[Hidden-tech] Current hosting and registrar recommendations

[Mark D. Hamill]

It seems every few years we swap hosting recommendations. Based on a
conversation a few years ago on this list, I chose Siteground and have been
reasonably happy with it, at least until recently.

Of course a good host depends on your needs. Shared hosting has worked
pretty well for me for my modest needs but I have used virtual private
servers in the past. In general, hosts seem to have upped their game with
shared hosting and I rarely encounter performance issues that I saw in the
past.

One of the big trends, which is affecting hosts like GoDaddy and
Siteground, is they are becoming virtual web hosts. GoDaddy is moving to
Amazon's cloud and Siteground to Google's. So presumably these hosts are
saving a lot of money because they aren't maintaining their own server
rooms. It's generally complicated to set up hosting in the cloud, so they
seem to add value by putting up pretty interfaces. Siteground had impressed
me with its all solid state infrastructure, but presumably all the major
cloud vendors are now solid state and since Siteground is virtual now (or
moving that way), it's not that big of a deal.

So looking at informed recommendations for shared and VPS web hosts in
particular. I'm a little prejudiced against virtual hosts, but I'm guessing
it's a trend that will only continue and at some point virtually all web
hosts will be virtual. I prefer hosts that build in value. Siteground, for
example, includes free Let's Encrypt certificates and their maintenance
built in. This seems to be becoming more standardized but curiously last I
checked GoDaddy doesn't do this.

I attended a podcamp in Boston last year. A representative from Dreamhost
talked about how they fought off legal efforts by the Trump administration
to make them monitor their servers proactively. I don't think they are a
virtual hosting company. Anyone have experiences with Dreamhost?

I do have one recommendation when it comes to registrars. I keep my
registrar separate from my hosting so I can quickly divorce hosts when
needed. I see registrars as commodities. I've been happy with namesilo.com.
They seem to be the cheapest out there and they throw in extras, like
privacy protection, for free. Most of my clients use GoDaddy and I think
their registrar services are obscenely priced. But I'm sure registrars are
going through changes too. It might be good to trade notes on registrars
too.

Thanks and I'm sure our discussion will be useful to many.

Mark
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hidden-tech.net/pipermail/hidden-discuss/attachments/20201210/956bbca9/attachment.html>