In search of the best web host for Web Designers

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It’s nothing new that when a designer designs a site for himself, he’s more likely to put in his best to make the most out of his knowledge, experience and creative taste. You’ll see cool jQuery effects, hottest illustrations, tremendous layout ideas and everything, but how would someone feel if he had known a designer’s site/blog to be a very good place for web/graphics resources and then when he came to visit it, the site took ages to load?

 

I’ve always wondered  how a well known designer chooses his webhost, what does he look for when he’s searching for a good webhost. Does he seek space? Or Bandwidth? Is he more likely to go for a VPS (Virtual Private Server) or a Dedicated Server? Or he’d just prefer a big shared hosting account? How does he make sure his site will not go down if it gets digged.? Today, we’re going to find out where some of my favorite designers are hosted and what should be taken into consideration from a designer’s point of view when choosing a host.

 

Jacob Cass of Just Creative Design @Solid Internet Webhosting

 

Chris Spooner of Spoon Graphics Blog @Slice Host

 

Nick La of N.Design Studio @BlueHost

 

Onur Oztaskiran of Monofactor @Media Temple

 

Liam Mckay of Wefunction.com @Media Temple

 

Yichi of Vikiworks @Media Temple

 

Steven Snell of Vandelay Design @Wired Tree

 

David Leggett of Tutorial9 @Wired Tree

 

Fabio Sasso of Abduzeedo.com @Media Temple

 

Collis Ta’eed of Envato.com @Media Temple

 

Chris Coyier of CSS-Tricks @Media Temple

 

As for me, I’m hosted on Dedcated server over at LiquidWeb owned by a friend of mine. I don’t like to host the images I use in posts on the server though, I use imageshack instead, helps me keep the images mobile and easy for search engines to find. Plus I have an economy package over at Xfluro, where I host all my themes and zips.

 

It’s pretty disturbing that almost every designer seems to have an unconditional faith on Media Temple when it comes to hosting. They’re one of the very best, there’s no doubt about that, just take a look at their Clients page and you’ll know how big they actually are. How ever, $20/mo – that’s what you pay for their starter package – is something that would make me think more than twice if I was looking for a new host. But it all depends on what you want and how you want. As a designer, here’s a list of things that I think you need to check with your host before you send the payment.  Oh, and by the way, these applies when you’re considering shared hosting.

 

1. Storage

I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking- Why the hell would I wanna care about storage? All hosts offer hundreds of gigs of storage! Well, you’re right, but check with your host to find out whether they’re gonna allow you to use the storage for backup, for your photos and stuff or you’ll be just allowed to fill up the space with your website contents only. You’ll probably have a number of wallpapers, themes, icons and stuff to upload, ask them if these are allowed for example.

 

2. Bandwidth

This seems to be the part where most newbie fail to see through.  Check with your host what happens when you exceed your Bandwidth allowance, how much would they charge if you wanted an increase right away. For shared unlimited hosting, you’ll be put on a server that hosts quite a few other sites along with yours, which means you’ll be sharing the server resource, including bandwidth with the fellow sites, and when one of the sites, including yours, starts to get massive amount of traffic and affect the performance of other sites, your host will probably shut you down due to abuse.

 

Be SURE to ask your host (if you’re choosing an unlimited package) to let you know how many GBs of bandwidth would they allow you to use until they shut you down. It’s pretty important, really,  imagine what would be like if you were giving away a great theme on your site and it got featured  on Smashing Magazine and you started to get massive amount of traffic and just when the time of taking the fame in came, your host shut you down.

 

3. Backup/Fire Safety

Don’t forget to ask and learn about your host’s backup system and fire safety. Ask them how many times a day they perform backup process on a site. Plus, ask them what kind of fire safety they have and if/whether they have any secondary power supply.

 

4. CPanel/Fantastico

Ask whether or not your host has CPanel and Fantastico, for those who don’t know, Fantastico is a server side program within CPanel that allows you to automatically install wordpress and other well knwon blog/CMS scripts on your server without any hassle at all. Most well known hosts will have it, or something similar to it, but don’t forget to check. You have no idea how handy it might come to be at times.

 

5. Support

You’re most likely to get below average support if you’re signing up for a below $5 package. If you’re not so familiar with database creation and script installation or troubleshooting, you should probably get a more expensive package to ensure good and quick support. Ask your host whether or not they provide 24/7 support and how long does it usually take for them to reply to an email.

 

Some Recommendations

It’s really hard to recommend a specific host, since the experience varies from user to user, if you try googling for a specific webhost’s user review you’ll find the same amount of bad reviews as good reviews of the same host. Media Temple is good, very good actually, I know a couple of guys that are hosted with Media Temple and has been more than happy with their service. DreamHost can also be a very good choice if you can’t afford Media Temple, they’ve got great support and great packages. But don’t forget to check out their unlimited policy before you sign up. ThisWebHost is also quite good, they offer really good and realistic packages. The best part about it is that it’s run by down-to-earth people. I’d probably choose them if I was to change my host. Their Medium package looks really solid.

 

In my experience, the very best way to finding out about a host is to contact a couple of guys that are actually hosted on the host you’re considering. It’s pretty easy to find them. Just go HERE and in the text field, type in ns1.a-webhost-name.com and press enter or click on GO, (if you’re looking for guys hosted on ThisWebHost, try putting in ns1.thiswebhost.com) and a list of websites that are hosted on that host will be shown. Check out the names and find a few websites that looks to be run by a person instead of a company, once you’ve picked out the sites, check them out, use the contact form, tell them you’re a newbie and politely ask them whether or not they are happy with their host and how the support guys have been with him.