Last week I wrote a quick introduction to the different kinds of web hosting you might come across as a webmaster or blog owner. Today I thought I would share a quick note about what kind of web hosting TechPatio has been going through.
When TechPatio.com was first launched in the Summer of 2009, it was on the same hosting plan at which I had my personal website and e-mail hosting. Basically it was just a cheap shared Linux hosting plan that didn’t cost much and had plenty of bandwidth and disk space to offer.
Unfortunately, that provider had SAFE_MODE set to ON which meant all kinds of problems with a WordPress blog. WordPress itself would work just fine, but lots of plugins wouldn’t work as nice or as easy as with SAFE_MODE set to OFF.
Luckily, that same web host was about to provide VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting solutions as well and I signed up as a beta tester, which, after a few months of testing, would result in one free year of VPS hosting. The good thing was, VPS hosting meant better performance and SAFE_MODE=OFF. The downside was maintenance. I was now the one who had to maintain my hosting plan. I even had to install a control panel on it, such as cpanel web hosting. I can’t remember exactly which control panel software I installed, but since I had a limited amount of CPU cycles and memory assigned to my VPS plan, installing a control panel meant I would haven less performance available for my actual site, as the control panel also used up some resources.
Eventually it just became too much work for me, having a “self-hosted” VPS plan. I wanted to blog, not be a server administrator. I decided to cancel my VPS hosting plan and move to a completely different host elsewhere, where I started out with a basic shared Linux web hosting plan with SAFE_MODE=OFF, which was great.
Not long after, I had to upgrade as TechPatio simply outgrew the limitations for that hosting plan. Now I’m on a lite Linux Reseller plan which gives me room to grow. I currently have 10GB disk space and 100GB bandwidth per month. The Reseller plans also comes as Advanced, Pro and Enterprise which means I can upgrade to 40GB disk space and 400GB bandwidth when needed. When (read: when, not if 😉 ) TechPatio grows bigger than that, I can upgrade to VPS and get even more space, bandwidth and resources available – including a built-in control panel.
Just remember, when you find a host, don’t think that just because it says “unlimited bandwidth/disk space”, that you’re actually going to get it. Most of the providers will have “fair use”-limits in their terms & conditions, so it’s not really “unlimited”.
My best advice is to go with a host that your friend(s) are having great experiences with or if you don’t have any friends with web hosting, be sure to study independent reviews and user reviews as well. There’s nothing worse than signing up with an “all time slow” web hosting provider.
With cheap and fast adsl (even vdsl these days) around the world running a home server is a possibility for many… costs less than any plan and certainly gives all the flexibility and security you would want provided you know what you are doing
I’m still on a $5/month Hostgator shared hosting plan.. don’t need to care about security, updates, upgrades, and all that. Unlimited bandwidth, space etc. I think you should move to Hostgator, Klaus 😛 Unless if you pay cheaper than that, of course
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
I’m on a cheap shared linux hosting called Hostmonster. I think there about 300 other sites also on my server, or IP.
According to Google Webmaster Site Performance, it’s taking googlebot like 5+ seconds to read one of my pages. Way too slow.
How did you find the process of moving a WP site from one host to another?
Is it difficult?
I am also on a cheap share hosting at Arvixe and nowadays it has been giving all sorts of problems since it seems my blog has been taking up too much resources for a shared server, so I am planning to get a VPS pretty soon. Do you have any recommendations?
I am using hostgator as host with Linux server. My experience with them is very good.
For cheaper hosting you can stick to hostgator.Dreamhost is good option if you can a pay a little more.
I hear lots of positive reviews about Hostgator. I may have to check them out, but I went to FSU so going with a “gator” is going to be tough.
thanks for sharing that onfo
i am have hosting with byethost but i want to change since i had some troubles with them
Been with Hostgator for over 2 years now and recently upgraded to Baby plan so I can host multiple sites. Hoping that with the use of W3 Total Cache I wouldn’t have to upgrade to VPS in the nearest future when my traffic starts to skyrocket.