One of the most confusing and frustrating parts of finding a web host is not knowing what to look for.
Brian and I have decided to take a look at the hosts that we use and go through the benefits of both options. Also, I’ll share an option that is available to people who are in ministry with Campus Crusade for Christ or any of it’s affiliate ministries.
First, our hosts. I use DreamHost for all of the sites that I host or run (including this one) while Brian uses MediaTemple for all of his hosting needs (this is what CSUChat.com was registered through).
Dreamhost
Dreamhost has been around for just over 11 years now and have been a wonderful resource for me since I set up my own Whelpley.org site for our ministry partners. Here are some of the things you get for the $8.95 per month price.
- Storage: Unlimited + 50Gb of storage.
- Wait, unlimited plus something? Yep. You have unlimited storage for things that are accessible through a web page, but they also provide 50gb of storage for your files and things from your hard drive that won’t be accessible through a web page. No other “unlimited” web host offers anything like this
- Bandwidth: Unlimited
- Unlimited. No, really, unlimited. Here’s what they say on their site: “What we mean is, you don’t have to worry about disk storage or network transfer when your site gets popular.” You do have to keep things running cleanly and efficiently, but other than that there’s not a lot of limits.
- Databases: Unlimited
- Registered/Hosted Domains: Unlimited
- User Accounts:
- Email Accounts: Unlimited
- FTP Accounts: Unlimited
Other Benefits: POP/IMAP email access, easy One-Click installation of programs (WordPress, Gallery, ZenCart, PhpGedView, Pligg, dotProject, Moodle, Joomla, phpBB, MediaWiki, WebCalendar, Advanced Poll, and Trac), easy Google Apps integration, PHP5, Ruby on Rails, CGI, free Subdomains, free website mirrors and redirects, QuickTime streaming, 24-hour tech support, Web-based account panel, DreamHost support Wiki.
The $8.95 per month cost is based on a 2-year contract and paying at the beginning. If you pay for one year it works out to $9.95/mo and $10.95/mo (plus a $49.95 set-up fee) if you have a month-to-month contract.
I’d recommend DreamHost to every one who was looking for their own web-host. I’ve had virtually zero problems in the past 3 1/2 years. If you want your own account, click here to sign up, or use the promo code WHELP2 to get a discount on your domain registration.
MediaTemple (MT)
For those who have EXTREMELY limited knowledge of how to host, welcome to my club! I had no idea where to start in looking for a hosting provider.
My response: go to my favorite/most respected sites and see what they use. Over and over I saw Media Temple featured on the sites I liked/trusted.
There customer service is great (very patient people on the other side of the phone to answer my stupid questions, support tickets answered in under 24 hours usually, easy to navigate website, and an iPhone app (not a big reason, but cool nevertheless).
I pay $100 a year for the Grid Service Package (click here to read about the tech features of it).
CruTech Hosting
This is a hosting service through CruTech which is through the MidAtlantic Campus Ministry office. I (Jayson) run it through a DreamHost server that is owned by CruTech. What you get with this is the unlimited hosting and bandwidth of DreamHost without having to administer it yourself. I’ll set up your WordPress site and do some very basic design stuff and hand it off to you, you can take it anywhere you want from there.
The charge for this varies by ministry location and what ministry you are with; we charge only by staff account transfer so your payment is easy you just give me the account number or Chartfield and I’ll run the charge through after we set it up. Email me at jayson@CruTech.org for information about this.
Post image can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/altemark/ / CC BY 2.0
What are some questions you have as you think about going self-hosted? How can we help you figure out the best solution?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Jayson,
Great post, but I could use some more remiedial help (as might others getting started with all this). Like, what is the difference between a host and a place like godaddy.com where you register a URL? What does it mean to have unlimited storage? What is the difference between things “accessable through a web page” and things that are not? Sorry I’m so slow…:)
Bob
GoDaddy.com is primarily marketed as a domain registration service, though they do provide hosting (details here).Though they charge more than the basic price to register a domain. Also their hosting plans are limited.
As far as the storage, think hard drive. Your storage for your site is the amount of content that you can upload whether it’s newsletters, videos, pictures, text, etc. To have an unlimited amount of that is awesome. You don’t have to worry about uploading that 45 minute video of your best presentation of the Satisfied?! booklet ever, you have the space.
Bandwidth (more properly called “transfer”), think of your water provider at home. The main thing besides the water cleanliness that they’re worried about is how much water did you use? This is bandwidth. If you have that 45 minute video sitting on your site and no one watches it the video has no bearing on your bandwidth, just your storage. But when it goes viral because Steve Douglass tweeted about it, then your bandwidth becomes the issue because that length of a video could rate at a Gigabyte of storage and therefore a Gigabyte of bandwidth it would eat up – with a less generous host (like GoDaddy) after the 50th (or 1,500th) person watched it they’d start charging you waaaay extra for the transfer of your site. Just like when you leave your toilet running the whole time you’re at CSU.
“Accessible through a web page.” Well, it has to be umm… accessible through a web page. If you can’t go to a web page and access the content somehow it’s not “accessible through a web page.” Sorry for being snarky, no meanie feelings intended. The 50Gb of extra storage is not available through a web page only through FTP. (Wikipedia entry for that.)