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Canadian web hosting?

I need web hosting. A bunch of people have recommended Dreamhost, and I’m this close
–>||<– to signing up for their $US 20/mo package there. Before I
do, though, I want to make sure I’m not missing out on a reliable
Canadian alternative.


For $US 20 per month, Dreamhost offers:

  • 40 GB/mo transfer (close to what I need)
  • 1.6GB local storage (close to what I need)
  • Mail: 300 mailboxes, unlimited mail aliases, 75 shell users (way over what I need)
  • DNS: 15 domains, 75 subdomains (about twice what I need, but I need
    shell access)

  • Unlimited MySQL usage

and more, but those are the important parts.


So, help me keep my money in Canada: Anyone know of a reliable,
established Canadian shared web hosting provider that can come close
to that package?

Rich

8 responses to “Canadian web hosting?”

  1. I hear DreamHost is nice! I’ve been using them for a few months now and I think they’re super! Use them! To keep your money in Canadia, just make sure you use a .ca domain. Also, buy lots of pickles. From Canadian growers. Spend more than $20/month ($87.25/mo Canadian dollarses) on pickles and you’ll feel good about yourself AND have a healthy pickle-based diet.

    Sorry. I have nothing useful to say. IHNJ, IJLS “hurlbut street”.

  3. I’ve found what seems to be a pretty decent hosting service out here on the west coast. http://www.rackforce.net offers virtual server hosting starting at $24.95 US … with no monthly bandwidth restrictions.

    You essentially get a virtual machine running linux – not *quite* as “virtual” as VMware, but it’s self-contained, you can install/run your own stuff. MySQL comes preloaded, etc. Also includes a fancy “Plesk” web config interface, but you have full shell via SSH too. Other nice features include the ability to resize your virtual disk on the fly, so that you can upgrade/downgrade between their service offerings as required.

    I’ve only been with them for two weeks so it’s hard to say how good they are. The connection seems much faster than iStop, and their support people are responsive, but not 100% clueful at times. They seem to be conditioned to reply “that’s a billable service”, until you point out that it’s obviously *not*. Then they’re happy to do it. Typical. :)

    – MK
    (yeah, yeah… I really, really *will* get an LJ account one day soon)

  4. Yay Canada! I’m sure there’s some bulk hosting provider in TO or Vancouver… unfortunately, I do my own hosting and I’m not up to the volumes that you’re looking for =\

  5. Interesting, and a neat approach. I would have liked this a year or two ago, I think. Right now my goal is to stop having to sysadmin in my spare time as much. I don’t mind recreational systems administration, but I don’t like having to do emergency work on the hardware’s schedule, which is why I’m looking for hosting in the first place! It’s like work, but free!

    Also, you ought to get an LJ account sometime. :-)

  6. You’d think so, but I’ll be damned if I can find them. I posted to some local tech communities, and all of the recommendations I’ve received don’t come close. I think maybe they can’t get the economies of scale.

    Re you not being up to the volumes I need, no worries — I’m on Petro’s boxes right now and I want to move to a hosting business whose owners I do not know. :-)

  7. … and I want to close my <i> tags. Only “want” was meant to be italic there, not yelling at you :-)

  8. These people are in Ontario, somewhere. I know about them because they posted an ad on my work site; I have no idea if they’re any good.