Please recommend a good host (Page 1 of 2)

How much load are you expecting to put on this host etc?
Personally, I've never had a single problem with Dreamhost, even when the rest of the network was down my sites were still accessible But if you're planning to have a high-load site, go for a (semi)dedicated server instead of shared hosting.

@elbekko - Well, one of my main sites have approx. 35,000+ members and a huge database (http://phpfusion-themes.com) and this is my concern. All the other sites are still small in comparison and run on punBB so those I am not too concerned about at the moment. Even though I do see some delays on page load with even my empty pun sites. As for a VPS, well...That's quite a bit for me to put out for a website I don't generate any cash from. Can you recommend a shared hosting service?

@Scripter - As for the free hosting. nothing personal, but free doesn't always mean good. I can't expect much for free. I am very meticulous when it comes to my websites and downtime is unacceptable to me. I believe that there is never an excuse for it. I am not trying to be difficult but I think if I pay good money I should get great service.

godaddy to me seem to be one of the best. second i would use 1and1.com

just depends upon how much u want to spend.

Q

From an uptime standpoint, Netfirms is excellent. I can remember one outage in the 5ish years I've had Netfirms hosting (although I have not had an active site hosted there -- though I will soon -- for a year or more, so I cannot speak about recent uptime).

However, their technical support, which used to be very, very good, has been terrible the last few times I've made inquiries. Also, it has a few odd quirks, like a bug with the *nix "uptime" command that prevents (or prevented? I'm not sure if Mediator's hack has been applied to PunBB's 1.2 branch) admin_index.php from working (it's not an important file so oh well) and the odd choice to compile PHP with PDO drivers for SQLite 2 and 3 but not MySQL. Nothing serious, though.

Also suggest having a look at the stats and services covered in the reports here:
http://web-hosting.domaintools.com/r/shared-hosting

It's quite useful.

Also of course have a good prowl around http://www.webhostingtalk.com

And when you see a host you that looks interesting, always do a Google search along the lines of "HOSTNAME problems" to see what comes up.

There is one cPanel based reseller/shared host I have used for years now who is absolutely rock-solid, but I ain't telling anyone about them. Sorry Uptime is great and support response times are literally measured in *seconds*. It's very selfish of me not to share but, but there certainly are good hosts out there.

However I do endorse the view that your sites and requirements may be starting to stretch the capabilities of shared hosting. Sites with 35000 members and huge databases aren't normally what people would be comfortable using cheapo shared hosts to run with, if not for performance reasons, then for other reasons like security...

If you need to stick with shared hosting though, then with those requirements I would suggest dreamhost or MediaTemple's grid service - http://www.mediatemple.net/webhosting/gs/ . Those shared hosts seem to be comfortable hosting biggish sites.

im with atphost.com they are based in canada, and im in the UK but support has been fantsatic,  always someone on live chat, always respond to emails quick, msn billing conact is usefull

service is grate, no downtime so far, been with them for 7 months, and just paid for 1 year!

I accidntly delteated my files off my ftp, sent them an email, 2 min later, i had a full back up! amazing!!

PM you? This is PunBB, remember... I'll send you an email.

Is anyone familiar with this host:  www.westhost.com I am about to sign up for their VPS and was just curious on some feedback.

Not familiar with them, but their current 'Holiday Special' certainly seems a good deal. They also seem to run their own NOC and data center, which is nice - they aren't 3rd or 4th level re-sellers.

Their 'VPS' technology seems a bit unconventional though. While it does seem to provide the process isolation features of a VPS, they don't say what they use - Xen, Virtuozzo, VMWare etc - and they also don't ever seem to specifiy what RAM allocation you get within your 'VPS', and whether it is fixed or burstable etc, which is normally how VPS hosts pitch their stuff and is important to know with traditional VPS's.

So I suspect you don't get a 'real' VPS like you might at somewhere like VPSLink.com - eg while you can trigger a graceful Apache re-start through the Westhost control panel, you can't do stuff like re-install Apache, or do a server re-boot or new O/S install on your Westhost 'VPS'. If you ever needed/wanted to, that is.

Another issue also seems to be the relatively high hop count you get when you traceroute to their main web site from a few locations. You might want to see how it works from where you are and in relation to where you think most of your users may be coming from. 18 hops from Seattle to their server in Utah for example seems a tad high.

All those are minor niggles though. If it works, it works, and the price/features ratio is certainly good. Included backups, SSH access and phone support are nice too.  Best of luck

For what it's worth since you seem to have your answer, I cannot speak highly enough of my host, Apis Networks

All the features you would expect with excellent support - in fact I have never had them take more than 5-10 minutes to help me with a query. I say query as I have never had a problem to get solved.

I like flump. Uk servers

Hi bingiman,

I recommend you to use hosting services from Hostgator (www.hostgator.com)

You will not face any problem and issue with Hostgator services. Their services after sales is also good.