Suggestions for a web host ?

[RossA]

I started with godaddy a few years ago and have never had a problem. Good customer service if I had to call with a question.

[The Annoyed Man]

I do this kind of stuff for a living.

Bluehost, A Small Orange, and Hostgator are now all owned by the same company, EIG. Hostgator is OK for the money, but in my view they aren't what they used to be before the takeover. EIG is consolidating data centers for all their companies to Utah.

If you want the best, go with Rackspace or Liquidweb. They cost more but are worth it in my opinion.

Regardless, I recommend a Cpanel-based host. Cpanel is the most widely used hosting control panel, and for good reason, as most people find it fairly intuitive.

Media Temple is pretty good, but they don't use Cpanel.

Godaddy used to have a proprietary control panel, but they now use Cpanel too. I'd avoid them, because 1) I register my domains there, and I think you should keep your domains & host separate - don't give one company too much control, and 2) Some things, like simply creating a new database, take a long time to process, where with most Cpanel-based hosts the database is created instantly.

My own personal favorite host in the lower-end price range is a hidden gem called A2 Hosting.

You might also check out MDD Hosting and Siteground. I've had clients who've been very happy with both.

Paypal and Stripe both make it pretty easy to accept payments online.

I've had a dedicated virtual server with MediaTemple for about 3-4 years now. Prior to that, I resold space on a friend's server.....also a MediaTemple DVS. I actually like the Plesk hosting panel and find it more intuitive (a matter of personal tastes, I guess), but katmandu is correct that cPanel is by far the most commonly used interface, and will be familiar to the most number of people.

I just purchased a DVS plan from BlueHost a week or two ago, and I am in the process of migrating my client websites off of the MediaTemple server to the BlueHost server. GoDaddy now owns MediaTemple, and since the acquisition, MediaTemple's support service has gotten less cooperative, and more expensive. I have to pay for certain kinds of support now that used to be free.

Comparing my MediaTemple server to the BlueHost server:

• MediaTemple DVS:
• Service Level: (dv) 4.0 - Level 3 (of six levels)
• Price: $150.00/month
• RAM: 4GB
• Storage: 100GB
• Bandwidth: 2TB
• Control Panel: Parallels® Plesk
  
  
  BlueHost VPS
• VPS Level: Premium (3rd level of 4 for VPS type hosting)
• Price: $49.99 for 1st month, $89.99/month after that; OR 3 months at $69.99/month (this is what I chose)
• RAM: 6TB
• Storage: 120GB
• Bandwidth: 3TB
• Control Panel: cPanel

There are other considerations, like what versions of Linux, Apache, PHP, mySQL, etc., the servers are running. Both are roughly equivalent in this regard.......except to say that A) updating is more difficult with MediaTemple, and at least some of the updating doesn't go that smoothly. Also, it matters whether or not the service is managed. The MediaTemple server I have is not, and so all security issues fall squarely on my shoulders. BlueHost's is managed, and that takes some of the load off for me. I offer hosting to my clients as a "value added" proposition to make using me as a designer an easier decision for them, but I'm perfectly happy if they're hosted elsewhere too. I have had some issues with a couple of customer sites that got hacked, and ended up getting my IP address blacklisted more than once for spamming. I rectified the issues, but it has been such a giant hassle to stay on top of it that I'm going to migrate all of them to a new server with a new IP, and mandate that they either be willing to update their site software OR be hosted somewhere else.

With 2-3 couple of exceptions for hosting clients who I have a personal relationship with, and whose sites I will take it upon myself to upgrade, I am going to mandate that my hosting clients either contract with me to rebuild their sites in more current versions (most are REALLY old), or I am going to no longer host their sites.

Both allow you to host multiple domains. So far, BlueHost's support has been top-notch and cheerful. I have had some familiarity with both GoDaddy and HostGator.......and a couple of others as well. StartLogic.com comes to mind.

About HostGator: they seem OK, although I haven't dealt with them for a long time.

About GoDaddy: their service seems OK also. The primary reason I never gave them my business is that I hated all their "half-naked ladies" TV ads. But I just finished migrating a client's website to their servers just yesterday. If it weren't for my moral objections, I'd probably be comfortable using them. My only complaint is that their account center is really busy to the eye, and clicking on links pops open new browser tabs to navigate the various services. To me, that's unnecessary.

But BlueHost looks like they are going to turn out well. I just now called MediaTemple to ask for a simple help with clearing the mail queue, and they wanted to charge me $80 for it. Bag that. I'm glad I'm changing.

[brhalltx]

I've had some customers have constant trouble with GoDaddy. Others have no problems. (One has said, multiple times: "They say there isn't a problem, but then go away and do something, and everything works again."
HostGator is OK; their support isn't what it used to be, after the sale.

I haven't used any of the others mentioned, but if I switch, it'll be to an independent, not one of the EIG group.

I do WordPress, but always set it up manually; the automatic scripts pick a random name for the database, which then has to be changed manually... (If you'd like to know what database belongs to a particular site.)

[LAYGO]

I didn't realize we had that many web designers/programmers. I do this for a living too, but pretty much gave up on the 'on the side' stuff. My time is more valuable to me now, but if ya'll ever need some PHP/DB development on Symfony2/Code Igniter, let me know.

I'll be looking for a host soon when I'm done developing this application that I'm hosting at home on an ESXI box (should it ever get beyond the need of what I can provide at home).

Does BlueHost give you SSH/CLI access? (I'll browse their site soon)

[Scott B.]

If you don't want to get deep into the weeds of managing the site yourself, I'll put in a vote for Arvixe.

You can have a great deal of control if you want via the control panels.

http://www.arvixe.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Had a Biz class package with them for over a year. I've been pleased with the response rate, and various ways of contacting them (live chat, ticket system, and forum) when there's an occasional problem.

YMMV

[Skiprr]

I'll cast a vote for midPhase if you're looking for a modest price, decent functionality, good account control, and good customer service. I've had sites with them dating back to 2002; they do use cPanel.

I only work with Linux webservers, and one thing I demand is that an account on a shared server give me access to a folder level above the public HTML area. Also demand access to CRON and unlimited mySQL databases. Most of what I do now is in Joomla and I don't need or want much in the way of automated scripting beyond that. I only do manual installations, and I manually tweak templates, PHP, and CSS. Heck, I still refuse to use any HTML frontend editor; I write HTML, CSS, and PHP in a raw ASCII editor. Been doing it that way since my first website in 1995.

So for a recommendation of an easy-to-use, all-in-one webhosting service, I'm useless. But I've seen enough accounts on those types of services to advise you to steer clear. Don't get locked into any company's proprietary hosting service; I cringe every time I see TV commercials for companies like Wix.com and Web.com.

If you're going to maintain your own website, it's worth the time to learn what basics you need to be in full control of it. It isn't that complex; it isn't Internet Rocket Surgery. YMMV

[The Annoyed Man]

Weebly has a nifty content management system that also supports eCommerce. You'll still have to purchase a security certificate (unless you piggy back on PayPals eCommerce system). It's quite affordable. You could also build a Wordpress site, but unless you find the right theme, building it to be something that is not primarily a blog is quite tedious.

Which is why developers who are concerned with scalability don't pick WordPress. They pick Joomla instead. Not that Joomla doesn't have its own set of issues, but I don't use WordPress because it condemns the site owner to the need for a certain rebuild if their business grows and their website needs grow with it.

BTW, the best shopping cart addon for Joomla I've found to date is JooCart, from soft-php. What JooCart does is install a complete OpenCart and then bridge it to the Joomla CMS so that all cart management is handled through the Joomla admin backend, and on the front end it is displayed within the Joomla template. So the user experiences is seamless on both front and back ends. In the backend, it appears under the "Components" menu, where most of your other addons appear.

[LAYGO]

...and I manually tweak templates, PHP, and CSS. Heck, I still refuse to use any HTML frontend editor; I write HTML, CSS, and PHP in a raw ASCII editor. Been doing it that way since my first website in 1995.

Then you're doing it the hard way. IDEs are REALLY helpful. Not WYSIWIG, IDE (Integrated Development Environments). The auto complete for PHP alone will save you a ton of typing, remember the spelling, parameters, etc. They do a lot of autocompletion too for HTML/CSS.

Mind you, I started hand coding everything too, but the old adage of "work smarter, not harder" is on point here. Hand coding in a text area on Angelfire, my first page in Jan 1998. That's how I learned. I've made a 15yr long career out of that . . .

I use Aptana Studio (free) for almost all of my development. Notepad++ for the quick & dirty stuff.

[92f-fan]

The questions about scalability of wordpress is interesting since some of the most visited sites on the web are based on it ...