[starreview tpl=16]
For entry level needs, hostgator is probably among the best. Their technical support is top notch, though their support can sometimes be useless if your request is outside of the normal “Fix my e-mail!” “What’s up with DNS?” type of requests and questions. They offer unlimited plans that state unlimited space and transfer, but if your site impacts the other sites on the server with high server load, they’ll ask you to upgrade or switch hosts. They don’t offer backup once you have even 30 wordpress sites, stating that “You’ve used too many INodes for us to do a backup.” and if something goes wrong with your site you pretty much have to check and find the problem and fix it yourself. This is no way managed hosting.
As far as the basics go, they’re good. PHP, Apache and all that are installed on the server. They have Fantastico Deluxe as their auto-installer script, which makes setting up websites based on a CMS like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal relatively painless and easy. They also offer some website templates if you want something you can deploy and edit to your liking. They do offer higher tiers of service, but they aren’t cost effective and don’t scale well. I’ve found other hosts (dedicated servers and VPSs) to be more competitive and offer higher quality hardware for the money. I wouldn’t ever buy a dedicated server with them. For something stable for a large company I’d go with RackSpace. For something cost-effective and good, I’d go with OVH or Kimsufi (and have for my more important sites).
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