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Web Host Recommendations (for you)
Until a better place comes along, this sticky post curates the most common host names mentioned in this community (from a cursory scan). It’s not meant—nor aims—to be a comprehensive list of every host out there; we’ll keep it limited to the top/frequent 5–10 recommendations per VPS and Shared options.
VPS hosting
Characterized as “self-managed” (meaning you manage your server, not the web host). You’re provided with root access (recommended via SSH keys), and limits (domains, databases, mailboxes, etc) are generally determined by the resource “cap” you pay for. Hosts offer different price packages; we focus on the 10 (given currency) per month range here, or whatever is closest per a given host mentioned.
| Digital Ocean | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Datacenters | CA, DE, NL, SG, UK, US | DE, JP, SG, UK, US | AU, CA, DE, FR, JP, NL, UK, US |
| Cost/month | $10 | $10 | $10 |
| RAM | 1GB | 1GB | 1GB |
| CPU cores | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| SSD storage | 20GB | 24GB | 30GB |
| Transfer (bandwidth) | 2TB | 2TB | 2TB |
| Support response1 | ? | 5 | ? |
| Docs rating1 | ? | ? | ? |
| Control panel1 | ? | ? | ? |
| IPV6 | Yes | Yes | ? |
1 Scale of 1–5 (5 being very good).
| Scaleway | Inception | TransIP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Datacenters | FR | UK2 | NL |
| Cost/month | €2.99 | €7.50 | €10 |
| RAM | 2GB | 1GB | 1GB |
| CPU cores | 4 (Arm) | 4 | 1 |
| SSD storage | 50GB | 55GB | 50GB |
| Transfer (bandwidth) | 200Mb/s (unmetered) | 1TB | 1TB |
| Support response3 | ? | ? | ? |
| Docs rating3 | ? | ? | ? |
| Control panel3 | ? | ? | ? |
| IPV6 | Not yet | Yes4 | Yes |
| Root access | Yes | Yes | Yes |
1 “Professional” account (cheaper and costlier options exist).
2 Available at other locations, but with different specifications/pricing
3 Scale of 1–5 (5 being very good).
4 IPv4 connectivity via NAT only. Be aware of this means when ordering this plan.
“Shared” hosting
Packages are also picked to the 10 (given currency) per month range, but for shared (and typically host-managed) servers.
| WebFaction1,2 | TSOHost2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Datacenters | NL, SG, US | UK |
| Cost/month | $10 | £4.99 |
| RAM | 1GB | ? |
| CPU cores | 1 (3.5Ghz shared) | ? |
| SSD storage | 100 GB | 10GB |
| Transfer (bandwidth) | 1TB | 150GB |
| Sites allowed | ? | 6 |
| Mailboxes | capped storage3 | 100 |
| Support response4 | 5 | ? |
| Docs rating4 | 4.5 | ? |
| Control panel4 | 4.5 | ? |
| IPV6 | Yes | ? |
1 If WebFaction interests you and you’re not signed up yet, take note of this request from Textpattern.
2 Also offers managed VPS/Cloud options.
3 Unlimited mailboxes, but total emails on disk impact monthly resource limits.
4 Scale of 1–5 (5 being very good).
Miscellaneous
- DreamHost
- Gandi
(Moderators, feel free to fix/update.)
Last edited by Destry (2016-01-05 18:13:01)
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Re: Web Host Recommendations (for you)
Mailboxes will be important for many people, no doubt, including me.
This heads up about email with DigitalOcean doesn’t sound like anything I want to spend time doing (speaking for myself), and if I have to have it managed, I’d rather go with a different host that includes it in the same competitive cost.
Is setting up and configuring your own mail server something one should expect with any VPS, then? That would certainly make the “miscellaneous group” of hosts more attractive for interests like mine.
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Re: Web Host Recommendations (for you)
Destry wrote #297259:
This heads up about email with DigitalOcean doesn’t sound like anything I want to spend time doing (speaking for myself), and if I have to have it managed, I’d rather go with a different host that includes it in the same competitive cost.
The place I work now does e-mail hosting through Microsoft – my previous employer used Google. Personally, I like keeping webhosting and email separate. It does cost more but having had to deal with getting off a blacklist there is something to be said for a really robust solution.
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Re: Web Host Recommendations (for you)
michaelkpate wrote #297261:
I like keeping webhosting and email separate.
Makes sense. I’m even fine with having mail with the same host, but just on a different server so that if the web server is down, the mail isn’t, necessarily. Or is that a typical setup?
In other news, it looks like WebFaction’s 10/month plan is “shared server”, so it probably makes more sense to merge the “miscellaneous” category in head post into a “Shared” table and just have two the two types: VPS and shared.
Last edited by Destry (2016-01-05 17:05:44)
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Re: Web Host Recommendations (for you)
Makes sense to separate email from web hosting unless its not important email. For critical business mails, I use Fastmail which is excellent but there is also Google. Otherwise for unimportant mail accounts I use Webfaction for both email and hosting and that also works fine.
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Re: Web Host Recommendations (for you)
Destry wrote #297259:
Is setting up and configuring your own mail server something one should expect with any VPS, then? That would certainly make the “miscellaneous group” of hosts more attractive for interests like mine.
Email is hard. Tried it a bunch of times, failed a bunch of times. That said, I took the manual approach and just burned too much time on it. Now, Fastmail gets my business and I don’t have to worry.
There’s Mail-in-box if you’re curious and/or keen. It’s on my to-do list for this year.
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Re: Web Host Recommendations (for you)
I’m going to unstick this post unless there are any major objections. If the powers that be agree, you may unstick it for me as response. ;)
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Re: Web Host Recommendations (for you)
Unstuck, because the info is not up-to-date. If you’re looking for good deals on cheap hosting and don’t mind being a sysadmin yourself, look in the offers section of lowendtalk.com
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