A Small Orange Review After 2 Years

How did A Small Orange get the name? Years ago Tim Dorr, owner/operator, used it as his AYM screen name. There's a great interview with him from 2005 here. Even have a look around if you want.

"A Small Orange" is an Atlanta based web hosting company with a great attitude. It began as my backup host for my web based voiceover site and now it is my main host. I first read about them on this forum where they came highly recommended. When I first joined they would only accept 25 new accounts a night to ensure the best customer experience.

It took me two nights to get mine and I'm still there. Don't worry, they haven't done that in years and you can sign up any time.

The first thing I check when selecting a new host are their forums. A Small Orange (ASO) has a very active one that has "support" members who post, and even Tim himself. "Pre-sales Questions" is a popular area.

Not that this takes the place of a superb tech support who won't quit until the problem is solved. I've found them to be very patient with folks who may not be the most tech savvy. That would be me. There is a thorough Knowledge base online as well as an ASO Wiki written by staff and customers. Plus, step by step demonstrations of CPanel functions. The only issue I've ever had happened a couple of weeks ago. I had a problem with a disappearing sub domain. It was a CPanel code problem. Tech support was nothing short of amazing.

Their plans are very reasonable. All have the same features. Even their "Tiny plan" with 75 MB of space and 3GB Bandwidth at $25 a year has all the features of their most expensive "Super plan" with 4500MB of space and 100GB Bandwidth. Turn any account (except Tiny) into a Reseller account for $5 more a month. You can easily upgrade or downgrade as needed. Plus there's ASO Extreme which is just for file sharing. No scripts, e-mail or Cpanel. But, you get 1500MB of space and 100GB Bandwidth for $20 a month.

As far as up time, I don't think my site has ever been down for longer than a few minutes. The time I caught it they were doing some server maintenance. I'm always on my site since one of my web pages is my browser start page. I've hosted two sites with them, one for me and one for a local band. They were on different servers and both had the same great performance and reliability. ASO's business concept is to not overload shared servers. Period. I can go online any time and check my hosts status from a web site and CPanel. If there's any problem it's corrected quickly.

ASO offers CPanel and the latest updates and features. I like to check my stats often and use a lot of subdomains. Latest Visitors and AWStats helps me keep tabs of things. It has everything you'd expect from CPanel.

Believe me, I'm no expert. But, I do recognize a friendly attitude and willingness to help when I see it. The most important thing is that my web site up and online. If it didn't work well and consistently, I wouldn't be there. If that ever changes you can bet I'll be the first to leave. So far I am very impressed with A Small Orange.