I have operated various websites over the years, starting on free servers, then dabbling in the arts of self hosting, and most recently with a paid host. When I finally decided to jump to paid hosting, I was looking to get as much bang for my buck as possible. I wanted the most features for the least cash – who doesn’t? After researching hundreds of services, I chose WebHostingBuzz (see disclaimer at the bottom) which seemed almost “too good to be true.”

Since I didn’t plan on having a lot of visitors or providing anything of “critical” value (i.e. I wouldn’t lose money if I experienced downtime), I didn’t have much to lose. I signed up for their most basic plan, which was very reasonable at a mere $36 a year. This got me 3000 MB of disk space, 100 GB of data transfer per month, PHP/MySQL, and a laundry list of other features. My account was setup and ready to go about a day after sign-up (your mileage may very, this was in 2005 and I use a third party domain registrar). I installed blogging software and began publishing to the world.

In December of 2005, the server that hosted my site suffered a malicious attack resulting in the complete loss of all data, including account information and backups. Thankfully, the tech support team restored my account quickly, and because of the lost data and time, they provided a free upgrade to the biggest package they offered. All my interactions with the technical support guys have been positive; they are always responsive, helpful, and polite.

I recently dropped by the features page to see what was new and noticed that the $36 a year plan had been upgraded to 30 GB of disk space and 1000 GB of data transfer. A quick support ticket later and my account was upgraded. That was last week – I dropped by yesterday and discovered that they’ve upped the ante again, now offering a whopping 225 GB disk space and 1500 GB of monthly data transfer for $3/month or $36/year. Amazing. I’m not going to ask for an upgrade until I begin to approach my current limits. I’m sure the offerings will be even more ridiculous by then.

Over the two years that I’ve been a customer, I’ve had few complaints. Occasionally the server gets “bogged down,” usually due to runaway script (I use the shared hosting plan). This problem usually resolves itself in a matter of minutes, otherwise a quick email to the support staff will resolve the problem. Then there is also the situation with the lost data – but that’s not as big a deal to me as it would be to others and it hasn’t happened since (if it did, I wouldn’t be writing this review). None the less, I make database backups semi-regularly and I would recommend doing the same, no matter where you host your site.

All in all, I’ve been a happy customer and if you are looking for somewhere to host projects or a personal site, I’d recommend comparing WebHostingBuzz to your other options. They also offer dedicated hosting and “semi-dedicated” hosting (no more than 40 web sites per server), though I have no experience with these plans.

The Disclaimer: The links to WebHostingBuzz are affiliate links – if you sign up for their service using one of them, I get some compensation (I think it’s around $25 per sign up). However, digivation.net is not sponsored by, affiliated with or bribed by WebHostingBuzz. We’re not required to say nice things about them – I have related my personal experience with the service and leave it up to you to decide. If you don’t like them, I’m sorry. I was planning on writing this review before I discovered the affiliate program – it’s simply a little bonus. In the end, if one or two people sign up for their service this year, that will pay for my hosting. That’s about it. We don’t do this for money, we do it for fun!