[jimh009]

Having spent the better part of a month looking for hosting providers for two sites, I thought it might not be a bad idea to have a thread where people can post the hosts they like and the hosts they don't. Assuming the post isn't moderated out, ground rules are to just keep it simple and no raves/rants about a particular host. Just short and simple to make it easy for people to find good hosts. Also, don't be sneaky and drop your affiliate links, either!

Hosts I Like
1. VPSCOLO.com - Virtual private server for my main site. Has everything I want. 24x7 support by phone.

2. MidPhase.com - Affordable, ton of features. Only bad part is that they lack a quality web stats program. 24x7 support by phone, too.

Hosts I Don't Like
1. UplinkEarth.Com - Reliable and affordable, but very limited on what you can do with your site due to restrictions on scripts.

2. Micfo.Com - Affordable with many features, but upper levels of Tech Support are absolutely awful.

[walleyewarrior]

I have to mention Kualo.com

I had an issue with bandwidth. Mind you if I had gone in and looked at my e mails I would have noticed 3 warnings it was about to go over it's limit, so it was my error it went that far in the first place.
Fixed in less than an hour after I noticed and e mailed them about it. Could have just sold me more bandwidth, as I suggested, but with a reseller acct my badwidth was all under the limit except my main account which was way over it's limit.
So one quick adjustment and it was fixed without any extra charges.
Went WAY beyond what I expected and they deserve a pat on the back for exceptional customer support.

[kmkimmo]

Jim, may I ask which plan you use at VPSCOLO.com?

Looks like the major differences between their plans are space, bandwidth and memory.

I am currently looking for reliable hosting, I like all the features offered at this company, and I love to hear about the support.

I am a long time Windoze developer and programmer -- in transition of moving into PHP, mySQL -- I am really looking for a host that has great support for someone less experienced. I personally benefit greatly from a detailed knowledgebase...and the 24x7 is a huge plus.

Anyway, just curious as to which plan works best for you.

Thanks!

[Nature Boy]

I'll chime in here.

The Good:
I've recently added a hostgator reseller account to my mix and I am very pleased with what I've seen so far. I was surprised at how fast my sites switched over after changing DNS servers (within minutes,) where I've seen it take days with others. Nice stats package also.

The not so good:
Startlogic's virtual server account. I was COMPLETELY lost with this one. The didn't send me one bit of information on how to use the account. Of course, it could have been my lack of knowledge in this field that soured my experience. Either way, quick refund

Netfirms. S-L-O-W servers. You get what you pay for... and when you don't know any better, you can't get any cheaper than free.

[jimh009]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Jim, may I ask which plan you use at VPSCOLO.com? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I use the least expensive plan - whatever it is called. I only use about 1 to 1.5 GB of bandwidth a day, and since my site is mainly static, I didn't have need for the more upper-scale plans.

As for support, it is superb. About the only strange thing that takes a bit of getitng use to is that while their servers for US customers are in the US, their tech support is mainly handled out of the UK. So if you call them you get to listen to the famous british accent! That said, virtually all of my tech support calls have been handled by the owner himself - which is always a good thing, of course.

Reliability has been excellent. I've been with them for about 1.5 months now and the site hasn't gone down at all. Some tweakings - still a few ongoing - needed to be done to increase the speed, but that issue is now also mainly taken care of.

VPS bills itself has a more "hand holding" type of VPS server than most other places and, I must say, they do deliver the goods.

[peedtih]

Bad: IPowerWeb and StartLogic. Both are guilty of suspending my accounts without notice or explainiation.

Good, so far: Globat. So far so good.

[Finexe]

Oh, we never suspend without explaination. the only times we've done so is when they either pay with fraud, or start spamming the world.

[advocate]

I was also suspended by Startlogic. It was handled very unprofessionally. First, I noticed my email POP3 accounts were not working. I used another email service to engage tech support. After 2 days of going back and forth with them, I was told to contact the legal dept. by email. I was furious.

The next day the rest of my account (the webserver) was offline and I received this from the so-called legal dept. :

"As you know your account has been suspended for hosting copywritten music and warez... I will have your account reinstated once you fill out the attached Declaration agreeing to remove the prohibited content and changing your password immediately. Our fax number is 602-........ "

Now this declaration is basically a blank statement saying that from this point on that they can terminate your account for ANY reason. I responded with a request to identify the offending content that went unanswered. Again, I was furious because I could not see what the problem was. I simply signed the form, FAXed it back (what else could I do?), and 3 days later the account was working again. I still don't know what I did wrong or who reported the problem. Very unprofessional.

I would advise anyone to stay away from Startlogic. I also had problems getting payment with the affiliate program. I was not getting credit for click-through signups unless I emailed them and demanded credit for the sale. I'm willing to participate in any program to persuade Startlogic to stop stealing from their affiliates. Perhaps a small claims lawsuit regarding false advertising. Their website claims that the credit is automatic when in fact it is not. I wonder how these people can sleep at night.

I suspect that I was singled out for retaliation because I had demanded payment by the affiliate program. Perhaps they were looking for a reason to terminate my account to avoid paying my commisssion.

[c4]

I have no experience with Startlogic (except as an affiliate and they pay well ) but I don't think it's their fault if you were hosting MP3's or warez or whatever you don't own or have permission for. It's a sue crazy world we live in, I know from first-hand experience.

I also heard good things about VPS Colo although I never used them. I use PowerVPS.com and have nothing but good things to say. Their support is excellent (no British accent ) and the VPS has been up and running flawlessly with no effort from my side. I have the smallest plan and it's well worth the $45 per month IMHO.

[advocate]

Thanks for the tips, I'll check 'em out. About Startlogic, I think you missed my point. They never told me specifically what was wrong. I did not change anything, they just suspended my account for (as far as I can tell) NO REASON!!! I feel they were out to piss me off as an excuse not to pay me the commissions that took months of emails to get credit for. Like shutting down the email server, letting me and their tech support try to fix it for two days, and then telling me to contact them using email. What kind of retard does this? What does the email server have to do with their accusation regarding warez or whatever??

About the affiliate stuff, I'm glad they are honoring their commitment to you, but they did NOT for me, and apparantly many others. Perhaps it is time for you to take a look at the whole picture, instead of simply what is part of your immediate experience.

My suggestion to you is to test their system. That's what I did. When you have a sale, have your customer order my clicking on your ad. Then see if it gets credited. I did this twice and it failed to be credited both times. I suspect they get away with this a lot. There is very little anyone can do, except "vote with your feet". And tell others of your experience. I stand by my statements. These guys are either retarded or cheaters.

Originally Posted by c4

I have no experience with Startlogic (except as an affiliate and they pay well ) but I don't think it's their fault if you were hosting MP3's or warez or whatever you don't own or have permission for. It's a sue crazy world we live in, I know from first-hand experience.

I also heard good things about VPS Colo although I never used them. I use PowerVPS.com and have nothing but good things to say. Their support is excellent (no British accent ) and the VPS has been up and running flawlessly with no effort from my side. I have the smallest plan and it's well worth the $45 per month IMHO.

[markwelch]

Originally Posted by peedtih

Bad: IPowerWeb and StartLogic. Both are guilty of suspending my accounts without notice or explainiation.

Good, so far: Globat. So far so good.

I'm curious if this has continued to be the case in the 9 months since you wrote this?

[Rexanne]

I'm in desperate need of a good hosting company, too. Current host (XO COmmunications) has been charging me hundreds of dollars a month in bandwidth overages. When I tried to move hosts last month, they made me an offer I couldn't refuse and are now not honoring that offer. Geeeeze! Amazing and very frustrating. Their tech support has always been outstanding which is why I stayed so long and why I stayed last month. Not honoring the deal they offered is a deal breaker.

Does anyone know about HostExcellence? I looked into them last month and they seemed great but trying to get tech support on the phone was impossible. I'd love to have great tech support, a reasonable price, fast servers and extraordinary web stat analysis. Who fits that bill?

[viegeogreg]

I can not say enough good things about Xiolink.com they are smaller company and I feel like i know many of the individuals personally as we have worked with them for over 2 years now. They have amazing support and our account rep Ben Goldstein has helped our network grow with our business.

One particular incident where their support was top-end included their assistance with a Visa security audit that had to completed on Christmas eve.

Again I can't say enough good things about these guys, as they have really exceeded all of our expectations.

-Greg

[EcashClan]

After being referred to www.hostpac.net.au three years ago this month I haven't looked back. Although they are located in Australia they have a US global site which they service with servers in LA.

Uptime has been excellent and support superb. Next year I qualify for one years free hosting under their Loyalty program. Domains only USD4.99 when you host with them.

I cannot recommend them highly enough.

[midPhase-Dan]

Thanks for the kind words!

We actually recently added customized AW Stats which is a very cool stats program...

-dan

[Rogi]

As of yesterday :
Bad :: iPowerWeb
Good :: ixWebHosting

purely because of my issue in thread http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?t=63527

It looks as if i'm going to have to move my site do ixWebHosting. iPower won't let me download 30MB files through a php script. their limit is 2MB. ixWebHosting say it's fine and allow everything i asked of them. Just not too sure about their control panel.

[Geno Prussakov]

I LIKE: LunarPages, Globat
I DON'T: ..... no, I'll just leave this blank...

Geno

[trivum]

I use addacction.net and am very happy with them. Helpful and fast support. They also gave me extra features for free when I asked for them.

[Chocolate_Chicken]

Lunarpages is great, plus they don't mind if you sign up through one of your own links to get a "rebate".

If you have multiple domains for small sites that don't require a lot of disk space and bandwidth, and the Kualo or HTTPme accounts are more than you really need, Affordablehost.com is the way to go.

[Geno Prussakov]

Originally Posted by Chocolate_Chicken

Lunarpages is great, plus they don't mind if you sign up through one of your own links to get a "rebate".

What I personally love about Lunarpages is their customer & technical service. Outstanding!

Geno

[simcat]

LIKE:I was looking for low-cost hosting and tried webstrikesolutions out of australia. Introductory offer $30 for a yr. + they have all the basics-php, cgi, .htaccess etc. So far so good.
DISLIKE:Whenever I'm looking for a new host I google "'thecompanyinquestion.com' sucks" , and read some of the results. Gives a general idea about peoples complaints & problems.

[ecomcity]

Pair.com for reseller accounts or those seeking Miva and Americart ecommerce hosting. Those wanting osCommerce can cheaply use http://www.neitsolutions.com/

[SeanW]

I've got a VPS with GoDaddy, pretty happy with it. Around $35US/mo, 500GB transfer 256MB of memory and 10G of disk space. A few obnoxious things with the way they handle email, and I'm stuck on an RH9 system until I buy a new account and trasnfer over.

[praveen]

i like all my 3 hosts..

perfecthost.net, dreamhost and lunarpages.

all the three give exceptional support with perfecthost topping the list by a huge margin.

their support and their ppl are awesome..

[vertigoflow]

I love bluehost.com

Their customer service is great. The few times I've had to get in touch with them I was able to actually get a real, live human on the phone in under twenty minutes. Email response was just as fast, one solved a problem via email in under a 1/2 hour. Seems like a pretty sweet package at a good price to. The only thing I would change would be the fact you can only host 6 domains on them (not that I even have that many yet but I plan on surpasing that).

Bad!: ipowerweb.com
A friend of mine was using them and they held his domain name hostage after he switched to a different host. He would sit on hold for HOURS trying to get someone on the phone until finally hanging up in frustration. Apparently they cram their servers full of accounts as well.