Who do you host with?

[Cormac]

I have hosted with 1and1 before but since then i'm hosting with Blacknight > Irish hosting Ireland, hosting ireland / web site hosting Ireland / domain registration, dedicated servers, colocation - Blacknight Solutions: Blacknight Solutions and with EuroVPS > VPS hosting servers (Virtual Private Servers) by EuroVPS

I find BK to be the best of the I hosts have gone with. Their support is second to none and product is fantastic, uptime has never been a concern of mine. The package i'm using with EuroVps is required purely for bandwidth and cost usage. Their support isn't that fantastic but their technology is excellent. The cultural barrier of hosting in Holland is a bit of a problem. I would have much perfered to have hosted in England but i had a bad expierence with 1and1 when they fleeced me with a massive bandwidth charge which could have been easily avoided.

Who are you hosting with?

 

[georgiecasey]

Hosting365 and contractdata.net in the US, but they're fleecing me. $189 a month for a crappy enuff server. I'm switching to theplanet.com after exams

 

[kae]

Michele, how much are you paying this guy? ;-)

seriously though - we were hosting with Digiweb for a while, but then they got into the Broadband game, and started completely ignoring their hosting customers. We finally got fed up with that and switched all of our hosted sites over to Synergy (synergy-int.net). Brian Johnsson is pretty fanatical about his stuff, which is nice.

I'm not saying Digiweb is a bad company - just that their resources are concentrated on broadband at the moment. In fact, I'm considering using one of their wireless packages to get rid of my dependencies on Eircom.

 

[louie]

I am hosting with blacknight. Before I was using some other Irish companies, but had too many problems, so i came across Blacknight.
Never looked back since. One of the best experience i have had and their staff are one of the best i have dealt with.
If I look around I might find cheaper hosting, but the customer experience i got from this guys & girls when needed is unbeatable.


BTW i don't get anything for saying so.

 

[TheMenace]

I have a shared account with Webhost.ie and I've found their support to be exceptional. Apart from the odd bit of downtime, which I'm not that bothered about as it'll only be my portfolio site/blog, I would highly recommend their shared packages.

I have my own dedicated server with Hosting365 and, while I've found the service is great when it's up-and-running, their support is seriously making me consider switching to someone else. Regularly fobbing me off the phone with the promise of callbacks that never arrive, mis-information from support staff, semi-resolved support queries... and, even on a dedicated package, support queries generally take 24-72 hours. That doesn't include any follow-up correspondence that might be required. Not good. It's difficult to leave as I'll need to set-up everything on another server and I'll need away out of the contract... but as everything's going okay now, I'm happy to sit it out. I just hope the support improves.

 

[mneylon]

Michele, how much are you paying this guy? ;-)

Nothing

He might send me a bill later though

 

[mneylon]

I have a shared account with Webhost.ie and I've found their support to be exceptional. Apart from the odd bit of downtime, which I'm not that bothered about as it'll only be my portfolio site/blog, I would highly recommend their shared packages.

Why are you using a shared account if you have a dedicated server as well?

I know there are reasons why you might do so, but I'm naturally curious

 

[TheMenace]

Why are you using a shared account if you have a dedicated server as well?

I know there are reasons why you might do so, but I'm naturally curious

Well I've had the shared space for about 5 years now and the server for less than 1, so I guess I just never bothed migrating my portfolio site across. Plus the shared server is actually a business that I run with another chap - so I've decided to keep business and pleasure apart, so to speak! I know what you mean though... I'll probably move themenace.com across to the dedicated server when I'm less lazy

 

[mneylon]

I know what you mean though... I'll probably move themenace.com across to the dedicated server when I'm less lazy

Heh

I had hosting accounts spread across our entire network at one point!

I've currently got them mostly between my two main servers now though (palermo and siracusa), though I still have a few sites dotted around the place..

 

[Cormac]

Michele, do you host with anybody outside of Blacknight for business reasons or any other reason of course?

 

[mneylon]

In short - no

We have servers with other companies for various reasons, but I don't have any hosting accounts outside our network privately

 

[Gavin]

I'm happy to sit it out. I just hope the support improves.

Hold onto that thought as they are growing their support team and which includes me.



From what I have seen so far I think their delays came from their customer base growing faster than what they expected and it somewhat overwhelmed them.

At the moment I have all my sites in the States with 3ix for a number of reasons such as they are dirt cheap and most of my sites target the American market. I do have a European based site with them but thats getting transfered over here very soon.

 

[daviddoran]

I host with TidyHosts UK. Small company but the cost is tiny and I found their support people to be very helpful. It does me fine for my low traffic.
I signed up with MediaTemple US, which for anyone in the business usually rings bells because you'll see "(mt) Media Temple" on the big designer's sites.
Unfortunately they had some problems during the time I was hosting.
I cancelled after 1.5 months because I didn't need it any more and they credited me 3 months, which is pretty good I think. I'll probably spend it on domain names

 

[jmcc]

seriously though - we were hosting with Digiweb for a while, but then they got into the Broadband game, and started completely ignoring their hosting customers.

Yep. That has been borne out by the slump in Digiweb's hosting stats over the last few years. They've been getting better over the last few months though but I think that they will have a hell of a long way to catch up with the top of the Irish hosting industry. (Hosting365/Eircom/Novara/Blacknight/Irishdomains).

Regards...jmcc

 

[davidbehan]

I've currently got a shared hosting account with H365 but support from them has been degrading lately. Also, I find I'm out growing shared hosting as I need more control over the server(s) and databases that I host for my clients. The websites and applications I'm building are getting a little more complex and it's just not suited to shared hosting. I've decided to take the plunge and will be moving to blacknight in the new year and upgrading to a dedicated server. Why? Well, I've never heard a bad review (I really haven't... that's got to say something), the price is right and we had a pint at the GS Awards!

p.s. I've been with H365 for about 5 years. Before that, I spent about 6 months with Fasthosts and they are the spawn of the [who?] - michele, enter answer in square brackets!

 

[gary.b]

I'm with EcwHost.com - they might seem more expencive (I'm comparing blacknight) in terms of Bandwidth and space - but you get a lot more small features - like a load* of MySQL DBs, subdomains, domains, FTP users, emails and other bits.

Once you're used to giving a subdomain for each section (or topic) of your site, it's hard to go back.


*1000 to Unlimited - That's what cPanel says...

 

[enzo]

I'm with Webmasters.com in the US (I won't really consider a non-US host), had a few problems but been with them a few years now and see little reason to change. They offer a very good package for people like me.

 

[mneylon]

(I won't really consider a non-US host),

Why?

 

[enzo]

Simply my perception that US hosts have been in the business longer, are bigger, better resourced companies with lots of experience and good infrastructure. I don't know much about non-US companies.

 

[louie]

Simply my perception that US hosts have been in the business longer, are bigger, better resourced companies with lots of experience and good infrastructure. I don't know much about non-US companies.

I could say in some cases you are wrong.
There in nothing more frustrating then running a business on-line and if your server goes down, you have to wait few hours before it gets sorted out or you get a reply.
Yes it might be cheaper but I don't think is better. being on-line longer doesn't make you better. It's like driving. you could be driving for 40 years, that doesn't make you a pro does it?