Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by Sam Mudle -
Number of replies: 17

I've used JustHost for about 3 years with no problems. I run a class with 30 concurrent users. I had to drop them because they don't support PHP 5.3 yet and I wanted to go with Moodle 2.x.

I switched over to HostGator cheapo shared hosting.  That worked great for about five months.  Lately I've had problems with requests stalling out at peak times, students not being able to progress through an quiz etc.  It doesn't do it all of the time, but enough to be a major annoyance.  I've spent a ton of time with Hostgator trying to figure out why the php performance sucks, but no luck.  I built a brand new moodle install and I still see performance issues even when trying to give a quiz to 15 students at the same time.

I guess the next thing is VPS, but I'm not sure how much ram is needed.

Is anyone using cheapo shared hosting service for a classroom of students?  I'm thinking of checking out siteground for now. it's only $4.00 per month.

 

 

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In reply to Sam Mudle

Re: Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by alistair alistair -

Hello Jeremy,

For very reasonable shared Moodle hosting you might like to consider Developing The Web.com - www.developingtheweb.com

We have a dedicated Moodle plan, that comes with Moodle all set up & ready to go:

http://www.developingtheweb.com/moodle.htm

And then three general hosting plans, all with CPanel, & Moodle set up if you wish:

http://www.developingtheweb.com/plans.htm

Do check us out & if you have any questions, please do get in touch.

Regards,
Alistair 

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In reply to alistair alistair

Re: Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi Alistair -  I don't work for Moodle so this is totally unofficial, so don't worry -but your website is breaking the trademark rules of using the word Moodle here Just to let you know in case you get a warning. The training centre at my school found the simplest thing was just to remove the word Moodle altogether; that way there are no issues.

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by alistair alistair -
Hello Mary
Thanks for pointing this out - I'll get in touch with the helpdesk to ask permission. 
Rather defeats the purpose if I get rid of the name Moodle - for the Moodle hosting package that I offer. 
Best,
Alistair
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In reply to Sam Mudle

Hostgator performance issues

by Alan Kmiecik -

For the record:  I am also haveing major issues with Hostgator performance issues and looking to move my Moodle install.

HostMONSTER - has been excellent hosting company but is back-level on PHP therefor, can't do Moodle 2.2

Moodlerooms - Good performance but,way expensive, not much help (profess unlimited support but, ask too many questions and they start hard selling you on their trianing), locks you into their Moodle code, does not provide important basic plugin stuff (i.e. certificate)

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In reply to Alan Kmiecik

Re: Hostgator performance issues

by Dan Trouten -

Hello! I"ve had my Moodle at HostGator for some time now. Unless you got a VPS or higher package then you are on a general server system. This is what you would get with most "unlimited" plans. Your site(s) could be on several boxes and it would depend on how many other sites are using the box as to your throughput. I'm running hour long H.264/mp4 videos live streaming off my HostGator box. (I had GoDaddy at one time...never again.)

If you have a VPS or higher then you have a dedicated IP address(es) and limited amount of people on the box. So, you get better performance as there is less traffic on the T1. The VPS route isn't that much more and you still get good service. It's also expandable.

To run Moodle 2.2 you need a hack in a htaccess file in the root directory. The hack will depend on your server provider. I'm running dual PHP with 5.2.9 main and 5.3.x secondary which would be required if you are running stuff that is 5.2.x based. The htaccess hack will tell the install to use the 5.3.x instead.

I have to say my experience with HG has been really good for several years now! They have good support. Still, if you are on an "unlimited" plan you are using a VW bug to haul a yacht.

Hope that helps!

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In reply to Dan Trouten

Re: Hostgator performance issues

by Sam Mudle -

If you have a VPS or higher then you have a dedicated IP address(es) and limited amount of people on the box. So, you get better performance as there is less traffic on the T1. The VPS route isn't that much more and you still get good service. It's also expandable.

Yeah, I'm torn between trying another shared server, and just going up to the  VPS.

Here are the VPS hosting plans: http://www.hostgator.com/vps-hosting/

Which plan are you using?  I would figure that the cheapeast plan at $20/month should be fine for a classroom of 30 students.

You don't get CPANEL unless you boost up to $40 a month, so how easy is it to use Virtuozzo to migrate a site over?  I assume that you can still access phpymadmin?

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In reply to Alan Kmiecik

Re: Hostgator performance issues

by Joshua Bragg -

Hostmonster does have a php 5.3 server.  My moodle 2.2 is running on it right now.  I started my hosting with them in August with 1.9 on a 5.2 server.  I asked if they had a 5.3 server in December and they happily moved me over to it.  Its been running just fine ever since.

I run it only for my classes (total 75-90 students).  I've never had problems with them but my concurrent user numbers are probably not all that high.  I highly recommend them.

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In reply to Joshua Bragg

Re: Hostgator performance issues

by Sam Mudle -

Hostmonster does have a php 5.3 server.  My moodle 2.2 is running on it right now.  I started my hosting with them in August with 1.9 on a 5.2 server.  I asked if they had a 5.3 server in December and they happily moved me over to it.  Its been running just fine ever since.

I run it only for my classes (total 75-90 students).  I've never had problems with them but my concurrent user numbers are probably not all that high.  I highly recommend them.

What type of plan do you have with them?  How many students take the quiz at the same time?

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In reply to Sam Mudle

Re: Hostgator performance issues

by Joshua Bragg -

I don't think Hostmonster has anything other than the standard plan with various incidental upgrades.  I'm on their standard $5.95 a month plan.

I don't have a good handle on how many students are taking a quiz at any one time.  I imagine it is pretty low. 

I only have 75-90 students on at a time.  They have a 33 hour window to take each quiz in but most take it within a 16 window.  The quizzes are no more than 7 minutes long and a 2-5 questions in length.  They only get one attempt. They are not in adaptive mode.

There are also untimed, mulitple attempt "homework answer checks" that happen in the same time frame but are done in adaptive mode.

I would wager that my maximum concurrency is really only about 5 students because of all these factors.  I would have lots more viewers going on at the same time.  Since its all distributed there aren't large blocks of students taking quizzes at any one time.

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In reply to Sam Mudle

Re: Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by VD Altman -

I've been with Bluehost for a number of years but they didn't offer a PHP 5.3 environment to run Moodle 2.2. (It was in beta and I'm a novice with PHP). So, I tried HostGator for a new moodle installation. It did not go well. While, I was able to set up and run moodle, I had PHP errors out the wazoo.

I spoke again with Bluehost (they are about to go with PHP 5.4 so are not investing any more time and energy into PHP 5.3) and they put me on a server with PHP 5.3 (not officially stable) and I've been error free for the past 5 days.

So, I've had success in a shared host with Moodle 2.2 with BlueHost, not so much with HostGator.

Hope this helps someone out. I'm new to Moodle.

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In reply to VD Altman

Re: Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by Sam Mudle -

So, I've had success in a shared host with Moodle 2.2 with BlueHost, not so much with HostGator.

I have no idea what's going on with hostgator, but I'm getting dropped requests from hostgator during the middle of the day.  Students will attempt quizzes and have to click NEXT like 4 or 5 times to get a response from the PHP server.  I think my particular server is well oversold.

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In reply to Sam Mudle

Re: Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by Dan Trouten -

That's the problem with those shared packages. The more customers they can pack into a box the more money they make. You know how hard drives are raided? They do the same concept with servers. You might not be on just one box but your people can be bounced all over the server room and even different locations on the internet!

That's why I went VPS. Everything on one box at one place and it's own IP address. Depending on what you are doing you can get one for as low as $20/mo.

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In reply to Dan Trouten

Re: Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by Sam Mudle -

Well, that's true about shared packages.  You have no idea how much they are overselling it.  I've run Moodle 1.9 on Justhost cheapo hosting for 3 years with 30 concurrent quiz students and had few problems.  A couple of times, the MYSQL was down for 30 min but that was the worst.

Where can you get a VPS that has CPanel for $20/mo?  Good luck.  And I'm not thrillede  about installing MYSQL/Email/PhpAdmin from scratch on CentOS/RedHad.

I guess the problem with shared hosting is that it is soo unpredictable.

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In reply to Sam Mudle

Re: Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by Bret Miller -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Doesn't have CPanel, but has their own control panel--DreamHost VPS at $20/mo could be enough to run Moodle....

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In reply to Sam Mudle

Re: Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by Bret Miller -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

DreamHost is reasonably-priced and supports Moodle even as a one-click install...

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In reply to Sam Mudle

Re: Looking for cheapo shared hosting for Moodle 2.2.1

by Grant Mucha -

Hi Jeremy,

We recent setup our fourth Moodle server if you are looking for a custom home specifically designed for Moodle.

Feel free to send me a private message for more information!

Our latest server has four Moodle installations and I can't see your small class changing performance.

i5-2400 / 32GB DDR 1333 Ram / Adaptec 6405 with 512Mb Cache / 4x 128Gb Samsung 820 Solid State Drives / Raid 10 configuration

Combined with Moodle tuned MySQL, Apache, Memcache, and PHP5.3+ of course.

Sincerely,
Grant 

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