Best host

rubyonrails-talk
1

Will Gant wrote:

I'm trying to host a small RoR website with a MySQL backend. This site will have minimal traffic and needs to be easy to set up. What host would you recommend and why? We can't afford a dedicated server, so I'm guessing that we will need a place that uses Mongrel.

Any thoughts?

RailsPlayground. I'm using their shared plan with a pound/mongrel cluster and performance has been fine. Also, their customer support is excellent.

Jamey

2

James Cribbs wrote:

Will Gant wrote:   

I'm trying to host a small RoR website with a MySQL backend. This site will have minimal traffic and needs to be easy to set up. What host would you recommend and why? We can't afford a dedicated server, so I'm guessing that we will need a place that uses Mongrel.

Any thoughts?     

RailsPlayground. I'm using their shared plan with a pound/mongrel cluster and performance has been fine. Also, their customer support is excellent.

Jamey    It was reported that a2hosting.com has some odd errors, one of which is related to using send_file with mongrel. Is that problem on RailsPlayground also? For my application, send_file is a must (need to protect the files that people upload, and so they must go through the controller)... but I like the 'look' of a2hosting - and have heard them mentioned very favourably on this list..

Cheers Mohit.

3

Bryan M wrote:

I would second RailsPlayground. They have a wide variety of plans at very reasonable prices (I'm on the barebones basic one, and very content). They also have stellar support.

I was reading the following page: http://www.rubyonrailswebhost.com/ and realized that I have not heard much about their Top 3 Hosts on this list much. Their Top-3 is: Bluehost, HostMonster and Site 5.

I think I heard that people were quite pleased with Site 5. I'm trying to decide between Site 5 and RailsPlayground (I was keen on a2Hosting, but the problem with file_send and mongrel there is scaring me). RailsPlayground offers monrel support from the look of it, but seem to have had 9 network incidents in September. As for Site 5, I can't tell.

Any pointers? Any known gotchas with these hosts?

Cheers Mohit.

4

I would second RailsPlayground. They have a wide variety of plans at very reasonable prices (I'm on the barebones basic one, and very content). They also have stellar support.

I was reading the following page: http://www.rubyonrailswebhost.com/ and realized that I have not heard much about their Top 3 Hosts on this list much. Their Top-3 is: Bluehost, HostMonster and Site 5.

I think I heard that people were quite pleased with Site 5. I'm trying to decide between Site 5 and RailsPlayground (I was keen on a2Hosting, but the problem with file_send and mongrel there is scaring me). RailsPlayground offers monrel support from the look of it, but seem to have had 9 network incidents in September. As for Site 5, I can't tell.

Any pointers? Any known gotchas with these hosts?

I just recently worked with someone hosted at Site5 (for about a week) and I wouldn't recommend them based on that experience. Their support was less than helpful to say the least, and there's no mongrel that I can see (although maybe they offer it in a different package).

-philip

5

Philip Hallstrom wrote:

I was reading the following page: http://www.rubyonrailswebhost.com/ and realized that I have not heard much about their Top 3 Hosts on this list much. Their Top-3 is: Bluehost, HostMonster and Site 5.

I think I heard that people were quite pleased with Site 5. I'm trying to decide between Site 5 and RailsPlayground (I was keen on a2Hosting, but the problem with file_send and mongrel there is scaring me). RailsPlayground offers monrel support from the look of it, but seem to have had 9 network incidents in September. As for Site 5, I can't tell.

Any pointers? Any known gotchas with these hosts?      I just recently worked with someone hosted at Site5 (for about a week) and I wouldn't recommend them based on that experience. Their support was less than helpful to say the least, and there's no mongrel that I can see (although maybe they offer it in a different package).

-philip

I see.. that makes sense, then. I'm now looking at RailsPlayground as the main contender. Can't seem to find much information about BlueHost or HostMonster in this list. I have a couple of sites to host for different people, so I don't mind going with different providers.

I'm all set to go - getting out of my current shared hosting, then transferring my domains to GoDaddy (they seem to have good prices for renewal) and then update the name servers to point to a Rails-enabled host. The only missing information is the Rails-enabled host right now... :-S

Cheers mohit.

6

> I was reading the following page: http://www.rubyonrailswebhost.com/ and realized that I have not heard much about their Top 3 Hosts on this list much. Their Top-3 is: Bluehost, HostMonster and Site 5.

Don't ever trust that site. They rated the sites based on affiliate money. Railsplayground will never be there because it doesn't have affiliate program !

I think I heard that people were quite pleased with Site 5. I'm trying to decide between Site 5 and RailsPlayground (I was keen on a2Hosting, but the problem with file_send and mongrel there is scaring me). RailsPlayground offers monrel support from the look of it, but seem to have had 9 network incidents in September. As for Site 5, I can't tell.

Any pointers? Any known gotchas with these hosts?

I really don't like hosts offering rails hosting using Apache/fcgi/cPanel. I'm offering free hosting at freeonrails.com using litespeed ruby API, and I find it better than mongrel/fcgi.

-Pratik

7

We have several customers (at PLANET ARGON) using mongrel with pound (or lighty) and haven't heard anyone bring up any issues with send_file. If you're looking for another option during your search, you might stop by Get In Touch - Planet Argon and ask some of our customers yourself for their opinions. :slight_smile:

Robby