Web Hosting Posted by: Dale Franks
on Sunday, August 05, 2007
So, I click on over to Captain's Quarters, and, once again, I see that Hosting Matters is having yet another horrific problem. I always wonder, why don't their customers ever get tired of them?
I mean, first, it seems like they have some sort of problemon a repeating basis, like the denial of service attack they had a while back, or just...downtime for odd reasons. I don't know anything about Hosting Matters, so maybe they have some special deal that they work out with bloggers. Even with that, though, I'd get a little tired of having my web site go down for hours every couple of months. Especially when considering that, when they go down, they take about half the blogosphere with them.
Sure, some bloggers have tired of it, but there's really a lot of blogs that host there—including several of the bigs—and I really can't for the life of me understand why. The test of a good hosting service isn't, "My site went down, but the host fixed it!" The test of a good hosting service is, "Hmmm. let's see...when did my web site last go down?"
And I really can't understand why so many bloggers go with them when you consider the prices they charge, and what you get for it. Compare this from Hosting Matters with this, from our host, CrystalTech. Oh, and note that with Crystaltech, you get both PHP/MySQL and .NET/SQL Server on every web site. And, of course, if you do have a problem, you pick up a phone, and talk to an actual human, 24/7. Why would you pay the same price for half the disk space, half the bandwidth, and half the technology, and get plenty of downtime in the bargain?
I honestly don't get it. How did they get to be the King Host of Bloggers with their reliability record? Maybe some of you who know more about them can explain it to me.
I’ve had some fairly decent luck with my host, IXwebhosting. I get MySQL, PHP, PgSQL, MSSQL, etc.
That said, I asked a pretty much the same questions at my place, last night. I suppose part of the aswer lies in the capacity for handling large amounts of traffic that the sites we’re talking about get. Perhaps the price of a dedicated server is lower, too, I dunno. Just tossing possibles.
But I also wonder, how many of the problems that they run into are due to an external attack, attacks that would follow some of the big league sites, anyway, regardless of where they went?
My hosting provider is the best. Unlimited bandwidth, as much storage as I wish to buy hard drives for, I can run any OS or Web server I want. 24 hour technical support and unlimited web sites.
I simply run it out of my house. I pay for business class Internet service, have 20 down 5 up fiber, and am in total control of everything. If it goes down, well, there’s only one person to call - me.
But, doing this kind of work is what I do for a living so I’ve got the skills to do it and I know a lot of people don’t, but it’s fun nonetheless.
But I was on about traffic, not the quality of the site per se’. And, as I say, it’s a matter of perception. It’s just a guess, mind you, but I’m willing to bet he draws more traffic than my place does. Like about "Add another zero" territory.
And I mention it, only because traffic intensity would seem to be a factor at Hosting Matters....
My hosting provider is the best. Unlimited bandwidth, as much storage as I wish to buy hard drives for, I can run any OS or Web server I want. 24 hour technical support and unlimited web sites.
Yeah, I’ve been considering running a server here as well, but have not for several reasons, not least of which being we like to camp and so are not here all the time.
Having to run home from a campsite to kick the server would not make me a popular guy with the family.
I’m calling quits on Hosting Matters. I’m sick of the down time, and other various server issues, and how they treat me (the sheer rudeness), if I alert them to it.
I just migrated my blog over to a vps account with eight Xeon cores and 30GB of space, for less than 3 times the cost of the Hosting Matters account, which only had 700mb of space. Oh and the new company actually has Fast, Polite, and Reliable customer service.
