Web hosting services
I have used two hosting providers during the past two years. And I was about to use a third. I use almost exclusively Drupal to build web sites, as it is so darn fast and useful.
DREAMHOST
I have implemented a number of web sites using DreamHost and Drupal. I have nothing bad to say about them. They make it easy to do just about everything I want to do.
- As I am creating a site, I can use a dreamhosters.com mirror domain to test out the site until it is ready to go live. I did this first with a site that was hosted on another service, and we didn't want to change to the new site until it was ready.
- Their DreamHost Web Panel has lots of little features that just make life easier. For example, I can specify that I want any site visitor to go to www.site so I have consistent site url's. This was required by some features of CiviCRM, so it saved me a lot of time and effort. Another example is how easy they make it to set up a cron job.
I recommend them, and I appreciate it if you use this link to sign up.
HOSTMONSTER
I started maintaining a site that had been set up on Hostmonster. They use Cpanel for their management front end. After I got used to it, I found I can do whatever I need to using it. Their site performance has been at least as good as DreamHost, so I can go with either. DreamHost still makes some things easier to do, so given a choice, I would stick with DreamHost, especially if I want multiple domains under one host.
SITE5
This site was on Site5. It is good enough except for several things:
- They use MySQL V4 - too old in my opinion
UPDATE: They are just upgrading to Apache 2.2 and MySQL V5, so this may no longer be an issue. - They don't provide a straightforward way to set up a web site as a work in progress until you move the production site there. I use this all the time. I asked about this in the forum, and got a bunch of ideas how to work around it, but there is a better way - see DreamHost.
I can live with these restrictions - for now, but when my contract is up, I will move the site to my current favorite web host, which now is DreamHost.
UPDATE: I moved this site and another hosted with it to DreamHost. Easy and painless once I figured out how to move my backups.
FATCOW
I used FatCow briefly a few years ago based on the advice of a friend. I found them to be easy to work with, and did a good job of support. When I created my first personal site, I needed more than they offered at the time. Plus they were more expensive. I used GoDaddy for domain name registration, and Site5 for site hosting. GoDaddy worked out well, but see my comments above about Site5.
My friend now wants me to create a new site for him and prefers FatCow. I am checking them out to be reasonably confident they will: host Drupal, and allow for graceful migration from the current host to the new host.
UPDATE: FatCow won't allow me to host a new site while keeping the old site alive until I complete the migration, so we won't be using them. We will use DreamHost instead.
I don't see the availability of a forum for site users. I have found them very helpful at DreamHost and Site5.
They are provisionally recommended. If you decide to sign up with them, I would appreciate your referral. Just click here.
GODADDY
I don't recommend GoDaddy for hosting, but I do recommend them for domain name registration. I had a Joomla site hosted there a few years ago, but they didn't do a good job of supporting Drupal, so I migrated away.
