Blog Azeroth

Hi All

I've been thinking about going self hosted for some time now. Basically I've reached the limits of what wordpress.com will let me do in terms of layout and functionality. I don't really like the look of my blog right now, but its the only theme that lets me do the few extra things I want to do.

So I need a host. I was wondering if people using wordpress web hosts might answer a few quick questions so I can see whats out there and what might fit my needs. Hopefully this might help others in the same position. Otherwise I'll just end up going for the one with the prettiest website. And thats bad.

What host are you using (please provide a link)?
How much do you pay per month?
What does that give you?
Whats the best thing your host gives you?
What do you wish your host gave you that you don't get?

If you want to promote another platform here feel free. I'm not married to wordpress, though I like its layout a lot. Big Hit Box who I post with just moved to Squarespace and that also seems quite interesting.

Ah wish I could help but I have a friend hosting me :<
Though I think I've seen posts somewhere on this forum with recommended hosts, might be worth a browse ^^

I host with Lunar Pages. It hasn't caused me problems, but there are horror stories about them all over the web, and I'm just waiting for the day I get hit with a Digg front page and the whole thing comes crashing down. It's shared hosting, and they tend to load too many users per server, though performance seems fine 99% of the time. I pay on a two-year plan, at around $250ish, so you get what you pay for.

Resto4Life.com is hosted with Hostmonster.com. You can't pay by the month, but it works out to around $6/month for the first year you host with them (after that, it's $9/month). I actually tried several web hosts before soliciting BRK's recommendation. My previous hosts either couldn't handle the volume of traffic my blog received or charged too much to handle that level of traffic. Hostmonster was a considerably affordable alternative to paying for a private server and would definitely give you room to grow.

What host are you using (please provide a link)? http://www.hostmonster.com/
How much do you pay per month? $6/mo. the first year, $9/mo. after that
What does that give you? Unlimited domains (R4L and BA are both hosted there), more space than I know what to do with
Whats the best thing your host gives you? Speed and stability
What do you wish your host gave you that you don't get? weekly $50 Ann Taylor Loft gift cards

What host are you using (please provide a link)? Dreamhost (www.dreamhost.com)

How much do you pay per month? Depends on how often you set up billing. Prepaying for durations range from $6-9 a month, and I think they started a monthly billing option as well.

What does that give you? Unlimited everything (storage, bandwidth, etc.), very quick and efficient support, full hosting options that are typical (such as simple installs for popular programs, ftp/ssh access, integration with Google for mail/apps)

Whats the best thing your host gives you? I don't have a single thing I would point out. The main thing, for me, is that I have yet to experience any downtime (I have had a couple of days when things were a bit sluggish, but not many).

What do you wish your host gave you that you don't get? Everything I need for hosting is provided. I wouldn't mind if they decided to send me free stuff on occasion though

What host are you using (please provide a link)?
Geek Storage http://geekstorage.com

How much do you pay per month?
$8/mo. It's cheaper a month if you purchase months in advance though.

What does that give you?
I use the lite plan (they have more than one). It gives 5GB of storage.. 125 GB of bandwidth.. 2 addon sites.. and a bunch of other stuff. I actually get more than that because of a coupon from their site.

Whats the best thing your host gives you?
Reliability. I have never had an issue with them at all. I used to host a different site from them a few years ago and had no issues with that site. Of course now that I say this.... my site is going to go down for like a day or two.

It also offers a program that installs wordpress for free.

What do you wish your host gave you that you don't get?
I honestly can't think of anything. I haven't tried to stress out the site so I'm not sure.

I can recommend against bluehost and fatcow though, they have problems.

My site gets a lot of traffic, so this is something I'm going to be looking at maybe changing. Had to disable some plugins recently due to CPU usage issues.