Web Hosting Reviews: Affordable Web Hosts Reviewed

In 2001, I registered a new domain just so that I could have a myfirstname@mylastname.com e-mail address.

Since I wasn't planning on making a website at all using the domain, I went with registerfly.com's e-mail only hosting service. Back then, it cost $15 per year for that service, it's a lot cheaper now.

They used a Plesk control panel, which was fairly easy to use. And just browsing through that, I figured out that I was also able to FTP files to my domain. So I was getting more than just an e-mail service. I was actually getting a little bit of a normal hosting service on the side. Again, I just used it to upload pictures and plain old HTML.

Being able to FTP files was nice and I ended up using my domain to host more and more pages. I outgrew that host quickly. So I looked for a new host and cancelled my e-mail hosting service with them. Or so I thought.

See this post on my blog about why registerfly.com sucks. If you don't feel like reading that, here's the short version: they kept on charging me even though they said they had cancelled my account.

So, stay far, far away from them. I do not recommend them because of their billing practices.

cyberwings.com (not linked because the site is no longer available and no archive is available)... this was the host that I left e-rice for. They had some crazy deals going on, which at that time were just unheard of. See here for the plans that they had. Take note of their lifetime plans that triple your space and bandwidth.

I forget exactly which plans I bought when I first joined them. But I know they were having some sort of 2-for-1 sale that I went for because it was cheaper than my previous paid host and gave me more space/bandwidth than e-rice.

I was a member for about a month or two and then they had that lifetime sale. I couldn't resist. I was happy with their hosting service, so why not just get a lifetime account and not have to pay fees anymore? It was a no-brainer for me.

What a huge scam it all turned out to be. Even though I got my lifetime account set up, about a short while later (maybe a few days or weeks after), my site was inaccessible along with every other Cyberwings customer. The CEO, Shawn J. White, stopped responding to any e-mails at all and disappeared from their chat room.

Just weeks before the servers went down, he personally gave the best support possible, responding quickly to all queries. But after the sites went down, he was nowhere to be found.

It was a terrible thing for everyone involved. Cyberwings employees went unpaid and here were thousands of customers who had to find a new host.

I couldn't go back to my e-rice account because it was inactivated since I wasn't using it anymore. So I had to find a new host fast.

People tried to get their money back from Cyberwings, but we were just all S.O.L.

It was quite the learning experience for me. And something that I hope never happens again to me or anyone.

Now, any time there's some other shady hosting deal, a lot of people usually refer to it as the next Cyberwings. Hehe.

allabouthosting.co.uk was the paid host that I found after the whole Cyberwings fiasco.

I got myself a mini reseller account for 37.5% less than what they're charging for it now (at the time of this writing, it costs $40/year for a mini reseller account there). My price was locked-in and guaranteed for as long as my account was in good standing with them.

This was my very first reseller account. And I think even my first time with a cPanel/WHM host. I found both cPanel and WHM incredibly easy to use and organized so much better than 1and1's control panel. I had my AAH account before I signed up with 1and1, so that's why 1and1's control panel was so disappointing for me.

It was nice, I was now able to host multiple domains and give them all their own separate control panels. So I hosted two domains for a friend and then another domain for someone else. As well as my three domain names.

1and1's support was excellent. They would respond to my issues quickly. During the first year of hosting, I'd get a really quick response within minutes or just a couple of hours.

But the longer I stayed with them, the worse the service got. In my last year with them, I had problems with server speeds and space issues even though I was nowhere near my quota (even when you totaled up all of the domains I had hosted, it was nowhere near 500 MB used)

I think they may have oversold space on the server that I was on. Whenever I tried to upload something new, even something that was less than 1 KB, my FTP client would send back a "disc full" message. So I couldn't update my site at all. Even checking the server status in my control panel, I could see that the server I was on was 98% full and blinking red for its status. Not a very good sign. And support was pretty lacking by now.

I got sick of the slowness and the disk space issues, so I ended up looking for a new host.

I don't know if AAH has improved their service or not since I left, but I definitely would not recommend them at all. It was kind of sad to leave them since I was actually making money reselling space. But I just couldn't stand staying with them and I didn't want my customers to also suffer.

I left All About Hosting and signed up with HostPC (now known as Yareo) during their Labor Day 2005 2-for-1 sale.

I couldn't afford a new reseller account, so I went with their budget package, which was more than enough for my needs. Unfortunately, since I didn't get a new reseller account, the people I was hosting their domains for had to get their own accounts since I didn't want them sharing my account because I would have to share my login info with them too if they needed to access the control panel.

Most of their plans include unlimited add-on domains, so you can host as many domains as you want to with just one account.

I absolutely love this host. It's been fantastic. The support is superb, I get a response within a few hours most of the time. And safe mode off requests take only minutes sometimes.

This was my first DirectAdmin host. While there are some things that I miss that were in cPanel, DirectAdmin seems very solid as a control panel and very well organized.

HostPC seems to use every known holiday as an excuse for a special sale, so if you missed their last sale, just wait for another one if you want a great deal. If you can't wait, their regular prices for their plans are still very affordable for anybody.

The only major downtime I've had with them was during Hurricane Katrina where sites were down for a few days. But the owner was really good about keeping everybody well informed of the situation and how long it would take to resolve. Since then, they've taken measures to ensure that they don't have that kind of downtime problem again.

They're the one host that is always improving. They increased their budget plan quotas and people who got in before the increases were upgraded automatically or had the option to change their quotas to the current quotas for no extra charge. No matter what price you pay when you join, you're locked in at that price for as long as you're hosted with them, even if their prices increase.

I really don't see myself ever needing to look for another host ever again. HostPC is where I'll be staying for a while.