Dedicated to finding Drupal hosts that don't suck

Submitted by dannyp on Tue, 07/08/2008 - 01:26

Update: July 16, 2008: Live demos up for comparison for: Midphase, 1and1 and DVH.

I've been working with Drupal for some time now, and I've tried a few web-hosts on the way. My goal with this site is to present objective reviews for all the hosts I've had experience with.

Additionally, I aim to have live, carbon-copied sites at each of these webhosts for you to try out for yourself. This means maintaining paid hosting accounts with several providers, so whichever one you choose, please signup through the links here on this site, as it will help offset the cost of maintaining numerous hosting accounts for the purposes of this site.

Stay tuned for some seriously unbiased hands on Drupal hosting comparisons.

A list to start us off

Submitted by dannyp on Tue, 07/08/2008 - 03:14

These are hosts I've had, or currently had accounts with over the last year.

  • MidPhase
    Live Demo
    Coupons: SAVINGCENTER-93818 (3 months free, free domain for life)
    Admin Tool: cPanel
    Summary: This site, DrupalHostingReview.com, is hosted by MidPhase. Great balance of performance, price and service. Highly recommended, presently my top pick.
  • DrupalValueHosting
    Live Demo
    Coupons: HalfPriceBlowout50p (50% off 'blowout' package)
    Admin Tool: cPanel
    Summary: DVH is a new hosting provider. They started out really strong but have suffered some growing pains on the support side.
    Blazing fast and cheap, but poor support options. These guys used to be my top pick, but I can no longer recommend them wholeheartedly. I still keep accounts with them and will recommend them for anyone who wants speed over support.
  • 1and1
    Live Demo
    Coupons: Up to 5 free domains with hosting if you use this lookup tool:

    Admin Tool: Proprietary, clunky (vps uses Plesk)
    Summary: Cheap. Great place to buy cheap domains. Recommended only for static sites / backup / email hosting. TERRIBLE for Drupal, unless you opt for VPS. Either 1and1 improved their DB issues, or Drupal 6.3 is way faster than 6.2, but 1and1 seems to be handling Drupal really well right now. Their shared hosting packages run mySql on remote servers which usually = high latency, and really slow load times for DB intensive apps like Drupal. I keep an account with them primarily for domains, secondarily for cheap back-up hosting.

    They also have very competitively priced VPS (29.99 / month for 256mb ram).

  • AN Hosting
    Coupons: ANHOST911 (2 months free hosting)
    Admin Tool: cPanel
    Summary: These guys were bought by MidPhase a while back, and as far as i know, are essentially rebadged MidPhase hosting.
  • MediaTemple
    Coupons: None
    Admin Tool: Proprietary, sexy, mostly intuitive
    Summary I've tried the GridService, even with the add-on MySQL GridContainers (~30/month alltogether) and Drupal performance still sucks. Like 1and1, this is due to mySql DB being on a different physical box than your hosting. Faster than 1and1 shared hosting... but still far from 'fast': Proof that a sexy site and control panel do not = great hosting. Not recommended for Drupal sites.
    (Note: I do not have experience with their $50+ DV service, only GS)

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