Web hosting recommendation thread

[Sillysoft]

My brother asked me for a web host recommendation, so I thought I would forward him to the list here of recommended hosts. Unfortunately, when I got to it I saw that the list has been removed, to be replaced with just a pointer to LiquidWeb.

I understand they are a sponsor, and I see no problem with giving them featured placement at the top of the list in exchange for their hosting. However, I think removing all other web hosts from the list is a bad move. It makes it less useful and less impartial. It throws away a lot of good info the people here have gathered on webhosts, and it means that I won't forward people to it.

What do you guys think? Here's the 'Web hosting recommendation' thread as it currently stands:
http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=9532

[Jack Norton]

Well just point him to webhostingtalk forums (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=36) instead ;)

[Pyabo]

Unfortunately, when I got to it I saw that the list has been removed, to be replaced with just a pointer to LiquidWeb.


WTF?!? When did this happen? That is very uncool.

Should we get some sponsorship from Real too and delete all the discussion about Big Fish, Yahoo, and MSN?

[digriz]

In fairness to Mike; if the changed post helps cover some of the cost of running this forums then i don't see what's wrong with it. We all use these forums for free, how would you feel if we started getting charged a subscription fee or had pop-ups at every click.

The post http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=9532 says it all really.

If you want webhosting recommendations, click on Jacks link :)

I've no idea what type of service your brother would need for his website, but unless he needed a lot of bandwidth, chances are that the original recommendations on the indiegamer forums page wouldn't have been much use anyway as the people recommending those hosts are geared towards using high bandwidth and as such tend to be higher cost.

[Nikster]

Yeah I noticed this when I was looking for the list, but when I saw it I thought it used to be in a none sticky thread and was just going insane searching for it, glad it wasn't just me, and while I agree that if we can help the site we should, the new post specifies that they don't have any advertising, doesn't removing all the other hosting links and replacing it with that singular one indirectly represent advertising ? ;)

Any way, if anyone has a list of the links that used to be there I'd appreciate if you could PM it or something.

EDIT: Sillysoft, for your brother I can also recomend onthespothosting.net, cheap, reliable and support tickets are responded to real quickly, but I don't know how they are for hosting something big, like these forums for example.

[Tertsi]

Yep this is not the best place to look for web hosting recommendations. Webhostingtalk is.

[Sillysoft]

Webhostingtalk is a good resource, but it's a HUGE disorganized forum. The list here was a simple, to-the-point resource and serves a different use. That's why the thread exists here: because it is useful to people. It was just a lot more useful when there were some different choices listed.

[Bad Sector]

Well, that thread was a good source of info to me too. But it was more of a 'laziness helper' than anything of real value. There are many web hosting review sites and forums around.

[svero]

I recommend avoiding "The Planet" or related companies. My experience with them was not good and I've seen my exact experiences mirrored in posts by other users on wht and other sites. Very poor customer service bordering on hostile and shady. I was NOT impressed.

[Mike Boeh]

Pyabo: I understand that the integrity of the forums is very important and I shouldn't have shamelessly plugged some hosting company. As someone who is obviously concerned about ig's integrity, I am sure you will have no problem paying the 2500$/year it takes to keep the site going. I take paypal.

[Tertsi]

I've read a lot of webhostingtalk discussions about Liquidweb and here's my opinion, based on theirs and my opinion about its pricing about hosting IndieGamer at Liquidweb:

Using Liquidweb is the very reason it takes so much money. You can get the same dedicated server but not the same level of support for 25 - 30% of the money. I know because I'll soon order a $60/month quality dedicated server...

Yes if your business is critical, you may want to go with Liquidweb. I don't think IndieGamer is that critical so no doubt you're hosting something else here too. I fully understand the recommendation and I'd understand banners too though.

[electronicStar]

Well as long as retro64 just modifies his post and not other people's posts there shouldn't be any problem, it's his right.
We are all aware it is sponsoring and I don't think anyone really considers the sponsored suggestion as a real option.

[Polycount Productions]

You can get the same dedicated server but not the same level of support for 25 - 30% of the money. I know because I'll soon order a $60/month quality dedicated server...
You know because you'll soon do that...? ;)

@SillySoft: We've used LiquidWeb over half a year already and it's been great. I recommend them (dedicated). And as Jack already pointed out, see http://www.webhostintalk.com for further information, reviews etc.

[Nikster]

In my opinion the thread in question should probably hype it up a bit more at least, as it only mentioned the forums are hosted on it, and why isn't it locked ?

I found that the webhosting forums don't really help either because you have people ranging from non techies who always have problems to the very elite who want everything and it's just a mixed bag of opinions, for my needs I just went into said forums looking at the vendors advertising and took a chance, because my needs a merely to host a single file :D

But I knew I could look here to see what people are using and it helped because people were hosting similar things.

I'm suprised there's no "This site is hoted on ...." buttons up top or bottom anywhere though, I'd have thought that might have had a better impact as I usually tend to click on them if I've not come across them before to see what services/prices they offer.

[Jack Norton]

Yes if your business is critical, you may want to go with Liquidweb. I don't think IndieGamer is that critical so no doubt you're hosting something else here too. I fully understand the recommendation and I'd understand banners too though.

A forum like this can take lot of resources. And no, he isn't hosting anything else here (http://whois.domaintools.com/indiegamer.com).

[Mike Boeh]

Indiegamer.com used to be hosted on a 60$ server at layered tech, a reputable unmanaged provider. But vbulletin is intense, and the cpu was maxing out, it crashed, and had all sorts of database problems that took a lot of time to deal with. Now it's on a dual core 3.4 ghz p4 and if anything goes wrong, liquidweb fixes it before I even know there's a problem. It's well worth the 200$

[Pyabo]

Pyabo: I understand that the integrity of the forums is very important and I shouldn't have shamelessly plugged some hosting company. As someone who is obviously concerned about ig's integrity, I am sure you will have no problem paying the 2500$/year it takes to keep the site going. I take paypal.

Ahem. I stand corrected.

After thinking about it last night, I realized I spoke too soon. I was concerned about retroactively editing/removing old threads with good information in them. But clearly this is a special case. I certainly don't have a problem with LiquidWeb's support in exchange for being the only official IndieGamer-recommended host. It seems a good deal in fact. I am a capitalist at heart. But I also want to know that if I post a message like, "Hey guys I just wanted to mention that I've had a really good experience with host XXXXXXXX" that it's not going to be summarily deleted.

I didn't mean to impugn your integrity Mike. I know you have the interest of the IndieGamer community at heart.

[Tertsi]

Yep but you could have just as well upgraded at layered tech or bought another server and load balance and/or bought an external proactive ~$30/month management service.

I meant critical as in a business site that must stay up and running well 24/7 or you're losing more money than you'd be saving with a worse managed server.

@Polycount yea I worded it a bit weird it seems. :)

@Jack, a server can host more than one IPs. I don't see how that whois record proves that only this forum is running on the server? Not that I don't believe it but I'd just like to know what I'm missing, if anything.

[Mike Boeh]

@pyabo: no biggie, just trying to get a discount on the server- that's all :)

@tertsi: I assume you mean places like Platinum Server Management, etc... In my experience, this still isn't as good as LW. Those management places aren't onsite, so they can't get at a a shell if the machine locks up, and are at the mercy of Layered Tech to reboot it- and pray it comes back. With liquidweb, they're on site. Something like Platinum works good with a really high end unmanaged like Softlayer, but that's the same price as Liquidweb anyway...

I host Indiegamer and Gametunnel on the server, and nothing else.

Oh and if you want cheap, check this out!
http://corenetworks.net/dedicated/

I got one of their 25$ dedicated servers for a cheapo svn server, has not gone down yet, and it even has remote reboot.

[Tertsi]

Liquidweb management is probably significantly better, but my point was that it is not like this site has to be up and running 24/7 or else you'd be pissing us off.
Though the price difference might not be as huge as I first guessed.

Thanks for the $25 link.. sad that it is only 512 MB of RAM.

[Bad Sector]

Ok, now i'm in love with that $25 dedicated server thing :-).

[NathanR]

I find that cheaper than usual dedicated servers are actually using Virtual Servers. You dont really own the whole machine. Thats why you get small ram, and watch out for the other gotcha: somebody trashing the shared resources such as CPU and Network. While VPS (virtual private server) technology has come a long way you can still get burned by a guy whose runaway process eats the entire CPU and smokes the NIC. Its just like being on a shared server all over again, but you have your own file system to muck around with at least.

Just my two cents. I used to run tech support for Affinity (and the 5 other companies they do business as because they know people hate them) about 5 years ago. Stay far far far away from them. Working there was like working for The Empire. It was hard to sleep at night.

I personally use LtTech.com and PhpWebhosting.com cause they provide me linuxy goodness for coding, forums, databases, and plenty of disk space and bandwidth for a cheap price. They are slow on support, but they rarely have issues, and the price is right.

[svero]

Liquidweb management is probably significantly better, but my point was that it is not like this site has to be up and running 24/7 or else you'd be pissing us off.
Though the price difference might not be as huge as I first guessed.

Thanks for the $25 link.. sad that it is only 512 MB of RAM.

It's not the uptime, although we'd prefer to have it up and running all the time. It's the amount of time we have to spend rebooting, correcting crashes, etc... We were doing reboots and adressing crashes regularly before.

[Tertsi]

@svero There's a huge difference between being unmanaged with a too bad server vs. managed by an external service with a good enough server. You just upgraded straight to "great management" and good server.

[Tertsi]

Nathan, it would be illegal for them to advertise a VPS as a dedicated server like that. Besides, those guys have a separated category for VPS.