Host experiences and testimonials thread

[Ark del KAOS]

Hi...I'm having serious performance problems with my MediaTemple GridServer.
My new VB4 run so slow. Its really annoying...

So, I start searching for another web hosting...and this thread is one of the firsts sources of information who come to my mind because its about vbs.
But there's 31 pages! And so many opinions about hundreds of web hosts than I don't know how to select a bunch of good ones to start choosing.
Sorry if my English is hard to understand, it's not my mother tongue

May I ask you about make a simple top5 with the five web hosts you think its the best for a vb4 with about 200 users online continuously? ^ ^
(I think we'll grow up to 1000 users online for the next year)

[anthonyparsons]

You only need one IMHO... ServInt. If you want to stop messing about, then go with them and you will have zero issues. Do a search on a reputable host review site, ie. webhostingtalk.com, where you will find they are the one company who sit all by themselves for quality of product and service.

Like any company, they take a day or two to get everything setup and running, but once it is, you will have a very smooth ride with them. They are really that good... just do that webhostingtalk search and you will find out for yourself.

[smirkley]

Ditto on Servint.

I cant make a top five list, as I stopped looking after using them.

Been with them for several years now.

[DHewes]

Host: Hostrocket
URL www.hotrocket.com

Pros: Offers a large number of benefits for a low price and are generally flexible as far as making various setting adjustments.

Cons: Down...a lot. You will go a few months without a blip and then hours a day of being down for several days in a row. They apparntly do not use any monitoring application (like Nagios or Big Brother) because they only seem to know this when you contact them. The last week my site has been down more than it has been up. When the servers go down they do not answer the phones - they do not even ring, just hang up on you. I have sent tickets asking what the problem was, in a professional manner, and the tickets just get closed with no answer. Also I have noted that many of the cPanel features do not seem to work. I do not want to speculate as to why, but things like the backup app I have found does not generate a file that can be restored.

Bottom line: When things work it is hard to find a more feature rich host for the price. Just be prepared for extended outages. Also be prepared to write your own scripts to backup MySQL and the file system and do this often.

[oz_moses]

I'm pretty happy with www.linode.com, when our site outgrew shared hosting (dreamhost) I moved to a VPS whereby you have your own virtual instance of a linux server and can install whatever software you choose.

I'm running the nginx web server which absolutely destroys apache on RAM and CPU usage, not to mention outperforming it at every chance.

[edytwinky]

Hostrocket

Pros: Its very cheap and they offer a lot of services.

Cons: Tons of downtime. There's no way they offer their advertised 99.5% uptime. Sometimes their 1-800 support number is down. In February alone i've had over 15 hours of downtime. I'm currently looking to switch

[Homeworld'sa]

URLJet.com: Probably your best vBulletin Host!

Okay, I started a Harry Potter Community on a friend's free host and I wanted to move to paid hosting. I already heard LOTS of +++ about URLJet.com, so I got their (now non-existant) vB Starter package and I have had perfect timing with them.

Pros:
100% uptime!
R1 Backups, not nightly like everyone else!

Cons:
Not one.

Only problem I had was when they recently fixed a bug on the eagleone server with R1 Backups. A weird bug in one of the cPanel X styles showed that my db's had nothing in them, even though they did.

Summary: You want a host, you got one. URLJet.com starts now at vB Pro, which is pretty good, but no dedicated IP. Server Loads might be around 1.00 - 3.00, but that's fine. Just don't refresh your page too much in quick succession!

Go with these guys, they have a peer support board and 100% ticket reponses.

[YZFRydn]

Summary: Stay away from inmotionhosting

I started my first forum in 2001 and migrated to vBulletin in 2007, a largely positive move. I now run two vBulletin forums and the original is quite a decent size with a loyal membership. Having been with 4 hosts since 2001, it has been my experience that while the first 3 promised great bandwidth, storage capacity, memory, addon domains and parked domains (none of these resources came close to being used up), when it came to running the forum they would give me a hard time about my CPU usage. InMotion Hosting developed an annoying habit of shutting down my server and leaving me to figure out it was off and hassle them to turn it back on again. InMotion weren't very helpful with trying to figure out where the load was coming from either, despite the fact that I was paying quite a fee to them and I worked for a number of years as Unix server administrator (i.e. I have a clue). This "shutdown now and don't bother asking any questions later" attitude is dispicable and while I tolerated it happening rarely over my 2 years of service, it got progressively worse as they piled on other customers on my VPS machine.

Inmotionhosting let me down and hurt my organization and my revenue.

When I asked to close my account with them on the basis of their poor handling of my account, InMotion Hosting refused to refund any of the money I had paid in advance for the coming months on the basis that I initiated the closing of the account. Be aware that if you host with US companies you are subject to despicable US consumer law (or lack thereof) and therefore at the mercy of the scruples of the company you choose. InMotion Hosting in my experience have been the least fair in their behaviour regarding moving servers/closing accounts. Addendum: After kicking up a stink InMotion did give a partial refund for the time left, but it was not for all of the time left - 1 month out of 2.

Stay away from InMotion Hosting if you know what's good for you.

I am now with Globalgold, and touch wood, so far so good.

I as well have inmotionhosting and for the first 6 months didn't have a problem whatsoever. Now, I am having all kinds of problems with them. They continue to block my IP address when ever I access the server with an FTP program even after multiple phone calls saying there is no issue.

Good luck chatting with them online or getting a decent email response time. You have to call and speak with someone and even then the techs are not that knowledgeable. This is day #2 my site is down and I have yet to have a reason from them.

I will be looking into this GlobalGold hosting service. Thanks for everyone's reviews.

[Cosmic Trigger]

i'm at the verge of starting a new site, looking for something big as i can see a lot of traffic coming in.

i read the last 5 pages and i'm somewhere between:

http://www.urljet.com/vbulletin-hosting.php

http://www.globalgold.co.uk/dedicated/vbulletin_custom_hosting.html

http://www.realwebhost.net/vps.php

but i'm not certain about the hosting plans. as they aren't very detailed at all.

does the urljet vb premium with raid10 30gb disk space and 750gb bandwidth compare to globalgold up to 750 simultaneous user or the over 750 simultaneous users? and what package deal do these compare to on realwebhost.net?

furthermore, with 750 simultanious users do they mean registered or do guests count as well? how easy would it be to upgrade from up to 750 simultanious users to over 750 simulanious users?

[TheUndead]

We just lost 6 months of our 12 month pre-paid hosting plan with Siteground, they are claiming we made a chargeback on the hosting fee, which of course we didn't and there is no record of any such chargeback with our bank. They have suspended our account and are demanding a full years hosting fee of $95.40 plus an additional $50 to re-activate our account. The swindling gits already have the intial $95.40, now they are trying to bully us into giving them more. We contacted a solicitor and were told that because they have moved their business address to Panama there is absolutely nothing we can do except cut our loses.
Avoid Siteground at all costs, they are doing this to a lot of people, and there is nothing you can do to fight them.

[Jon12345]

I would like to recommend urljet.com. Why? For the following reasons:

1. They were very patient with the migration of my database, which they had to try several times due to the limitation of my previous host. The site was on a very old server and there were memory limitations in doing a mysql dump. They solved it for me and I am happy.

2. They kept me informed during the whole time. e.g. "download 45% completed", "import in progress".

3. My users have stated the previously slow site is now very quick. A quote: "Jon, it is very noticeable, one might term it "lightening fast"

4. This is all before they have optimized the mysql database, which they do after 48 hours of analysing your database use.

They are not the cheapest, but they over-deliver and you have to factor in their add-on cost of their free vbulletin upgrades and migration.

Thumbs up and well done to urljet.com.

Jon

[Cosmic Trigger]

i am leaning towards urljet as well, I tried to sign up on global but I keep getting checkout errors. my issue with urljet is their packages are really ubdetailed! no ram indication whatsoever which i liked about global, it even said how many active users it can handle at once.

are there update possibilities for the 49$ vb package? and how expensive are they?

[Homeworld'sa]

i am leaning towards urljet as well, I tried to sign up on global but I keep getting checkout errors. my issue with urljet is their packages are really ubdetailed! no ram indication whatsoever which i liked about global, it even said how many active users it can handle at once.

They have lots of ram, and they use litespeed servers.
URLJet.com can handle LOTS Of users at once, in fact, it's probably so high, they don't mention it.

[Cosmic Trigger]

well i asked their top priced package apparently holds 225 simultaniously at $49 global claims up to 750 at £24,99.

quite the difference, but I suppose the urljet servers are a lot quicker.

[Homeworld'sa]

the urljet servers are much more faster. Their DataCenter is located at an ATC.