Hawaiʻi's Technology Community
"Premium" WordPress web hosting: worth the money?
Lately I've been curious about dedicated WordPress web hosting companies. They're too expensive for someone starting out. However, I thought they might be a good solution for someone with a high-traffic website, who doesn't want the hassle of managing their own VPS (Virtual Private Server).
Here a few I've found:
Page.ly - they seem to be the most well-known WP web host.
WPEngine - I was really impressed by their team and how they optimize WordPress.
If one of my websites ever struck it big (hope springs eternal), I'd be more willing to shell out the extra money for one of these web hosts. Great to let the experts worry about speed, performance, and scalability.
For now, I'll stick with my shared hosting plan. My current web host has given me great service at low prices, so no incentive to change at this time. I don't want to name them and look like I'm spamming, though. If you want the details, you can message me.
Have you used a WordPress web host? How was your experience? Is there another great web host that I missed? Let us know in a comment.
P.S. WordPress has a list of web hosting companies. However, I don't think that list has ever been updated.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jerry Isdale on
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I use HostMonster as the overall hosting service for MauiMakers.com.
It costs under $5-10/mo and you can install WP, a wiki, email, full db, etc all for the same overall cost.
If you hit big, then you can upgrade server feeds, get a dedicated server, etc, i think.
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Permalink Reply by Marcus Sortijas on
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@Jerry: Thanks for the heads-up on HostMonster. I wasn't aware that HostMonster and its sister company BlueHost had higher-end plans. I thought they only did shared hosting, not VPS or dedicated servers. I should give them another look.
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Yeah, I've heard nothing but bad things about GoDaddy. Friends say they're okay for registering domains, but you have to really dodge all their tricks to upsell you things you don't need.
I use NameCheap for domain registration. Before them I had been using Domain in Seconds, a GoDaddy reseller. Their control panel was horribly confusing. NameCheap has a much more intuitive control panel. After I buy my domain, I just click on "Transfer to Web Host," type in the two nameservers for my web host, and hit "Save." Done deal.For web hosting, I spent a long time reading reviews on WebHostingTalk.com. There's no one perfect web host, but these were the ones that got consistently good reviews. To keep things neutral, I haven't linked to any of them, but they're easy enough to look up. To make it easier, I broke them up into different categories.
Shared hosting
HostGator, A Small Orange, StableHost, and HawkHost (my current host). Those last two have been especially fast at resolving complaints posted on WebHostingTalk, which impressed me.
Virtual Private Server
KnownHost, WiredTree
Dedicated Server
Rackspace, Liquid Web, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). These guys are really good--and really expensive. I wouldn't spend the money unless I was consistently getting tons of traffic every month. A lot of the major players like Netflix use Amazon.
Web Applications Hosting
This is a more tricky area, so if people have more suggestions, please post them.
WebFaction - I've heard the main reason programmers like them is that they allow full shell access, which most shared hosting plans don't allow. So you get more control like having a server, yet still keep the cheap prices of shared hosting. There were some comments that their control panel was harder to use, since they cater to developers and not rookies.
Heroku - for Ruby on Rails apps
Google App Engine - Python and Java. I've heard getting Django (a Python framework) to work on GAE can be a hassle.
That's all I know. There has to be hosts who specialize in PHP web apps, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. Tip: to find hosts for your favorite programming language or web framework, just Google "Heroku for [language/framework]."
Random observation: I've noticed that some web hosts with predatory names get better reviews: HostGator, HawkHost, and another one called SharkSpace. In contrast, there's Fat Cow hosting, which gets horrible reviews. So if they're not the predator, they're the prey?
Whew, didn't mean to write that long a comment. Should have broken it out as another blog post. :)
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