ResourcesForWebsites.com
Top-rated free and inexpensive tools, tips and tutorials to help you design, build and maintain your website!
ResourcesForWebsites.comTop-rated free and inexpensive tools, tips and tutorials to help you design, build and maintain your website!
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Web Hosting Company Comparisons
Top Rated and Tested Hosting CompaniesWe recommend any of these top 5. Which one to chose? Hands down, LunarPages is our top pick. We've been testing them for 8 years. Lunarpages has lots of support, including 24x7 toll-free phone support (usually a 10 to 15 minute wait), and is very reliable. Plus they have both dedicated and virtual servers to grow into if/when you outgrow a shared hosting environment. If you prototype many new sites, go with Hostony. Then there are the rest, of which there are many. These are the "best of the rest", but we'd stick with Lunarpages or Hostony. BlueHost is easy enough for beginners, but is feature-rich enough to keep you. Their only problem is less than stellar up time. If you just need high bandwidth, evenly, no more than 5 GB per day, PowWeb. If you need high bandwidth, and it varies from day to day, that you could exceed 5 GB in one day, Gate.com might work, but since they were bought out (they used to be HostSave) they haven't remained competitive. Updated February 10, 2009 Click on the name of each hosting company for more current information!
Web Hosting Companies That Have Good Packages,
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Host |
GoDaddy |
Midphase |
Globat |
Ipower /Ipower-web |
Web hosting buzz |
Start Logic |
ePow Host |
eMax Hosting |
NZ WebIT .com |
| Rating | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
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Effective cost/month (annual prepay) |
$3.16 / or $7.96 |
$7.95 / $9.95 / $11.95 plus $30 setup fee (often waived) |
$4.95 or $9.95 or $14.95 |
$7.95 |
$3 / $4 / $5 / $7 |
$14.95 |
$7.95 |
$8.95 |
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Storage |
500 MB / 2 GB |
2.2 / 2.6 / 2.9 GB |
5 / 7.5 / 10 GB |
2 GB |
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 GB |
5 GB |
1 GB |
1 GB |
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Bandwidth |
25 GB / 100 GB |
unlimited or 60/65/75 |
75 / 100 / 150 GB |
50 GB |
25 / 35 / 45 / 65 GB |
100 GB |
40 GB |
60 GB |
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PHP |
YES |
YES |
YES |
YES |
YES |
YES |
YES |
YES |
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MySQL dbs |
1 / 10 |
unlimited |
unlimited |
YES |
unlimited |
YES |
20 |
unlimited |
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| CGI bin | NO / YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | |
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FP extensions |
YES |
YES |
YES |
YES |
YES |
YES |
YES |
YES |
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Phone support |
24x7 |
YES toll free |
NO |
|
YES |
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Web Live Chat support |
24x7 |
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YES |
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24x7 |
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Email support |
24x7 |
YES |
YES |
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24x7 |
YES |
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Forum support |
NO |
YES |
NO |
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Fantastico |
YES |
YES |
NO |
NO |
YES |
NO |
YES |
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Web control panel |
unknown |
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homegrown |
YES |
cpanel |
YES |
cpanel |
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Webstats |
Yes, And a site traffic analyzer is available for $1.95/month extra |
Awstats, Webalizer |
AWstats |
YES |
YES |
YES |
Webalizer |
YES |
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SSL |
with certificate: $29.95/yr |
YES (free installation) |
NO / YES / YES |
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YES |
YES |
YES |
YES shared |
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SSH |
NO |
NO |
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YES |
YES |
|
YES |
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Email accounts |
100 / 500 |
unlimited |
unlimited |
500 |
unlimited |
unlimited |
500 |
unlimited |
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Auto responders |
unknown |
YES |
??? |
unlimited |
unlimited |
unlimited |
500 |
unlimited |
|
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Catchall |
unknown |
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??? |
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|
YES |
|
unlimited |
|
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Forwarding |
50 / unlimited |
YES |
??? |
unlimited |
unlimited |
unlimited |
500 |
unlimited |
|
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Mailing lists |
NO |
YES |
NO |
|
unlimited |
unknown |
20 |
unlimited |
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| AntiSpam | YES | YES filters | Spam Assassin | YES | Spam Assassin | ||||
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Shopping cart |
NO |
OS Commerce, Agora |
NO / YES / YES |
OS Commerce, Agora and PayPal |
OS Commerce, Agora |
YES |
YES |
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Domains |
1 |
1 |
NO / $12ea/ $12ea |
1 |
YES |
YES |
5 |
1 |
|
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Subdomains |
0 |
0 |
NO / $12ea/ $12ea |
5 |
unlimited |
YES |
35 |
unlimited |
|
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SSI |
unknown |
YES |
NO |
YES |
YES |
YES |
|
YES |
|
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Cron |
NO |
YES |
NO |
YES |
YES |
unknown |
YES |
YES |
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Raw logs |
NO |
YES |
NO |
YES |
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YES |
YES |
YES |
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Scripts |
Yes - many see website |
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CGI |
YES PHP Nuke, Blogger, Bulletin board, chat, Poll, X7 Gallery, etc. |
Many, both cgi and PHP |
NO |
YES see |
YES |
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| Other | jsp support, xoops, php-nuke, etc. | Link checker; Content plugins: news, jokes, comics, more | Streaming audio and video, |
| Web Host Company | Date | Reason | Comments |
| ADDR.com | February 2005 | Downtime was double that of other web hosting companies, as measured by Hyperspin (2% vs. 1%). Few features compared to similarly priced plans at other hosting companies. | I used them for at least several years. They rarely, if ever improved their plan, or adapted to changing business conditions. They are no longer remotely competitive. |
| DreamHost
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February 2005 | Several problems right from the beginning. Support was slow (usually about 24 hours) and only by email. Support people seemed clueless and apathetic. There appear to be browser-related quirks; some things only worked in Firefox, not IE. Others on the Dreamhost forum told of many problems with their websites and deteriortaing service as the company tries to grow rapidly. | Maybe they will straighten out their support problems in the future. |
| Website | Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Upperhost | pretty good, lots of detail, and background information. | Not a very complete l;ist, and doesn't include some very good companies |
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http://top10cheapwebhosting.com/
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http://www.site5.com/shared/comparison.php
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http://www.hosting-comparison.com/
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http://www.hostingconsumerreport.org/topunixhosts.htm
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