Attention website owners!Here is why you should never use Bluehost and Hostgator (and 78 other web hosting services) for hosting your website!

[Vairavan]

Because they are owned by EIG.

You see, when it comes to hosting a website, there are two fundamental rules you need to know:
Rule #1: Don't use any hosting service owned by EIG,
Rule #2: Never forget rule #1.

EIG is a shady company that cares only about your money, not you. But, since they pay handsome commissions for their affiliates, their products (especially Hostgator and Bluehost) are recommended all over the web. ( Even respected people like Pat Flynn are recommending them. )

But, here is how an honest blogger describes them:

To reduce their costs, EIG programmers pack tons of websites into one server. Sometimes the server just can’t handle so many websites so it crashes. The programmers get it back up, but the underlying problem, too many websites, is still there. Of course, the server crashes again somewhere down the road, and the cycle continues.

Here is how a Fastlaner described his experience on another thread:

Customer service knows almost nothing about how to run a website. They must outsource and read from scripts.
They up-charge everything. They AUTO RENEW domains even if you set do not renew.
If you try to edit your A name, they make it more complicated then it needs to be.
and cloudfare doesn't like them!

If you need to upload files with FTP, they close your connection. Why? I don't know could not get a straight answer.
My panel came with SSH enabled : Read and write access enabled for a random account created. can you say SECURITY RISK!?
After I contacted them about it they did not respond to the ticket, deleted the ticket and removed the SSH.

By removed SSH I mean disabled SSH on my account.
Their SMTP wont send emails.

They do not support backups. Not that you should use your host as a backup solution, but the fact they have ZERO RESTORE FUNCTION for all of their users is insanity.

Nope. Not recommended.

Here is the full list of 80 hosting services (Read: Crap) owned by them :



Please avoid them at all costs. Use something else from the poll or replies.

My personal recommendation would be Siteground or if you can afford it use Pagely. Pagely uses AWS for hosting your website which is also used by Amazon (They own it) and Netflix. So, your websites will be never down.

P.S. If you have any horror stories using EIG products or have any other recommendations for hosting feel free to post. It may help others.

 

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[FierceRacoon]

My story is, I had a minor issue with BlueHost, and chatted with the support. They asked me the last four digits of my password.

My response was, WTF? Have you guys studied the basics of cryptography? It should be impossible for you to verify my last four digits; otherwise it's a glaring security hole just screaming incompetence. They couldn't answer it, of course, so instead of waiting to speak to someone qualified I terminated my hosting during that same session and moved to SiteGround. Note that SiteGround also raised a smaller red flag for me in terms of their competence: when it can't verify some certificate, it offers to run their CPanel over http instead of https. While their helpfulness is admirable, they have to explain to the users that it's really a "nuclear" option and not a choice to be taken lightly. Still in terms of stupidity it does not quite rise to the level of asking to verify the last 4 characters of your password, so I feel relatively safe with SG.

UPD: found a detailed discussion at

https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/afvbml

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/afvbml/seems_like_bluehost_is_not_encrypting_passwords/


You can also read here how they upsell things with their "malware scanner": Beware of malware scams - SiteLock, HostGator, Bluehost, and the tale of the angry web girl

And the SEC has also fined them for fraud: Indian-origin executive settles charges with SEC, another charged for making false claims - Times of India

 

[Real Deal Denver]

Good link. I love Michael's site. This guy is a fanatic genius - which is the best type of genius to know. He tells it like it is and he doesn't play favorites.

Here is another link that ranks the top-performing websites; Hosting Performance Contest – September 2019 Roundup (15 Hosts Tested: Mopegranate Burst)

I'm signing up for MochaHost, which has excellent ratings based on real-world testing, and they give me a lifetime price that is a fraction of what others charge after the honeymoon period.

Sure SG has great ratings for support. I use other (expensive!) software that also touts that in my face all the time. My response is that if their software was better I would not NEED support. I have never needed support from Adobe, Microsoft, or Google. Why is that? Because they make rock sold software that works. That's not to say I might not have a question from time to time. When I do I google it for a quick answer.

I can ramp up with MochaHost for less than $150 for 3 years. I'm done paying the hosts with service and support. It's a UTILITY people! It's like cell phone service - it should work all by itself! Gotta take the training wheels off someday, you know.

 

[MattR82]

The poll doesn't really work as some of those are wildly different in class if that makes sense.

For budget, Siteground has been great for me. I've been hearing bad things happening with inmotion lately after it had strong support, but also now problems creeping in with siteground (although I'm yet to experience anything but good things with them).

Everything I hear though leads me to believe that if you have enough money and not enough skills, not much is beating Kinsta. WPEngine apparently had a big price hike lately making it uncompetitive with Kinsta in comparison for the higher end managed stuff.

If you have the skills or enough time to learn them, go with cloudways.

 

[Lex DeVille]

The poll doesn't really work as some of those are wildly different in class if that makes sense.

For budget, Siteground has been great for me. I've been hearing bad things happening with inmotion lately after it had strong support, but also now problems creeping in with siteground (although I'm yet to experience anything but good things with them).

Everything I hear though leads me to believe that if you have enough money and not enough skills, not much is beating Kinsta. WPEngine apparently had a big price hike lately making it uncompetitive with Kinsta in comparison for the higher end managed stuff.

If you have the skills or enough time to learn them, go with cloudways.

I use Siteground for all of my sites. They've been good over the years. Support is usually lightning fast, and the chat support is mostly helpful. Every once in a while I'll get a representative who doesn't care and is quick to push you off on advanced support without really exploring the issue. But I'm also surprised by how deep some of the reps will go to help you, even for issues that probably aren't really their concern.

 

[MattR82]

I use Siteground for all of my sites. They've been good over the years. Support is usually lightning fast, and the chat support is mostly helpful. Every once in a while I'll get a representative who doesn't care and is quick to push you off on advanced support without really exploring the issue. But I'm also surprised by how deep some of the reps will go to help you, even for issues that probably aren't really their concern.

Yeah and their phone support is great as well when I was starting out. But chat has been so good for me that I didn't need phone support after long.

 

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[Wouter]

+1 for SiteGround. I've never had any issues.

 

[Dan_Cardone]

I use GoDaddy for wordpress hosting. Never really had any problems so far.

 

[rblitz]

My story is, I had a minor issue with BlueHost, and chatted with the support. They asked me the last four digits of my password.

My response was, WTF? Have you guys studied the basics of cryptography? It should be impossible for you to verify my last four digits; otherwise it's a glaring security hole just screaming incompetence.

Well, they could extract the last 4 digits of your password once you registered/changed your password and hash the digits separately.
When asking you for the last for digits of your password, they also hash that and compare it to the hash of the last 4 digits in their database.

The downside to this is that (when the hash matches) they know the last 4 digits of your password.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

LiquidWeb by a mile.

My worry is that they've grown and probably have become an acquisition target. You know what happens next if they get sold...

 

[Vairavan]

LiquidWeb by a mile.

My worry is that they've grown and probably have become an acquisition target. You know what happens next if they get sold...

If this website is running on LiquidWeb then it should be great.

 

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[Vairavan]

I use GoDaddy for wordpress hosting. Never really had any problems so far.

Please use them only for domain names. (Even for that I think Namecheap is better)Don't buy any of their upsells.

 

[Dan_Cardone]

Please use them only for domain names. (Even for that I think Namecheap is better)Don't buy any of their upsells.

This seems like a case of me not knowing what I don't know.

I have multiple domains registered through them and they host my wordpress but its not their "managed" wordpress BS. What don't I know that I should know?

 

[Vairavan]

This seems like a case of me not knowing what I don't know.

I have multiple domains registered through them and they host my wordpress but its not their "managed" wordpress BS. What don't I know that I should know?

Godaddy is maybe one of the oldest and most popular domain name registrars out there. But, Hosting is not their cup of tea. In fact, they're one of the lowest-rated hosting companies around. They're worse then EIG. They put thousands of websites on a single server. All those websites compete for server processing time and bandwidth. Your website will be very slow and not stable. Downtimes will be high. It will be a surprise to me if you are still not having any issues with them.

 

[Dan_Cardone]

Godaddy is maybe one of the oldest and most popular domain name registrars out there. But they're one of the lowest-rated hosting companies around! They're worse then EIG.GoDaddy puts thousands of websites on a single server. All those websites compete for server processing time and bandwidth. Your website will be very slow and not stable. Downtimes will be high. It'll be suprise to me if you are still not having any issues with them.

Makes sense. I have had speed issues.

Looks like I need to have my site migrated over elsewhere. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[Mr.Chaos]

I use and love namecheap hosting.

 

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[.B.]

I only built a few small websites. Using WordPress. I hosted them with Flywheel.

They have a very friendly user interface.

And I loved their help desk: they didn't hesitate to analyse my site and they took the time to teach me what I was doing wrong that was influencing performance. And they recommended a few free tools I could use along the way

They may be pricy, but I felt that the sites were in good hands

Also they have a neat marketing system to do their own SEO: they publish lots of valuable free PDFs that are really helpful for the newbie (covering technical aspects, tools of the trade, design, marketing, organisation for a new web agency...)

 

[Jon L]

I use WP Engine. I switched to them after a nightmare fiasco with hostmonster. WP Engine is like Liquidweb. High end, high touch, very good at what they do, easy user interface. I've never talked with a support rep there that I wasn't extremely impressed by. They're all top notch. Its very much worth the $35 a month I pay to host my site.

HostMonster, on the other hand? Dear Lord. Just stay away. They're horrible.

 

[MattR82]

LiquidWeb by a mile.

My worry is that they've grown and probably have become an acquisition target. You know what happens next if they get sold...

That's happening now with ManageWP. Was renowned for being amazing and stayed that way for sone time after go daddy bought them.

"It's still run by the same people."

Now it's shit.

 

[MattR82]

Please use them only for domain names. (Even for that I think Namecheap is better)Don't buy any of their upsells.

I heard somewhere a while back that people had experienced something strange with domain names and go daddy. If they had a domain name in the cart but didn't carry through, it was suddenly owned by go daddy next time and the price was a lot higher.

Could be bs though. But I'll stick with namecheap as domain specialists.

 

[Primeperiwinkle]

So Kinsta is good then?

 

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[MTEE1985]

I heard somewhere a while back that people had experienced something strange with domain names and go daddy. If they had a domain name in the cart but didn't carry through, it was suddenly owned by go daddy next time and the price was a lot higher.

Could be bs though. But I'll stick with namecheap as domain specialists.

100% true.

My wife looked up a domain, didn’t purchase immediately and the next day went to buy it and was funneled into their “name is taken but for $69 we will broker your purchase”

Had to buy a slight variation and then a year later when it expired she bought her original name.

Can you tell I’m still bitter about it?

 

[MattR82]

100% true.

My wife looked up a domain, didn’t purchase immediately and the next day went to buy it and was funneled into their “name is taken but for $69 we will broker your purchase”

Had to buy a slight variation and then a year later when it expired she bought her original name.

Can you tell I’m still bitter about it?

So scummy.

 

[MattR82]

So Kinsta is good then?

Yeah but it's quite a bit more expensive. I just read a few days ago they upgraded some things and it is even better now, speedwise.

 

[Dan_Cardone]

100% true.

My wife looked up a domain, didn’t purchase immediately and the next day went to buy it and was funneled into their “name is taken but for $69 we will broker your purchase”

Had to buy a slight variation and then a year later when it expired she bought her original name.

Can you tell I’m still bitter about it?

Pretty sure that happened to me on one occasion too.

 

[Primeperiwinkle]

Yeah but it's quite a bit more expensive. I just read a few days ago they upgraded some things and it is even better now, speedwise.

Thank you. This thread is excellent. I’ve been following the anti-EIG convos in other places but I didn’t have a comprehensive list. It’d be nice if somebody would make a price comparison list for all the good hosts..

 

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[MattR82]

Thank you. This thread is excellent. I’ve been following the anti-EIG convos in other places but I didn’t have a comprehensive list. It’d be nice if somebody would make a price comparison list for all the good hosts..

It depends on what kind of site you have and your level of knowledge. If it's a pretty basic site then I don't imagine any issues with liquidweb or siteground. Maybe something like 50 bucks the first year.

I think Kinsta is closer to 30 or 40 per month.

 

[GuestUser4aMPs1]

Flywheel (for Wordpress Sites) is amazing. And their support is kickass.

I also develop on"Local" by Flywheel, which is basically their version of WAMP etc...makes it extremely easy to push/pull sites to Flywheel servers.

I've used Vultr for hosting prior, like $5/mo for hosting lol. But they're a VPS and won't provide support if something breaks. That's up to you.

 

[Primeperiwinkle]

It depends on what kind of site you have and your level of knowledge. If it's a pretty basic site then I don't imagine any issues with liquidweb or siteground. Maybe something like 50 bucks the first year.

I think Kinsta is closer to 30 or 40 per month.

Ok, thanks dude. I can’t remember exactly why but Kinsta is absolutely stuck in my head as the best... I tend to do way more research than I need though. Maybe it’s cuz I was asking e-commerce ppl? Hm. There’s something that siteground doesn’t do.. arghh. I’ll figure it out if and when I can ever carve the time to go back to digital marketing stuff.

 

[Xavier X]

I'll chime in and say I use one of the hosts in the EIG list. Arvixe.
I've used them for 10 years, and honestly, not sure why I stuck it out for 7-8 years before they improved.. a lot.

I used to get a lot of downtime and slow loading on my sites. About 2-3 years ago, they changed their servers and the performance went up very significantly. Now I have near zero downtime and the speed is good.
I'm on a shared hosting plan, even though one of my sites gets decent traffic and uses up significant bandwidth. Here is a screenshot of the summary of that one site, from August. Peep the bandwidth used.



Their customer service is 24/7 via chat and has always been effective. They had phone support until last year or so, and got rid of it.

Before 2-3 years ago, I wouldn't even have recommended them to my enemies, but now it's definitely good. Considering I only pay $10/month for unlimited everything (sites, bandwidth, emails etc). It could be less if I pay annually, but I've always had it set to monthly and haven't bothered editing it.

In essence, not everything on that EIG list is crap (at least these days).