[Hosting] What sort of hosting should I be getting for this site?

[sidewinder]

Our main school site is already up and hosted with another company, but the school also has an 'Enterprises' arm which mainly covers leasing of sports and event facilities to the public. I've designed a simple Joomla site which is ready to go, now need to decide on hosting.

The current host charges £250 a year which seems a lot, so reluctant to go with them for this one too.

We already have a domain registered with 1&1 so my first thought was just to go for the business hosting on there, as I've never had any problems with them before but the web is full of horror stories about them.
Noticed VeloxServ and CS New Media mentioned on here, why are they recommended over others though?

Also, what sort of level of hosting should I be going for? Reliability is key, but the website itself is very simple, and I'm not expecting millions of hits or anything

[webman]

CS New Media are pretty good. Their 'Lite' package allows two hosted domains for the yearly price of £29.50. It comes with everything you should need for a Joomla site. You don't mention what your current site's requirements are; but if it's straight-forward PHP/MySQL (or just static pages) then you should also have no difficulties.

[sidewinder]

Well the situation for the main site is complicated - before I got here the school had paid thousands to a company to do the site and they do the hosting as well. So although it might be nice to move it at some point, I'm in no rush. But it seems to be a custom CMS, so probably just PHP & MySQL

So it would just be the new site for now. £29.50 is very cheap! Just thinking about how much bandwidth I should allow for, but I'm guessing it won't be huge.

Suppose the main thing is having someone helpful on the end of the phone in case of any problems, and a good control panel, access to phpmyadmin etc

[Torrevez]

I used Godaddy.com in the past for an online game I used to run. They where really quick and I don't think it went down once in the 3 years I used them.

You get PHP SQL ect. Plus 10GB storage and unlimited bandwidth for £2.89 per month if you sign up for a year at the moment.

Web Hosting | Secure Hosting Plans with Unlimited Bandwidth

[ZeroHour]

I used Godaddy.com in the past for an online game I used to run. They where really quick and I don't think it went down once in the 3 years I used them.

You get PHP SQL ect. Plus 10GB storage and unlimited bandwidth for £2.89 per month if you sign up for a year at the moment.

Web Hosting | Secure Hosting Plans with Unlimited Bandwidth

GoDaddy can be very very variable, I know of lots with problems and it all depends on the luck of the draw where your hosting node is.

[GrumbleDook]

The main reason why Velox and CSNM are recommended is the cracking tech support, good education prices and thoroughly nice people.

[john]

The main reason why Velox and CSNM are recommended is the cracking tech support, good education prices and thoroughly nice people.

110% agree with this for CSNM, never used Velox so cannot comment on them, but CSNM support is excellent, Carl was very helpful with my .county.sch.uk domain when I removed it from the LA to get rid of the duff DNS they had (amazing things now work 110x better and I have full control thus I can now do what I want when I want and how I want

[LosOjos]

Have you spoken to @EduTech ?

EduTech Hosting Services

[sidewinder]

Have you spoken to @EduTech ?

EduTech Hosting Services

I did see that, but as this is a seperate company to the school (for profit rather than a charity like the school is) I don't think we would be eligible

Edit: Having said that, just seen the prices for businesses and they are very low!

[sidewinder]

110% agree with this for CSNM, never used Velox so cannot comment on them, but CSNM support is excellent, Carl was very helpful with my .county.sch.uk domain when I removed it from the LA to get rid of the duff DNS they had (amazing things now work 110x better and I have full control thus I can now do what I want when I want and how I want

That is the sort of thing I want to hear I like good personal service, especially if the site is down for some reason, the last thing I want is to have to contact a faceless call centre

[EduTech]

I did see that, but as this is a seperate company to the school (for profit rather than a charity like the school is) I don't think we would be eligible

Edit: Having said that, just seen the prices for businesses and they are very low!

Yes, If it is a profitable company then they will not be entitled to the FREE Hosting Service. If the profitable company requires some form of SLA then I always recommend they speak with CS New Media or / VeloxServ as they can offer the premium service.

James.

[matt40k]

Try Mythic Beasts - UK-based shell hosting, co-location and Virtual Dedicated Servers - Friendly staff, good service and the quota's are soft (ie doesn't matter too much if you go over by a little.

Also they do invoicing well which I find keeps the bursars happy

[sidewinder]

I went with CS New Media in the end, and I can see why people recommend it. Everything was set up without having to pay up front, as invoices were provided, which is great from my point of view - no waiting for something to be paid before I can get on with it!

Also, they have been excellent from a support point of view, any query I've had has been answered very quickly. Very happy so far

[Messa]

CSNM do a cracking job, never seen any complaints! Thanks to everyone who mentioned us

[CSNM-Carl]

I went with CS New Media in the end, and I can see why people recommend it. Everything was set up without having to pay up front, as invoices were provided, which is great from my point of view - no waiting for something to be paid before I can get on with it!

Also, they have been excellent from a support point of view, any query I've had has been answered very quickly. Very happy so far

Thank you