what website host do you use or recommend?

I am working on a new personal project and I am looking for a host. My website will be built using php and mySQL. I'm looking for great uptime and support. I am also interested in perhaps adding a forum, photo gallery, and shopping cart.

Thanks

 

Hostgator. Good name, brand, value and reliability

 

Hostgator or cheaper:
unlimitedwebhosting.co.uk

 

I also use Hostgator for almost all my sites, the best hosting service.

 

I have 50 reasons for promoting hostgator. However, avoid any host that offers unlimited. A forum on hostgator with under 5 members was unusable. Blogs with under 20uv per day were slow to load, which is why i left.

Site in my sig is with ferngullygraphics. Approx 2k uv daily, and loads fine for me with prices starting at $2 per month.

 

Hostgator uptime is usually not less than 99.9%,moreover they provide guaranteed unlimited resources.

 

Our clients have constant problem with Hostgator and GoDaddy hosting. It seems to me they are using weird server setup and running simple things like ionCube requires special tuning. Companies will never bankrupt, but their server technology is definitively outdated. Coming from the person that tested more than 100 different hostgator accounts with various software solutions

 

Hostgator and Bluehost are the best in my opinion. I personally use both of them, and performance of hostgator server is slightly better than Bluehost.

 

My recommendation is to use services from Hosteasier.com. They are offering low prices and highest stability I've ever experienced, site is loading fast.

 

Considering your requirements a shared linux plan can be good to start with, but to be more precise, could you list down your requirements in terms of resources ? This should help everyone at this forum suggest you with an appropriate hosting solution.

 

Thanks for all the replies. It sounds like everyone has their favorite host and there doesn't seem to be a consensus. Hostgator and Bluehost seems to come up often, but more research on the Web reveals some unhappy customers for both of these. Bottomline: choosing a host is more difficult than I thought.

 

Almost all hosting companies allow to host forums, photo galleries and shopping carts with shared hosting if they do not consume much resources. Therefore you should think about how much traffic and how much resources your sites consume or go for a VPS.

 

Well, there are plenty of various available hosts suitable for your needs, but among others Hosteasier.com looks best option. Their plans are stable and cheap.

 

How can they possibly guarantee unlimited? It's not real unlimited if they have to put a disclaimer that says they solely will determine what acceptable usage of unlimited means.

Most of the sites offering unlimited rely on the fact that users will rarely host a lot of content on their site (I'd wager most webmasters use less than 100mb for their site - db not included).

Hosting depends on your site and resources, and it's different for everyone. Just note that if your site is really important that you need 99.9% uptime, you should probably look for a cloud hosting service (even that's not 100% reliable ).

 

Thanks for all the replies. I agee with all the posts that say that the best choice depends on the amount of resources I'll need. Since I am just starting, it is fair to say I don't need much. As time goes on, that'll change. So I decided to start with Hostgator. I committed to a 1 year account at a low price (shared hosting). As my needs change and when the site earns enough money per month, I'll migrate to VPS.

 

Happy to see that you have made a final decision. Since this is your start shared hosting will be the best option. Just monitor the resources usage through the control panel and make sure that your web site do not go beyond the limit. I guess your site is not a huge web application which consumes much resources.

 

I suggest you to do a comparison of offers to choose the best one. In my opinion citynetworkhosting.com is trustworthy host with cheapest solutions and quality webhosting service.

 

hey, Go for some Site reviews and comparisons. It really helps. and don't forget to check trial packages if they have. Live support is important also. i am trying one now, lets see how they are. i will re post if they are reasonable.

 

Hey

Here is my experience on web hosting in the past 3 years hope it helps you make a good decision.

I have used only a couple hosting companies, I started using Godaddy and after a couple months I moved to Bluehost because everywhere over the internet people were marketing and supporting Bluehost, plus I had some problems with Godaddy so I moved.

I had a 2 year signup with Bluehost and boy I'm happy that those two years are over!!! I realized that Bluehost had a good affiliate program and that's why everyone online was recommending Bluehost LOL.

The things I hate about Bluehost is ( I had the shared hosting option ):
1 - Upload and download FTP Speeds where super slow even with my fiberwire internet connection.
2 - There support team are really useless.
3 - Server was down many many times.
4 - Email's spam and server problems.

After my bad experience with Bluehost I moved Back to Godaddy , I do not recommend you use Godaddy I'm just saying don't use Bluehost LOL

Thanks