Good cheap hosting. Is there such a thing ?

[Xplic1T]

Needs php support, shared hosting, semi high volume of users, no bottleneck

[radford]

Needs php support, shared hosting, semi high volume of users, no bottleneck

Hard to say. There used to be a few firms posted all the time at the deal sites --- Dreamhost, Netfirms, 1&1 etc. The problem is almost every place has people who claim to have had good service and others who trash the place. There are a few places that are trashed by almost everyone and then there are a few that Ive seen that have generally good reviews but they tend to be smaller places which seems to be one of the reasons they still have acceptable service. However its also true that these type places also have very few reviewers so it just might be that we havent seen the negative reviews since they just have a smaller customer base so there are fewer PO'd customers good and bad.

Some people have posted they run a moderately small site on these cheapo deals but Im starting to have my doubts and I think you might have to go at least to these more expensive 50 and up a month with far less people per server to run a real forum/business.

Im kind of like a lot of people -- always trying to squeeze every penny out of these deals, in fact trying for zero cost or super cheapo amounts but Im probably going to upgrade my plans soon and the software I found for a review and forum -- Ive resigned myself to the fact Im probably going for Vbulletin and a pay review software package which is so much better than anything Ive seen after looking for several months. Its a bit pricey compared to my former plan -- zero. I was messing around with SMF and looking for books and free scripts to mod for the review site. If you are serious about doing anything, the amounts are still dirt cheap.

If you check the deal forums DreamHost runs deals intermittenly. They just did one for 10 bucks for 2 years I think. They were also running one for 20 after that. You have to be careful about not renewing though. Some people give up running their site and then forget about it after a year and then suddenly find 180 bucks charged to your CC a year later. A lot of people bash DH for problems but others claim they have been OK. They did have a few widely reported outages.

Netfirms also has a long running cheapo deal and was posted a lot at SD. They then were bashed by a few posters for being slow but some people say they are OK.

One problem with these super el cheapo sites besides the poor tech support or nonexistant tech support is they have very stringent CPU usage limits and maybe some other limits that may make the grossly inflated claims of bandwidth and hard disk maximum limits a joke.

HostPC also used to be mentioned as a small place that had better than avg tech support. Typical of these places the bandwidth and HD space max is much less impressive but like I said --- these are kind of joke anyway because the places with insane numbers , you run into problems with CPU usage and other problems in terms of sharing a server with tons of other users. A lot of these places have forums. I would ask questions there and then try a free trial. Be careful about that though. Some of these places can be difficult to get a refund. Read all the fine print about the refund terms.

[ChrisLimon]

I recommend surpasshosting.com I find them pretty cheap, and think I get a good amount of services for the buck. And the support is awesome! Check it out, I think you'll love it.

[Xplic1T]

This is off surpasshosting.com

Connecting............

You are now connected with Lamar
Session Started
Lamar: Welcome to Surpass Concierge. How may I assist you today?

You: Hi lamar, im shopping for some hosting solutions

You: are you there ?

Lamar: I'm happy to hear you are considering us here at Surpass. Do you
have any questions?

You: i understand you guys have good server uptime but im looking for
something to accommodate up to 3000 to 4000 users at once

You: bottleneck is my biggest issue

Lamar: With that many users at once, you would need to look into one of
our Dedicated servers.

You: how much do you think your shared server will be able to host at
once ?

Lamar: No where near as many as you would need. According to our
Resource abuse policies, our average server resource limts are:

Apache connections may not exceed 30 connections

15 MySQL maximum user connections allowed

Lamar: This only applies per each cpanel account on a shared server

You: got it

There you go, 30 max connections per cpanel account. I give them a big thumbs down :(

Dreamhost i would imagine is about the same.

[moneysavingking]

I personally use hostmonster for my sites for about $7/mnth. Its shared hosting with PHP, MySQL,Fantastico, all the usual stuff. I'm running some php scripts and so far haven't had a problem, including several that run every other minute.

Like all things thouhg I guess it comes down to what you are going to use it for. If its going to be processor or memory intensive then shared hosting isn't going to cut it, you'll need to look for VPS (virtual private server) or dedicated.

[ChrisLimon]

This is off surpasshosting.com

Connecting............

You are now connected with Lamar
Session Started
Lamar: Welcome to Surpass Concierge. How may I assist you today?

You: Hi lamar, im shopping for some hosting solutions

You: are you there ?

Lamar: I'm happy to hear you are considering us here at Surpass. Do you
have any questions?

You: i understand you guys have good server uptime but im looking for
something to accommodate up to 3000 to 4000 users at once

You: bottleneck is my biggest issue

Lamar: With that many users at once, you would need to look into one of
our Dedicated servers.

You: how much do you think your shared server will be able to host at
once ?

Lamar: No where near as many as you would need. According to our
Resource abuse policies, our average server resource limts are:

Apache connections may not exceed 30 connections

15 MySQL maximum user connections allowed

Lamar: This only applies per each cpanel account on a shared server

You: got it

There you go, 30 max connections per cpanel account. I give them a big thumbs down :(

Dreamhost i would imagine is about the same.
I've had more than 30 people on my site at the same time and have never had an issue. I think that is just a canned response, but for 3 to 4 thousand I think youre gonna need a dedicated server no matter where you go.

[radford]

This is off surpasshosting.com

There you go, 30 max connections per cpanel account. I give them a big thumbs down :(

Dreamhost i would imagine is about the same.

See thats the problem. I think dreams of running even a moderate forum with lots of people connecting at one time for 10 bucks a month or less is a fantasy though Ive seen some posters who claim they got more than 30.

The problem I think is they cram a ton of people on each server for 10-20 a month or less with these shared servers. So depending on how much other users are using resources -- you probably have some wiggle room but it seems like it would be variable --- nothing you would base a serious project on.

You probably have to go to a dedicated or VPS solution for $50+ though I think Ive seen a few cheaper deals. Then you have to wonder if these super el cheapo VPS solutions arent really limited in some way too.
If you are just starting out though a 10 buck a year or less than 10 a month deal would be OK to put your site online and work out the bugs. After all you might not even get 10 people at one time for a while. Then
move over to the higher packages after you get your site established a bit.

[Liquification]

Needs php support, shared hosting, semi high volume of users, no bottleneck

I use Blue Host. they are about 9.99 a month. Not the cheapest but, always up and never a problem. Very courteous and quick with questions and help

[nominal]

yeah, highly recommended. I've used it in the past. 0 problems. 100% worked for me.

http://www.tntpowerhost.com/

[linker]

for 3-4k connections, you need a vps.

slicehost.com (http://slicehost.com) <--- best in the business (no affiliation but have friends who use and swear by them)

warning: not for noobs. be ready to put entry level *nix/dns/smtp/apache skills to use, or acquire some. shared hosting is nothing like running your own vps with root access.

[edit]
I also wanted to note that 3-4k users on a forum at once != 3-4k active connections. typically it will be between 10-25% of that, but you will need a safety buffer.

[420]

Good and cheap ... no. Most people who can survive on cheap, shared hosting don't need good though. I'd try Dreamhost.

[ynzheng]

hostmonster and dreamhost and bluehost...all are good and cheap

[dlnow]

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[jon2249]

for dream host the max09 and 777 coupon will be a 22.40 price every year from now on? or only the first year? I want to be locked into the price instead of raising on me and having to transfer all my files to a new account

[jon2249]

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