As per the thread title really, looking for an alternative to host gator to plink a cub website / forum on. Recommendations greatfully appreciated.

Chris

Try 1and1, but there are many free ones out there too

I've heard reviews about hosting companies from quite a few of our customers. I've heard that Heart internet generally seem fine, i.e. less complaints than others commonly used. I would be careful of FastHosts and 1and1, however they are very cheap, and might do what you want.

The main complaints from these companies tend to offer cheap and cheerful solutions, but if something goes wrong, then they often will not want to help, and often just blame the software used to create the website.

I work in technical support for a software company, specialising in the eCommerce and Electronic Point of Sale till software, and our software allows customer to upload their website to a web hosting package of their choice. Main requirements being Perl to run the checkout scripts and contact us forms etc.

We also provide hosting packages, however the website must contain sites using our software, and the occasional basic website on the site. So I have a bit of a background on technical support for hosting on Linux based servers using Parrallels Plesk Panel, and also cPanel.

I'm a web developer, and use Vidahost for both my personal sites and for work. They have have a good range of services and great support. You can get a 10% discount with my referral code, CR10H

Edited 19 May, 201313 yr by Craig A Rodway

fasthosts are fine for DNS, and webhosting. I tend to do my of my hosting with krystal.co.uk as they have a funky underground ex-mod bunker ;-)

1and1 on the otherhand seem to generally pants, but offer templates to sucker fools in!

I'm using HostPapa and there've been excellent over the past 5 years.

Reliable, feature rich, cheap enough, unlimited hosting space, unlimited email addresses, 'green' policy, etc.

Hosted in Canada, but doesn't seem to have effected my business in any way.

I've uses QIQ for years now. The prices are a bit more now but they have honoured (for years now) all the features and prices from when I orignially signed up which is good.

I would be careful of FastHosts

I use Fasthosts and have not had any issues with them, then again I am not asking anything technically demanding from their service.

www.tsohost.co.uk - You won't find better.

www.tsohost.co.uk - You won't find better.

Unless you want to host anything using a DB, then they appear to be rather tight.

Most of the low cost options are for a reason, you share with a lot of users or have fairly tight restrictions in place. Be that disk space, or software versions.

The ones listed above are fine, if you want a little more control, then you can't go wrong with a VPS. Linode etc provide great service, but at £20 a month it might be more than you want. For resource hungry things like forums, it's enough. Other way out left field options are Amazon EC2 instance, I think you can still get 12months free, googles app engine likewise.

Contra to the above I've always had nowt but heartache with fasthosts, 1&1, never tried them, but imagine it's take a number support and care.

If speed is not vital, then the US market is saturated with hosting options, http://www.lowendbox.com/ but you'll be adding 30-200ms to each request. Fixable with using things like couldfare; which I'm about to test on this site.

No idea how savvy you are, but there is a good batch of cloud platform providers. Heroku, app-fog, azure etc... they give you a bit more than the cheap hosting, but remove the admin overhead of a vps. I run a few sites on them, again can be had from free with only a few caveats.

I hear Clook are pretty good, never used them myself but I know someone that does and they highly recommend them.

I use this lot and have had great support from them when needed (only email) but it is nearly instant. Price and facilities work for me.

http://ukwebsolutionsdirect.co.uk/

John

Been with a 1and1 dedicated server for several years and had no issues and decent support. Though that is a more substantial service than you are after.

Vidahost, you can park/host multiple domains, they offer a range of CMS/forum install options as off the shelf scripted installs and the backup is UK based and superb. They aren't the cheapest but they actually give a .... and are reliable.

If you need web hosting,I would suggest you to get it from Tucktail.com at reasonable price.They provide good service with customer reliability.