Ever After

Paid Host Review

Jan 9, 2008 Reviews, WWW

This is a continuation from my free host review post. On the whole, paid hosts are generally offer better services and are more reliable than free hosts. One would hope so because money IS being spent on the service, so they had better offer something good in return.

Start by looking at the various domains and find out where they’re hosted. See what they write about their hosts. Also, check out review sites like Web Hosting Jury and Web Hosting Stuff. Forums such as Web Hosting Talk are also recommended. They’re also useful if you want to request a custom package. Many hosts will then try their best to offer you exactly what you need at a decent price. However, you can’t 100% rely on review sites can’t because some hosts offer incentives to their customers to write good reviews about them. Nevertheless, they do offer some sort of insight on what the host is like.

Mimi’s recommendations:
Servage - It may seem like they are overselling, but during the year I was with them, they had great speed, uptime, and support. And of course, the price is excellent for what you get. There is no catch, no gimmick, and I was able to host about 6 gb of files on there using around 30+ gb of bandwidth per month. Only downside is that they have no Cpanel, but their control panel offers about the same features and is very user-friendly.

Cirtex Hosting - I’ve been with them for about a year and a half now, and they’ve been absolutely wonderful. At first I was skeptical about how they could offer such great services for so low a price, but quite a few sites in the design community were hosted with them and they gave great reviews. I talked to a staff there and they were friendly and helpful. They listened to what I had to say and then offered me a custom plan with great pricing, and things have been sailing smoothly ever since.

Mimi’s blacklist:
Netfirms - I’m very disappointed with the server speed when it comes to running scripts. There are just too many timeouts and errors, not to mention the slow running time. But if you’re not running scripts on your site, they do offer some amazing deals, including 2 free domains with their advantage plan. They have an extensive helpdesk, but their support can be vague and slow sometimes.