEL.
• Pros : Hmm.... they provide SSH-shell?
• Cons : I can't work with their e-mail support. Uptime is bad, sites are relatively slow (different servers for DB and web, I'm told). Relatively expensive.
• Coupons : If you must... NODREAMHOST will give you up to 97US$ off their two-year price.

I've also worked for a short while with Lunarpages, Startlogic and Hostaga that some of my clients were running, but aside from saying that I was able to run basic PHP applications there, there's not much I can say. You might want to check them out, though.

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If you've got any more questions or comments on those or on the topic, I'm interested. Good luck with finding your hosting provider.