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

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

#121

Post by talkingquickly »

wheels wrote: post #74
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…

> and the newer Rackspace Cloud stuff We've used Rackspace Cloud and Linode for several years and found Rackspace Cloud performance to be significantly worse than Linode for CPU and IO. Like, not even close. Prices are about the same. Support experiences are also similar (quick, competent responses from both sides). The only reason we keep the Rackspace stuff around is because we want to have a relatively wide separa…

I'd second this. Particularly CPU performance on Rackspace has been hugely worse than Linode on comparatively sized instances. To the point I've had to use 8GB instances on Rackspace for CPU bound tasks which are fine on 1 or 2GB Linode instances.

We're currently considering a migration from Rackspace to Linode for this very reason so we'll temporarily be running a complete version of our infrastructure on both and replaying traffic on both.

Once we've done this I'll try and post some detailed benchmarks.

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

#122

Post by noir_lord »

If I need to host multiple simple sites they go onto one of my linode instances that is set up for multiple sites.

If I need to host a more complex or demanding web application it goes onto a dedicated linode (or may share one).

Dedicated servers that are reliable are very very expensive (Hetzner in my direct experience is nowhere near reliable) where with linode across 3-8 linodes at various times I've had no down time in coming up for 5 years.

Fantastic support, they don't oversell their machines.

Sure if I shop around I can get a similar spec (whether it delivers who knows) for half the price but is it really worth saving 20 bucks if I don't sleep at night worrying about my vps provider going down.

I also like DO, I still won't host anything important with them but for a quick dev/test box they are pretty good.

I've never really gotten why the VPS market is quite so price conscious the difference between 5 a month and 20 a month is so meaningless in the grand scheme of things (I suspect I spend a lot more than 15 a month on coffee on the way to work).

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

#124

Post by mbesto »

My experience is the following: not everyone has the same consistent experience with every host, but some are definitely better than others.

That being said, the companies I've had good experiences with, have heard others, and will continue to use/pay are: AWS, Linode, DigitalOcean, and Webfaction (webfaction is amazing for a small cheap shared hosting environment). Other ones that cross my mind are OVH and Hetzner.

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

#126

Post by stevewillows »

wwweston wrote: post #64
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…

> 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. It's notably worse than a number of other commodity experiences I've had. Dreamhost aggressively oversells. They're hardly unique in this, but they admit and embrace it like nobody else I've seen. Because of this, DreamHost accounts have two sets of rules: the ones they sell you on, a…

I've been with Dreamhost for quite a long time. Dreamhost is like a decent all-you-can-eat sushi bar. Not the best product, but it's worth the money you pay.

As you said though, their goofy attitude toward outages and such isn't good. I like the transparency of their status site, but when shit goes wrong I don't want a cat-meme reference.

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

#127

Post by jiggy2011 »

noir_lord wrote: post #122

If I need to host multiple simple sites they go onto one of my linode instances that is set up for multiple sites. If I need to host a more complex or demanding web application it goes onto a dedicated linode (or may share one). Dedicated servers that are reliable are very very expensive (Hetzner in my direct experience is nowhere near reliable) where with linode across 3-8 linodes at various times I've had no down t…

I think a lot of VPS hosting is for personal projects or very small business.

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

#128

Post by ibelong2u »

wwweston wrote: post #64
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…

> 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. It's notably worse than a number of other commodity experiences I've had. Dreamhost aggressively oversells. They're hardly unique in this, but they admit and embrace it like nobody else I've seen. Because of this, DreamHost accounts have two sets of rules: the ones they sell you on, a…

With it's low price point and a very user friendly admin panel, I too would recommend Dreamhost's shared hosting service. I've had a good experience with their customer service and they have some nice bells and whistles such as automated backups, PageSpeed, Railgun (cloudflare), being carbon neutral, etc.

We have to remember that shared hosting is not for heavy or critical websites. There are always some unwritten, but well-intentioned rules attached to unlimited hosting plans. As you would imagine, the server performance on any shared hosting depends on you and your neighbors adhering to them.

I'll agree with you, shutting down a customer without notice is not acceptable. Maybe if a customer is actively trying to scam the hosting provider by violating the terms... but I think even in that case, customer should be given a 24 hour eviction notice so that they have time to transition elsewhere.

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

#129

Post by ryantownsend »

voltagex_ wrote: post #95
prawn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 weeken…

Hosting in Australia seems crazily expensive to me. One of the many reasons we need the NBN.

If you happen to be doing Rails development, it may be worth checking out Ninefold: http://ninefold.com/pricing [no affiliation of mine]

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

#130

Post by hobbes »

wwweston wrote: post #64
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…

> 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. It's notably worse than a number of other commodity experiences I've had. Dreamhost aggressively oversells. They're hardly unique in this, but they admit and embrace it like nobody else I've seen. Because of this, DreamHost accounts have two sets of rules: the ones they sell you on, a…

Seconded. When Dreamhost works, it is excellent. When it fails, it fails really, really badly and the support is often shockingly inept.

Just two examples from my painful membership:

1. I transferred a domain back into Dreamhost. Due to a bug in their system, it was immediately dropped and entered the redemption period, and asked me for a large redemption fee. Support was wholly unable to acknowledge any problem on their part, and only resolved it when I posted the issue on Webhostingtalk.com

2. After requesting a refund onto my credit card after another hideous incident, rather than crediting my card, they debited it. Again, support were completely unable to acknowledge any problem on their part. Instead, when I asked the reason why my card was debited, they said I was charged for "services" - but were unable to itemise the services I had been charged for when challenged. They only refunded the money as "courtesy" rather than an acknowledgement on their part.

Dreadful.

If your storage requirements are small, I strongly recommend medialayer.com. For a budget option, I recommend asmallorange.com

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