[Tech]
[tech] WordPress host recommendations
I know a number of folks contacted me during the recent confusion of jlake.com being offline for about a week, but frankly, I’m kind of single-threaded these days.
It’s pretty clear now that I need to find a new host that can support my relatively modest requirements. If you have a solid WordPress host recommendation, please leave it to me here. Any supporting detail would be awesome — why you like their service, major sites they support, etc.
I do have the tech support I need through Jeremy Tolbert and the excellent Clockpunk Studios, I’m just looking for a very reliable host for my domain and WordPress instance.
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Posted: 3:50 am Tue October 09 2012 |
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I’ve been a happy pair.com user for years. You might consider them – they support WordPress.
I second Laurie on this.
http://www.pair.com/services/pairsim/ => Simple install of WordPress and other software.
They also have a new cheaper service called…
http://www.pairlite.com
Though I don’t know if it has their PairSIM service…
I’ve used Pair for over 10 years – highly recommended.
This isn’t a real recommendation, per se, but it’s an interesting coincidence as John Scalzi just did his annual “WordPress VIP” plug today on his blog. I can’t vouch for it, personally (though I do currently use WordPress.com’s free service). Whatever they do, it looks seamless to me, as a reader, because my address bar never leaves Scalzi’s domain even though I think the blog is hosted separately.
Prior to WordPress VIP, Scalzi hosted his blog (and still his site) on http://www.1and1.com/
I’ve used them for years to host a WordPress blog. Admittedly, I currently just use it for a static site.
Once uploaded, it worked fine for me. I didn’t have any problems. Uptime was great. Never had to use their customer service, though, so I can’t speak for that.
But Scalzi apparently has had a good time with them.
We wouldn’t’ recommend pair.com. We have had major issues with several of our client’s WordPress sites because pair.com doesn’t use Cpanel or any other common interface but uses their own, rather limited set of menus. Also, we have had issues trying to update WordPress sites hosted on pair.com.
We would recommend hostgator.com They have the ability to transfer your site with very little effort on your part. It’s also less expensive, has excellent customer service, an up-to-date easy-to-use interface, and extensive FAQ options.
We transferred six domains and four websites (to and from a single hosting account) — http://www.publishyourwords.com/ and http://fantasticworlds.net/ and http://www.goldhaber.net/ and http://www.editorkitty.com/ — with no down time, very little effort on our part, and excellent 24-hour support when we had a question or concern.
Funny…we’re in the process of transitioning to HostGator and the experience has been terrible. Signed up for the VPS service on with HostGator on Saturday [because our current host, BlueHost, only uses shared hosting and they keep throttling our website causing db connection errors]. I’ve had nothing but problem after problem that required several phone calls: inaccessible links, out-of-date PHP software that requires an update (that their site wouldn’t let me update myself), and an apparent inability to handle websites whose domain servers are not pointing to them (I want to test stuff out before I switch). It’s Tuesday night and things still aren’t working. Seriously, it shouldn’t take this long to get a WordPress account set up.
Oh, and now tonight, another 4 hours (!) wasted only to be told they to *redo* the migration. Grrrr!
UPDATE: The host migration is complete. The problem that we had at the old host is no longer an issue.(Yay!) But, wow, that migration was painful.
I’m glad you made the switch successfully, but, ouch.
You should consider Hosting Matters (hostmatters.com); I’ve been using them for a decade (admittedly, I keep my blog elsewhere for professional reasons), and Making Light has been there for quite some time with a nonvanilla system.
And there are geeks on duty, in the computer room (not outsourced), 24/7… who know what they’re actually doing. Which is really nice at 0300 when one’s site is the subject of a DDOS attack because one turned a notorious copyright pirate over to the feds!
A few years ago the Absolutewrite forums had a terrible time with Hostgator. They were holding information hostage and wouldn’t turn it over. There was some kind of dispute, which I don’t remember what it was.
I use hostmonster for myself and my clients (when I’m not installing it myself for fun and confusion). Pretty cheap, pretty reliable, and good support.