Ask YC: Which web host do you use? | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Which web host do you use?

27 pointsbcater45 comments

I currently use 1&1, but they have given me tremendous headaches over the last few days, including currently being unavailable.

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Based on the list of YC-funded startups at http://www.ycombinator.com/faq.html, the hosts used by YC-funded startups are:

   6     SoftLayer Technologies Inc.
   4     Amazon.com, Inc.
   3     ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc.
   2     NoZone, Inc.
   2     ServePath, LLC
   1     BitPusher, LLC
   1     Columbus Network Access Point, Inc.
   1     Global Netoptex, Inc
   1     Layered Technologies, Inc.
   1     RackForce Hosting Inc.
   1     Time Warner Telecom, Inc.

We have 6 boxes with Softlayer and they've been night and day with our previous host, RailsMachine. RailsMachine is an excellent VPS host but it took a month to get our flapping DB server repaired. Softlayer built us a cluster in 2 hours, and we were migrated that same night. If you need to scale - I can't recommend SL highly enough.

We have more than a dozen boxes at SoftLayer, having started there in August 2006. They're smart, nice folks and they deeply understand what their customers are looking for in dedicated hosting. I've traded emails in the middle of the night with their CEO, called support and gotten resolution to nightmare issues in a matter of a few minutes, sent them sharp criticisms on their forums to find the issues fixed weeks later. They're not perfect -- I think you'd be better off elsewhere if you really need to lean on them for system administration tasks -- but if you want boxes, power, and network, they're great.

We have more than a dozen boxes at SoftLayer

Do you get any sort of volume discount? I can't see anything of the sort mentioned on the SoftLayer website, but would seem rather odd if someone who rented a dozen boxes from SoftLayer and resold them to someone else would get an 8% discount but someone who rented the same number of boxes but didn't resell them wouldn't get any discount.

SoftLayer always has specials running, and their salespeople are happy to work out competitive pricing on multiple servers. We don't get the reseller discount per se, but I don't think any of our boxes are at list price.

Softlayer is amazing. I've been with 5 different hosts, and Softlayer is head and shoulders above anyone else. We host several sites, including a big website, pushing out over 230 Mbit/second. Their infrastructure is great.

We're using Amazaon AWS with EC2 and S3 for streamfocus.com, and we are amazed at how well (and fast) it is running. Our Ubuntu server instance is running SBCL Lisp with Portable aserve with Apache providing ssl. So far, it is truly impressive (We launched on Ec2/S3 a week ago - it takes us 3 minutes to fire up another instance if we need to).

We're able to update at anytime with a simple ssh link, a GIT push, and then emacs/slime directly in to the SBCL thread running (after testing on local machines first, of course). We can do complete updates with no interruption in service - a very nice feature)

I just switched to SliceHost. It is very affordable and has excellent service. If you want a step-by-step guide to running Django + lighttpd + flup for fcgi + mysql, I just posted instructions on the wiki http://wiki.slicehost.com/doku.php?id=install_django

Use my email in my profile as a referral :D

Thanks for the tutorial

I'm using Slicehost, and it's been a really great experience. I've been with them for about a year, and haven't had any downtime that I've noticed. Current uptime is 82 days, and that was when I changed over from Ubuntu to Debian.

I've also tried a Joyent accelerator, and wasn't very happy with it.

Slicehost.com is great, but its hard to get an account.

Linode.com is another great VPS with a better admin interface.

We haven't had a waitlist since early December.

Oh, awesome. I never noticed it anyway since I have an account already.

I use both slicehost and linode, and definitely recommend both!

It would be helpful to know something about your requirements: as you move away from commodity hosting, the hosting world becomes more complex in what it provides.

I've been very satisfied with my Slicehost (http://www.slicehost.com/) account, for excellent virtualized hardware, but depending on your scale, need for growth, geographic location, need for dedicated boxes, et cetera, someone else is likely appropriate.

I have a dedicated server at iweb8.com (canadian company, extremely reliable so far, very transparent about any issues on the company blog--which is hosted elsewhere just in case). I like my dedicated server, but I recently bought a 512MB slice at slicehost so I could experiment with CouchDB (which is alpha software, so I wasn't comfortable running it on my live production server), and it makes me wonder if I'm not wasting my money on the bigger dedicated server.

I have my dedicated server running every service I need (Apache with PHP, PostgreSQL, Postfix, Dovecot, ASSP, Helma), like many people do. But I'm beginning to think it would be better to have the simplicity and peace of mind of separate virtual servers for a few of these functions. E.g., Mail on its own box, Apache-with-PHP on a box, lighter-weight Apache with Helma on another.

If you want a VPS for Lisp (SBCL), I recommend Slicehost.

I tried Linode out for a week, but had trouble getting SBCL (w/threads) running on their new Xen nodes - but their support was spectacular.

I've also been a long time customer of OCS Solutions. Not the best pricing but they're just too friendly and responsive for me to move.

We (Virtualmin) have two boxes at The Planet, who we've always been happy with, a couple of Amazon EC2 instances, and we're about to try a box at LiquidWeb (maybe...I'm still shopping around). We also have an account at SourceForge.net for our Open Source stuff. Given that we're pushing out over two terabytes a month in downloads, not paying for it is good.

ServerBeach has always provided good service to me in the past.

Joyent are really smart guys, and their Accelerators are a good deal. (And I'm not just saying that because they are the biggest host offering Virtualmin.)

I'll second The Planet

We have two boxes and have had no major issues - Tech support is quick and helpful - Most of our trouble tickets get handled very quickly;

Call me paranoid, but I don't trust hosting where I don't own the equipment. Uptime aside, I don't like the idea that data and machines can be accessed (or subpoena'd) without my knowledge.

There is little known provider of virtual linux servers http://www.openhosting.com (CentOS instance with root access for as little as $20 a month ).

I have been using them since early 2004. Nice experience.

Author of http://modpython.org is their founder, so presumably they know a thing or two about web applications.

Go to webhostingtalk.com and look at their dedicated hosts section.

Also look at the hosting offers section, a lot of good hosts have great offers there from time to time.

We use liquidweb, they own their datacenters and are not as big as the planet (which means better service for smaller i.e. less than 15 server clients). They have great server management.

We recently moved our startup Feedity (http://www.feedity.com) to ReliableSite.Net (http://www.reliablesite.net) - a load balanced multi-server clustered hosting platform. The customer service is good, and uptime is well maintained. So far so good!

Myself and my company have used dreamhost for the past few years. Decent service, although my site has gone off line at least once. Email has broken more than once.

They almost always respond to customers within 24 hours, but it often takes at least 1-2 hours.

Even if you don't sign up, their blog is worth reading.

Definitely recommend Linode virtual servers: http://www.linode.com/

Check out their Linode Manager: http://www.linode.com/features.cfm

We use MediaTemple and DreamHost.

I have just signed up for a half-rack for $399 a month at calpop.com it includes 4 mbps bandwidth. I signed up today so it is not ready yet but I am excited to finally get the hosting configuration I have wanted for a long time now.

I've used 1&1 before too, and remember having problems.

I've been using a VPS from tektonic.net for over a year, and I'm very happy. They don't overload them, downtime is very rare and the price is good.

I use SoftLayer. Their control panel and functioning KVM over IP (IPMI) amazed me to no end, and they resolved two non-critical network issues fairly quickly.

We are currently on serverbeach with a debian system. I have been using serverbeach for years and been quite happy with the support.

revzilla.com is a rails-based application on several dedicated servers hosted by Rackspace

Pricey, but they are good.

why the downmod? I understand some folks dislike Rackspace (a company I worked for used Rackspace for a while and we've had a fair share of issue), but why downmod the poster?

Are there good hosting services that will let me upload and manage my own Xen image(s)?

(edit: aside from EC2)

Joyent Accelerators - 3 Facebook Accelerators + 1 M accelerator (bought during the lifetime offers)

This comes up every few months. Use google to search for 'hosting' and the like.

The list changes every few months, too. In the past few months, it seems that SoftLayer and Amazon (EC2) have gained popularity at the expense of smaller hosts.

A Small Orange - great customer service, reasonably-priced packages.

I heard good things about this company too, so I signed up for an account. The customer service and prices were fine, but my site was down a lot, so I cancelled.

We are the Rackforce one, and like them a lot.

dreamhost! and mediatemple of course

Its hard to find hosting with 24/7 phone service though...

Slicehost. They are just awesome.

Oh and I've got some basic stuff up at Bluehost. They seem like a really solid shared host.

zone.net

Many people will not answer because, if you get a great deal, its a competitive advantage...

Call me naive, but I think that's counter to the spirit of Hacker News.

If saving $100 (or even $200, or $300) on hosting is your competitive advantage, you're in serious trouble. Don't get me wrong, I believe startups should be frugal to the point of comedy, but being secretive about who you host with is just silly (if someone wants to know, they can find out, anyway...IP addresses contain a lot of information).

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