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The September 2005 Cheap Web Hosting Report Below are the top five general purpose cheap web hosts selected
for September 2005. All of the following hosting plans include a
web control panel, a cgi-bin directory, php, perl, and at least 1
mysql database. Many offer a number of additional features. Our
ratings are re-evaluated monthly, with a major re-evaluation of
customer ratings every three months.
About the CWHR Rating: This number (from a low of 1 to a high of
10) is a weighted average of customer ratings of the web host
(80%) and the staff evaluation of the web host (20%). Customer
ratings are themselves weighted by the length of time the person
has been using their web host. Customers who have hosted with a
company for years count more than a customer who has hasted there
for a couple of months. As our rating is mainly determined by
customers of web hosts, our rating is less likely to be gamed by
staff evaluators playing favorites or web hosts giving our staff
special treatment. The CWHR Ranking determines the sites we list
each month and the order in which we list them. A CHWR Rating of
"NA" means not enough customers rated this host for a meaningful
result. This rating is only found in the special needs hosting
section.
Top Five General Purpose Cheap Web Hosts for September 2005
#1 -- Dreamhost
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zdreamhost.php
Price: 1m: $9.95 1y: $9.95 2y: $7.95
Setup: 1m: $49.95 1y: Free 2y: Free
Bandwith: 120 GB
Disk Space: 2400 MB
Mailboxes: 600
CWHR Rating: 9.6
Special Features: 75 shell/ftp accounts, php4/php5/cgi/fastcgi/
unlimited mysql databases, ruby-on-rails, zend optimizer,
Frontpage available, host 3 domains and 15 sub-domains, 1 free
domain name. Excellent customer support (with public customer
forum).
Comments: Dreamhost has long been -- and still is -- listed as
the best affordable web host for unusual content (as they will
host just about anything legal) in the Special Needs Hosting
section of this report. Improvements in their plans in the last
year have made them very competitive in terms of bandwidth, web
space, and features offered for the price, and they are extremely
well-rated by their customers.
New and improved features are announced in the Dreamhost
newsletter almost every month, for example, the June 2005
newsletter announced the availability of PHP5 and MySQL 4.1 and
the July 2005 announced the availability of Ruby on Rails,
FastCGI, Miva 5, the Zend Optimizer and bandwidth/disk space
amounts that grow slightly every week you are with Dreamhost (by
1 GB and 20 MB disk space for the account listed here).
Dreamhost's customer support is the best we've seen in the low
cost hosting industry. If you are looking for low cost, high
quality web hosting with few content restrictions, truly
excellent tech support, and very friendly people, check out
Dreamhost. Dreamhost offers a 97-day money back guarantee, see
their web site for details. (The Cheap Web Hosting Report hosts
with Dreamhost.)
#2 -- Lunarpages
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zlunarpages.php
Price: 3m: $9.95 1y: $7.95
Setip: 3m: $30.00 1y: Free
Bandwidth: 40 GB
Disk Space: 1000 MB
Mailboxes: unlimited
CWHR Rating: 9.1
Special Features: Storage can be increased to 3000 MB in steps,
php4/cgi/1 mysql database, Frontpage available, host 1 domain
and 15 sub-domains, Fantastico script library. JSP and ASP
available for additional charge. Public customer forum.
Comments: Lunarpages has been in the low cost web hosting
business since 2000 when Add2Net expanded into shared hosting.
While their customer rating fluctuates more than most hosting
companies we list, it is alway high and long time customers
seem very loyal. Their support for controversial content is
second only to Dreamhost among low-priced web hosts.
Lunarpages offers a 30-day money back guarantee, see their
terms of service for details.
#3 -- InMotion
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zinmotionhosting.php
Price: 6m: $9.95 1y: $9.95
Setup: 6m: $30 1y: free
Bandwidth: 100 GB
Disk Space: 8000 MB
Mailboxes: 400
CWHR Rating: 9.0
Special Features: php/cgi/5 mysql databases, Frontpage
available, host 1 domain and 5 sub-domains.
Comments: InMotion Hosting is an employee owned and operated
company founded in 2001. Their employees average over 4 years of
hosting experience while their senior staff average over 10
years of hosting experience. This shows it their higher than
normal customer rating. The Power plan listed here is actually
InMotion's intermediate plan. (InMotion offer an ever lower
priced plan, Launch, but it lacks some features most people
consider critical, such as access to your web sites log files
for traffic analysis.) The Power plan offers evey features most
web sites need and comes with InMotion's reputation for
reliability and toll-free telephone support. InMotion offers a
money back guarantee, although its terms are somewhat unclear
-- if these terms were not so vague, InMotion's CWHR Ranking
would be slightly higher.
#4 -- HostRocket
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zhostrocket.php
Price: 3m: $11.95 1y: $7.95
Setup: 3m: Free 1y: Free
Bandwidth: 50 GB
Disk Space: 1000 MB
Mailboxes: unlimited
CWHR Rating: 8.1
Special Features: php/cgi/10 mysql databases, Frontpage
available, host 1 domain and unlimited sub-domains. 50
preinstalled scripts.
Comments: Founded in 1999, HostRocket is a popular web hosting
company that is well-rated by its customers. They greatly
expanded their offerings in 1994 and are now very competitive in
bandwidth, disk space, and features. HostRocket often runs very
nice short-term specials, check their web site for details.
HostRocket offers a 30-day money back guarantee, see their terms
of service for details.
#5 -- Netfirms
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/znetfirms.php
Price: 1y: $9.95
Setup: 1y: Free
Bandwidth: 100 GB
Disk Space: 2000 MB
Mailboxes: 100
CWHR Rating: 7.8
Special Features: php/cgi/10 mysql databases, Frontpage support,
two free domain names, free CD with NetObjects Fusion 7.
Comments: Founded in 1998, Netfirms rapidly acquired a
reputation for affordable, reliable web hosting. Although aimed
at business hosting, Netfirms hosts sites of all types" personal,
hobby, business, weblog, and more. Their Netfirms Advantage plan
is full of useful features and should handle almost any personal
or small business web site. Netfirms offers a 30-day money back
guarantee, see their terms of service for details.
Honorable Mention
The following web hosts also rated quite well in customer
ratings and might also be worthy of consideration:
* BlueHost (CWHR Rating: 7.4)
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zbluehost.php
* PowWeb (CWHR Rating: 7.1)
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zpowweb.php
* APlus (offers both Unix and Windows hosting; CWHR Rating: 6.5)
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zaplus.php
* iPowerWeb (CWHR Rating: 5.8)
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zipowerweb.php
* StartLogic (CWHR Rating: 5.6)
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zstartlogic.php
Special Needs Cheap Web Hosting
Fewer Content Restrictions
Dreamhost
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zdreamhost.php
Price: 1m: $9.95 1y: $9.95 2y: $7.95
Setup: 1m: $49.95 1y: Free 2y: Free
Bandwidth: 120 GB
Disk Space: 2400 MB
Mailboxes: 600
CWHR Rating: 9.6
Comments: In an effort to avoid arguments and complaints, most
web hosting companies are fairly restrictive on questionable
content -- to the point that some will terminate a site for
displaying a picture of a classical (but bare breasted) statue
from ancient Greece. Dreamhost not only has an excellent,
cheap web hosting package but is far more liberal than most web
hosts on acceptable site content. Basically, if your content is
legal in the US, Dreamhost will probably have no problems
hosting it.
For more information on Dreamhost, see the description above.
Windows Hosting
Easy CGI
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zeasycgi.php
Price: 1m: $9.95 1y: $7.96
Setup: 1m: Free 1y: Free
Bandwidth: 50 GB
Disk Space: 3000 MB
Mailboxes: 50
CWHR Rating: NR
Comments: Easy CGI provides Windows 2000 servers instead of the
standard Unix servers. Their accounts come with ASP and one
Access Database. They are one of the most affordable and most
popular Windows hosting providers. Customer service reports are
spotty, however. Most people report excellent service but
minority report major problems
Virtual Dedicated Server Hosting (Root Access)
Jumpline
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zjumpline.php
Price: 1y: $9.95
Setup: Free
Bandwidth: 5 GB
Disk Space: 500 MB
Mailboxes: 75
CWHR Rating: NR
Comments: Jumpline uses special technology to provide each
account with its own virtual server. You have your own Apache
web server, your own email servers, your own database server,
etc. and you have root access to the virtual machine running
them. These types of accounts can be more stable and provide
better control, but are best used by Unix experts who
understand the ins and outs of running servers.
Dedicated Server Hosting
ServerPronto
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zserverpronto.php
Price: 1m: $29.95
Setup: $149.00
Bandwidth: 200 GB
Disk Space: 40 GB
Mailboxes: unlimited
CWHR Rating: NR
Comments: A dedicated server gives your site its own physical
computer as a server. The upside is that you have full root
access so you can install whatever software you want on it and
have very few restrictions on scripts (even if they hog CPU
time). The downside is that you have to maintain the system
yourself. ServerPronto has some of the most affordable dedicated
server prices we have seen (and they often have sales that cut
the price of the setup fee), although there are many options that
can increase the monthly price or the setup fee. Windows and
Windows 2003 dedicated servers are also available at higher
prices.
The information in this report was checked for accuracy on
August 31, 2005. Web hosting companies, however, can change
their pricing and plans at any time so the information may no
longer be accurate when you read this report. The Cheap Web
Hosting Report and its staff are not responsible for errors
nor for what use you may make of this information. For updated
information, check The Cheap Web Host Report web site at
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/
Looking for more information on designing, hosting and promoting
a web site? Download a copy of our free ebook/newsletter, the
CWHR Web Site Design Guide. This guide is updated monthly with
additional articles and the current edition of The Cheap Web
Hosting Report's current monthly report. Download it at
http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/freewebdesignguideebook.php
Notes:
The prices listed are the monthly price based on the shortest
prepayment period offered (1m = one month, 3m = three months,
6m = six months) and for annual pre-payment (1y = annual rate)
The setup fees listed are for the shortest prepayment period
offered and for the annual pre-payment plan.
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You are free to publish the September issues of The Cheap Web
Hosting Report on your web site or in your newsletter, so
long as all links are included as published here and are
clickable if this article is placed on a web page or in an
HTML newsletter. Minor corrections of spelling or grammar
are allowed so long as the article's intent is not altered. Randall Stukey is the chief editor of the monthly The Cheap Web Hosting Report (http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/) which lists the top five low cost web hosts and several special purpose web hosts along with articles on web hosting, web site design, and site promotion. Randall Stukey More Articles Low Cost Web Hosting Services - Don't Forget About Uptime - John Michaels
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