Any experience with Arvixe vs WinHost vs EuroVPS for Windows hosting?

[Stark8352]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a new windows host and after doing some research have shortlisted 3 hosts. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with these and if so could they offer their assessment. The 3 hosts are:

(1) Arvixe
(2) WinHost
(3) EuroVPS

My website is developed using Microsoft Web Developer and includes an sql database which I can't imagine getting any bigger than 1GB in size. There will be up to say 50 pages on my website that will pull data from the database and display on screen (in a number of ways e.g. gridview, charts, normal text) for the users to refer to. I've no idea at this stage just how many users will visit this site.

What I'm looking for out of a web host is the ability to be able to easily deploy my website from Web Developer to the host servers and to have a user friendly control panel to manage my website. The host should support all of the usual web control IE offers and to accommodate third party controls like Ajax. I program in VB.net and use a small amount of javascript.

My research has indicated that the 3 sites support most of my requirements, with Win Host and Euro VPS being directly compatible with Microsoft's Web Developer which is a big plus for me. The only other real issue is the bandwith as I don't understand what this will get me. Win Host are offering 200GB Euro VPS only 40GB and Arvixe supposedly unlimited.

Given the description of my website does anyone know a ball park figure of whateach of these bandwidths would mean in terms of the number of visitors/traffic it could accommodate?

I should be grateful if anyone had any views on this and if there are any other good windows hosts that I may have overlooked.

Cheers

Steve

[kpmedia]

Quote:

(1) Arvixe (2) Win Host (3) Euro VPS

I've been with EuroVPS for about 6 years now, and they've easily proven themselves to be an outstanding Windows/Plesk host, be it for shared, reseller, VPS or dedicated solutions. But in terms of the other hosts on your short list, I think you could do better. For example, these would be better hosts to compare EuroVPS against: JodoHost, GearHost, ServerIntellect, SoftSys Hosting, Cyberhost Pro,

In terms of more details thoughts on those three hosts:

Arvixe: Arvixe is a low-end budget host, and while some of the techs are indeed quite good, I think the owner is a bit of an ass, based on how he's responded to people in various forums, including Arvixe's own forums. As I mentioned in another post (in the thread http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/web-...html#post18585 in post#6), it's not a host I think that I could rely on. After you've dealt with wonderful people like Vasili at EuroVPS, Brent at HostGator, or Ryan at GearHost, you don't want to get anywhere near a person like Arvand. I think age has a lot to do with it -- he's in his early 20s still. It's also worrying that a lot of Arvixe's own site focuses quite a bit on their awards, their bragging about being the "fastest growing" host according to certain organizations, etc -- as opposed to being focused on how Arvixe helps or benefits customers. Pay attention to things like that.

WinHost: My opinion of Winhost is what I'd call "positive center" -- it's just a bit more positive than neutral. Their lowest $5 plan is almost useless, because of various limits it carries, so the $10 plan is what should be looked at. For example, while 2GB of space is nice, it's meaningless when you only get 1 SQL database with max size of 200MB -- that's tiny. The $10 plan is more sensible, with 10 SQL databases and 1GB of database storage space. One thing I like about WinHost is that they're honest. For example, they've been quite humble in answering their customers (on their own public forums) through the years, responding honestly on what they can and cannot do. I also like that they're active elsewhere online, responding to weird and ridiculous feedback, as found on affiliate-driven fake "review" sites like web-hosting-top.com -- and the responses are very professional, intelligent and sensible. Not once have I seen WinHost respond rudely or with an arrogant attitude. The only reason this host isn't rated purely positive is that I've not yet had the privilege of using their service, so that I may leave a review.

And the best for last...

EuroVPS: When I write about EuroVPS, admittedly it sometimes comes across as a person writing about their high school crush. (I wrote a public thank you to EuroVPS last year.) But the fact of the matter is that EuroVPS has been more like my business partner for the past 6 years, and not just some company I pay for service. In other words, I can rely on them to handle the IT, and spend my time focusing on websites and website content. And when you do need help, the techs always respond to tickets with intelligent answers, and in a very courteous and friendly way. The servers are almost always up (99.9% minimum), and the speeds from Amsterdam are fantastic even to North America. EuroVPS is a premium host -- they've not cut corners on their their infrastructure, including hardware, virtualization software (no OpenVZ here!), and network appliances -- and it shows. While I'm sure they profit, it's quite clear that huge sums of money have been invested into a long-term business that strives to do more than just make a quick buck. This is one of those few hosts where, if you decided to use them, it's likely that you'll never need to switch hosts again. A much longer review is in the works, for my actual 6-year anniversary with them -- about 6 weeks away.

Anyway, that's my advice for you -- or anybody else that's reading this.

[Stark8352]

kpmedia,

Interesting! I was actually looking at the $9.95 option with Win Host but have reservations now. Euro VPS looked good but the only downside was that on the comparable rate they were only offering a 10MB MS SQL/MySQL database and this is not going to be anywhere near enough for the eventual size of my database!

I also looked at Cyberhost since they are based in the UK as am I (I forgot to mention that). I got a bit put off because they have the same control panel as Host Papa and I really didn't like it, neither did I like the interface for managing the databases. Maybe its different under the windows environment, I don't know, but I just can't get my head around that style control panel.

It never occured to me at the time to mention I was from the UK and whether I would have any latency issues with having my site hosted in say America as opposed to here in the UK or somewhere in Europe. What are your thoughts on this.

Do you know any other good windows hosts in Europe/UK?

Thanks

Steve

[Noah-Arv]

Hi Stark8352,

If I may provide some information on Arvixe. We aim to give great customer service and support. We do have a 60 day money back policy that allows you to try our hosting and make sure it is good for you. As you said we meet all your standards for your site. We give unlimited bandwidth so you don't have to think about if you are going to be hitting a limit of transfer each month.

Even through the company is US based we do have users all over the world including the UK with sites without latency issues. Without having more information on what your site will be doing and if you will be advertising it, I can't tell you what plan you will need once your site goes live. You can always start at our lowest level plan through and then move your account up as you need a bigger plan. This is something we would assist you with.

Of course please let me know if you have any questions.

Noah S.
Arvixe Representative
http://www.arvixe.com/

[admin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stark8352

Interesting! I was actually looking at the $9.95 option with Win Host but have reservations now.

As per above, the $9.95 plan is probably fine. It has adequate resources, unless you're building a huge site with massive databases. And it that's the case, maybe you should be shopping for a VPS instead of shared hosting.

Quote:

Euro VPS looked good but the only downside was that on the comparable rate they were only offering a 10MB MS SQL/MySQL database and this is not going to be anywhere near enough for the eventual size of my database!

Look at their reseller (multi-domain) plans, instead of the basic hosting. Yes, it costs double -- €20/monthly -- but you have to decide if you want excellent hosting at a fair price, good/decent hosting for a moderate/low price, or simply cheap hosting promising unlimited resources.

Quote:

I also looked at Cyberhost since they are based in the UK as am I (I forgot to mention that). I got a bit put off because they have the same control panel as Host Papa and I really didn't like it, neither did I like the interface for managing the databases. Maybe its different under the windows environment, I don't know, but I just can't get my head around that style control panel.

There's really only three panels available:

(1) Plesk is the best Windows control panel. It's very lean on resources, integrates beautifully with Windows Server 2003/2008, and has many modern features that make using Windows easy. Even seasoned server admins like to use Plesk, because it cuts down on their workload.

(2) Enkompass was cPanel's attempt to make a Windows panel, and it failed. It was weak compared to Plesk, and while it's still being supported, new features are not planned (based on cPanel statements to date). cPanel discontinued active development on it before it was even a year old.

(3) WebsitePanel (WSP) is another panel you'll find in use, formerly named DotNetPanel (DNP). Now I don't know the entire back story, but it goes something like this: DNP was a well-supported active-development commercial panel that cost less than Plesk. But then it was bought out, and the new owners made it an open-source project. At some point, it fell under the auspices of Microsoft, and development pretty much ceased from that point onwards. It has less features than Plesk, and it's a bit awkward to use -- many things are buried in the interface. Here's another tip: You can often tell which hosts have not updated their site, because they still call it DNP on the site. And then the site isn't upgraded, there's a good chance they don't upgrade their servers either. You could find yourself on a server that's aged and bogged down.

Some hosts also use custom panels.

Quote:

It never occured to me at the time to mention I was from the UK and whether I would have any latency issues with having my site hosted in say America as opposed to here in the UK or somewhere in Europe. What are your thoughts on this.

If you're in UK, then anything on the North American east coast (New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Montreal, etc) would be fine. Anything in Europe would be fine. Latency isn't really an issue unless you're running speed-needy applications and not websites. For example, game servers, streaming video, or forex/stock market software.

Quote:

Do you know any other good windows hosts in Europe/UK?

It looks like several were mentioned in that first reply (post#2 by kpmedia) already: Cyberhost Pro, Softsys Hosting, etc.
If you decide to look into VPS, instead of shared, a few more names are: JaguarPC, SolarVPS, KickassVPS.

Hope that helps you with your decisions.