Ask HN: What web hosting service do you use? (2011 edition)

22 points by marketer 14 years ago | 28 comments

Hosting companies seem to have the same packages since 2006 - 512 MB RAM, 40 GB disk, etc... What kind of hosting companies are you using these days? Any new and innovative ones out there?

latch 14 years ago |

using http://stormondemand.com/ (liquid web). When we started, a year or so ago, we ran unixbench on a few of their servers, linode and ec2. I don't remember the results, but I remember Storm won across the board (and, in some cases, like disk IO, by huge margins).

I had 30 second downtime last week. First time.

I like that they offer, ok priced, dedicated machines (though I'm on their "bare-metal" machines for now).

The only problem is that they don't innovate. They are where AWS was back when it started. Shared storage...dns...virtual ips..load balancers...queues...(and the list goes on), doesn't exist.

If I wasn't such a cheap ass, I'd use Amazon.

manuscreationis 14 years ago |

An acquaintance of mine actually runs his own hosting company. Feel free to check it out. I don't believe they offer windows solutions, pretty much just Linux based server support, but I could be wrong.

http://www.thetemplehost.com/

In terms of the hosting providers I've worked with in a professional capacity, they've all had their ups and downs.

I couldn't really recommend one over the other, but a lot of people seem keen on Rackspace, and I don't think anyone has ever told me that they enjoyed dealing with 1and1.

MatthewB 14 years ago |

I use Dreamhost for my little sites that I don't pay much attention to and AWS for anything bigger. I recently deployed some rails apps on Heroku and have been loving it so I will probably be using that for a while.

Autonomy 14 years ago |

Webfaction are the best hosts I've ever used.

http://www.webfaction.com/why-webfaction/

decadentcactus 14 years ago | |

Agreed, I use them as a general host and test area, although I'm hoping to try out some other "PaaS" inc. Heroku soon. Still, a good place for anyone who just wants something simple.

davidandgoliath 14 years ago |

Been happily hosting my own personal content on my own hosting company for nearly a decade now. Can't go wrong when you're signing the paycheques and need support.

(Owning a hosting company has a few perks, finally!)

As for innovators are concerned, Linode is doing good stuff. Can't think of anyone else in the space doing anything remotely interesting quite frankly.

ez77 14 years ago |

Ruby Ring Tech [http://rubyringtech.com/]. Dirt cheap, and in principle unmetered. (As I have not tried to test this claim, I just get the peace of mind I look for in unmetered plans.) Yes, they are probably <99% in uptime, but then I expected that, as my sites are just learning sandboxes.

tamersalama 14 years ago | |

Seemed like a good service - until I saw the Adult hosting.

ez77 14 years ago | | |

What do you mean?

Edit: I just saw it [1]... Is your qualm performance-based, or ethical?

[1]: http://rubyringtech.com/hosting/adult-hosting/

inetsee 14 years ago |

I don't know about new or innovative, but a recent post comparing VPS performance ("http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-performance-comparison/) concluded that Linode gives the best bang for your buck, at least in the low cost ($20/month) space.

chubs 14 years ago |

Heroku for anything dynamic, and S3 for anything static. If at all possible, i try to make my sites static.

samarudge 14 years ago |

Live servers: LiquidWeb (Physical and virtual, not StormOnDemand but we have 12 big servers with them so they cut us a special deal). Dev/messing about servers: OVH - Dirt cheap, functional, decent hardware, but don't expect support if something goes wrong

mfkp 14 years ago |

I use Webbynode for my personal projects, awesome deployment process, and cheap. Joyent Cloud is my pick for the bigger apps I run. Pretty similar to AWS, about the same price, way better performance. Just my two cents.

GBond 14 years ago |

Using modwest for PHP based sites for years. Been stable as a rock. The only knock has been they are slow to add new plugins but probably the reason they are very stable.

saiko-chriskun 14 years ago |

in terms of 'different' or 'innovative' the first one that comes to mind is http://nearlyfreespeech.net

ez77 14 years ago | |

They are indeed different! From [1]:

Will you design my web site for me?

No, we will not. Our design skills are horrifyingly bad anyway. We like to stick to what we're good at, which is hosting sites, not creating them. Our current public site reflects this.

[1] https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq#Design

wbracken 14 years ago |

Been wondering the same. I am stuck on godaddy for several of our company's sites and they are driving me nuts for both operational and political reasons!

dholowiski 14 years ago |

Prgmr.com - two servers and counting. Because they don't Assume i am stupid. And of course, heroku for quick crazy ideas.

shadgregory 14 years ago |

Been using Linode for years now. Cheap enough, and you can install just about anything you want.

Axsuul 14 years ago |

I have a few sites hosted on Rackspace Cloud Servers and some on Amazon EC2.

booz 14 years ago |

I have been very happy with using Linode for the past year.

LarryMade 14 years ago |

Bluehost has been good for me.

Mankhool 14 years ago |

In Canada, Blacksun.

thigbee 14 years ago |

I use HostGator and am happy with it. For a while I used GoDaddy and HATED it. GoDaddy hostin was down relatively often and always slow.

willpower101 14 years ago | |

I hate godaddy's interface.

Hostgator's 10/mth plan and cpanel is plenty easy for me to put all my simple forums and blogs on.

I set up my university design department with Dreamhost because it's easy for the layman and you can add multiple accounts with different lvls of access. If you need that...

I hear MT is good like AWS if you are like to configure everything on your own.

mcarrano 14 years ago | |

I too use HostGator and very satisfied.

Several clients I did work for had GoDaddy hosting and I would run into all sorts of issues with them.