Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by greg mushial -
Number of replies: 11

I thought this would be easy...  30 emails later, seems not. What I want is to be able to test 2.2, get some experience with it and migrate 1.9 mods forward. My wife (she's the instructor, I'm the code writer) for her 1.9 uses lunarpages as the host. I thought, no problem, I'll buy another site, install 2.2 and be good to go. Wrong. It seems that finding hosts that provide PHP 5.3.2 or better, and at a cheapy price are rare or at least hard to find. Lunarpages will provide it, but at double the cost - sorry, but no thanks. Since then I've contacted 20+ favorably rated cheapy hosts and none offer better than 5.2.17. The mySQL 5.0.25 requirement doesn't seem to be a problem - all that I've contacted seem to offer at least such. SO..  my question is: have others found cheapy ($5-10/month) hosts that do provide the requisite 5.3 php? If so, I'd sure like to hear about them.

many thanks - greg

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In reply to greg mushial

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by david zacarias -

Hi Greg, im using Zyma Hosting, they recently have updated PHP to 5.3.8, now im testing Moodle 2.2.1

Regards!

 

- MIT David Tiquet

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In reply to david zacarias

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by greg mushial -

David,

Mil Gracias!   Hard to argue about the price: $8/yr.; and even if there is a bit of latency having the servers in england and being 8 time zones away...  I expect to be a happy camper, and will get my 2.2 testing and dev work done.

many thanks again,

greg

 

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In reply to greg mushial

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by John Reese -

check to make sure where the servers are located. There could be privacy issues. What if your system is hacked and accounts compromised? Would that be okay with you? etc...

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In reply to John Reese

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by greg mushial -

The servers are outside of York England - as such I do expect slow response times (from 8 times zones away)...  but given the cost (lack thereof) and the fact that I'll only be doing testing and dev work on it, I don't see that as an issue (or at least I understand the tradeoffs up front). W/re hacking etc - not really a concern - if the site get's trashed, I'll simply reload it and pick up from where I leftoff...   but many thanks for raising the issue.

Also, as a followup: I'm simply grateful for having a host that has current PHP and mySQL's - after poking almost 30 hosts here in the states and not finding such, or finding such but being expected to pay unreasonable monies...  we'll see how Zyma goes. But given that David is already doing likewise there and was willing to suggest them... I figure there's at least a 95% change that they'll work out. For my wife's teaching and moving her to 2.2 - we'll have to decide where to host that when we get there (probably this coming summer).

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In reply to greg mushial

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
We'll do you a basic 2.2 site with 1GB of space, disaster recovery backups etc.. Fully set up for you, but no support or optional plugins at this price - GBP 195 / year. A bit more than you are talking about but the difference is it will work smile
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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by greg mushial -

Howard - thanks...  but I think I'll pass. If nothing else it'll probably be useful to let others know if Zyma is viable...  suspect there are lots of sites currently running 1.9 that are looking toward 2.2 (bypassing 2.0 and 2.1) that would like/need to set up an alternative site to do testing/setup. I'll post back what I find...  at this point I'm waiting for my dns setting to propagate so that I can at least ftp the zip onto the site and do the install. As the expression goes: we shall see in the fullness of time. [if push really comes to shove: I have to pair of beefy ubuntu 11.4 lts servers sitting less than 2m away from me and I could use them...  just I'm trying to get out of the server/support side of moodle and stay on the dev side - a question of number of hrs per day and other commitments.]

many thanks - greg

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In reply to greg mushial

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by Eric Malone -

Greg,

How did Zyma turn out for you? How bad is the latency? How large is your installation?

 Thanks! 

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In reply to Eric Malone

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by greg mushial -

Eric -

Zyma turned out to be not only cheap, but also inexpensive ;-( Whereas I generally can install a Moodle in 15 minutes or less, with Zyma, 5 hrs later I was still reading their help pages and getting failed installs. I may go back and try to sortout what was going wrong, but I went back to lunarpages where we already had multiple accounts and installed there...  and it's been running like a champ since. And beyond that I was able to do the install entirely through their cPanel. Although they're $6/month - they worked with little to no effort; Zyma was $8/yr, but never got it working.

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In reply to greg mushial

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by Wendy Keilin -

I have a $9/mo account at Lunarpages, and, when I asked, was able to get them to move me to a different server that has PHP 5.3.2+ (5.3.7, I think) and Moodle 2.2, without having to upgrade my account or pay any additional money.

On the new server, I installed Moodle 2.2.1 from Softaculous.  It installed in minutes and works great, so far.  (I just did it this week.)

Good luck to you, Greg.  Keep us posted!

- Wendy

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In reply to Wendy Keilin

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by greg mushial -

Wendy -

We had started at lunarpages, but when I asked about php 5.3 etc, they wanted to start talking about this added cost and that added cost etc. That's when I looked elsewhere. Quite amazingly (not really), about two weeks later they called me wanting know that they could do to get us back. I told them: 5.3, 5.0.25 or better, cpanel, and the std rate - they agreed in 3 secs or less, and had the account setup in 30 minutes. I don't know what/where/who Softaculous is, but I simply downloaded the 2.2.1+ .zip, uploaded it to lunarpages, and did everything from there. It took a few minutes to figure out how to set the correct utf8, but within 15 mins I had a moodle front page.

Bottom line: I would suggest - if the difference btwn $8/yr and $6/month isn't important, go with lunarpages - and if people are interested, I can probably post a cPanel script to do the install.

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In reply to greg mushial

Re: Looking for cheapy host that can support 2.2

by Richard Teesdale -

I know this is an old thread. If anyone is still looking on, can you say what your updated experiences of lunar pages were? Also for the shared accounts, how many simultaneous users are have you been comfortable with?

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