Server suggestions?

[borman]

Hi all, glad to be apart of the Revision3 forums! Basically, my question is this:
What company offers the best Virtual Dedicated Server, in reliability, and value? Godaddy isnt horrible, but I'm wondering what else is out there that I can trust.

Right now, Ive got a small website that works fine on most days on normal old webhosting. The problem is, when I do have something popular, it crashes and burns due to it really not being meant for the high load. Really, it limits what I can do, and I'm looking to expand. And while a dedicated server would be nice, I just wouldn't have money to pay that sort of bill. And with plans in the works for a brand new site, that is proving to be popular among my small tests, I would really like to have something with some power behind it, with the option to expand as needed.

Thanks a lot guys!
Borman

[burkhartmj]

I've heard HostGator is good though haven't used it myself.

[Mal]

Well the best advice I can give you is the check webhostingtalk.com (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/)... it's how I make all my web hosting decisions. As to what you need, you might want to look at high-end reseller accounts before thinking about VPS, simply because a reseller account (priced at the same level as a VPS) will generally run better in terms of performance. The main advantage of VPS is flexibility but that also requires more knowledge, so if you don't know much about server management then make sure they provide it as a service.

That said, if price isn't that important then get a good VPS. You didn't state a platform, so for Windows I would recommend SolarVPS (http://www.solarvps.com/), for Linux I would say something like ServInt (http://www.servint.net/) (I use these for my dedicated server). A final option would be a "hosting matrix", it's an old fashioned idea that's caught on recently where you are hosted on a farm of servers, so you get better performance under high load. The side effect is that some things might not work as expected and there's less flexibility because you aren't in control, but if you are interested then Mosso (http://www.mosso.com/) might be an option.