Hi,
I wanted to give some feedback on PHP 5 hosting in case it helps
someone. I signed up with DreamHost last Thursday. I also signed up
with OCS Solutions to compare the two services. I also maintain a
server with CalPop.
When I signed up with Dreamhost, I discovered that you have to fill
out a form and fax it to them, along with a rubbing of your credit
card. Personally, I found that part rather annoying. They say it's
for added security, but I've never had to do that with any other
online transactions that I've done. OCS Solutions had me pay for a
year up front, which always makes me nervous when checking out a new
provider, but they do offer a money back guarantee. Actually, both
providers offered a money back guarantee. DreamHost's is 97 days.
That's pretty good.
Cost-wise, both companies were fairly inexpensive. I ran a Google
search for "DreamHost Coupon" and found a coupon that eliminated a
majority of the up front cost. Actually, I was pretty surprised.
They give you a free domain registration that includes private whois
for free. After the coupon, I paid $9.90 and covered the start-up
fee (normally $45), the first month of service, and the domain
registration. It feels like I paid for a domain registration and got
free hosting for a month.
My account with DreamHost was created on Monday. Technically, it
took 5 days to get my account set up. That's the longest set up
delay I've ever experienced with any host provider. OCS Solutions
called me an hour after signing up and had my account setup shortly
thereafter.
I also registered a domain when signing up with OCS Solutions. The
whois was wrong. Somehow it ended up showing as registered to one of
their employees, but I called and they quickly fixed it. The account
was set up under the wrong username, but they fixed that quickly,
along with problems with cpanel when it doesn't handle the name
change correctly. Mistakes were made, but I was really pleased with
how easy it was to get help and I was really happy with how much
people obviously cared about helping out.
After signing up with DreamHost, the domain that I'd registered with
them wasn't working. I was exploring their control panel to figure
out the problem when I came upon a DNS management page. The page
automatically identified and fixed the problem. That was impressive.
Also, I started exploring the DreamHost forums after signing up,
something I almost wish I'd done beforehand. I found a lot of posts
from very disgruntled customers. It sounds as if they've been
running into problems lately on their servers. People complain A LOT
about the lack of phone support from DreamHost... you have to submit
a trouble ticket for everything. If your account subscription is
high enough, they offer a limited number of call backs. The worst
part was reading debates between the really happy and the really
unhappy DreamHost clients. A lot of the discussions boiled down to
verbal attacks between customers. I'm honestly surprised DreamHost
didn't intervene.
One last thing with OCS, the plan I started on turned out to be
insufficient for my needs. I talked with them and they came up with
a new plan that does everything I want and just charged me a little
more to cover the difference.
End result so far...
CalPop: I've always had problems with the initial set up of servers
at CalPop. Talking with their tech support on the phone is a
nightmare; there's something wrong with their phone lines (seems like
a really bad voice over IP solution). It usually takes way too many
emails to resolve problems. I've also experienced a lot of hardware
failures, which makes me wonder about the quality of parts they
purchase. Once the server works though, everything seems to settle
down until the next problem shows up.
DreamHost: Best prices, low service. It seems like DreamHost is run
by and tailored toward experienced techies. That's fine, I can work
with that. I'm willing to try working with limited phone support.
I'm really only concerned with delays I might experience when a
problem shows up in something that's mission critical. Beyond that,
there are a lot of features available here that aren't elsewhere.
I'm getting great value for my money.
OCS Solutions: Good prices, but you have to pay up front. Best
customer service I've experienced from an ISP so far. I feel a lot
more comfortable using them for anything mission critical.
On Oct 11, 2006, at 10:12 PM, Kyle wrote:
Hello,
I would suggest dreamhost at www.dreamhost.com.
Their prices look a bit hefty at first but there are referral codes
all
over the internet and you can end up saving $97. Their plans have
tons
of bandwidth and space and I haven't had any trouble with it. But I
would suggest them highly, their service is quite impressive. And if
you don't like the PHP features they let you compile you own!
Good Luck with it!
Kyle
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