r/webhosting

I'm currently paying $2,000+ per year for a dedicated USA server with the following specs:

Intel Xeon E-2224 4.6GHz Turbo CPU
16GB DDR4 ECC RAM
2X1 TB SSD Storage
6TB Transfer
Root Level Access
Free SSL Certificate

However, my host has just removed this plan and is forcing me to either upgrade or downgrade, with both options more expensive than what I'm currently paying.

I own several domains (currently as addons), and have several packages installed such as ffmpeg. I use mainly PHP and websockets.

If anyone can recommend a dedicated sever cheaper or for a better deal that is suitable for what I'm doing, can you let me know.

Good customer support is a must.

I just bought domain and working on my project.

In a past I used google suite for linking domain with mail for getting email address like foobar@mydomain.com.

But maybe you know better alternative? Free and nice.

(I used Zoho as well. But there creepy ui)

I had a website in the past optometry zone on go Daddy domain. They charged me 3k per yr I think. I did use it for 4-5 yrs and updated multiple blog articles. Later on I was busy with my job and ignored the website. It's no longer available. I called them to enquire, they asked around 25k to retrieve and continue on same page. So, now I'm trying to get back to make another website. Is there any domain that can host me for reasonable amount?

Tried asking an AI for free hosting suggestions.

Got the usual list. Then I asked about something I’ve been working on, and it started listing features that don’t even exist.

When I pushed it a bit, it basically admitted it was guessing.

Made me think how much of the “free hosting” space is just assumptions or recycled info.

Anyone else run into this?

Hetzner VPS, 4GB RAM

CloudPanel

Cloudflare

My server got automatic mySQL shutdown. I turned on bot mode on Cloudflare and added swap memory and did other stuff on server.

Nothing fixed.

Hosting panels are bloated. PaaS platforms are expensive. Kubernetes is overkill for most workloads. I wanted something in the sweet spot: one binary, zero dependencies beyond Docker, and full isolation per site.

So I built apod. You drop it on any VPS and it turns it into a hosting platform. You tell it what to run, whether it's a Laravel app, a WordPress site, an Odoo instance, a Node.js API, anything, and it handles the rest. Each site runs in its own isolated Docker container with hard RAM, CPU, and disk limits. It also gets its own database, automatic SSL through Traefik, scheduled backups, and a full REST API for management.

Application stacks are defined as simple YAML files called "drivers." There are built-in ones for PHP, Laravel, WordPress, Node.js, Odoo, UniFi, and more. You can also write your own in about 20 lines. If it runs in Docker, apod can host it. The idea is you should not have to deal with Docker, nginx configs, or SSL certificates just to deploy a site.

There is no web UI. No Redis. No Postgres dependency. Just a CLI and an API. All state lives in a single SQLite file.

You can also turn this into a SaaS platform. If you have an open source project you want to sell as a service, just write a YAML driver and connect it to WHMCS or Paymenter. We did this with Odoo. We wrote a driver, added a $24.99/month product in WHMCS, and customers instantly got isolated Odoo instances with SSL, backups, and a web terminal. It took about 20 minutes. The same setup works for n8n, Metabase, Gitea, Nextcloud, or anything else.

The billing integration is what makes it practical. It ships with WHMCS and Paymenter modules. A customer buys a plan, the site provisions automatically. If they miss a payment, it suspends. If they cancel, it terminates. The WHMCS client area includes a web terminal, backup management, and live resource stats. Customers never touch the host or even know apod exists.

Each site is properly isolated. Resource limits are enforced at the kernel level. I tested it by running rm -rf / inside a container. It recovered automatically and nothing else was affected.

It’s built for agencies, freelancers, and anyone who wants to host apps for others without a lot of overhead.

MIT licensed: https://github.com/aystro-com/apod⁠

While studying computer science and programming I set you up for my hobby projects which I wanted the world to see. And boy did the world see! Multiple personal homepages, a Discord bot, a fully featured web app, multiple modded Minecraft servers, headless Steam, among other programming related things such as private docker image registry.

I spent hours and hours trying to make you behave. Pasted commands from Stackoverflow and bombarded HTTP requests from Postman. At first it was without luck, but little by little you taught me how to communicate with you. Features and caveats of Linux server became familiar to me, and when our communication improved, great things followed. I became a software developer and got a reputation inside my team that "this guy knows their bash commands", and I knew it was you all along. I found the courage to replace Windows with Linux-based OS on my personal device, all thanks to the years spent with you.

I feel great sadness but today I must let you go. Your upgrades, once needed for Minecraft performance, have become too costly to pay every month. I have `rsync`ed you to my personal device so I will always have a memory of you (and access to forgotten .env files). Rest in peace, old companion. You were more than a server.

And around 3000 traffic was coming every day but suddenly it was found that the trademark of some company was registered in it, so they sent a request to take it down through hosting.So if any of you are want to give any advice then you can give it. I contacted that company and they are saying to go to Telegram and sell it. 😥

My 80 year old mother has a website whose domain has been owned for decades by a friend that recently passed away. There appears to be no way to get the logins from his family. It is scheduled to expire in a few weeks.

Any suggestions? Just poach it once it eventually becomes available? But that feels like there will be a period where the site won't be usable. Surely this cannot be an unknown problem. WHOIS says it's registered with GoDaddy if that makes any difference.

Appreciate ya'll!

Hello,

I would like to get your advice on choosing a hosting solution.

I have several small websites to host. I am not a system administrator, so I’m not very comfortable with server configuration, even though I can handle it a bit.

I prefer to avoid dealing with security updates and maintenance tasks.

My web projects are mainly PHP projects using Symfony. They are version-controlled with Git, and I use Docker.

Would it be better for me to choose a KVM VPS using tools like Coolify or Dokploy, or would it be simpler and more suitable to use a managed hosting solution like Cloud**ways?

What would you recommend?

I’m currently building and improving my own VPS hosting platform and wanted to ask the community something important:

What’s the thing that annoys you the most about your current hosting provider?

For example:

• hidden fees
• slow support
• poor performance
• complicated setup
• outdated dashboards

I’d love to understand what people actually struggle with so I can build something better.

Curious to hear your experiences 👀

I have been using LiquidWeb to host my client’s sites based on a recommendation of someone who had been using them for like a decade. They have been amazing until probably 2 years ago. Now their customer service is terrible and the value just does not seem to measure up to the insane costs. Switched from VPS to dedicated server because they told me it would be better security and performance. Performance dropped drastically.

I’m a designer, Anne though I do have a knack for the technical side, I’m not a sys admin or developer.

Wondering what other web managers are using? I went with LW initially based on its history of incredible security and customer service, though from reading reviews that combination now seems like it may be nonexistent in any hosting companies? Are there any that any other web managers feel you can recommend?

I currently have probably 30 or so sites hosted on my servers (quite a few are staging or test sites), all WordPress, probably estimated 50k visitors combined/month, and I’m paying around $300/month. I am constantly getting security and high load warnings (even after hiring a server expert to optimize my servers), and their backup solution is an additional cost if you want it to actually work (the included isn’t much more than a demo with the restrictions).

I would love to find something that is lighter administrative load for me, has built in safety measures for frequent automated backups, track record of strong security, and I don’t have to hire a server manger to optimize it just to make it function.

I would also love something that lets me host a large number of sites without charging me for each individual site added (I’ve seen quite a few who do that, and that adds up when you’re building test sites like I do). That is one thing LW does that I like.

I also really like the control cPanel gives me, but am not 100% opposed to switching to a different platform… I would trade that for an easier-to-use solution that is reliable and still gives me the ability to access site files and give access to devs when needed.

I don’t even know what to expect for budget. Right now I’m paying probably close to $300/month for their basic service (essentially a DIY dedicated server). Maybe that’s normal?

I have been asmallorange.com customer for many years, but because they were bought and sold and passed around like the village bike, I've been thinking I might move my small set of domains (about 20 total)

Who owns them now? Some things seemt to forward to Network Solutions, but I don't think that's it.

Some of my stuff isn't working very well, the nameservers were not working for all of my domains this week and it may be time to finally find a new home.

Hi everyone, I'm looking for advice.

I currently have SiteGround's GrowBig plan. I like the unlimited websites and have a few WordPress websites with them. But of course, the renewal fees are annoying and this year I'm looking elsewhere. I negotiated and they offered 20% off, but looking at the sidebar NixiHost and KnownHost are still cheaper alternatives. I'm curious if it's worth switching to either of them?

I just want a simple setup and shared hosting has been fine for me. But I currently have a client I've added to my shared hosting, and if I add more I'm not sure if I should be adding them to the shared plan or their own? Reseller?

I was thinking I would keep a shared hosting plan for my own websites and current client for now, then if/when I add more clients I might look at changing it rather than adding them to my shared plan. It'd likely be local businesses, so they don't generate significant website traffic outside of their local geolocations.

If you were switching from SiteGround to either NixiHost or KnownHost, which would you proceed with? And in the future, would you continue adding clients to a shared hosting or how would you setup the environment as a web designer?

Thank you

I made the website content from lovable , but finding it difficult to host and get the domain name . Who can help with it. Please no click baits.

I have a reseller account with a webhosting company and told them about a persistent backdoor in February, two months later and now all the websites have been hacked. For a long time I have had a problem with the php version being rolled back to an ancient one but my questions about how this happened are dodged.

I am the sole user and owner, have Cloudflare set up so that I am the only one who can sign in but it is happening at the server level. I also have tons of rules blocking countries, ips, bots, etc.

Last week an API was created from an Indian IP and the host is like 'oh shucks.' After that they used the information gained on the back end to breach my GSC and Cloudflare.

I believe the hacker changed the contactemail because now I can't even login to the client portal (after being sent a link to login with last night) and the security question answer was changed.

The host placed an SQL file at the root of my account in the midst of all this which seems like deliberate sabotage.

As I was browsing files in the CPanel one 'view' prompted an automatic download and a 'fake cpanel' showed up briefly. Their response was 'what do you want me to do about that?'

The gaslighting is extraordinary as they are blaming my security on a new M4 that passed malwarebytes and Etre security checks with long randomised passwords that have been changed 8 million times. And I only work from home on the only whitelisted IP, but that doesn't help since it is not happening throuhg Cpanel.

My twenty year old business is being destroyed right now and I can't even get in to back up.

I informed them that another site was being hacked last night and the support response was 'it looks fine' even though i informed them that a bunch of new plugins were added and the old themes reappeared and sent screenshots.

Other support tickets are 20 pages long lecturing me about security. They are blaiming me for outdated plugins i did not add.

This is the first time ever in the history of my account that this has happened. No one else uses my devices. They have passwords just to login.

Suggestions? I know I should move to a new host, they are trying to leverage this to upsell me to a VPS instead of fixing the problem.

I think maybe support was phished or something because when I talked to them and told them I was actively being hacked they also said 'check my security.' and totally dismissed it. The only security weakness on my side is that I don't use 2f because i don't have a phone service (outside the US people use Whatsapp.)

But this is at server level is it not? Could it be that an Indian guy I hired briefly in 2015 (who broke my site at the time) left a backdoor?

That is the only other person in the history of my online life who had access to only one website (briefly) I have changed hosting services twice since then.

This is a complete nightmare. Any ideas about what is going on? Why is the host so insistent it is my issue when new database tables are being created and old user accounts that were deleted are reappearing in Myphpadmin? Any known exploits I don't know about? Ideas?

Thanks so much —  I am freaking out here.

Currently on Lin͏ode, trying to figure out if switching to something else even makes sense. Came across Serve͏rspace and decided to compare similar configurations. The numbers turned out interesting.

Standard setup (4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 160 GB SSD): Linode $48/mo, Serverspace $37.51/mo. On a heavier config (16 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, 1280 GB SSD): Linode $384/mo, Serverspace $300.91/mo. The gap is noticeable, especially if you are scaling.

My experience with Linode: Linux-first, everything is predictable, interface is not cluttered. From what I have read about Serverspace: more flexible configuration, 10 minute billing intervals, Windows VPS available as well. Use case is pretty standard: web projects, Docker, PostgreSQL, nothing enterprise.

Question for anyone who has used both: does the price difference actually reflect something in quality or reliability, or is it just a different pricing model? And anything worth watching out for when migrating from Linode?

IONOS has really pissed me off recently, by adding random charges for PHP Extended Support, whilst I have no active websites connected to my domain.

I have one domain registered with IONOS, and its connected to cloudflare name servers. Is there a way to also transfer the registration, so I can finally be free from IONOS? I now register my domains with cloudflare because they are a lot cheaper and allow me to have a large amount of control over what happens.

so i've been trying to move a side project to an EU based VPS for better latency

first tried hetzner, account rejected within minutes, no explanation, just "we can't accept your registration at this time"

second one same story, went through the whole signup flow, uploaded ID for KYC, waited 48 hours, rejected

third one finally worked but the KYC process took 4 days and had to send a copy of my passport for a 10€/month VPS

i get that there are fraud concerns but this feels completely disproportionate

is this getting worse or have i just been unlucky this month? curious if others have had the same experience recently or if some providers are actually still chill about this