I’ve recently switched over completely from piggy-backing on my friend David’s hosting plan to my own. I used to be with Dreamhost, and although their service was decent and I rarely had material issues with them, I felt it was time I upgraded to something that was both under my own policy and a little more robust.
I have since moved to sign on with HostGator for 3 years, taking advantage of the 20% discount while giving Adwin a referral. So far, so good. Their support which helped me transfer all my stuff over (files, WordPress install, and databases) was very convenient and really a major selling point. The only thing left for me to figure out now is how my domain renewal is going to work from now on (David used to take care of that for me).
Dreamhost was alright, but the reason I decided to switch over was because of the unreliable uptime. At times, everything would run fine, but on choice occasions, I found loading up my blog and/or dashboard to write posts or manage things would be horribly slow. For example, I went to my dashboard once, waited 5 minutes for it to load, and then finally the connection timed out and I got an error message. The next day, everything would be fine. That’s pretty annoying. The other thing was that changes made to the layout would only take effect after swapping and reloading of themes. These problems have completely disappeared with HostGator and their service people are quick, polite, and competent. I’d say so far, so very very good.
In any case, if you’re looking for a nice host for WordPressing needs, I’m their latest convert and I think they are definitely a great provider. Check the sidebar for their link (and hey, if you use that link to sign up, I get a small referral fee paid to me, so there y’go).