Cheap Web Hosting

Having arrived in Taiwan about a week ago, I haven’t had much time to sit down and write. I’m quite a few posts behind, so expect a flood of updates as I attempt to catch up.

With this being my first official site, I wasn’t looking for much. The three hosts I considered, Dreamhost, Lunarpages, and Bluehost, all have the basic features I was looking for: support of multiple languages (PHP, Perl, Python, Rails, etc), shell access, plenty of storage and bandwidth, and a free domain name. It was only later that uptime came up, with user comments suggesting that Lunarpages is the best of the three, while Dreamhost is the worst, with large variations in uptime depending on the other users on your shared server.

However, with shell access being an additional cost at Lunarpages, I had originally decided to go with Bluehost. It wasn’t until a Dreamhost deal came out at $22 for 2 years that I figured I could take a gamble, with no plans to have a site where uptime would be mission critical. Deals aside, as of this post, Bluehost and Lunarpages both charge $6.95/month for their 1-year plans, while Dreamhost charges $9.95.

Some resources that one might consider looking at are:

• Web Hosting Talk – A forum about hosting and running your sites, with a good repository of posts, and lots of active members
• Host Hideout – Another forum similar to Web Hosting Talk, but with slightly less content
• Web Hosting Reviews – For those who like to see numbers, this site lists hundreds of hosts along with user ratings and reviews
• Web Hosting Rebates – Useful when looking for cheaper hosting, this site lists the rebates available for various hosts