[thebiglebrewski]

I totally agree with @recusancy, this is the worst news I've heard all day...I absolutely despise GoDaddy and everything they represent.

Who should I switch to? Just have some WordPress site hosted on MediaTemple mostly...

[acallaghan]

Digital Ocean by a country mile, they come with a Wordpress image ready set-up for you, will cost $5 a month for an excellent webserver. I host 4 different Rails sites, and a Wordpress Network of 7 sites there, all running v well.

My referral link: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=1ecc21b66a25

Edit: Note, I don't run all of those sites on the same server, that'd be silly.

[atourgates]

If you're looking for WP hosting without the need to manage a server, we've been having a good experience with Synthesis' managed Wordpress hosting: http://websynthesis.com/

The only downside is that since their pricing is based on the number of domains/installs ($27 for a single domain/install), it'll get pricy for multiple small WP sites on a single account.

[acallaghan]

Yeah is a little pricey, but may be what OP was looking for.

The probably don't allow a WP network with multiple other sites CNAMEd to subdomains, which is how I'm set up. It's a little sticky to setup, but you have a free wordpress.org afterwards effectively, which is great for all my friend's and family's pet projects and mini sites.

[thenomad]

Interesting, I didn't know that. What's the WP image based off? (OS, web server, reverse proxies, etc)

[acallaghan]

It's running Ubuntu 12.10, nginx and PHP5 FPM - I can't remember if FPM came preinstalled or not though.

[anu_gupta]

Depends on how much you want to pay, and exactly how much control you want, but one of these should sort you out.

* WPEngine

* Linode

* Bytemark (Big V)

* Rackspace Cloud

* DigitalOcean

[mitchwainer]

We just issued a $10 promo code today on Twitter for anyone that is interested in trying out DigitalOcean. Promo Code: DIVEIN10

[slig]

I created an account and entered the promo code. Will the credit in my account expire? I'm asking because I'll only have time to play with DO in a couple of months.

Thanks!

[kmlymi]

I'm very happy with the service, and I would recommend it to anyone who's a bit more capable in configuring their needs.

[thenomad]

Just second-opinioning this one: I've run Wordpress sites on WPEngine (awesome, just awesome) and Linode (great servers, obviously don't have the complete-hassle-removal factor of WPEngine).

I've run other sites on DigitalOcean (superb) and BigV (been a client of theirs for a decade now - also superb).

[dotBen]

one of the founders of WP Engine here - just wanted to thank you for your kind words.

[thenomad]

No worries - your service kicks ass. I like not having to manage my WP installs :)

[resistor3672]

Just FYI, Gandi.net is also offering a free "Simple Hosting" virtual instance for a month with code NODADDY. Size "S", valid for a week.

[mtMattNL]

We knew that a lot of our current customers might have a negative response towards this. Like somebody said above, GoDaddy has made some pretty big changes in the past year. With this new acquisition we're hoping for bigger and better things for (mt), especially when it comes to new product lines.

[rwhitman]

You're never going to win our hearts or minds here. MT is dead to me now.

There is no one web technology professionals hate more in the world than GoDaddy. I can't think of a vendor I despise more.

Also I'm an MT customer of 8 years and probably referred tens of thousands of business to MT over the last decade. Dead to me. Thats how much I hate GoDaddy.

[larrys]

"There is no one web technology professionals hate more in the world than GoDaddy."

By the way back in the day, before there was a godaddy and during godaddy's rise to "power" that crown (as a despired domain registrar) went to Network Solutions.

I wonder how many HN'ers are aware of that?

[chrismonsanto]

What was weird about Network Solutions was that they were much more expensive than their competitors, yet much worse than their competitors. I didn't know anyone who used them, and I'm surprised to learn that they still exist.

[icedchai]

Seriously? Network Solutions was the original domain registrar.

[larrys]

Original and only prior to ICANN.

Original price of a domain: free

Next price point a bit later $100: 2 years min ($50 per year)

Next a bit later $70: 2 years min ($35 per year)

Then came competition and prices dropped.

Little known fact: The first registrars that were accredited had to certify that they had no criminal record (any of the officers) and had to be a corporation and post $100,000 bond as well as other hurdles which were all put in place by Network Solutions to limit competition.

Out of NSI came Verisign which had to erect a "chinese wall" (iirc) in order to separate the "registry" from the "registrar". Verisign of course ended up selling off NS.

[ktsmith]

I still don't like Network Solutions but it's so rare that I run into anyone using their services it has become a non issue.

[thebiglebrewski]

Sure, as someone above mentioned though, unfortunately GoDaddy is a toxic brand. I do NOT want to be associated with a brand that doesn't support net neutrality and was in favor of SOPA and PIPA. I'm sure you guys will do fine anyway, but I'm pretty sad I'm going to probably have to abandon MediaTemple in the long run....

[tcdent]

I think you'll find the negative response from developers to be way larger than you anticipated. (Otherwise, you probably wouldn't have gone through with this.)

I still respected MT for their independence, even if the service was unbearable for a few years there. You were just starting to earn a good reputation again, now you're right back in the dark days.

[obituary_latte]

+1 here for Rackspace mostly due to their excellent support. They seem to have a dedicated WP offering[0].

Have also heard mostly good things about Linode (exception[1]), but don't have personal experience with them.

[0]http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/sites/web-hosting/wordpress/

[1]https://blog.linode.com/2013/04/16/security-incident-update/

[ohashi]

If you are starting to research your options you may find the data my startup publishes useful: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/compare

It tracks what people are saying about many of the big hosting providers on Twitter and analyzes what people like/don't like about them.

As far as anu_gupta's recommendations, I have data on 4/5:

Digital Ocean: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/101/digitalocean/

Linode: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/24/linode/

WPEngine: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/103/wpengine/

RackSpace: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/21/rackspace/

[thebiglebrewski]

Thanks, this is really helpful!

[ohashi]

You're welcome :)

[MartinCron]

If it's just some WordPress site, nobody is better at running WordPress than WordPress.

[ChrisNorstrom]

I wanted to check out Media Temple as a long term host but after this.... I guess I'll stick with 1and1. I've been with 1and1 for almost 10 years. They're not perfect but they're more than satisfactory for me. When the traffic to my websites on my shared hosting grew they automatically moved me to a better more resource free server instead of forcing me to upgrade to virtual or dedicated servers. They're charging $14 per .com so do NOT register domains with them. Use NameCheap.com for that.

[dublinben]

Depending on your usage, you should check out ASmallOrange.com and NearlyFreeSpeech.net. They're both very cost effective options for personal sites.

[codereflection]

Checkout http://ghost.org/, which just opened to the public, if all you're doing with WP is blogging. Otherwise you may want to consider signing up on Wordpress.com, which isn't all that bad (just very limited in configurability).

[thebiglebrewski]

I actually just wrote a blog post on Ghost! http://blog.zfeldman.com/2013-10-15-i-ain-t-fraid-of-no-ghos...

It's really cool but I don't think it's ready for primetime yet.

I want to be able to host static sites and WordPress all from one hosting account with great support and features. Seems like MediaTemple was the only service to offer that...

[billturner]

Your post looks good, but why do you link to your twitter post, which links back to a HN submission, which finally links to the post on your site? Can you not just point directly to it?

[thebiglebrewski]

Haha sorry about that, things got a little mixed up! That's just the fastest way I could find it...will more directly link in the future. I don't think you can edit HN posts?

[thebiglebrewski]

Edited!!!! Thanks

[codereflection]

Ah, cool. Maybe consider AWS or Azure then?

[torartc]

I'm looking to move too. I'd really like a good suggestion as to where to move my sites.

[lolololololo]

they have cheap SSD plans, being there for months and it just works https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=49b5b50accae