Best & cheapest hosting account

nikkilala_2

Apologies if I've posted this in the wrong place but am totally out of my comfort zone if I'm not on the grabbit boards:o I am useless when it comes to websites but am determined to try and make my own. I've been doing an online course in webdesign and am slowly understanding it. I need to find a hosting account that gives a good service and is pretty reasonable. With FTP access as I also want them to host my emails. Ive checked reviews online for different companies but am getting so confused and would far prefer recommendation from people's personal experiences. Just put the phone down on reg123 as they've had me holding on for nearly 20 mins at 10p a minute and I have'nt even spoken to anyone!! Would really appreciate some help:)

S0litaire

I got an account with 1&1
The hosting is free for a year if you buy a domain name at around £5
http://order.1and1.co.uk/xml/order/Hosting

Farway

I use Vidahost, UK based, a real human on the phone, 0800 freephone contact number, really quick e-mail response, within a few minutes, not a day or so later

http://www.vidahost.com/

paddyrg

If you're just dipping your toe, try biz.nf for free.

FWIW, best and cheapest are mutually exclusive, I'm afraid!

spannerzone

TSO Hosts for me, good pricing, excellent fast support (litterally all questions answered in minutes anytime of day or night) and no nasty tricks, fees or other stuff than some hosts sting you with.

Even cancelling a service is one email..... very pleased with my service from TSOhosts

Snakeeyes21

www.zyma.com £5 a year does everything you want.
cpanel / linux cheap as chips, and very reliable.
support is fast too, the couple of times ive used it.

if you want a free .co.uk domain name even for personal use go to
GBBO www.gbbo.co.uk after say 3 months just transfer it elsewhere for cheaper
renewals

Once you have a hosting account just login to your gbbo / yola account and change
the name servers to your hosts and your up and away.

edit:.. if you are setting up a website to sell you will need an ssl and dedicated IP,
zyma charge £12.99 a year for this, most other hosts charge alot more.

googler

I have hosting and domain registration with Namesco.

UK-based, real people at the end of the phone, and decent tech support in my experience.

nikkilala_2

Thanks everyone for all the quick responses, really appreciated,that's exactly what I wanted some personal recommendations:T

esuhl

I've been using zoka.cc for my free hosting and it's performed really well, although there are a few limitations. You can use FTP, server-side scripts, SQL, etc. and get a pretty generous 7GB limit... but there's a 4MB file-size limit (which prevented me from uploading some hi-res photos).

More importantly, it seems to modify HTML files as you upload them (which does various things, like preventing the site from being indexed by search engines). Worse still, I clicked an invalid link yesterday and got re-directed to a website that appears to be linked to phishing attempts! I wonder if all the other free hosts engage in such sneaky trickery to generate revenue...?

Anyway... I'd recommend zoka.cc just for a free platform to learn on, but for anything more I'd avoid!

From the posts above, tsohost and zyma look interesting - I'll probably be moving my sites to somewhere more reputable soon!

esuhl

Snakeeyes21 wrote: »

www.zyma.com £5 a year does everything you want.
cpanel / linux cheap as chips, and very reliable.
support is fast too, the couple of times ive used it.

Hmmm... Just looked at Zyma and their registered address is at the Access self-storage facility in Basingstoke. But according to Companies House, the only company using the name "Zyma" is linked to the Dephna self-storage site in London (N3)...

It's not reassuring - it seems unlikely that a self-storage facility would be used as either an office or a server room, and it seems far too easy for whoever set up the hosting service to "do a runner" or evade any legal/contractual obligations they might have.

They are cheap, but something doesn't sound right here...

esuhl

Just been looking at Go Daddy (a familiar name, if nothing else) and their economy package gives 10GB disk space and unlimited bandwidth for £1.26/month with a three-month contract period. And it seems you can get 10% off when you subscribe to their email list (not sure if that's just 10% off the 1st month though...)

I wonder how good the support is, though...? Not that I've ever had to use it with the hosts I've used in the past...