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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Need new hosting / email provider -- suggestions?

Jeff Kilgroe

Jeff Kilgroe

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OK, need a new hosting and email provider ASAP. MediaTemple just totally failed me, a few words in a forum post can not explain. Have been thinking of switching anyway since their email services are complete shit and it's one constant issue after another. Now they have totally screwed the pooch, potentially lost me an important client, and this might blow up into something big that I don't want to deal with.

I'm not looking for small-time personal web site hosting. I need BANDWIDTH and I need robust email with good database and config options, multiple site/domain hosting. Also not looking for a generic C.Panel based provider where they all have the same cookie-cutter back end and no real support. I want the good stuff.

Being a hosting provider is hard -- been there, done that. But I can't believe there isn't anyone out there that can do it right. ...still looking.
 
Haven't used them for quiet a few years and I'm not even sure this is still their name, but C I Host seemed like a pretty good outfit to me. They had capabilities WAY above what I needed, so I left them for a less expensive webhost, Hostmonster.
 
I use dreamhost and love them.
 
I use http://dixiesys.com/ but their billing system is terrible. But they're absurdly cheap. Good for just parking a domain with a simple website. I wouldn't trust them though with an eCommerce site or anything like that.

Have you considered just running an Amazon S3/EC2 server?
 
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  • #9
Bob Gundu said:
I guess I don't need power crazy solutions but I've been ok with Powweb.
Click to expand...

Used them before, never again. I supposedly had "unlimited" bandwidth and plenty of GB of storage. However, they complained about what I was doing and actually shut my account (and 5 web sites with about 30 email users) down on more than one occasion for silly things like having files that were "too big" or using more than xxxGB of bandwidth in a month (on an unlimited bandwidth account). Let's just say we didn't see eye to eye and then for a while there I had terrible email issues which they took weeks to identify and then subsequently refused to address the problem because of the amount of resources involved to fix it. So that was that. Yeah, not a fan of the Powweb....

Prior to Powweb, I ran my own servers and charged clients for hosting. But I quit that when my work with the datacenter I was using changed capacity to a continuous maintenance and installation type contract. I didn't want to be a host anymore and deal with all the bandwidth allegations, negotiating for bandwidth and IP blocks and constantly keeping servers up to date with the latest software and whatnot. I have a small IT company that manages hardware infrastructure for this local datacenter on a contract basis. But we don't touch people's systems, we handle the routers, cabling, etc.. And we maintain a few large RAID units for one of our clients there. There is one hosting provider within this datacenter and I've tried using them too. Nice guys, but they don't offer what I need...

I went from Powweb to InMotion Hosting to MediaTemple. Also tried BlueHost and DreamHost before MediaTemple, but didn't use any more than their demo periods. At the last time I was shopping around a couple years ago, most of the "unlimited" plans out there were not truly unlimited. They usually were capped at 20, 30 or 40GB per month when you read the fine print. Looking around now, some still seem to be that way.

I've put up with the absolutely shitty email system from MediaTemple for going on 3 years now because their actual web hosting has been rather good. They have had some major glitches in the past 6 months, including a security issue where some accounts got hacked and used for spam and subsequently nearly every one of their mail servers and associated IP blocks were de-listed or black-listed by other major ISPs as a spam source. The way MediaTemple handled that event, even though getting it *mostly* cleared up after several months, didn't strike me as the proper way to handle it.

Media Temple always gets glowing reviews... They have been nothing but mediocre since I've signed up there. Overall I really like their site management console system and how everything works. The hosting aspect is probably the best I've run across. But the email... Man... I'd almost be better off to use GoDaddy or Google for mail services and just map my MX records somewhere else like that.

I was going to bitch about their support times lately being 20~30 hours. And I haven't been having much luck today getting ahold of anyone there. But they're on top of my issue now. I've got my email back up where I can check and it seems that all my hosted clients do as well. The other big issue that happened hasn't been resolved yet... Waiting to see how that turns out. I finally got to talk to someone about it over the phone. It's apparently a much larger issue and there was a real sense of panic and urgency in this guy's voice. Glad I'm not him.

If they can find a way to put the shit back into the horse on this one within the next few hours, I'll probably stay. ...Mostly because I know if I go anywhere else it's just going to be more of the same, or worse. Looking around, I'm not seeing too many other options out there with the level of features I'm getting here. At least not without going to a full-on dedicated server plan, but if I'm going to do that, I may as well just build a couple of my own and install them in the local datacenter where I have people looking in on a regular basis.
 
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  • #11
Looked at DreamHost again. And GeoVario... Not quite what I'm looking for. Great for individual hosting plans and small sites. I've got a couple commerce sites to host. One of the clients is hosting a site that has a database close to 20GB in size. These smaller hosting providers have "unlimited" everything, but their caps on data sizes kinda shoots the whole unlimited concept in the head. "Unlimited mySQL databases!!! <fine print> max 1GB each</fine print>".

@Gavin. Yeah, I'm looking at Amazon's solutions, some possibilities there...
 
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  • #12
Joseph S. said:
How much bandwidth do you use per month?
Click to expand...

I'd say bandwidth averages around 1TB per month. 6 web sites, just under 100 email accounts, not including auto-responders, forwards, etc.. My own web site is just a crappy splash page that hasn't been updated in 3 years, because I don't care anymore. haha. So that accounts for one of another 10 similar ones as well that are nothing more than a simple page as an online business card of sorts or a parked domain.

Honestly, I'd love to quit it all and let each client handle their own hosting account, but it doesn't work that way. They insist I do it and pay me to handle it. With MediaTemple I'm using one of their GS (grid server) accounts as well as a (dv) server offering, the one for $350/month. Not so much that I need the transfer, but I actually need the disk space so that's how it lines up. And there's been a few months -- like when one of the clients releases a software update, where it's nice to have the 3TB limit as it can spike up there.

If I put my site back online and start hosing video and animation work again, my monthly bandwidth would probably shoot through the roof, but I think it makes more sense for that sort of thing to just use a pro account through vimeo and embed, let them handle the bandwidth for streaming.
 
Jeff, have you considered Rackspace? I'm guessing yes, and if so, why not go that route? You are able to bill clients from directly in the interface. My agency has been using them for a while and they have, from what I've heard from my developers, been very good. There are a ton of options for setting up servers and/or hosting accounts. Also, their backend is very nice to work in for administration. However, I have a feeling that cost would be higher than ideal. I will say that I was impressed with the customer service when we signed up. They called soon after to make sure we had everything we needed.
 
Jeff, I use Hostgator (http://hostgator.com) for our web development business (my after hours job) ...I've had a reseller account with over 50 sites on shared and dedicated servers...rarely had any problems, and when I do, Hostgator Support is very responsive. Great prices too....highly recommend them.

Tom
 
I use apollohosting. They seem reliable, inexpensive and have been around for awhile. They have an unlimited plan but not sure how they would handle large amounts of video serving.
 
Hey Jeff,

It might not be cost effective based on the number of mail accounts you require, but I gotta say that I tried just about everything out there for mail and ended up running an Exchange server in house for a lot of years. When hosted Exchange became affordable, I went with Apptix.com and have been super happy with them.

I've had serious issues with many of the dreamhost, justhost, hosting services, as many of these guys have been blacklisted in acl's etc. due to the huge amount of spam that is generated from their domains making email communication with an every evolving customer and crew list a nightmare.

Hosted Exchange may not be sexy, but it just works.

Steve
 
My friend started Heroku. Since he is incredibly trustworthy, smart and also a very nice guy, I recommend it.

Also, the product is awesome and can scale up to handle insane loads quickly.

It's probably a little different to what you had in mind - but worth a look for heavy database / platform-as-a-service stuff!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Jeff,

For email, use google, period. Email is one of those things that seem trivial, but that require a lot of work to do right. Google does it right, and is super affordable.

As for heavy bandwidth, how about doing colocation?

We got tired of dealing with issues with hosting providers, and instead, went ahead and rented a rack on a datacenter, and put our own stuff inside. Now we have all the power and all the BW I could think of.... and I still recommend google for email, just because it is less work and it does the job all the time.

It is relatively inexpensive to rent space on a datacenter, you might not need a complete rack, maybe a half rack or quarter rack will do, or just simple shared co-lo, with other people on the same rack.
 
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