Choosing a host ????

For shared hosting besides Hostgator, I recommended to try other greats shared hosting provider like HawkHost or BlueHost, for VPS you can try to use KnownHost or WiredTree. Please avoid to buying hosting from big registrar such us NameCheap or Godaddy, they are really suck for hosting provider.

 

Not sure if you're still looking for a host, but here's a useful guide you might want to give a quick read

As previously mentioned in this thread, avoid EIG hosts (Bluehost, HostGator, etc.) if you don't want to be back here in a month or so, frustrated and desperately trying to find a better host.

Good luck!

 

Hey there from me too

Seems I am a little late to the discussion this time, I see many key points being discussed already - stay off GoDaddy and EIG, stay off Free Hosts, make your research...good, good, all good advice. Being part of a host provider too, I won't go into name discussions, more like other guidelines to help you make up your mind

What I can add here is that it is absolutely normal for your head to explode with questions, fears and doubts. It's only natural to want only the best for a project, that is not only business but holds personal value too. Judging by your requirements your idea would fit into almost any Shared Hosting Package and the constant density of promotions in all companies will help fitting in a smaller budget. So you can leave most features and prices aside and concentrate on the more concerning factors. As you can see here, and in most host reviews, most common problems are uptime, reliability, quality and customer service. So this is where you need to gather the best impressions. In your research, having so many questions and concerns, can only work as a plus for you. Why? Because you can use all those queries to test your choice for future host. When you have a shortlist of preferred companies, simply contact them by chat or phone and ask away. You'll be surprised as to how few hosts have really knowledgeable support and friendly staff, not just the common under-payed, job-hating Average Joe, giving you short and templated responses, nervously pushing you to make a sale without trying to calm you and listen to your case-specific fears.

At the end of the day, you have already realized the most important thing of choosing your web host - know your project and make your research before rushing into signing with the first host Google shows you

P.S. @Boardwalk very nicely compiled guide, certainly will be a help for many!

 

Personal experiences, over priced, and their support is the worst by far

 

Godaddy.com I think the best (quality / price)!
I will recommend you the "deluxe" plan.

 

According to my opinion you could host your site without investing a lot. I use ipage as my hosting company and purchase my domains from godaddy. Ipage is cheap and perfect for hosting. It's 2$ per month for hosting, with a lot of free marketing credits (google, yahoo, bing, facebook etc...) and gives you a free domain when you purchase it. It gives you all the tools and everything to set up a site and advertise it. It has a lot of more stuff included in the plan. It does really worth it for such price. You can host unlimited domains. Sometimes they make promotions where you can just purchase for as low as 1$ per month with the full features. It has a 7/24 live chat support where you get all your answers to all your questions.

 

If your looking to test things out, I would recommend 000webhost.com! They have great free hosting. Just make sure to log in at least each 30 days or get at least 30 visitors per month otherwise they will mark your account as inactive and disable it.

 

My advice.

Stay away from the ones that advertise monthly then its 1-3 years in checkout
Stay away from unlimited
Email and test response times
Search reviews, deeply, most of the unlimited con artists have fake reviews (trust me)

Just be very careful who you choose and stay away from EIG

 

Thanks for the nice list, I have been trying out different hosting lately.

I have had great luck with Glowhost, nice quality hosting.

I tried PacificHost and was not real impressed they has slow uploads and would not allow access to any traffic stats they said they "take too much bandwidth"

 

Those days its easy to choose a host. You got in almost all providers testing days.

 

At this time many company provides free hosting services, but this is not good, HostGator is best option.