Jay's Random Thoughts

I have been hosting this blog on Blue Host for about three years and in general it has worked okay. However, recently some technical issues emerged that took much longer than I anticipated to resolve and so I decided to research other shared web hosting options. My needs are quite limited since this is a low volume site; however, that does not mean that I am willing to sacrifice on quality. With that said, let’s look at some of the options I considered.

First, when looking a web host review sites, it is clear that there are many supposed “review” sites out there that seem to be thinly veiled advertising ploys. I did find a couple of sites that I liked including WhoIsHostingThis, Web Hosting Talk and finally, I liked this one. As you go through, it quickly becomes obvious that there is a range of options and price points. The difficult thing is that the cost of entry to webhosting is minimal with anyone being able to hang out a web hosting shingle with little or no outlay. Hence, it is critical to choose a “real” provider that has experience and knows what they are doing.

In my case, I was looking for simple shared hosting account. There are many more expensive options, but my needs are limited. My one caveat is that I did want an account that would let me host multiple domains and blogs which can be a consideration since some sites only allow a single domain. You will also note that many providers offer big discounts upon sign-up, but these are short-lived and prices will go up upon renewal. I ignored any short-term discounts and only focused on actual long-term costs. (The one exception is StableHost which offered a 50% lifetime disount.) The other thing to keep in mind is that the prices advertised on websites are often misleading because they assume that you buy three years upfront. My focus is on a one year term and so the prices below reflect that. After lots of research, here is what I came up with: Read More »