Local Webhost or US Webhost

[perspectives-act]

Hi all

Firstly, pardon me if I have post this thread in a wrong place. Somehow I thought it would be related to those who wanted to start up a website for their Photo biz.

I intend to setup a website but not sure whether to sign up with which web hosting company.

US based web hosting comapny offer value for money package. Eg. www.bluehost.com

While local webhost also provides good reliability with practical usage. Eg. www.usonyx.com

My web content will be in flash with mostly images.

Any advise or experience sharing will be much appreciated.

 

[velasco]

Well, from my understanding,
foreign webhosts especially those of the US are relatively cheaper considering the package they offer
and far more efficient in catering to our needs.

Looking at the local provider you cited, i think its quite expensive compared to some other local ones I came across.

There are some gems amongst local webhosting offered but i don't know if they are as efficient.
At the end of the day, it boils down to which is more convenient for your taste and preferences I guess.

http://www.top10webhosting.com/

i find the list to be very helpful for the top rated webhosts.

 

[enivre]

My advice is if you can afford it go for the local one.

I've had a lot of problems with my overseas one, the biggest problem being half of singnet users were blocked from accessing my website for no apparent reason. Singnet tech support essentially was as useful as talking to a brick wall.

Speed is also an issue, the US based host is noticably slower when browsing in Singapore.

That said, the overseas host usually do offer quite a bit more for a much cheaper price. But if you don't need the bells and whistles just go for the local one, it'll save u some headaches in the future.

 

[Parka]

Price should not be an option when choosing a webhost, especially if you're not going to serve download-heavy material. It's like as if you can't afford $20 a month or so, but a lot are much cheaper than that.

Access, speed of access should be paramount. You don't want to make your readers wait.

Quality, quality, quality. Focus on quality.

If local websites are faster, then why do the more popular overseas websites load as fast? They are not hosted locally, right?

 

[velasco]

My advice is if you can afford it go for the local one.

I've had a lot of problems with my overseas one, the biggest problem being half of singnet users were blocked from accessing my website for no apparent reason. Singnet tech support essentially was as useful as talking to a brick wall.

Speed is also an issue, the US based host is noticably slower when browsing in Singapore.

That said, the overseas host usually do offer quite a bit more for a much cheaper price. But if you don't need the bells and whistles just go for the local one, it'll save u some headaches in the future.

Hmm, i have tried accessing local sites using local hosts having excruciatingly sluggish loading.
I believe notable US hosts are so established and dedicated in their network and support infrastructure that such issues are put to top priority.

 

[chanxj]

I have found the past 2 local host i used to be so problematic that i gave up on them. Currently i use dreamhost and slicehost and found them to be more reliable than the local ones. At least they know what they are doing when there is downtime or support issues.

 

[Shu22]

www.webvisions.com is a very good local one, fast, reliable, secured.

 

[blurrblurr]

I am hosting with a oversea host www.micfo.com Cheap and with 5G space
Tried several local host but when there is a major problem most of them seems not able to give me an advise quickly. I have to really wait either that their first solution is reboot server.... I find it a bit crappy.

The oversea host I am using now have a 24 hour online chat. Whenever there is a problem they are able to solve it within 10 mins. The problem I used to face yet they have no solution is the slow speed due to high traffic issue.However, it gets slow during our wee hours, so really dun bother much.

I am their long term customer and once I made several complains to them and finally they migrate my website to a new server. So far so good.

 

[enivre]

Price should not be an option when choosing a webhost, especially if you're not going to serve download-heavy material. It's like as if you can't afford $20 a month or so, but a lot are much cheaper than that.

True, but at $20/mth for a local host vs $20-30/YEAR for a US based host. Quite a lot of difference!

But again.. yes.. quality matters, so does after sales service/tech support.

My host is at www.3ix.org, although I had problems with singnet's proxy nonsense, it wasn't the hosts fault. And their customer service was SUPER fast in replying my e-mails, I'm talking 15mins per reply fast. Some other tech support I've tried contacting don't reply even after a few days!

 

[mutant]

Anybody change their domain host provider after contract expire? Is it a hassle to transfer the web and email domain name info to another provider? I currently with Yahoo! paid service since July and plan to change to another cheaper one next year June.

 

[velasco]

Anybody change their domain host provider after contract expire? Is it a hassle to transfer the web and email domain name info to another provider? I currently with Yahoo! paid service since July and plan to change to another cheaper one next year June.

domain transfers will be quite fast from what i understand.

:bigeyes: yahoo paid services are dayumm exp right?

 

[jasonlcs]

If your business is mostly local, it would be best that you use the local hosts.
They are some very reliable hosts in Singapore and of course, they are slightly
more expensive when compared to the overseas hosts.

But, bear in mind that our main internet cables to the outside world are on
the seabeds. Singapore has experienced breakage of these cables before and
of course, some time was wasted to re-route the internet traffic back to S'pore.

You will be able to obtain support at our local time zone. So far, all the sites that
I have managed use local hosts. There are little problems which can be
solved immediately.

The key here is the turnaround time for your business.

I use webhosting.com.sg.

 

[perspectives-act]

Tks all for your generous sharing.

Some frds have advised that using US web hosting, the loading time for images will take a longer time compared to local webhost. I'm not sure how true is that. Anyone here who have switched between local and US webhost? Perhaps you can share with me and the rest who are also searching for one.

One particular advantage I find using US webhost is the ability to integrate the Wordpress blog into the server. I have intended to use the wordpress for my blog as well. Guess will have to strike a balance on speed of the server vs the blog.

 

[zxiank]

Some frds have advised that using US web hosting, the loading time for images will take a longer time compared to local webhost. I'm not sure how true is that. Anyone here who have switched between local and US webhost? Perhaps you can share with me and the rest who are also searching for one.

It all depends on where your target audiences are. If they are singapore based, then a local webhost should serve images faster (since the distance travelled is shorter for the data). Data from a US webhost will need to travel thousands of miles of wires/cables to reach singapore and thus should be slower.

But all these are in theory If the local host uses lousy servers, overload the servers, etc.. then things will be different.

Personally, I'll just go for one with excellent services (aka good response time), be it in singapore or US. Critical when you want your site to be up and running most of the time. Then consider the speed.

 

[chanxj]

Actually part of the trick is the right amount of compression for viewing for optimised speed. If the picture is not compressed, viewing speed will still take a hit as there would only be so much bandwidth available. The real good Singapore host are costly so its more of a juggling of return of investment. If its going to be a hobbyist blog with no real business returns, I feel the US hosts offer more value for money as they are generally much cheaper and reliable as they are able to "over-sell" more due to their larger customer base. You could always switch back to a Singapore host when ur site gets more popular or requires its server to be based in singapore for certain reasons.

Integration of wordpress is actually more of a installation step and can be installed on most Singapore based servers. The only thing that these us based host do is to have a easy installation script for you. Some Singapore host provide it as well.

 

[jamessss]

Personally i would take local web host over overseas web host anytime. I've had overseas webhost b4 and problem solving is a nightmare. Maybe it might just be bad luck.

One of the local webhost which a lot of my friend introduce me to is www.on.sg , am considering to host my next website with them.

 

[maswu]

you can try www.clever.com.sg too...its a local webhosting site and the price seems reasonable

 

[enivre]

Anybody change their domain host provider after contract expire? Is it a hassle to transfer the web and email domain name info to another provider? I currently with Yahoo! paid service since July and plan to change to another cheaper one next year June.

You just need to redirect your DNS to the new address. Will take a few hours to 1 day to propagate across the internet.

More importantly, you need to backup and move your data. Easy if it's just HTML/flash but a little trickier if you have any databases.

 

[eosdigital]

Other than reliability and usage issues, a good thing to note is that while using a US-based server, your website does NOT fall under the jurisdication of Singapore Law.

I remember there was an issue about a website(not politically related) being attempted to be taken down by Singapore authorities, but since it was US-based they had a very hard time doing so including travelling to the U.S personally to file court(and a jury based system at that). So you can put your mind into rest when posting controversial things in your websites . I.e Photoshoot of military sensitive places like Paya Lebar Air Base, Military of Defense Gombak etc

 

[perspectives-act]

Integration of wordpress is actually more of a installation step and can be installed on most Singapore based servers. The only thing that these us based host do is to have a easy installation script for you. Some Singapore host provide it as well.

Hi chanxj

Can you share how to install the wordpress integration into the local server?