If you’re a small business owner like me, you probably also have a few websites. Your business depend on them being online, accessible, stable and reliable.
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Choosing a web host can be a frustrating experience! And I’ve been there: Horrible support and unstable, slow servers, seems to be the norm, and few people are truly satisfied – let alone happy – with their web hosting.
I’m very happy with my web host though:
Media Temple (gs)
Shared hosting sucks. Period. Always has, always will.
I’m on the inexpensive Media Temple (gs) plan, and has been so since 2007, with a few minor detours, to see if I really had the best WordPress hosting available, or if there was something better out there. More on that in a minute.
The (gs) stands for Grid-Service. An industry first (and still unique) the (gs) is a cloud-like, clustered hosting solution. That means your website is hosted on hundreds of servers, instead of one. The benefit is stability and scalability. Your websites can deal with heavy, intense traffic without going down. It totally outperforms VPS and dedicated servers in this respect!
Clustered hosting does have a drawback though!
Since the databases and scripts are hosted on different servers, there will be more latency, when querying the database. Theoretically it means that database-dependent apps like WordPress will perform a little slower than they would on shared hosting, a VPS or dedicated server.
Still, I find Media Temple’s (gs) plenty fast, and if you’re running WordPress with a fast, optimized theme like Headway, you won’t really notice any speed difference. Heck, if you’re also using a caching plugin like W3 Total Cache, there’s not even a problem, since you minimize needed database connections when caching your website content.
Media Temple has a few other things going for them:
GPU architecture
The biggest problem with typical shared hosting, is the dreaded bad-neighbour effect. Shared hosting means your website is hosted on a server that hosts hundreds or even thousands of other people’s websites, as well. If just one of these has a script that runs amok, ie. drains the CPU and system memory – it will slow down the whole server. Including your website!
That’s why I love Media Temple’s GPU-based architecture. GPU in this context is not to be confused with GPU as in “computer graphics card”. GPU here means “Grid Processing Units”. It gives me insight into how my apps are contributing to the server load. I can quickly see if a WordPress plugin is coded inefficiently. Or if there are broken links, to missing files.
Allocating each (gs) customer a fixed amount (2.000) of GPU’s also prevent inconsiderate users from consuming system resources with runaway scripts.
In essence: The GPU system is fair.
Gone are the crazy days of shared webhosting, where you’d suddenly get an email from your hosting provider telling you that they’ve shut down your website… because it received too much traffic! Success hurts in such a situation. Trust me, I’ve tried it. Sad to finally have your website go viral, only to realize that your host took it down. That’s why I switched to Media Temple back in 2007.
Serious, competent & friendly support
When it comes to hosting, good support is crucial, and it’s shocking how many hosting companies fail on this promise. If you’re a small business owner, and your site is down, you’ll loose money.
Phone support – open 24/7/365
Media Temple sports friendly 24-7-365 phone support. Even via Skype!
Brilliant Twitter support – also 24/7/365
Support by Media Temple via Twitter is also fantastic. Responsive, 5 minutes maximum before a positive, friendly reply. No matter which time of the day you tweet them. They’re there, 24/7.
No “unlimited” fluff – just the real stuff:
- Host up to 100 domains
- 100 GB storage
- Plenty bandwidth: 1 TB per month. That’s a lot!
And best of all: Because of the clever GPU architecture, they’re not overselling, so you are actually allowed to use all that storage and bandwidth. Many hosts who promise that kind of stuff will shut you down when you actually happen to use it.
So, there you have it! I’m one of those rare people who really like my web host, and I trust them fully. Media Temple (gs) rocks!
UPDATE APRIL 2013: Media Temple now includes CloudFlare (a CDN and security service that speeds up and protects your website) with the new Railgun service that drastically speeds up the load times of your website. Railgun is otherwise part of CloudFlare’s Pro plan, so with Media Temple (gs) you save $200 or so. Pretty cool!
If for some reason, you’d like to have your WordPress hosting on a VPS (virtual server) then I highly recommend:
Site5
Site5 offers you the world’s best WordPress hosting – if you are looking for a managed VPS solution!
Site5 are really cool! I was hosted with them last year, and it was a really pleasant experience. Their support is polite, responsive and overall helpful. The servers are fast and stable.
European servers
Even though Site5 is an American hosting company, they also have fast, managed (yet cheap) VPS servers located in Europe: London and Amsterdam.
Managed WordPress hosting
The managed VPS servers are a pretty cool deal: You get a VPS (non-shared virtual webserver) but without the hassle of maintaining a VPS. Site5 takes care of that, but you get the power and scalability of a VPS. Brilliant!
Simple (but powerful) admin UI
The Site5 admin backend is really simple and user friendly. I believe it’s their own, customized cPanel modification.
The road back to the temple
Why did I switch back to Media Temple from Site5 then? I simply missed Media Temple for the above mentioned reasons! But if, for some reason, I’d ever have to switch away from Media Temple: I’d choose Site5 – anytime!
My absolutely *Worst* WordPress hosting experiences:
WebFaction
Never consider hosting with WebFaction. It was a disaster for me! Slow server, slow support – almost felt as if the company had been taken over by cannabis-smoking lab monkeys.
VPS.net
VPS.net are highly overrated. Twice I’ve given them a chance, and twice they have underdelivered… and been horrible. Broken admin UI. Difficult admin UI. Slow, cold support.
One.com
Too many reasons to mention. One of them is extreme slowness. We’re talking both regarding support response times as well as load times. Slow slow slow.
I want your feedback too!
Who have you found to offer the best WordPress hosting? Who are the worst?
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Dan Knauss says
You’ve got some confusing and misleading information in here. Why do you recommend the grid as good given the problems you noted and your other posts about this? And why do you say its not shared hosting? It is shared hosting. Media Temple openly indicates that now on their new, post-GoDaddy merger website. Finally, shared hosting can be done well, but it rarely is done well.
The clustering or “grid” could be called an early type of “cloud” hosting, but that’s mostly just marketing rhetoric. You’ve got shared servers for your files and clusters of shared database servers for your databases. The result since 2006: much slower than good shared hosting. I used the grid quite a bit from 2008-2012, and my tests indicated that no matter how lean and optimized the site, at least 1% of all queries (so 1 every 1-2 page loads) went extremely long, and this is typically enough to bog down the whole page load.
I’ve use Site5 in the past a lot too, and I’ve had very different experiences with different services they offer. Their own redundant/cloud plans were at attempt to sell something like the Media Temple grid, and I had terrible results there even though the architecture is not really like the grid. Their shared hosting was generally good though. The best shared hosting I’ve used is specifically capped to a certain number of users/tenants or domains and well managed with some server side caching and the environment built for speed for php/mysql applications.
Oliver Nielsen says
Hi Dan
The Grid is “shared” yes, but it’s not shared hosting in the traditional sense. A “traditional” shared hosting setup typically implies your site being on one box. One box shared with many. The Grid is radically different from such a setup. Those differences have both pros and cons. I recommend the Grid for the reasons I state, and have my reservations about it equally for the reasons I state.
Look around on my blog – I’m treating the Grid quite fairly. It’s definitely not getting special treatment.
I know you’ve been on the Grid, and critical of it. I remember you / your company from the Media Temple forums;)
Can you recommend some good alternatives? I’d love to know, you’re welcome to plug them:)
Oliver
Thanks for commenting.
Dan Knauss says
I ran across one of your reviews last night that is very critical of the grid. I guess I’d say your view of it is very inconsistent, but the performance testing results are consistently bad for the grid.
Here’s my current top host list for the $30-50/mo or less price range.
I would recommend Digital Ocean for developers and learners who know what they are getting into and potentially want to set up their whole server themselves but with a lot of conveniences baked in.
For WordPress, I highly recommend Flywheel as the best thing ever if you want quality and never want to see a command line — or just for a really solid client and business focused host that just works from the low to high end pricing tiers. (Flywheel is built on Digital Ocean and apparently Linode.) Flywheel is amazing people with super support based in Omaha, Nebraska. They have insanely high approval as judged by hostingreviews.io. I was skeptical of them when they showed up, and I didn’t quite get it at first. A year later I was buying a bulk plan from them and moving away from WPengine. (I do not recommend WPE, especially not the low end package which is built on shared hosting.)
Slightly higher on the top shelf of performant managed WP hosts is the more developer-centric Pantheon.
I have not worked with Kinsta yet, but they’re tied up there at the top too based on testing by reviewsignal.com and emphasize a unique personal touch.
For some, Minnesota (Twin Cities) based lightningbase might be the best of all worlds: low price, top shelf performance, dedicated personal support. I have not used them, but they tested out superbly and answered probing questions by email right away. They give you cpanel and all the help they can, so it may be accessible for command line and need-a-GUI people alike.
Siteground is the only established big shared host that does it well, mainly by running a pretty smart (secure and optimized) environment and mainly by being straight with you about what your pricetag gets you in the number of other customers/domains/sites sharing your server. The don’t oversell and provide very good support. Their customer backend is really convoluted, but you can do everything (too much really) from their cpanel. They try to make caching with WP relatively painless.
Nexcess is another solid, well supported, privately held, midwestern (Detroit-based) shared host with WordPress optimized plans that perform well due to clear limits on tenants per server. They give you just the basics using their own cpanel alternative, siteworx. The environment is similar to what Sitegorund gives you, but you’ll have to work out the caching on your own. They use mod_security and other attack mitigation systems conscientiously and effectively.
I’ve used Nexcess and Siteground for about ten years for relatively simple CMS based sites, but I’ve mostly transitioned my small WP clients to Flywheel now. Quality shared hosting is reliable, relatively hands free, and good quality for the cost, but I don’t think it can compete with the WP-focused managed hosts when it comes to WP. Nexcess and Siteground run LAMP well but leave it to you to optimize it with multiple layers of caching. That’s not enough anymore, and it’s a chore you don’t need. The top managed WP hosts are using LEMP (nginx, php-fpm) with caching preset and handled out of the box. That really seems to be the future today, as Mark Jaquith said at WordCamp Europe.
I used Media Temple about as long as Nexcess and Siteground and much earlier. Their shared hosting was awesome for Movable Type back when that was the CMS/blog engine of choice, especially when you had just a flat file database. They probably would have been OK for php/mysql applications like WP, but their transition from shared hosting to the “grid” completely failed to take into account the load that dynamic CMS applications would put on databases. They aimed at ending the Digg and bad neighbor effects, but they thought WP was insignificant and never tested how applications like that would perform. They still made buckets of money because they were fantastic at putting the proverbial lipstick on a pig. Maybe GoDaddy will change that for the better, but I rather doubt they will.
Mark Jaggers (@RoadRashTX) says
I am currently looking to switch to MediaTemple. I have been on Hostgator for years and it is time to move. Their reliability is terrible and they are down more than they are up.
Oliver Nielsen says
Give MediaTemple a try – overall I’ve been very pleased with them.
Happy new year!
🙂
Oliver
Nicholas says
Hi Oliver!
Thanks for writing this great article. I am interested in knowing why you chose the (gs) solution over the (dv)?
Thanks again!
Oliver Nielsen says
Very simple:
I don’t feel like having to manage a server. I love how the (gs) takes all care of itself;)
… apart from the SQL Container if one wants one – I’ve been on and off those, depending on load and requirements. But such a container is rather simple to configure and maintain.
Thanks for asking!
Cesar Falcao says
Best WordPress host: Wpengine.com
Worst: DreamHost shared – but DreamHost has wonderful support!
Oliver Nielsen says
Thanks for sharing Cesar! I’ve heard good stuff about WP Engine. Expensive but good. Quality costs.
Herb Dean says
For me the best WordPress host in the United Kingdom is Weloveourhost. I have a shared plan but they host only a few websites on a shared server and they monitor it very well.
(mt) Media Temple (@mediatemple) says
Wow, thanks so much for the glowing review!! This is definitely one of the few reviews we’ve seen where the author has a truly comprehensive understanding of the (gs). You hit the nail on the head.
We certainly appreciate the shout out and kind words. You know where to find us if you ever need anything! – SC
Oliver Nielsen says
Thank you for taking the time to thank me. Just goes to show your positive, passionate attitude.
Keep up the good work – and the servers:)