When Purchasing Shared Hosting, What Do You Look For And Why?

Jeffrey

The Shared Hosting business is very large and people choose each host for their own personal reasons. Would it be cPanel? Location? Speed? Uptime? Support? Is there any reason why you would pick Shared Hosting over VPS Hosting? Please elaborate below as I am interested to see your answers. :)

SimpleNode

Never used Shared Hosting before, my first website was hosted on a 512MB Linode :P

winston

Back when I used shared hosting it was the support, cPanel, speed (location doesn't matter as long as it's fast). I guess I generally picked good hosts since I never really had any downtime, but now that I run a few larger sites I'd definitely say uptime is very important.

Zen

Off topic - you sold CH? PM please? :D

Jeffrey

@Zen Yep :)

serverbear

With the costs of LEB's I personally don't see the value in Shared hosting anymore.

From my experience users that choose shared hosting do so due to a lack of server admin & technical knowledge. Plus many shared hosts offer CPanel or DirectAdmin (which further reduces the need to learn about how a server works).

Due to the lack of knowledge these types of users then get sold on price, features & reputation (or "size" of company). Rather than the performance.

jcaleb

Cpanel. And limited resources. Usually "unlimited" (bw, disk) is a big turn off for me.

jarland

Heck at this point I might as well put high price on my list of things I look for. Doesn't automatically mean they'll use the money to increase performance and decrease overselling, but they sure aren't going to do that at $0.10/m. So I'll start there and then research reviews and business practices.

One of the reasons I like MediaTemple for shared hosting is that they're never content with their product. Always trying to find a better way to do things, spending money appropriately on development of new offerings. I don't want a host that says "here's cpanel, I know how to run an install script, now pay me." I want passion. I want my host to love what they do.

That said, I obviously host my own stuff, but I know what I want and that's why I started.

qjq

free host for unimportant stuff and vps for the important stuff

Shane_Elmore

@qjq said: i buy all the unlimited things unlimited space unlimited bandwidth and unlimited database and storage and unlimited everything

Why? Just why? Most unlimited hosts have overloaded servers, horrid support, and/or insecure setups.

Just wondering.

qjq

i kid ok

lele0108

Whatever MediaTemples doing with their Grid service, it's correct.

Damn that's good marketing. Always my example.

HostCheetah

@Jeffrey - look for one that uses CloudLinux / offers R1 CDP inside the control panel where you have access to the backups / check the retention, we offer 7 days of backups under R1 / Web Site Builder and Softaculous Auto Script Installer / perhaps see if they have the choice of multiple locations for your choice of where you want to site to live / stable / longevity in the business , etc... IMHO

titanicsaled

I would only choose shared hosting over vps hosting if it was able to cope with larger loads and I had a site with big traffic.

@mitgib has said before that his shared hosting is designed for performance, that's why it's quite pricey

ErawanArifNugroho

Hm... Standard for shared hosting : - 100% uptime - Softaculous - Cloudlinux - Unlimited Database - Unlimited Email Address - Big disk space - Free addon like Cloudflare, Free Backup, Attracta, etc - Fast access / low ping - Not overloaded

Jeffrey

Could someone please explain why CloudLinux is a must?

Freek

• Location --> Same country as I live in
• Control Panel --> cPanel and cPanel only!
• Uptime Guarantee --> At least 99.9%
• Unlimited databases/email address/domains etc.
• Not oversold
• No Unlimited disk space/bandwidth. I want to know how much I can use. Don't give me that unlimited bullcrap.

Jack

@Jeffrey said: Could someone please explain why CloudLinux is a must?

It's Just a nice addon to stop some users using all RAM ect.

jarland

@ErawanArifNugroho said: Unlimited Database

If space allotments are too high, this one usually scares me. SQL abuse can take a pretty big toll on a system. I either expect to see low storage or limits to SQL.

GIANT_CRAB

@Jeffrey said: Could someone please explain why CloudLinux is a must?

To stop abusers.

ErawanArifNugroho

@jarland said: If space allotments are too high, this one usually scares me. SQL abuse can take a pretty big toll on a system. I either expect to see low storage or limits to SQL.

Hehe.. At some place, I only can get 5GB. While I only use about 5 database with less than 20MB each.

Taz

@Freek said: Unlimited databases/email address/domains

@Freek said: Don't give me that unlimited bullcrap.

Contradicting your self :P

Taz

@jarland said: If space allotments are too high, this one usually scares me. SQL abuse can take a pretty big toll on a system. I either expect to see low storage or limits to SQL.

Back in the days when we were only offering shared hosting (Free and premium), we have used SSD for mysql and it worked like a charm plus remember, while everyone dreams, not everyone is the next WHT, DP or LEB.

gsrdgrdghd

@Taz_NinjaHawk said: Contradicting your self :P

I think @Freek meant that he wants to be able to decide for himself how he uses his allocated ressources. For example things like you can create as many databases as you want as long as you don't exceed your 5gb storage limit.

That would be also what i look for in shared hosting.

jarland

@Taz_NinjaHawk said: Back in the days when we were only offering shared hosting (Free and premium), we have used SSD for mysql and it worked like a charm plus remember, while everyone dreams, not everyone is the next WHT, DP or LEB.

Still has an effect on CPU and memory as well. Not likely that anyone is going to make a 10GB database or something, but I don't like taking chances because people continually surprise me.

dmmcintyre3

When I ran a free shared host I had an account with 1gb disk space, with 970mb in MySQL and 13mb of files.

Freek

@gsrdgrdghd said: I think @Freek meant that he wants to be able to decide for himself how he uses his allocated ressources. For example things like you can create as many databases as you want as long as you don't exceed your 5gb storage limit.

Yes, you are correct. That's indeed what I meant.

japon

• Secure IMAP
• Secure SMTP
• External Domains
• SCP/SSH Access
• SQLite Support
• If possible: no Cpanel

Pats

@ErawanArifNugroho said: Hm... Standard for shared hosting : - 100% uptime - Softaculous - Cloudlinux - Unlimited Database - Unlimited Email Address - Big disk space - Free addon like Cloudflare, Free Backup, Attracta, etc - Fast access / low ping - Not overloaded

pretty well summed up..

• cheapest price
• many addon domains
• free domain name
• good, fast support

@jarland , like it or not... unlimited game keeps on rolling.. we educated many what is unlimited but clients still get attracted to it.. :(

open up few popular ones and u'll get the idea what ppl want - hostgator, bluehost, powweb...

nabo

I use shared hosting mainly because of the email-system. I don't want to care about handling spam. This said my preferences are as follows:

• IMAP/STMP with SSL
• external Domains

So far the same as @japon. SCP/SSH-connectivity would be superb. I don't understand why hosts still today just offer FTP-access.

klikli

Brand and reputation. I don't want a 12-year-old reseller or a person who don't know Apache. I buy shared hosting is because I want less headaches on server management, not moving around "hosts" every month.