For various reasons, I recently came across the need to evaluate existing hosts in the market. While I’m still hosted on DowntownHost (DTH), and I am still a proud patron of DTH. I initially signed up for unlimited bandwidth and disk space, and unfortunately, there has been a recent change in policy in that aspect. As such, I was forced to look for a new host that can accommodate my new requirements.
Enter HostGator. There was a time where DowntownHost far outperformed HostGator due to the load average. A friend and I once compared our hosts, while his servers were being taxed pretty heavily, my host (DTH) had a lot of at .28 server load out of 12 cores. I scoffed at his HostGator account, and began my 3 year relationship with DTH. Years later, I revisit the host I ditched, and was offered the opportunity to peak behind the curtains, and I was very pleased by what I saw.
The server I was placed on had a server load of 2.34, I wasn’t too please, but then I found out that the box had 16 cores, and I instantly performed a 180 on my perception. Low load, unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, free ssh, free SSL, and free static IP? Needless to say, I made a few phone calls and immediate created a host account with them. I jumped on a Cyber Monday deal, so it was 50% off hosting cost for the next 3 years.
Of course this is the honeymoon stage, we never know how things would turn out, but I was able to reach a tech by phone and by live-chat so far. I hope they keep the service up. As a web developer, I am always in the market for a good host. I wrote this article because I’m always shopping for a good host, if it can help a fellow developer out, so be it, and if I get paid if someone signs up thanks to the banner below, even better:
That being said Downtown Host still one of the best hosts I’ve worked with, I’ll have to wait a few months before I know where I truly stand with HostGator, so here’s the DTH sign up link: