AppMan

In the beginning of 2006 I was searching for web hosting for my sites. I had been using local (= Finnish) hosting services, but IMHO the services hadn’t been fulfilling my needs. Next thing may sound trivial and obvious, but to me it was a great discovery: why not host my sites outside Finland??? I searched around and quickly I realised there were many players on the field and they were practically offering the moon from the sky…

With my previous hosts I had been confronting limitations (e.g. database size limited) and lack of service (it took 2 weeks just to get SSL working), so I made a list of the things I would need from my next hosts.

1. Customer service. When you are paying for hosting, your outsourcing the task from yourself. Eventually there will come a situation where you need to tweak some setting, but you cannot do it since you don’t have the permission to finetune the hosting company’s server. So you email them and ask them to do it for you. A good hosting company answers promptly and takes care of the thing - a.s.a.p!
2. PHP support. This feature is mandatory (and common) nowadays, but there are some hosts that lack PHP support. And when you really get down to business, you appreciate the freedom to fix some PHP settings, e.g. safe mode and register globals.
3. MySQL databases. I didn’t want to pay extra just to use databases. Usually the database size and the number of databases was limited to some low value, like 100MB and 1 database, so this cut most of the available hosts. MySQL is essential for WordPress, osCommerce, forums, etc.
4. SSL. I want to have the ability to have web store and a secure payment system. Without SSL all the information would be unencrypted over the internet, so that’s not an ideal situation.
5. Enough bandwidth. My sites weren’t breaking the normal limits (3 gigas / month), but if I would be selling/hosting software, the bandwidth would be consumed fast with 10-20MB downloads.
6. Enough disk space. Software requires space. Space + bandwidth = you’re ready to deliver software, baby! Yeah!

With this list I started to search the forums and I found couple of interesting hosts. I had promised myself not to go with first intimidating offers. So I wrote down what extra features these hosts had and what was the monthly fee. I also paid attention to customer support. Then I continued my search. Finally I came up with an host, that seemed to have everything and the price was really a bargain!

I am now their proud customer and have only good things to say about them (a raving fan maybe?):

• Reliable customer service. I’ve asked help from them 8 times. Every time they have answered within 24 hours. One time I suggested an enhancemet to the mailing list control. I wasn’t expecting even an answer, but I got one: they had implemented the feature! And that happened within 4 hours 26 mins!
• The disk space is amazing 250 gigabytes! And the bandwidth? Breathtaking 2100 gigabytes / month!!!
• You can have 1000 MySQL databases. Okay, it’s limited but who has 1001 databases? Hands up. Anyone?
• Free SSL is provided with every account.
• Server uptime is 99,98 %. Wow!
• The admin control panel is used thru web browser. I got to admit, I would have preferred shell access, but this panel blew my mind! It has the common features I would use with shell (e.g. tar, gzip, mv, create file/folder) and plenty of more features.
• They are constantly developing new features. There’s plenty already, but they are putting the effort to stay in the top!

If you are you looking for a host I can sincerely recommend using Servage. Use this referral link to receive additional 25 gigabytes of more disk space!