My Search For A New Web Host

Hmm… so some of you may know that I’m on the hunt for a new web host when my current hosting with 3ix.org expires next month. And that couldn’t come sooner I say, stupid me signed up to two years with this host without really doing any proper research, boy was I foolish back then. My experience with 3ix has been less that satisfactory, sure it’s fine for hosting a small website and they promise lots for little (have a look at their plans) but it’s not really good for anything serious or even if you want to start experimenting. They don’t allow SSH access even on their top plan (the one I’m on) and they seriously oversell their servers.

A quick php query on the hard drive shows the space used on my server:

Server Space:
In Use = 437.85 GB (98.11 %)
Free Space = 8.46 GB
Disk Space = 446.31 GB

and current CPU load (although mostly this hangs around the lower end of the scale):

CPU:
CPU Load: 75%
Server Time: 03:50:47
Local Time: 05:49:53 PM

clearly overselling to me!

And to top things off, it looks like they are blocking HTTP requests as I cannot automatically upgrade WordPress or plugins automatically and the feeds on the dashboard give “WP HTTP Error: couldn’t connect to host”. So basically pretty screwed.

I’ve been doing some research and initially this led me to find WebFaction, the reviews out there on the net seem all pretty positive. They are basically sort of in between shared hosting (what I’m on right now) and a much more (or so I thought) expensive VPS option. You get SSH access and they provide heaps of software that you can install, one-click style such as Django (which is what I’ve been playing with), Ruby on Rails etc as well as Apache modules such as mod_wsgi which my current host does not provide. They manage the server for you and you can focus on doing development things! And up until a few days ago, I was all ready to transfer money into PayPal to start this hosting next month until I did some reading on the Whirlpool forums.

A VPS is basically like a virtual machine, so instead a shared setup where your site is hosted along with possible hundreds of other sites (depending on how many the hosting company is squishing in). Your basic control panel such as cPanel or Plesk is install and it’s all point and click with a bunch of paraphernalia that you probably never use. You’re limited to what the host provides you, if they don’t have Python support, you don’t get it.

A VPS on the other hand… I’ll just copy and paste from Wikipedia:

“A virtual private server (VPS, also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server or VDS) is a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers such that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, and each server can be independently rebooted.”

so basically it’s like running your own server! And you aren’t limited by your provider only by physical hardware limitations such as the amount of RAM that you’re provisioned. You can pretty much do anything you want, just as if you were sitting in front of the physical machine.

This site is pretty good for explaining the differences between the two.

I’ve setup Apache + Nginx on my Ubuntu VM before so I thought that instead of shared hosting, i might give myself a try at setting up an internet facing web server from scratch, should be a good learning opportunity.

Anywho, I was always under the impression that a VPS was pretty expensive, starting at around ~$20/month or so from providers such as Slicehost and Linode. Until I came across this thread in Whirlpool leading me to research Jumba, an Australian based VPS provider giving out a pretty damn good (considering the cost of hosting and bandwidth in Australia) VPS for $9.95. If you can get Australian hosting for $9.95 then US hosting will be even cheaper again. Once more, Whirlpool led me to a site called LowEndBox, a website dedicated to finding VPSes under USD7 and running them efficiently (as the cheaper ones tend to have less RAM). LowEndBox led me to ANOTHER forum which I’ve been browsing and it’s really useful! If you ever want to get webhosting of any sort, I would highly recommend you have a read over at Webhosting Talk which has heaps of useful info as well as an advertisement section where companies can advertise their deals.

Most of the cheap deals listed on LowEndBox aren’t all that heavy duty, it seems that the most popular VPS packages usually have 10GB HDD, 100GB Bandwidth, 256MB RAM and OpenVZ. In the Xen categories, there is usually less RAM and possibly bandwidth and hard drive space. You can Google the differences between OpenVZ and Xen but basically Xen is harder to setup and manage which is why it is more expensive.

I reckon I could get away with less than 256MB of RAM considering that my Ubuntu VM can run on 256MB and that’s with GNOME and a whole heap of other desktop related crap installed like Bluetooth etc. Without a graphical interface, 256MB should be heaps for Apache and Nginx to run Django, WordPress, MediaWiki, my proxy to get past the DET filter, some more non legal scripts  *cough* rapidleech *cough* torrentflux *cough* and whatever else I might decide I want to play with.

I’ll keep posted with what I find! Unless anyone can suggest a reliable yet cheap VPS that they have experience with? I have plans for this!