More hosting recommendations?

About phpSuExec, I’ll quote Jason the CEO :

Quote from: Jason

At TextDrive, we run PHP-FastCGI and PHP-CGI under SUEXEC, and do it alongside mod_php.

To make things more interesting we run both PHP4 and PHP5 side-by-side under these formats, and you can control which you are using all the way down to htaccess with directory-by-directory and location-by-location control.

here is the reply I got from imhosted:

Hello Scotty Delicious,

Please note that our servers has the version of

PHP - 4.3.11 (since version 5.0 has some bugs)
Mysql - 4.0.25-standard

and phpSuExec enabled by default in all the servers.

Please let us know if you have anyother queries.
______________________________________________
Best Regards,
James - Customer Care
ICQ : 286188997

Another one I’m looking at is Site5 (www.site5.com). They look pretty good and reviews have been quite decent too. Need to research them some more though.

So...my short list so far are these:

TextDrive (www.textdrive.com)
Media Temple (www.mediatemple.net)
DreamHost (www.dreamhost.com)
Site5 (www.site5.com)

All of them have their own quirks and things so the decision is quite tough at the moment! Ugg!

Site5 looks pretty alright!

here are some reviews (googled)
http://www.webhostingjury.com/reviews/Site5
http://www.webhostingjungle.com/site5/review.shtml?gclid=CLeCk9OesYICFRDWJAodlkqsDQ
http://www.hostreviewindex.com/detail-site5-9.html

etc...

What is always important and ipressive is when a hosting company gets stellar reviews from it’s average user, compared to the plethora of hosting companies I have looked at that have dismal end user reviews.

-sD-

Hello Jeff,

I was just wondering whether you had a look already at hostrocket.com?

Ok...so far I’m sort of leaning more towards DreamHost at the moment. Here’s why...

TextDrive (www.textdrive.com)
I’m a little leary about the use of Webmin for most of the server management. Granted, Webmin is pretty cool if you’re running your own server...but I’m just not sure how it scales well in a multi-user, multi-domain environment. After looking over their FAQ pages and stuff, it looks like a lot of hassle getting multiple domains and subdomains to work properly as independent sites. Plus, there have been some posts recently on private blogs about TextDrive. Seems that some users have experienced downtime and some support issues. So...I’m probably going to let them be.

Media Temple (www.mediatemple.net)
These guys look great! And their plans look very promising! However, there are two things that are a bit of a stopper. First and foremost, they use an older 3.x version of MySQL. I need at least a 4.x version or higher so...not good! Second, all domains and subdomains share the same logs. Now, this isn’t all that bad...but it can be a pain since it means setting up different filters and rules for log viewers. Not as much of a show stopper...but combine that with the MySQL prob and...well...call me picky!!

Site5 (www.site5.com)
Reviews are somewhat good. Mostly positive reviews...with some negative ones that seem to ring some truth. But what really makes me leary about them is their site. It just feels a bit cheap and isn’t very polished. Plus, if you click on the Web Hosting tab and then attempt to click on any of the links under Basic, Xtreme, or Unleashed you get a page not found error. Umm...not good! And the whole site just seems a bit unbalanced with content thrown all over the place for no reason. I just don’t feel comfortable with these guys.

DreamHost (www.dreamhost.com)
Granted...I tried them before and found things to be a bit quirky. However, alot of the reviews have said that they’ve improved quite a bit within the last year. Apparently there are some easy workarounds to some of the quirkyness. I’m still a little concerned over the performance of their databases and control panel...but if I can get a free month, I’m thinking I’ll at least give them a shot and see how it all goes! If all goes well then I’ll probably stick with them. If not...well...back to the drawing board!

Quote from: mmjaeger at Jan 04, 2006, 09:40 AM

Hello Jeff,

I was just wondering whether you had a look already at hostrocket.com?

I’ve looked at HostRocket and, to be perfectly honest, I’m not too keen on using CPanel...which is what HostRocket uses for their control panel software. Call me picky, but I also tend to judge a hosting provider by how well built and organized their websites are. Looking at HostRocket, is it me or does their website look like it was built with a Template Monster template? Certainly appears that way to me. Providers like HostRocket seem to be a dime a dozen to me and, although are probably perfect for an individual or personal website, I really think a more reputable hosting provider is needed for a couple of serious business sites. That’s just my opinion though.

Quote from: Bravado at Jan 04, 2006, 10:30 AM

TextDrive (www.textdrive.com) I’m a little leary about the use of Webmin for most of the server management. Granted, Webmin is pretty cool if you’re running your own server...but I’m just not sure how it scales well in a multi-user, multi-domain environment. After looking over their FAQ pages and stuff, it looks like a lot of hassle getting multiple domains and subdomains to work properly as independent sites. Plus, there have been some posts recently on private blogs about TextDrive. Seems that some users have experienced downtime and some support issues. So...I’m probably going to let them be.

I never had trouble setting up multiples domains or subdomains, and I am no techie. Yet I agree WebMin is really old fashionned and ugly. We have been waiting for TextPanel a long time... The thing that concerns me is Joyent buying TextDrive : I don’t know what to make of this... Luckily, VC users like me will still benefit of LifeTime hosting.

I’ve heard a lot of good thing about dreamhost and mediatemple, too.

Thanks for the interresting feedback on your research !

Last one on my shortlist and one that I’m finding alot more positive feedback on...Pair Networks (www.pair.com). What turned me off about them at first were reports about their resource usage policies (http://www.pair.com/policies/). They are a little weird (Databases are limited to 15 concurrent connections?) but after reading their policies it makes perfect sense. They charge a bit more than your average hosting provider and they don’t offer any sort of unlimited anything. The benefit of these policies is that they can maintain good performance on their servers and not have bandwidth being hogged up by poorly written applications or high-volume sites with lots of concurrent connections. Pair does offer high volume plans that cost a bit more but that’s to be expected from a provider such as this. Only thing I need to find out is what versions of PHP, Apache, and MySQL they’re using.

EDIT: I take that back...after doing some more research, alot of users have said that Pair Networks is probably not the best provider for a database driven site. Hmm...and that’s exactly what MODx is so...scratch them off the list! Ugg!

Been using dreamhost for a while, and I like them, even though their customer support is a little bit poor, considering they don’t reveal their address and phone number to low plan customer.

Overall, they did a great job in keeping my site up and running with a whole bunch of poorly written script that I wrote during m y free time and use it for production website