Is HostGator Still Tops?

I had hostgator but the cs sucked for wp.
I went to Bluehost and they have been tops for me. (thats for shared hosting)

What CS do you need for WordPress?

I have many sites on HostGator that are running WP and have zero problems. One of the most recent changes to WP is it automatically updating which will help it stay current to keep up with hacker attacks.

Sometimes I've had sites get hacked, but half the time HG emails me before I notice and remove the malware before I even realize what's going on.

I can't see paying $360/year for a single site or $1,200 year for 2-10 AND having limits on the number of visits per month.

Obviously the market has spoken and their is a market for this type of a product, but for the average agent, even one getting high traffic, seems like a lot of coin.

To rant some more about this, for less than the $99/month (2-10 sites) you could get dedicated hosting (VPS) from hostgator for $80/month. That'd give you dedicated system resources and absurdly fast load times. Not that hostgator is the only game in town for VPS, but it's easy to get that setup with them.
 
@somarco,

Thanks for the explanation. I see the value in WPengine but it is a bit pricey for what you get. I've hosted 50+ Wordpress sites on Hostgator for a few years and not had any major problems. The most significant downtime I ever had was when they were upgrading my server and it was 50% my fault.

It is nice to not have to install extra plugins and keep them updated but I'm not sure I would pay the premium for that. I understand it's worth it for a lot of people and that's why WPengine is in business.

Josh makes some good points like WP updating automatically in its latest versions and the possibility of getting a VPS or dedicated server so you don't have to deal with server slowdowns of shared hosting. I assume WPengine is shared hosting and can run into the same problems. Due to the higher cost, I would expect their servers allocate more resources to individual accounts and this cuts down on the slowdowns.
 
I am not a pitchman for WPE. Just know it works for me. After trying several hosting services (listed above) I am happy with WPE.

As for the VPS services, you are still getting shared hosting. True VPS (not shared) is north of $100/month, more in the $300 range if you have multiple sites.

My son and I looked at several alternatives last year and for what I wanted WPE suited my needs. I rely on him for the techie input but wanted a salesman to give their perspective.

We did not look at Wired Tree, the one Chris uses. Jeff Root uses WPE and that is what sold me on them as much as anything. I was leaning that way but he closed the deal for me.
 
Last edited:
As for the VPS services, you are still getting shared hosting. True VPS (not shared) is north of $100/month, more in the $300 range if you have multiple sites.

What are you basing that on?

VPS gives you dedicated resources on a shared box. Yes there are other users on the box, but regardless of what else is going on in the box your section of the hardware is always available for you. There is a guy on the forum that offers VPS through Syptec.com at extremely reasonable prices. For under $100/month you could easily host hundreds of sites with the traffic most agents are getting.

Let's also address the issue of "multiple sites". Ultimately it doesn't matter if it's one site or a thousand sites (literally), it depends on actual concurrent viewership. You could literally put 1,000 sites on a single server and have zero problems if you only had a few visitors at a time on a given site at a given time. On the other hand, you can also have a single site crash if it gets too much traffic. If you run an event and get 50,000 hits in 10 minutes it can give a dedicated server a run for it's money.

I suspect that for most of the folks reading this thread and thinking about their site shared hosting is going to be the most affordable/reasonable option. If you're an established agent/agency and get a fair bit of traffic to your site (at least a few hundred visitors a day) you may want to consider dedicated VPS. If you need dedicated servers for hosting, you're probably large enough to know that already. On the other hand, some people just assume pay the extremely high markup on niche hosting because they believe it's a better value.
 
Ask my son. He is the guru that explained it all to me. Of course I forgot the explanation. All this knowledge about computers but can't sell insurance if his life depended on it. Sounds like a limited job future to me.
 
WebEminence.com - Simple Small Business Websites For Only 200 Clients
**************************
Slightly off topic...but why only 200 clients? Is that a gimmick?
 
WebEminence.com - Simple Small Business Websites For Only 200 Clients
**************************
Slightly off topic...but why only 200 clients? Is that a gimmick?

Not a gimmick because I am actually stopping at 200 clients. I provide ongoing maintenance for all my clients and I can only manage a certain number on my own without hiring help (which I don't want to do). It's a unique service I created for small business owners that want a simple & professional site and don't want to maintain it themselves.
 
Back
Top