Low-Cost High-Volume Web Hosting?

Aardvarkm asks: "I am currently searching for a host for a student film company's web site. Unfortunately, being college students, price is a major factor. I'm looking for a web host where I can get 100+ MB of space, at least 5GB per month of bandwidth, unlimited POP3 email, and the ability to stack domains and/or host a domain within a subdirectory of the site. And I need to do this at the lowest cost possible and preferably on a monthly payment system. Have any of you had experiences with such hosting services? The company's second film is going to be released shortly and we'd like to get the site up as soon as possible. Thanks for any help you can provide!"

Try Rackspace.Com

[DAldredge]

The company I work for currently has 2 servers at rackspace.com. For about $350 per month per server we get the following : 600Mhz Duron, 256 Meg Ram, 9.1 Gig SCSI HD, 10 GB transfer/mth. Additional transfer cost $3.00 per GB. We have had no trouble with them at all.

Not gonna happen

[karma_policeman]

You just aren't going to find that kind of web hosting for the college student's idea of "low cost".

Perhaps you could get some sort of sponsorship, though that's doubtful.

Your best bet would be to find someone who is already running a big site and is willing to host you for free; but that is easier said than done.

Low cost hosting http://www.archhost.com

[Dr. Bombay]

Take a look at http://www.archhost.com $17.99/mo www.yourname.com OC-3 backbone with switched 10Mb/s ethernet connections. Your server runs on Red Hat Linux with Apache web server 500 MB web space 5 Free Gigs Data Transfer Unlimited POP3 Emails Telnet & FTP Stacking of Domains CGI, PHP, SSI, perl, C Quicktime streaming audio Quicktime streaming video Fast Setup within 24 hours FREE Domain Transfer SSL UNLIMITED page hits UNLIMITED secure server access UNLIMITED databases UNLIMITED FTP accts Pre-installed counter/feedback forms/guestbook CGI-BIN yours alone!!! Pre-installed site search engine ANONYMOUS FTP CGI scripts PLUS your own script library FREE 24 hour tech assistance Detailed site reporting Support for MySQL

Slight Plug

[whizzmo]

Is this close to what you are looking for?

From : http://www.qwk.net/pricing.html [qwk.net]

Account Type : Developer
Monthly Cost : $29.00 (or annual prepay of $269.00)
Disk Space : 120MB
Transfer per month : 5GB
Pop E-mail accts : 10 ($1 for each additional)
Domain Registrations : $10 / yr (October special)

Domains in subdirs shouldn't be a problem either.

Hope this helps!

---------

The above also includes:

[whizzmo]

FTP access
Telnet/SSH
Custom CGI(Perl, C, ...)
PHP4
SSL
MySQL Database access


FWIW, I don't work for them, but I do have a site hosted by them.
---------

You could try...

[RareHeintz]

PHPWebhosting [phpwebhosting.com] offers "unlimited" disk & bandwidth for $9.95 a month, and you can do pretty much what you want with your domain name. But they do have a proviso that "unlimited" implies "within reason" - so you'll want to contact them for specifics before you take my word on this. I use them for my own site, and have been very happy with service so far.

Serve/Datarealm [datarealm.com] might also be able to help - they have a few plans, one of which might suit you. I forget their pricing structure, but the name just popped into my head as a possibility... I have no experience with them personally.

Best of luck.

OK,
- B

Interland

[ben_CU]

might want to check out Interland www.interland.com --generous disk space and transfer amounts, very good prices and decent 24/7 support

Check out Webpipe.net before you decide...

[_w00d_]

We decided on Webpipe.net [webpipe.net] to host our local soccer league's web site [hvsc.org]. Webpipe.net has proven themselves to be very capable of hosting small, medium, and large sites alike. Our entire site was up and running within an hour of when we paid our first monthly installment. Their support staff is very professional and very helpful with any change we needed to make (administrative-wise) while we tweaked our set up. Let's face it, if the support staff isn't excellent then it really doesn't matter what services they offer or the price you pay to have your site hosted by them, does it? Webpipe offers all of the services you'd usually find in a hosting service - Linux web servers running Apache, PHP, SSL, Perl, MySQL, Postgres, Java, unlimited web-based e-mail accounts, POP3 accounts, etc.

Anyone know of one that offers PostgreSQL?

[Tumbleweed]

I'd rather use a host that offers PostgreSQL instead of MySQL - anyone know of any? Preferrably running on OpenBSD, and with SSH-type access, plus the latest PHP4 & Apache?

Try Host Search.

[Kefaa]

Since you have your spec down, try host search. It lists a large number (but not all) web hosts, features and prices.

Host Search [203.146.102.153]
or
Top Hosts [tophosts.com] which includes addtional information on many of the same sites.

I have about a dozen I am comparing, which beats the alternative. One strange thing however has been the bizarre variance in pricing. 150 meg with 5 gig might cost $16 a month, but 300 meg from the same place will cost you $49. Talk about an inverse price per megabyte relationship.

Regards.

I just gotta pimp one of my hosts...

[crisco]

... csoft.net [csoft.net]. Found them off a Slashdot banner ad. Figured that anyone advertising at Slashdot might be slightly cooler than normal.

Lets see, $15 a month gets you 300MB, extra domains and all that jazz. They say unlimited bandwidth within reason, maybe you can talk to them about how reasonable they'll be. They run Linux / BSD and offer tons of tools and goodies on the servers. The performance is pretty good, when I tested from various locations using tracert.com [tracert.com] they seemed to have great connectivity.

The only downside is support. Email and IRC only, unless you want to get brave and hunt up a number via WHOIS on their domain and try calling it. Plus, they died on me for about 6 hours once that I noticed. On the other hand, they freely admitted the problem.

Compare that to Hurricane Electric [he.net] who have ridiculously low disk space limits and reasonable bandwidth limits but have great performance and great connectivity and decent pricing. I had to call them one evening because MySQL was dead and they not only had a live person who knew what was going on but he called me back at home within an hour to let me know it was fixed. The few other times I've called with dumb questions they've been quite helpful. And aside from that MySQL problem, I've never seen them have any problems.

Shameless plug for my new employer

[lythander]

ServerVault [servervault.com] provides secure, managed server hosting. We host boxes (no shared or commodity hosting), and give people coming to the business now (prior to the super-redundant datacenter being operational) great pricing which will carry forward into the new facility which comes on line later this year. Not cheap, but reasonable for what you get, and for the price, you get LOTS of bandwidth.

Like Black Rob says, Whoa!

[fuerstma]

See Shields! I told you there was a huge market, and that alls we had to do was wait for slashdot to do another article on this business, and then we plaster our names all over it, "We will offer the same as them, $2 less!!"

Damn I am a genius

Try oc12host.com

[Levetron]

Try oc12hosat.com [oc12host.com]. I use them, and a friend does, too. Super cheap. Runs Linux. They have a personal package for $4/month, and a high-end business package for $40/month that should meet your needs. They also have a simple, useful web-based interface to manage your site.

Your-Site (Low-Cost, But Good)

[resistant]

After an extensive search in Usenet and on the Web for a low-cost but still good site hosting service, I settled upon Your-Site [your-site.com]. It's a "build your own plan [your-site.com]" service at which you can accept a pretty decent set [your-site.com] of services for $60 per year prepaid or $7 per month non-prepaid (50M disk space with a charge of $0.10 per month for each extra megabyte, 6G transfer exclusive of FTP and email with a charge of $3 per extra gigabyte in any month you exceed the limit, 25 POP3 accounts with a charge of $0.50 per extra POP3 account, PHP/Perl/C/Python CGI-BIN functionality).

I've been a tad busy and haven't been paying close attention per se to the three sites I'm building there as time permits, but haven't noticed especial problems. People who made comments about Your-Site in Usenet (that I saw) seemed happy with the service when I did the heavy research a couple of months ago, and I didn't see any negative comments about Your-Site (which is mildly significant all by itself, probably). The folks at Your-Site have been responsive to my concerns as well, and I have no worries about them.

To judge from an absurd amount of looking into alternatives, I'd hazard a firm guess that Your-Site is offering about the best deal you'll get from a low-cost site hosting service without running into problems from bottom-feeders out to make a buck without bothering to actually deliver on their promises, or problems with all sorts of limits on what you can do. I haven't tried the site hosting service mentioned by another poster here, "PHP Web Hosting [phpwebhosting.com]", but that was another place on my very short list of top candidates at the end just before making a final decision. They do charge more at $9.95 per month, but more features are included up-front [phpwebhosting.com] in the basket, and it may be a better deal for your needs, depending on what exactly you wish to do. This would be my next choice after Your-Site, and very probably my first choice if I needed "unlimited" disk space or POP3 accounts.

YMMV, naturally. :)

Re:Interland

[Wog]

To be more specific...

We pay them $19.99 a month. This gets us:

200 MB space.
6 GB transfer monthly.
Unlimited POP boxes.
You can create/delete FTP accounts, etc.

Like the guy said, I've had nothing but good experiance with their tech support. They host off of Redhat of NT, whatever you like. Of course, you get full CGI, etc.

Unfortunately, it's not dedicated hosting.

If you refer someone to the service, they credit you a month for free. This could be a good way for your group to cut costs. If you really wanna make my day, refer simer.net.

Re:Anyone know of one that offers PostgreSQL?

[_w00d_]

Try Webpipe.net [webpipe.net]. They offer Postgres, Apache + PHP4 (among other mods), and allow you to use SSH to connect to their Linux web server.

I've been very pleased with the level of support and performance I've received so far.

LinuxWebHost

[Skald]

I deal with linuxwebhost.com [linuxwebhost.com] (since that sad day when MassLinux vanished!). They run Red Hat, have a lot of good tools installed, and are pretty reasonable to deal with. If you need something that doesn't quite fit with what they've got, you can generally talk to them about it. There's some slight inconvenience because they're really paranoid about security... but that's not all bad, after all.

Here are their rates... rounded up, because I hate it when people say "$9.95/month". They can have the nickel.

• $8/mo.
  • 50 MB HDD space
  • 50 POP Accounts
  • 3 GB transfer
  • 10 Mailing Lists
• $10/mo.
  • 100 MB HDD space
  • 100 POP Accounts
  • 4 GB transfer
  • 10 Mailing Lists
• $15/mo.
  • 200 MB HDD space
  • 100 POP accounts
  • 5 GB transfer
  • 20 Mailing Lists
• $25/mo.
  • 300 MB HDD space
  • 200 POP accounts
  • 10 GB transfer
  • 50 Mailing Lists

Try Pair

[KewlPC]

You could always try Pair Networks (http://www.pair.com). They offer fairly decent prices (<$60 per month).
If I remember correctly, Blues News (http://www.bluesnews.com) was hosted by them until Blues News became a UGO affiliate.

Warning about csoft.net

[Paul Carver]

I have an account with csoft.net at their $10/month level. I wanted to upgrade to their $15/month level but I haven't been able to. The reason? They ignore email. I started by using their web form to submit a request to sales. Two days later I sent an email to [e-mail] and [e-mail]. I got back a one sentence email saying that sales is on vacation. I've been emailing both sales and tech every other day since then, but I haven't gotten any response whatsoever.

At this point I'm seriously concerned that they may be going out of business. From a technical perspective they seem pretty well set up, but I don't think they have any full time staff.

NPS Internet Solutions

[VP]

Try NPSIS [npsis.com]. I've had them as a host since December, and I am very happy with them.

--Vassil

Re:Warning about csoft.net

[Fooster]

Gotta agree, their support is terrible. I have several domains hosted there that were down for the better part of a week due to an apache configuration error. It took half a dozen emails to get the problem looked into. They are very security minded, and don't support telnet or ftp access. (Not a problem for me). On the up side, they are cheap, but I don't think you'll get 5GB / month from a vhost like csoft, my pages there have been running mighty slow lately. Here [netmar.com] is a link to an outfit that'll set you up with a dedicated server for $100 / month with unlimited bandwidth Netmar.com [netmar.com].

Re:Warning about csoft.net

[Ripp]

Eh. As a csoft customer who's lived through a couple of the more annoying problems, all I have to say is this:

If you're comfortable doing things yourself, and can live with a little unexpected down-time here and there, and don't need much, if any, hand-holding as far as getting things set up then csoft is a hell of a deal.

They're real flexible as far as what they'll let you do (to a point.) and that means it's *your* responsibility to get your cgi's/scripts working. Your job to see that you don't hose the servers and your job to make sure you don't misconfigure anything you install. Follow their instructions on how to set it up, read the man pages for their installed software and you'll be alright.

Having frequented their irc support channels on more than one occasion I can say that I've seen some real idiocy and cluelessness. Think of them as the 'rent-a-garage' instead of the full-service mechanic shop. Don't come in asking for them to fix things you broke.

On the other hand, I've seen some server-related problems and issues with their admin tools go un-addressed for long periods of time, which on "internet-time" is not cool. At All(tm). And true, getting 'tech support' to actually pay attention can be downright difficult to say the least.

But, for the amount I pay for all the domains I have hosted on them (6 so far for $25/mo), I really can't complain.

Their site no longer lists the colo/dedicated server as an option, but I think if you talk to the admins, you can arrange it. (Don't hold me to it though.)

If you're pulling 5GB/mo in traffic, you'd really be better off doing a colo/dedicated solution anyhow.