My reviews of the web hosting companies I've signed up with for all my domains.
URL: http://www.hostingph.com/
Plan: Standard (200MB/10GB for $20/year)
Time with Host: 4/26/04 - 7/19/07
Uptime: 3.5 out of 5
The only issue I had with the server was that every time I was in the mood to upload a whole bunch of stuff (for example, upgrading WordPress, putting up content, etc etc), the FTP would stop working on/responding to me. I usually did this on late Friday nights, so I'd have to wait 'til the next day before I can successfully upload my files. Highly annoying 'cause by then, my mood to work on my site had already disappeared out of frustration from the night before. :/
Support: 0 out of 5
If I could, I'd readily give this part a negative score since the "support" was what eventually drove me away from HostingPH. I only submitted four support tickets in my three years and three months with them, but the replies I'd get, if not sufficient, were enough to drive me up a wall in anger. Joni does a good job of explaining the insufficient replies from HostingPH in this entry. As a representative of a company, I think the support tech should be more professional when he replies---I was only 14 when I got the domain, and yet I always made sure to be formal and specific whenever I'd submit a ticket.
Pricing: 5 out of 5
For the space and bandwidth that I got, $20 per year was a very cheap price to pay. No qualms in this area. ;)
URL: http://www.skye-host.com/
Plan: Reseller 1 (1GB/50GB for $7.50/month with a 25% off coupon from TalkingTeens.com)
Time with Host: 9/2/07 - 9/22/07
Uptime: 4 out of 5
The day that I signed up and got my account activated (before they transferred all my turbo-geek.org crap), the whole server was down for 24 hours---I couldn't access anything (and I was planning on exploring WHM, too, as it was the first time I'd gotten a reseller), which sucked. And the thing was, they didn't even announce/explain anything on the forums or the blog, before and after the event. It just happened and well, too bad. :/ I thought it was kinda sketchy. Aside from that, though, their servers were really fast and turbo-geek.org loaded much much faster compared to when it was on HostingPH (this was what convinced me to try them out, heh, 'cause I was really impressed when Alex was still with them and I was hosted by him on his reseller).
Support: 3.5 out of 5
The support at Skye-Host was a drastic improvement from the support I'd get over at HostingPH, which made me happy. XD However, I thought they (or rather, she, as it seemed like there was only one person who handled support) were rather slow at getting things done---turbo-geek.org was correctly transferred three days after I signed up, which was a pretty long time, imo. I also had a long back-and-forth email with the support, Sera, and there were two instances when she didn't get my email---I thought that was pretty bad. It also wasn't good that their Help Desk was usually down because of an expired license key, so your only option was to email, and it usually took a while for Sera to get back to you.
Pricing: 5 out of 5
For a reseller, the price I paid was considerably cheap (compared to most webhosting companies, now that I've done my research), especially since I had a 25% off coupon as well. Again, no qualms here. ;D
URL: http://www.innohosting.com/
Plan: Starter Deluxe (15GB/250GB for $16.95/month with their free upgrade promotion---I only pay the price of the Starter Deluxe but I get all the stuff that go with the Professional plan)
Time with Host: 9/22/07 - 11/22/07
Uptime: 5 out of 5
If I thought the servers at Skye-Host were fast, their servers are just blazing!! I've never had any downtime so far, and propagation time for the domain transfers were practically nonexistent---the domains I host reflected to the new servers within the hour of updating nameservers!! Yes, I'm highly impressed by everything with InnoHosting, if it wasn't obvious enough. ;)
Support: 5 out of 5
Support at InnoHosting is just fantastic. My support tickets get replied to in time and I never have to wait more than a few hours to get an answer (my tickets so far have all been low priority, so yeah). Rameen is especially nice, haha, I like that he likes to use smiley faces. XD But yeah, this was the first time I encountered needing to configure private nameservers, and Chris offered to do it for me since I didn't know how to, which I thought was pretty awesome. This is how support should be like. :D
Pricing: 5 out of 5
Ok, I know most people think I'm pretty crazy for paying $16.95/month on hosting (and that I'm giving pricing a perfect score), but seriously, for all that I'm getting? It's worth every penny. :) I have a plan with everything I need if I ever decide to open up a paid hosting business (IR-Panel, billing program, dedicated RapidSSL, domain reseller account, etc etc), and I'm on a blazing fast server with excellent support---what more can I ask for (aside from allowing personal web accounts to offer subdomain hosting, lol)? :]
Last Words: I highly recommend InnoHosting for anyone who values customer support and reliability, even with the hefty price tag. They are by far the best hosting company I've ever been with, hands down. The only reason why I chose to leave is because I didn't like that offering subdomain hosting to people was against their ToS---I can't afford to buy a domain for every close friend of mine that wants to be hosted by me, really. :/
URL: http://www.knownhost.com/
Plan: KH Pro (5GB/100GB for $10/month)
Time with Host: 11/22/07 - Present
Uptime: 5 out of 5
I've only been with them for a day as of this writing, so I can't really comment as much on this area right now, but I must say that their servers have been the fastest my domain's ever been on thus far, which is pretty amazing. :D
Support: 5 out of 5
KnownHost support has been wonderful so far, and very very prompt in migrating my account and all of the domains I host onto their servers. This was the first account migration I've had for my domain where the company took care of the entire process (instead of me having to generate and download full backups, and then uploading them to the new servers), which ensured the most recent backups available were used and everything was seamless. Like I said with InnoHosting, this is how support should be like. :D
Pricing: 5 out of 5
Paying $10/mo is nothing, I believe, for all that I'm getting from KnownHost. Although I'm still confused as to why I have 100GB of monthly bandwidth (in their plans page, KH Pro only comes with 40GB, but WHM says otherwise :P), that's definitely a bonus and I'm very thankful for that. :D They truly do live up to all of the positive reviews I've read over at WHT---they even challenge people to look for even one negative review on KH, and so far, there has been none. I believe that says a lot about them, and considering that they pretty much have everything that I'm looking for in a hosting company, I'm looking forward to the time that I'll be getting hosting from them. :]
Domain: 42ndfloor.net
URL: http://www.cookiehost.com/
Plan: Mini (2GB/20GB for $5 the first year with their Crazy Cookie Coupon)
Time with Host: 8/20/07 - 8/20/08
Uptime: 4.5 out of 5
Even though I've had an account with CookieHost since August, I can't comment much on the server because I've hardly logged into and used my account. I've been too busy to actually get to tinker around with scripts that interest me. XD But! I do have some sort of issue with the FTP server because it always times out on me, especially when I'm uploading a directory or something. It gets annoying because every time this happens, I have to go disconnect and reconnect to the server, meh. :/
Support: 5 out of 5
I've never had any experience with support so far, so I give them the benefit of the doubt and give this part a score of 5. :P
Pricing: 5 out of 5
Because of the Crazy Cookie Coupon, I give the pricing a score of 5. Seriously---$5 to try out a hosting company for a year?! People should be jumping on this! :P And even without the coupon, $39.95/year for the Mini plan is pretty cheap for the amount of space and bandwidth they give. :)
Domain: mental-piracy.org
URL: http://www.dreamhost.com/
Plan: 10th Anniversary plan (500GB/5TB for $9.30 the first year with their 10th anniversary coupon)
Time with Host: 10/2/07 - 10/2/08
Uptime: 5 out of 5
Well, my account with DreamHost is new, and like with CookieHost, I've hardly logged into and used it. My domain has never been down whenever I check it, though, so I give this part a score of 5 for now. :)
Support: 5 out of 5
Same as CookieHost---I've never had any experience with support so far, so I give this part a score of 5.
Pricing: 5 out of 5
DreamHost has always been insane with the price you pay for the amount of space and bandwidth you get, and this is certainly no exception. $9.30 to try out their hosting for a year with that amount of space and bandwidth?! Count me in!! Hahaha. It came with a free domain name, too, as well as built-in private registration, so it's most definitely a deal to take advantage of. :D Now to figure out what to do with all that space... XD
Last Updated: November 23, 2007