For APPROXIMATELY the same price range downtown host offers 5 GB Disk Space and 100 GB Bandwidth and unlimited domains, while medialayer offers only 500 MB space, 10GB Bandwidth and only 3 domains.
Question: Is downtownhost OVERSELLING(maybe it is doable) or is Medialayer providing much less VALUE for MONEY.
Just wondered where a dual core P4 3.4 ghz would rank/compare with todays range of intel cpu's?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI am setting up a new server and would like to find an alternative to Apache. I would like to find something that uses less RAM, as Apache can run up to 15 MB on my machine.
The three options I have selected include:
Lighhtpd
Nginx
LiteSpeed
I couldn't tell if Lighhtpd was RAM intensive but it was proprietary, so I don't think I'll use it.
New VPS Performance Comparison mis now available in DomainTools. This report compares the performance of the top VPS Hosting providers by systematically testing actual accounts established with each provider.
web-hosting.domaintools.com/a/vps-hosting
What is the best software to use to make a page to compare hosting packages?
View 7 Replies View RelatedI'm looking for a recent review of Cari.net. I have a ton of servers at softlayer (which has been great), but I've found similar servers offered at cari.net for 1/2 (!) the price. With the economy as it is, I certainly need to cut costs, but I don't want to jump into a disaster.
What I like about Cari.net:
-low monthly price ~1/2 price of SL (kentsfield server)
What I don't like:
- LARGE setup fee
- $50 additional for CentOS (why would they do that?)
- $50 reinstalls
- 15 minute reboots?
- No version #'s or model numbers on servers or software.
Do they treat their customers like idiots like their site does?
Do they try to nickle and dime you for everything?
I just finished selecting a shared PHP/mySQL host for our client sites (moving off of goDaddy - praise Jesus!)
As part of my due diligence, I decided to make an excel spreadsheet comparing different aspects of a few of the "top" candidates, including top 10 ratings, awards, specs, support, and price (as of 3/9/2009). Also, all hosts listed are Joomla and Magento compatible.
I spent 2 days making this matrix. It's the result of many google searches, many forum searches, many phone calls to tech support, many chat sessions with tech support and pre-sales support, and many searches here at WHT.
I currently have active accounts with both VPSLand and KickAssVPS and I am trying to decide with account to keep and which to cancel.
I will provide a side by side comparison of both services.
I had planned on canceling VPSLand due to all the poor reviews, which is why I signed up an account with KickAssVPS but now I am not sure.
THE PLANS
----------------
VPSLand
Plan: Value
Price: $29/m
RAM: 768MB
HDD: 8GB
Xfer: 300GB
---------------
KickAssVPS
Plan: Entry
Price: $35/m
RAM: 960MB
HDD 10GB
Xfer: 100GB
---------------
Setup Time - From placing order to e-mail containing server details.
VPSLand: 34 minutes
KickAssVPS: 5 hours 26 minutes
Technical Details to follow
I have been more than 1 year with DownTownHost, and although overall they are quite OK, yet I need to point out some serious flaws which no one ever mentions. This is just an honest complaint.
Namely - downtime.
There is downtime on DownTownHost which in my case lasts a few days each month. I have not been analyzing my stats closely, but when I do, I notice there is a monthly downtime...
The reason - I don't know.
The last time, I can see from AW stats that for about 48 hours there was downtime resulting in site became inaccessible, and there were ZERO visitors for 24 hours at least.
It seems towards the end of the month, there will be downtime...of some kind. Around 27/28/29 of the month. Visitor levels will show a drop for a few days during this period.
Or if not the end of the month, then in the middle of the month....
But last month was bad....1 whole day my blog was not available. Zero visitors recorded.
I just want to know if anyone experienced this also or not.
My server is server 20.
DTH is OK in most things....but downtime is something I really don't tolerate....
Maybe there is an explanation for this, but if these continue, I will look for another host.
I am with DTH for almost 4 months and has been very satisfied. So, I thought I'd post a review here.
I am on their blog package, 1GB of space and 50GB of bandwidth at $5.99. I have to say their support teams are wonderful as they managed to solved every single problem I had every time, literally. Also, I love their 'Live Chat' on their website, once you click it, a conversation with them will start, the only bad thing is sometimes it takes longer than 2minutes which is acceptable
So far, the uptime and speed has been good.
Highly Recommended from me
I wrote an initial setup experience review of downtown host including support w/ transferring my sites a few months ago. Now I am going to extend the review with reliability, speed and performance.
So far, the support and helpfulness has been the same. Rarely does support wait longer than 10 min to respond to questions. They are always responded with a great attitude.
Reliability of all my sites has been 100%. I have seen no downtime at all since I got my account. Truly fabulous. The only time a site has gone down was not their fault...it was my fault...for messing up the database they restored it within minutes after I sent a high priority technical support ticket too.
Speed and performance go hand in hand. Sites are quick and responsive. Just as responsive as a content management system on any dedicated in my opinion. Download speeds are always the same. Never does the download or upload speed fluctuate by more than 10 kbps up or down from the average (totally unlike dreamhost where it would fluctuate as much as 400-500 kbps depending on the day).
All scripts I have used have responded very quickly without any problems that I would encounter with dreamhost (like cut off scripts due to time it took the servers to run through them).
I've recently had some issues with a script I wrote and I contacted support about it. Three techs assisted me with it, but could not resolve it. I later found the problem was with my outputting text when there should be no output at all. I closed the ticket and thanked the techs for their work.
This is just one of the many examples I have of how they are willing to work with the customer, even if it is not their fault. They will do what it takes to keep the customer happy, except fixing the customers' code. Jedito and his team really strive at providing superb support for their customers.
I have a few domains hosted with them and also have pointed others to their services. I currently use two of their servers, one is production and the other is staging. They are quick to get services setup and ready to go, as well as providing quick support through their ticket system. Their live chat doesn't always reach people (when it says it is online), but they respond to tickets within a few hours, sometimes within a few minutes.
I have the Silver plan with them, and I think they recently changed the amount of disk space available from 7GB to 14GB because that's what I now have available. I did not know they were planning that, but it was a pleasant surprise when I logged in to cPanel.
I can't think of any problems I have had with Downtownhost in these two years of experience with them, though I have had problems with my scripts and code. If they make a mistake, they admit it and are quick to fix it. I might have had a little bit of downtime over a year ago, but I think the server went down briefly. The uptime has been superb and the services have been wonderful.
To anyone who is in search of a good web host, Downtownhost is the way to go for shared hosting. I have not tried their other services (well, I am using blogging on the staging server), so I do not know what they are like. I have been with my share of web hosts and I have not found one that is better than Downtownhost.
I have narrowed it down to DowntownHost SharkSpace and StableHost.
Here's how they compare (Well they almost have all the same features so I'll jus compare space and bw
DowntownHost SILVER:
14 GB / 300 GB
With 25% off coupon: 5.27777777777$/month
StableHost PLUS:
15 GB / 300 GB
With 50% off coupon AND Free domain :3.64$/month
SharkSpace HAMMERHEAD:
20 GB / 500 GB
With 50% off coupon: 3.975$/month
DowntownHost has a 99% off coupon.. but I dont understand and sounds a little bit sketchy. Would be like 12 cents per month.
So in terms of reliability, and SPEED, speed is important to me, which do you suggest.
Downtownhost: Chicago
Stablehost: Dallas
Sharkspace North Carolina and Kansas.
I've been with Downtownhost for a little more than a year now, and figured I would share my experiences with others.
When I first signed up with Downtownhost, everything was great. Transferring my sites went super smooth: my server was very fast and support was amazing (got replies in under a minute!). Unfortunately, as time has gone on, I've seen a dramatic drop in server stability and support.
My first major issue with Downtownhost happened in March of this year, when my server was constantly being brought offline with DDoS attacks. I requested that they switch me to a different server, hopefully with less DDoS attacks. Downtownhost gave me a date and time when they would switch my account to a new server. That day and time went, with no word from anyone at Downtownhost. I sent an email to Downtownhost asking if my account had been moved, but apparently they had forgotten to switch me. Jorge was very quick to switch me once I asked to be moved again.
Everything was smooth on the new server until April, when it went down for periods of at least 6 hours or more on several different occasions (at least 3). These extremely long periods of downtime were very angering.
Everything has been fairly stable up until these last few weeks. I recently registered a new domain and went to add it to my cPanel account as an addon domain. Something screwed up within cPanel, so I was unable to add my new domain to cPanel. This issue took over 5 hours to even get a response from Downtownhost (which used to be very unusual). Eventually, the issue was resolved.
Now, my server is timing out several times per day, and my email has now stopped working.
On top of the increasingly longer support response times, nobody *ever* answers me on their live support feature, which is a big downside for me. I'm not sure what has caused this dramatic drop in quality from Downtownhost, but it's not looking like I will be renewing my contract with them
I have a website hosted at bluehost.. I've just got a new website that I would like to host ielsewhere.
I hadn't had major problems at bluehost only that I have a coppermine gallery there and occasionally my site goes down due to CPU usage, although I removed all the fancy stuff that uses resources like random images, votes, comments, etc..
anyway, I don't think it would be a good idea to have another website with another coppermine gallery under the same account so I was looking at Downtown Host, Hostgator and Hawkhost... or any other recommended host to move my second website, I will leave the first one at bluehost
What I'm looking for is great customer support, no more than $10 a month, can handle coppermine better than bluehost, I dont need more than 200 gig of bandwith and I don't need more than 2 gb of space
Well, before jumping to Downtownhost.com (aka DTH), I will like to give a bit background story on why I went to DTH at first place. (It's going to be a detailed review, so if you don't have time, just skip first 5 paragraphs)
My first ever host was Startlogic.com (I was a noob back then). Getting my first site online was a big achievement for me. Startlogic worked for me for about a year until my site started getting some traffic. After that, it was nothing but a big trouble and headache to be there. I reviewed them Here (Infect that was my first thread here at WHT )
After this bad experience, I moved to HostingZoom (aka HZ) failover hosting. After few days, my site started getting problem there. I was told that it was causing more than 110% CPU usage. I was never able to backup or restore a mere 7MB database with them. In short, their Failover hosting proved to be "failing over & over hosting" for me in just one month. I was recommended to move to VPS or dedicated server by HZ. My review of HostingZoom is Here.
After being let down by HZ, I looked for my options and decided to go with DTH. Amazingly, the site that took more than 110% CPU at HZ was running without a glitch. I repeatedly asked DTH for server load, so that I wouldn't get any trouble and every time I was told that it was "below normal". I was so happy with DTH that I even got a reseller account and started hosting my friend's sites.
During that time, I also had an account with Hosgator (aka HG) for about 4 months that I used for hosting one blog. It was end of year 2007 when my blog started getting heavy traffic. Unfortunately, that was more than what HG servers were built to handle. After few back and forth tickets, I was told to move to a dedicated server as my blog was not only exceeding their "shared hosting" limit but also causing issue for other clients. (Note: The blog was using "WP Cache" when hosted with HG)
And guess what, I moved that site to DTH reseller account and it worked there without an issue. Although, initially (without WP Cache) the CPU usage was as high as 20%-25%, my site worked without an error. Jedito was kind enough to let me tweak few things without shutting down the site. And when I was finally able to implement Cache, the CPU usage/load became 3.5%. So the site that required a Dedicated Server as per HostGator support was working absolutely fine with DTH Shared/Reseller account. (Amazing, isn't it )
Now, my complete analysis of (DTH) after being with them for over 1.8 Year:
Hardware:
I am with DTH since August 2007 and so far other than two major issues, I haven't seen any other problem with them. One in January 2009, when there was a DDOS attack on the server and I experienced connectivity issue; and one in March209, when there was some server problem. I am happy that they were able to sort it out quickly.
DTH score: (9/10)
Support:
That's where DTH beats any other host any time of the day. Sometimes, I get the feeling that I am not using support desk but chatting with them. The shortest reply I got was in less than 1 minute. And it's not just one time; most of my tickets were responded in less than 10-15 minuets. I wouldn't say that ALL of my tickets were answered within minute. The longest response I got was in 4 hours. But I am still happy because instead of getting reply like "We will update you shortly"... I got the reply "It's done". Whenever I needed them, they were there to help out. For me, it's the best support I ever got.
DTH score: (11/10)
Billing/Sales/Customer Service:
With DTH, I always felt that I am a special customer rather than "just another customer" feeling. Whenever I asked for a "little" favor from billing/sales, I got more than I ever wished. I have never seen such a friendly host (and I have been with more than 8 hosts now).
DTH score: (12/10)
So I am going to say it again... and again.... and again.....
Shared hosting can't get any better than what you get with DowntownHost.
DownTownHost is not just one of the best hosts, they are simply THE BEST.
I am sorry if you think unnecessary details were included. Feel free to ask me any question.
Downtownhost is amazing. I have never been so fond of a host before. Yes, I've only been doing websites since 1999, but still, they are excellent.
I have been working on a site for a client since December and it was on server28 until tonight. I went on the online chat, and after about 35 seconds, Diego came online and told me about a server in Washington, server32. Since the future web viewers of this site will be in California, I think Washington would be a much better server location than Texas. I put in a ticket, and four minutes later, Diego had it moved, database and all.
My site on server20 has been up since June 2007, going down only for a little bit when there was a server problem. Overall, the service has been great and the support is phenomenal. I currently recommend only Downtownhost to my web clients because of their excellent support.
When I setup that site in December on server28, my client didn't enter a phone number where he was currently, and that was when they decided to call to activate the account.
When Sebastian saw my email address as the referral, he immediately approved it.
Sebastian has helped me more than Jorge and Diego, but all three of them provide excellent, quick support through chat and tickets. I don't think I've put in a ticket that has stayed open for more than a day. They are fast and efficient.
Some sites I have with them...
server20: scec.com
server26: bethanyjanewilson.com
* I don't want to include all of them, just a little bit.
As of this review, I have setup 7 accounts on 6 servers since June of 2007. I plan on getting more people to this host.
Back in winter 2006 I visited this very forum asking for advice on where to find a reliable and friendly host. I was shown downtownhost by several people on this forum and I was initally impressed when I saw them.
I've posted up two reviews so far of them in this forum, both of which were very positive.
Over the past year I have been on the smallest semi-dedicated hosting plan which I believe is around $60 a month which I'm happy with.
Until that time I was on their shared hosting which was too excellent.
At first if I had a few problems the three guys (there was only 2 at first I think) were on the support desk to help me out.
Speed and reliability are as good as I can hope for. I never have any problems any more so haven't had a chat with the guys on the support desk in ages but I'm sure they'd respond better than ever.
I shall await your comments.....and the monthly hosting invoice that arrives in my inbox tomorrow
I am hosting my sites with DownTownHost since July 08 and i must say i am really impressed with their quality of service, uptime and site speed. I haven't experienced any major issue yet accept some server modules were not upgraded and were vulnerable so i reported them. Everything is fine now. I am thinking to get a reseller account with them but their plans are too expensive for me. Saving money these days so that i could start my own web hosting business in partnership with them.
View 11 Replies View Related(I don't want to disclose my domains, but if required i may pm them to moderators.)
I've just realized that it's been over a year since i've started doing business with downtownhost. I thought it's time to write a review.
Hosting (Plans/Servers/etc.): Their plans are affordable, servers are uncrowded (at least it seems so), everything is working as it should be. Over 1 year, none of my sites gone down. (at least i haven't seen it or received any complaints).
Support: Downtownhost has great support. They are quick and reliable. They even helped me with issues which are not even their responsibility. Example: I'm a little bit obsessed with little things. Last month, i just wanted to change my account name, main domain, some other little things which doesn't matter, but are important for me (and takes time). They didn't even ask a single question, they just did it, because i wanted it. That is a big, very big plus for me. This is not the only example, they helped me with several other problems throughout a year.
If you are thinking about signing up with downtownhost, don't think twice about it.
They're great.
Community, what does it mean - Pre-Installed Script Library from Downtownhost.com? When I have seen it, I was a little bit baffled with that.
Can anybody clear it up?
Narrowed down my choices to these companies. My customers will mainly be in Asia and for that reason I am thinking of going with Sharkspace and choosing their West Coast server option.
Anyone have experience with 3inetwork? They seemed geared towards Vietnamese customers (where I am at the moment) but can't find many reviews.
I have been with Medialayer for the last year, using their application hosting, and so far the experience has been quite good. They helped me transfer my sites over, and have answered pretty much all of my tech support questions within half an hour. However, I'm reaching my limit as far as their application hosting goes, and I'm not sure if I can afford the next jump.
My current deal is around 35 dollars a month for 50 gb transfer and 2500 mb of space. I've been playing with my setup for the last month or two trying to keep it under those limits, but now that I'm looking to launch a new site, I don't think I can do that anymore. They have offered another option for me, which would seem to be a VPS type solution.
Application Intensive (A.I.)
15,360MB SAS RAID Protected Storage
200GB Premium Data Transfer
768MB Dedicated RAM
DirectAdmin Reseller Access (create as many accounts/domains as you wish)
LiteSpeed Web Server (Enterprise)
Use of our Redundant DNS cluster and anonymous nameservers
R1Soft Continuous Data Protection
Full Management, 24x7x365 proactive monitoring
$129.95/mo, free setup. (month-to-month commitment)
Signup URL: https://clients.medialayer.com/signup-ai.php
Add-ons:
[+] 100GB Additional Data Transfer: $25/mo
[+] Additional IP addresses with justification: $1/mo per IP (first additional IP is free with justification)
Each virtual environment is given additional space so that you can safely use all of the 15GB within your reseller account.
Each host machine (the system housing all of the virtual environments) is based on the following hardware:
Dell PowerEdge 2900
Dual Quad Core Xeon 5420 (total of 8 cores at 2.5GHz each!)
16GB FB-DIMM RAM
8x 73GB SAS 2.5'' Drives
PERC 6i RAID 10
1000mbps uplink
Located in New York, NY.
However, 130 bucks a month is a pretty big jump up from what I have now, and is quite a lot when compared to most of the VPS solutions being offered here. I'm also slightly concerned about the NY server location. My current sites are based in China, and have had some long load times using their LA servers, and I'm concerned that that would just be exacerbated by having a NY server locale.
So, should I be looking to stay with them or move on? If I move on, are there other good hosts one could recommend that would be able to provide similar levels of support?
I've read several good reviews on MediaLayer and am in the market for a 10 dollar or less a month host with room to upgrade.
I took a quick look at their website and they don't advertise insane stats for 2 dollars a month, so I assume you actually get what you pay for with them, is that the case?
Essentially, I'm looking for some examples of WHY Medialayer is a top quality host. I'd love to hear some stories and/or references, if anyone here has them.
Also since im making this new thread I will write a review so far on what ive experienced with medialayer.
1. My account was setup within 1 hour of purchase
2. I received a professional and very detailed email regarding all the services
I had access to, which I might add was very user friendly.
3. The DirectAdmin Layout is very clean looking and modified to fit their websites
theme. Everything works perfect.
4. And 4th the most important of all.. I did a dns check on my domain after 2 days of letting the NS propogate and checked intodns.com and several other dns places and their dns is setup perfect.. there is literally no error at all which is very rare. ussually intodns.com will show an error on most dns's. My site is noteably extremely more responsive then it was on my prior host and they even allow ssh access so I was easily able to transfer my large sql db file over in a few seconds.
Overall this host is very good from what ive experienced in 2 days. Now I realize its only been 2 days but from what ive experienced on the process of setting everthing up and the site running, for 2 days I can tell its an excellent host of choice. Their email support is also extremely fast. Ive had a question regarding my mx records for mail and was responded within 2hrs or less with a very detailed explaination of the question I asked.
Please guide me which web host to be choose. I am planning to host a jewelry online store with 500 products. I am looking for shared hosting in starting. Web space required would be around 100 Mb.
How much bandwidth you think in starting it will be required?
Which web host is better and why? Also tell me considering features wise too. If any other good web host for starting then tell me.
I am in the process of building a database-driven website. The main purpose of the site is really for me to improve my PHP and MySQL, but I will be writing a forum and offer blogs to users, as well as the main point of the site, which is to allow users to upload text-based artwork (ie. stories, poems, etc). I don't expect the site to use up that much bandwidth (assuming my code is clean) or space, as I don't expect it to grow that large. Like I said, it's mainly a learning exercise.
Anyway, the point is, I am looking for a host. I am currently with DreamHost but am having a lot of trouble creating a custom php.ini (because I know absolutely no PERL and am just starting to learn shell commands). The main host I'm considering is MediaLayer. They advertise on their website that you have a private cgi-bin directory, but it was unclear whether this directory would have a private php.ini. This is pretty important for me as I don't have the skills (yet) to do anything too clever like what is required at DreamHost to change it.
Is anyone here a current or former MediaLayer customer? Is the php.ini in the cgi-bin? I know that DownTownHost have private cgi-bins, but the php-ini is not there.
I had a look on the forums but, although I found mostly good general feedback about MediaLayer, I couldn't find anything that specifically addressed the creation of a custom php.ini file.
i have a question about overselling, if i offer 999999gb's of diskspace for $1/mo, you say i am overselling, and its a bad thing, right? well does that mean medialayer oversells because they can't truly offer unlimited mysql databases, can they? eventually, just creating databases thousands of times will consume diskspace?
View 14 Replies View RelatedI am torn between Cartika and MediaLayer. I am looking to have 2 sites hosted with them. I am at the moment only considering these two options. I am looking for reliability, speed, and true multihosting along with CDP back ups. The third contender was UnitedHosting, but they are a smidge more expensive. I will be hosting one Joomla site and one Wordpress site. Price wise they are on par. Both their reps seem outstanding. I need a nudge one way or the other.
View 14 Replies View RelatedI work for a medium sized non-profit organization. We are currently looking to upgrading our hosting. These are our requirements:
- 2 gigs of storage
- 15-20 gigs of bandwidth
- PHP/MySQL
- SSH access
- As fast and reliable as possible
Our budget is up to $30/month, but I'd like to pay a little less if possible. Most importantly, we need the hosting to be fast and reliable. Our website is built with PHP/MySQL, and right now it takes forever to load anything. It seems that Medialayer and Liquidweb keep coming up as reliable and fast hosts, so I'd like to hear your thoughts as to which you think would fit our organization best.
I moved from A Small Orange to Medialayer in late June of 2008, and although I was a little unsure on going from cPanel to DirectAdmin, aside from one small thing* I honestly don't miss cPanel at all. Medialayer themselves ported my sites over (I'm always scared I'll mess things up on my own) so really, changing control panels was rather painless for me.
Anyway, as far as actual hosting I could not be happier. The only downtime I've experienced was scheduled and announced well in advance and never for very long.
Support tickets and general inquires are answered ridiculously fast to the point of being scary. I'm still not used to getting replies within minutes instead of hours or days.
I don't currently use a custom plan but the fact that I can request one is a huge plus to me. With my previous host you could add extra bandwidth but not space (you're only option was to simply go up to the next plan) and that always felt very limiting to me.
I'm aware that these days hosts with Medialayer's pricing structure are called "expensive" by some, but I'm still stuck in 2004 and consider them priced just right for what they offer. Also, as far as I'm aware Paypal is still the only payment option, and although that is fine for me, it won't be for others.
* (The only thing I miss is the ability to purge/make unwrittable the stats/awstats folders. I'm not sure if this is a host vs host or cPanel vs DirectAdmin difference, and really it is so minor in the grand scheme of things and only even noticeable to someone stupidly anal such as me.