Anybody have tried Google Cloud web hosting service?

[enjoylife]

Have been using Justhost for more than 10 years, now I think we need move forward. The speed is related low since the server is in USA. The customer service is not very good. They normally asked for 24 to 48 hours wait before taking action.
Looking Google Cloud web hoting, but don't know how easy to transfer the domain from Justhost to it, anybody have experience on it?
If there is any other web hosting supplier can be recommended, please share with me please. Thanks.

 

[gpietersz]

What platform is your site on?

I do not think being in the US is necessarily a problem. I have two sites in the US and both are pretty fast (one on pay as you go hosting, one on a cheap VPS). I plan to move them closer but they are already fast loading regardless of location - I would fix other performance issues before worrying about location.

If you really want good performance, get a VPS instead of shared hosting. You can even get one click installs of popular CMSs so its not much hassle to get started.

 

[Darren_Ssc]

What platform is your site on?

Exactly this, there are managed hosting solutions using Google Cloud rather than you having to do it all yourself.

 

[enjoylife]

What platform is your site on?

Well,we didn't use any template. Instead it was designed by PhP+sql. Back to 10 years ago, the Php version we used is 5.2, but now the server supplier we used don't support this version. This is another reason we thinking to transfer the host. Any comments please?

 

[Darren_Ssc]

... the Php version we used is 5.2, but now the server supplier we used don't support this version.

You're going to have to sort that out.

 

[enjoylife]

Hi the current web design is very reliable and we didn't see any issue with it until the server provider forced change the php version to be 5.6.

 

[gpietersz]

You will struggle to find any hosting that supports PHP 5.2

Your options are:

1. Use a VPS and jump through whatever hoops you need to install PHP 5.2 working
2. Update your code: that should not be difficult.

In my experience 10 year old code using just PHP and SQL is usually a problem waiting to happen: its often insecure, and usually hard to modify or extend.

 

[HW-J]

Hi the current web design is very reliable and we didn't see any issue with it until the server provider forced change the php version to be 5.6.

Many hosting providers use CloudLinux which includes the ability to select from multiple PHP versions. Have you looked at any hosts who use CloudLinux? You should then be able to run your website on any PHP version, provided it’s enabled on the hosts side.

As others have said, the other option is to update your website code to work with the latest PHP version(s).

 

[Darren_Ssc]

Many hosting providers use CloudLinux which includes the ability to select from multiple PHP versions. Have you looked at any hosts who use CloudLinux? You should then be able to run your website on any PHP version, provided it’s enabled on the hosts side.

As others have said, the other option is to update your website code to work with the latest PHP version(s).

I think any work-around ought to be for the very short term since he really needs to address the problem sooner rather than later?

 

[HW-J]

I think any work-around ought to be for the very short term since he really needs to address the problem sooner rather than later?

That’s true, but using CloudLinux is a viable semi-secure option in the short term. If the OP’s website isn’t functioning as it should then a solution is probably needed sooner rather than later. Depending on the functionality of the website and how it’s been coded it could potentially take 1-2 weeks to fully recode, although I’m just speculating there as I don’t know that information. But I do agree, the problem of the outdated code probably needs addressing sooner rather than later.

 

[enjoylife]

Can anybody recommend a good host? We have been using justhost for 10 years and really think we need move to another anyway. The cost kept increasing however it became more unreliable.

 

[Darren_Ssc]

Can anybody recommend a good host?

One that will work with php5, I assume? Stop wasting people's time.

 

[gpietersz]

Can anybody recommend a good host

You have had an answer from someone above, who does Cloudlinux hosting, who explained that CouldLinux hosting will let you use an old version of PHP. I cannot exactly recommend them, but at least you know they have been helpful to you here.

I have to say I did not realise that CloudLinux supports such old versions of PHP and you really should not be using it.

There are other hosts who have been recommended by people here. Check which ones will support PHP 5.2. Only those that offer a (wide!) choice of PHP versions will support something that old.

You could try a VPS with a really old but still supported Linux distro. I know the oldest supported version of Debian (Jessie) has PHP 5.6. so I suggest you try Centos if you go down that route - you will have to check whether there is still a supported version that has a PHP version that will work for you.

You are going to spend some time finding out what will work, but I doubt anyone can tell you off the top of their head, and you cannot expect people to do your work for you for free.

It really ought to be fairly easy to fix the code to work with 5.6, at least.

 

[enjoylife]

After a week hard working we have upgraded the webpage code to be compatible with php7.2 now, but its still very slow. We have decided to use a new one now. Anybody can give a comment please. Don't need to be 5.2, any 7.0 or above php version will be fine. Thanks.

 

[gpietersz]

A new host?

If you have switched to PHP 7 you have a huge choice. Lots of recommendations here.

 

[enjoylife]

yes, all codes are compatible to PHP 7.2 now.

 

[arnydnxluk]

Google Cloud Platform is not comparable to your (presumably shared) hosting with JustHost. Their platform, alongside other enterprise platforms such as AWS or Azure is much more suited to hosting scalable applications rather than smaller websites. There's also an element of lock-in depending on the specific services you use.

You probably don't need to upgrade from shared hosting unless you have other reasons to do so, most shared hosting providers are just awful and oversell servers to the extent that things begin to slow to a crawl or even break. There are however some diamonds in the dirt and in some cases shared hosting is the right solution. I would recommend Freethought Internet. If you are at the point where you do need or want something more than shared hosting, they also do "semi dedicated" hosting which is essentially shared hosting but you share with a handful of customers instead of hundreds (this has been a good balance for a couple of my clients). Further to that you could then upgrade to your own dedicated server(s) but you'll want a managed service unless you have suitable experience in managing servers and don't mind babysitting them / being on-call.

My tips to improve performance without knowing anything about your website:

1. Switch to a good hosting provider which isn't extensively overselling.
   
2. Move the hosting to the UK, the 100ms (+) does matter.
3. Upgrade to PHP 7 (done).
4. Ensure opcache is enabled in your CloudLinux PHP configuration (if your hosting provider doesn't run CloudLinux ask them to ensure opcache is enabled). Most good hosting providers have this enabled by default anyway, the poor quality ones often don't

 

[Alan]

To answer you original question "Anybody have tried Google Cloud web hosting service?" yes sure I have but as @arnydnxluk says, it is not comparable, it is a self managed VPS solution and would be a massive step from a shared host to becoming your own sys admin.

I agree with most of what @arnydnxluk says.

Find a decent UK based host - not a big 'advertise everywhere' host - and get one that uses Litespeed.

Test out their support - before you commit. If you can't get rapid answers to support questions before you are a customer imagine how bad it will be once you are 'captured'

 

[enjoylife]

Thanks Alan, you are absolutely right. Customer support is a key point we need to consider. We learned enough from Justhost.
''not a big 'advertise everywhere' host ''---can you give more suggestion on this please. Searching by google and trying the first couple of lists on google is the only way we know apart from getting suggestion from here.

 

[enjoylife]

Google Cloud Platform is not comparable to your (presumably shared) hosting with JustHost. Their platform, alongside other enterprise platforms such as AWS or Azure is much more suited to hosting scalable applications rather than smaller websites. There's also an element of lock-in depending on the specific services you use.

You probably don't need to upgrade from shared hosting unless you have other reasons to do so, most shared hosting providers are just awful and oversell servers to the extent that things begin to slow to a crawl or even break. There are however some diamonds in the dirt and in some cases shared hosting is the right solution. I would recommend Freethought Internet. If you are at the point where you do need or want something more than shared hosting, they also do "semi dedicated" hosting which is essentially shared hosting but you share with a handful of customers instead of hundreds (this has been a good balance for a couple of my clients). Further to that you could then upgrade to your own dedicated server(s) but you'll want a managed service unless you have suitable experience in managing servers and don't mind babysitting them / being on-call.

My tips to improve performance without knowing anything about your website:

1. Switch to a good hosting provider which isn't extensively overselling.
   
2. Move the hosting to the UK, the 100ms (+) does matter.
3. Upgrade to PHP 7 (done).
4. Ensure opcache is enabled in your CloudLinux PHP configuration (if your hosting provider doesn't run CloudLinux ask them to ensure opcache is enabled). Most good hosting providers have this enabled by default anyway, the poor quality ones often don't

Thanks Mark, now the loading time is above 5 seconds. If I am a customer I will not visit my website as well. So we are not surprise that our visitors dropped a lot. Will have a look the hosting provider you suggested and if you have more please let us know. We will be very serious this time and will not just find the 'low cost one'.

 

[Richard Ben]

Can anybody recommend a good host? We have been using justhost for 10 years and really think we need move to another anyway. The cost kept increasing however it became more unreliable.

In my experience, I will tell you to choose from Godday and Bluehost, by the way, I have been using Bluehost service for the last 8 years.

 

[enjoylife]

We want to find a UK based server provider. As far as we know Bluehost and Justhost are the same company?

 

[enjoylife]

My colleague have tried to ring Freethought's contact number couple of times in the working time yesterday but no response. Anyboday have used this company before? Thanks.

 

[money road]

Maybe someone use Google cloud servers to host website? Would be nice ti try, yet, I haven't got any experience with this and personally for me seems complicated if something happens...

 

[Alan]

can you give more suggestion on this please

I don't like publicly recommending - but have dropped you a DM.

 

[HostXNow]

Yes, try to use a provider who uses CloudLinux, LiteSpeed and also the newer and faster NVMe drives if possible. Your websites should load much quicker then.

 

[webhostuk]

Present Litespeed quic.cloud also performs well, you can check with provider offering litespeed and cloudlinux.

 

[gpietersz]

We want to find a UK based server provider. As far as we know Bluehost and Justhost are the same company?

Yes, they are, and a lot more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_International_Group

I would avoid them.

Yes, try to use a provider who uses CloudLinux, LiteSpeed and also the newer and faster NVMe drives if possible. Your websites should load much quicker then.

That sort of advice is far too generic to be useful.

For example, unless loading static files from your own site is the performance bottleneck, then its unlikely it matters what web server you use. The vast majority of sites these days are slowed down by loading external assets, not the performance of the server itself. OP is probably OK as far as that goes because they are using old code.

If your own static files are the bottleneck, you might consider using a CDN instead (I am not saying you should, but its a possibility). Litespeed may not be the fastest alternative either (I know people who claim it does, but there are lies, damn lies and benchmarks).

There are more things to consider when choosing a web server than performance.

Given the code now works on PHP 7 there is no particular reason to use CloudLinux.

 

[enjoylife]

Have contacted with another UK based hosting company GURU yesterday. Got a good feeling and I believe they know what they are doing. The only problem we have now is the server they used are based on Linux and cannot provide exchanged email account. Any suggestions please?

 

[arnydnxluk]

Have contacted with another UK based hosting company GURU yesterday. Got a good feeling and I believe they know what they are doing. The only problem we have now is the server they used are based on Linux and cannot provide exchanged email account. Any suggestions please?

Linux for web hosting is the norm and generally the better setup unless you're using Windows specific software.

Your web hosting and email hosting don't need to be with the same provider or linked in any way, choose the best independent service for each. I would generally recommend against using the email service bundled with shared hosting for business purposes. Instead I would recommend looking at the likes of Fastmail, Google G-Suite or Microsoft Office 365.

As you've mentioned Exchange you're probably best going down the Microsoft Office 365 route for your email. You can get a lot of benefit for a reasonable price from Office 365. You can then use Guru for your web hosting who aren't bad.

 

[arnydnxluk]

My colleague have tried to ring Freethought's contact number couple of times in the working time yesterday but no response. Anyboday have used this company before? Thanks.

I have but I'm the person who originally recommended them in this thread.

You could try emailing them [email protected] to ask for an explanation. Obviously this reflects poorly on them and you may have already been put off going with them but I'm sure they would appreciate to hear your feedback if you can spare a couple more minutes for them.

I think Guru will be fine for you though, they're another one of the few good providers in the UK - have clients with them who're happy and I've had no problems working on their sites.

 

[gpietersz]

The only problem we have now is the server they used are based on Linux and cannot provide exchanged email account. Any suggestions please?

Linux is generally better for hosting PHP (unless its using MS SQL server or something else Windows specific).

You could look at separate Exchange hosting.

You could also look at alternatives to Exchange that run on Linux. If you are just using it as an email server its very easy, otherwise you need to look at your requirements more closely.

 

[HostXNow]

That sort of advice is far too generic to be useful.

I wouldn't say that. Those three alone can make a huge difference when it comes to page loading times.

If a provider is using SATA, SAS, or even SSD Disk IO can be a bottleneck. NVMe has much higher disk IO/IOPs available and providing the provider offers generous LVE limits from CloudLinux then there could be a significant difference with page load times for the customer.

If a provider is using Apache, they aren't able to handle as many concurrent connections as good as a provider who uses LiteSpeed Web Server.

Even using LSAPI from CloudLinux has an advantage over using Apache Web Server.

But the best way to go about it is to use the full LiteSpeed Web Server version. Then the provider can offer LSCache (part of LiteSpeed) for WordPress, and each customer can use LSCache plugin at no additional cost to optimise their websites.

This saves the customer having to spend money on 3rd party plugins like WPRocket or similar, which aren't as good as the full version of LSCache.

LSCache also has Image Optimisation, so no need for the customer to pay for additional plugins like Smush or similar plugins. The more plugins a customer uses, the more it uses resources from the customers' account, which can cause resource/slowness issues for their account and websites.

I've seen lots of customers try to use security/optimisation plugins which aren't even that good and slow their account/site down.

I use Imunify360/LiteSpeed, and as they run at the server level i.e, it doesn't use resources on customers account. Optimisation/Security is done at the server-level and using resources as root, not using the customers' resources that have been allocated to them via CloudLinux LVE manager.

You will notice some providers offer less expensive hosting when LiteSpeed is not being used but charge more for different plans that do include LiteSpeed.

Coming back to CloudLinux LVE manager also plays a big part. Majority of providers running cPanel/DA use CloudLinux and the LVE manager which is used to offer better stability for the server which is done by restricting resources to each customer so no one website/account can cause the server to crash.

Some providers offer better CloudLinux LVE limits than others. Generally, the more resources available within LVE, the quicker CMS will run. But it isn't all just about LVE limits.

There is a lot to it, and I could write ten pages of this stuff.

But as I said, CloudLinux, Imunify360 and LiteSpeed play a big part in how slow or fast websites load, along with the type of storage used to serve content for the websites too. NVMe is newer and faster.

 

[gpietersz]

If a provider is using SATA, SAS, or even SSD Disk IO can be a bottleneck.

Exactly: can be. If database queries are the bottleneck (are not being cached in memory).

If a provider is using Apache, they aren't able to handle as many concurrent connections as good

Which depends on how many concurrent connections you need to handle and again where the bottlenecks are. If you bottleneck is the app or the DB query (where NVMe will help) then probably not.

A lot depends on configuration and which worker config you are comparing against. Nginx? Which Apache worker.

Almost any webserver can saturate most connections.

A lot of people who know what they are doing use Nginx for performance. Cloudflare has their own (open source) fork of it.

This is all premature optimisation, given most websites performance problems lie elsewhere.

But the best way to go about it is to use the full LiteSpeed Web Server version. Then the provider can offer LSCache (part of LiteSpeed) for WordPress, and each customer can use LSCache plugin at no additional cost to optimise their websites.

If performance is that important, you should not be using shared hosting in the first place.

That pretty much eliminates all your other advantages.

 

[HostXNow]

A lot of people who know what they are doing use Nginx for performance. Cloudflare has their own (open source) fork of it.

A lot of web users prefer to use cPanel due to it being the most popular control panel, and cPanel doesn't officially support Nginx, and a lot of the 3rd party plugins are poor.

LiteSpeed can decrease latency around half a second out of the box just by switching to it. Also, many prefer LiteSpeed over Nginx.

LiteSpeed Beats Nginx in HTTP/3 Benchmark Tests

https://blog.litespeedtech.com/2019/11/25/http3-litespeed-vs-nginx/

If performance is that important, you should not be using shared hosting in the first place.

That pretty much eliminates all your other advantages.

Why use VPS/dedicated? There are a lot more overheads using non-shared. Also, Shared can be just as fast if not faster than VPS/Dedicated, because 9/10 a Shared service already includes paid software as I mentioned above. With a VPS/Dedicated you have to pay for software like malware, security, optimisation software whereas it's usually already included in a Shared service which means better value for money.

Let's compare these two sites as an example.

hostxnow.com = 185ms Load = https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.hostxnow.com/vj9OdTi9

pietersz.net = 258ms Load = https://gtmetrix.com/reports/pietersz.net/3PlfbyNW

Your site is using pure HTML (no PHP/MySQL) and so should load a lot faster than a CMS-based website, i.e. a site powered by WordPress like hostxnow.com yet hostxnow.com loads a lot more quickly than your site.

Maybe you haven't optimised your website correctly, but clearly, ours is very fast, and so I know how to make website load fast.

You seem to be implying that what I said is nonsense which is a bit rude, lol. I'm not a programmer like you, but I know how to make use of hardware/software to get websites to load as fast as possible and been doing it for over 15 years.

As you can see, I haven't now said just three things can make a big difference. Due to request, I've gone into a bit more detail, and so have you. So hopefully users are better informed now.

 

[gpietersz]

LiteSpeed Beats Nginx in HTTP/3 Benchmark Tests

A benchmark designed and carried out by Litespeed. Not exactly an impartial assessment. Benchmarks are meaningless enough as it is, but when its done by someone with a vested interest its useless.

hostxnow.com = 185ms Load = https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.hostxnow.com/vj9OdTi9

pietersz.net = 258ms Load = https://gtmetrix.com/reports/pietersz.net/3PlfbyNW

That is because mine is hosted in the US so there is more latency when you measure from the UK. On top of that its on a very low end setup. Even so, when tested from Canda it seems comparable to your site on Gtmetrixand does a lot better on PageSpeed:

https://gtmetrix.com/reports/pietersz.net/YRs3etre
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=pietersz.net
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https://www.hostxnow.com/shared-hosting/

A better comparison would be this. With a site with no caching or optimisation, that does need database queries, one of multiple sites running on Nginx on Debian on a cheap VPS in the UK:

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https://moneyterms.co.uk/

Much faster than your site

If you want a comparison with shared hosting, this site runs on cheap shared hosting, using Apache on FreeBSD, in the US:

https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.codeandmore.co.uk/bsRiWr7q

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https://www.codeandmore.co.uk/

so about as fast as yours according to gtmetric, and much faster according to page speed.

The host ( https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ ) is very good and has probably tuned the platform very well.

I'm not a programmer like you, but I know how to make use of hardware/software to get websites to load as fast as possible and been doing it for over 15 years.

I think what you do is part of the problem. I am sure you are good at what you do, but you are focused on the hosting part of performance (because it is what you do), and are missing the bigger picture.

 

[HostXNow]

@gpietersz

The PageSpeed score alone doesn't mean much, IMO.

Also, there isn't much point comparing static websites to dynamic websites. 9/10 static will load faster than dynamic. But I did provide an example of your site hosted on Apache, and while hosted in the US, both sites still load somewhat similar even though one site is static and the other dynamic.

You also compare a sub-page which is a lot more heavy pagesize wise, so of course, it's going to take longer to load. The ones you're testing are static generated websites. Feel free to compare a WordPress based website that has similar or the same page size, location and then post the result.

You seem to be missing my points. The site I posted should not be loading faster than yours, even if yours is hosted in the USA.

So you prefer Nginx for your work environment, and I prefer LiteSpeed. We should just leave it like that.

 

[gpietersz]

The PageSpeed score alone doesn't mean much, IMO.

I agree. Neither does the GTMetrix score that you introduced into the discussion.

Also, there isn't much point comparing static websites to dynamic websites.

Again, its you that made that comparison. It is one of the points I was trying to make: the OS and server software are just a small part of a big picture.

Which is why I also provided a dynamic website to compare with.

I can even show you results for a Wordpress site running on the same shared host (the FreeBSD + Apache one):

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https://pietersz.co.uk/
https://gtmetrix.com/reports/pietersz.co.uk/7fytZCJr

So you prefer Nginx for your work environment, and I prefer LiteSpeed. We should just leave it like that.

That is the main point I was trying to make.

 

[HostXNow]

@gpietersz

I referred to GTMetrix not for the fancy score for the reasons we both agree, but for the page size and HTTP requests since those are what dictate how resource-heavy the site is and how slow or fast it will load.

You link to another test that is hosted on WordPress, but there is hardly any content on the site and the page size is only around 96.8KB with 15 requests but takes 1.1 seconds to load.

Mine is 1.1 seconds but the page size is 310KB and 23 requests due to a lot more plugins being used and content on the website.

If you like, you can provide me with a copy of a WordPress site that is as optimised as possible on your best/fastest environment and provide me with a copy of it, and I'll host it on a subdomain, and you can host a copy of it on a sub-domain. We can compare which is best.

But I think it's safe to say that LiteSpeed with LSCache and in combination with Cloudflare is an excellent setup. How well the website is optimised is a completely different thing altogether.

 

[gpietersz]

f you like, you can provide me with a copy of a WordPress site that is as optimised as possible on your best/fastest environment and provide me with a copy of it, and I'll host it on a subdomain, and you can host a copy of it on a sub-domain. We can compare which is best.

You want me to set up an optimise a wordpress site just for the sake of proving something to you?

But I think it's safe to say that LiteSpeed with LSCache and in combination with Cloudflare is an excellent setup.

Maybe, so are a lot of other options.

How well the website is optimised is a completely different thing altogether.

It is a different thing, and usually much more important.

If people want a faster site they do not care whether it is achieved by optimising the design, or optimising database queries, or changing the web server - but for most sites the problem is the design, the code or the database (most often in that order).