Good server hosts?

D

Dinocanid

Artist
I'm in need of a new host for my site, but I'm not sure which would be a good one for a virtual pet site.  I can't afford expensive hosting, and can only probably pay up to $30 up front if I save up, though my site is relatively small and growing right now so I don't need a surplus of space I'm not using anyway, but I wouldn't want to run out. I realize this does greatly shorten my options, since most hosts want at least $100+ up front. I'm open to free hosting, but I would need to be able to upgrade and move without too many problems when it comes to that.

The paid host also needs to be able to accept paypal, without the need for credit card information.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
 
I've heard good things about Bluehost and their shared hosting is super affordable (I think prices range from $5 to $15 per month). I can't personally give a testimonial for them though because I've never used them, but again, I've heard lots of good things! Stay away from HostGator. Their customer service is bad and their shared hosting is not game friendly.

For when you're ready for something bigger keep LiquidWeb in mind! They've been great to me over the years, and I would seriously recommend them to anyone :).

 
If you are open to self managing (including installing the server itself) I would recommend linode. I use them for both my games on the $10 tier and haven't had any issues. Would highly recommend them honestly. Managing myself is a pain sometimes, I don't like server administration, but I think it's good experience and I do enjoy the complete control I have over everything. They also have great guides and prebuilt configurations you can install. They also have a $5 dollar tier right now as well. 

Here is my referral link if you do decide use them,

https://www.linode.com/?r=04d5da9f3ed606e24a8d9e64f737b0a151b67e82

 
Personally, I use eHost. When I signed up, coupons appeared after waiting a bit, and applying them gave me an incredibly deep discount.

 
I've been using 1and1.com for years.  They use green energy credits, and while they might be pricier than some (I'm on the $9.99 plan) they give you the option of private domain registration without additional fees.  The plan I'm on also includes SSL and chron jobs.  While I don't have any games hosted at the moment, I did have mysidia adoptables hosted on a lower tier plan years ago.  As long as you don't have hundreds of users, you shouldn't have too much slow down using a shared hosting like this.  It's great for small projects.  They do have higher tier plans too if your game ever makes money, and they have cloud servers and dedicated servers to for when you get to that point.  If you decide to check them out, I'd love a click on my referral link which in the right side bar on my website at www.sonyaireland.com

I'm sure there are plenty of options out there though that are cheaper, I'm only recommending mine because it's what I know about.

 
Second addition to this, Dream Host. I currently (newly) have just my blog hosted there and so far, so good. Super affordable. I didn't have room on my Liquid Web server anymore for it, and it was cheaper to host just the blog somewhere else than expand my Liquid Web server.

 
I second Liquid Web. When it says hero support, it really means it. Those guys are actually tech savvy and any one of them can fix your problem without rerouting you to 50 other people. It's a little on the expensive side though imo.

I've had bad experiences with BlueHost. I've worked with clients who use that and it's always a pain to get backups or really anything through customer service. I can't remember all the issues we've had with them, but it's been at least 3 or 4 different problems that were very hard to solve without the help of customer support. 

I use Vultr for my games. It's pay as you use resources and it accepts Paypal. I currently have about 7 or 8 websites on that server and only pay ~$20/mo. In the past year and a half, I've never experienced downtime. It is unmanaged like some of the others mentioned before but on an unmanaged server, once you get everything installed, it's not much server maintenance. The only time I really go into the command line is to do version control these days. For database stuffs, I use Sequel Pro (on a mac) which is a cheaper option than cPanel if you're only ever going in for database editing.

Vultr link: http://www.vultr.com/?ref=6841778 :D

 
Thanks for all of the suggestions everyone!

@Bedouin I prefer servers that have cPanel built-in, so it's not another thing I have to buy. It's also what I mainly use for programming, file management, and database editing, so it's kind of a must for me :P

 
Gosh, I haven't used the file manager that cPanel provides in a minute although I definitely know what you mean. I always found huge files to be a pain to load in that but it may have changed since I used it. How do you like the performance of the programming and file management part of it?

 
Bedouin said:
Gosh, I haven't used the file manager that cPanel provides in a minute although I definitely know what you mean. I always found huge files to be a pain to load in that but it may have changed since I used it. How do you like the performance of the programming and file management part of it?
Click to expand...
It's been pretty great in my experience (it's all I've used in the past 2 years). It uploads multiple files quickly, supports ZIP files, and it updates edited code almost instantly. For me it cuts out the pain of using an FTP, which has been painfully slow for uploading in my experience (I once tried uploading a folder with about 30 php files in it, it took about 30 minutes), and since I'm a single developer I never found the need to look back into FTPs.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yikes, that must be an extremely large amount of files or a very slow connection.  Have you tried googling various web hosts that use c panel?

 
I have; a majority do actually. I haven't bought hosting yet (not that I have the money anyway), but I'm using x10 for the time being, which allows cPanel and easy cronjob setup. I haven't had any problems so far.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top