Very, Very Happy... (After a nightmare)

[WheelCipher]

I have changed web hosting providers three times in the last month. This is a royal pain, but I have mastered the chore of backing up databases and content, moving them from one host to another, creating and importing existing databases, etc … If you have the opportunity to change hosting providers, don't.

I was originally with Liquid Web. These guys are great. In 5 or more years of service with them, I had almost no problems at all. When something did come up, they were available 24 hours a day by phone, and the problem was solved within minutes. The ONLY reason I left them was the cost. I was paying $100.00 a month for a private server, and it was just a lot more than I needed to spend on this "hobby". If you ever need quality hosting, I would suggest these guys in a second. They are really good.

In the interest of cost, and with the suggestion of a friend at work, I switched to Dream Host. This was the biggest mistake I've made in a long time. My friend says they are 100% reliable, blah, blah. Well, not so much. After numerous database connectivity problems, support issues that were not addressed, slow speeds, etc., I dropped them like a rock. I didn't do my research prior to switching to them. I should have read this. I hope they don't send me balloons. THEY SUCK!

I then went to ANHosting.com. They had very good reviews on the web. They are in the top 10 on all reviews I saw. I found their support to be of good quality, the service was fairly reliable, and any issues that cropped up that are associated with switching proviers were addressed in a timely manner. I had their Mega Plus package, which has 3TB of transfer and 300G of hard disk space for $9.95 a month. The price was reasonable, but I had to pay a year in advance. Mailing list capability and SSH functionality costs extra. Not much extra, but I didn't like the idea of having to pay extra for features that most other providers offer for free. After trying them out for a while, I found the speed of the connection to be quite a bit slower than I am used to. Connectivity was reliable, but it seemed the speed was half that of Liquid Web. Maybe it's my perception, but I don't think so. Then I moved on …

Hopefully I've found the Holy Grail. I picked up service with Host Gator. The service is f a s t ! I got their Swamp plan, which comes with 200G of hard drive space and 2TB of transfer. Since their office is in Houston, and the data center is in Dallas, I can drive there to complain if I have to. But so far, this is the best one I've used. It comes with everything that my Liquid Web account did, with more space and bandwidth. Not to mention $85.00 a month cheaper. Host Gator is awesome thus far. I've had ZERO problems and great support for my other issues. For the moment, Host Gator is looking pretty sexy. If it stays like this, I'll be here for a LONG time.

http://www.wheelcipher.net