Looking for the (hosting) needle in the (web) haystack
Last weekend I have searched for a hoster for my own stuff. As hosting is a commodity I thought that would be easy. But I was wrong. Even though there are probably thousands of hosters out there I haven’t found an offer that fits my needs yet. And my needs are rather modest:
- shared hosting (I am too lazy to administrate an own server *g*)
- PHP5
- one domain with subdomains
- some MySQL 5 databases
- 1 GB disk space
- Subversion (optional)
- the contract should just run out if I don’t want to extend it
I wonder why all hosters I visited only offer some predefined packages, and no way to configure your own package. That would be really practical :) Does one of my readers know such a hoster?
You can take a look at OVH … the “90 plan” (shared hosting) offers 900 Mo, PHP5, 5 mysql databases, 1000 subdomains possible …
http://ovh.com/fr/produits/90plan.xml
They are number one in France, and for my own I never had any problem with them. I test cakePHP a few days ago on one of my shared hosting, and it worked fine. There’s a small hack in the .htaccess but you can use mod_rewrite !
I use bluehost for my site. Very affordable and has amazing offerings. 15gb storage, 20 subdomains, 6 domains, tons of FTP accounts, 50 mysql databases, PHP4 and PHP5, Ruby and RoR, and so on…
http://www.bluehost.com/tell_me_more.html
I haven’t had an issue in the ~5-6 months I’ve been with them. Much better than my last host, and cheaper :)
DreamHost has most if not all of what you asked for. I have 20 GB of disk spaces, unlimited subdomains, unlimited MySQL dbs (within my disk space of course), PHP5, and Subversion.
Try Dreamhost, offers all that you need and a bit more (WebDAV, Ruby on Rails, etc.).
I am also in the market for a new webhost. I have seen all these (mt) badges everywhere, and so I figured I would give media temple a run and send thier sales guy me standard web host questionaire. Aparently they have a ‘version 6′ of thier shared server account in private beta right now that will be out soon that supports php5, 5 domains w/100 subdomains(total I think, no for each), 2GB of space, a TB of bandwidth, plus all thier other goodies. The upgrade to version 6 will be free for all current customers if you need a webhost immediately. The only thing is that they do not have MySQL version 5, they are upgrading to 4.1.11 with version 6. There is always that one thing isn’t there? =/
I also like bluehost.com. I have been hosting with them for almost 2 years now. They are very reliable, excellent customer services on top of all the things they support.I like them so much that I became their affiliate and starting putting up referals from my site.
I would suggest you Dreamhost: starting from their base offer “Crazy Domain Insane” you can have all what you requested in your post… I’m using it form my blog but also for a number of “private” application written with Cake for some different companies.
And yes… I’ll be glad if you sign up with my referrer code: http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?garubi so I can earn some cash to renew the hosting plan next september… ;-)
I like PHPwebhosting.com - $10 per month and I think all of the features you listed. (They say 500megs of space, but they’ll give you more if you ask nicely.) You can log in via SSH, and from there you can use svn client, or create a repository under your account using svnadmin. (You can access it externally via svn+ssh). I’ve been with them for about 4 years now, no complaints.
As to Andy Chase’s comment: I would recommend *against* phpwebhosting.com. I used them for two websites I created about 5 years ago and though the sites are still under that host, their features aren’t very impressive. They have a home-brew control panel that completely lacks functionality compared to something like cPanel (which bluehost.com uses). Bluehost offers cheaper plans, and more features. Uptime is fine and everything, but no support for PHP5 as you mentioned you wanted. Overall phpwebhosting.com is an ok host, but after switching to fuitadnet.com then to bluehost.com, I wouldn’t go back to phpwebhosting.com.
Take a look at Site5.com
i whould recommend Dreamhost - use the promotion code MAX97 - you will get 97$ off the first year. you will pay 22$ for testing their really great service for a year :) and you get a dot.com :) then 8$ monthly - which imo is a very good price.
greets
I second Bluehost and here is my referer link http://www.bluehost.com/track/schmidt2000/cakebaker
It meets all your requirements except the subversion. I love the 20 subdomains and 50 MySQL databases with the 15 GB of space. It defaults to PHP4, but all you need to do is request upgrade to PHP5 and they take care of transfer.
@all: thanks for your suggestions, I will check them out.