Hosting Suggestions: Time to leave Bluehost

sambaji

I've been with the hosting company Bluehost for several years. However, the customer service has deteriorated as it has grown exponentially. In their fledgling years, I could just call them and within a couple of minutes, I was talking to a knowledgeable technician. Now I am greeted with an "AI" and then routed to a phone bank. ("progress" in the corporate sphere ultimately means finding new ways to maximize profits, not necessarily improving customer service). So I am now shopping around before my current plan is renewed.

What are your favourite web services for hosting a flat CMS such as Automad, either in terms of cost, speed or customer service?

Thanks, Sam

mad

sambaji Hi, that’s an interesting topic. Generally I guess that customer support comes with a certain price tag.

It would be great when we could use this thread to collect some experiences with hosting services. So everybody is welcome to share his favorites!

Clarkybox

sambaji I don't have a lot of experience but I'm exploring options right now.

I currently have an old Siteground plan that I'm not really using anymore. There isn't an easy way to integrate with Git without paying for an expensive plan.
Today I've been messing around with a Hostinger trial. Hostinger has a lot of valuable features at great prices (even the non "promo" prices). I was able to get the default Automad site up and running, but I'm running into at least one issue, maybe more, related to the fact that Hostinger's web server is LiteSpeed, not Apache.
I've looked at Rochen, which looks good, but their base plan is kind of expensive for only allowing one subdomain. I think it also uses LiteSpeed :/
A2 Hosting also offers a lot for their price point, and uses an Apache server, and I might consider trying them. They are recommended by Digital.com for web hosting that uses Apache.
Digital.com has a lot of other info about web hosts you might want to check out if you're still exploring.

sambaji

What host do you use?

The massive growth of Bluehost over the years has meant less direct personalized service. in my experience. I end up spending much more time on the phone talking to technical support, who are generally much less knowledgeable compared to the early days of Bluehost. Perhaps, that's standard now these days with most hosting companies.

mad

Clarkybox On quick note to LiteSpeed servers. It basically boils down to two things that have to be configured in order to make everything work as far as others have reported here in the forum:

Within the LiteSpeed settings make sure that the .htaccess file is imported
Set the AM_INDEX constant to an empty string within the config file