Hosting can make or break your website or blog.
Picking the wrong host can result in downtime, slow loading times and security hacks.
Important things to consider
- Quality of technical support
- Loading speed of website
- Does the hosting company use cPanel?
- Flexibility in hosting length
- Payment options
- How do they backup your website data?
- How does the hosting company provide support? Email? Helpdesk? Phone?
Website hosting Comparison Matrix
In the meantime, I’ve created this chart based on my experience hosting websites which goes back to 1999 when I registered my first domain name.
I began offering hosting to my clients in 2003 after many of them had trouble with their hosting companies. This allowed me to learn more about website management, DNS and the type of support people should expect.
| Hosting Company | cPanel Supported? | Cost | Rating | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rochenhost | Yes | $8.95/month | 5 stars | Linux certified engineers, fast performance, speedy support response of 8-15 minutes, proactive security monitoring. Twice daily automatic backups of you website and database. Rochenhost 635 sites listed as compromised or hacked in the last 90 days as of April 26th, 2011. This is considerably lower than the other hosting companies on this list. Perfect for business hosting. |
| HostGator | Yes | $8.95/month | 3 stars | Popular but servers are overcrowded and suffer performance wise. Hostgator has consistently had problems with compromised / hacked website which affects other customers (10,916 in the last 90 days as of April 26th, 2011). |
| BlueHost | Yes | $6.95/month | 2 stars | Confusing customer interface. Bluehost provider consistently has compromised / hacked website problems which affects other customers (3,347 in the last 90 days as of April 26th, 2011). Slow support. |
| GoDaddy | No | $4.99/month with a minimum of 3 months | 2 stars | Confusing customer interface. Database requires separate un/pw. Bad website performance due to overcrowding and/or hardware. Slow FTP access. No easy way to backup your site. 9,138 sites were listed a compromised or hacked in the last 90 days as of April 26th, 2011. |
| Dreamhost | No | $4.95/month | 2 stars | Overloaded web servers. Dreamhost has consistent and numerous problems hosting hacked and compromised websites (5,807 in the last 90 days as of April 26th, 2011). Poor customer support. |
| Media Temple | No | $20/month | 3 stars | Does not offer cPanel but instead has a custom control panel. 1,098 sites listed as compromised or hacked in the last 90 days as of April 26th, 2011 |
| Network Solutions | No | 11.95/month | 1 star | Extremely overpriced services. Heavy pressure from sales people for add-on products. Slow and inaccurate support, confusing rebranding of web services. Slow website performance, underpowered and upsell focused control panel. 598 sites in the last 90 days were marked as compromised or hacked as of April 26th, 2011. |
Don’t Let Cost Be a Deciding Factor
Most shared hosting plans are about the same price, $4 – $12 per month.
If you’re just starting out with a website or a blog then you’ll be looking to go with a shared hosting package. This means the hosting company puts your website on a server with other websites as well. You each have your own “space” but you share the same hardware. Once your site grows larger with thousands of daily visitors, you may want to consider moving to Virtual hosting or your own dedicated server.
I recommend Rochenhost because they have proven track record of being fast, experienced and proactive when it comes to their hosting services.
I’ve been managing hosting accounts for clients, reselling hosting space and doing website consulting since 1999 so I’ve gone through several hosting companies, have spent countless hours by email, phone and even postal mail setting up, configuring, assigning and running website services. Rochen host has the right people on staff with top-notch servers that are well maintained. They are the official hosting company of Joomla.org as well so that also speaks to their expertise regardless of if you’re a WordPress, Drupal or Joomla user.
The Support You Need
When you’re having trouble and it’s 8pm at night, won’t it be nice to get help quickly with your website or blog? Make sure to use Google to find out what other people think of the hosting company. Ask your hosting company for references. Sign up for a short period of time to test them out before committing long term.
Many will offer deep discounts if you sign up for 1-2 years because they know it’s not easy for “regular people” to move to a new server. Saving $3 a month could cost you thousands of dollars in the long run. I’ve helped countless clients and customers move away from the following hosts due to poor service, slow sites, limited access to files and hard to use web management consoles:
[list type="check"]
- Network Solutions
- Bluehost
- 1and1
- GoDaddy (good for domain names, bad for hosting)
Choose a Host That Offers cPanel
Another important consideration is how they provide hosting services. There is a popular hosting platform known as cPanel. Hosting companies subscribe and you receive tools that make managing your hosting files, email accounts and datbases much easier.
Companies like Network Solutions, Media Temple, GoDaddy and Dreamhost have decided to make their own “control panels” which often makes it hard for bloggers and business owners to get help from their website and support folks.
