Which is the best website hosting service in India?

[Jaxelams]

Could anybody please suggest which is the best web hosting service in India where you can register commercial domains? What I'm looking for is a service with the best Price to Performance ratio. By Performance, I'm mean fast loading times and no down time if possible.I'd also appreciate it if somebody could tell me the difference between Linux and Windows Server webshosting.

[tuxfan]

Hi! There are plenty of web-hosting companies in India. Which is best depends on you. Even here at the forum there are a few people (including me ) into domain registration and hosting. You can check out the bazaar section for the offers.

I haven't offered anything at bazaar section so if you need any information from me, please send a PM to me. Some members of this forum are using free hosting from me when I offerred it here some months ago.

There are plenty of people who can register domain names for you. But please ensure that you get complete control over it even if you have to pay a little more. Please note that whoever controls the domain name, controls the site!! Some of my clients have come to me after they have had problems with their earlier service providers. I had helped them recover their domain names and have complete control over it.

No one can guarantee you 100% uptime. Most people guarantee a 99.9% uptime which is really reasonable. You must look for cPanel hosting. cPanel is the best control panel to manage your hosting account and various parameters associated with it.

IMHO, Linux hosting is better than Windows because Linux is usually safer and more stable. Additionally, Linux hosting is cheaper than Windows hosting.

[Choto Cheeta]

hey tux may be he is asking for Indian Server ...

Anyway best Data Center would be in Hand of Reliance... but i dont think they resells...

BSNL and VSNL would be second choise...

here are their plans...

VSNL = Tariff Plans
BSNL = Tariff Plans

but these are very costly... as Tux said... Linux servers in US are cheap and they are reliable... and u will find a reseller of those host near u so even u can pay by Cash...

[nitish_mythology]

Whts the least price at which i can set up my own site?

[ahref]

Whts the least price at which i can set up my own site?

Depend upon what type of site you want to setup. You can setup for free as free domain and free space are easily available.
Paid domain ranges from Rs. 100 to Rs. 1300 (for .mobi)
Paid space start from from Rs. 50 upward.

[Choto Cheeta]

Whts the least price at which i can set up my own site?

well tuxfan provides free premium hosting.. i am with his free acount.. and so far in 4 or 5 months its 0 down time... and host response time in also fine... u can buy a .info domain in Rs. 199 u guyess and a .com/.net/.org with Rs. 399...

and you can install any blog or CMS from Fantastico which comes with ur hosting

[tuxfan]

well saurav now I have almost stopped providing free hosting I need empty space for my paid hosting accounts and also have to ensure that server remains as clutter free as possible.

Signature remains as it is because it may be available in really desserving cases. For example, I just offerred it to someone for his child who is sufferring from cancer

[Stick]

Originally Posted by tuxfan

I just offerred it to someone for his child who is sufferring from cancer

OT

Nice Work Tux

[Choto Cheeta]

I just offerred it to someone for his child who is sufferring from cancer

may i request the url for the page ??

and one more thumbs up... Nice Work Bro...

[Jaxelams]

Wait just a minute ... I was under the impression that domain registration is same as webspace registration. I thought the service which gives you your service name is the same service which provides you with your webspace??? And the idea of 'total control' over your website is kind of fuzzy!!! Do you mind elaborating tux??? (And of course ... My original intention of this mail was to get you guys to sugest some good standard service names in India)

[tuxfan]

@ saurav: That site is still not up. I have just offerred my services for free. They are yet to respond. Will let you know when its up.

@ Jaxelams: Domain registration and webspace "registration" are two different things. You may have a domain name (say yourname.com) and if you are not using it, you may not take webspace for it.

Conversely, you may be using some free site like geocities.com and don't have a domain name (.com, .net, etc.) because you are using their domain name.

Total control means a username and password to manage all the parameters associated with the domain name and hosting. For example, a domain name has administrative contact who approves transfer from one registrar to another. So if you have some problem with one registrar, you should be able to approve a transfer.

There is one more important thing associated with a domain name i.e. DNS (Domain Name Server). This decides where your site is hosted. Each hosting provider will have his own set of DNS (typically ns1.hostingprovider.com and ns2.hostingprovider.com). If you control these, you can shift hosting from one provider to another at your own will!

As for hosting, you should be able to create email accounts, ftp accounts, install web-applications (like WordPress, phpBB, etc). Usually a feature rich control panel like cPanel. You can contact me if you want to see a demo of cPanel. Or if you go to http://www.cpanel.net there is a demo option for cPanel

[Choto Cheeta]

(And of course ... My original intention of this mail was to get you guys to sugest some good standard service names in India)

there are 2 kinds of answer for ur Question...
1. Indian based Server...
Reffer to my preveous post... they are VSNL BSNL and ..... Sify is there too...

2. US / UK or abrod based servers but the seller is Indian
for an example TuX owns a server... which is in a US Data Center i guess... he manages the total thing remotelly... and he sellls the Hosting (Shared) from India... (Online / Offline both)

mainly those who are like TuX selling hosting uses the worlds best WebHost control panel cPanel... its installed in their server which allows me or any user who got hosting from TuX manage our site...

[Jaxelams]

Tux...do you mind giving me info about the server you own and the charges???

[koolbluez]

Wow...Tux... if what u said is true... it's adds a new dimension to internet's +s. Me always back u up.

BTW.. I'm too having free web-hosting under Tuxie. But have a domain on my own.

Web hosting is just webspace. Domain hosting is giving a personal identity to ur website as an individual entity... like abcd.com, abcd.org... Compare it like... domain name is land u bought, and web-space is the house u built on it.
Actually u've to pay for both. But supposing someone has lots of server space, he'll give a limited webspace for free and if someone wants to xpand their services to more subdomains, they give free domain name.. but within their names... like freewebs.com/abcd, or abcd.zeeblo.com....

[tuxfan]

Just an honest admission. Don't want to mislead anyone. I don't have my own server. I am a reseller and have taken space in bulk. Some consider this a negative point.

But some even consider this a positive point that I am not responsible for server maintenance and some professional team is looking after it 24x7

Dedicated server at times causes lots of problems. And if you can't trace the problem, your server will have lot of downtime. A friend recently gave up his dedicated server (and some clients). Even after trying for a month and spending a few hundred dollars, he couldn't trace the problem. So rather than troubling clients with downtime, he shifted to reseller hosting and refunded money.

But for individual site owners, this shouldn't matter at all!!

@ Jaxelams: Please PM me with your requirements and I will send you more information.

@ saurav: rediff also has its server outside india, may be somewhere in a datacenter at US. Isn't it? I think VSNL and all other ISPs in India have their servers in India. Rest all US

[ahref]

Ya, reseller account is best if you are non geeky, for webhosting purpose.

[tuxfan]

Originally Posted by ahref

Ya, reseller account is best if you are non geeky, for webhosting purpose.

Its not the question of being non-geeky! It takes up too much of your time and you have to remain alert all thru the day and keep looking after things! Or alternatively appoint people to look after it and trust them with your server passwords.

If the server load suddenly increases, you have to trace the problem. If some service is down, again trace the problem. My friend had a terrible time in last few months. The poor fella used to get SMS even in the middle of the night about server loads. He once came back from a picnic to take care of it Its too much of a problem. It full of tension. So why bother when you have other options.

[Jaxelams]

My basic idea was to build a website on my own and host it online so that I can use it to sell a few ebooks I wrote. NOw here is the bigger question thats bothering me.... Do I really need to pay the 30$ plus cash and register my individual personal work just in order to protect it from piracy? I mean, even if someone did pirate my ebooks, I don't really mind. I wouldn't have the money to take it to court anyway. The point is, I'm planning of selling those ebooks for something like 1$ or 2$ max! Will this be legal - selling a product that dosent have an ISBN number, nor which is registered at any copyright office - as I think it isint totally necessary for a product I don't plan of bringing mainstream? Are such transactions legal? This is just on an experimental basis so I'm not really looking for any profits? Would it be legal to build a website and sell such personal work?

[ravi_9793]

Legal??????????I m nt conform.

[ahref]

My basic idea was to build a website on my own and host it online so that I can use it to sell a few ebooks I wrote. NOw here is the bigger question thats bothering me.... Do I really need to pay the 30$ plus cash and register my individual personal work just in order to protect it from piracy? I mean, even if someone did pirate my ebooks, I don't really mind. I wouldn't have the money to take it to court anyway. The point is, I'm planning of selling those ebooks for something like 1$ or 2$ max! Will this be legal - selling a product that dosent have an ISBN number, nor which is registered at any copyright office - as I think it isint totally necessary for a product I don't plan of bringing mainstream? Are such transactions legal? This is just on an experimental basis so I'm not really looking for any profits? Would it be legal to build a website and sell such personal work?

No you do not need ISBN number to sell ebook, and selling an ebook is perfectly legal. I have the experience of selling ebook of third parties through affiliate programs.
The cost which you are planning to charge is minuscule, $1 or $2. You will not be able to sell the book at this price, IMO. Because expense in selling the book will be more than that.

Ya, building a website is necessary, from where you will tell about your book, and will take the payment from the buyers. You have to devise many payment options for buyer.

[Jaxelams]

For me, profits is not really important. I definitely wouldn't mind putting the books for free download. But, that would signify my knowledge and research had no value. So I dont really mind even if the books makes a meagre 50cents of profit. As long as I get to share my ideas with the world. I want to build a website where I can post my blogs, personal videos, pics, etc and maybe just market this for freetime. Can you suggest an ideas for the same? I'm thinking on lines of websites like stevepavlina.com and stephenking.com

[Choto Cheeta]

well as u new to this web site idea... for ur need best is go for a Bloging script..

when u buy a cPanel hsting... it comes with "Fantastico" which allows u to install the blog in a few clicks, u dont need to know any code of DBMS whats so ever.. u can also find usesull tutorials...

later on when u get little experiance with scripting or CMS.. u may start thinking of shifting ur site to much complicated CMSes or code ur own site...

Domain name and 250MB hosting for now i guess would be fine for u... btw how many ebooks u plan to host and what are the size ??

[ahref]

As told by saurav_cheeta you create a blog where you can do whatever you want.

[tuxfan]

The amount of server space and bandwidth depends on the number of e-books and their sizes. But if the main thing will be downloads, then you will need lots of bandwidth.

However, you can use services like imageshack, rapidshare, youtube, etc. to host those bandwidth-hungry big files.

For normal pics and blog even a 50 MB account should be enough initially. You can always buy more space later when you need! Why pay for more space from day 1??

[Jaxelams]

Thats great advice Tuxfan. Thanks a lot. Two more queries here....

1) Why waste the time installing Blog software ... when I can easily create a page for individual blogs???

2) I can abviously upgrade space later on as required, can't I? Suppose there is a scenario when I have to switch webhosts.... will there be complications in that case???

[ahref]

Why waste the time installing Blog software ... when I can easily create a page for individual blogs???

Installing blog takes less than 5 minutes, and you do not have to do anything again.

can abviously upgrade space later on as required, can't I? Suppose there is a scenario when I have to switch webhosts.... will there be complications in that case???

Although changing host is little complicated specially for database driven site. Also chances are you may loose some data, while moving. In case of blogs comments which will be posted while you are moving.
You may ask for help from you new host for that. Or better read tuxfan blog he has some useful info on that.

[caleb]

Originally Posted by tuxfan

well saurav now I have almost stopped providing free hosting I need empty space for my paid hosting accounts and also have to ensure that server remains as clutter free as possible.

Signature remains as it is because it may be available in really desserving cases. For example, I just offerred it to someone for his child who is sufferring from cancer

That is very kind & thoughtful of you...Keep up the good work mate.

[tuxfan]

Originally Posted by Jaxelams

Thats great advice Tuxfan. Thanks a lot. Two more queries here....

1) Why waste the time installing Blog software ... when I can easily create a page for individual blogs???

2) I can abviously upgrade space later on as required, can't I? Suppose there is a scenario when I have to switch webhosts.... will there be complications in that case???

Installing a blog software like WP takes max 10 min. I can install it for you. But I suggest you learn it. Its really simple. You can then concentrate on contents and changing looks is as easy as selecting a theme

Yes, you can always upgrade/shift later. For switching hosts, you can read my following blog posts. I still have to write some more posts to complete the series. But read these three to start with
Shift website hosting - part 1 (static site)
Shift website hosting - part 2 (leftover emails)
Shift website hosting - part 3(1) (dynamic sites, CMS)

Originally Posted by caleb

That is very kind & thoughtful of you...Keep up the good work mate.

Thank you.

[mihirvashist]

Originally Posted by tuxfan

I just offerred it to someone for his child who is sufferring from cancer

nice work dude.....

[Jaxelams]

I was just wondering about an idea which struck me. I think it should be perfectly legal but I still want your opinion about it. What if I register a domain and buy webspace of say ... 30MB. And then, I utilise the 30MB only for the main page and stuff. Isin't it quite possible for me to make 20 yahoo email id's and keep using the 15 MB per account geocities space for uploading my files (of course, I wont be able to upload big files) ? I mean .... I can possibly link from my main website to these files. Doing the math, I can get about 300MB webhosting space. And who ever told that there was a limit to the number of email ids you can have!!! It seems perfectly legal and foolproof. Plus, it saves money on webspace, making it worth the extra hassle! Forgive me, I'm just an amateur in web technology but this idea sounds too good to be true!!! (Possible problems I predict may be those of bandwidth)