Who are great Server Hosts?

[WSWD]

Instead of asking for references, you should ask your host to show you legitimate pictures of their server cabinets. Hint...the one-man show hobby hosts are not going to be able to do it, because they rent a single server and somehow that makes them a hosting company. What's even more important than references is asking these hosts about their contingency plans in case things go wrong. When these one-man shows are on vacation or sleeping, or out at the grocery store, and the server blows up a RAID card, are you going to need to wait until they get home from wherever or wake up to notify their datacenter that something is wrong? What if you need emergency support at 3AM because your site is down? What if 200 clients need support at 3AM because all the sites are down? One person is going to do that effectively?

If you want real recommendations about real hosting companies, go over to a site like WHT. They will point you in the right direction.

 

[TPerry]

Some of your "real" hosting companies started out as those one man shows though @WSWD, as you well know. Then they grew.
Like I said.. I'll let all you other guys have that fun. I'm in it (running forums and my own leased server - soon to be owned co-lo) because it's a hobby and I have fun. When it becomes work is when I'll get out of it.

 

[WSWD]

Some of your "real" hosting companies started out as those one man shows though @WSWD, as you well know. Then they grew.

That's exactly what is wrong with hosting these days. Back in the day, it would take a large investment of servers, support staff, actually becoming a legitimate taxpaying business, etc. Now you get kids using their allowance money and a $5 reseller plan, or $40 dedicated server from OVH, and all of the sudden they're a host.

While it might be a hobby for some of these folks, they are dealing with peoples' money and livelihood, other legitimate companies, etc. Might be fun to play host, but the clients deserve better.

 

[Jim Boy]

It depends;

• managed or unmanaged?
• With or without a pay-for control panel of some sort (cPannel, etc)

Linode or Digital Ocean have very good starting offerings if you can handle a bare bones unmanaged server.

Use of a free web server management tool, such as virtualmin, will make life a lot easier for the non-technical

 

[Mike Edge]

That's exactly what is wrong with hosting these days. Back in the day, it would take a large investment of servers, support staff, actually becoming a legitimate taxpaying business, etc. Now you get kids using their allowance money and a $5 reseller plan, or $40 dedicated server from OVH, and all of the sudden they're a host.

While it might be a hobby for some of these folks, they are dealing with peoples' money and livelihood, other legitimate companies, etc. Might be fun to play host, but the clients deserve better.

Flip of the coin on that one though is unmanaged VPS providers and places like volume drive and OVH make a killing during the summer and Christmas holiday off these kids.. LOL..

The company slips my mind.. But I remember on the Minecraft forum few years back there was some kid selling 2GB Minecraft servers for five bucks.. hundreds of people posted how great service was.. Had something like 8 E3's full.. Come mid Sept support went to crap and by Oct everyone's IP was dead and the kid vanished with excuse he had too much homework ...

 

[TPerry]

That's exactly what is wrong with hosting these days.

Yep.. these days... but not all the hosting companies started out with 5-200 employees, their own building, etc. They started with a rack (or half-rack) somewhere and then as their clientele grew so did their infrastructure.

It IS to easy now to get a reseller account and run out and set up yourself and become a "Hosting Company".

I had an investor that was willing to back me in a startup - but told him no thanks - was way to much sugar for a nickel for me. I'll stick with doing my own stuff on either a leased system or a dedicated server - and offer some space for friends for free.

 

[Xon]

Hosting is something where you really do want your provider to have staff available especially when they have staff on leave or sick. Stuff always breaks, and how quickly they can fix it is very important.

Use of a free web server management tool, such as virtualmin, will make life a lot easier for the non-technical

Sadly, I don't actually have much experience with those tools.

I've been meaning to look into Docker and such for server automation, but that's a large task when my day job is software development in an established environment.

 

[Gabby]

Oh this is a laughable thread.

 

[Radiola]

We left DreamHost after 3 1/2 of really good service with them because they can't tell the difference between DMCA abuse and a hole in the ground. They accepted 4 invalid complaints over a five day period and removed content from our site. We could respond with a counterclaim except the complaints were invalid in the first place. In addition, the complaints were from a known sex offender and no one I know is comfortable putting personal information in the hands of someone like that. Their abuse department is pretty close to "sucks". May the Lord have mercy on you if someone files an invalid or fraudulent DMCA complaint against you because DH will not.

 

[Robust]

Flip of the coin on that one though is unmanaged VPS providers and places like volume drive and OVH make a killing during the summer and Christmas holiday off these kids.. LOL..

The company slips my mind.. But I remember on the Minecraft forum few years back there was some kid selling 2GB Minecraft servers for five bucks.. hundreds of people posted how great service was.. Had something like 8 E3's full.. Come mid Sept support went to crap and by Oct everyone's IP was dead and the kid vanished with excuse he had too much homework ...

I work in Minecraft hosting as an established host.

The customer is on avg a 13 year old or less. They have no money, but they want best hardware, no lag, less than 10ms ping worldwide, amazing support, amazing everything but for $0.50/GB lifetime price (they dislike pay monthly).

The industry sucks because the average customer now is a kid. The host owners are also, now, mostly kids making a quick buck. Poor PayPal having to deal with so many under 18 registrations and they cry when they're limited.

Oh I could write you an essay.

If you're using a host from here, I could recommend 3 users really. My personal recommendation is get a Linode VPS and start from there, but not everyone can do that, so there are some guys here who are very experienced in what they do.

 

[BoostN]

I have a Linode VPS for my biggest site.. so far so good for over a year now. I set it up with Centminmod and it's been great.

I have a VPS from KnownHost w/cPanel for a quick way to spin up test site or some of my other small sites that a dedicated VPS is not needed at the time.

When the site outgrows the KnownHost account, I just transfer it on it's own VPS. Easy, and cost effective.

 

[TPerry]

If one chooses to use CentOS, then CentMin is the logical way to go. But if one chooses Debian/Ubuntu, then it's more of a hands on experience so one needs to be somewhat knowledgable about setting up a server themselves (which CentMin takes over for you on CentOS so yo don't have to know how to configure nginx, mysql, php-fpm, etc).

 

[Grizzly Adam]

We use hosting source, we are at kind of a medium teir service from them. They set up a virtual server, I chose ubuntu with webmin and virtualmin. Good company, very reliable, decent price. Tech support is good but I have moved beyond the need for that now that I have the shell server configured.

 

[rdn]

But if one chooses Debian/Ubuntu,

There is EasyEngine .
https://easyengine.io/

 

[Robust]

If one chooses to use CentOS, then CentMin is the logical way to go. But if one chooses Debian/Ubuntu, then it's more of a hands on experience so one needs to be somewhat knowledgable about setting up a server themselves (which CentMin takes over for you on CentOS so yo don't have to know how to configure nginx, mysql, php-fpm, etc).

I don't think centmin should replace a sysadmin. It can surely make the process either, but when just about anyone uses it to deploy a server without any knowledge of what they're doing (furthermore, centmin is as-is and with no support in usage) then it could be catastrophic.

Debian is a much nicer OS, however CentOS (or well, RHL) spent their entire budget talking to large companies and getting on their good side, while Debian invested in better things. So, CentOS is preferred for server work in larger corporations simply because of the money spent talking to them, while Debian is pretty much better and less buggy (well, COS is less buggy as of 6.5 and 7). Comes down to personal preference in the end. There's no right or wrong answer, it's what you like. The raw performance on both is pretty similar, Debian is nicer and easier to use, CentOS is considered more secure but if you're looking for secure... Go OpenBSD.

 

[TPerry]

I don't think centmin should replace a sysadmin. It can surely make the process either, but when just about anyone uses it to deploy a server without any knowledge of what they're doing (furthermore, centmin is as-is and with no support in usage) then it could be catastrophic.

I've used both.. and for a long time used Debian. Just don't really want to have to take the time to manually do what a script does for me. CentOS vs Debian is the old Apple vs Android deal. They both do the same thing.
And yes, if anyone is going to run a server, then should know (without saying) how to perform normal sysadmin duties - but that's no different than one being a "SysAdmin" for a forum. You shouldn't be doing it unless you are familiar with at least the basics.

 

[rafass]

https://mattwservices.co.uk/
1'000.000% reccomended ★★★★★★​

 

[Bombardier]

I have been a customer of www.pair.com for over 12 years an never had an issue with them. Great service.