I've just recently started to work privately on web development and am wondering if any have suggestions for Drupal Friendly hosting. I develop websites for my day job as well but we do our own hosting so I've never had significant server issues.
Recently I had a bad experience with IPages. The client came to me already having purchased the shared hosting account. I don't expect the greatest performance from shared hosting accounts but I haven't had terrible luck with them so far - Host Gator gives me a 3-7 second load time on a typical Drupal setup. IPages, however, during peak hours (4pm-10pm) has load times as bad as 15-30 seconds for a drupal site (the issue is database related as static pages are served up fairly quickly).
So my question for the group is, if your client comes to you already having purchased a hosting account or if you don't do your own hosting, who would you recomend and who would you avoid?
Thanks!
Comments
DreamHost +1; Holistic Solutions -1
Of the two I've used, I'd give DreamHost (http://dreamhost.com/) two thumbs up and Holistic Solutions (http://teamholistic.com/index.html) a thumb down. Both claim to be Drupal friendly, but I've found the service from Holistic Solutions to be lacking. I'm in the process of moving that client to DreamHost.
DreamHost used to have a single-click Drupal install, and it's still pretty close. They (DreamHost) integrate well with Google Apps, which most of my clients use. Best of all, it's all free for nonprofits, which all of my clients are!
Mike Steigerwald
Pantheon Zap!
I started using Pantheon and have been very happy with the platform. I first heard about it from Chris Shattuk's Build A Module tutorials.
You can fire up a Drupal instance in minutes. Backups are done with the click of a button.
They have a workflow set up moving from dev to test to live (again with the click of a button)
You can also save a file with all your code and another file with all your database (click of a button)
And, once you have the live site running you can take the content from it and use it to populate your dev site so that you are testing against actual live content, not months old dummy data.
I edit the site on my local computer and then use Git to upload changes to Pantheon.
https://www.getpantheon.com/
They offer two free sites for dev work and I'm having my students use those to learn about Drupal. Each student can add me in as a collaborator so I have full access to their hosting files as well as the Drupal site itself.
Their customer service has been really outstanding.
Peter
Advantage Labs
I have used Advantage Labs for all of my drupal hosting - they are a Drupal managed host - as an alliance member with them, I host with them and take advantage of their lab hours and training. Most importantly, since I am really not a "back-end" person, I can rely on them for help and advice on how to approach a project.
maryann king
http://www.emkayandco.com