What Are the Best Web and Email Hosts? 183
GreyPoopon asks: "My wife has been running a small business for a couple years now. She is currently paying for web hosting services for a domain, but has elected not to put up a web site (she doesn't need more business), instead using the service only for sending and receiving email. Recently, the hosting service has become less and less responsive, and attempts to switch monthly bills to a different credit card have been completely ignored, and she's now looking for a new provider. She's interested in both hosting service providers as well as email-only providers that will allow her to use her existing domain name with up to five mailboxes. What are the best choices, these days?"
godaddy (Score:1)
Re:godaddy (Score:2)
Yes, but can GoDaddy be trusted? (Score:2)
I use GoDaddy, but only because I can't find anything better. Every GoDaddy web page is so cluttered with ads for things of dubious value that I believe that they cannot be trusted. They seem to try to take advantage of the ignorance of people who are new to domains and web hosting.
Why aren't there more "do no harm" companies like Google?
Recommendation: Stay away from DotEarth.com. They've had amazingly serious problems for a long time, such as not forwarding email, and their technical support gives
lux scientiae (Score:2)
I've been very pleased with the service. It's inexpensive, and has a very good spam/virus filter provided by MXlogic.
I'd provide my email address so anyone who chooses them could put me as a referral, but that doesn't seem ethical to me
one choice (Score:2)
OpenHosting.Com (Score:2)
[Warning, below is a shameless plug, but that's what the question was].
Well, in one of our OpenVPS [openvps.org] based accounts, you'd do something like:
$ ssh myaccount.user.openhosting.com
$ su -
# service httpd stop
# chkconfig httpd off
# ^D
$ ^D
And viola - just mail and no web for about $27/month. There is no limit on how many accounts you host, host a million if you want for as long as you pay the bandwidth. AND there is no restriction on what mail server you run - if you prefer qmail or exim ov
Re:OpenHosting.Com (Score:2)
I believe you meant "voila". A viola is a musical instrument. Well, it's an instrument, anyway.
/violinist
Re:OpenHosting.Com (Score:2)
Re:OpenHosting.Com (Score:3, Informative)
The servers fast SMP/RAID machines in a carrier-class above.net datacenter (east coast). The server hardware is shared, of course (it's a virtual server after all), but Linux VServer will always give you notably better performance than User-Mode Linux VPS. Speed-wise Virtuozzo-based hosters may give you similar peroformance, but they usually clamp down resources very low and do you really want to support a proprietary software company that is likely violating t [linux-vserver.org]
Re:OpenHosting.Com (Score:2)
It's really pennies (Score:2, Informative)
If you were a spammer or something, scalability to large ammounts of e-mail addresses and cheapness in bulk would be important (godaddy is g
Re:It's really pennies (Score:2)
I didn't know that GoDaddy was a spam friendly company, I think that it's time to update my black hole list!
Personally I use registerfly.com and I pay the extra money for "spamfly" which hides my contact info. So when I libel someone they won't be able to easily find out that my home is (let's say) in *******, **, and sue me. I pay for an separate VP
Re:It's really pennies (Score:2)
I always find it strange looking at monster or dice because they always are looking for people with lots of experience, and while I have a degree, I don't have a lot of work experience yet. I also find it funny how people expect to find things like a C# programmer with 5 years of experience when the language is really quite young.
Unless they count programming out of boredom, in which case I have 15 years experience (though before the internet, I mostly did
Re:It's really pennies (Score:2)
The most important thing is to emphize all of the technologiges which you have worked with and push the programming experience to the top of the list of duties. For example, I am not just a Java programmer, but J2EE, servlets, JSP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and I have experience with WebLogic, WebShere, Tomcat, Unix, Solaris
Re:It's really pennies (Score:2)
Most people believ
everyone.net (Score:1)
I can't reccommend them, since I've never had any experience, but I would suggest you check their site out and see if it sounds suitable for your needs:
http://www.everyone.net [everyone.net]
Magma.ca (Score:4, Informative)
Great spam filtering too!
Personal experiences (Score:2)
I have also used some other paid-hosting company services (WebHostXL) and... but oh man! Many free services were a lot faster than that! I paid in advance for one year
Smaller, Non-faceless companies (Score:1)
One in particular that I've used for a few years is Dragonfort [dragonfort.net].
Astroturf? (Score:1)
what about you? (Score:2)
My preferred host is me. Although your requirements may not allow it, consider doing it yourself. If you have a good broadband connection and a reliable box, running your own email and web services is not that difficult. I started doing it as a hobby just to see if I could and it turned out to be fairly easy to set up a server with Apache, Exim, Cyrus and SSH for access. The only major difficulty I had was once when a hard drive went bad and I was really busy with my full-time job and couldn't bring it back
Re:what about you? (Score:2)
Re:what about you? (Score:2)
One word: Speakeasy.
http://www.speakeasy.net/
Re:what about you? (Score:2)
Depends on what you call costly but Speakeasy will do all that for about $50 a month.
Re:what about you? (Score:2)
2 comments (Score:2, Insightful)
Cheap, but with control, try something that gives you shell/root access. I would recommend serverpronto.com (29.95/month dedicated servers) but their ip range is in a globally spam blocked range - almost no one will get your mail. Otherwise I recommend linode - no spam issues, and scalable usage options.
Of course this is based on the assumption that you are willin
I second the suggestion of Linode (Score:3, Informative)
Re:2 comments (Score:2)
I'm very happy with the customer support so far from TekTonic and distro selection is excellent.
Re:2 comments (Score:2)
However, your point is valid in that I just read that all new customers go to Virtuozzo. I'm not sure your evaluation of Virtuozzo is completely accurate, though. I just read some pretty positive comments on the webhosting review board mentioned elsewhere in this article.
Also, to reiterate, I've found their customer support to be above
A web host . . . (Score:2)
Finally, they offer both RedHat Linux boxes and Winders.
I hate XO (Score:1)
www.luxsci.com (Score:2)
pair.com (Score:2)
It's about $6/month with a basic FTP account, which includes 5 mailboxes. You can set up procmail filters, and there's a web interface for common filtering needs.
For mail only, (Score:2)
Fastmail (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fastmail (Score:2)
In these days of spam and viruses running a mailserver is not as easy as it once was.
Re:Indeed (Score:2)
The problem I had was that one day my domain disappeared. I tried to politely go through the correct channels, and found that there was only the online support live chat system (the phone number that I did eventually find only rings an answering machine from which I never received a call back). I was told that my domain was down because they were doing server upgrades.
They were apparently doing server upgr
1and1 (Score:4, Informative)
1and1.com [1and1.com] seems ok, best price ive seen, so far fast, and the cheapest server hosting for 49 dollars a month I've seen. Seen their ads in magazines, figured for that good of a price why not try it out.
The plan I went with for 20 a month has 5 domains, 200 subdomains, 3 mysql, web email, 4000 megs disk space (Guess not a real 4gigs
The only drawback, no irc bots or chat servers. So I cant host a Teamspeak on them, but they might offer it, I need to ask.
I also think you have to be a little technical savey if they are truely automated, you must be your own tech support.
I play on moving some domains from eskimo.com if this goes well for a few months. Im just hosting gamer guilds and forums on them.
Only snag I hit was ADOdb for phpnuke isnt installed by default, and I havnt spent the time to try to get it to install it its own directory.
If anyone has any info on 1and1, please post it, i didnt find much negative feedback on usenet.
Re:1and1 (Score:2)
Re:1and1 (Score:2)
Their front page is way too busy, but I've referred everyone that I know to them, and no one's had a single bad experience. No stolen domains (domain locking is on by default) reasonable prices ($15us/yr for
If their hosting is anything like I've found their other
I recommend Summersault: http://summersault.com/ (Score:2)
Until we upgraded the OS recently, we had 480 days uptime [netcraft.com] on our primary web server.
The problem with hosting (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW, many people don't realize how web hosting companies work and how they're able to offer dirt-cheap hosting. Most of the very cheap hosts are a kind of a ponzi scheme - they run an unsustainable business, but because people prepay for a year of service, they get pretty good revenue for as long as new customers are signing up.
Thus it's in their interest to get you to pay upfront, then they could not care less about you. Most of these companies are operated by similar type of people who send spam - the make-a-quick-buck-on-the-internet crowd.
Back when I used to work for a large ISP, we had a few customers that simply dissapeared - they were running these cheap hosting companies, and when they felt they had enough money in the bank they just abandoned their colocated servers in the racks, stopped paying the bills, disconnected their phone, etc. Which is probably what happened to the original poster's hosting service.
Re:The problem with hosting (Score:4, Interesting)
The most you should ever pay is first/last, and no setup fee for webhost. And if co-locating a server, look at normal prices, ive seen anywhere from 99 on up. Be careful.
Re:The problem with hosting (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The problem with hosting (Score:2)
I worked for a hosting company in the dot com days. When I first started there, they had their servers at WHHQ (webhosting headquarters or something like that). Usually they were decently responsive, but
Fuitadnet (Score:2)
It's cheap and the support over IRC is great.
They also have reseller accounts if you'd like to resell their hosting to your own customers.
Re:Fuitadnet (Score:2)
Re:Fuitadnet (Score:2)
After looking at other services posted I was surprised, i thought it was just my customers getting ripped off by paying over $5/mo for less than a gig, often less than 100MB of storage and only 1 to 3GB of bandwidth. Guess Fuitadnet really is a good
Re:Fuitadnet (Score:2)
Linux/BSD or Windows Based? (Score:2)
Note: Neither link above has any kind of referer or affiliate junk, just straight links to their websites.
Re:Linux/BSD or Windows Based? (Score:2)
The only problem I ever knew them having was 4 or 5 years ago when they had some problems with their upstream provider's DNS serv
I use EasyCGI (Score:2)
My hosting package is $8/month, and includes 3GB of space, and 50GB of bandwidth/month. It includes the
EasyCGI [easycgi.com]
One For MS, One For PHP (Score:2)
AffordableHost (Score:2)
Re:AffordableHost (Score:2)
Some good ones... (Score:2)
Verio is in my experiance more mature, they have a better tech support staff and respond the quickest. they also provide MS-SQL server DB's and mySQL, as well as ODBC drivers and asp.net support.
existhosting is realy cheap: $6.50/mo for a linux account, 7.50 for windows 2003, mysql is included and for the windows hosting asp.net and all the goodies...
WebHostingTalk (Score:2)
In general, you can get a pretty good feel for a host by what's been said about them at WHT. Many hosting co's also actively post at WHT, so you can often see what their support staff is like as well.
i like (Score:2)
they are canadian and they host postgresql
Don't forget Simpli! (Score:2)
I've heard great things about the tech support and they are fanatical about helping their customers.
I have tried several (Score:2)
Most hosts have their own personal strengths and weakness, like for example, Xlan.org is fantastic if you want a Scoop site, but not as good if you need to have immediate support available. Addr.com is completely reliable, but their plans suck.
Take my advice - go for whomever you want, but make sure they use cPanel. It's WELL worth it, and you can pretty much control your own d
DreamHost (Score:3, Informative)
They have a long history [dreamhost.com] and have been in business since 1997.
Re:DreamHost (Score:2)
Westhost (Score:2)
mailman hosting (Score:2)
Don't want to have to pay for a whole box, want the ability to start up new lists and have some control over them - at least be able to alter moderation and stuff on them.
Recommendations?
Re:mailman hosting (Score:2)
If you are not averse to referral credits, use this link [dreamhost.com] (and thanks). --chris
My experience (and a great email host) (Score:2, Interesting)
I've used Dreamhost for over a year now, and have been consistently impressed with them, especially for webhosting. They actively work to upgrade their services, and they've increased space and transfer amounts several times over the year (often doubling).
If you want a plain email only hoster, though, I'd definitely check out 1and1.com. They offer an email hosting package for $0.99/month (yes, 99 cents) that includes 5 mailboxes with 1GB space each and IMAP or POP access. Definitely one of the best deals
Slashmail (Score:2)
When possible, self-hosting works real well (Score:2)
If you do that, then good options for the hosting OS itself would be either the SME Server (from http://www.contribs.org/ [contribs.org]), or the new version of Clark Connect t
Hurricane Electric (Score:2)
Yes, they're that good. See my posting history for a longer review. I'd link you myself, but Slashdot seems to enjoy giving me 503 Service Unavailable messages today.
ixWebHosting (Score:2)
I don't think there are any good ones (Score:2)
Sign up with a new hosting company and everything is fine. Good service, good performance. Then, after 12-18 months things start to go bad. I finally get fed up and switch to a different company and the cycle repeats. Everything is fine for 12-18 months and then goes to hell.
Get a whole server (Score:2)
Do yourself a major favor, and get a complete real server from serverpronto.com. Thats $30 per month for 200GB transfers, a whole $40 gigs of disk space including OS.. and unlimited mailboxes, domains etc.
It completely escapes me why people pay so much more for so much less. Before these guys I was with a jvds or something like that, which sells virtual servers for $5 a month even. You get maybe 10gigs of disk space.. and performance is reasonable
Dreamhost.com (Score:2, Troll)
I'm on their "level 3" plan, $20/mo, great email support, 3 real live telephone callbacks PER MONTH (never had to use it), great web panel, web email, etc. Full shell, ssh (passwordless!), mysql, php, c-compilers, etc. Really well run shop. 8gb storage, 200gb transfer, 15 domains, 75 subdomains, countably infinite # of email addresses, etc, etc, etc.
I really can't emphasize enough the type of support they give. They got my issues with crontab sorted o
redirection.net (Score:2)
you can have unlimited anyname@yourdomain.com email redirections to a mail account such as yahoo or gmail. different names could be redirected to different accounts, or to the bit bucket.
dr2.net (Score:2)
I also use them for my web clients and have had no complaints from them either. dr2.net's forums are lively and well-attended by staff. During a growth phase, they even froze new signups so as to better upgrade while still maintaining a high level of customer care.
The only caveat I can offer
How's voxel.net been lately? (Score:2)
Thanks
Hostforweb.com (Score:2)
I like them. The prices are not the cheapest but generally fair.
Most importantly, they are very responsive to any support issues. Their servers tend to stay up.
The service isn't anything fancy, with most things accessed with the cpanel front end.
I tried a few other companies beforehand, and ended up leaving when I found service and system reliability to be poor.
One advantage to hostforweb is that they are a real compa
40 millionth web host plug... (Score:2)
1) How many hosts will fix a medium priority (there was a workaround) email problem you're having on Veteran's day...mine did!!!
2) How many hosts give you the IM screenname of the founder...mine does!!!
3) How many hosts give you hosting that goes down maybe 1 hour a month, in a bad month for $20/month (quarterly paid), you guessed it, mine does!
I can go on and on...but it's really some of the intangibles that matter in web ho
Securenym (Score:2)
For email hosting, I'd have to recommend Securenym [securenym.net]. I signed up with them initially because I got tired of changing email addresses every time I switched to a new ISP, and it has been well worth the $5 a month it costs. (And about $3/month for additional addresses, I believe.) The big seller for me, though, was the fact that all communications can be encrypted. IMAP, POP3, SMTP, their SquirrelMail client are all protected by SSL. This is highly important to me since I want to be able to read my email from a
check up on potential host (Score:2)
For example, I currently (until it expires in the next month or so) use studentwebhosting ('SWH') for my alicious.com sites. SWH use Fasthosts as their registrant. Checking Fasthosts, I find that they are their own registrant and have their own DNS servers. Perhaps I'm wrong but I reckon that SWH are
www.westhost.com (Score:2)
Their basic package is:
15gb Bandwidth a month
600mb Space
Virtual Private Server
$7.95/month USD
I will however advise there are some latency problems with their cheapest package (average ping 150ms), though throughput is very good.
They have a VERY nice datacenter: http://www.westhost.com/datacenter.html [westhost.com].
Their uptime is ranked by CNet at 100% over the past 56 weeks and I have never seen my website go down.
They have 24/7 live phone support (
Checkout the Slashchick (Score:2)
Re: You're a naughty one... (Score:5, Informative)
Earn $65 CASH for each account you refer! Introducing DreamHost Rewards - the most flexible affiliate program of the web hosting world! You can choose to receive substantial one-time credits for each of your referrals, or recurring credits for every payment that your referrals EVER make to DreamHost! Credits can be paid out via PayPal or check, or applied to a hosting bill with DreamHost.com. You don't even need to host with us yourself!
So how much money were you hoping to make off Slashdot readers today???
Re: You're a naughty one... (Score:2)
Re: You're a naughty one... (Score:3, Informative)
I was hoping to buy a private jet and retire to a private island with half a dozen of supermodels all thanks to the affiliate link in my Slashdot post, but apparently things might not work out that way.
Anyway, it's a great host, and I would have pointed them out whether they had an affiliate program or not (the other one doesn't, by the way). Since it doesn't cost any more money to those who click on the
Re: You're a naughty one... (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, despite the reassurances, it leaves some of us wondering whether you really meant what you said.
Re: You're a naughty one... (Score:4, Insightful)
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137848&ci
Re:My personal experience from hosting multiple si (Score:2, Troll)
The problem with rating hosting providers is that there are so many of them. There are hundreds that consist of
Re:My personal experience from hosting multiple si (Score:2)
I'm impressed by their support as well. I e-mailed support asking if it would be possible to get gnutls3 installed so I could use IMAP over TLS/SSL in Mutt from my shell account there. I got a response back within the hour telling me it had been installed and
Re:My personal experience from hosting multiple si (Score:2)
Re:My personal experience from hosting multiple si (Score:2)
How does Powweb compare? (Score:2)
I will check and see how Dreamhost compares with Powweb [powweb.com]. Powweb accounts are $7.77/month and allow "2 Gigs Disk Space (Raid Storage) and 5 Gigs/Day Data Transfer/Bandwidth (per day, not month)."
Serious problems with Powweb technical support. (Score:2)
I've had serious problems with Powweb technical support. They seem to be VERY immature.
Probably not the same server. (Score:2)
Dreamhost has survived Slashdotting probably only in the trivial sense. The server that serves their web pages is different from the server that servers their customer's web pages.
Re:Pair.com - 7$ a month for web and email (Score:3, Informative)
I used to work for a small ISP so I know the challenges that a small Mom and Pop shop face, and for serious redundancy they have a hard time competing with the big players.
I tried a number of other hosts with various sucess before I settled on Pair.com. They are a little more expensive then the really budget places but you get what you pay for.
As well as backup diesel generators and power systems etc., they have redundant connections to most o
Re:webhosting (Score:2)
I asked them about moving my SMTP port to tcp/26 (to get around the port-25 blocks which some providers have configured), and they had it done in 10 minutes.
They offer SSL SMTP and SSL POP3.
Good people, good service.
More than one domain on one account? (Score:2)
Some of the other companies allow more than one domain on one account. I don't think Powweb does.
Unique IP Address? (Score:2)
Dreamhost seems to allow more than one domain, however, the plans say about "Unique IP Address" [dreamhost.com]: No No No Yes. You have to pay $80 a month to get a unique IP address.
Thanks. (Score:2)
Valuable advice, because I'm looking for a host. However, what was that they said about a unique IP address?
PHPWebHosting - not that reliable. (Score:2)
They may have been good to you you but they haven't been good to me nor my roommate recently.
About a year and a half ago they were responsive but they're support has gone down the tubes since. Right now I've got a ticket in asking about an IP address change of the server I'm on. This ticket is nearly four days old now and they still haven't replied to it.
Also, in the last year our server has been down about a total of more than three days due to hardware failures.
Their web configuration page could use so