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GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

marco.org

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Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#41

Post by dave5104 »

CharlesW wrote: post #9
wonderyak wrote: post #3

My least horrible experiences have all been with DreamHost as well. Our company did reseller hosting for about 5 years and went through all of the acquisition stuff Marco mentions. We had to exit SoftLayer because they were horrible, only to be brought right back. Hosting is a horrible business. To be good at it and have marketplace success you need to deliver over the top support; which is just unsustainable at scal…

I'm not a fan of "me too"s, but I've been a DreamHost customer since 2001 and use them for smaller sites and may try VPS and/or dedicated with them in the future. I recall one rough patch with them in 2006 ( http://www.dreamhost.com/dreamscape/2006/08/01/anatomy-of-an... ), but I felt like they did a pretty good job of keeping customers informed and so I stuck with them.

I've been a DH VPS customer for... years now. Don't even remember how long since I upgraded from shared. (And I've been with DH since 2006.)

Coming from the shared environment, having a VPS is infinitely nicer. We would have an issue every month or two on shared hosting, but now it's an issue every year or so on their VPS knocks on wood

My general experience with DH is that uptime is fantastic... but when it rains, it pours for a day or so. But then right back to clear skies for months.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#42

Post by smacktoward »

As long as we're sharing hosting anecdotes/recommendations, I'll throw in my two cents: I've dealt with umpty gazillion hosting companies over the last 15+ years, and the only one that has consistently impressed me to the point where I recommend them to clients without any reservations is Rackspace. Both in their dedicated server offerings and the newer Rackspace Cloud stuff. (Rackspace Cloud doesn't have as much bleeding-edge whiz-bang stuff as AWS, but they make up for it IMO with excellent tech support/customer service.)

They're generally more expensive than the competition, but you get what you pay for, you know? I'm sitting here trying to think of a time when Rackspace has ever let me down, and I can't. Being able to have that kind of confidence in your hosting environment is nice.

Marco is correct that shared hosting is a disaster area, so much so that Rackspace doesn't really compete there, so I'm always hesitant when people ask me to recommend a shared host. I generally end up recommending Dreamhost too; it's not great, but it's better than what you'd get for the same money anywhere else.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#43

Post by elwell »

smacktoward wrote: post #42

As long as we're sharing hosting anecdotes/recommendations, I'll throw in my two cents: I've dealt with umpty gazillion hosting companies over the last 15+ years, and the only one that has consistently impressed me to the point where I recommend them to clients without any reservations is Rackspace. Both in their dedicated server offerings and the newer Rackspace Cloud stuff. (Rackspace Cloud doesn't have as much ble…

will upvote with reservations (don't want too many people there, but I think they have handled popularity rather well)

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#44

Post by seldo »

I think Marco is overly dismissive of shared hosting; the web should be inclusive and easy to use, and for lots of people with uncomplicated hosting needs shared hosting is a fine choice. See also: Heroku, AWS, any other level of abstraction you care to pick. Many developers outgrow shared hosting, but that doesn't mean the category is intrinsically bad.

(My personal site has been on Site5 for over a decade; they have mostly been pretty good)

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#45

Post by larrys »

bobfunk wrote: post #39
larrys wrote: post #29

"But it’s also highly commoditized: hosts can’t differentiate their products very much, there’s effectively no barrier to entry, switching at any time is fairly cheap and easy, and most customers buy primarily on price." I don't agree at all that for many website hosting customers the process is "easy". A typical web hosting customer is not tech saavy they either have it being handled by their "tech guy" or they can'…

Couldn't agree more. The way you host and manage a static website hasn't really changed for more than a decade, and most hosting UI's feel like something out of the 90ies. We're working on solving this for static sites with BitBalloon ( https://www.bitballoon.com ). Both by giving people an instant way to get their site online, but also by making it dead easy to do typical tasks like adding Analytics or getting forms…

Took a look that looks really good.

I assume people can also drag a .html etc or a .jpg and it will replace an existing file after verifying (and/or rename)?

Good luck!

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#46

Post by prawn »

lelandbatey wrote: post #4

Web hosting customers are nomads. If your host hasn’t been ruined yet, just wait. This line right here is absolutely sage wisdom. Here are some of the companies I've bought services from, as well as what I remember happening to them: ClubUptime Closed in a disastrous closure due to basically being conned. DirectSpace Still around, haven't changed much VolumeDrive Very sketchy, I don't really know how they're still in…

True!

Started with one place I can't remember - started with S. It was cheap and allowed multiple small sites to run off one account. Eventually turned to crap and so we bailed.

WebCentral - gave up on their silly control panel.

Used a place in NSW or Vic that started off OK, then was acquired (BlueCentral, I think?) and turned into a bit of a rude disaster. Abandoned that. Had a site break on Friday of a long weekend, so no support until Tuesday...

Had 60+ clients with CrystalTech who were polite and had great service. They were bought by NewTek and started overloading shared servers and tech support went from efficient and polite to slow and especially dim-witted. Bought again by SBA and things got worse. We've gradually shifted dozens of sites to accounts at Linode and that's been a great move for us.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#47

Post by nknighthb »

coderdude wrote: post #13

I've been a Media Temple customer since 2007 and a GoDaddy customer since 2004 [edit: I say 2004 but I don't think that's possible. I must have switched to them sometime after 2006 but I can't recall who my previous registrar was.]. I like both companies just fine though apparently not everyone has been as lucky. I don't know if GD is going to be a good home for mt since GD specializes in cheaper hosting. But... GoDa…

When I had a domain registered with GoDaddy, they called and woke my sick mother up just to try and sell me shit I didn't need. When told I wasn't available (not that it wasn't my number, but that I just wasn't available), they threatened to cancel my registration for providing "false" contact information.

I started the transfer to another company an hour later. They have never and will never get another dime from me.

No, this isn't a joke or parody or satire. It's what actually happened. It's a horrible, customer-hostile company.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#49

Post by minimaxir »

driverdan wrote: post #10
wonderyak wrote: post #3

My least horrible experiences have all been with DreamHost as well. Our company did reseller hosting for about 5 years and went through all of the acquisition stuff Marco mentions. We had to exit SoftLayer because they were horrible, only to be brought right back. Hosting is a horrible business. To be good at it and have marketplace success you need to deliver over the top support; which is just unsustainable at scal…

DH's shared hosting is bad, possibly horrible. Their shared servers go down frequently. Often they didn't even seem to know the server I'm on was down until I sent a support request. I keep my account for testing and sites I don't really care much about.

DH's shared hosting was fine for me and my WordPress blog for 2 years.

Then I hit #1 on Hacker News and bad things happened.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#50

Post by macspoofing »

seldo wrote: post #44

I think Marco is overly dismissive of shared hosting; the web should be inclusive and easy to use, and for lots of people with uncomplicated hosting needs shared hosting is a fine choice. See also: Heroku, AWS, any other level of abstraction you care to pick. Many developers outgrow shared hosting, but that doesn't mean the category is intrinsically bad. (My personal site has been on Site5 for over a decade; they hav…

>I think Marco is overly dismissive of shared hosting

Is he? It sounds like he's deriding the hosting business (the providers, the prices, the way the customer is passed around, etc.), rather than the idea of shared hosting.

>but that doesn't mean the category is intrinsically bad.

Again, the category isn't bad, all the major players in that category are crap.

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