Welcome!

[theonlylos]

Recently I've begun the process of starting a freelance design company which will offer a combination of templates along with custom services. For the templates, I'll require an automatic ecommerce solution which integrates with my shopping cart. I've used shared hosting for all my past websites, however now that I'm finally getting into ecommerce I'm more concerned about security so I was wondering whether I'm better off paying $20 or more per month extra for a virtual dedicated host over my existing shared host (wich provides private SSL and a private IP address).

Since my current host dosen't offer virtual dedicated hosting, I've been on the lookout for other providers but I'm not really sure where to get reputable reviews so I'm asking around. Also are there any merchant solutions I should be on the lookout for? Maybe I should just use PayPal and let them do all tbe backend lifting?

Thanks in advance.

[b.jordan]

Would you plan to host your client's sites on your Virtual Dedicated account?

[theonlylos]

Most likely not. I'm just planning to host demo sites for the templates, the ecommerce system, although I'll probably have password protected sections for each client to privately view their projects, but those sections will be closed after the work & transaction are complete.

[b.jordan]

I was just curious, because if you were going to host clients sites, than the extra performance of a Virt. Ded. would be justified. However, I wouldn't say that a it would be inherently more secure. So unless you need more access to the server or better performance, than I would suggest just saving your money.

[Patterson_Communications]

Look at godaddy or slice.
People complain about godaddy, that is becuase they dont take
the couple hours to figure it out. Godaddy calls thir virtual dedicated
vdot's, they are great becuase when you choose a linux (LAMP) server
you get Linux Apache Mysql databases etc & PHP - And a PLESK control
panel as your user interface -ssl and 3 ip addresses, the 512 - 2gb ram burst etc.
Stable.

We have a CMS host on one specialized domain using us as their mail hanger
front end - you can configure some pretty interesting DNS work arounds
for advanced configs with out any limitations.

Slice host I might try in the future it looks a little cheaper but Im not sure of much else
as far as they are concerned

[HostColor]

I would go for a Virtuozzo based VPS. It is easy to use it and you can find a quality VPS for around $30/month (or 20 pounds in UK). Otherwise a good shared hosting account would cost you less than $10 (6-7 pounds), but there's always a risk some other account holders on the shred server to consume more resources than you do and to overload the machine.

[Scaryclouds]

It has been about a year since I worked with them, but for my senior project I got a virtual server through Solar VPS. I had a couple of reliability issues, however when I brought it to the attention of the support team they were always very responsive and courteous when dealing with any problems. So while it may have been a little annoying dealing with the problems (problems my team might have caused), their support gets top marks, and I would consider that to be quite important.