Cheap Web Hosting for Individuals or Small Firms? 20
aliebrah asks: "I recently registered a .org domain for myself and my family and do not have the time, money, or technical expertise to handle all of the administration. I'm sure a lot of individuals and small firms are in the same position as me. What recommendations do you have for people like us, who need cheap Web Hosting, a few e-mail addresses, and DNS. I don't care if it runs on Windows, Linux or even on a Macintosh. As long as the thing works. It's not really an option to use more than one company to host different parts of the domain, cause it's too expensive. Can you guys give us some ideas on what to look for, what to avoid, and how much money we minimally need to spend to get what we need. "
cheap with features (Score:1)
I switched to your-site.com (more features and less cost). With a yearly prepay, it comes to $5/month. With this you get good basic features (5 pop email, email aliases/forwading, web space, CGI ability). You can also add database hosting for cheap (like $2/month). So far I hve been pretty happy. The transfer was quick and painless (I requested my account friday afternoon and it was transfered on a saturday).
Re:Satisfied customer (Score:1)
I especially like that they use suExec for Apache so that all your scripts run under your own userid. This means that you can set the permissions on your scripts to 700 and you don't have to use lax directory permissions if you want your scripts to have write access.
They also provide mySQL and a free domain with the name userid.csoft.net if you don't want to register your own domain.
They also allow reselling, but I can't comment on that since I haven't used it.
Just a suggestion ... (Score:1)
Check Locally (Score:1)
-mark
My hosting service (Score:1)
My family site is there -- I use their email service and have a main family page. Sub-pages link to free web space providers such as Crosswinds.net [crosswinds.net]. You don't have the ability to run much (if any) in the way of CGI scripts, though.
My biggest complaint about DPWorld is that about once a week, give or take, they are unreachable for a few hours.
--
Here's one host to skip! (Score:1)
Of course, ymmv (again - yeah, right)
Cheers.
Resellers (Score:1)
Benjamin Stiglitz
KEScom Hosting
ben@kescom.net
Informed decision: Communitech.net (Score:1)
Plusses:
Minuses:
Dunno if they have a referral deal or anything, but if you decide to go with them, mention my name -- maybe my hosting bill will go down. ;)
Satisfied customer (Score:1)
Also, I do have to give a shout-out to some friends of mine at Meticulous.com [meticulous.com], who do bangup jobs of running database-driven sites using open-source technology, such as Nancies.org [nancies.org], the fan-based Dave Matthews Band site, and Viber.net [viber.net], the Agents of Good Roots' fan-site. Good peeps. Ask for Bobo/John or Waldo.
digitalspace.net (Score:1)
Setup is pretty quick - within a couple days, and I haven't had any other problems. They have a 15MB and a 50MB plan (I think the 50MB is $15/mo or so). They also have a generous referral program ($2/referral), so it's nice to tell friends about. I haven't had any problems with speed accessing my site yet, so I highly recommend them. If you decide to use them and you're feeling extra generous, my email the account is on is mooneyj at tcfreenet dot org (appropriately decoded).
Vservers.com good, Alabanza bad.. (Score:2)
I started off with Alabanza [alabanza.com] for a year or two. Absolutely horrible tech support:I probably had cause to contact them for about 5 separate incidents in the year and a half I was with them, and I *consistently* had conversations like this. Connectivity problems were *quite* frequent, and all I could get out of them was a promise that their T3 through another provider was going to be installed Any Day Now for like 6 months, which I never stuck around to see. Their techs couldn't seem to read a traceroute, and kept insisting that it was general "Internet" problems, since everything was fine and dandy at the present time. The last straw was when I attempted to have them add a delegated subdomain pointing to a name server managed by me. Despite an e-mail 6 months previous and another 3 months previous where I explained what I wanted in exhaustive detail and got an "OK" on both occasions (they had a minor history of saying "yes" in one e-mail and then saying "hell no" when I tried to actually do it, so I tried to be very explicit and ask more than one person), they said, "Uhh, no, we don't do this," after I bought the hardware and finally got everything set up. They made a half-hearted apology, but made NO efforts to even compromise (which I would have been happy to do), much less try to keep my business (60-100$/month, I don't remember). When I asked them if I could quote their support e-mails on a web page where I could show the world exactly what their crack team of technical support specialists was capable of, they basically told me that they'd take legal action against any libelous material. Not a pleasant experience all-around.
So now I'm with Vservers [vservers.com], and was immediately *very* impressed with their setup. You get your own "virtual" filesystem, with whatever software you want to have installed, control of sendmail configuration, Apache server configuration, etc. You have almost as much control over all of these things as you'd have with your own dedicated piece of hardware. Very slick. And if you go with a free DNS service, there's zero additional cost to add new domains (since you get full access to Apache and sendmail's configuration), assuming you don't need any additional HD space (100MB I think is what they give you with my 'Lite' account).
My only complaint to date has been rather frequent MySQL lock-ups and connection failures in the past month and a half, which (apparently) they knew/know nothing about, which tells me their automated systems monitoring is missing or inadequate. Still waiting for that to be resolved, though their tech support is quite responsive, despite the fact that they seem to abhor tech support e-mails, instead infinitely preferring some web form where I have to fill out a bunch of (sometimes unnecessary) form fields. They even go out of their way to say e-mails get their absolute lowest priority. They don't have an 800 tech support number either, though to be honest, I haven't needed it very much. when I do have to call, I never have to wait on hold (average Alabanza hold time = 15 minutes).
netmegs.com (Score:2)
I'm sorry. What I meant to say was 'please excuse me.'
what came out of my mouth was 'Move or I'll kill you!'
Go Co-Location and Learn Something, Too (Score:2)
I was in your position a few years ago. I wanted my own internet server for hosting the family but didn't know much about what to do.
I did a generic Red Hat install and found a local ISP that would co-locate me for $100 a month. (It has since gone up to $150.)
That's super-expensive, you say. Not really. When I consider all I've learned, it was the best $100 a month I've ever spent.
Granted, your site will not be as secure as nsa.gov when it first goes up. But, who cares? So long as you've got a backup, it won't be a big deal if some slim bucket nukes your server. Not that anyone is going to hack you in the first place; you're too low-profile.
Since putting up the server -- still a 486-66DX with 48 meg of RAM and a 2-gig SCSI drive, by the way, no need to get anything faster for what you're doing -- I've taken on a few small sites for friends. For $25 a month, they get more extensive access than any ISP would allow (shell, CGI, etc.). With just a few people, I basically get my co-location for free.
So, while it may seem too expensive and a pain in the buttocks now, really think about going the co-located route. The skills you learn now could very possibly get you a job in the future. Not to mention the uber-geek fact that you have your very own server hanging out there on the net.
Init 'steinhoff.net' Zero
Which country? (Score:2)
(This is one of the side-benefits of metered rather than fixed-rate charging). There are sites you can then use to alias your domain name to what your ISP gave you.
Check out www.capibara.com (Score:2)
1) Send a plea for help to your local LUG, and surely someone locally will offer to host you very cheaply/free.
2) (the option I chose) Set up a free Nameserver, and a web page redirection.
http://www.capibara.com has links to lots of free stuff. I use them for domain name redirection to my homepage (also free) on http://www.linuxstart.com/~dualpentium
Nameserving, which you will need to have the users on the web recognize your domain name can be done at http://www.granitecanyon.com. It takes a little poking around to figure out how to configure your DNS record, but once you have it figured out you only need to contact your registrar (the people you bought the domain from) to change nameservers.
Finally, find yourself some free webhosting and email. Sure, the email won't go to "yourname@yourdomain.org", but for free, who can complain? Anyway, I use www.mail.com and www.mailandnews.com for my mail. Free web space is hosted any number of places - personally I like www.linuxstart.com
Any questions, feel free to email me at fprintf@iname - dot - com. (change the -dot- to
Great Service and Price (Score:3)
My experience (so far)... (Score:3)
My first provider was WebCom [webcom.com], an outfit in Cali (IIRC). Their interface was fast, and they were real easy to set up with. Everything is web based - no need to telnet or FTP or anything (though I think this may be an option). Security is real tight - they don't allow outside developed scripts for CGI, you can only use what they have. If you are setting up an e-commerce site (I don't think you are, but if you want to...), this place is perfect - the CGI they offer is mainly for such a site, with shopping cart CGI and such, plus the option of CC verification. Customer support was great, the best of any provider I have had. They also seemed to have great uptime. Cost for the service was a little high for such hosting (and for what you got), but I think the security of the site and the customer service made up for it. Now, with all these great features, why did I switch?
They were too restrictive.
I _wanted_ to telnet in, FTP in - not as an option, but as the standard way of doing things. I wanted shell access to my account, and I wanted to be able to write my own CGI scripts for my site (hey, if I needed shopping cart software, I could write it myself, or find it on the net). I wanted some kind of *nix for the site. I wanted more space, and any web interface I used, I wanted to be short and to-the-point. I also wanted a place that didn't care too much about what I put on my site, or if I wanted to "rent" a portion of my site for others pages. After a bit of searching, and a banner or two on
Hurricane Electric [he.net]
I chose them because of these reasons. Their customer service so far has been great. Most questions you have, though, can be answered by reading through the online documentation. This is a site that presumes you know what you are doing - they don't do hand holding here. This is what I wanted (having started using the internet via a dialup shell account back in 1993, I don't have a fear of *nix command lines - in fact, I love them). I have them auto-bill my credit card, so I don't have to mess with billing (they still send out an invoice in my email, so I can see what is happening - and I can check the charges online). I can telnet or FTP in from anywhere, and check my mail with PINE - or I can set up a POP client to read my email. The former is useful for work, if I just want to check up on anything, while I use the latter for home, where I would actually answer my email.
The one thing they don't allow is mailing-list scripts (which is understandable). So, for my future site, which I plan on having a mailing list, I am going to use eGroups, and for my webring, I will use Webring (I could have set up my own private webring, using some PERL script I found on the net, with a little tweaking, but the only reason I was thinking of going that route, was because I didn't know if Webring support Lynx clients - they do, so I didn't feel I wanted to waste time going the custom route). Which brings me to my last point...
It seems like HE understands the net - they don't use glitzy graphics or such for their site - it is fast and efficient HTML - heck, it even looks hand coded (I don't know how true this is), which I like (I detest WYSIWYG editors - VI is your friend!). They understand that information is what makes the net go, that graphics can get in the way, especially when not used properly.
Their prices are competitive, and you get a lot of space for little money per month (not as much as some places, but enough for most sites). But they are not for the faint of heart, or for those who need help setting up a site - go to WebCom for that.
Cheap Web Hosting (Score:3)