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Comment by lelandbatey | Hacker News Reader

Web hosting customers are nomads. If your host hasn’t been ruined yet, just wait.

This line right here is absolutely sage wisdom. Here are some of the companies I've bought services from, as well as what I remember happening to them:

    ClubUptime
        Closed in a disastrous closure due to basically being conned.

    DirectSpace
        Still around, haven't changed much

    VolumeDrive
        Very sketchy, I don't really know how they're still in business

    Fazewire
        Local Seattle hosting/colocation company. Originally founded by a guy
        when he was 15, he sold the company when he went to college.

    URPad.net
        Still around, only used them for a short period of time.
    
    OVH
    Amazon
    Digital Ocean

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Anecdotes are one of the only real ways to get information on whether or not a hosting provider is any good. At least it cuts through the marketing BS. I generally track hosting company's Twitter accounts too - it's pretty telling what people will say to them. I've been using a few sites to keep on top of it as I bring up some new services:

[1] http://reviewsignal.com (reviews scraped from social media / public support requests) [2] http://serverbear.com/ (VPS/Cloud host benchmarks & stats)

Very true. I'm currently happy using Webfaction but I just know it's a matter of time before I have to look for a new hosting company.

I've been with them for quite a while and one thing I've noticed they do differently is that they will upgrade your service periodically while not changing the price. For example, I've gone from 128MB to 512MB of usable memory for my vhost without paying anything but my $9.99 a month. There are other anecdotes (awesome control panel, good support, etc...) that make me think it's unfair to group them with other hosting providers that never do anything but the bare minimum.

Oh, I agree that Webfaction is very very good at shared hosting. It's just that I've learned my lesson and don't plan to be too attached to them.

I have an account with webfaction and my mysql DB was using more than 256 mb of memory. I immediately got an email saying that I need to lower the usage or upgrade to higher plan.

I was thinking of my next step when I got an email next day that my account has been upgraded to 512 mb memory plan at no cost.

Definitely made the right move by moving from hostgator to webfaction.

True!

Started with one place I can't remember - started with S. It was cheap and allowed multiple small sites to run off one account. Eventually turned to crap and so we bailed.

WebCentral - gave up on their silly control panel.

Used a place in NSW or Vic that started off OK, then was acquired (BlueCentral, I think?) and turned into a bit of a rude disaster. Abandoned that. Had a site break on Friday of a long weekend, so no support until Tuesday...

Had 60+ clients with CrystalTech who were polite and had great service. They were bought by NewTek and started overloading shared servers and tech support went from efficient and polite to slow and especially dim-witted. Bought again by SBA and things got worse. We've gradually shifted dozens of sites to accounts at Linode and that's been a great move for us.

Similar experience.

CrystalTech were very good and only had one issue with a dedicated server in 5 years when a network cable came loose which was fixed after a quick phone call.

WebCentral has a horrific control panel, only one possibly worse is the cutdown Telstra Business version.

Currently using VentraIP/Zuver for a handful of VPS servers and they are always friendly and responsive.

Hosting in Australia seems crazily expensive to me. One of the many reasons we need the NBN.

It's getting better: http://www.rackspace.com.au/cloud-servers/pricing

Plus I know of a smaller company that's intending to move in here. Hope that goes well...

If you happen to be doing Rails development, it may be worth checking out Ninefold: http://ninefold.com/pricing [no affiliation of mine]

If you don't mind renting a server in germany, checkout Railscloud (https://railscloud.de/)

Germany has good value but there are a number of issues with hosting overseas. Latency is one - in Australia one of the cheapest hosting companies is based in Perth but the latency is double that of Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane.

The other consideration is the legals. Moving the server to Germany not only puts your data under EU/German jurisdiction in addition to AU, the new privacy laws to take effect next year will mean disclosing to your clients and they to their clients that personal data is stored outside of Australia.

Melbourne IT are also a waste of time. I don't know how they're still in business.

They appear to be a trusted name in (big) business circles, and have been around since the beginning of the Internet in Australia.

I guess you have to pick your poison, a company that might not be so great but has been around, or someone that is great but fleeting. Although that is starting to change now with Linode, Rackspace, and others.

I have a long list too. You need off-site backups because that day will come.

Funny, my first real host (he.net) is still in business. Maybe it's true you get what you pay for ;-)

Haha, I would hope he.net is still going strong, since they're Hurricane Electric and provide a lot moelre than just hosting.

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