Which Hosting Server you want to choose?
Having worked on so many customers’ projects on many different hosting servers, I realize that I need to write this article to help some of you who need to choose a hosting provider for your private or business website. I have the most experience with 1and1, BlueHost, Yahoo, and GoDaddy. I’m just saying from my experience using their Admin Control Panel, I’m not trying to advertise for any of these companies or whatsoever. If you don’t like what I say, too bad. Go figure it out by yourself by purchasing 1 package from each provider, then you’ll know which one to stay with.
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1and1.com
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BlueHost.com
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Yahoo Hosting
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GoDaddy
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| The Good | 1&1, as I said, is a better value for the money. The basic “starter” web hosting package includes a domain name, 250 2GB email boxes, 10 1GB of MySQL5 databases, secure ftp access, 50GB of hosting space and unlimited transfer volume. 1&1 hosting also supports SSH and many application scripts such as PHP5, Pearl, Python, and Ruby. The dashboard or hosting management interface is concise and allows you to manage all aspects of your package in one place. Setting up new databases or email accounts is a snap, and the hosting overall is very flexible.
Your shared hosting is also stored redundantly at two geographically separate data centers, so the failover is nice. My website has never really gone down for longer than a few minutes, or without prior notification from the web host. For those who aren’t the most web savvy, there is a website builder interface that allows you to use a WYSIWYG “Website Builder” to set up and design your website. Using this feature does not bastardize the features of the package like with GoDaddy, which I am about to talk about shortly. |
Quote: One of IT bloggers’ statement: “Pretty girls in the commercials, and the customer service may be slightly better than that of 1&1. Also, the “click and build” installation of commonly used platforms such as WordPress or Joomla, seems to be a little more efficient than building on 1&1. Not as many options as 1&1 alleges to offer, but for now, it works, and usually is up an running within a couple hours. GoDaddy’s web based email interface seems to be very user friendly also. The Domain manager is extremely powerful, with many options for creating subdomains, and managing CNAME or A records.” |
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| The Bad | They also use some German company for the domain registrations, which in itself probably isn’t that big a deal, but I’ve seen it become a hassle trying to transfer domains out of 1&1 once the accounts are already closed. There have also been reports I’ve read online that indicate that 1&1 will cancel your hosting if your shared hosting takes more than a lion’s share of the system resources on the computer housing your hosting package. I don’t know if they still do this, because most of these reports are from a few years ago, but if your website becomes “facebook” or “twitter” popular, you should probably put it on a dedicated server anyway, if for nothing else, for performance/availability reasons. | Go Daddy’s account manager is confusing at best. All aspects of the hosting seem to be managed from separate pages and interfaces. The domain manager is separate from the hosting manager, which is separate from the email account manager, and so on. Furthermore, everything wants to open in a new window or tab. Getting around in your hosting package is fairly obnoxious. I also found myself frustrated that you cannot point the destination of your domain name to any folder other than your hosting root without an “ugly hack.” I think linux hosting should allow for private folders outside of the site root for protecting files that certain applications may need access to. Go Daddy “nickel and dimes” for everything. They give you a tiny number of email addresses, and are ready to sell you more. Everything about GoDaddy in fact, seems about giving you less for your money, but allowing you to upgrade to add more. The package supports SSH, but the setup is obnoxious, and I didn’t find a way to connect to the space to upload files securely, only FTP. |
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| Easy of use of the Admin Control Panel | Easy to use for IT novice and/or a businessman who knows nothing about IT | Difficult | Difficult | Difficult |
| MySQL Database Accessibility | Can’t use 3rd party client to access your MySQL DB (SQLYog, MySQLBench) | Yes | No | Yes, you can only access 1 database at a time using client such as SQLYog. Not multiple MySQL DBs. |
| FTP accessibility | Very fast, no delay | Fast | Very difficult to use FTP to access your server | Fast, sometimes has delay during transfer files. Maybe once per day if you buy a lowest cost package. |
| Access your website thru iPhone, iPad, mobile devices | Fast, no delay | Fast | Not so good | The WORST – it’s slow everyday everytime you get on iPhone/iPad to review your own website |
| Email Config on your mobile devices | Easy, fast, simple to config | Not tried yet | Not tried yet | Not as easy. There’re many Ports you can try. If 1 doesn’t work, try another one. Sometimes, your email address has interrupted on GoDaddy Mail Server, you can’t be able to send/receive emails for days from your iPhone/iPad. |
| Customer Service
(when you have IT questions) |
Fast | Fast | Slow | Slow |
| Cost | It’s not so much difference from each hosting provider if you choose Beginner or Medium Package or Business Package | |||
| My conclusion: I’d recommend 1and1.com for anyone who don’t have much experience in IT. | ||||