I've been all over the map with hosting services. Each has it's own cool features and things that are annoying.

I've finally found one that (almost) has it all: DreamHost.

For $10 a month (paid yearly):

  • 5120 GB per month bandwidth. No, that is not a miss-type. Put another way: 5.120 TB a month. (Now, being realistic, the box it's hosted on would probably melt before you hit that mark. It's almost like offering 50,000 minutes on a cell phone plan when there's only 44,640 minutes in a month. But at least you won't get charged for a Digg hit or something.)
  • 500 GB of storage. Again, not a typo. 0.5 TB.
  • As many domains as you want. You have to buy the domain names, but you can host 'em all on one account.
  • As many MySQL databases as you want. Size comes out of your 500 GB of storage so make 'em as big as you want.
  • Shell access. We're talkin' SSH. (Well, if I could figure out the damn certificate thingy.) I'm using 'ln -s' to create symbolic links for the first time in 6 years. Reminds me of college...
  • The deal-maker: SVN. For those that don't mind (or prefer) OSS source control, this is it. I use it for all of my code and personal writing--all things I want to backup, sync reliably across machines, and keep version history on. I'll post later on my love of Tortoise.
  • Oh, and they're carbon neutral. It's almost silly.

I said almost above. What's the catch?

Well, there's not a huge number of easy-to-install software packages. They don't use cPanel/Fantastico like a lot of Linux hosting shops. The interface they do provide is very clean and one can manually install most things, but it's kinda nice to do a click-and-install for Drupal.

That's my only nit, actually. Everything is super fast. I'm super happy.

Check 'em out.

But Kevin, this is a Linux hosting package. Where's the Windows Server 2008 package?

Sigh. The world is so much larger than the Microsoft stack of technologies. I love VS as much as anyone, but getting a broad skill set is important, right? Plus the OSS web community is insanely strong. The content, energy and enthusiasm are amazing.

Full disclosure: Yes, the links provided are for a referral program. Yes, I get a kick-back if you sign-up. No, I would never pitch anything just for the kick-back.

I've had plenty of services offer kick-backs that I blinked at--that I never felt strongly about. This is proof I have no subtext. These guys are that good.