Official or recommended VirtueMart web host?

[Merry]

Is there an official or recommended shared web host for beginners? One endorsed by the team or that members have had good experiences with?

Thanks,
Merry

[jenkinhill]

Beginners often run into problems because they tend to choose a host based on price rather than the quality of the service. You only have to look through this and other Joomla forums to see that some hostnames regularly appear where people are reporting difficulties or issues with installation or failed updates. eg search on forum.joomla.org for godaddy  Too much forum space and time is wasted trying to help people with VM when the real issue is related to the quality of their server environment.

I use UnitedHosting for all my sites and have done for over 6 years now. I have never had an issue with Joomla, VirtueMart or any other component that can be related to a server issue. So I stick with them, and don't mind paying just a little extra for peace of mind, server uptime and most important, site security.

Too many people reporting problems in this forum are using servers with old, outdated and possible insecure PHP versions. Just something else to look for when selecting a host.

[Merry]

Thanks, I spoke with United Hosting. They seem like a very good host for intermediate to advanced users, but based on my conversation with them they seem a little harsh on newbies. I do love the fact that they have 4x daily backups, I've not seen that before and at their good prices too. But they do not offer ANY kind of support for VirtueMart, even paid support.

Normally an official web host includes the program installed as part of the hosting package, provides paid or free support, and often installs and configures the SSL for the first-time user. I like to recommend the official host to first-time users, then encourage users to roll up their sleeves and do it themselves the second time around.

Perhaps some web host will step up to the plate and become the official or recommended host for Virtuemart. :-)

Merry

[jenkinhill]

I do love the fact that they have 4x daily backups, I've not seen that before and at their good prices too. But they do not offer ANY kind of support for VirtueMart, even paid support.

There is no need for the UH team to support VirtueMart - that is what this forum is for. They do have their own forum though on which a whole range of scripting, Wordpress, Joomla, OsCom and other things are discussed, and I do know that their support guy in Canada has helped some users out with script issues way beyond what I would expect. I doubt if you would find any host that can offer VM support and know what they were doing.

UH do provide Softaculous within cPanel which does a great install of a whole range of scripts including Joomla, Magento and a whole load of others. The installed Joomla version is ready to go! You only have to log into the backend - it is all set to start adding any extra components, change templates etc. And they keep up to date with script versions. I get update emails for those scripts I have installed within 24hrs of the new version being released, with a link in the email to go and do it now! For newbies they will pre-install Joomla or similar - and will even migrate an existing site from another server for those are really are clueless.