I've been using vultr.com for many years now. $5 a month for a virtual server on which I did a full LAMP installation, etc. *Daniel P. Stasinski* daniel@GenericInbox.com ✞ *Jesus Is King *✞ On Thu, Apr 6, 2023 at 9:08 PM David Schwartz via PLUG-discuss < plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote: > I don’t know how helpful this is, but … the best time to buy hosting is > Black Friday. > > For points (1) and (3), this might help. > > First, if I’m understanding (3) correctly, I think you want to be looking > at a “Reseller” type of account. By itself, cPanel is for ONE > account/domain. They have a thing called a “Reseller” panel, WHM (Web > Hosting Manager), that lets you set up some number of independent cPanel > accounts. Ignore the name, it’s just a way to manage multiple cPanel > accounts if you need them. If you want to build and manage multiple sites > for yourself and/or clients, this is the way to go. > > If you want to actually BE a hosting “reseller”, then you’ll also need > WHMCS or something like that to handle your billing. Some places include it > with WHM, most offer it as an option. If you don’t need billing, save your > money and don’t get it. > > Sometimes some places offer big discounts, but the only thing consistent > with most of them is they offer SOME discount BUT … it only applies to your > FIRST INVOICE. Meaning that if you have a monthly plan, it only applies to > the first month’s bill. But if you get a 3-year plan, it’s for the whole > 3-year term. > > On Black Friday, they’ll usually offer a plan upgrade for free PLUS the > discount. So you’d get a 30-50 site reseller plan for the price of a 15-25 > site plan. Or on a single account, they’d offer the next step up, like > Silver instead of Bronze for the Bronze price. > > I personally prefer cPanel and WHM, mostly b/c I’ve been using them for a > very long time and am used to how they work. > > However, there are tweaks that hosting providers can make that are often > done to reduce their support overhead rather than help customers get our > jobs done better. One case i point is NameCheap — I love them for domain > registrations, but their hosting SUCKS! They have so many weird > restrictions compared to other cPanel/WHM providers that it’s silly. When > I’d ask, their canned reply was “for security reasons”. I’m sorry, but > disabling the ability to click on the little cPanel icon in a row in WHM to > open cPanel for that account does not strike me as security related. Doing > so is quick and easy, but it restricts what you can do to a certain extent > on the target account, because you’re not logged-in as the account holder — > and I suspect your average user doesn’t understand that. As a result, it > probably increaes their support tickets, so they disabled it. Several > cPanel features are limited or blocked as well for the same excuse. I’ve > never encountered this anywhere else. > > I was at one place for a while, Eleven2, and they were pretty good, but on > Sept 2nd of last year, they suddenly switched-out cPanel/WHM for a totally > different control panel! It was totally unannounced, with no advance > warning, no way to go back, and I had problems for over a month. I paid for > one year of cPanel/WHM hosting, and they just took it away and replaced it > with something else. No apologies, no discussion, no warnings. Just “poof” > and here ya go. > > Come Black Friday, I found a great deal on hosting from > WebHostingWorld.net > and > paid for a year of SSD-based Reseller (cPanel/WHM) access with 50 sites for > a 50% discount — it worked out to about $12/mo. Screaming deal. > > Most cPanel/WHM hosts have raised their prices to reflect what cPanel has > done. So a 15-user WHM account works out to $20/mo or so. > > The nice thing about cPanel is that if you want to change hosts, the new > ones can move your old account over in about 30 seconds — it’s built into > the Admin side of the platform. The only shortcoming is that it messes up > whatever Packages you have defined. Most of the support folks don’t even > really know what this means, but you’ll find out the first time you try > adding another account in WHM and the only Package options you have are the > defaults that WHM offers — yours got lost in the move, but they still show > up on the old accounts. > > I was with HostGator for quite a while, but after they got bought by the > “Borg” company buying up so many other hosting providers, their support > went to crap. Many others as well. Stay away from the whole bunch of them. > > As for (2), most will NOT give you SSH access. PERIOD. I did ask my > current guys and they said they’d hook me up with a restricted shell on a > per-account basis. > > That said, you really only need it if you’re going to install some kind of > script that requires you go do it from a command shell. > > cPanel has a File Manager in it that lets you do pretty much anything you > can do in a Windows Explorer or Mac Finder window, including editing > .access files. > > I also have a Windows VPN hosted at VirMach. They’re ok, and I got a great > price — I think it was a New Year’s sale. > > A lot of hosting places are totally automating their support, which is a > PITA if you run into any real problems. They love to tout their Support, > but they’re ALL cutting back. If you want REAL support, you’ll want to get > a “Managed Hosting” account. > > I can set you up with a managed Wordpress account and tons of premium > plugins for $50/mo. I don’t have a sales page for it yet, tho. (It’s > through WPMUDev.) > > -David Schwartz > > > > > On Apr 3, 2023, at 1:48 PM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss < > plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote: > > > > I am looking at cheap shared hosting providers. > > I found two so far... Bluehost and HostGator. > > I used Hostgator in the past and it was good and then really bad, and it > has been a while. I eventually moved on. I have not used Bluehost and the > reviews are mixed. > > I have three requirements: > > 1) must have a control panel. > 2) must have ssh access. Not sure this is really necessary because, off > the top of my head, all I need is to be able to edit the .htaccess file > which I can do local and FTP up... or the control panel might have a built > in editor. I probably need access to SSH so I can set file permissions. > 3) must be highly discounted when buying in bulk. > > Any other cheap hosting providers you would recommend? > > Your thoughts? > > Thanks!! > > Keith > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >