The two shared hosting I've heard of from people is bluehost.net and ANhosting.com. I don't have experience with either host... but would think bluehost would be good.

I currently use "baptisthost.net" since it started and the guy has excellent customer service. It's more for the "baptist" circle, but I've emailed him and he's said that as long as the website has a Biblical gospel of salvation he has no problem with it. Any problem I've had with drupal on the server side he's taken care of.

I'm considering getting reseller space through baptisthost to host my own clients, if interested.

But I'm sure others have experience with the two I mentioned above.

I do not recommend anhost, I had a lot of problems with them and canceled after a couple months.

I'd recommend baptisthost or hostingtruth. I've talked with both owners and they're great guys. I've been running hostingtruth for about a year and it's been pretty good and cheap!

Thanks, will check out all the suggestions.

Quite unlike BishopBooyah, I've generally been quite satisfied with AN Hosting and Midphase (they're actually the same company with different product offerings).

If cost is a major concern you can save about $2/mon using the (one and only) AN Hosting plan. It's got high limits and seems to perform well. This includes a free domain registration but I always recommend 1and1.com for registrations, especially for your primary domain name.

For $2/mon more ($8.95/mon or $10.95/mon, depending upon term) I recommend the Midphase Linux Business Plan. You get no limits, but more importantly this plan provides a dedicated IP address, a security certificate, and Mailman mailing lists. This plan does not include any free domain registrations.

For domain registrations I recommend 1and1.com. Their prices are quite reasonable (<$10/year); they are reasonably quick; and, they don't charge extra for private registrations. I do not recommend 1and1.com for Drupal hosting.

IMO no church or business should register their domain through their hosting account, or even hosting vendor. If it ever becomes necessary to move to a new host, for whatever reason, it's just simpler if hosting and registration are totally independent.

I have, for various reasons, moved sites from other vendors to AN Hosting and Midphase Hosting. I have never had reason to move a site from AN/Midphase. They're not perfect, no vendor is. Yes, I've had a few problems but they've always been resolved.

Also, I've never had a problem bumping limits in php.ini. E.g., one of my client sites routinely uploads 10+MB images (we automatically resize them for actual use).

Disclaimer: I'm an affiliate of both AN/Midphase Hosting and 1and1.com. However, I also use them for some of my own hosting requirements and all of my domain name registrations.

I hope this helps,
Curt

Hey tlattimore,

Please keep us updated on the progress of your church's Drupal site.

I currently use Dreamhost. Never had any issue with it, however, I have a tiny site with minimal activity. I don't know how it would perform with a "who's your daddy" site with many users. Mine is about $10 per month with "everything unlimited". I'm sure there is a cap somewhere.

I've never heard of baptisthost or hostingtruth. Since it's almost time to renew my hosting, I will look into those as possible options.

I agree with Curt on the separate companies for domain name reg, and site hosting.

- Shane

Thanks, will for sure check all these companies out. I am in the process getting our current hosting provider to allow us to transfer our domain. I generally register my domains at a separate company from the hosting provider. But I didn't set up the site unfortunately.

Thanks for the help.

Whenever possible, and it usually is, I have two domains for each site. The first, obviously, is for the principal domain and should be registered through a vendor that is not associated with the hosting. The second is used as the "primary" domain for the hosting account. Usually the two domain names differ only in the TLDs, e.g., the principal domain might be MyClientsCompany.com and the other name might be MyClientsCompany.net. For organizations, we typically use .org for the TLD of the principal name and .com as the the other, "administrative," domain.

If necessary, the secondary, or administrative, name can be considered a "throw-away" name. If we had to we could keep it associated with a hosting account we were abandoning. Sometimes we take the "free" domain name offered by some hosting companies and use it for this purpose.

Assuming that you're not up against a renewal deadline with your current/old hosting company, I suggest you establish a hosting account with your chosen new vendor using a/the secondary domain. This serves two purposes:

1. It allows you to develop your new site independent of the old one.
2. It allows you to add your principal domain as an "add-on." Most of the hosting companies that I've dealt with require that the root directory for your principal domain be /public_html. This makes switching between two version of the site cumbersome. Add-on domains can be in any subdirectory of /public_html. E.g., my production site is usually in /public_html/prod and my development version usually is in /public_html/dev. Moving a new version into production only requires renaming two directories, /public_html/prod ==> /public_html/old, and /public_html/dev ==> /public_html/prod.

   As an added bonus, if your primary name uses the .org TLD and your secondary uses .com TLD, you legitimately block another organization from using it and eliminate this source of confusion. Putting a simple redirect in the secondary domains root .htaccess file lets you point all/any traffic from the secondary to the primary.

Back to moving registrars: Regardless of how your principal name is registered, either outright, or as a "free," or paid, registration with the hosting vendor, it belongs to you! If you've got your "new" site, hosted with a new vendor and ready to go you should only have to go through the process of transferring the registration to a new registrar. The old registrar can play some games, like waiting the maximum five days to approve the transfer, but they don't have the right to deny, or otherwise hinder, the process.

Please don't hesitate to ask questions, or send me a PM. I find these subjects difficult to describe.

Hope this helps,
Curt

Thanks for the help Curt. That looks like what I am going to have to do. As of right our hosting company(http://www.districtdesignstudio.com/) is not answering any of my emails about changing our our domain registration, and there number has a "disconnected" message when called. So right now it looks like we will be build the new site on a new host with a new domain associated with it. Then when our domain expires in February with our old hosting after our renewal period, I will register the domain with a new registrar, and will then tie it to the new site.

Any tips on dealing with hosting companies or are unresponsive when clients try and leave?

Quite seriously, pray about this situation.

Undoubtedly, this hosting company resells registrations from on of the major registrars. I use the Site Information Tool for Firefox to get interesting information about sites. Included in that are details about who is involved in the registration. If this vendor is defunct, then the company they were reselling for should be able to help you. It may be cumbersome, but you should be able to resolve the problem.

I guess that I've been fortunate that every time I've taken business from a hosting company the companies were very pleasant to deal with.

Drop me a line through my website, if you want to talk one-to-one and I'll see how I might be able to help you.

Curt

Thanks Curt, the Site Information Tool was new to me. Cool stuff!

I've had great success with http://hotdrupal.com/

VPS starting at $5.99/mo. The few questions I've had have been answered very quickly and the are obviously using good hardware; performance is good. Steve is a Drupal guy and understands the framework.

Search D.O for other testimonials.

-NP