Hosting HELL!!!! Please Advise...

If you were on a vps and still had those problems, than you must be running some sites that take up lots of resources. If thats the case, than you need a dedicated box.

You can't run anything but static content on Amazon S3, they do have cloud application servers which are called EC2. At the very minimum specs, it will run you $75/month +. Also, you will need to configure and manage the server... no vps style setup or cpanel (AFAIK) unless you install it. More of a dedicated server setup.

I have had really good luck for the last couple years with DownTownHost. Only using their shared hosting... Since it is shared it goes down every once in a while when the server gets rebooted, but that is to be expected. If you want to give them a try PM me and I will send you my URL so you can check the speed and a affiliate link.

Who have you been hosting with?

PM me and I will suggest you a host on the cheap and extremely reliable that can take anything you throw at it.

Bernard

Hi Apoorv,

Thanks for the input. From my initial research looks like E2 is not a simple Cpanel or WHM transfer of sites and managing of sites.

Any good solutions that allow me to host on the E2 network with a familiar environment like Cpanel and WHM? Something that piggybacks?

Thanks

Have you tried to optimize your site for performance? If you run a database you most certainly need a cache such as memcache or Redis which I use myself. And APC can cache your PHP. I also recommend these steps: Web Performance Best Practices

Would be useful to know what software you're running (wordpress, drupal, custom code...), how many sites you're running and what level of traffic you're getting. It may be that you're one of the lucky few that has genuinely reached the tipping point where you're getting sufficient traffic that you really need to start doing some "proper" site tuning. After a certain point throwing bigger servers at the problem isn't the answer. To answer you're original question though:

If you want something with a cpanel type interface then I'd recommend Web Hosting by DreamHost Web Hosting: Web Sites, Domain Registration, WordPress, Ruby on Rails, all on Debian Linux!. Had really good experiences with them. Hosting starts at about $10 a month last time I looked.

If you can do without cpanel then linode.com are excellent. I host all my sites with them. Costs start out about $19 a month I think. You need a level of technical ability to use it - but not quite as much as EC2...

From what you say about wanting a cpanel I'd steer clear of Amazon EC2. It's an excellent platform but you need to have a reasonable level of technical ability to use it. As someone mentioned previously you can host static sites (i.e. html only) on S3, but it's no use for sites that need php etc i.e. wordpress, drupal.

Again as someone else mentioned if all your previous hosts have struggled then are you sure it's not your site that's the problem? I've never used cpanel but I assume that somewhere you can see stuff like how much CPU and memory your site is using. Or your database may be poorly optimised which could lead to slow page load times. Then there's other stuff like the size of your images, css, javascript, poorly written php etc. If you're loading large images or have dodgy javascript running then that can really hurt the responsiveness of a page.

You don't say if the site is PHP based - I guess it is. In which case you should be using something like APC today. You should ultimately look at adding caching like memcahed but only once you understand why your site is performing poorly in the first place. Otherwise you're just papering over the cracks.

If you haven't already it's worth installing something like firebug, yslow and pagespeed in firefox. These will give you an idea why the site is sluggish i.e. if it's the initial server response that's slow or whether it's taking ages to load page assets, run the javascript etc.

If you wait a few months I'll have my own consultancy to help you out! Favourable discounts for warrior members ;-)

Paul.

Going with Amazon is basically the "do it yourself" solution. I keep an EC2 instance running full time, but it's not for the faint of heart

Hi,

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