MediaTemple / hosting
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- stewdio
I see QBN is back up. (A chunk of MediaTemple hosted sites just fell off the face of the earth for a bit there.) What's the deal with MediaTemple? When I switched to them they were so reliable. They had the latest versions of scripting languages and databases running. It worked, it was easy, and it was fast. But lately it's been feeling like a has-been.
So what's everyone else on? I'm particularly interested in Virtual Private Servers, Ruby on Rails, Python Django, PHP, MySQL, and Arc. If I can play with those things and upgrade versions when I see fit then I'll be happy. Can I reliably have this for $20 / month or under?
- armsbottomer0
I'm set up with Slicehost http://www.slicehost.com/ , and the only limitation is an unfamiliarity with a unix prompt. The customer service and tutorials are amazing, and it's also a great learning process (roll your own server, customize it any way you like). The introductory slice starts at $20.
If you aptitude them, they will come.
- ETM0
A couple of us here have have had success with the (dv) accounts. But we all know what a nightmare shared hosting has been for years.
- ukit0
Well I have a Mediatemple account and have not encountered the same kinds of issues people mention. In fact I have tried a lot of hosting companies over the past year and my conclusion is that there are an amazing number of shitty hosting companies out there. MT is actually one of the better ones, for people that don't want to have do learn a lot of technical configuration type stuff.
Having said that, if you like the DIY approach I would heartily recommend http://www.linode.com I've been building Django based sites on a couple of their boxes and, considering all they really do is give you a server to play around on, I can't complain.
Speed and performance is impressive, I've never seen a single reliability issue over the past few months that I've been there, customer service - well who knows, I've never needed to contact them about anything. Not that I've never had any issues, but they were all the product of me trying to figure something out rather than the company itself;)
Slicehost has a great reputation as well and I've hosted on there too and its a very similar experience. Linode is slightly cheaper, so that at the low end of their offerings you can get a 256MB account with 10GB storage, 150GB transfer on Slicehost, versus a 360MB w/ 16GB storage, 200GB transfer on Linode - and that difference scales all the way through their offerings. Having said that they are both great options, probably the best outside of the more expensive stuff.
On the other hand, if you want to develop in Ruby on Rails and nothing else, a totally different approach could be http://heroku.com/
- hotroddy0
media temple status says it's experiencing a ddos attack
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wiki…- says it's been taken care ofd_rek
- Reinvigorate is still fucking the dog. I wonder if MT really did fix the problem.Continuity
- fugged0
new kids on the block: http://www.networkredux.com/
- Boz0
well I've been using the (dv) hosting and no huge issues here
- Continuity0
I've been using these guys ... for almost five years, now:
They're cheap. You don't get a lot of the bells and whistles you might get with MT, but if I've ever needed something changed on my server (like having PHP upgraded from 4.x to 5.2) or if something goes wrong, they're very very quick to respond through their ticket system. So, top-drawer customer support, there, including phone.
On the back-end, it's nothing out of the ordinary; typical CPanel interface, with all of the things you'd expect to find.
Overall, LP is good to go.
- stewdio0
Thanks for the suggestions. (And keep them coming if you have more!)
A good friend of mine has been singing Linode's praises for a while. I also just had WebFaction recommended to me by someone I trust quite a bit. http://webfaction.com
And then someone sent me this which is . . . interesting.
http://prgmr.com/xen- That ASCII art logo on prgmr is made of sheer awesome.Continuity
- lukus_W0
Re: Webfaction, I've used them for about two years and I love the support. If you're a person who's mainly developing / experimenting, they're great. They give you the opportunity to install whatever you like and the support staff are often willing to help beyond the call of duty.
Despite the amazing support, I eventually had to admit that the network latency isn't great for the UK (servers are based in Texas). Also, I think drawbacks to shared hosting can eventually come to the fore - and the 'noisy neighbour' problem (other users, using resources erratically) can also negatively affect performance.
Bearing this in mind, I recently signed up with Linode, who have a bunch of servers in London. They've been great. After being with Webfaction I'm now happier with the command line, so sorting out the server hasn't been as much of a challenge as it could have been .. and they have a huge library of decent documentation for most system-admin tasks. Linode also has the simplest backup solution a person could hope for.
- tymeframe0
My sites aren't loading properly and their system status page doesn't even load.
http://weblog.mediatemple.net/we…Happy Saturday!
- stewdio0
I'm looking off the edge of the cliff and what I see at the bottom is . . . Linode. And I'm going to jump soon! Deep breaths.
- mydo0
i've had a dedicated with hostgator for 6 years, and i think i've only had one reboot. 20 seconds of downtime in 6 years is pretty good.
support is great too. worth chatting on line with them.
- ukit0
Well FWIW, here are a couple benchmarking comparisons that include Slicehost, Linode and PRGMR. Granted these may fail to take into account all factors in terms of real world use, but I've yet to see one where Linode doesn't come out on top or close to it, which is what pushed me in that direction.
http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-p…
http://journal.dedasys.com/2008/…If you end up doing anything with Django BTW I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what setup (in terms of DB, server etc) you find works best.
- stewdio0
@ukit I probably won't touch Django for a while as I'm heavily into Ruby, but my friend James is very serious about Python on Linode. It's his favorite one-two punch for web dev. You might pick his brain about it : http://j2labs.net
- stewdio0
Also, I might give Arc a spin just for kicks. http://arclanguage.com (I think Scheme is great.) But for all this web discussion it's actually a combo of non-web Ruby and OpenGL that's taking up my brain space right now. Playing with some really low-fi 3D data animation right now for an art piece. Really low-fi . . .
- ukit0
Ah, I see. I need to take a look at Ruby too one of these days considering how big of a following it has.
- stewdio0
Ruby on Rails is ok. It does some nice things. But it's not the Willy Wonka golden ticket it's sometimes made out to be. Ruby itself, however, is an absolutely beautiful language. Ruby is wow, wow, wow. Rails is just built on wow.
- Melanie0
I've been using RackSpace (mosso) for a year now and they're fantastic. Would recommend them over any other hosting company I've used before. Great service. http://www.rackspace.com/
- stewdio0
So far so good!
I just joined Linode (http://linode.com) yesterday and already have a test Ruby on Rails app running. Installing Ruby, Rails, PHP, MySQL, and SQLite wasn't too difficult. A combination of Linode's help pages and Google searches was enough to get me through it. I've still got quite a bit of design and testing to go before I'm able to launch the new stuff I'm working on, but this is great so far. Tons of flexibility. I can install whatever I want. And it only costs as much as Media Temple's stripped down Grid-Service. Not too shabby!
- How did you find the customer service?Continuity
- Haven't had to use it yet. Their help docs are truly helpful.stewdio
- they have an irc channel if you need immediate help -> #linode on freenode.lukus_W