Cheap Web Hosting

[Pachuco]

Oh ok i know some of you are geeks. I am trying to find a reliable hosting site that is cheap. I own 4 domain names that I use and have vaild email accounts under them. I am changing my ISP and my current hosting company this month.
I was thinking of Justhost.com but not sure yet.

I am also thinking of hosting my email and website internally at my house. thinking of setting up my own Bind, SendMail and Apache server or installing SBS server to do the DNS, EMail, and Webserver. not sure yet what to do.

I am trying to weigh the pros and cons of both.
Let me know your thoughts.


thanks in advance.

[JustSomeDude]

Oh ok i know some of you are geeks. I am trying to find a reliable hosting site that is cheap. I own 4 domain names that I use and have vaild email accounts under them. I am changing my ISP and my current hosting company this month.
I was thinking of Justhost.com but not sure yet.

I am also thinking of hosting my email and website internally at my house. thinking of setting up my own Bind, SendMail and Apache server or installing SBS server to do the DNS, EMail, and Webserver. not sure yet what to do.

I am trying to weigh the pros and cons of both.
Let me know your thoughts.


thanks in advance.

Contact Lee at Hostingshack.net... tell him JustSomeDude sent you. If you don't like his prices, send me an email... I'll lease you space on my server on teh cheapz. But I think his base package is pretty leet at only $5.99 / mo.

for teh Lawlz

[Player 2]

I do hosting as well. What site(s) are you gonna be hosting?
http://zoothost.com

[Violator]

I used bluehost.com for almost 5 years, have around 30 heavy web sites hosted...
good thing about any hosting company real time online chat or phone support,

hosting at home 1-50 static html pages fine, and depends how may visitors you expecting.... but for beginning may be a good idea to save money and switch to data center based company in future if traffics goes up...

Comcast UP speed / home users (~3MB) around 100 semi connections....MySQL transactions and PHP script time didnt count :)

[t_jolt]

www.1and1.com cheapest there is hands down!

[Violator]

www.1and1.com (http://www.1and1.com) cheapest there is hands down!

My experience with 1and1 wasn't so good, and again it just my story....
I signed up for advanced package hoping that they have SSH access, but didn't find any indication of it, called and canceled account, few month later received a letter from collection that i didnt cover my balance with 1and1, started investigation - took me 2 months to resolve it, cause "ping pong" customer service ignored my requests and phone calls...

But, may be cheap means ***

I am not so rich to buy cheap shoes :)

[Player 2]

www.1and1.com cheapest there is hands down!
As with other things in life, cheap isn't always good. 1and1 is ok but their hosting control panel is a joke and it takes entirely too long for their support staff to take care of things.

And they're not the cheapest by far.

Come on back if you have something useful to post ;)

[MetaLord 9]

Oh ok i know some of you are geeks. I am trying to find a reliable hosting site that is cheap. I own 4 domain names that I use and have vaild email accounts under them. I am changing my ISP and my current hosting company this month.
I was thinking of Justhost.com but not sure yet.

I am also thinking of hosting my email and website internally at my house. thinking of setting up my own Bind, SendMail and Apache server or installing SBS server to do the DNS, EMail, and Webserver. not sure yet what to do.

I am trying to weigh the pros and cons of both.
Let me know your thoughts.


thanks in advance.

How heavy are your sites, how robust a server do you need, and what type on page activities are you utilizing? (i.e. video, flash, CMS, etc.)



Come on back if you have something useful to post ;)
Jon, you're my favorite internet snob :lol:

[Player 2]

Jon, you're my favorite internet snob :lol:
:spit:

I'd do the same if someone wanted to register a domain name and a fanboy posted up how great GoDaddy is ;) :lol:

I love seeing how people fall for marketing.

Now Tyrel, if you can break it down for me why 1and1 is so great I'd love to hear what you have to say :up:

[MetaLord 9]

I'd do the same if someone wanted to register a domain name and a fanboy posted up how great GoDaddy is ;) :lol:
I damn near did that in here just to see you go off! :lol:

[Player 2]

:spit:

[TurboGizzmo]

Oh ok i know some of you are geeks. I am trying to find a reliable hosting site that is cheap. I own 4 domain names that I use and have vaild email accounts under them. I am changing my ISP and my current hosting company this month.
I was thinking of Justhost.com but not sure yet.

I am also thinking of hosting my email and website internally at my house. thinking of setting up my own Bind, SendMail and Apache server or installing SBS server to do the DNS, EMail, and Webserver. not sure yet what to do.

I am trying to weigh the pros and cons of both.
Let me know your thoughts.


thanks in advance.


I run many of my servers out of my house (website, trouble ticket system, gallery, video samples, email server, FTP sites, some other stuff)....QoS'd of course. Never had a complaint. I do have my main business email account hosted offsite for reliability but other accounts run from a mail server at home.


As for where my domains are registered.....GoDaddy ;) I got tired of hopping around from different cheapy places that kept going under back in the day.....

[Ricky]

www.1and1.com cheapest there is hands down!

x2. I have a couple hosting accounts and 20+ domains registered there. Love them to death.

[Player 2]

I run many of my servers out of my house (website, trouble ticket system, gallery, video samples, email server, FTP sites, some other stuff)....QoS'd of course. Never had a complaint. I do have my main business email account hosted offsite for reliability but other accounts run from a mail server at home.
While running a hobby website out of your home can be a cost effective way to dabble in websites, I'd NEVER recommend it to anyone wanting to run any kind of reliable business website, especially an Ecommerce site


x2. I have a couple hosting accounts and 20+ domains registered there. Love them to death.
Mind breaking down WHY you "love them to death"? I'm curious.... Are they the first hosting company you've been with? Do you really "love" their archaic control panel for your hosting account? Do you "love" that it takes their support 4-6 hours to clear an IP address out of a firewall?

If you "love" them so much, please do share...

[MetaLord 9]

Again, it depends on the purposes of the site(s), how heavy they are, the functionality intended, useage/demand needs, etc.

[TurboGizzmo]

While running a hobby website out of your home can be a cost effective way to dabble in websites, I'd NEVER recommend it to anyone wanting to run any kind of reliable business website, especially an Ecommerce site



Well considering most ecommerce redirect to 3rd party pay sites...i would still host a simple landing page from home.

Server room is air conditioned with a 2 hour battery backup, 4 terabyte 16 drive raid array, fail over to small webpage off site for major outages ;)

[Player 2]

Well considering most ecommerce redirect to 3rd party pay sites...i would still host a simple landing page from home.
:wtf: Most ecommerce sites don't consist of a simple landing page :roll:

So you'd run a 6-8 figure business out of your "server room" at home? :banghead:

[rforsythe]

Server room is air conditioned with a 2 hour battery backup, 4 terabyte 16 drive raid array, fail over to small webpage off site for major outages ;)

That's cute. :)

(Then again we have petabytes of data and around 20k servers across a half dozen data centers, and our battery backup is really only used when the underground diesel tanks run out for the genny's).

The whole "I want to host a site for $3 a month, and want 24x7 support that will fix my shit in 8 seconds flat" is why I got out of the hosting business a while ago. Just wasn't into it enough to go after the customer volume necessary, or to deal with the customers themselves. Now I just have my own servers hosting my own stuff, support my own shit, and call it good.

[MetaLord 9]

:wtf: Most ecommerce sites don't consist of a simple landing page :roll:

So you'd run a 6-8 figure business out of your "server room" at home? :banghead:
If you're running a 6-8 fig business then, chances are that you either ARE the ecommerce engine, or that you redirect to several 3rd parties that all have to coordinate and rehash to display in a user-legible way.

I mean if you're running a small to med sized basement biz as a distributor/storefront and you're hooking up to Google Checkout for your ecommerce needs, then yeah, I can see that. But not many of those guys run in the 6-8 fig range.

[Player 2]

That's cute. :)

(Then again we have petabytes of data and around 20k servers across a half dozen data centers, and our battery backup is really only used when the underground diesel tanks run out for the genny's).

:spit:

[TurboGizzmo]

That's cute. :)


The whole "I want to host a site for $3 a month, and want 24x7 support that will fix my shit in 8 seconds flat" is why I got out of the hosting business a while ago. Just wasn't into it enough to go after the customer volume necessary, or to deal with the customers themselves. Now I just have my own servers hosting my own stuff, support my own shit, and call it good.

+1 thats why i do it myself, Mmmmm petabytes....waiting for the next datacenter to go out of business to get my next array ha!

Personally I would love to go put my equipment at some site that hosts so i can stop speeding $20+ a month in electricity but dunno what that would cost.....

[Ricky]

Mind breaking down WHY you "love them to death"? I'm curious.... Are they the first hosting company you've been with? Do you really "love" their archaic control panel for your hosting account? Do you "love" that it takes their support 4-6 hours to clear an IP address out of a firewall?

If you "love" them so much, please do share...

Wow...

Let me start with the fact that I own my own server in a datacenter for the site that I run, as well I used to run a hosting company. 1and1 is simple, they provide lots of tools, registering/changing new addresses is quick, lots of space, plenty of bandwidth, better prices than most anywhere else. As for their support, it's like calling a bunch of monkeys. They scratch their head like "WTF?" when you throw them anything technical. But, since I know enough, I never have to deal with their support.

What do you mean by clearing an IP address from a firewall? That statement by itself makes absolutely no sense to me (and I manage networks for a living). And how, exactly, is their control panel archaic?

[TurboGizzmo]

I own my own server in a datacenter for the site that I run


Like you could go pick it up and take it home? How much does that cost?

[Ricky]

Like you could go pick it up and take it home? How much does that cost?

Yup. It's my server that I purchased specifically for a datacenter. Depends on the datacenter, but you can do it for as little as $100/mo.

[Zach929rr]

Wayyyyy too much e-penis is present in this discussion.

[LiQuIdAiR=OTB=]

I would be careful to speed into getting the most affordable web hosting solution. If you want personal advise send me a quick message. I work in the IT field and do my own hosting. I can give you some pointers.

[TFOGGuys]

Do you "love" that it takes their support 4-6 hours to clear an IP address out of a firewall?



That doesn't really happen, does it? Say, if you try to establish 30 FTP connections simultaneously? :banghead::scream1: :lol:

[rforsythe]

What do you mean by clearing an IP address from a firewall? That statement by itself makes absolutely no sense to me (and I manage networks for a living).

Actually I am curious about that one too. Are you talking about making rule mods, or clearing out stale sessions or something?

[Player 2]

What do you mean by clearing an IP address from a firewall? That statement by itself makes absolutely no sense to me (and I manage networks for a living). And how, exactly, is their control panel archaic?
Makes perfect sense. They obviously have a software firewall scanning for failed logins, etc (I run them on my servers) and automatically blocks an IP address based on the ruleset (too many connections, too many failed login attempts, etc). It takes 5 seconds to clear the IP address from the firewall and MAYBE another 5 to restart it. Their support quoted 4+ hours for it to happen

Compare their hosting control panel to the industry standard (Cpanel) and you'll see why I call theirs archaic ;) None of the others on the market compare (custom, Webmin, Plesk, etc)


If you want personal advise send me a quick message. I work in the IT field and do my own hosting. I can give you some pointers.
Why a PM? What can't you share publicly? :|

[LiQuIdAiR=OTB=]

Why a PM? What can't you share publicly? :|



It was a more friendly way of saying I can help. That's all. I did not want to sell. Just help. You'll sounded like you knew what you were talking about it.

[Player 2]

It was a more friendly way of saying I can help. That's all. I did not want to sell. Just help. You'll sounded like you knew what you were talking about it.

No worries, just wonder why people take things to PM when others could learn from what's posted ;)

[LiQuIdAiR=OTB=]

No worries, just wonder why people take things to PM when others could learn from what's posted ;)

It hurt me. You assumed. Say you're sorry.

[t_jolt]

:spit:
Now Tyrel, if you can break it down for me why 1and1 is so great I'd love to hear what you have to say :up:

Truthfully, i could care less how old something looks or is. It works for me and works well. I have never many issues with them, and when i did, they got fixed. They have treated me right, and for the price i pay (i jumped on thier band wagon a long time ago) its perfect for me. He asked for options, so i gave him one. And realisticly yeah it takes 4 hours for them to clear there firewall. Its like any other IT Dept under a workload. They have tens of Thousands upon tens of thousands of customers. Anyone for any company (unless thier a ceo :) ) who thinks that when they call and they have the only problem well :banghead:. They probably have thousands of tickets that they have to work a day. a 4 hour turn around time for a i would say a teir 2 tech is not bad (i dont see teir one in firewalls, in my eyes) Hell a teir 1 problem in my company, has a 24 hour window.
You may need something more then what they have to offer, i dont. I dont see the need to spend an extra ten bucks a month, on an updated CP and other features that i dont use. Its not worth it to me. but thats just my .02

Besides jon what if i called you archaic?, you old bastard :)

[MetaLord 9]

Wayyyyy too much e-penis is present in this discussion.
Well the e-penis is directly attached to the WoW account...

[Player 2]

Truthfully, i could care less how old something looks or is. It works for me and works well. I have never many issues with them, and when i did, they got fixed. They have treated me right, and for the price i pay (i jumped on thier band wagon a long time ago) its perfect for me. He asked for options, so i gave him one. And realisticly yeah it takes 4 hours for them to clear there firewall. Its like any other IT Dept under a workload. They have tens of Thousands upon tens of thousands of customers. Anyone for any company (unless thier a ceo :) ) who thinks that when they call and they have the only problem well :banghead:. They probably have thousands of tickets that they have to work a day. a 4 hour turn around time for a i would say a teir 2 tech is not bad (i dont see teir one in firewalls, in my eyes) Hell a teir 1 problem in my company, has a 24 hour window.
You may need something more then what they have to offer, i dont. I dont see the need to spend an extra ten bucks a month, on an updated CP and other features that i dont use. Its not worth it to me. but thats just my .02

So basically what you're saying here is that you're a fan boy... You don't know anything else so you "love" what you have :roll:

If they're that overworked they should hire more techs. If I had to wait 4-24 hours for assistance when I called the datacenter I'd be out of business. It's great to see you making excuses for their poor service though ;)

[dm_gsxr]

I have 12 domains on a server hosted in a Server Pronto data center in Florida.

My picture site is there which has most of the traffic and Rita's Mosaic and Stained Glass Forum with almost 400 members. The other sites are for personal projects.

They have a configuration section with a decent selection of OSs you can have installed. Windows installations are a few bucks extra.

Once they get the OS installed, they send you the password and it's all yours.

I have bind (they're a free secondary DNS), apache, mysql, and sendmail running on an OpenBSD server. For a few extra bucks, I had them increase the RAM.

My original server was $30 a month. When we added the forums, the membership chipped in the extra money to improve the server. It doubled the monthly cost but it's covered by the members :)

About my only complaint is that they don't have ALOM capability. That would eliminate the need for techs to reboot the server every once in a while.

I do have the occasional problem with other service providers with regards to e-mail. Sites like shaw.ca refuse to accept e-mail from my server because it's a "bad net citizen". They don't have a white list and there's no way to ask to get off the black list of the site they're using to refuse e-mail. Since there's no information on what they think is wrong with my server, I have to believe it's because of a prior bad citizen that had the IP that I'm using now.

Now, if you have an important server, for $75 they will immediately respond to reboot the server. The forum membership knows that the site may bail from time to time. I open a general ticket and ask them for any information from the console and a reboot if needed. I always say "when you have a minute". And most of the time the reboot is done within an hour which is more than sufficient for my purposes :)

For domain purchasing, I'm using DynDNS.org, have been for years. I get notifications when one of my domains is going to expire. They tack the time on the end of the expiration vs from the date of payment (so it doesn't roll back, losing a month or two of hosting) and they've been around for a while.

Domains are $30 for two years and they're great for the home, DHCP user. I had my servers hosted at home initially which is how I got to DynDNS. I was with Network Solutions but they didn't support dynamic IPs.

ServerPronto just raised their rates, the first time since they opened their doors (well, according to their e-mail anyway) and certainly the first time since I started using them 3 or 4 years ago.

I like them. Yea, it's a bit on the pricy side. But the server stays up and they respond quickly. Even when I set up my DNS last year. I spent quite some time making sure my configuration was right. I set up a second server at home to act as secondary so I could make sure the right information was being transfered. When I was ready, the ServerPronto guys were quick to configure their server to accept zone transfers from me and I was on the 'net with my own name server in minutes.

Carl

[dm_gsxr]

I have a server stats page that I created for the server as well. It lets me see how things are going:

http://hobgoblinconsulting.com/remote/

Carl

[Player 2]

For domain purchasing, I'm using DynDNS.org, have been for years. I get notifications when one of my domains is going to expire. They tack the time on the end of the expiration vs from the date of payment (so it doesn't roll back, losing a month or two of hosting) and they've been around for a while.

Domains are $30 for two years and they're great for the home, DHCP user. I had my servers hosted at home initially which is how I got to DynDNS. I was with Network Solutions but they didn't support dynamic IPs.

That's crazy in this day and age that they're still charging $15/yr for domains. If you pay over $8-9/yr you're paying entirely too much. (since their cost is only ~$5/yr)

That's standard practice to extend the domain from the end of the expiration. I'd be surprised if any company is doing it differently.

[t_jolt]

So basically what you're saying here is that you're a fan boy... You don't know anything else so you "love" what you have :roll:

If they're that overworked they should hire more techs. If I had to wait 4-24 hours for assistance when I called the datacenter I'd be out of business. It's great to see you making excuses for their poor service though ;)


No not at all, i've used other stuff. But like anything else in this life. Somethings i care about enough to pay the money for, others i dont. I dont need what other sites have to offer for the price. You dont like them, i do. Its cool you host your stuff, and make a living off of it, Thats cool. But just cause i like something you dont doesnt make what i have said any less valid. Its a choice everyone makes. and companies do what they can to stay profitiable. There are people like me who are ok with waiting and understand the polices and procedures of what it takes at a company of that many users, that doesnt bug me. There are others that dont, and Others that dont care and want it done ten minutes ago. I could call you bias and a fan boy of your own stuff. Cause your trying to make a sell, and potentionally many more, since i dont think most people on here knew you hosted. Remember, as with almost everything technology wise, just cause you dont like something doesnt make it bad, it makes it different.

[dm_gsxr]

That's crazy in this day and age that they're still charging $15/yr for domains. If you pay over $8-9/yr you're paying entirely too much. (since their cost is only ~$5/yr)

I guess it's momentum then. They were my DNS provider until last year and I never had a problem with my domains getting hijacked or disappearing from the 'net.


That's standard practice to extend the domain from the end of the expiration. I'd be surprised if any company is doing it differently.

Network Solutions wasn't doing it back when I was using them. I'd renew and it'd be renewed from the date of purchase.

Carl

[Player 2]

But just cause i like something you dont doesnt make what i have said any less valid. Its a choice everyone makes. and companies do what they can to stay profitiable. There are people like me who are ok with waiting and understand the polices and procedures of what it takes at a company of that many users, that doesnt bug me. There are others that dont, and Others that dont care and want it done ten minutes ago. I could call you bias and a fan boy of your own stuff. Cause your trying to make a sell, and potentionally many more, since i dont think most people on here knew you hosted. Remember, as with almost everything technology wise, just cause you dont like something doesnt make it bad, it makes it different.

Never said it wasn't valid but you never have really given good reasons why you'd recommend them aside from you've been with them sing "long ago" and you're patient enough to deal with their slow tech support.

Now here's where you're wrong. I'm not talking my hosting up. That's not what I'm trying to do here. I'm quite happy with my niche of clients I currently have. I do favors for people when they're in need otherwise. I'm not trying to make a sale (WTF is trying to make a sell?). I'm trying to inspire discussion, not just "I like it" or "it's good" :roll:

My experience with 1and1 doesn't make them bad but I never would recommend them. Their support is slow, their control panel is out dated and lacks features many users want these days.

Again I stress, you get what you pay for when it comes to hosting. If you want to pay $3-5/mo to host your hobby websites then 1and1 might be the place for you. If you're a bit more serious about your hosting then I'd never consider them.


I guess it's momentum then. They were my DNS provider until last year and I never had a problem with my domains getting hijacked or disappearing from the 'net.

Network Solutions wasn't doing it back when I was using them. I'd renew and it'd be renewed from the date of purchase.

Hijacking hasn't really been an issue for a couple of years now ;)

Back in the day NetSuck Solutions could pretty much do what they wanted since they were just about the only place to register domains

[Ricky]

Makes perfect sense. They obviously have a software firewall scanning for failed logins, etc (I run them on my servers) and automatically blocks an IP address based on the ruleset (too many connections, too many failed login attempts, etc). It takes 5 seconds to clear the IP address from the firewall and MAYBE another 5 to restart it. Their support quoted 4+ hours for it to happen

That's something I've never encountered before.

[Ricky]

If they're that overworked they should hire more techs. If I had to wait 4-24 hours for assistance when I called the datacenter I'd be out of business. It's great to see you making excuses for their poor service though ;)

There's a HUGE difference between a company/person that goes out and spends $5/mo for a simple hosting package, and someone that goes out and spends hundreds/month for better hosting and better response.

You don't pay 1and1 $5/mo for 30 second turnaround :rolleyes:

[Pachuco]

I just got back into town. thank you for the advice.

[Jason ON]

FWIW, I've used Aplus.net in the past.

And a question from the peanut gallery, where's a good place to register the domain name?