Ask YC: What web hosting service do you use?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=230778

by sangguine • 18 years ago

35 73 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I am wondering what web hosting service you all use.

notauser• 18 years ago

For personal stuff I use Tektonic who are pretty good. The price is very competative, tech support exists, and they accomodate special requests with no particular hassle (e.g. please make sure my two VPSs are in different data centers).

Last time they had a problem was a few years ago (server hardware failure) and they bothered to give updates frequently and rapidly opened up new temporary hosts for customers who had backups to restore from. Pretty good service for a 'no support' plan.

mstefff2• 18 years ago

<a href="http://www.liquidweb.com/?RID=mikestefff">Liquidweb</a>

Yes it's an affiliate link but they are truly amazing. Prices are great and come with full support and management. Highly recommended. Have never had an easier experience.

mstefff2• 18 years ago

I guess html isn't allowed...

smanek2• 18 years ago

Yes, but it's expensive as hell. $60 a month for a VM with 384 MB Ram. That would be $20-$30 a month anywhere else.

silencio2• 18 years ago

Woah, expensive. I've had way better-priced dedicated servers from leaseweb, vectoral and layeredtech for the same price as some of those VPSs. Unmanaged, but still way cheaper. Think terabytes of transfer and better specs..hmm.

adoyle• 18 years ago

I used interland.com (bought out a while ago) and serverpronto.com, but now I use business grade Verizon FIOS in my basement with a Mac Mini on a 2 hour UPS. Uptime has been 100% over the last year (except for the reboots I did for software updates).

I used to run a lot of mailman lists and have discovered the hardest thing to do is to get a set of "clean" IP addresses. Serverpronto was tough, they were blocked a lot. Interland was ok. My Verizon address block (I get 5 static IPs) is not on any RBLs but they sit in the middle of what are generally dynamic IPs so some big sites (esa.int, notably) reject email from my system.

bmatheny• 18 years ago

We use The Planet (http://www.theplanet.com) along with EC2 from AWS. I've used The Planet for about 7 years now, for both business and personal use. Good prices, decent support and a top notch network.

rw2• 18 years ago

Did the explosion change your opinion of theplanet?

cjoh1111• 18 years ago

Slicehost. Love them.

pierrefar2• 18 years ago

Seconded.

Just started with them too. Steep learning curve getting everything done myself (other hosts really pamper their customers!) but dang are the servers fast.

And besides, every true web hacker needs to know how to set up a server from scratch!

drm237• 18 years ago

I think "pamper" might be looking at it the wrong way. Other providers do provide nice click interfaces, but compared to slicehost, they are very limited. I would say slicehost pampers their customers with their fantastic service and unlimited possibilities.

mrduncan• 18 years ago

Agreed. Their tech support is also great which is more than you can say about a lot of hosting companies.

Stabback2• 18 years ago

Same, but I wish they had a 'green' option. I'd gladly pay a bit more if I could get renewable power powering my site.

daragh2• 18 years ago

In all seriousness, that's retarded.

If you honestly want to be "green" you can make changes to your personal behaviour (such as using CFLs, recycled packaging etc.) and not rely on some company to hold your hand and make you feel like you're making a difference for a little extra cash.

I personally tend to lose respect for companies that try to upsell their "green" options, much in the same way I am dubious of extended warranties.

I also hope you realise that even if they were to offer a "green" option it probably wouldn't mean they're going to stick a windmill on top of their colo, they'd just use your extra cash to offset the environmental cost of the electricity you used, much in the same way you can.

Don't get me wrong, I a happy Slichost customer and have made efforts to recycle and use public transport for the environment's sake since I was a child, but this recent rash of "green" buzzwording really ires me as it seems to be used in a most insincere and vapid manner, instead of people actually taking a rational, pragmatic approach to environmental efficiency.

alexwg• 18 years ago

http://www.co2stats.com

Automatically purchases renewable energy to offset CO2 emissions due to your clients, network, and servers, independently of your hosting provider, so you can use it with Slicehost.

RobGR• 18 years ago

I largely agree with the other replier about most green options. I suspect that if you want to do that, the easiest thing to do is make sure you don't use more computing resources than you have to, and the second is to host it yourself and power it yourself (that can be very impractical).

There are places that are trying to offer green options, that aren't that slimy -- I have met the follow that runs http://burlyhouse.net/, and his operation is nice. His prices are high, but I think most of his customers are people who also hire BurlyHouse for programming or other services.

ra• 18 years ago

Thirded. Incomparable value for money.

hopeless• 18 years ago

Slicehost: For the Rails apps I write. They have a great range of tutorials and how-to articles to sysadmining isn't too much hassle. Dreamhost: For various Wordpress blogs, Redmine (Rails) bug tracking, Subversion repositories, WebDAV -- basically the stuff you don't need to waste money on a VPS for.

IsaacSchlueter• 18 years ago

+1 for slicehost. Simple, easy VPS, just works, plenty of very handy tools. Upside of any VPS, you get to manage the whole server. Downside, you have to actually manage your server.

I've used DreamHost, but their crap up-time and extra crap support drove me out. I still use them for domain registration, but that's about the same anywhere, and transferring registrars is a little bit of a pain. If you just want an easy plug-and-play test server or a personal blog, they're cheap and not completely terrible.

ashleyw• 18 years ago

Slicehost rock! The only thing I can find bad about them is the pricing above 1GB RAM VPSs, but apart from that its a rock solid service with great staff! Cannot recommend them enough....

brk2• 18 years ago

Me :)

1U Dedicated server (BYOS) for $50/mo.

brk2• 18 years ago

I'm curious why so many people have down-voted my comment above, as it's factual. I host stuff in my own datacenter, I don't overly promote it here, although I had considered a YC special rate. Or is it that I shouldn't promote my startup because it's not free? Several people here post links to or comments about their startup businesses without getting down-voted.

krschultz2• 18 years ago

I don't think people realized that you were a professional host but that you were telling the guy to do it himself. What is your site?

smanek2• 18 years ago

I use vpslink. I paid for two years in advance, and got a vps with 256MB of Ram for ~$10/month (about half the cost of slicehost).

Had no problems with them so far.

gigawatt• 18 years ago

I have a VPS from WiredTree (wiredtree.com) and I can't recommend them highly enough. Good guys, great support. The only negative is that the intro VPS (with only 256MB of RAM) is a little weak, and can choke on cPanel. If you're looking for a fully-managed VPS, go with WiredTree.

For smaller-scale sites, Media Layer (medialayer.com) gets nothing but rave reviews on the webostingtalk.com forums, though I don't have any first-hand experience with them. I've used EngineHosting (enginehosting.com) for a couple ExpressionEngine based sites for clients, and they're great, too.

tortilla• 18 years ago

linode.com, slicehost.com, servintvps.com

I recommend all 3, just depends on what you need.

edw519• 18 years ago

just depends on what you need

For example...

vaksel• 18 years ago

I have a dedicated server from Liquid Web. I can't say enough good things about them. The service is really top notch.

a) Communication: they actually speak English, you aren't forwarded to some call center in India

b) Response: If you call someone, will pick up within 3 rings. If you email you'll get the first response after 5 minutes. They really are around 24/7. I once needed something done at 3:30 am, I got a reply to my email in less than 10 minutes.

c) Its all managed, you really don't need to know anything about servers. Need a library installed? Just drop them a line, Can't figure out how to setup your server? Drop them a line. And there are no support ticket fees or any other crap like that, that other managed hosts charge.

I mean honestly, if Rackspace is any better, there better be some sex involved while I wait for them to fix the server. And with the higher prices Rackspace has, that better be the case.

Note: You should really only be using them with dedicated servers, their shared/virtual is a little bit pricey

And to those that complain about prices, think to yourself, would you rather get a problem resolved in 20 minutes, or 20 hours.

bkrausz• 18 years ago

I've used VPSLink on and off depending on my needs since they started, incredibly cheap service and I've yet to have any major problems. Minor issues were resolved very quickly, great support.

tialys• 18 years ago

I agree, VPSLink is great. Never had any problems and if you can get a coupon (they offer them fairly often) you can really get a great deal. (I got mine locked in at a lower price with the coupon I used, and I believe they've offered more since).

silencio2• 18 years ago

If you're looking for cheap dedicated hosting, I liked leaseweb, ovh and vectoral, and if a .us based host is okay, layeredtech and softlayer are excellent. Support ranges from amazing to nonexistant, but they're all _really_ cheap (except for softlayer, but you get what you pay for..) for lots and lots of transfer - I blow through a few terabytes a month on three servers, think $100/month for 3TB transfer, 250gb hdd, 1.5gb ram which slicehost can't compare to price-wise.

Otherwise for me it's a tie between slicehost, dreamhost (because i had a free promo code..) and asmallorange (i have a lifetime account). All of them meet different needs of mine, sooo.

kngspook• 18 years ago

How did you get a lifetime account?

ivey• 18 years ago

For Rails/Merb projects that can afford it, I love Engine Yard. They're way more expensive than VPS hosts, but you get a support team who specialize in Rails/Merb deployment. It's like outsourcing your sysadmin team, too.

For lower budget, I love Slicehost.

I either want full control, or someone I trust in control.

krschultz2• 18 years ago

Same here, we use Engine Yard and have gone through several slashdot/digg/TC posts with no problem. Never have a headache with them.

timae• 18 years ago

hostmysite.com

never had a problem.

robertgaal• 18 years ago

We've been with Rails Machine for over a year and loving it. If you need some extra support and sysadmin knowledge (aka more hands-on then Slicehost) Rails Machine is absolutely the best we could wish for.

And of course additionally we also use EC2 and other AWS services.

izak30• 18 years ago

EC2

mannylee1• 18 years ago

Media Temple. They are great for the price.

sachinag• 18 years ago

We use MT's Dedicated Virtual offering - it's "in the cloud", but it gives us full on root access. If you go that way, however, get a box without Plesk pre-installed. Ugh.

froo• 18 years ago

I'm going to have to agree with the MT route.

I joined up recently, and they're fantastic. Handle spike traffic well too :)

PStamatiou• 18 years ago

I'm on a (dv) extreme. very powerful box, excellent service.

missenlinx• 18 years ago

Same, don't get much traffic yet but when I do MT should handle it fine.

hbien• 18 years ago

Webfaction. Simple, cheap, and good support.

thorax• 18 years ago

xlhost, some of the lowest prices on dedicated servers, no contracts, setup fees, etc.

fnazeeri• 18 years ago

http://www.aiso.net/

They are carbon free and have provided great service since 2000. They use 100% solar power and have bio-diesel backup generators. Have used them for 4 months and have had a great experience.

thinkcomp• 18 years ago

My own.

jbyers• 18 years ago

Shared hosting? Depends heavily on what technologies you want to use.

VPS? Slicehost

Dedicated server(s)? Softlayer

symptic• 18 years ago

I support my buddy's business by using one of his dedicated servers: http://wdservers.com

He runs his own sites and needs a lot of server power, but also leases out to his contacts (me) and the people they refer.

randallsquared• 18 years ago

I've been using vpslink.com for a few months for a few servers. One of my virtual servers has been rebooted without warning (which they say up front can happen, it's true) three or four times in the last two months. If I had anything important on that machine, I'd be somewhat unhappy, but it's hard to complain at their prices.

richesh• 18 years ago

our startup uses JEE technology so our choices were limited, but we are currently deploying on Amazon's EC2.

jfornear• 18 years ago

I use http://mosso.com which is an experimental cloud hosting provider backed by http://rackspace.com

I always get complimented on how fast my site loads and performs on it and have never had any problems that haven't been taken care of rather quickly.

natch• 18 years ago

Hurricane Electric shared hosting.

Pros: super low latency connections, ssh access, decent setup, no frills, $10/month.

Cons: they don't keep their installations in the bleeding edge version-wise. I use Perl a lot. They are at 5.8.0, which is not bad, but not the very latest. Of course you can install your own anything (perl, python, ruby, etc.) in user space, which makes library management more simple too.

Unknowns: I've never had it tested under a serious load. Just playing around.

I WISH there was a host that gave me the speed, simplicity and low price of HE but also supported more than one domain name on the same account (for the same price). There are sites that do that, but typically they have something else wrong with them, such as having the "feature" of being control-panel based.

ninjastar99• 18 years ago

Rackspace - bar none - for anything mission critical in a dedicated setup. I've used Softlayer, HostMySite, and LiquidWeb before in an attempt to save a few bucks a month, but regretted it almost immediately.

In multiple cases of downtime, the only response from Softlayer was "not really sure what happened." With Rackspace, I can sleep at night - and the extra $150 a month per server is well worth it to us. Peace of mind is invaluable, and expertise is irreplaceable.

I also recommend Slicehost highly.

walesmd• 18 years ago

ASmallOrange - Absolutely excellenct customer support with great prices. Go shared, then jump up to VPS/dedicated if you need to scale.

mov• 18 years ago

tektonic.net

mroman• 18 years ago

Well, as of right now I am using siteground shared hosting, and have found it to be excellent for the money. Their tech support is fast and knowledgeable,and respectful (I don't expect people to KMA, however, the Godaddy people for example have proven themselves to be incompetent AND disrespectful) their interface is clear and usable, and everything has worked great so far, I feel that they provide a lot of value for the money. I am surprised to not see them mentioned here, they HAVE won a couple of awards, and are the best I have seen since 2003. Disclaimer: I mostly used Godaddy before them (yuck!) yet I have had to use a couple of others for clients, and they were all - invariably - not that great at ALL. Now, if anyone has had a bad experience with them, I would certainly like to know, as I am considering reselling for them as part of a "includes great hosting" feature in a comprehensive service package for future clients of mine.

drewcrawford• 18 years ago

RapidVPS? I use them to host a few small sites on the cheap (starting at like $9 a month I believe). It probably wouldn't scale, but it's irreplacable for development.

Jax• 18 years ago

Been using JaguarPC (jaguarpc.com) shared hosting account since the past 5 months. The support is good. And they have these tech support guys who could actually can understand my noob language(and showed me around the settings) when i tried to play around with my account.

One of my friends from US told me that slicehost is good and i see a lot of fan comments above.

I have also been using Google AppEngine since a week. Its blazing fast. But they currently have only free accounts and have mentioned on their blog that they will start a paid cloud hosting service soon for those who reach their free hosting limits. Yahoo! too have announced that they will soon offer cloud hosting. So if u you wait for a couple months you might get to choose between EC2 and Google and Yahoo and slicehost and others. Because if you are using php, i have a wild guess that Yahoo's hosting will be php inclined(most of their services are php-inclined). If u are comfortable with python, go for Google AppEngine.

Also a word of CAUTION: if you are going to choose shared hosting packages, then always read terms of service agreement and whatever agreements they have. I once used a one month trial coupon with Hostgator and stumbled upon their T.O.S. It was clearly mentioned that they allow only '50000 inodes' on shared hosting accounts, which in simpler words translates that you can have a max of 50000 files. So if you are going to host something like a social networking site, beware! Your users might get to the max files limit if u are going to have a feature like photo uploading.

jrockway• 18 years ago

I use Slicehost for my applications and Bingodisk for big files and general static content. I also use the private part of Bingodisk for backups (via duplicity) from my laptop and application server. It's nice.

ComputerGuru• 18 years ago

Lunarpages. Excellent customer service and the latest tech on all their managed servers (even the shared ones).

rwebb• 18 years ago

http://www.m5hosting.com/

petercooper• 18 years ago

Primarily SoftLayer. Best dedicated provider I've ever used. Used to use EV1Servers / The Planet before but SoftLayer offer so much more.

Ask YC: What web hosting service do you use?

Related Stories