Finding the Right Hosting Service
For a really long time, I was hosting my site at home and using no-ip to manage the DNS and MX entries of my domain. For the most part this was ok. I was not too wild about their customer service and was disappointed that I could only send emails through web client and not my iPhone. So I went on a quest to seek out a hosting service for my domain. I did some research and spoke to some friends about a bunch of hosting services. Most of them I was able to quickly weed out because of user reviews. For me, it came down to BlueHost and HostGator.
I came across IX Web Hosting as well which is worth mentioning and got good customer reviews. Coming from a developer background, having ssh access was a must for me. When talking to IX Web Hosting service, they did not have ssh access for their customers. Instead, they had some type of web based terminal that you can use. If you only need light administration and will mostly be using cPanel then I think they should work for you as well. For me, I decided against using them because of the lack of real ssh access. One thing that IX offers that the other two do not is windows hosting.
When it came down to service offerings between BlueHost and HostGator, they were pretty similar. I did find some differences that should be noted.
Below is a summary of features that I was looking at and my findings. If you want a more detailed description each line item, you can continue on below. Also, if you have other features that you looked at that you think would be helpful to other people, just leave me a comment and I can update this post.
| BlueHost | HostGator | |
|---|---|---|
| Domain Hosting | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| ssh access | Yes | Yes |
| MySql Database | Yes | Yes |
| Postgres Database | Yes | No |
| Drupal | Yes | Yes |
| WordPress | Yes | Yes |
| Repository Server (Git/SVN) | Not Supported but Allowed | Client Only |
| Dedicated IP | Primary Domain Only | Available For All Domains |
| Private SSL Certificates | Primary Domain Only | Available For All Domains |
Domain Hosting:
- For both, they advertise unlimited number of domain hosting for free. Well, free here is relatively. In general, these hosting services have a concept of a primary domain and everything else is considered add-on domain. Your primary domain registration is free. Both advertise that you can host unlimited amount of domains on your account. However, if you want to add additional domains, you pay a nominal registration fee for each.
- As a note, on BlueHost I migrated my existing domain over. I was told that if I want to register another domain under the same account, I would still have to pay the registration fee even though my primary domain was already registered. You essentially lost your free registration if you migrate an existing domain over as your primary account. I would assume it's the same for HostGator.
SSH Access:
- As I mentioned before this was a must-have for me since I come from a UNIX background and I like to know what's going on on my servers. Both service providers allow you ssh access. I cannot speak much about HostGator, but on BlueHost you get 1 ssh account login per account you sign up for. Username is generated by default. I believe they take the first 8 characters of your primary domain name. I would assume that HostGator does something similar. BTW, ssh access is not turned on by default. You have to submit a ticket for BlueHost to have this enabled. This involves you emailing them a copy of your ID for verifications. It's a quick process though. From the time I submitted the ticket, they enabled this for me within the hour.
Databases:
- BlueHost supported MySQL as well as Postgres, whereas HostGator only supports MySQL. I use Postgres at work and I have a Redmine instance using Postgres database at home so I was leaning towards a hosting service that supports both. However, this was not a deal breaker for me either way since most Open Source software out there supports both of these databases. For both services, you can create your databases through cPanel and use phpAdmin to administer the databases.
Drupal:
- Both offered the latest version of Drupal. Installation is pretty much one click using Simple Scripts in your cPanel. From talking to their customer service, they will support Drupal 7.0 as soon as it comes out.
WordPress:
- Again, there was no discernible differences here. Both support the latest version and installations is done through cPanel.
Source Control:
- Being a developer, source control is a big deal for me. Before I had OpenVPN set up and subversion/git repositories running at home so I can access my source code from anywhere. I was hoping to be able to host these by whatever hosting provider that I choose. From speaking with their customer representatives and poking around the forums, this what I gathered.
- BlueHost doesn't officially support repository hosting - this means that their customer support will not be able to help you with setting this up. However, they do no discourage it either. There are plenty of posts out there with instructions on how to set up your SVN and Git repositories out there.
- I have only tried setting up SVN, and it's pretty easy. One thing to note is that since you won't have control over the apache server, I have only found people getting svn+ssh working.
- This might be an issue for you if you have multiple developers working in your repo since everyone will have to use the same ssh account to access your repository.
- As for HostGator, their customer service agent told me that you are not allowed to run repository servers in your accounts. However, you can feel free to run the client so you can pull source code from a repository hosted elsewhere.
Dedicated IP/Private SSL Certificates:
- Cost for dedicated IP is slightly different between the two. It's generally an additional fee of anywhere between $2 to $2.50 more per month if you want this.
- Private SSL certificates require dedicated IP. You generally pay an additional fee per year to get the SSL certificate - something between $45 to $150 a year depending on what options you choose. HostGator's prices varied more since they have more options. I believe in both cases, you will be getting a certificate from Comodo.
- HostGator has a business account which includes 1 free dedicated IP as well as 1 free private SSL certificate for your account.
- When it comes to dedicated IP's and SSL certificates, there are some differences in the hosting services that are worth mentioning.
- On BlueHost, you can get dedicated IP and private SSL certificates only on your primary domain. You do not have the option of getting these on non-primary domains. I would assume you might have to sign up for a different account entirely if you need it for multiple sites.
- HostGator is a little bit more flexible, I've been told that you can get these on any of the domains that are hosted by your account. Again, if you have their business account, you get the first dedicated IP and SSL cert for free, but will have to pay extra on any other domains that you might be hosting.
- For the most part, it's not going to affect the average user, but if you are planning on hosting multiple domains and know you will need SSL for both, it's definitely something to consider.
Ultimately, I chose BlueHost since they were a little bit cheaper and I don't quite need multiple dedicated IPs and SSL certificates just yet and I like having the option to host my repositories even though I will most likely using an on-line svn or git service for this. Although, I think either one would be great candidates if you are looking.
And just as a last minute disclaimer, it's always a good idea to double check with their customer support before signing up for an account since their services and policies may have changed since I talked to them. Both offer 30 day money back guarantee but who want's to go through the hassle, right?
