I'm considering switching to a different hosting company to host my and my clients' websites. I currently have a reseller account (I'd rather not name the company on here) but Im a little concerned about their security / backups etc.

I'd rather switch to a more reputable company, one that doesn't appear to be as 'underground' as the one I'm with at the minute. The thought of data loss or email loss really puts me off offering hosting and large websites (e.g. ecommerce) to potential clients.

But it seems like I hear nothing but bad things about all of the popular web hosting companies, so I'd rather get some recommendations on here.

Any ideas anybody? Are you happy with your hosting company?

I don't know if in England they have a company like the BBB but in North America I know they do and the company gives out seals of approval which I found useful for finding reliable and safe businesses to buy hosting from. Maybe you should look into it?

Some UK based companies, with UK based servers (some UK companies have servers in US only), that I heard good things about would be Unitedhosting and Clook.

Webfaction have a very interesting shared hosting setup, with capabilities that are generally VPS specific. I had a really nice chat some month ago with Remi, one of the owners. He seemed like a very straight up guy.

I recommend you some forums which are based in UK there. Ask there the same question and I'm sure you will get your answer.

Take a look at RSHosting.co.uk - they are pretty established in the UK reseller hosting market

I believe that the best solution will be to go a search on all possible reliable UK web hosts, compare their rates, reliability and stability - then make your final decision.

Originally Posted by ~ServerPoint~

I believe that the best solution will be to go a search on all possible reliable UK web hosts, compare their rates, reliability and stability - then make your final decision.

How can someone compare reliability and stability without personal experience? Just curious

I agree with Dan. Most so called UK base4d web hosting companies just have their office in UK.

If you're hosting multiple clients, a VPS usually offers many advantages over a traditional "reseller" solution because you have more flexibility over the system as a whole (e.g. PHP version you want to run, PHP functions you want to disable/enable for your mix of security vs. functionality), and better system stability due to guaranteed resources for your overall server rather than the significantly variable world of shared hosting where the actions of others outside of your account can have an impact on the performance and security of your service.

The obvious disadvantage of a VPS is that because it's like a dedicated server, you need to perform various system administration tasks from time to time (upgrading software to later versions, security patching etc.) and this might take up too much of your time or be beyond your technical knowledge. There are a lot of providers offering managed VPS's for this reason, but you need to take care when selecting a "managed" hosting provider because there is very wide variation across the industry of what that term actually means.

For some providers it means they give you a server and provide you with some technical support - but overall you're responsible for looking after the server and performing system admin tasks; the key way to tell is if you get root SSH access to the server. Often these providers will have limitations (not always made obvious during the sales process!) for the work they'll perform inclusive of your monthly fees, before they'll charge you some hourly system admin fee for some work!

These are really mis-sold semi-managed services ...

Other providers handle nearly every imaginable task for you as part of their system management, and that way you have the flexibility of having your own server (physical or virtual) combined with the ease of use provided by a shared/reseller hosting solution.

Many others here have raised a good point regarding UK hosting providers not necessarily having UK hosted servers; even some of the larger providers do not (e.g. 1&1 'UK' used to sell servers in their German datacentre to UK customers; now they might send you to Fasthosts instead since they bought them... but from what I hear from their ex-customers that's hardly an improvement!).

Just take care to clarify this point with any prospective hosting provider that you talk to, and you should avoid any problems in that respect.

Just wanted to add ... assuming that your (OP) portfolio website is on the hosting service that you're looking to move away from, interesting to note that domaintools reports 1,507 websites sharing that IP with you (hence almost certainly sharing that server with you)! ... that's crazy!!!

Originally Posted by damien_ls

Just wanted to add ... assuming that your (OP) portfolio website is on the hosting service that you're looking to move away from, interesting to note that domaintools reports 1,507 websites sharing that IP with you (hence almost certainly sharing that server with you)! ... that's crazy!!!

Wow! Is that good or bad? lol

Well it's not usually a good thing, but how "bad" it is depends to some extent - for example maybe there are a lot of "business card" style websites which are just static HTML + low traffic etc.

Certainly it means that whatever the power and configuration of the server in question, you have to share it with 1500 other websites, and that's 1500 other websites that may have a security hole to potentially impact on your service (even if they only monopolise server resources for a while or send out lots of spam etc. rather than causing any collateral damage to your own sites due to some sense of security isolation)

Most likely the hosting provider responsible for the underlying server hasn't had an oversight of the type of websites hosted there: for example you have a reseller package with them; is there any reason why all of your sites couldn't be dynamic PHP/MySQL websites rather than 99% static? Even if they sell a package limiting you to 30 websites per package, and they limit to 50 of these packages per server - do they have any idea how you'll use your particular hosting package when you sign up to the service?

Most likely they don't, and that is why (IMO) this implies poor management on the part of your hosting provider. Essentially it's a sign of massive overselling, because it's unlikely that 1500 websites can really get a decent amount of I/O and CPU time etc. to handle a reasonable level of traffic, and unlikely that all of the disk space sold is actually available on the physical server as well.

All of this *could* be handled in various technical ways (e.g. that IP might just be a load balancer cluster, implying multiple web servers behind it so less of a concern to have such a huge number there, and the disk storage might be on a relatively powerful SAN etc.), but the most likely scenario is that it's a typical dedicated server running a standard cPanel/Plesk/DirectAdmin control panel solution with all of the above potential problems waiting to cause big trouble.

The fact is that with a shared/reseller solution you don't have any idea how much server resources you really get, and that's why in our case we've opted against selling 'Reseller' packages for a while now, and instead recommend our VPS range as a more suitable option for these type of needs. Much more scalability, and much greater assurance in terms of the amount of resources you have at your disposal (not just a disk/bandwidth limit, but actual underlying server resources).

Of course, a VPS isn't as finite as a dedicated server in that respect (dedicated server of course you know exactly, whilst a VPS you know "mostly") - but you get the benefits of higher powered hardware (usually) and can upgrade it much much more easily (in most cases - some providers are a bit strange in this respect though!), and most of all of course you save yourself some money compared to what you get in return (although you can buy a cheap dedicated for similar money to a decent VPS, the VPS in that case is usually more powerful and more capable in a number of ways).

Wow thanks for the detailed info. I see you have opted against selling Reseller packages, is it possible for me to sell hosting to my clients through your VPS packages?

Yes, it is your server to use how you wish - some clients host their own websites (e.g. if they have large requirements for a single site), whilst others host multiple sites.

We use the Plesk control panel which means you can create Clients (or Resellers even) within the system to give them control panel access to manage their individual account areas.

I'm just here to give generic advice though, so if you want information about our particular services you'd be better discussing with us via email or chat etc. on our website.

I am delighted to inform you that there are many UK web hosting provider out there in UK web hosting services market.
Try to contact them and discuss all the issues before making any final order.

Originally Posted by WebhostGIANT-Rob

I recommend you some forums which are based in UK there. Ask there the same question and I'm sure you will get your answer.

Hi,
That was great and it is more helpful to us now..Thanks for the advice...

Try to contact them and discuss all the issues before making any final order.

Can absolutely agree here. Besides, compare the pricing offered by various UK hosting providers.

Originally Posted by pealo86

Wow thanks for the detailed info. I see you have opted against selling Reseller packages, is it possible for me to sell hosting to my clients through your VPS packages?

Yes, you will be able to resell, but you should have perfect control panel for reselling. You should ask this your hosting provider before ordering anything.

Originally Posted by ~ServerPoint~

Yes, you will be able to resell, but you should have perfect control panel for reselling. You should ask this your hosting provider before ordering anything.

What do you mean by perfect control panel?

Originally Posted by pealo86

What do you mean by perfect control panel?

I assume that he meant WHM control panel!