After 24 months of using three web hosts I have decided to write short reviews about each one. This is not meant to be a long drawn out review and does not include every detail of the web hosting service, such as a list of features or exact connection speeds.
These are the three web hosts I use extensively..
Hostgator.com
MMhosting.com
Hostmonster.com
*A special note about Virtual Web hosting – Your Primary domain name that you use when setting up your account is the only domain that can have a Private SSL Certificate. The addon domains will need to use a Shared SSL Certificate.
So if you plan on hosting an e-commerce website, make it the primary domain. Mmhosting and Hostgator can move domains from addon to primary if needed, but once moved, your websites with an Absolute path will break until you update them with the new Absolute path.
Review Time
I would like to start this article with the 2 best web host in my opinion. Hostgator and MMhosting, they have been awesome web host. From customer support to server reliability and speed. Both companies have been great to work with, and I have no problems with websites going down as a result of the web host. (The one time my websites went down, was my own doing. I crashed my own databases.)
Hostgator Review
Hostgator is the best, hands down. Solid, reliable, fast, 24/7 live chat tech support and offer support for anything you may want to do with your website. I have not had a single down time with Hostgator. I can't say enough great things about this company, in the next renewal of my mmhosting account I will be moving my websites to hostgator.
I have used the live chat function a few times at 2am – 5am and have always been connected in a few minutes to tech support. Much like mmhosting, I have not had to contact them for server outages, just for minor problems I was having. They have also given me the ability to host my clients websites, but that is if I don't act as a reseller, much like mmhosting said.
Hostgator offer some great virtual web hosting account options, and if you happen to go past the bandwidth or capacity you can move to bigger virtual accounts or dedicated hosting.
The cpanel is intuitive, friendly, responsive, freature loaded and easy to navigate (much like mmhosting).
Some people believe that the cpanel is universal from one host to another, but I have a website with lunarpages.com and their cpanel is horrendous in comparison to the three hosting companies I work with. If I was working for lunarpages and in charge of the cpanel, I would make an account with mmhosting or hostgator and take notes on how not to make a confusing and slow interface.
The negatives for Hostgator
They used to not offer a shared SSL certificate and that was the only negative, but now they offer shared SSL's, so I have no complaints with them.
Websites hosted with Hostgator
Howbits.com (Wordpress blog)
Highcountrystudios.com (High definition video content)
Stonegifts.com (e-commerce site built on zencart with over 1000 products)
PDQprofessional.com (This is my business website, built using Joomla CMS)
MMhosting Review
The connection speed is medium to fast. The only down time I ever had was the result of something I did to a Database that caused all my other databases to lock up. As soon as I deleted the corrupted database and restored everything went back to normal. (In case you are wondering, it was a ZenCart mod for Searching Attributes that caused my Databases to Gel up)
Their cpanel is great, it is easy to maneuver around, fast, and has a lot of added features for any type of website you may want to create.
The biggest request I have made to date was the ability to host my client domain names. I offer a service where I replicate a wholesale e-commerce website on to a new wholesalers domain name, so they can have their shop that doesn't look like a replicated website with a subdomain. Mmhosting said that was fine, as long as I am not acting like a reseller by charging for hosting.
Some smaller request I have made was InnoDQ for Magento E-commerce. Hostgator was not offering innodb and nor did they want to install it for me. I contacted mmhosting and they did not offer innodb, but they said they would install innoDB on my account so I could use Magento E-commerce.
*Update – MMhosting is planning on offering Dedicated hosting Soon.
*Update – They no longer offer 24/7 tech support and they don't offer live chat.
The negatives with MMhosting
They only offer virtual hosting accounts. If you are planning to go past the limits of the hosting account, then you will not have the ability to switch over to a dedicated box, like you can on hostgator. I host a website that specializes in High definition video productions and I have not come close to the limits of the virtual hosting account. But I am curious what mmhosting would do if they decided you needed to move off of the virtual hosting account.
Their support is excellent during the day. But late nights and weekends they are a bit slow. I haven't had a need to contact them about my server going down or any serious issues, because it is a stable host. But I have some minor problems such as SSL certificate not installing, and it took a few hours for a response. But during the day, they are prompt at getting back to you.
The last web host on my list is Hostmonster.com
My experience with them has been horrible, from sending in emails and support tickets and never getting a response back from anyone.
I have had reliability issues with this web host. One minute the web host is working fine, then a few minutes later it goes down and then I wait 10 minutes and it comes back up again.
During the time I have been using this web host the hard drive on the server box went corrupt, and it took 2 in half days to get it back up and running. I was not notified of the harddrive going bad. When the hard drive did crash, I was not sent an email, and I ended up having to call tech support, and eventually was told what was going on.
As far as hostmonster goes, since they have fixed the hard drive I have had very little problems, but the customer support really makes me leery of recommending them to someone to use for their website and hosting needs.
In Conclusion..
If you are looking for a good virtual web host then I recommend going with Hostgator. If you are looking into making a website that will offer a lot of files for download / streaming, and you need a dedicated box, then I would look into hostgator because it can grow with your website(s).
