Who do you host your website with? Need a new host!

Hey all - This is just a way for me to hear of some recommended hosting options based on your own experience.

We currently have a dedicated bare bones server hosted with IBM. I like them, but I'm a little over my head trying to manage things if anything ever goes wrong (speaking on the Unix side.....I'm not able to maintain the server with any level of confidence).

So I'm wanting to investigate other hosting options. Hopefully something that manages the server (for updates, operating system patches, etc), but still allows me the freedom to manage and run our longtime ZenCart Store on it.

Anyone here want to share who they use, and would recommend? I appreciate the comments!

(The reason for my "searching" is because our current server is running CentOS 8, and that operating system is at the End of Life in December. The only way around it is to completely replace the operating system, which seems daunting to me. So I'm thinking it would be easier for me to just transfer and move the entire site to a new server, and that's why I wanted to create this thread to gather ideas on places to look).

Jeff,

I just went through the exact same thing. I was on Host Monster for years and was facing the exact same Centos 8 issue. As I started digging, I realized how much my rates had went up as well. I started asking lots of questions as, I too, was on an unmanaged server and all the maintenance was a bit much for me. Now, I will tell you straight up that cost was HUGE issue for me. While I have had one successful online business that made hosting cost a non-issue, that is not the case today. This new site is for my wife's jewelry business and it is a bare bones startup.

I discussed the needs here on ZC and had lots of great input. I have had issues with shared services getting IPs blacklisted for email servers and I did not want to go through that nightmare again. Now, I ended up with a VERY basic plan on Dreamhost. On the yearly plan its $10 a month (I do not know if cost is a significant factor in your decision process or not). My SQL server is shared (that's another $15 a month if you want dedicated). I have no bandwith limits and no email limits. They have some oddities, like requiring you to register your domain names with them (???) I really cannot figure that one out. They do not have cPanel and their version is just odd. But my site response times are MUCH better. I just renewed for the second month on the month to month rate of $15. I was not going to buy a year (or more) and then find out they were a worse pain than an EIG company. But it looks like I am about to pull the trigger on that as well.

This is ALL MY OPINION and what I chose to do along with some of the whys. Not everyone will agree on the how or the why but it has worked out great for me so far.

Best of Luck
Chris

Thanks you Chris for your input. You sounds like you were in the EXACT same position as me. I don't want to get into numbers publicly, but I am paying a considerable amount more than $15/month!

My concerns are just like yours though: fear of being on a shared server that might be blacklisted for someone else's spam. We send out lots of emails (in the form of daily order updates, newsletters to thousands of customers, etc), and I don't want to move only to find out that we are pigeon-holed by some weird policy.

Not having cPanel kind of makes me nervous (since it's the only backend management I am used to). Do you at least get access to MySQL database to make changes, and do you have any sort of access to the PHP permissions? Or is that all something you need to open tickets with the hosting company to enable things?

Jeff_Mash:

Thanks you Chris for your input. You sounds like you were in the EXACT same position as me. I don't want to get into numbers publicly, but I am paying a considerable amount more than $15/month!

My concerns are just like yours though: fear of being on a shared server that might be blacklisted for someone else's spam. We send out lots of emails (in the form of daily order updates, newsletters to thousands of customers, etc), and I don't want to move only to find out that we are pigeon-holed by some weird policy.

Not having cPanel kind of makes me nervous (since it's the only backend management I am used to). Do you at least get access to MySQL database to make changes, and do you have any sort of access to the PHP permissions? Or is that all something you need to open tickets with the hosting company to enable things?

phpMyAdmin is there. I have not looked for PHP settings. I do believe that you would need to open ticket. Here is what I did. I signed up for an basic VPS account, got SFTP up and loaded my site. They have a test url that you can use instead of yours for this. You spend $15 and you can get an idea if you can put up with their oddities. The chat is very repsonsive and I have had about 2 dozen tickets so far. No worries and no stress at all.