Recently, a couple of friends have called to ask about choosing a hosting company. Like all other things you buy in life, you want it cheap you want it good. I'll rather put emphasis on the second part. Because if you got a bad hosting company, hell breaks loose and you'll not only spend money but also time and emotions fighting and trying to get your site. One very very very bad company to deal with, New Media Express. My sister's company used to use their hosting services and they would shut down your site. Found 10 thousand excuses to shut down her site when she first implemented ecommerce and started to use more bandwidth for images. Reason given: "script error". There was no errors in the script just that it loaded images everytime someone hit the site (You'll have to do that for a ecommerce site right?) Basically, all they wanted her to do was upgrade to a more expensive plan. That sucks. That's scam.
The first step to getting your website is to choose a hosting company/domain registration (usually your hosting company will throw it in when you buy hosting for a year.) The hosting I'm using rooting for and using right now is www.osprohosting.com. Never heard of them doing advertising etc but so far, it has done the job for me for most of my web projects. I've finally settled here and it's been doing good for me. Only pitfall is that they only do Linux hosting. So if your site is in .NET then this is not for you. Also they only do shared hosting. So if you need control over your server (such as control of the php.ini etc), you'll need to pick someone with VPS/Dedicated hosting. Also they don't support Ruby. Kindof weird.
I've tried Godaddy, the bandwidth on their shared hosting is kindof bad and slow coming into Singapore. Also if you used their one-click scripts, you can't access/extract your database. It's a paid service to backup your own database. So weird. But if you were going for a simple html site. Give them a try. They are quite cheap and most of their services and control panels are quite easy to use.
I've heard a bit of good reviews about 1and1.com as well. They are cheap and many of their clients swear by them. I've never tried them personally.
Finally what if you need a good .net hosting? So far I have no idea yet. But locally in Singapore, my best experience has been with 8 to infinity, can't say the same about Web Synergies, the web desing/development company that shares their office. Boon, the boss of 8 to offers the best advice for your money. They are not as cheap compared to osprohosting and Godaddy but if you need a local host in Singapore, I'll say 8 to.
To sum up:
Linux Hosting for PHP sites with scripts like Joomla/Drupal: Osprohosting.com
Static Html sites: Godaddy or 1 and 1
Local hosting (Singapore): 8 to Infinity.
Any other suggestions?
Getting a website
