Abby and Win’s Blog

Posts Tagged ‘hostmonster’

Last year I pre-paid a hosting account from Godaddy and had my sites hosted there. The price for a shared hosting account is great. It’s been okay at first but then my needs grew and my sites started to lag a little. I thought it was my WordPress at first so I started disabling themes and plugins. That didn’t fix it. Then I went through the database to see if I can optimize it further, no go. I guess it’s a common thing to happen when you have a shared server that your sites may lag a little. There were times I get a timeout error though and that isn’t really normal.

Aside from the lag, I didn’t like how to access MySQL’s interface (phpMyAdmin). Every link I click on opens a new window/tab until I have like 3 different ones opened. There is also the possibility that your databases are in different servers. Also, creating a database can take up to hours before it is complete.

GoDaddy’s Hosting Connection is just horrible. Many of the add-ons are free but some aren’t. The selections aren’t that appealing nor many. After seeing that, I started to miss cPanel.

Finally, my year was up and I started to look for another host. After doing some research, I chose Hostmonster. The price is slightly higher than GoDaddy but I get unlimited storage and bandwidth. I also get my cPanel (hooray!) – amongst other goodies.

I’ve had them for almost 2 weeks now. There have been some problems. Last week my sites were inaccessible a couple of times on Monday but it was due to system updates. Kind of odd that they were running it during work hours. I’m used to seeing those done usually late at night or in the weekend. Now today same thing. This time they told me that someone else on the server was taking up most of the computer’s resources. It’s been a weird experience so far but for the most part my sites are loading up normal (faster than GoDaddy). I hope they can provide a more reliable service, consistently. I will see in the next week or two. If not, I’ll be switching to another company. What’s great with Hostmonster is you pay in advance, but if you leave early, they will prorate what you have already used and refund the rest.

I don’t think I’ll be using GoDaddy as a host again but I will continue to buy domains from them until some other company starts to charge less than they do. GoDaddy provides good packages for hosting needs. But as a developer, my needs can’t be met unless I get a more expensive package from them.

After playing with a paid version Hostmonster, it didn’t meet my expectations. While using the demo I got an idea of the features and services they provide, it still lacked what I was looking for/expected.

• Â SSH, though available, you cannot connect from your computer. You still had to log into cPanel and use its SSH interface. Not only that, but you have to provide a picture to Hostmonster in order for it to be enabled.
• Pear libraries can be installed, but only stable versions. There were a couple of Pear libraries I’d like to use but are in beta (Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer and Calendar just to name a few).

Those two are the major things that stuck out. It wasn’t worth the trouble of switching if I couldn’t get those 2 to work the I wanted it to. So I called them up and cancelled the account. The experience was great! They asked for the domain and they refunded the full amount, no problems. If I didn’t already have a host, I may have gone with Hostmonster just because of the experience. I also used their online chat to ask questions before I got an account and during. They were helpful and efficient.

I’ve been using Godaddy as my host for a couple of months now and for the price, they’re not that bad. For $3.95/month, you can host numerous domains on 1 account. But there are a couple of things I wish it had:

• Â iMAP support for email
• a better online file manager (they have been working on this feature for almost a year now and still nothing)
• allow remote access to the database
• SSH access
• PHPÂ Pear
• better support

Then I found Hostmonster. For $4.95/month (first 2 years pre-paid, then $5.95/month for the next 2 years pre-paid), I get what I’ve listed above, plus more.

• bigger storage space
• more monthly bandwidth
• RoRÂ (Ruby on Rails)
• WebDav
• each add-on domain can have their own separate FTP, login, etc. accounts
• cPanel

And that’s just what I’ve noticed so far. I just created an account today and I’ve already set my DNS on my sites to point to the new server. There might be some down time, so bear with me please. I will keep the Godaddy account active until I’m sure the new hosts lives up to my expectations. If not, I can simply change my DNS settings back to Godaddy and get a refund.Â