Bye bye Dreamhost & GoDaddy, hello HotDrupal, NameCheap & Google

Tags: 

After several hears calling Dreamhost the home for my website, I've moved the site to HotDrupal.com, a web hosting firm that specializes in Drupal hosting. So far, so good.

My main reasons for the move were:

  • Dreamhost throttled its web server to the point that my site was no longer able to run without throwing errors on 3/4 of logged-in pageviews, which caused rather horrid problems including causing most of the pages to stop work & menus disappear.
  • Dreamhost had no intention of changing this as it is part of their business plan - throttled, limited hosting at discounted rates.
  • While I could have gotten a VPS (virtual private server, kind of like a full server sliced into more manageable pieces) and had more, I didn't want to spend that much nor did I want to have to manage the server itself.

I'd like to say that I've never really had any problems with Dreamhost themselves, they've been very reliable over the past few years, it was just simply that with my site stopped being able to work I had to move elsewhere.

HotDrupal has been really good over the past few days while I got my account set up. They don't offer the earth, like some, instead they offer specialized yet flexible hosting and cover all of the basic needs if you don't specifically need to host a Drupal site.

I also took the opportunity to move the domain registration away from GoDaddy to NameCheap (affiliate link), a company that doesn't need to promote its services with scantily clad female racecar drivers. I've previously moved other domains to NameCheap and this was final one. Again, so far I like their services - lots of features for decent rates and they don't waste your time with tons of obstructive & annoying sales pitches on what felt every single page load like GoDaddy does.

Lastly, I've moved the domain's email hosting to Google Apps, just so that I could separate email from the website hosting, which will give me more flexibility to move it around as necessary, and avoid filling up my disk quota with my gb's of IMAP email.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks to Dave Reid for the NameCheap recommendation.

6 Comments

hotdrupal sucks ass, the name

hotdrupal sucks ass, the name alone should give you a clue, how stupid.

Glad to see you migrated away

Glad to see you migrated away from Dreamhost. I have heard countless horror stories from Dreamhost. Even though your story isn't really a Dreamhost horror story. What I don't like about there service is the fact that they use their own control panel. Please feel free to share your experience with Dreamhost here:

http://www.the-best-web-hosting-service.com/dreamhost-review.php

@anonymous: thanks for the

@anonymous: thanks for the comment; I picked HotDrupal as they're one of the few hosting companies that promote support for Drupal, and I've read recommendations for them from people who's opinion I trust. I haven't seen anything from them yet that would suggest they sucks.

@garen: I didn't have a problem with Dreamhost's custom control panel, I found it better than many commercial ones. My primary problem was that, in order to support their business model, they have hard limits on what the processes can do, which caused my Drupal site to break. I'm actually keeping my account with them for some static sites I run for some friends.

I have two accounts with Hot

I have two accounts with Hot Drupal (or "Holistic Solutions" if it makes you feel better). I have to say I have been very happy with them. They respond to issues quickly and their servers perform nearly as well as the VPS I use. Not sure where @anonymous got his colorful opinion. It sure would be nice to get details.

The only bump in the road for me was learning I cannot install PECL onto my site. which allows you to get a progress bar when uploading large files. In that one case the service people were not able to offer me a solution and basically told me this was what you get on a $10 a month shared plan. So that kind of flies in the face of the "Shared VPS" line they tout.

That said, I do think they are far FAR superior to the other shared hosting services out there. I have been migrating my sites off iPower web for a while now.

Hi Damien, Thank you for a

Hi Damien,
Thank you for a useful post. I had a specific doubt with regard to domain registration and hosting. I saw that one can register a domain through Google (using their partnership with eNow or goDaddy), which includes Google Apps. But I was wondering if I can also get a Drupal installation along with this. Would you know?
Thanks.

They rent your contact phone

They rent your contact phone number to 900 telemarketers. They fight your transfer of YOUR domain name to another registrar, with 100 BULLSHIT reasons, until your domain expires- then they place a FOR SALE sign on your home page!!!! DON'T register your domain with godaddy.com...should say godildo.com!

Why doesn't some smart lawyer start a Class Action suit against these assholes- MILLIONS could be won...about 10,000,000 pissed off custmers of goDILDO.com!

How to reply

Care to add your own 2 cents? Let me know via Twitter or my contact page.