Member Avatar for 3DProf4online

Hey guys, I am sorry I would like to warn I am nowise in web hosting services. I am planning to have an internet shopping web site developed for selling sewing machins and I need to choose affordable web hosting provider at the moment. I have found the list of popular hosting companies and various discount coupons at www.hostingcoupons.com Which of these hosting companies would you recommend me to choose for successful development of my web site. Could you share your experience of dealing with these companies? What factors do I have to take into consideration when choosing hosting provider for online shopping web site? Thanks in advance.

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A short, practical checklist and clarifications to supplement the thread for .

When choosing hosting for an online store, match the host to the store software and payment model rather than chasing low introductory prices. As noted, software requirements drive the decision; confirm supported OS (Linux vs Windows), exact PHP/DB versions and required PHP extensions, mod_rewrite/URL rewrite support, cron jobs, upload and execution limits, writable directory permissions, and whether Composer/SSH/SFTP are available for secure deployments. Shopping‑cart specifics matter — verify the cart’s recommended stack and ask the host for a one‑click or manual install option and a staging environment.

Security and payments deserve explicit attention. Decide whether payments will use a hosted gateway (reduces PCI scope) or direct card capture (requires stronger PCI compliance). Ensure TLS/SSL support (ability to install certs and/or free Let’s Encrypt), daily backups with tested restores, forced SFTP/SSH access (no plain FTP), regular OS/app patching, and a web application firewall or intrusion detection if handling cards directly.

Operational items often get overlooked. Test the control panel and support responsiveness before committing — @Al‑Saeed’s control‑panel experience is a common pain point. Confirm uptime SLA, escalation procedures, average response times, scaling options (VPS/cloud vs shared), CDN availability, caching options, and email deliverability controls. Watch out for coupon traps: introductory discounts that jump at renewal, and add‑ons that increase total cost.

Quick questions to ask any prospective host: what PHP/MySQL versions are available; is SSH/SFTP provided; how are backups performed and how fast is restore; do they support dedicated IP/SSL; what is the SLA and support response time; do they offer PCI guidance or compliance options. Tie answers back to the chosen cart and expected traffic before signing up.

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Member Avatar for Atlant

Hey guys, I am sorry I would like to warn I am nowise in web hosting services. I am planning to have an internet shopping web site developed for selling sewing machins and I need to choose affordable web hosting provider at the moment. I have found the list of popular hosting companies and various discount coupons at www.hostingcoupons.com Which of these hosting companies would you recommend me to choose for successful development of my web site. Could you share your experience of dealing with these companies? What factors do I have to take into consideration when choosing hosting provider for online shopping web site? Thanks in advance.

From my experience the choice may really depend on the site software you are going to use. Every software has some requirements the server must meet, some software companies recommend hosting companies for their scripts and i know a few compabies even suggest their own hosting services together with the software (in such cases you can be sure that the server fully meets software requirements).

I hope that helps.

Member Avatar for 3DProf4online

As far as I was advised the special attention should be also paid to the shopping carts.

Member Avatar for gdi

try hostgator , its great for oscomenrce or zen cards scripts

Member Avatar for Al-Saeed

Make sure the hosting company has a proper control panel (cpanel). I'm with DreamHost and it's user control panel is ugly, slow and unnecessarily confusing. I would say the same with Godaddy. I have my domain names hosted with 1and1 and I don’t have much love for them either. Their control panel lets you do a very limited number of things. In most cases you'll have to call up their call centre or email them. The strange thing is they ask for your password for verification. I kid you not. Genuinely they ask for your password.

Member Avatar for WebHoster

Have you heard of Server Intellect? We've been very happy with their services --- and they are one of the first Windows Web Hosts that is Microsoft Gold Certified -- offering Windows Server 2008 'Longhorn' on all of its Dedicated Servers.

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