Webhost recommendations (Domain, Site and Email wanted)

valve90210 · 20 Sep 2024 at 18:10

I'm in the process of setting up a private practice and want to sort myself out a domain, email service and a small basically static webpage...ideally for as little cost as possible.

I currently have one domain, which I use for personal stuff, registered through 123reg, so I was considering using them for the domain name. They also do web hosting and email but I've no experience of what they are like for that.

Anyone got any recommendations of good hosts? I remember back in the day TSOHost and Vidahost were normally the ones people recommended but I'm guessing this might be very out of date now.

Oh and I should probably add that I'd quite like something that makes it reasonably simple to build a nice looking website but have sort of ruled out Squarespace and Wix as they don't include email and they are a touch pricy...

Mr Jack · 20 Sep 2024 at 18:16

I like Maxer. TSOHost have gone to the absolute dogs, avoid.

Poolybit · 20 Sep 2024 at 18:26

I split out my website hosting (namecheap) and my hosting to Zume (formally GNUHost) after TSOHost went absolutely terrible, no problems so far after a couple of years. No idea on the website templating stuff but they do have a load of CPanel plugin stuff to aid in the administration.

Cromulent · 20 Sep 2024 at 18:30

Domain names: Porkbun or Cloudflare
Hosting: Linode or Digital Ocean (assuming you want standard hosting features such as Wordpress support for instance) - Cloudflare if you use a static site generator - Cloudflare is free for static sites.

On Holiday · 2024-09-27T12:03:56+0100

Poolybit said:
I split out my website hosting (namecheap) and my hosting to Zume (formally GNUHost) after TSOHost went absolutely terrible, no problems so far after a couple of years. No idea on the website templating stuff but they do have a load of CPanel plugin stuff to aid in the administration.

+1 for Zume, very solid provider.

radderfire · 2024-09-27T12:27:20+0100

Clook is a good host for linux hosting.

Catalyst2 is a good host for Windows hosting.

I'm not sure if either have a web builder product though.

visibleman · 2024-09-27T16:12:57+0100

valve90210 said:
Oh and I should probably add that I'd quite like something that makes it reasonably simple to build a nice looking website but have sort of ruled out Squarespace and Wix as they don't include email and they are a touch pricy...

They're about you're only real options for WYSIWYG type editors where the results can look fairly impressive. Otherwise it's going to be a learning curve using a CMS like Wordpress/Drupal or a static site 'generator' and trying to get something that looks fairly decent (and arguably secure).

And if it's for business use, then i would strongly recommend stumping up for Microsoft 365 (~£4.70p/m for 'Business Basic' plan) or Google Workspace for your emails. 'Pop' mailboxes for business is a pain, especially from storage (typically it's shared with your hosting package ) and security POV and you lack a lot of features proper business email services offer.

Second Porkbun (best to use a currency fee free card to pay in USD) or Cloudflare (can work out the cheapest for a lot of TLD's) for domain names; use both and have zero problems with either of them.