Hosting Recommendations

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G

GNU

Hello All,

Im looking for a good shared web host in the UK.

Any recommendations?

Thanks :)
 
There are a few that hang around here :)
Vidahost has a good reputation, and is a member here.
I use eukhost.com for 2 servers and 6 VPS that I use to host my clients on and can only say good things about them.
 
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I havent used any community members services for hosting, However i do use a company called fasthosts. Havent had a single issue in many years with my dedicated servers and I have some shared accounts that seem fine also.

But as another poster has mentioned, It would be good to at least have a browse of other members services ( Support the community etc :) )
 
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Before I moved to using my own VPS instances I used a company called TsoHost. Their cloud platform was excellent and good value for money. I'd suggest you look there.
 
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Hi GNU

We'd be happy to help. We host a number of UKBF members, and it's always great hosting a member.

The best host for you really depends on your need and what you're after, but obvious things to look for are level of service, transparency, value for money, specification and so forth.

If you've got any questions then feel free to give us a shout. You can submit a ticket on our site, or start live chat if you fancy a chat.

I hope that helps

Good luck with your site

Dan
 
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I'm also looking for a host for a simple Wordpress landing page, to promote a consumer facing iOS application.

It needs to be scalable and handling huge amounts of traffic if required.

Vidahost looks great.

I'm just wondering though; is a UK based host a good option if I anticipate a lot of site traffic coming from the US, AUS and South Africa?

Any advice/suggestions appreciated.

Cheers,

Brad
 
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Hi Brad,

If you're on a budget then you could use CloudFlare to provide a CDN, which can improve the loading times for your international visitors. We provide this in our cPanel control panel and it's free, but any decent host should provide this or you can go directly to CloudFlare but that requires a bit more setup.

If you're UK based then you'd certainly benefit from using UK hosting as your starting point.

Any decent host will let you scale up easily with no down time. If it's a new app I'd recommend starting with a modest package and then you can always upgrade at a later date if necessary when demand increases.

It's good being positive about expected traffic, but if you use a decent host there's no need to pay for a package that can serve that traffic until you need it.

I hope that helps.

If you've got any questions feel free to get in touch, we'd be happy to help.

Good luck,

Dan
 
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Bear in mind that Cloudflare doesn't cache the page, only media within it, so it's still necessary/ideal to locate the site as close to visitors as possible. UK <> US isn't a huge distance compared to, say, Europe to Asia, but we do have US hosting available too.
 
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The free version of CloudFlare does have some limitations. Most notably the free version cannot handle SSL certificates at your main domain. Linking CF into your site also adds another layer of complexity and possible security hole - so not suited to everyone. Whilst only very minor, and quickly resolved, CF had a users account hacked in June 2012 so it is as infallible as any online system protected by a password.

There's also lots of optimisations you can make to a site to boost performance. Search for Google Page Speed for tips.

If your catchment area is global then choosing a fast UK web host with a Datacenter in London, UK will give you an excellent spring board.

We're hosting some very popular sites out of our London DC right now for a UK Gov Organisation with global reach and looking at the various logs we're seeing very quick loading times from vistors corners of the Globe. (Its not the big Mother site but apparently we still cant say its name otherwise the events legal vultures will have us for scaps :) Think sailing, Jurrasic Coast, Interlocked rings.)

Once you start getting traffic to your site, you'll be able to profile your users and adapt your hosting solution to suit.

Cheers

Rich
 
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The free version of CloudFlare does have some limitations. Most notably the free version cannot handle SSL certificates at your main domain. Linking CF into your site also adds another layer of complexity and possible security hole - so not suited to everyone. Whilst only very minor, and quickly resolved, CF had a users account hacked in June 2012 so it is as infallible as any online system protected by a password.

There's also lots of optimisations you can make to a site to boost performance. Search for Google Page Speed for tips.

If your catchment area is global then choosing a fast UK web host with a Datacenter in London, UK will give you an excellent spring board.

We're hosting some very popular sites out of our London DC right now for a UK Gov Organisation with global reach and looking at the various logs we're seeing very quick loading times from vistors corners of the Globe. (Its not the big Mother site but apparently we still cant say its name otherwise the events legal vultures will have us for scaps :) Think sailing, Jurrasic Coast, Interlocked rings.)

Once you start getting traffic to your site, you'll be able to profile your users and adapt your hosting solution to suit.

Cheers

Rich

+1 what Rich said.

CloudFlare is great for smaller sites and is very easy to integrate. They set a new standard for CDNs by making it so easy to use, and both their growth and valuation reflects that.

There are better true CDN solutions for larger sites with more stringent demands.
 
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Hi all,

Many thanks for the feedback, advice and suggestions. Very helpful and has helped to clarify.

Will be in touch soon.

Cheers

Brad
 
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