Opinion - Best Hosting Service Out there

[Melbosa]

So one of my hosting contracts is up with GoDaddy pretty quick and I know we have had some issues with their hosting in the past, so I am looking for your opinion on host services out there you have experience with.

For me I am looking for the following features:

• Multiple Websites (including DBs) on one Host Account
• Unlimited Bandwidth per Month
• Optional Canned Installs of Software
• Email ability routing and/or Email Account hosting
• Domain Name Hosting - unlimited if at all possible
• Easy, User Friendly, Clean GUI for the Hosting Account
• Possibility to configure each website to utilize features of the Hosting Environment (configure the PHP modules, Apache modules, add/remove features by Website, etc)
• Reliability, Performance and Good Support

[Lazybones]

Only had some experience with Enterprise level hosting, so I can't really recommend anything in that size....

I know Tom has had several small projects hosted for some time so maybe he can comment... If you go back to the SOPA GoDaddy thread (mostly happened when you where out of town), I think there where some alternatives suggested.

[Darren Dirt]

I remember these guys from a few years ago...

https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/hosting

[Mr. Analog]

Have you considered Azure?

I got a quick demo of it a couple weeks ago, it seemed legit though obvious more Microsoft centric than EC2

[Melbosa]

I've played with Azure at work... not really friendly to the Linux installs - possible, but more Microsoft focused as you said.

[Mr. Analog]

Yepp, you got that right

[Melbosa]

So I know this is an old thread, but I need to find a host that lets me do a little more than GoDaddy.  I would like Linux support (prefer Redhat or Ubuntu) with, Apache PHP, MySQL, and allows me to use all PHP modules I want.  I think this means VPS or something like it, but thought I would post asking you guys your thoughts...

[Tom]

If you're going vps, there are A LOT of options. I'm currently trying out Digital Ocean. Theres also linode, AWS (which likes going down a lot), hostgator, dreamhost, rackspace, and about a billion other's I haven't heard of.

[Lazybones]

The trick is I assume you are looking for something very small...

Tom has had good experience with Digital Ocean so far.

http://aws.amazon.com/ would be my pick for a big service

If you are migrating the forums to a VPS there are a bunch of performance improvements I would love to help you make, and setting up SSL shouldn't be too hard as well.

[Tom]

AWS is mostly good at short term, or bursty services (aka: expect your instances to randomly die over the long term). If you need to cover some extra load, spin up a real quick AWS instance or ten. they only charge you for as long as the image is running. Digital Ocean charges you for as long as the instance /exists/. You can however make a backup/image of your instance and destroy it to use later.

As for SSL, I just setup SSL for my new mail server with startssl. quite fast and easy. and free.

[Lazybones]

As for SSL, I just setup SSL for my new mail server with startssl. quite fast and easy. and free.

This is something that is easy when you have full OS control over a VPS... The forums current hosting is managed so StartSSL wasn't possible.

[Tom]

As for SSL, I just setup SSL for my new mail server with startssl. quite fast and easy. and free.

This is something that is easy when you have full OS control over a VPS... The forums current hosting is managed so StartSSL wasn't possible.

That sucks. They don't let you paste the cert and key in a text area and hit submit? cause that would handle startSSL.

[Lazybones]

As for SSL, I just setup SSL for my new mail server with startssl. quite fast and easy. and free.

This is something that is easy when you have full OS control over a VPS... The forums current hosting is managed so StartSSL wasn't possible.

That sucks. They don't let you paste the cert and key in a text area and hit submit? cause that would handle startSSL.

According to Mel, only GoDaddy certs are supported on this GoDaddy service

[Tom]

Sigh. Sounds about right for godaddy.

[Melbosa]

I think I am mostly looking for a fully functional LAMP without restrictions, but was hoping that I wouldn't have to maintain an OS installation... sounds like that isn't available to easily.