Help choosing a new webhost - time to ditch Dreamhost after 10 years! What's considered a good monthly fee these days?

Lady Grey Tea on 06/10/2019 - 20:44

Hi all,

So, years ago when I set up my website, I chose dreamhost, as it seemed like a good choice back in the late 00's!
After 10 years, I've finally got my act together to give them the push (very ashamed at how time flies!), but have been complacent in the web hosting scene for so long, I have no idea what a good rate is anymore!

I've looked at VentraIP and its sister company Zuver, and seem to have missed out on all the good deals over the last few years. There's a 50% off for 12 months at VentraIP, but if that's good or not…no idea!

Ideally, I'd like to pay under $10 a month. Happy to pre-pay a year or two if it makes it cheaper.
My needs aren't much - it's just a portfolio website, I don't have a store/much traffic.

I mostly use it for
1 x email,
1 x website domain
less than 5gb storage.

To me, speed isn't as important as reliability, and I don't need tech support. As I mentioned, it's really a static website that I update rarely. Australian hosted would be preferable.

Thank you for any advice. I have done my googling, but would really appreciate any personal experience or insider knowledge from the Ozbargain community :)

Internet Web Hosting

Comments

  • FIVEDOLLAR on 06/10/2019 - 21:17
    +3

    If it's static and if you do a little research, you can put it up on amazon s3. Cost peanuts and comes with high reliability and performance.
    Downside is that you have to buy your own domain ~$20/year.

    Plenty of youtube resources out there if you're keen.

    • kipps on 07/10/2019 - 09:03

      This. Amazon S3, Azure or Google for static. It’ll cost peanuts and will likely be far more reliable. Google might cost slightly less than S3.

      Use Cloudflare for DNS and domain renewals to get them for no markup.

  • Lady Grey Tea on 06/10/2019 - 21:21

    Awesome, thanks for the tip. Will have a look and see if it's an option. $20 a year is fine, if I'm saving on hosting. Does it come with email though?

  • soan papdi on 06/10/2019 - 21:25

    I'm still with Dreamhost since 2006 and am yet to use any of their features except email. I have considered moving to Fastmail but the intertia is too great.

    https://www.fastmail.com/help/files/website.html
    https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/

    • Lady Grey Tea on 06/10/2019 - 21:28

      High-five for dreamhost inertia :) I'm only getting my act together now as when browsing ozbargaing while procrastinating renewing dreamhost, when I thought I should probably deal hunt a bit!

      Thanks for the fastmail tip, checking it out now.

    • bjdchwr on 06/10/2019 - 21:33

      I would invest some time on VPS so you can build a website on a cheap VPS. You can use their template to begin with.
      You don't even need to have PHP installed if you only host static website.

      For me I am currently using VULTR for all my clients sites and it has been pretty good. You pay $5.5 in USD per month and they have Syndey DC.
      I am using Debian+PHP7+Nginx and they serve me very well. I also use Cloudflare for free CDN.

      The only thing you might also consider is the business-grade email - you can get them from Office 365 for around $5 per month.
      In Office 365, you can create as many shared/virtual mailbox as you like. You just pay for the logins per month (like [email protected] for login, but you can create info, business, cs as addon shared mailbox).

      • Lady Grey Tea on 06/10/2019 - 21:36

        Thanks - I'll have to check it out. Ideally, it'd be good to have an easy migration - my website is wordpress, so I'd prefer to just migrate that over, and I'm not sure how to do that on VPS. I'll have to read up a bit.

        I didn't consider office365, so will give that a look too :) I do only need one email though, as it's a one person business - I'm the admin and the only user.

      • soan papdi on 06/10/2019 - 21:53

        I like the idea of a VPS but then you end up with the sysadmin work of maintenance and security. Depends if OP has those skills. Some other options include GitHub's static hosting: https://pages.github.com/ or simply host your static content with a CDN like Amazon Cloudfront, Cloudflare or Netlify. All of them support custom domains.

        For email you could choose Fastmail or O365 depending on what works for you.

  • blitz on 06/10/2019 - 21:53

    When I was in exactly your situation earlier this year I went with VentraIP. I don't think their support is anywhere near as good as Dreamhost, but the exchange rate just meant that Dreamhost was getting too expensive. From memory I did a "pay for 5 years, get 70% off" deal or something. I was really sorry to see Dreamhost go, and I told them I'd be back if the exchange rate improved.

    • Lady Grey Tea on 06/10/2019 - 21:57

      Thanks, that's exactly my issue. I asked dreamhost if they could offer any better options/more bespoke to my needs, and they refused. But as you say, the exchange is getting ridiculous , especially as I'm not using much of what I pay for.

      Leaning towards ventraIP, just for convenience of migration. I'll see if there is a rep who could talk me through some sign up possibilities in the morning, as Im happy to prepay for a discount.

    • Yorkshire-Man on 08/10/2019 - 21:17

      2nd for VentraIP. They are my go-to, good prices & excellent service

  • Filename on 07/10/2019 - 00:26
    +1

    If you want more traditional monthly pricing, Amazon also have Lightsail which is flat VPS pricing from US$3.5/~AU$5, billed monthly. First month is free for the cheapest plan, so you can set it up and try without any risk. A choice of locations inc. SYD and various Bitnami instances for particular platforms or just a vanilla OS installs if you're comfortable getting the basics up and running. Certainly easier if you're coming from a legacy hosting provider than their full AWS stack.

  • Lintzman on 07/10/2019 - 15:20

    I moved my site (static content like yours) to the free hosting option with https://www.000webhost.com about a 6 months ago and it's been fine (as long as you don't mind a 000webhost.com image in the bottom right corner of each page).

  • kmwa on 07/10/2019 - 17:00

    I initially went with VentraIP, and then transferred to Zuver after a few years for lower rates. The migration to VentraIP was easy, and the subsequent migration to Zuver was even easier.
    Currently paying $36 per annum to Zuver (the first year was half price).
    I’m hosting two different sites on the Zuver account, and very happy with their service. I’ve never had any issues or downtime. The domains are locked down, so they can’t be transferred by a bad guy unless I unlock them.

    • I have one xxx.net.au domain through Zuver, the cost is $22 for two years.
    • My other site is an xxx.systems (yes there really are web addresses like that) from Porkbun, at $14.89 per annum.

    There are free webhosts, but they usually put an image or a banner on your pages so it looks tacky. They are also liable to disappear, or to kick you if you don’t log in often enough.

    • soan papdi on 07/10/2019 - 18:26

      Thanks to this post (and your response), I think will go with Zuver. I found out about them last night and honestly all I need is a domain with email forwarding. It's been 13 years and I'm yet to put up a homepage, so Zuver should be sufficient.

      • Lady Grey Tea on 08/10/2019 - 17:16

        Haha, looks like we're both considering ditching dreamhost at last :) Can I ask which Zuver plan you are contemplating?

        • soan papdi on 08/10/2019 - 20:26

          I don't have any intention on setting up a website, so plan to go el cheapo, $4/mo (1GB memory/storage, 100% CPU). Once I set up email forwarding to my gmail account, I'll be back to normal. Only that I'll be paying 1/4 of Dreamhost.

          If I decide to set up a static website in the future, I'll set up an A record to point to either S3 or GitHub and host it there. Apparently we get full control over the DNS when Zuver do the migration. Their registrar is Synergywholesale.com

          • Lady Grey Tea on 09/10/2019 - 19:20
            +1

            @soan papdi: Ah, I see - that makes sense! I'll probably need a bit more space, as I'm still hosting a website and mail, so I'll see what I can do. Glad that my post has helped you out too, best of luck with migrating over :)

    • Lady Grey Tea on 08/10/2019 - 17:15

      Thanks for the advice - can I ask which Zuver plan you are on? I couldn't find a $36 per annum one - even their 'Tiny' plan works out at $48 per year.
      Did you custom make the plan, or is it a grandfathered one? Thanks again!

      • soan papdi on 08/10/2019 - 21:08

        $4/mo if paid monthly. Yearly payment works out to $3.33/mo which is almost $40. Oops, replied to the wrong post.

      • kmwa on 09/10/2019 - 16:22

        My old plan with Zuver giving 10 GB storage (I host a lot of audio files) was $36 per annum.
        I had an email 6 months ago about the "all new Zuver". And looking at their website, I can see that a plan with 10 GB would now be $80 per annum. https://zuver.net.au/web-hosting/ This came as quite a surprise to me.
        As ggop says, a basic plan from Zuver with 1 GB storage is only $40 per annum.
        My annual renewal is coming up in a couple of weeks so I hope I don't get an unpleasant surprise from them.
        Zuver is not as good value now as it was two years ago. I'm going to start looking now for cheaper alternatives in case Zuver expect me to pay $80 instead of $36.

        • Lady Grey Tea on 09/10/2019 - 19:23

          Thank you for the comprehensive reply - yes, one of my concerns about Zuver was price hikes - looking through ozbargain's forum history/deal history shows that there have been a few over the last couple of years, as well as a raising of their general plan costings.
          I'll have to do a bit more investigating, but Zuver is still looking pretty likely. Can I ask if you have any 'second choices' hosters that you'll be checking out if your Zuver plan goes up in price?

  • soan papdi on 06/12/2019 - 12:28

    I've finally ditched Dreamhost and moved to Zuver. All looking good. Easy access to the DNS settings via their console. I've been spending 8 USD/mo for the last 13 years, now going to pay 17 AUD/yr!

  • Pineapples on 06/12/2019 - 22:17

    I've used both VentraIP and Zuver for a few years. Been happy with both under their new management (new being a few years ago). I tend to renew when they have their big sales, which is pretty frequent.

  • adpaholic on 29/09/2022 - 00:33

    Any hosting have at least 5 add-on domain option ?

    • Kyle-K on 29/09/2022 - 17:52

      Most don't restrict by add on domain any more. They just let the assigned resource limits for your hosting package take care of this problem.

      • adpaholic on 30/09/2022 - 00:53

        I m with webcity before and finally it become vodien ..in march it time for me to renew, currently they don't have any plan which similar to the one in webcity , but I mentioned I don't want to make any changes to my hosting and keep all my stuffs there (I don't use it but just don't want to del ), finally they agreed and I paid for another 3 years . Now after 6 months , they suddenly email me and said i void their terms as I have too many files there (I didn't make any changes last few years tho), they forced me to delete 50% of my files , if not they will suspend my accounts . I only have 10Gb data but 200k files . They only allow 100k from their terms . However my plan I was on is unlimited storage and unlimited files .they keep argue to me that I can have unlimited files there but inode limit for their server is 100k per users. …

        • Kyle-K on 30/09/2022 - 16:32

          That's the problem with the types of plans that you've obviously been seeking they have acceptable use policys because unlimited is never unlimited.

          And I can tell you just based on what you've written you've definitely been in breach of the previous company and the current company you were migrated to after acquisition acceptable use policies.

          If you want help finding a solution start a new post outlining everything you need but it sounds like you need web hosting and somewhere to store non-website data files.

          • adpaholic on 30/09/2022 - 18:14

            @Kyle-K: I have many old site which I written and just put there forever . Even tho I have unlimited storage but I still use less than 10Gb. And I'm currently paid 800 per year

            • Kyle-K on 30/09/2022 - 23:00

              @adpaholic: Let me get this straight you're paying $800 Australian a year? Additionally I don't think you're also talking about add-on domains now I think you're talking about multiple cPanel accounts WHM.

  • adpaholic on 01/10/2022 - 00:09

    One cPanel , 5 add-on domain. I used 3 domain only . ,I paid 2350 few months before for 3 years plan .

    • Kyle-K on 02/10/2022 - 23:26

      First as I said to you in the beginning you need to start your own thread and outline your requirements but this is even worse you're paying a lot of money for nothing.

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