Re: PHP/Drupal web host recommendation
Hi Ray,
I've been using Hostmonster and Bluehost (same company) for several
years with about a dozen accounts and several dozen domains. In
general, my experience with them has been very good. They are certainly
inexpensive, at $7/mo for virtually unlimited drive space and
bandwidth. They have all of the 'features' you'd ever want, including
php5 and mysql5, one-click installs, ssh, etc. Hostmonster also allow s
unlimited subdomains, add-on domains, email accounts, etc.
Most important to me is technical support, especially in the case of
emergency, and on this point, bluehost/hm is really solid. They answer
the phone within a minute or two, and in 99% of the cases their level 1
tech support reps are VERY good. They understand what they're doing,
and they never hand-waive with canned answers. They will escalate to
higher levels as needed. I'm actually very surprised that they're able
to provide such an enlightened level one support. I've tried many
other hosts (site5, dreamhost, yahoo, network solutions, etc. and none
of the others come close). One thing I now insist on is phone support,
because if my host fails I can't tolerate waiting to get an email back.
The only problems I call about are those which really do require an
interaction with a support tech. These hosts also have a forum, which
is often a great way to get help, and it keeps the host honest.
Having said all this, shared hosting is a mixed-bag, and you never know
how well behaved the other accounts will be on your server. Most hosts
put 1000+ domains on a server, some (ie network solutions) it will be
3000+. The number of domains is less important than their activity
patterns. I use a script to track the response time on each of my
servers every 10 minutes and there is a wide difference on the overall
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