Hello Everyone,
I have been glued to the forums here today trying to learn as much as I can. I currently run my site using Interspire and have been researching switching to another cart for quite some time. I am getting closer to making my decision to go with CS-Cart however I had planned to set up a VPS plan with Hostgator until reading a number of threads in this forum.
I have been with HG for many years on shared hosting and have run a number of ‘regular’ sites under my business plan without any troubles. I have always loved their support and they have always been fantastic help.
I added my ecommerce store to my same account about a year and a half ago and everything seems fine. I had noticed that a few things started to bog down recently and I received an email from HG just a few days ago telling me that they had installed caching software to help - it was actually my wordpress blog that was causing the problems!
I had been completely disolusioned as to what VPS hosting was before reading the forums here. I had assumed that they were fully managed like a ‘shared platform’.
I am completely confused now as to what direction to take. I think it may be a case of inforamtion overload! 
I wouldn’t say my store is ‘huge’ yet. My store receives about 10k visitors a month, 5-600 orders BUT the twist is I sell downloadable products as well which increases my traffic - and with email accounts etc I used over 60GB transfer this month.
I had orginally been looking at ‘hosted shopping cart’ solutions but their plans were ridiculous (resources) and really not many handled what I needed anyhow - plus I am scared of giving up my freedom.
I have been reading the same companies get recommended time and time again here but I must admit I would have trouble walking away from HG considering they have been great over the years but maybe that is just because I haven’t caused too many problems?
With the stats I have mentioned above, (and with zero knowledge of hosting environments) would you recommend I try one of these other hosts?
Should I talk to HG about what they can do for me if I get a VPS account?
Should I pay someone who can set up a VPS server to set it up for me? Would I need to have them check in on a regular basis to see things are running smoothly? (which I must admit there could be trust issues - esp after some of the things I have read here on that front too!)
Should I just set up another business acount at HG and see how it goes?
Thank you for any assistance and help you may be able to offer.
I appreciate your time and can see this is a great community.
Zoe
Zoe,
While I'm not personally with HG since I host with ServInt, I do work for a guy that is hosted on a VPS with HG. He has a couple OS Commerce stores and a couple CS-Cart stores on it. His traffic is higher than what yours is and his sites seem to run very good.
Like I said, I host with ServInt and have been very happy with them.
I know that isn't a lot of detail, but it is the best I can do for you since I don't know a huge amount about the server stuff.
Hope it helps anyways,
Brandon
Hi Brandon,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I stumbled across a link here to the web hosting talk forums and have been trawling them.
I have since decided to not risk staying with HG for this. I just don’t have the skills to look after the server myself and am worried that my site could be shut down if I stayed on their shared hosting.
After trawling their forums, these three hosts stood out:
JaguarPc
MDDHosting
Downtown Host
I really like the idea of the ‘Semi-Dedicated’ packages - which are still ‘shared’ platforms but you pay more so there are less people on the same server which sounds reasonable to me.
I have been communicating with each to see what their response time is like and to see if I get a ‘gut feeling’ - haha!!
From what I have seen in the forums, I should be pretty happy with anyof them.
Has anyone here had any dealings with any of these three?
Thanks
Zoe
You can go with HG VPS plan, As I have never had a VPS plan with hem either I have had a shared plan at one time. I had no problems with their service as they were always there to help… If you go with a HG plan I would go with nothing less then the Level 3 plan with is FULLY managed and they will offer the same support your getting now on your business plan. BUt you need to make sure you select the correct control Panel you would like to use, Be careful as they select the Plesk + VZ bust after the first year they will charge you $5.00 /m for plesk so I would go with cPanel.
I've never dealt with any of them and have only ever heard of MDD. I've never heard of the other two.
I do know there are quite a few of us on ServInt that are running CS-Cart and I also know there are quite a few CS-Cart installs on Wired Tree.
Both are managed and have great response times.
Hope that helps,
Brandon
Zoe I’m in the same boat as Brandon…Servint. Simply put I moved from a shared plan with 
and went with Servint’s VPS Essential 50.00 plan and have loved it. I knew nothing of hosting before the move. Now I know enough to be able to at least ask my hosting support the right questions. The support is crazy good and fast. They go above and beyond the call of duty. I run 3 sites, 3 different carts and not a glitch. It’s VPS but it’s managed VPS.
I know some of the top guys here will warn hosting newbies not to go the VPS route, but I have to disagree. Look on youtube for a VPS WHM tutorial or explanation. I think this will help ya make your decision. Another good thing is that they will move your site. Personally I’d never leave a VPS. I like the flexibility to set up my own hosting accounts under the same plan. Gives you complete control or complete control to tell support what ya need done.
Servint, WiredTree, & Futurehost are all recommended here with Futurehost probably having the best price with excellent support too… according to a couple reputable members here. You couldn’t pay me to leave Servint though!
Stu
Last post to be approved yay!!
I just took the plunge to try JaguarPC semi-dedicated service. I’ll be able to see how it all goes whilst I go through the setting up phase and if I have troubles with support etc then it wont matter as much and I can move.
JaguarPC came up time and time again as an exceptional host in the Web Hosting Talk forums and I chatted to sales and finally decided to try them.
I really don’t have time to try and learn how to run a VPS system or learn to ask the right questions. If I was still in the web design business then well I certainly would then, but these days I just want to leave it to the professionals.
Thanks for your help everyone…
Now all I need to do is buy CS-Cart! I am looking at getting a couple of add-ons - should I buy CS-Cart through one of the resellers where I want to get one of my add-ons from?
[quote name=‘derbytown502’ timestamp=‘1320303994’ post=‘125233’]
Zoe I’m in the same boat as Brandon…Servint. Simply put I moved from a shared plan with and went with Servint’s VPS Essential 50.00 plan and have loved it. I knew nothing of hosting before the move. Now I know enough to be able to at least ask my hosting support the right questions. The support is crazy good and fast. They go above and beyond the call of duty. I run 3 sites, 3 different carts and not a glitch. It’s VPS but it’s managed VPS.
I know some of the top guys here will warn hosting newbies not to go the VPS route, but I have to disagree. Look on youtube for a VPS WHM tutorial or explanation. I think this will help ya make your decision. Another good thing is that they will move your site. Personally I’d never leave a VPS. I like the flexibility to set up my own hosting accounts under the same plan. Gives you complete control or complete control to tell support what ya need done.
Servint, WiredTree, & Futurehost are all recommended here with Futurehost probably having the best price with excellent support too… according to a couple reputable members here. You couldn’t pay me to leave Servint though!
Stu
[/quote]
VPS systems themselves, when setup correctly can be self-contained. Regular maintenance to verify system critical areas is all that is required in most cases. ServINT patch OS kernels for security issues and because of this (WHM/cPanel) the operating system is self-updating.
Personally ServINT, wiredtree don’t maintain they’re VPS systems (to the best of my knowledge) - futurehost I don’t have an opinion. Clook.co.uk is advised for UK/European residents for managed VPS systems.
I'd just stay with HG for now if I were you, and maybe move your digital download traffic to amazon if your traffic is too high.
If you know nothing about servers, etc… I'd stick with a good shared plan and would not go with a VPS.
[quote]I know some of the top guys here will warn hosting newbies not to go the VPS route[/quote]
Stu, it all depends upon whether the VPS plan is actually being fully & properly managed.
I believe most of the “Cautions” type posts are warnings that the worst thing you can do is simply upload your store and “assume” that “someone” has actually set everything up properly and is making ongoing security related updates, etc. as they are needed.
When using a standard fully hosted plan with a “quality” hosting provider, then it is their responsibility to make absolutely certain clients on their server are protected. With a VPS Plan, then you don't want to make any assumptions, thus there is far more risks for example, for newbies or people that are not willing to put the effort into learning about server setup/security.
Everyone considering a VPS plan should verify exactly what is actually included in the “management” portion of their “Managed VPS Plan”.
Personally, I would suggest calling HostGator Tech support and ask them directly before switching.
Why not go with Amazon s3 for storage of your downloadable products and ec2 for hosting, it's much better than most VPS hosting options and you pay for what you use.
Thank you for your assistance everyone. The 'restriction' to my posts has made it a little difficult to respond as I normally would.
I decided to just purchase the cart from CS Cart direct to ensure I would get the initial support (if needed) as I didn't see any info 'upfront' on the reseller pages that I had found.
“Suggestion to resellers - please mention your terms about support in your product descriptions”
I'm now all installed and just playing around with the configuration and learning more about the system as I play around. The forum here has been invaluable and I just wanted to say thank you to the many of you who post here regularly and keep this area active.
I may find myself back a few times with questions. Hopefully by then the restriction will be lifted and I can interact properly.
Thanks again!
Zoe
I use to be with trustywebhosting but their support went really bad so I switched to inmotionhosting, these guys are excellent…
The question of hosting seems to be fairly important concerning cs-cart.
many questions can be answered here: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/
I wound up choosing a knownhost vps and couldn't be happier.
ironically, I don't think “knownhost” has been mentioned on this forum before.
I would suggest anyone thinks twice about Wired Tree. I was so excited about
using them after the glowing feedback I had been given from others so I
setup a VPS with 1024 megs of ram. I Installed CS-Cart and it was SO SLOW.
For weeks I went back and forth with support as to what the problem was and
they just suggested it was CS-Cart. Finally they determined I had some bad
neighbors on my VPS but it took a lot to get to that point.
So they switched me to a new VPS, the performance was just as bad.
Still they told me it was CS-Cart. So I accepted that explanation
because I didn't know any better. Meanwhile I had some other third
parties take a look and they saw performance issues as well,
sometimes… the weird thing is wired tree seems unpredictable
on performance (at least for me). Sometimes my page loads in 3-6 seconds
sometimes in 10 as much as 15. This was just installing the CSC-DEMO,
I even added Smarty Optimizer, and setup the min tool.
I took the same site and loaded it on my Spry.com VPS with only 512 megs
of ram and its loading flawless in 1-4 seconds always. Needless to say I
am canceling my Wired Tree VPS. I was so excited about working with them
because they offer managed service and Spry does not plus they were so friendly.
This may just be a fluke experience but i did want to put it out there
in case anyone else has the same issues. Perhaps my problem was I needed
to pony up more money for a Hybrid VPS I hear they might be better.
Just remember what VPS stands for (Virtual Private Server) with emphasis on Virtual (I.e. fake). It can be implemented on top of just about anything.
Many providers are now trying to deploy VPS on top of Cloud which will run cs-cart like a slug. A Cloud is only good for non-database intensive applications of which cs-cart is not. Odds are you have no visibility from your VPS as to the real underlying server you are running on. Only the “partitions” you've been allocated (which also may not be exclusive).
All a VPS means is that you have some element of control over how the slice of the server you've been allocated can be configured. That's it. How many other clients a provider chooses to put on any particular server or the types of applications those other clients run is completely out of your control.
A good working relationship with your provider is worth it's weight in gold in comparison to the relatively cheap cost of hosting.
Your comment that Cloud computing is only good for non-database intensive applications is completely wrong. Look at all the major sites using AWS http://aws.amazon.co…s/case-studies/
Smugmug.com relies on cloud computing and has terrabytes of data and uses MySQL which is a database, you can view a great presentation on their network here MySQLConf 09: Don MacAskill, "The SmugMug Tale" - YouTube
SalesForce.com is cloud and uses databases, and does a few hundred million in sales
[quote name='tbirnseth' timestamp='1322357119' post='126796']
A Cloud is only good for non-database intensive applications of which cs-cart is not.
[/quote]
Oh this can become interesting. Game on!
I'm still not happy with Martfox VPS. Sometimes fast sometimes slow! I'm running a “managed” 1gig / 2gig burst server with Webo and its so erratic. I have found another site running cs-cart and it's blisteringly quick weybridge- audio.co.uk. The speed of this site amazes me. Was looking at ServINT but am now not confident after hearing they only patch security through whm/cPanel. I'm finding that the cPanel uses a tonne of CPU and really is not streamlined at all. Having a look at clook now!
AmitP,
Keep us posted what you work out. Your right I have never seen a CS-Cart site run so fast at weybridge. They are running
an older version 2.0.12 and probably that version has support for the static html catalog which CSC no longer supports. That could be the reason its so fast. If thats not the reason I would love to know why because I would love to have a site that fast.