TOP WORST Web-Hosting Companies

I've decided to keep a tab on my experiences with web hosting companies. Being in the IT industry, I obviously have had to deal with many aspects of web hosting. ...And with many web hosting companies because most of them are a hoax. They are just out there to make a buck and they offer extremely low quality services, with even lower quality support.

The worst part of this is that there is no way of knowing what a hosting company is all about, unless you try them. So you have to spend money and your precious time to find out how crappy (or maybe not so crappy) their serives are. Plus, there is the hassle of moving all of your websites (if you have a multi-domain plan) and all you databases when you switch, not to mention all the email accounts.. It's a horrible experience - changing hosting providers - but when you have to do it, you have to do it. In fact, that's one of the things they probably bank on - most of the people dread this set up phase so much, they would rather put up with the shitty service.

I'm hoping this guide will help at least some people to not make the mistake of signing up for service with one of these providers, only to find out three months later that they're in for some headaches..

All that being said, here's my list after having to deal with 8 different hosting companies for some 13 websites, in the past 3 years.

1. Dot Net Park (www.dotnetpark.com) - at the top of the list, is Dot Net Park. A company (supposedly based out of the UK), that offers Windows hosting with support for ASP.NET 1.0 and ASP.NET 2.0, and PHP 5. But their classic plan only gives you 200MB of storage to split between your website, databases and e-mail. And about 6Gb of monthly traffic. And they only allow for 5 domains to be hosted on a plan. Their servers run incredibly slow, and their panel is a joke (which also runs really slow). And if you need some support.. obviously there's no phone numbers. And their staff is not helpful. Did I mention their servers were down a lot?!

2. Host Monster (www.hostmonster.com) - this is a Linux hosting company that offers PHP 5, Perl, Python and Ruby hosting, and they made my number two. I've dealt with them for a year and I can say - they suck. They claim they offer Unlimited domains but when you actually sign up you find out that you get one main domain, and the other are something they call "subdomains". And if you need SSL, you can only get it on your main domain.. They claim they offer SSH access, but you need to fax in a driver's license to get access. Thir servers run pretty slow, and they use C-Panel for managening your account. I'm personally not a big fan of C-Panel, but hey.. Oh, and their level of support - let's just say could be greatly improved.

Note: I've also had many problems with their mails servers.. Especially while developing mail -related functionality on sites hosted with them.

3. IX Webhosting (www.ixwebhosting.com) - they offer Linux and Windows hosting. Let's just call them another web "hoaxing" company.. Their servers are slow, and they hide behing some clever marketing schemes. I've only dealt with the Linux-based side of their business.

4. Webhosting.net (www.webhosting.net) - this is another ridiculous Linux and Windows hosting company. I've only had to deal with their Windows hosting services. They offer a really reduced ammount of disk space and when it comes to support, well.. just pray you won't need it! Their support staff is a joke. Whenever you have a question, thay just throw a link at you, from this "mystical" support wiki that they have, that I could never find on my own. But if reading through that wiki doesn't solve your problem.. than God help you!

5. Server Grid (www.servergrid.com) - They are a solely Windows-based hosting company and they offer ASP.NET 1.0, 2.0 and 3.5 with some rather expensive plans. Not a lot of disk space, or monthly bandwith. And I can't say I'm thrilled with the speed of their servers. Over all they are barely ok.. I'm still looking for a company to replace them. Some body suggested 1 and 1. Maybe I'll give those guys a shot.

6. Hands On Web Hosting (www.handsonhosting.com) - The reason this is so low in my TOP WORST web hosting companies list, is because, unlike the others above it, I've dealt with a dedicated server plan from them. So it's not really comparing apples to apples here.. It's more like apples to rotten apples. Anyway, the reason they are here is becuase they charge a lot of money for nothing. Their support staff is MIA (even though they sell a $300/month service) and the cherry that topped the cake. My client was paying for backup (a monthy charge of $45) only to realize when their site went down.. that they were in fact only paying for the capability - i.e. nobaody was making any backups of their server. It was just a feature they had been paying for for a year (that's more then $500). And when they approached the Hands On staff, they were brutally shut off with a reply saying that they had been paying for the feature, but that it was the customer's responsiblity to actually make the backups.

Currently I host all my linux sites with DreamHost and they ARE good! So far I have to say they have offered the best service out of all that I've tried, and most importantly, whenever I needed support they were helpful. They won't go out of their way to accomodate you, but whatever's within their stated offer - they will be there to help you sort it out. Plus, your get SSH access with a log of power available to you if you know how to use it. I wish they offered MySQL replication services, but so far that's about it..

If you need a good Linux hosting plan - go with DreamHost.

As far as Windows ASP.NET Hosting plans, at the moment I'm not sure which way I'm going to go next.. But I have to make decision and I'll post the result here.