Looking For a New Host for Large Forum

[nothingatall]

I am looking to move my (current VB, soon to be Xenforo) website to a new host. I know SOME, but not a lot, about how to configure and run a web server. I mostly know development and design. Are there any hosts that would help with configuration for a xenforo website?

Our site does about 6 million pageviews a month.
18,863,963 posts.
Over 400k members.

What would the recommendation be for this kind of forum? How could I estimate out costs per month? Any suggestions?

Would something like Mediatemple work?

 

[Amaury]

I recommend Mike Edge.

 

[craigiri]

We'd need to know stuff like where your main audience is, etc.....

I've been working with my ISP for over a decade, and my site has not been down more than maybe 12 hours in that entire time period. Furthermore, I've never had a problem he could not fix. My google speed scores are consistently high and I have zero complaints from users about speed.

But he's not the budget brand. With a forum such as you have, I'd stay away from the low cost guys anyway. You should be making big $$ off that, so it may be worth your while to pay for a more reliable host.

If you want more info on my guy, PM me...

 

[Moshe1010]

I recommend Mike Edge.

Are you kidding?

I am looking to move my (current VB, soon to be Xenforo) website to a new host. I know SOME, but not a lot, about how to configure and run a web server. I mostly know development and design. Are there any hosts that would help with configuration for a xenforo website?

Our site does about 6 million pageviews a month.
18,863,963 posts.
Over 400k members.

What would the recommendation be for this kind of forum? How could I estimate out costs per month? Any suggestions?

Would something like Mediatemple work?

I would suggest a very high-end VPS that is configured very well or the default option for you is a dedicated server.
There are couple of options, but it really depends how much resources your forum is taking. What panel do you have right now? (e.g cPanel/Directadmin, etc`).

In addition, where most of your traffic is coming from? (country(ies)?
Anyway, several options:
KnownHost:
http://www.knownhost.com/managed-dedicated-servers.html

Pretty common. Very good reviews. I personally didn't like them. They tend to not support many things like 3rd party softwares (that are supported by cPanel/WHM). For example cache systems (xCache/Memcahce, etc`).


ServINT:
http://www.servint.net/v_dedicatedservers.php

I've been there too (by the way, I tested all the common VPS servers before choosing a host. I didn't really move my live sites there [just backups]).
They are better than Knownhost, but there are too many people involved in one support ticket. It creates sometimes miscommunication and that I didn't like. They solved most of my problems. but the fact that they don't have SSD drives and don't support Litespeed is a huge negative in my opinion.


FutureHosting:
http://www.futurehosting.com/dedicated-servers/

Pretty common at webhostingtalk.com
Didn't like it much. I don't think they know what they are doing. Everything I asked was taking hours to solve compared to ServINT.

Eventually you have WiredTree:
https://www.wiredtree.com/managedservers/

Pretty good support overall. A little bit slower respond than ServINT.

That's it basically, on my own experience.

 

[Amaury]

Are you kidding?

No, he's awesome.

 

[Blue]

+1 for WiredTree

 

[Moshe1010]

No, he's awesome.

He's offering shared hosting. He won't be able to host a website that big (nor he would like too, I guess).

 

[motowebmaster]

If a site with 18 million posts can run on a shared host without issues, then I say go for it.

I don't use MediaTemple, but did help setup a new vb site on their "Grid" hosting product a few years ago. I wouldn't use it, but thought service was quite good.

If you aren't comfortable with server configuration, then reaching out to someone who already supports Xenforo hosting would be a good idea. However, it would be worthwhile to develop an server/admin strategy of your own.

 

[Anpanman]

I've seen a lot of recommendations around here for KnownHost with their SSD package. I think Jaxel's site is hosted there. There is a whole thread about them on here.

 

[Ghan_04]

I also would recommend WiredTree. They have great management, which can be nice.
Another option would be LiquidWeb. They also have management available.
If you don't need management, then some good quality unmanaged providers would be Linode for VPS and WebNX for dedicated. WebNX often has really great deals in their threads on Web Hosting Talk.

 

[WSWD]

That's most definitely a large enough forum for a dedicated server. Don't play around with shared hosting or a VPS for something that big.

 

[Adam Howard]

18 Million post
400 Thousand active members

1. Softlayer.com
2. liquidweb.com
3. peer1.com
4. cologix.com
5. oricom.ca
6. glesys.com

 

[Russ]

We tried known host and had random issues with slow speeds and a decent amount of downtime. Every time we tried contacting them they would simply say "it shows its up". Was never any help for the most part, we switched to wiredtree and haven't had problems since *crosses fingers*

 

[ge66]

I am using a dedicated server from http://www.glesys.com/ they can take care of the server for you if you want, moved to them from Softlayer more than a year ago. No big problems so far.

 

[Mouth]

http://www.krypt.com/dedicated/ is great.

 

[Lisa]

Are you kidding?


I would suggest a very high-end VPS that is configured very well or the default option for you is a dedicated server.
There are couple of options, but it really depends how much resources your forum is taking. What panel do you have right now? (e.g cPanel/Directadmin, etc`).

In addition, where most of your traffic is coming from? (country(ies)?
Anyway, several options:
KnownHost:
http://www.knownhost.com/managed-dedicated-servers.html

Pretty common. Very good reviews. I personally didn't like them. They tend to not support many things like 3rd party softwares (that are supported by cPanel/WHM). For example cache systems (xCache/Memcahce, etc`).

I use Knownhost and have memcached running (which they installed and keep updated for me).

 

[Moshe1010]

I use Knownhost and have memcached running (which they installed and keep updated for me).

They would install it but not support it.

 

[Lisa]

They would install it but not support it.

They do for me *shrug* Been with them four years and they've supported everything I've asked.

 

[Moshe1010]

They do for me *shrug* Been with them four years and they've supported everything I've asked.

I guess you didn't ask for complicated things. I had xCache with Lightspeed and xCache was restarting every hour. ServINT solved it for me, Knownhost said "it's working, so what if it's restarting?"
Plus they didn't know how to migrate from Directadmin to cPaenl and basically quoted me the tickets they opened with cPanel itself to migrate me = unprofessional.
There were lots of other things involved, but the bottom line is that I would not recommend them unless you have small-moderate forum that doesn't need much resources.

 

[The Sandman]

I guess you didn't ask for complicated things. I had xCache with Lightspeed and xCache was restarting every hour. ServINT solved it for me, Knownhost said "it's working, so what if it's restarting?"
Plus they didn't know how to migrate from Directadmin to cPaenl and basically quoted me the tickets they opened with cPanel itself to migrate me = unprofessional.
There were lots of other things involved, but the bottom line is that I would not recommend them unless you have small-moderate forum that doesn't need much resources.

Do you happen to know how they fixed the XCache restarting issue?