Where do I go for web hosting?

September 4, 2024 9:01 AM

HostGator, which I have loved for years, has gone sour. I need a new hosting company, one not owned by Newfold Digital, which owns HostGator.

I got word today that HostGator will increase my monthly bill later this month. I'm supposed to be able to see how much when I log in to my HG account, but no such luck. I've been reading elsewhere that HG was purchased by Newfold Digital (formerly EIG), which also owns Bluehost, iPage, and a lot of others. The price is going up and service quality is dropping. It's been slow enough that I haven't complained like I should have, but now I'm ready to move.

I've got three WordPress sites, one personal and two for amateur radio clubs I'm webmaster for. I need a hosting service like HostGator used to be: reasonably priced, no problems with add-on accounts, great customer service (especially as I age and the tech gets beyond me). I'll need this new company to move it all for me (see previous set of parentheses).

posted by bryon to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

I don't see Pair.com on that list of web hosts owned by Newfold. I used Pair for many years and had excellent service and support from them.
posted by briank at 10:07 AM on September 4 [3 favorites]

Have you looked into Wordpress.com if you’re just dealing with Wordpress sites? Once migrated you won’t have to deal with keeping wp up to date and other tech issues.
posted by Redmond Cooper at 10:14 AM on September 4 [2 favorites]

We've been Dreamhost customers for years but I don't know what their current offering is around migration from other hosts.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:21 AM on September 4 [6 favorites]

I have used HawkHost.com for maybe 15 years and outside of setting autopay being a touch wonky, they've been good. Personal website pricing starts at $2.24 a month and goes up to $11.99, depending on what you need and the length of commit.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:29 AM on September 4

I've hosted at Dreamhost for years and found their service to be reliable and unfussy. They have an automatic Wordpress install that will handle a lot of software updates for you. Like chesty_a_arthur I haven't ever tried migrating anything there.

My only problem has been that email accounts hosted there are a little finicky — the certs don't match the domains because it's shared hosting, and some email clients don't like that, but if I manually trust it then it normally works fine.
posted by fifthpocket at 10:29 AM on September 4 [5 favorites]

I've been using DirectNIC for hosting a WordPress site for years. They have been trouble free for me.
posted by Dr. Twist at 10:44 AM on September 4

I've heard good things from several acquaintances about siteground and looking at their offerings, I'm frankly really surprised they can offer prices that low although they've been known to raise their rates after you're with them for a year or 2 (depends on the plan and if you have a 'sale' when you first sign up.
posted by fizzix at 11:55 AM on September 4

One of my clients uses MDD Hosting and they are STELLAR at tech support. I've dealt with a variety of hosting companies over the past 20+ years, and I don't think I've ever encountered that level of helpfulness and speediness anywhere else. I highly recommend them. I'm pretty sure they'll do the migration for you for free, but you can contact their sales folks to confirm.
posted by kristi at 1:42 PM on September 4

Another vote for Dreamhost. I don't know about their support (I'm a techie type so I never had to use it) but they've been doing all my shared hosting for years. They have a nicely easy-to-use control panel. Add-on accounts are no problem but I'm grandfathered in to one of their older plans so YMMV. A friend has been running a few Wordpress blogs on an add-on account for years without requiring any intervention from me.

(My go-to for other servers is Hetzner who are dirt cheap -- about $5/month for a decently provisioned VPS -- but it's not shared hosting so administration is on you. If you're wondering what a VPS is, it's probably not for you.)
posted by neckro23 at 2:16 PM on September 4 [1 favorite]

Siteground is excellent but after one year the price jumps substantially.

I had horrible experiences with Dreamhost but that was 20 years ago. I got terrible service from Bluehost less than 5 years ago.

I use Pair as my Registrar and they're unquestionably one of the internet companies I've dealt with. Their support is impeccable.
posted by dobbs at 6:22 PM on September 4

I've been happy with Dreamhost, both for their technical support and their easy-to-use dashboard operations.

Also, because they're relatively popular, if you run into an unusual situation you can probably do a search and find someone else who's already solved the same problem.
posted by Umami Dearest at 11:31 PM on September 4

+1 for Pair as another long-time customer who uses them to host several no-frills Wordpress sites.
posted by Zephyrial at 6:37 PM on September 5

I've been a Dreamhost customer for almost 25 years. My only complaints are: (1) Shared hosting with extremely mild PHP can't survive a Hacker News hug and (2) domain registration is way overpriced. But you can use someone else for domain registration.

If you use WordPress with them, it's probably worth paying for the extra security. It's bullshit that they don't turn it on by default, frankly.
posted by novalis_dt at 4:53 PM on September 7

Response by poster: Thanks, everyone! I'm going to try Dreamhost, but I'll keep this handy in case it doesn't work out.
posted by bryon at 10:14 PM on September 12