Author Topic: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose  (Read 3028 times)

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Offline Jáchym

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Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« on: March 31, 2017, 06:24:03 AM »
Hi guys,

we have a thread here about "which station should I buy", there is also a lot of threads about various SW.

People sometimes ask me which provider I would recommend. I personally use a Czech provider and so it probably won´t be the best solution for most of you, however I thought it would be nice if we made some kind of a list with providers with which you have first-hand experience and help others who are looking for one.

I therefore decided to create this thread where you can post information about your provider and once there is more recommendations I will put them all together and probably create some kind of an organized table, which I would post and in the future I can update it if necessary (add new ones, delete ones - eg. up until recently I was recommending 1and1, but based on what i have seen now I would definitely say don´t use them).

This list would then help people to easily find the right provider based on their preferred language, available features etc. and obviously, personal experience of users is different than what you read on their website...

Of course you don´t have to include all info, but here are some things I thought would be useful to include:
- available webspace
- available bandwidth
- approximate price (monthly/annual)
- main language
- PHP support (and available versions)
- MySQL support
- CRON job availability (and if yes, the minimum interval)
- mailbox availability (POP3/IMAP)
- https support
- online file manager
- support

and of course any other info you think users might find useful.

Offline WeatherHost

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #1 on: March 31, 2017, 07:59:46 AM »
A link to the page that shows all of that:  https://www.icdsoft.com/hosting/usa


Offline Jáchym

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #2 on: March 31, 2017, 08:05:46 AM »
Good, maybe just also always try to include some short experience you have with the service. Thats the most valuable thing. Of course one can find hundreds of providers, but what you find on their websites is only going to be some extremely positive marketing statements :D

Offline Cutty Sark Sailor

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #3 on: March 31, 2017, 01:13:43 PM »
All my stuff has been on Lunarpages Shared for 14 years... what would now be called the Shared Basic package. I renew in multiple year buys to get best pricing.  Zero Complaints...uptime, outstanding. ... a couple of glitches over the years, but resolved quickly. Usually my fault. Played with couple other hosts off and on for other stuff, always went back to LP.
Incidentally, the new http://noaaweatherradio.org and http://sferics.us are on the same LP server and package as http://frankfortweather.us and some others.
So I suppose that's 'nuf said' proof in the pudding, so to speak...
LP Link


« Last Edit: March 31, 2017, 01:23:30 PM by Cutty Sark Sailor »
 


Offline Jasiu

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2017, 09:59:32 AM »
My first hosting package was from 1&1 (https://www.1and1.com/) - the business Linux package - and I still have it now. I've been quite happy with the stability and response from support.

Besides the weather site, I also do political sites for local campaigns. In order to make sure that I have someplace to host those sites should something catastrophic happen at 1&1 (hasn't happened), I had an account at site5 for a couple of years. They were also very good - until they were purchased by EIG (Endurance International Group), which has quite a reputation among developers (and not a good one).  My advice would be to avoid any EIG-owned provider; you can find a list here:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_International_Group

In any case, I'm still in the market for a second provider, have looked at a few, and would appreciate any comments on experiences. I note IDCSoft was mentioned in the other thread and I'll be checking them out.
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Offline Jasiu

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2017, 10:15:44 AM »
I'll also note that I started looking at stablehost (https://www.stablehost.com/) last November based on some good reviews I read elsewhere but didn't get too far. Thanks, Jáchym, for the reminder to get this done!
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Offline Bashy

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2017, 01:38:50 AM »
There is one important factor and thats how many connections allowed, when i was over on the other forum there were issues at times as to folks being locked out of their hosts due to too many connections, i.e. clientraw updates etc. That in turn prompted me to setup my own web hosting services as i have my own server, I set up a Weather Special just for WX sites with unlimited everything except space for £20 a year or a little more if monthly, thats limited to 50gb but can be upgraded.
Kind regards
Bashy

Offline weatherc

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2017, 04:53:19 AM »
I agree with Bashy. The important thing for our wx-sites, whats a bit special from normal shared hosting point of view, are that how many connections are allowed and is it allowed to update files at high rates. I have seen many sites (including myself) simple been kicked out from shared webhosters due to "clientraw.txt updates too fast" and similar reasons.
In my case was the final thing to move to own server that my site was shut down by the hoster in the midde of a thunderstorm. At that point was the reason the traffic.

Since that have my site been hosted on first a VPS and later on a dedicated server without any stupid limits. On the same dedicated are ca 10 other wx-sites hosted too.

I can talk only about dedicated servers but i have been happy camper on the German hetzner.de. Great prices and good support. Soon would it be possible to move it even closer when they open a Datacenter here in Finland  :grin:

Offline DA270

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #8 on: May 03, 2017, 03:13:00 PM »
There is one important factor and thats how many connections allowed.

Is this something that web hosting providers publish as a spec? What should we look for as a reasonable number of connections?
I'm just beginning to look into a host myself, so this thread is quite interesting. Thanks

Offline Bashy

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #9 on: May 03, 2017, 03:24:56 PM »
Hi, some do I believe but not all, the cheaper ones tend to limit cause they have too many on each server, I. E., they over sell so they have to have limits, like I said before, the only limit I impose is space, everything else is unrestricted.
Kind regards
Bashy

Offline Jáchym

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #10 on: May 03, 2017, 04:41:06 PM »
I have:
- unlimited webspace
- unlimited bandwidth

But max 5 simultanoues PHP scripts. However the server is on an SSD disk so the pages load very fast and the 5 conns is not really a problem, it would only be a problem if the scripts took seconds to load.

Offline Bashy

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #11 on: May 04, 2017, 12:50:54 AM »
The issues arise when you have a weather station and are uploading data, such as myself, i upload every 3 seconds
using WD's clientraw, this is highly frowned upon and many low end hosting services as its constitutes hammering
the server, it gets better too, if you have other uploads, like i do, web cam image every minute, numerous graphs and
other images and custon clientraw, testtags, tettags2 etc then theres the web cam videos, from WD, total transferred
today, 664.6MB and its only 5:49am :lol: :lol: :lol:
Kind regards
Bashy

Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #12 on: May 04, 2017, 07:46:11 AM »
, 664.6MB and its only 5:49am :lol: :lol: :lol:

How about 8.9 GB before 7 AM.
Randy

Offline Bashy

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #13 on: May 04, 2017, 07:50:02 AM »
How is that even possible, what are you uploading? :o
Kind regards
Bashy

Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #14 on: May 04, 2017, 07:58:47 AM »
How is that even possible, what are you uploading? :o

4 mbps camera to youtube
[youtube]https://youtu.be/a7Oo-nTRtII[/youtube]
Randy

Offline Bashy

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #15 on: May 04, 2017, 08:07:33 AM »
Ah, that don't count, was on about uploading to ya web hosting ;)
Kind regards
Bashy

Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #16 on: May 04, 2017, 08:19:44 AM »
Ah, that don't count, was on about uploading to ya web hosting ;)

You're right. I do have many uploads going also besides live weather data, 8 web and security cams and some web host especially the cheaper options won't put up with multiple and continuous FTP's. 
Randy

Offline Bashy

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #17 on: May 04, 2017, 08:48:59 AM »
Yeah for sure, that's why I decided to get my own server
Kind regards
Bashy

Offline miraculon

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Re: Webhosting providers - which one should I choose
« Reply #18 on: May 04, 2017, 03:09:37 PM »
The issues arise when you have a weather station and are uploading data, such as myself, i upload every 3 seconds
using WD's clientraw, this is highly frowned upon and many low end hosting services as its constitutes hammering
the server, it gets better too, if you have other uploads, like i do, web cam image every minute, numerous graphs and
other images and custon clientraw, testtags, tettags2 etc then theres the web cam videos, from WD, total transferred
today, 664.6MB and its only 5:49am :lol: :lol: :lol:

I ran into this with Hosting24. They were complaining about "too many concurrent FTP sessions". With two meteohubs and a meteobridge Pro, along with my Linux box running a number of uploading shell scripts I was forced to take drastic action. I consolidated my FTP scripts into a single session and cut the number of meteo* uploads. Still a problem. I eventually discovered that my old host Easyspace seemed to tolerate whatever I sent. I now have all of my embedded doo-dads upload there, then I have the Linux box pull them back and consolidate them into a single upload session to Hosting24. If I ever get ambitious, I might just try having the meteo* send the data to the local Linux box. This is kind of a "kludge" but it works, even if sending files back and forth across the Atlantic is involved...

Greg H.


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