Subscribe to RSSSearching for a new hosting provider - Part 2
Several months ago I reported the results of four hosting providers I was researching. The report was written after using each host for approximately a month. This review can be seen here. In the review all four hosts were found to be acceptable and would meet most users needs. However I narrowed the finalists down to two hosts.
The first host was Planet Argon. My review of them can be seen here. Over the last few months they proved to be an excellent host. I didn’t have to open any support tickets with them. Over a three month period I experienced less then five short outages that were approximately 30 minutes long. Most of these outages were planned and I received an email prior to the maintenance. I experienced one longer outage that was over 8 hours in December. This outage was caused by a hardware failure and was resolved.
The second host was Sever Axis. They also proved to be an excellent host. Over a three month period I experienced a few short outages. Most were for planned maintenance. However I didn’t always receive an email before the maintenance occurred. There were a few longer outages that were approximately an hour long. These outages were reported to be due to issues with Xen. It’s been a few months now since I have had any outages with Server Axis.
Both of these hosts are smaller companies that allow more flexibility and or a lower cost then some larger hosts. They also are using technologies that are slightly more cutting edge then other hosts. When compared to larger hosts it was more difficult to contact support. However their support technicians were more knowledgeable then I would have access to at larger hosts. Personally since I’m more technical user support isn’t as important as flexibility. That is as long as the server I’m on is stable and performs well.
In the end I decided to use Server Axis as my hosting provider. The flexibility of having a virtual private server was worth the slight extra cost. I also found that I prefer a Xen VPS instead of a Virtuozzo powered VPS. Especially since many Xen providers offer a VPS without a control panel.