This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Antonio Cangiano. Original Post: Rails hosting review, 7 months later Feed Title: Zen and the Art of Ruby Programming Feed URL: http://programmingzen.com/category/ruby/feed/ Feed Description: Antonio Cangiano's blog about Ruby development. Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Antonio Cangiano Latest Posts From Zen and the Art of Ruby Programming

Exactly 7 months ago, I wrote a very popular article about the various Rails hosting providers on a budget (shared hosting). That article is the most popular to date, and every month hundreds of people looking for Rails hosting advice arrive at my site. This is a short follow up.

Site 5

I’ve been using Site5 for a long time and I ‘m confident enough to suggest them to my fellow developers. (Yes, if you get a plan from them through my links, you also support this site)

The current available plans are:

All these plans feature shell access, unlimited ftp/email accounts, and multi site capabilities (Advanced and Platinum have a complete admin panel for up to 2 and 5 sites respectively).

These Ruby on Rails hosting plans include MySQL (of course), a series of Ruby gems (if you request it, they install more), SVN and Switchtower.

Customer service tends to be very fast and competent (above all Rails savvy), and they go the extra mile. I once asked them to install rmagick, gruff, feedtools, rubyzip, builder, ajax_scaffold_generator, pdf-writer, flickr and capistrano for me. On 4 different websites. I got a friendly answer in less than an hour. All done.

They are not perfect (no shared hosting service is) but they are good enough, and for the low monthly rate, they may be the best bang for your buck.

What about Dreamhost?

When I wrote the first review I was aware of Dreamhost, and I always had doubts about how Dreamhost may have done. Well, now I don’t, and I’m glad that I picked Site5. The Better Business Bureau rates Dreamhost F, which according to their site means, “We strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices.”.

Some people went as far as creating a site called Dreamhost Sucks in order to question dreamhost’s business practices, and as you can see there are a few complaints. Apparently the “overcrowded server” stories were true afterall.

Conclusion

Give Site5 a try. In the worst case scenario, you can always fall back on their nice 60 day money back guarantee.