My contract with bluehost is about to expire,(has been a good experience, but) wondering if anyone has any recomendations about a really good host company they may be using. Disk storage, bandwidth, good support, fast loading of video. Or any stayaway warnings. I am going to shop around for the next few days.

I use yahoo small business to host and build my website. Check it out and see if it fits your needs.

I use pair.com Thier customer service is second to none, and that includes any customer service I am in contact with.

I have several sites with godaddy.com - no problems so far. Good e-mail customer service, fast load times (both up and down), plenty features and very affordable.

I am going to do some comp shopping and investigate the leads you guys posted. I checked out some of your sites Nice.

try 1and1.com, they offer amazing value.

I've had several sites hosted by maxipoint (http://w3.maxipointservers.net/web/home.html) over the past few years. I have experienced very little down time with this host. They offer 100mb of storage with unlimited bandwidth. The cost is only $3.95 a month with free domain registration. Their support is good and I usually get pretty fast responses from them.

Might be worth a look,
Vance Van Patten

For 3 bucks you'll get 100GB of space at 1&1 which really blows 100mb away.

Be careful. I'm not targeting any particular webhost, but sometimes the customer service is worth the extra cost or lack of space. When you have a problem with your site you need a company that will be there for you. Check on the support and make sure before signing up with anyone.

Ben

You absolutely can't beat 1&1 for bandwidth and drive space. They're a great choice for hosting video.

However, they have things locked down tight, so while they support ASP.NET, I've run into a lot of restrictions for some of my more complex sites. I'm moving those over to a dedicated server, but still keeping my 1&1 account to host large files, and for the superb email spam filtering.

I only have 6days left to decide. I have had great customer service at blue host, but a lower cost and unlimited band width at 1&1 is pretty tempting.

After looking at the 1&1 link that Patrick posted, looks like I'm probably going to be changing hosts. Looks like they offer most everything you need to run a website and for a better price than I am getting with my current host.

Thanks for the head-up Patrick,
Vance

Patrick is right, I've experimented with different hosting companies and 1and1 offers incredible value for the price. I also like ipowerweb since they offer 750 GB of bandwith, although they are pricier than 1and1, great support though.

Definately go with 1and1. they offer 2 domain names, 1 gig of storage and 1 terabyte of bandwidth, you should be able to stream video and music and anything else you want. Check em out. www.1and1.com (http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=13337216)

sorry, double post

Take a second and look at this link...
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=117303.0

It is VERY eyeopening info about choosing your hosting company!
It is from the Simple Machines Forum support forum.

We love lunarpages -- who recently upgraded their packages:

# FREE Domain Name For Life
# UNLIMITED MySQL Databases
# 35000 Megabytes Storage
# 800 Gigabytes Data Transfer
# E-Commerce
# Blog, Forum & Photo Gallery
# Microsoft® Frontpage® Compatible
# Spam Protection
# Includes 1 Addon Domain

Definately go with 1and1. they offer 2 domain names, 1 gig of storage and 1 terabyte of bandwidth, you should be able to stream video and music and anything else you want. Check em out. www.1and1.com (http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=13337216)

I'm late to the party I suppose, but my current host is Surpasshosting.com. The supprot is all online (so if you need a person to call and yell at DO not choose them unless you go dedicated or something super expensive that ($75 /month for lowest Celeron dedicated box)

A performance factor to consider is the amount of PHP / Perl / MySQL usage you will need. The reason being that if you operate a fancy gallery software with many frequent visiters, that can spike your CPU / DB usage and take down the server for the other 300 web sites on that server. Yep. Shared hosting means you and 300 other sites are on the same computer. At surpass you can bump up to a reseller for double ($15/month). They also have a sale starting Nov ONLY where resellers / shared hosts get double storage (20GB) & bandwidth (500GB/month).

As far as support goes, the support has been very responsive and I haven't had a problem unresolved (yet). They have a very active message board for questions and I use it a lot to help, and be helped.

jason

I just had to comment.....YES 1and1 are AMAZING so long as you live in the USA or Canada! I'm in the UK and and the equivilant package here compared to the US is woeful.

USA gets 5Gb space us mugs in the UK get 250Mb
USA gets 250Gb traffic we get 3Gb

Anybody no anyone else that doesn't have country restrictions and offers a good service for not a lot of money (I'm Scottish....every penny is a prisoner!!!!!!)

Try Liberated Syndication ( www.libsyn.com ). They have unlimited bandwidth, and they are very highly recommended by podcasters.

http://www.lunarpagescoupons.net/?gclid=CLXeo4bBuogCFT6DGgodhHGA0w

I think I'm going to go with Lunar especially as I found this site that offers $55 dollars in savings. Anybody got any last words of wisdom?

I'm hosted on LunarPages and they've been solid for me and a fair price. The couple of times I had a problem they were very quick (within a couple hours) at getting a response to me.

Ben

Same guy that does the lunarpagescoupons site also does this one for ipowerweb. I can confirm it's legit, and you DO get your cash.

http://www.ipowerwebcoupons.net/

Do not use netfirms because their customer service is awful.

Customers and potential clients have not been able to download video from my site for over a week.

Another vote for 1and1....I've been very happy with them.

I hear that thier customer support is excellent, although I have yet to need them.

Bob T.

I'll have to 2nd godady.com. They have great customer support over the web or on the phone as well as great good prices. I was really impressed with them when I ran into some frontpage upload problems which they walked me thru and got everything up and running smoothly.

Okay, I may be looking for a new place as well. I have Ipower right now, and they just made this big switch to a new hosting platform (whatever that means. . .I'm not tecchy when it comes to web design). What I DO know is that I can't edit my site the same way anymore (their new platform doesn't support the old web creation/edit tool--now I'm relegated to a html text editor only!), and they can't transfer its contents to one of the new tools. So I either have to edit in html text, or start from scratch, which to me, seems retarded. So I might jump ship if a new company can simply transfer the site as is.

Yes, I know my site is VERY simple, and would be fairly easy to rebuild, but what if it weren't? What if I had an uber complex site that was now virtually uneditable?

GoDaddy's Superbowl ad turned my stomach, and I was leaning toward dumping them. Then I found out that I had my web site had gone over the size limit. I deleted the extra file, but they penalized me $75. They would not wave it, so I am gone.

I'm finding there are plenty of better deals out there anyway.

I'll have to 2nd godady.com. They have great customer support over the web or on the phone as well as great good prices. I was really impressed with them when I ran into some frontpage upload problems which they walked me thru and got everything up and running smoothly.

As someone who used to work at GD in several departments and DIDN'T leave on bad terms, STAY AWAY FROM GODADDY.


1. Their servers run in safe mode and do not allow true streaming video

2. Your data will magically revert back a week or two on occasion (a sign of a data loss or server crash)

3. It's uncommon to get a knowledgeable person on the phone

It's basically a large boiler room type operation where the upsell is more important than fixing your issue. Good prices aren't everything.

I still host with Godaddy only because they are too stupid to bill me anymore, 3 years now....

Good to know. Can you describe this stomach-turning ad? Having created my new site in Iweb, I am less pissed off then I was when I made my posting, since all I have to do to fix another such issue is reupload. Granted, it would take several hours if starting from scratch.

As someone who used to work at GD in several departments and DIDN'T leave on bad terms, STAY AWAY FROM GODADDY.


1. Their servers run in safe mode and do not allow true streaming video

2. Your data will magically revert back a week or two on occasion (a sign of a data loss or server crash)

3. It's uncommon to get a knowledgeable person on the phone

It's basically a large boiler room type operation where the upsell is more important than fixing your issue. Good prices aren't everything.

I still host with Godaddy only because they are too stupid to bill me anymore, 3 years now....

Wow, good to know. I probably pay too much for my pair.com accounts, but their customer service is excellent. They are quick, and I mean quick to respond to questions, or that occasional, doh, I forgot my login. hehe.

Good to know about godaddy, considering the amount of advertising they do to the 'general public' you wonder if they could or would specialize for people with special needs like us. Just thinking outloud.

Go Pair.com If you switch to pair, tell them I sent you, I get a free dinner with Donald Trump or something.

I hosted with pair for a couple years and I have to agree, they are top notch in many areas.

I'm trying out HostMonster. It rates pretty well...we'll see.

This is a great thread - should be posted/mirrored in "Taking Care of Business". Glad DVinfo has a search function.

Thanks for contributing - I'll check out all your recommendations too.

that annoyed the crap out of me when I was working for a client on their site (hosted through GD). Nothing is available by default unless you "subscribe" not buy. Everything is a leased add-on. Want an SSL cert. More $$. Want subdomains? More $$. Want web stats? More $$. Major pain in the butt. Their admin interface is entirely designed to steer you into the upsell, not provide efficient access to control of your account.

I use Yahoo! but am looking to switch to Bludomain. How is everyone's experience with them? Their sites look great and the prices are good too.

This is a really interesting question. There are vast amounts of sites out there that will compare these hosts, but if you're looking for budget shared hosting sites to stream your media, I'd recommend LunarPages or BlueHost as their speeds for streams are much higher, and they balance their shared hosting users much better than some of the other guys (godaddy & 1&1). I've had them all at one point, and now I only have LunarPages (shared), some VPSs, and some dedicated servers.

If you guys just need budget hosting, 1&1 isn't bad, although you are treated as a customer #, so just be aware you getting what you pay for.

GoDaddy's Superbowl ad turned my stomach, and I was leaning toward dumping them. Then I found out that I had my web site had gone over the size limit. I deleted the extra file, but they penalized me $75. They would not wave it, so I am gone.

I'm finding there are plenty of better deals out there anyway.

GoDaddy based their business model on the up sell. Basic space & domain may be cheap, but it comes with NOTHING. Everything else is an upsell, and not cheap. Be wary of the upsell.

but if you're looking for budget shared hosting sites to stream your media, I'd recommend LunarPages or BlueHost as their speeds for streams are much higher, and they balance their shared hosting users much better than some of the other guys (godaddy & 1&1).

I use Lunarpages as well, and they've been just great for the past 6-7 months I've been using them. Just thought I'd throw that in.