Since Sabbath School Net has become a very large and very busy site, it ran up against the limits of shared hosting, and since 2011, the site has been hosted on a dedicated server. Below, I will share about our current dedicated hosting company, which I recommend highly for anyone considering VPS or dedicated server hosting. It’s the best combination of service and economy I could find.  (The vast majority of sites do not require dedicated hosting.) If you think you might need VPS or dedicated hosting, feel free to drop me a note, and I’d be quite willing to talk with you.

I am also running some other sites on much less expensive shared hosting at Arvixe.com. I have found their staff to be extremely helpful and accommodating. They truly specialize in outstanding service, and their prices are reasonable. The owner is independent (i.e. not owned by the EIG conglomerate) and appears to care about quality of service. Thus I recommend Arvixe.com hosting to anyone who is in need of inexpensive, yet reliable hosting with good support. While you may find cheaper hosting, you are unlikely to find more bang for your buck in terms of service and reliability.

After doing a lot of research on hosting companies, I am happy to be hosting Sabbath School Net on a dedicated server at Hivelocity.net since early December 2013. (Previous to this, SSNET was hosted on a dedicated server at Hostgator.com, but their service deteriorated after being bought out by EIG.)

Reasons why I chose Hivelocity.net for Our Dedicated Hosting

Hivelocity.net is dedicated to dedicated and VPS hosting. They do not do shared hosting at all. This makes their staff very knowledgeable on all dedicated hosting issues.

It is a relatively young, independent company which offers very personal and  quick support as a priority. Ticket response is generally less than 15 min. (By contrast, Hostgator support deteriorated seriously during our last year with them. Instead of maybe half an hour’s wait for service, it took 12-24 hours for anyone to even look at a ticket.)

Hivelocity.net runs servers out of its own recently built data center in Tampa, Florida. They do not just rent servers from someone else.

Even though though Hivelocity.net experienced some growth pangs several years ago, all recent customer feedback seems to have been overwhelmingly positive. And our experience so far has been very positive, with quick and knowledgeable responses to help requests.

The management and staff of Hivelocity.net appear to be focused on continually improving service, and it shows.

Why I did not choose and would not recommend one of the “Top 10 Hosting Companies” for either dedicated or shared hosting:

If you’ve been looking for web hosting, you’ve no doubt seen lots of lists of “Top 10 Hosting Companies.” While they don’t all look the same, with most sites listing their preferences near the top, they do all look fairly similar, and the companies deemed to be paying the best affiliate rates are generally near the top.

You might want to check out “Top web hosting review sites. What’s wrong with them.” Just a little research told me that the author is “right on.”

Although many of the “Top Ten” used to be good hosting companies, most of the companies have been bought out by a conglomerate known as Endurance International Group (EIG). EIG’s strategy seems to have been to buy out popular hosting companies without changing the brand name. Thus they may have 8 companies among the “Top Ten” that are their own and there is no real choice among the “Top Ten.”

Many users report that quality of service deteriorated drastically when companies were bought by EIG. Downtimes increased and so did wait times for all kinds of support. That’s what happened with Hostgator, our previous hosting company for shared hosting and then dedicated hosting. However, even though service declined drastically, more “Gators” than ever appeared on websites to advertise Hostgator services. In early December 2013 it seemed that it was hardly possible to find a web-related site without a Gator showing up. And there’s a reason for this. Hostgator offers generous affiliate benefits. (Whether or not these are realized by small site owners is another question.)

Below is a list of hosting companies owned by EIG. [2. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_International_Group#cite_note-netcraft-4] Current as of December 2013:

2slick.com
AccountSupport
A Small Orange
ApolloHosting
Berry Information Systems L.L.C.
BizLand
BlueDomino
Bluehost
Dollar2Host
Domain.com
DomainHost
Dot5Hosting
Dotster
easyCGI
eHost
EntryHost
FastDomain
FatCow
FreeYellow
Glob@t
Homestead
HostCentric
HostClear
HostGator [3. See Webhostingtalk.com discussion, Hostgator Deal Valuation, and Announcement by Hostgator ]
Hostnine
HostMonster
hostwithmenow.com
HostYourSite.com
HyperMart
IMOutdoors
Intuit Websites
iPage.com
IPOWER/iPowerWeb
JustHost
MyDomain
MyResellerHome
NetFirms
Networks Web Hosting
Nexx
PowWeb
PureHost
ReadyHosting.com
Saba-Pro
SEO Hosting
Southeast Web
Spry
StartLogic
SuperGreen Hosting
USANetHosting
VirtualAvenue
VPSLink
WebHost4Life
Webstrike Solutions
Xeran
YourWebHosting