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What would be the best Hosting for a Network

I’ve been using shared hosting in the past and I’ve experienced slow loading of my sites.

I’m creating a new WP multi site network and I want to make sure it’s fast.

What do you recommend as a hosting solution and with which company?

Thanks

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:50:02
  • foodfriendfinder
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    WordPress is a resource hog , add multisites in a network,many plugins and cheap shared hosting is not going to cut it.

    You can check your page upload speeds with http://tools.pingdom.com/

    Get the best hosting package your budget can afford…..

    http://www.hostgator.com/ I have heard is relatively good but never used (as I have my own dedicated servers)

    Aecnu one of the staff on the forums here offers hosting but I not know what prices or packages he offers so check what he has to offer.

    Never and I say never..use Godaddy hosting..too slow.

    My opinion is minimum 4 gigs of ram on dedicated managed server but that expense might be over your budget.

    Also add a cache plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/ with>

    –ensure Memcached is optimized on server or your hosting package

    Also eliminate all unnecessary plugins and sidebar widgets

  • Tom Eagles
    • Syntax Hero

    @localniagara I personally use wpmu-hosting.org. I have a dedicated server with them. @aecnu is the network/server specialist here and was absolutely brilliant when getting the server up and running. I chose the Dual quad core xeon setup at 129$ USD. One of my clients has since also started on the same package. The support level is second to none and obviously having a team member from here helps as they know how to really configure the server. Check him out, may not be the cheapest but you do get what you pay for, excellent server and customer support. Plus i added a 1 TB drive, note that the dedicated servers all come with 16GB Ram as standard.

    Cheers

    Tom

  • Tom Eagles
    • Syntax Hero

    @foodfriendfinder that’s @aecnu ‘s hosting company

    cpanel and whm is an added extra but there are several options that are discounted if ordered at the same time as when you place the order for the server. Like i said not the cheapest but certainly the best i found and quite a few from here use him also.

  • Jason
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    If anyone is interested, I recommend Linode for having the best VPS at the best Price.

    Their VPS run circles around other’s dedicated servers.

    I have three nodes, 1 for media, 1 for DB and 1 for PHP. By keeping your DB, files, and scripts on separate servers, you divide the workload by 3. The 1GB ram on the DB server is strictly ONLY database. This isolation make sizing up and down much easier. Plus I can do a bare metal restore of any server in 5 mins. It’s crazy fast.

    After using linode, I’ll never use a dedicated server. On my setup, I’ve sustained 6,000 visitors per second without page load delay during traffic spikes, lasting for over 30 mins.

    Mind you I’m only spending $60 / month.

    Cons? Of course. Managing linodes are not for the faint of heart. You must be comfortable configuring servers from command line.

    Cpanel is nice, but it’s so bloated and weighs very heavy on the servers resources.

    Apache, bloated.

    MySQL, there’s better alternatives…

    PHP+FPM cannot be installed through Cpanel to my knowledge.

    Now there’s also an appealing idea if you really want to go with a true cloud service.

    Facebook is a supporter of Heroku, a true cloud based service. They also offer a free acount so you can see if it’s right for you, no time limits, only space limits, etc.

    Here is an install guide to install WordPress on Heroku for free. I mean, what have you got to lose? I may try it myself, but I know I would need to upgrade in a short time, and I’m not sure about the costs. But you do only pay for what you use, so while developing your website, you may end up saving hundreds while developing “In the cloud” and HDD failures and etc and no longer really a consideration, as the whole system is fault tolerant, etc.

    http://thecustomizewindows.com/2012/09/step-by-step-guide-to-use-free-heroku-cloud/

    Just some food for thought, the install guide looks easy enough, and you don’t have to worry servers. Just monitor your apps usage, and increase or shrink it on demand. (In fact, I think heroku does that for you)

  • aecnu
    • WP Unicorn

    Greetings one and all,

    @Jason I will put up one of my VPS’s any day against linode, BRING IT ON!

    I bet it spanks there butt when those 8 Cores, 16 GB RAM, and 6gbs HDD’s crushes through WordPress, ready when you are.

    No caching BS or anything else needed. Lets do it!

    The “cloud” is a bunch of sales BS in itself too.

    All it means is networked servers and total sales hyped BS similar to those “unlimited” plans that are not unlimited.

    http://www.horsesforsources.com/vineet-nayar-hfs-120310

    http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2123760&page=3

    And I quote:

    “I hate the term “cloud” computing – it’s just an invented marketing term for something most of us have been doing for ages anyway. “Cloud” is a meaningless term. Notice how you can replace the word “cloud” with “internet” in almost any sentence and it has the same meaning? Starting to see now that it’s just a bunch of marketing bullshit? “

    http://www.cloudave.com/9735/overloaded-to-death-%E2%80%9Ccloud%E2%80%9D-computing-is-dead/

    I have some great ocean side property for sale in Arizona, anyone want to buy it?

    I should have worn my fishing boots to work today, the BS is getting pretty deep in here.

    Cheers, Joe

  • foodfriendfinder
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    Jason I do think you have a good hosting package and probably perfect for what you are using and only $60/month.

    But to compare to what Aecnu offers ..sorry not in the same league.

    Looking at Linode ‘s prices you can get a Linode 4GB $159.95 160GB 1600GB>>> roughly same price of what Aecnu offers except>

    1/4 the Ram

    1/3 the storage

    1/5 the bandwidth

    If one has only 1 website on a dedicated server cpanel is not needed but if you have more than 10 websites and offering hosting packages >> cpanel is still the best

    Whatever the case Managing a website from server end is a challenge and if someone knows nothing about servers…getting a dedicated server would be a challenge.

    My advice is going with someone that you can contact and know you can get help.

    The fact that most people on these forums are probably using WPMUdev’s plugins and if they looking for hosting…….

    Going with Aecnu is a no brainer.

    I have my own dedicated servers so I not have a business relationship with Aecnu but I am constantly checking what hosting companies offer and can honestly say he offers a great deal.

    If I was starting out or had shared hosting and wanted a fast reliable hosting I would definitely be interested.

    The cost is just over $3 a day…

    I’m not sure what “peace of mind” is worth but for the price of a good coffee or 2 in a coffee shop…

    I’m make my own coffee at home and get a dedicated server.

  • Tom Eagles
    • Syntax Hero

    The cost is just over $3 a day…

    I’m not sure what “peace of mind” is worth but for the price of a good coffee or 2 in a coffee shop…

    I’m make my own coffee at home and get a dedicated server.

    couldn’t have said it better and i LOOOOOOOVE my coffee….

  • foodfriendfinder
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    Cloud Server or a Dedicated Server?

    Cloud Servers can be scaled up and down quite easily just using software.

    -You can increase or decrease RAM, Hard Drive space and CPU power using the software interface.

    Dedicated Servers is not so easy to scale them up or down.

    Cloud Servers are at the mercy of their hypervisor and the hardware platform they’re running on.

    They almost never perform as well as dedicated servers.

    Not Really Possible as — they’re a process that’s sharing a computer with others, whereas the Dedicated Server is a totally self-contained computer sharing nothing with anyone.

    Cloud is a fancy term for a VPS, lets you scale as you need more resources.

    If your using a lot of resources (cpu, ram) your better off with a dedicated server as it’s much cheaper.

    The key is to choosing a dedicated server or cloud computing is to understand the differences between the two types of hosting.

    The time it takes to deploy the servers are different. With a cloud server, once you contract for the server, you will have a ready-made server that is ready for use. You be given a variety of options so you can make choices that meet your specific enterprise needs.

    With a dedicated server, it will have to be configured so it will take a bit longer to deploy.

    Reliability will depend on the quality of the host service.

    Both are very reliable when you have a good host service provider.

    Kinda like apples & oranges..both are fruit.

    Personally I like apples better.

  • Jason
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    @Acenu

    Wow, I must of struck a nerve!

    However, cloud computing, is not what Linode is. I don’t use cloud computing, (ie Heroku, Amazon Web Services) are by definition cloud services. I agree that cloud services suck in general, but the question above asked for a cloud solution.

    And yes, it’s marketting, but by definition, a cloud service has already bundled and networked the servers for you, so you don’t have to. I look at cloud offerings about like I do with CPanel. Useless marketing garbage that’s over hyped. Well I guess it’s not useless if your a noob…

    Anyway, you want to compare VPSs? Well if you want to compare plans and bandwith, then by all means, I guess yours wins. But by that rubberband, I guess Globat has you beaten too, with their webserver plans starting with 1TB storage and unlimited bandwidth for $4 / month (http://www.globat.com/)

    Numbers are just numbers, and real world performance is a whole other story. I noticed the marketing garbage on those plans, it lists a 100MB uplink, but when it comes to the backbone sourcing, it’s just listed as “Premium Internet Conectivity” or whatever. There’s no data on backup lines, where they are located, and I couldn’t find a

    Here is a good honest discussion about Linode. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1173352

    Look at the comments on their latest blog post

    http://blog.linode.com/2012/08/28/linode-makes-2012-inc-500-list/

    ^^All those positive comments, and each one reverberates the same warm fuzzies that they give me.

    Now real world test? That’s going to be difficult with the amount of plugins you use, this and that I don’t really see how it could compare. Acenu, pick your bigest, fastest website, and let’s both run our results through http://tools.pingdom.com and measure page speed.

    OR alternatively, we could both list a website we want to put up against each other, and have users browse through 20 pages and time themselves, and they can vote on which is faster for THEM in a poll, right here on wpmudev.

    To be certain that I am clear, I am in no way emotionally invested in this, such as you are. I am not going to drop expletives about this or that, but if you can’t remain civil about it,feel free to drop out anytime, without refutal from me.

  • Jason
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    @foodfriendfinder I think you condricted yourself a tad bit there.

    Cloud is a fancy term for a VPS

    Then what if they made a “Cloud” of dedicated servers? Isn’t that still a cloud? <- Please don’t really try to answer my rhetorical question.

    Cloud Servers are at the mercy of their hypervisor and the hardware platform they’re running on.

    They almost never perform as well as dedicated servers.

    Not Really Possible as — they’re a process that’s sharing a computer with others, whereas the Dedicated Server is a totally self-contained computer sharing nothing with anyone.

    The right tool for the right job. A jeweler has little need for a sledge hammer.

    I’m a systems administrator, utilizing virtualization. I know all about the trade-offs, and there are. However, anyone with any brain knows that even servers have very well defined bottlenecks. A good rule of thumb is databases NEED memory. PHP, not so much. WordPress runs in ram around a max of 64MB of memory, again, depending on a lot of factors. Stupid timthumb scripts (insecure, bad idea, stay away) can easily use more than that.

    Every dba out there worth his salt will say “Use a dedicated database server” Your disk io will be crushed with poor seek time, as the hdd heads fight over pulling data from the DB vs pulling php and static files from across the volume. And apache is the worst for this. The configuration is so sensitive (as in easy to configure in a not optimal way, it’s too easy for the lazy admin to cheat and do it a hackish way)

    All this can be solved by using, separate dedicated servers. Sure, that was easy, but is that what you’re spending your money on? You may never EVER need more ram on a single dedicated server, because your bottle neck isn’t CPU or RAM it’s Disk I/O everytime.

  • shawng
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Wow, I’m jealous, 6k members and my server would puke all over itself, but then again I am sure 100% that it is my fault as I am no sysadmin.

    I simply go colo with my own equipment as it is so much less hassle. It’s nice that the datacenter is only a 30 min drive from my house and has never ever ever been down due to something that was not my fault. I’m good at breaking things.

    @aecnu or @Jason or any other syadmins out there…..

    I’d be eternally grateful if anyone wanted to take a peek at my setup and tell me where I screwed up. The last time I ‘blitzed’ my server it puked so bad that even newbies were laughing at my results…. They were so bad, I don’t even want to say what range they were in.. lol..

    It does go to show though.. it is more the person behind the hardware than the hardware itself as to how fast and reliable a hosting server is. I’m around $398/mo just on my wp servers, add in another couple grand for the wowa/kaltura cluster and the bill is rather large, and your little serves are kickin my butt :slight_frown:

    As I am trying to build out the next edublogs, that is exactly why I came here in the first place. It is a comforting feeling knowing the plugins I am getting here are in daily use on large systems and the people I’m talking to actually know what they are doing. This place is a dream come true for me

  • foodfriendfinder
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    Jason basically what I was saying….it’s a choice and what one prefers or used to is their choice.

    I did try to offer my opinion to the differences in a general way and did say> “Reliability will depend on the quality of the host service.”

    You started the discussion by saying your $60 a month cloud package runs circles around some dedicated servers.

    That’s probably true as dedicated servers come in many flavours and if they are configured correctly.

    But I believe you were trying to make the impression that cloud is better than dedicated server.

    Like I say, I prefer apples.

  • Jason
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    @foodfriendfinder

    You:

    But I believe you were trying to make the impression that cloud is better than dedicated server.

    Me, previously:

    I agree that cloud services suck in general, but the question above asked for a cloud solution.

    I’m feeling pretty misunderstood in here at the moment.

    @shawng

    I completely understand what you’re going through man. I really do, you have no idea the amount of reading, and years of configuring apache for performance, and it’s just not there! Half the instructions on the net are outdated, inaccurate, or just plain wrong. Unfortunately this is also true for Nginx, however the wordpress codex provides us with a secure configuration for nginx.

    We all know teaching an old dog new tricks isn’t easy. But after a few months with Nginx, I felt like I knew more than years of experience with Apache.

    I wish I could help you out, PM me and maybe we could work out something. I’m a performance geek. I had to be because I had a blog that was massively popular, and I was on a shoestring budget at the time. Efficiency is kinda a way of life for me.

    But ask anyone, If a Corvette was racing an 18 Wheeler, who would you be betting on?

  • Tom Eagles
    • Syntax Hero

    But ask anyone, If a Corvette was racing an 18 Wheeler, who would you be betting on?

    Depends on the race, i wouldn’t be wanting to drive the corvette in a stock car race :slight_smile:

    All i can say is that i go by the support that comes with the service, and the dedicated server package i have is more than enough for my needs.

    2 dual quad core xeons,

    16 GB Ram

    1 TB Drive room for 2 more.

    Plenty of memory set aside for mysql and php

    Running lots of plugins for a similar site to edublogs.

    btw with almost 1,5 million users and blogs guess what edublogs runs on i believe 2 dedicated servers :slight_smile:

    At the end of the day its about personal choice kind of like picking a Ferrari over Lamborghini, both fast both top of the range.

    I would love to get into the situation where i need more than 3 TB’s of storage, because i would be quite successful by then.

    But as I said the service side is just as important if not more important, and when your host configures servers to run wordpress and happens to also be one of the team here you have both bases covered.

    But let’s not make this personal, it’s a good discussion on the merits or pitfalls of each side of the coin.

    cheers

    Tom

  • foodfriendfinder
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    Jason don’t feel you are misunderstood

    Just a discussion and I value your points makes me think too.

    There is no perfect solution but if it works …it works.

    As shawng I believe has noted…one can spend alot of money but if not configured correctly..it doesn’t work.

    For sure I don’t believe you or I will change the setup we presently have…as we probably have different needs & requirements.( I have 60 websites on a dedicated server)

    but more for people on cheap hosting that wonder why their WP site is slow or not performing well.

    Your solution on the cloud hosting package you have is light years ahead of Godaddy’s cheap hosting and I think inexpensive in the long run.

    $60 a month is definitely cheaper than a dedicated server and a good place to be.

    I wasn’t trying to downplay your package and if I gave that impression I apologize

    And as you said the original poster to this thread appeared more interested in cloud hosting.

  • Jason
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    @Tom

    Thank you for the comentart. And I have to say, I agree with you. In fact, I believe I said something about multiple dedicated servers would of course be even better…

    :wink:

    Thanks for reinforcing my point. The right tool, for the right job?

    A single site, with high traffic benefits from a small distributed setup, but a large site with many interactive users, requires much more hardware, where you get into counting MB/per user.

    My jeweler with a sledge hammer analogy was my attempt at relating that in lay-mans terms. A sledge hammer isn’t useless just because a jeweler has no use for it. For the construction worker, it’s exactly what you need. The right tool for the right job.

    Benefit’s of VPS, that may NOT be so obvious are

    Hardware Freedom.

    Faster Deploy-ability.

    Faster Scalability.

    But I think the take-away from the above is that you’ve got a better development options in VPS because of that flexibility. I can roll servers back and forth through time, like if an update fails or other catastrophic event occurs. Having hot backups ready to revert to in less than 5 mins means less work managing servers, and more time developing great websites.

    Also, I am unbiased in this argument, as 1. I don’t care what you do, you should choose what fits your needs. and 2. I’m not selling anything, there’s nothing for me to gain from making my points.

    But I feel like VPS is getting bashed around here, when, man, there’s some MASSIVE sites out there hosted on VPS.

    I was running awsmer.com(taken offline due to time constraints) on a slicehost VPS and the CPU there cost twice as much as linode and underperformed big time.

    So I can see where people hear from providers, “oh, it must be that hypervisor bottleneck”. Those guys are running their VM’s on VMware or something worse. Xen is light and fast, and there’s plenty of providers out there, and they are NOT all equal.

    That being said, the best server I ever owned was a dedicated server at Melbourn.IT But I couldn’t justify the $1,000/month bill (I was basically breaking even) Running a web-based proxy service.

    I think we can all agree that there’s good (aecnu) and bad (globat) providers out there, but VPS shouldn’t be ruled out as inferior to dedicated in all situations.

  • Jason
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    @foodfriendfinder

    Yea, I particularrly like my 100 MB backbone link to nodes in other countries.

    In my specific needs, I deploy servers physically in regions where they will… well serve!

    If you only needed a server in Dallas Tx, for the local guys there, then that’s fine. But having a server in New York because it’s close to you may feel snappy to you, but the other coast is going to feel the latency for sure.

    So there’s a lot of considerations to think about when making a choice.

    @localniagara is Looking at budget, and scalability. I think in HIS case (I was never trying to convert you, I’m not an evangelist) I think VPS sounds like a good fit for him, or maybe even Heroku (could be free if his traffic is low) He mentioned those points and I don’t think realistically a dedicated server is what he was looking for.

    A single Linode will easily run a single install of wordpress for $20 / month ($15 if he digs around for referral codes) like a scalded dog. Again, a small server, a single site, but scalable. Sounds about right to me.

  • Tom Eagles
    • Syntax Hero

    I think we can all agree that there’s good (aecnu) and bad (globat) providers out there, but VPS shouldn’t be ruled out as inferior to dedicated in all situations.

    I was working on a cloud deal a while back but for application servers for Autocad, close to a 8.5 million euro solution.

    Distributed networking has been around for years, When i was head of lucent technologies GSM divisions corporate intranet we were using dedicated servers mirrored and distributed world wide and using a package called octopus, basically you were routed to the closest web server and if that failed to the nearest mirror.

    This was back in the mid 90’s when this technology was still in its infancy. The cost then was more like an international telephone number. I miss those days bcause it was simply a challenge to do anything then, when web development meant actually coding pages by hand lol. The fun stuff is when i look at the packages my team worked on are still around today (allbeit in a revised form) and run around 70% of the worlds sms and mms gateways.

    At the end of the day its down to budget and personal choice and hopefully a great provider. I personally went with a dedicated because i knew i would get the support from the provider who goes the extra mile and more to keep his clients happy.

    Me i am not in the hardware business but with some 20+ years in the business ranging from corporate setups down to me on my own now, i like to think i can make the right choices for what i need.

    But an old dog can learn new tricks if needed….

  • Jason
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    I’m currently consolidating servers where I work due to cheap hardware, and the hardware is finally outpacing software.

    The standard I use now-a-days is dedicated cores to vm, memory blocking, placing the HDD image on it’s own mirrored disks, and dedicated NIC in bridged mode. GBit of course. But those are Active Directoy, Sun servers, etc. They are much more hoggish of resources, and even with that, they are so much faster and I’ve crammed 8 servers on 1 box. That’s dual cores for every Vserver.

    @Tom teaming servers for auto-cad, that’s some awesome work right there. Sounds like something for Baldor.

  • Tom Eagles
    • Syntax Hero

    @Tom teaming servers for auto-cad, that’s some awesome work right there. Sounds like something for Baldor.

    That’s not half of it, the next gen of autocad will allow full 3d dimensional work through a simple terminal thanks to the new gpus that are on the way. Imagine logging into a virtual windows 7 desktop from anywhere and running autocad with full hardware acceleration done server side. Also imagine the power of distributed cpu’s working on massive fluid dynamics calculations etc.

    Unfortunately i can’t go into the details on the deal but lets just say it’s an awsome solution, effectively slashing the costs on graphics stations.

  • shawng
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    @Jason

    Does this site have a PM system? been looking for some time now, don’t see links to pm. Of course its 130 my time anyhow, so probably to tired to see it, waiting for my 300k posts to finish importing so i can call it a day and get some sleep

  • aecnu
    • WP Unicorn

    Greetings @Jason,

    Sure enough you struck a nerve, not about servers, or plans, nor even VPS’s, actually nothing to do with hosting at all.

    The nerve you struck was with the BS, and even in that post mentioning you struck a nerve you continued with more BS the moment you used the word “unlimited”.

    There is enough BS in this world without one just facilitating more and more, from one BS “the cloud” to the next BS “unlimited” to a cloud of unlimited BS.

    That’s the nerve. More regurgitated sales hype on what is probably in this case throttled hosting so that it does not go any faster then a certain speed anyway which in turn limits the bandwidth – oh don’t believe it? Lets ask @Dean Kaus about this very subject.

    Or @MTB1701 about Host Gator’s Unlimited this and that but what they do not tell is they limit how many files you have and when you call them on it how they may indeed choose to punish you by limiting your service i.e. php allocated memory in this case.

    I do not see the world through rose tinted glasses and I do see right through the muck of BS thrown at me everyday from every where and I will not stand for it.

    Now for a word from my sponsors, people that are hosting with me, people that have no reason to lie or regurgitate BS and whom have dug themselves through the BS to come out finding that I was spot on all the time.

    I am a person of truth and wise enough to know truth can also be in perspective i.e. half empty, half full glass of water.

    And the truth is I have not ever let any client down, I have come through for every single one of them except one to date – and that is @Tom here in this post in which we have a special project that I cannot disclose and have not completed to date due to the flow here on WPMU Dev and my commitments thereof.

    But I will not forget and I will do my best to make it happen and Tom knows it, but it is a special project that requires specific things well outside the realm of WordPress and the like.

    I am a man of my word, a purveyor of truth, an enemy of BS no matter where the source, and I kick but with my proprietary server configurations.

    Enough said.

    Cheers, Joe

  • Mark de Scande
    • Syntax Hero

    @localniagara There is only one guy i trust but befor i name names.

    I was hosting dedicated server with SoftLayer

    32 Gb of ram

    8 cores running at 3.4ghz each all the time

    15K SAS 2 in raid for the website and 1 back up 1 dbsetup

    Ps don’t forget the 4096 + 2 db setup and the 80K in users and blogs and the shit load of domain mappings we had on there

    Guess what i was on the server ever day and i had shit crap more shit more crap and it was all costing my sleep money and more problems ..

    To runs this mess it cost me $575 per month at softlayer and i was only getting about 2500 impressions per day and as soon as i get to 3000 impressions the server will load up yes run a server with load of 20 YES 20 – 50 and then you will no what stress is.

    Now my new setup cost me $150 with mmmm

    I am running 2 drives 7200 rpms

    Drive 1 the server files and websites

    Drive 2 The dbsetup and backup set

    No Raid no shit just well set up stuff

    4 cores 2.50GHz

    16 Gb of Ram

    Guys guess what server now runs all the time every time load stays at about 1 – 2 slow times and peak times is runs at about 5 – 6 and it is always on YES it is always on.

    O just as a bonus the server now does about 5000 impressions per day and then every now and again it does a whopping 15000 impressions and the load stays up and all users are still happy :slight_smile:

    So recap i went from a $575 server to a $150 and i get more bang for my bucks

    Ps 2 of the BIG hosting providers that DEF recommend offered to host my server at $3075 bucks what are they smoking.

    I am one man running The http://www.bloglines.co.za system i dont have any paper degrees you can have a look at my skill set here oDesk and i run my server trough and yes i am super proud to say this trough

    http://webhostingvirtualdedicatedservers.com/

    No BS just super kick ass hosting at the right price :slight_smile:

    BIG PS also running Shared Hosting for http://www.superblogs.co.za trough them

    @aecnu thank you for being my friend and partner your hosting is the best out there thank you again.

    Mark de Scande BlogLines.co.za

  • Jason
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    @Mark de Scande

    That’s a good deal. That’s what I mean, configuration goes a loooong way!

    I need to ask you sometime about how you deal with splogs…

    @aecnu

    Your offerings say unlimited databases. Now is that marketting? Or can I really load up 65 Billion Databases on that smallest vps you have?

    And btw, I was trash talking Globat, not saying they have a better offering than you. Anyone who will stop and look at that deal should see red flags everywhere. It’s rate-limited, file-limited garbage. Hopefully you understood that that was my point in bringing the up. They are one of the WORST service providers out there.

    There is enough BS in this world without one just facilitating more and more, from one BS “the cloud” to the next BS “unlimited” to a cloud of unlimited BS.

    I do not believe I am facilitating BS by pointing out that A. Shared hosting sucks B. there is not such thing as unlimited, and telling people not to trust anything unlimited. I cannot understand how you think I’m facilitating BS.

    I did state:

    Anyway, you want to compare VPSs? Well if you want to compare plans and bandwith, then by all means, I guess yours wins. But by that rubberband, I guess Globat has you beaten too, with their webserver plans starting with 1TB storage and unlimited bandwidth for $4 / month (http://www.globat.com/)

    ^^ LOADED WITH SCARSAM. ^^

    I wouldn’t talk about how crappy Globat is and then say they are better than you, when later I reiterated about how AECNU HOST = GOOD and GLOBAT = BAD

    Your commentary is defensive and totally confusing to me.

  • aecnu
    • WP Unicorn

    Greetings Jason,

    The only part in my post sir directed at you was the portion about striking a nerve :smiley:

    In which indeed it did, the rest was my own blather … lol

    I sincerely apologize that you were under the impression all that was directed at you.

    And you are spot on about the unlimited databases because the limit would indeed be in the space those databases take up from the allocated disk space – you are absolutely correct and I did not think about it prior to this statement. I was focused on the main BS of hosting companies.

    I will try to think of a way to clarify this statement on the site – perhaps with an asterisk and it saying limited to allocated disk space :smiley:

    This printed text stuff is at times really hard to deal with because one cannot see the smile of ones face or the tone in which one tries to express themselves.

    Now read this – have a GREAT weekend!

    Sincerely, Joe

  • Mark Wallace
    • Learn-ing-er

    @ROIBOT

    It sounds like aecnu is in the lead; @Mark de Scande gave a good testimonial! :slight_smile:

    Also i seen a post on the Gravity Forms forum you was on, about duplicating forms upon new site creation, this is now supported with a few “defines” added to the wp-config, AND the latest New Blogs Template here at WPMU Dev, just released on the 13 of Dec, 2012 saves all the PayPal settings upon new site creation!

    Just thought you might be interested!

    Be Blessed!

  • Fullworks
    • The Bug Hunter

    I was more interested in the hosting solution, rather than the hosting company. Being a UK based business I plan to continue to host in the UK. (of course one can debate whether it is important to host close to your clients).

    Currently I use a small VPS (1.5Gb). But with my current number of sites, I don’t have any issues. Just working out my future upscale routes.

  • Gabe
    • The Bug Hunter

    @bla7792

    Hi, can anyone comment on WP Engine for hosting network of sites?

    I use WP Engine and am very satisfied. To use multisite you’ll have to start with at least the $99/mo plan. It’s probably the priciest host out there to get started with multisite, but I’d easily pay double what I pay now. It’s nice not having to worry about anything like caching, compression, CDN, minification etc. The staging area and one click backup/restore tools are nice as well. Besides, I just like the company and the company’s founder. In fact I believe in it so much I even tried (unsuccessfully) to become an investor in the company a while back. Automattic (the company behind WordPress) invested $1.2 million in WP Engine.

    Even WPMU DEV recommends WP Engine. I also believe Mason James (WPMU DEV guy and WP Valet CEO) uses WP Engine for his clients and services.

    That said, WP Engine is great, but as mentioned in other discussions it all depends on the kind of business you want. WP Engine offers more, but they’re also more restrictive. For example you don’t get cPanel access so you can’t offer extra services many are used to bundling with hosting. It’s strictly WordPress hosting, not a VPS or anything. SFTP access is more or less the extent of your back-end access. As mentioned above @aecnu also offers terrific hosting services if you need more freedom. It all depends on what you want.

    Either way, just make sure you get hosting from a specialty WordPress hosting company. But before choosing a host, pick a business model.

    Hope this helps.

  • Mark de Scande
    • Syntax Hero

    My customer has these 2 sites there

    http://www.sandiegotanning.net/

    http://www.outtoday.com/

    After i have optimize them for him they load super fast and GT scores are trough the roof.

    If you have money to burn then WP Engine is the way to go :slight_smile:

    As my customer told me he don’t want to mange any thing that is why he use WP Engine.

    I did ask hem for a quote to run BlogLines.co.za they wanted $3500 just to run it i now run on a dedicated server with my tweaks for $150 Thank you @aecnu

    SO there you go:

    1) Lots of money at WP Engine

    2) Just use a guy like me to tweak the crap out of your server/website and you can get it super fast and a super price.

    https://www.odesk.com/users/~01d899ada51ae72f32

    Thank you Kindly

    Mark

  • Jason
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    @Mark de Scande de Scande

    Those sites are blazing fast, good job!

    As Joe already said, technically “Cloud” has always existed, it’s a marketing term. A DB server + PHP Server talking together is the old fashioned setup, and yet, it’s a “cloud” in not so many words.

    The conversation got off topic to VPS, when I stated I was very happy with my cheap VPS, and the benifits of VPS like instant backup restore and I can migrate my vps “node” from One country to another in about ten mins. These features are not cloud specific, they are xen hosting VPS specific, and they are (almost?) always in a “cloud” configuration.

    You COULD do the same with dedicated servers, yet it’s rare to find a good dedicated server setup to migrate to another server in ten mins, and also restore the entire OS in 5 mins from backup, DUPLICATE your server in 5 mins, etc etc etc.

    It’s the typical configuration of dedicated servers, convince, price and performance that I like about linode.

    Most people don’t do risk assessment’s like I do, and there’s tough decisions to be made. Just because a pig is happy in mud doesn’t mean you will be, and pigs don’t really fair well at the dinner table, so it’s about figuring out where you belong.

    If I was running a massive website for my buddies, for fun, I would want the biggest fastest cheapest server I can get. Who cares if it crashes?

    If I’m running a website to record health insurance records, I would sacrifice raw speed for security.

    If I’m a small business, looking to play it safe, save money, and squeeze my dollar as hard as I can, then I wound up at Linode. (Considering I don’t need to factor in system admin costs, my specific situation, etc)

    If I’m a small business and I’m clueless about websites, I host at godaddy and wonder why my website sucks and their support can’t help me.

    SO I think @Mark made a great point.

    SO there you go:

    1) Lots of money at WP Engine

    2) Just use a guy like me to tweak the crap out of your server/website and you can get it super fast and a super price.

    That’s exactly what I would do if I didn’t know about websites.

    Everyone here has already chosen wordpress as the platform, so you’ve already taken a great first step.

    And like the pig, there’s no right or wrong. You go with what “Fits”

    And I’ll get off my soap box, thank you for reading, and “I LOVE BACON”.

  • Fullworks
    • The Bug Hunter

    Yes, they are blazingly fast in some locations, i’m seeing a load time of 0.4 seconds in NY. Fantastic

    What it does illustrate is the importance of Geolocation as there as the load time goes up to 4 seconds when tested from Europe.

    I reversed tested with my less than optimised sites and the cross Atlantic delta time seems to be consistently 4 seconds.

    So I could optimise the c**p out of my sites and servers but it is all a bit pointless if they are in the wrong place.

  • Mark de Scande
    • Syntax Hero

    Hey all test this :slight_smile:

    Just optimization and some super tweaks go do some tests on bloglines.co.za

    1) http://gtmetrix.com/reports/bloglines.co.za/PaKOycCY

    (96A / 76C)

    Page load time: 1.86s

    Total page size: 753KB

    Total number of requests: 60

    2) Pingdom

    Load time 1.29s

    3) http://www.webpagetest.org/result/121220_2P_NVH/

    Page Speed 1.12 Score: 95/100

    4) http://ismyblogworking.com/bloglines.co.za

    103 ms page generation time

    Hosted by Mark de Scande BlogLines and with lots of love by @aecnu Hot Hosting