Answered MODX 2.3 Website breaks after resource save

http://bobsguides.com/modx-friendly-hosts.html

Congratulations! It really does make a huge different to host your site at a place whose servers are set up in a way that supports MODX. Seamless transfers, responsive servers, and the correct file permissions are your reward.

To be fair, though, even at friendly hosts, ModSecurity rules can interfere. Each update to server software carries the risk that a new ModSecurity rule will interfere with some way MODX functions. Good hosts are happy to disable these rules for your site, since MODX is not a high target for hackers at this point.

Also, although I don't recommend GoDaddy to anyone if they ask, their cPanel hosting is worlds better than what they had before, and they will disable ModSecurity rules when asked. Maybe you just got some techs who weren't savvy or friendly. I've actually had good experiences with their tech support when needed, although I have only used the Chat version, not telephone. So, if any of your clients MUST stay at GoDaddy, push them to switch to cPanel if they haven't already.

And, Bob, I would add Site5 to your list. They fully support MODX, the server speed is outstanding, and tech support is fast and knowledgeable. [ed. note: rainbowtiger last edited this post 9 years, 9 months ago.]

And, Bob, I would add Site5 to your list. They fully support MODX, the server speed is outstanding, and tech support is fast and knowledgeable.

Done. Thanks.

Has anyone in the MODX community carried out a comparison of the service providers in BobRay's list? Is there a list of reviews by MODX users that can be referred to?

@jesseatomic: I for one would be interested to hear which of those hosts you decided to go for, what the deciding factor was and how you get on.

I would add one more option to the list - your very own Amazon EC2 server. Sure it is not for everyone, but:

• It is ALL yours to do with what you will
• You can add, change, remove whatever you want. Need exiftool for a photography site? Just install it
• It is free for the first twelve months and thereafter in the $15-25 range per month
• You get 8G of storage for that price but it is easy to add TBs more and the storage is cheap
• You can scale it as and when you need to
• You can run as many sites as you like
• There are heaps of resources out there to help you
• It can be physically located where you need it
• Backups (snapshots) are a snap

OK, there are some downsides. You will need to get your hands dirty. There is a fair bit of initial setup to get things like sftp and apache set up (I am using Ubuntu but choose your own poison). But once you have it set up it just WORKS.

This review (although I don't know how current it is) lists another couple of possible hosting providers:

InMotion Hosting
WebHostingHub

Quote from: gissirob at Jul 30, 2014, 04:09 PM

I would add one more option to the list - your very own Amazon EC2 server. Sure it is not for everyone, but:

• It is ALL yours to do with what you will
• You can add, change, remove whatever you want. Need exiftool for a photography site? Just install it
• It is free for the first twelve months and thereafter in the $15-25 range per month
• You get 8G of storage for that price but it is easy to add TBs more and the storage is cheap
• You can scale it as and when you need to
• You can run as many sites as you like
• There are heaps of resources out there to help you
• It can be physically located where you need it
• Backups (snapshots) are a snap

OK, there are some downsides. You will need to get your hands dirty. There is a fair bit of initial setup to get things like sftp and apache set up (I am using Ubuntu but choose your own poison). But once you have it set up it just WORKS.

You know what would be a killer asset for AWS? A preconfigured machine image ready for MODx. Maybe include WHM/cPanel.

I am on EC2 but would not recommend my image as the admin who set it up for me was not familiar with MODX and thus we have had to work backwards. I have a total of four EC2 instances running at the moment and went there to centralize everything and hopefully to eventually make it faster and easier to deploy dedicated resources for my work. I am running medium and large EC2 instances and performance wise I am having better success than I had with my previous host (where in fairness I had just one mid-tier VPS and a few sites running on it).

If someone more astute to the server environments wanted to work on an AMI and make it public or share it, I would contribute to the effort.

Quote from: ridgedale at Jul 31, 2014, 08:42 AM

This review (although I don't know how current it is) lists another couple of possible hosting providers:

InMotion Hosting
WebHostingHub

Also checkout SkyToaster, they are longtime MODX supporters and contributors and promote a MODX-tuned VPS and dedicated options.

Quote from: ridgedale at Jul 31, 2014, 08:42 AM

This review (although I don't know how current it is) lists another couple of possible hosting providers:

InMotion Hosting
WebHostingHub

What I discovered is that these "review" sites are typically paid advertising for the services listed. They are not independent reviews of hosting services. Hosting services pay to be in the "top 10" list. That doesn't mean the hosting services aren't good necessarily, although listing the no. 2 spot for a hosting service that is cheap and only offers one plan is very suspicious to me.

I actually tried A2 hosting, and while my MODX test worked just fine there, the speed was actually slower than I get hosting my sites at Site5, despite the fact that my test site was on an SSD server at A2. I think server location may have a greater impact on speed that the type of data storage. If you live in the midwest (where A2 is located) it may be a different story.

Quote from: ridgedale at Jul 31, 2014, 08:42 AM

Also checkout SkyToaster, they are longtime MODX supporters and contributors and promote a MODX-tuned VPS and dedicated options.

I've heard great things about SkyToaster, although I haven't tried them.