Good web hosting

Each year I spend some time doing research on inexpensive web hosting options for my students. It’s virtually impossible to find a cheap hosting company whose name doesn’t produce copious results for a Google search on “FoobarHost.net sucks”. The predominating mood for me at the end of this research is always: I’m really glad I have more than $10/month to spend on hosting.

Since fall 2003 I’ve had a FreeBSD VPS with JohnCompanies, and it’s really quite excellent. They are a high-performance, no-nonsense, technically oriented provider. When you ask a support question, you get a reply from an actual human being whose first assumption is that you know what you’re doing.

About six months ago I moved all of our sites at work to a FreeBSD VPS as well (top of the range, unlike mine!).

They’re not perfect – in my 3+ years I’ve had situations where a box had recurring stability problems. But when it became a real problem for me, I just said, “Hey, can you move me to a more stable box?” and they did. The server that’s hosting our websites at work has been up for about eight months straight.

So, John and company – thanks!