Here's an open-ended question if there ever was one. I'm on a dedicated box, but it has some issues. I'm thinking of moving to another provider.
Who do you use? What configuration do you have for what kind of traffic? What works for you and what doesn't? Is it shared, virtual private, etc? How well is it working? How responsive is your vendor? Any nasty surprises?
92 pointsCommunity rank #584El PresidenteJust Getting Started
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Im with dreamhost, and my opinion changes daily with them. thier price is right but customer service is poor. Configuration is easy but downtime is a problem.
that said, a few months back our dedicated server was down for 12 hoursa and support was lacking at best. they credited me a free year of service for my trouble. Thats pretty amazing.
I love media temple, use them for a client and havnt had a problem. avoid go daddy and hostmonster if your running anything that gets traffic.
I'd like to hear peoples experiences with wordress networks on cloud servers.
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I'm also with Dreamhost and have been their customer since November of 2000! Yep, I'm closing in on twelve years with one host which might be a record here. ;)
I've had some downtime issues occasionally and the odd support issue, but overall I've been very pleased. I've dabbled with other hosts while keeping my Dreamhost account and have largely been disappointed and raced back to Dreamhost.
I've always found their support responsiveness to be good. I had one issue with one support person in the entire 12 years that I would consider to be substandard and have not noticed his name as a rep since then. It was also relatively easy to escalate my concerns to the higher-ups a few years back. I feel like they really listen to customers.
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yeah im right behind you (dreamhost memeber since 2002!) my issue with thier support is that if you need it right away, you dont have it! they have no number and now dont seem to have live chat. That said when they do get back to you they usually have the answer. I'm one of those if my sites down i want to call you 100 times until its fixed type of people.
also if you are on thier irvine data center watch out, nothing but problems in the last few months with that!
4560 pointsCommunity rank #14Supreme DeityWPMU DEV StaffLifetime member
Support Zombie
(joined January 2012)
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Hi there,
Because I have multiple domains and hosts clients sites that require video streaming and a few other wierd and wonderful requirements i searched round for a good host with very reasonable pricing,
I ended up with hostingmarketers.com. Support service second to none, no matter what time if the day and a great range of packages from shared hosting to dedicated servers.
I would highly reccommend them. I am based in Europe and they have a server set up just to handle european clients.
1212 pointsCommunity rank #41Supreme DeityMind-Blowingly HelpfulLifetime member
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(joined October 2011)
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Goodday to all on this thread.
Been away a few days and just found it. But, I figured I'd chime in with my comments.
For years, I worked with 1and1. I didn't stay with them because of their service, price, or anything else. At the time, I didn't do this type of work professionally AND I wasn't using WordPress. I just went with them because they gave me something like two years for free and I stayed about six or seven more years.
But, the moment I started working with websites professionally, I knew that I had to find something better. I tried several (never GoDaddy though because they are a total joke) and ended up with a FastHosts reseller account.
After about 18 months with them, I hit the limits of what could be done with their reseller account and I realized that I needed to either get a dedicated server or go the VPS route. I signed up for a VPS with Fasthosts and after a month of hair pulling, I had had enough.
Fasthosts VPS basically gives you a bare setup and I had to install EVERYTHING. I used to be a server geek working in the old DEC PDP11/73 and Unix environments, but I decided really quick that if I was to make any money doing websites, internet marketing, and using WordPress, then I needed to NOT become a server geek again.
I then contacted someone that I had gotten to know over a period of two or three years and moved everything over to WPMU Hosting on one of his VPS Systems. I call it a VPS on steroids because it uses a unique system that can dynamically allocate more resources to your websites if needed based upon unused resources allocated to other users. This has saved my bacon many times when a customer ran a promotion which caused a short term traffic spike.
I explain a little of how this works in a recent post on WPMU.org - visit that post and see if that is any help.
Finally, contact WPMU Hosting at their numbers that are convenient to you and discuss it personally. You will actually get to speak with Joe (the owner) - he's @aecnu here on WPMUDev. If you've seen his support here at Dev, then you have seen just how he supports his server clients.
Plus, he has a proprietary anti-cracker system called Dedicated Server Guard which has been instrumental in keeping crackers out on many occasions. I've seen HostGator, HostMonster, and even Network Solutions get cracked while this system has kept them at bay.
I'm certain this is more information than you were originally intending to get, but as you can tell, I'm sold on the value of the hosting that I'm getting. Oh, and I pay no more than the "other guys" plus I get all those extras that you don't get from them.
1062 pointsCommunity rank #54Supreme DeityWPMU DEV StaffLifetime member
Front Line Support
(joined July 2012)
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Between different jobs and clients, I've used alot of web hosts. Eleven2 was my worst experience. I used them at my job, but we switched to another provider because of constant issues. At one point there was some kind of security compromise and I had all these nice little PHP files from some hackers that gave a shell prompt, file manager and a bunch of other goodies... And the script was in ALL my resold accounts, and they made me fix it! They just said to keep my wordpress plugins up to date... Anyways, bad exprience, and alot of random downtime
I've also used BlueHost. They're ok. Haven't had downtime, but their support isn't the greatest. They're online support is handled completely over email which slows things down alot and they take up to 24 hours to respond.
I've also used Godaddy and didn't like it at all. Too much propriety stuff, and I always feel like they're trying to sell me something.
Hostgator is one of my favorites. They respond quickly to support tickets and are have a pretty good price.
But overall, I think Media temple is my favorite. I've been pretty happy with them. Not the easiest control panel to get used to if you've been using cpanel. But they are professional and get the job done. It also doesn't feel like they are so big that your website doesn't matter to them. I have had absolutely no downtime (that I noticed) using them.
4560 pointsCommunity rank #14Supreme DeityWPMU DEV StaffLifetime member
Support Zombie
(joined January 2012)
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One more thing i would say about my hosts, when i have been working on a highly experimental setup requiring specific adjustments to firewall etc, they actually gave me full root control of their test web server. I have never seen a host do this before.
21524 pointsCommunity rank #0Supreme DeityWPMU DEV StaffLifetime member
Support Kangaroo
(joined March 2011)
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Greetings Everyone,
I am the best host of course :-P said without prejudice :-P and the host of several of the folks replying here and thank you gentlemen for your vote of confidence.
Giving root access to a production server is total insanity though of course it was mentioned a test server.
Giving Jailed root access is not a bad idea though I normally block all ssh access.
24/7 Tech Support is not necessary when the servers are not having a problem and are setup right which I am sure the folks posting here that host with me and several members would agree - actually almost all the questions or support questions are Word Press related and nothing to do with hosting or the servers themselves.
Thanks again guys, your confidence and comments are greatly appreciated.
4560 pointsCommunity rank #14Supreme DeityWPMU DEV StaffLifetime member
Support Zombie
(joined January 2012)
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@aecnu
Hi Joe,
Having looked over your hosting packages, i have a few questions is there an email address i can reach you on with some specific requirements i have regarding hosting?
33 pointsCommunity rank #1841VeteranJust Getting Started
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(joined August 2011)
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Just wanted to throw my 0.02c in here - I am currently in the process of switching away from Bluehost, which is woefully inadequate for my single site + subdomain running BuddyPress.
I contacted @aecnu after reading lots of positive comments here in the forums, and have signed on to his service. It's well worth the money so far (and my website isn't even switched over yet!) and I will be happy to pay him more in the future. It's not going smoothly, of course these things never do, but I've gotten a LOT of handholding from Joe so far and I'm thrilled with it. Absolutely thrilled. Looking forward to better service AND faster load times.
Reviews of hosting companies on the web are pretty much useless as far as I'm concerned - they're all reviews by affiliates who earn money from recommendations. Better to believe reviews posted in a place like this, where people are paying to participate already :)
4560 pointsCommunity rank #14Supreme DeityWPMU DEV StaffLifetime member
Support Zombie
(joined January 2012)
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@daisypeel
You won't regret it, i signed up with joe before i joined staff, and the work he had to put in for a very specific requirement of mine was worth the price alone. Plus my dedicate server screams.
33 pointsCommunity rank #1841VeteranJust Getting Started
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(joined August 2011)
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I definitely don't regret it. I am ONE HAPPY CUSTOMER.
Joe worked with me, through the Easter holiday, no less. Late at night, early in the morning. I was talking to the man. Joe himself. He even tried to call me to help get things going. I am so unaccustomed to this type of customer service, it just blows me away that I didn't switch sooner. Yes, the set up time he spent with me was worth it alone. I am happy to have great service, a great place to host my sites, and I'm also very happy to be paying my money to a smaller business and not some huge headless beast :)
Responses (19)
Member (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
Im with dreamhost, and my opinion changes daily with them. thier price is right but customer service is poor. Configuration is easy but downtime is a problem.
that said, a few months back our dedicated server was down for 12 hoursa and support was lacking at best. they credited me a free year of service for my trouble. Thats pretty amazing.
I love media temple, use them for a client and havnt had a problem. avoid go daddy and hostmonster if your running anything that gets traffic.
I'd like to hear peoples experiences with wordress networks on cloud servers.
anyone?
Member (joined November 2011) Likes (0)
I'm also with Dreamhost and have been their customer since November of 2000! Yep, I'm closing in on twelve years with one host which might be a record here. ;)
I've had some downtime issues occasionally and the odd support issue, but overall I've been very pleased. I've dabbled with other hosts while keeping my Dreamhost account and have largely been disappointed and raced back to Dreamhost.
I've always found their support responsiveness to be good. I had one issue with one support person in the entire 12 years that I would consider to be substandard and have not noticed his name as a rep since then. It was also relatively easy to escalate my concerns to the higher-ups a few years back. I feel like they really listen to customers.
Member (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
yeah im right behind you (dreamhost memeber since 2002!) my issue with thier support is that if you need it right away, you dont have it! they have no number and now dont seem to have live chat. That said when they do get back to you they usually have the answer. I'm one of those if my sites down i want to call you 100 times until its fixed type of people.
also if you are on thier irvine data center watch out, nothing but problems in the last few months with that!
WPMUDEV-ian (joined November 2011) Likes (0)
Heya David,
Greetings and thanks for posting on the forums.
Looks like that we have got a great discussion going on here.
I did a search and found a thread which might help you in this
http://premium.wpmudev.org/forums/topic/best-host-for-multisite
Personally I have used WPEngine , Hostgator and godaddy. and out of those I liked WPEngine the best.
Cheers
PC
Support Zombie (joined January 2012) Likes (0)
Hi there,
Because I have multiple domains and hosts clients sites that require video streaming and a few other wierd and wonderful requirements i searched round for a good host with very reasonable pricing,
I ended up with hostingmarketers.com. Support service second to none, no matter what time if the day and a great range of packages from shared hosting to dedicated servers.
I would highly reccommend them. I am based in Europe and they have a server set up just to handle european clients.
WPMUDEV-ian (joined November 2011) Likes (0)
Hello Tom,
Thanks for sharing this :)
Cheers
PC
Member (joined October 2011) Likes (0)
Goodday to all on this thread.
Been away a few days and just found it. But, I figured I'd chime in with my comments.
For years, I worked with 1and1. I didn't stay with them because of their service, price, or anything else. At the time, I didn't do this type of work professionally AND I wasn't using WordPress. I just went with them because they gave me something like two years for free and I stayed about six or seven more years.
But, the moment I started working with websites professionally, I knew that I had to find something better. I tried several (never GoDaddy though because they are a total joke) and ended up with a FastHosts reseller account.
After about 18 months with them, I hit the limits of what could be done with their reseller account and I realized that I needed to either get a dedicated server or go the VPS route. I signed up for a VPS with Fasthosts and after a month of hair pulling, I had had enough.
Fasthosts VPS basically gives you a bare setup and I had to install EVERYTHING. I used to be a server geek working in the old DEC PDP11/73 and Unix environments, but I decided really quick that if I was to make any money doing websites, internet marketing, and using WordPress, then I needed to NOT become a server geek again.
I then contacted someone that I had gotten to know over a period of two or three years and moved everything over to WPMU Hosting on one of his VPS Systems. I call it a VPS on steroids because it uses a unique system that can dynamically allocate more resources to your websites if needed based upon unused resources allocated to other users. This has saved my bacon many times when a customer ran a promotion which caused a short term traffic spike.
I explain a little of how this works in a recent post on WPMU.org - visit that post and see if that is any help.
Finally, contact WPMU Hosting at their numbers that are convenient to you and discuss it personally. You will actually get to speak with Joe (the owner) - he's @aecnu here on WPMUDev. If you've seen his support here at Dev, then you have seen just how he supports his server clients.
Plus, he has a proprietary anti-cracker system called Dedicated Server Guard which has been instrumental in keeping crackers out on many occasions. I've seen HostGator, HostMonster, and even Network Solutions get cracked while this system has kept them at bay.
I'm certain this is more information than you were originally intending to get, but as you can tell, I'm sold on the value of the hosting that I'm getting. Oh, and I pay no more than the "other guys" plus I get all those extras that you don't get from them.
Bottom line - MORE VALUE - LESS MONEY.
O.K. That's my 2 cents thrown in.
James Dunn
Athens, GA USA
Front Line Support (joined July 2012) Likes (0)
Between different jobs and clients, I've used alot of web hosts. Eleven2 was my worst experience. I used them at my job, but we switched to another provider because of constant issues. At one point there was some kind of security compromise and I had all these nice little PHP files from some hackers that gave a shell prompt, file manager and a bunch of other goodies... And the script was in ALL my resold accounts, and they made me fix it! They just said to keep my wordpress plugins up to date... Anyways, bad exprience, and alot of random downtime
I've also used BlueHost. They're ok. Haven't had downtime, but their support isn't the greatest. They're online support is handled completely over email which slows things down alot and they take up to 24 hours to respond.
I've also used Godaddy and didn't like it at all. Too much propriety stuff, and I always feel like they're trying to sell me something.
Hostgator is one of my favorites. They respond quickly to support tickets and are have a pretty good price.
But overall, I think Media temple is my favorite. I've been pretty happy with them. Not the easiest control panel to get used to if you've been using cpanel. But they are professional and get the job done. It also doesn't feel like they are so big that your website doesn't matter to them. I have had absolutely no downtime (that I noticed) using them.
Support Zombie (joined January 2012) Likes (0)
One more thing i would say about my hosts, when i have been working on a highly experimental setup requiring specific adjustments to firewall etc, they actually gave me full root control of their test web server. I have never seen a host do this before.
WPMUDEV-ian (joined November 2011) Likes (0)
Tagging @aecnu for his valuable input.
Cheers
PC
Support Kangaroo (joined March 2011) Likes (1)Liked by: 
Greetings Everyone,
I am the best host of course :-P said without prejudice :-P and the host of several of the folks replying here and thank you gentlemen for your vote of confidence.
Giving root access to a production server is total insanity though of course it was mentioned a test server.
Giving Jailed root access is not a bad idea though I normally block all ssh access.
24/7 Tech Support is not necessary when the servers are not having a problem and are setup right which I am sure the folks posting here that host with me and several members would agree - actually almost all the questions or support questions are Word Press related and nothing to do with hosting or the servers themselves.
Thanks again guys, your confidence and comments are greatly appreciated.
Cheers, Joe
Support Zombie (joined January 2012) Likes (0)
@aecnu
Hi Joe,
Having looked over your hosting packages, i have a few questions is there an email address i can reach you on with some specific requirements i have regarding hosting?
Cheers
Tom
Support Kangaroo (joined March 2011) Likes (0)
Greetings Tom,
Why certainly you can reach me at aecnu (at) incsub.com of course without the spaces and replacing (at) with @.
Thank you for letting me know of your interest.
Cheers, Joe
Support Zombie (joined January 2012) Likes (0)
@aecnu
Hi Joe email sent
Support Kangaroo (joined March 2011) Likes (2)Liked by: 
Greetings Tom,
Thank you and I received your message.
Will get back to you soon regarding the content therein.
Cheers, Joe
Member (joined August 2011) Likes (0)
Just wanted to throw my 0.02c in here - I am currently in the process of switching away from Bluehost, which is woefully inadequate for my single site + subdomain running BuddyPress.
I contacted @aecnu after reading lots of positive comments here in the forums, and have signed on to his service. It's well worth the money so far (and my website isn't even switched over yet!) and I will be happy to pay him more in the future. It's not going smoothly, of course these things never do, but I've gotten a LOT of handholding from Joe so far and I'm thrilled with it. Absolutely thrilled. Looking forward to better service AND faster load times.
Reviews of hosting companies on the web are pretty much useless as far as I'm concerned - they're all reviews by affiliates who earn money from recommendations. Better to believe reviews posted in a place like this, where people are paying to participate already :)
Thanks, Joe.
Support Zombie (joined January 2012) Likes (0)
@daisypeel
You won't regret it, i signed up with joe before i joined staff, and the work he had to put in for a very specific requirement of mine was worth the price alone. Plus my dedicate server screams.
Tom
Member (joined August 2011) Likes (1)Liked by: 
I definitely don't regret it. I am ONE HAPPY CUSTOMER.
Joe worked with me, through the Easter holiday, no less. Late at night, early in the morning. I was talking to the man. Joe himself. He even tried to call me to help get things going. I am so unaccustomed to this type of customer service, it just blows me away that I didn't switch sooner. Yes, the set up time he spent with me was worth it alone. I am happy to have great service, a great place to host my sites, and I'm also very happy to be paying my money to a smaller business and not some huge headless beast :)
WPMUDEV-ian (joined November 2011) Likes (0)
Joe is best :) No one can "Not like" him :)
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