# Best Hosts for Radiant? **URL:** \ **Category:** Radiant CMS\ **Created:** [November 8, 2007, 2:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609 "2007-11-08T14:34:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 2:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/1 "2007-11-08T14:34:12Z")
What are your best experiences with web hosts for Radiant? Are there any hosts that are particularly Radiant-friendly? Where do you host your Radiant sites now? Are you happy with them? I’ll start… I’ve been hosting several Radiant sites on Dreamhost, but I’ve been only marginally happy with the service. It tends to be pretty slow at times. I’ve had the best luck with my own server, which is a colocated Apple Xserve. I have full control over it, but it is a pain to manage, and I don’t like being stuck with the full liability of hosting customers’ sites _and_ email and all that goes with it. On the other hand, Xserve is an awesome environment for Rails/Radiant. And I’m really looking forward to trying Leopard server - it really seems ideal for this sort of thing. - Ryan ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 3:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/2 "2007-11-08T15:05:13Z")
I’m really happy with Slicehost [www.slicehost.com](http://www.slicehost.com) Peter. On Nov 8, 2007 2:33 PM, Ryan H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I’ve had the best luck with my own server, which is a colocated Apple > Post: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > Search: [http://radiantcms.org/mailing-list/search/](http://radiantcms.org/mailing-list/search/) > Site: [http://lists.radiantcms.org/mailman/listinfo/radiant](http://lists.radiantcms.org/mailman/listinfo/radiant) – met vriendelijke groet, Peter B. ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 3:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/3 "2007-11-08T15:06:58Z")
Hello Ryan! Welcome to Radiant on Dreamhost! To sum it up, Dreamhost’s support for Rails in general SUCKS. They run on a dynamic-count fcgi setup and they will not do anything to help you. After 2 months of back and forth with their support, they will not do ANYTHING to their default box setup. ‘It’s set up for a reason’ attitude. Problem with Dreamhost is by default they put a cap on you for 200MB RAM usage, and as soon as you get --5-- processes running of Radiant or any slightly-heavier Rails script up, you will git that point and their process killer will ruthlessly start killing your processes; As well, I found if I got too fast of traffic with them, my CPU would spike HARD (From the dynamic fcgi launching) and it too then would kill the processes. For many sites, a fixed 2-process fcgi setup would do well, it cuts down on memory usage overall and you get some serious speed increases because you’re not relaunching a process over and over (As soon as one of the 5 processes die down, it kills them too, with how DreamHost is set up) - I couldn’t handle 500-600 visitors with DreamHost at all. Impossible. My site would be down for 40-50 minutes out of every hour, just because of apache taking a moment to respawn a ruthlessly-killed fcgi thread(s). I couldn’t imagine trying to manage them with the 1500-2200 visitors I get daily now. Myself? I chose to host my own system. Rather than a dedicated box, I went for a VPS, which has been actually very rewarding, but let me tell you, getting a Mongrel cluster set up and optimized is a headache you may NOT want to partake in. If you don’t want to manage your own hosting (As your email seems to point out) there are solutions, depending on the $ you’re looking to spend. There are plenty of services, but the one that pops into my head is [http://www.hostingrails.com/](http://www.hostingrails.com/) - They offer cheaper fcgi (Which I likely wouldn’t touch again due to the dynamic allocation issues I had on DreamHost), or starting at $9.79, you can go Mongrel or $13.98 and up for Mongrel Cluster. Just because it says ‘Rails’ on their features page, does NOT mean they have any clue how to run a Rails service. It’s like saying ‘Free diamond ring with any purchase!’ and then giving you a plastic ring with a diamond chip taped to it. Anyways, hope this helps. Andrew ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 3:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/4 "2007-11-08T15:23:26Z")
If you don’t want to fiddle with Mongrel or FCGI on your VPS, I highly recommend Litespeed Web Server. The free version runs quite nicely and their LSAPI is significantly faster than FCGI. The big bonus is being able to configure your Rails apps from a web interface. When we launched kckcc.edu in January, we used Litespeed (purchased 2-cpu version) and were quite happy with it. Sean ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 7:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/5 "2007-11-08T19:23:45Z")
Andrew mentioned HostingRails ([http://www.hostingrails.com/](http://www.hostingrails.com/))… does anyone else have any experience with them? > If you don’t want to manage your own hosting (As your email seems to > point out) there are solutions, depending on the $ you’re looking to > spend. There are plenty of services, but the one that pops into my > head > is [http://www.hostingrails.com/](http://www.hostingrails.com/) - They offer cheaper fcgi (Which I > likely wouldn’t touch again due to the dynamic allocation issues I had > on DreamHost), or starting at $9.79, you can go Mongrel or $13.98 > and up > for Mongrel Cluster. ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 7:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/6 "2007-11-08T19:33:08Z")
On Nov 8, 2007 11:07 AM, Travis B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I agree with a big thumbs up for LiteSpeed. We run LiteSpeed on our > production and dev environments primarily for it’s ease of use with > Rails. On top of that, it’s fast to boot and always “just works”. I also use LightSpeed on my own VPS (Slicehost) and have three radiant sites running on it for most of a year. It’s only been a positive experience and it has yet to crash on me. Performance seems just fine though my sites have never been hammered. Cheers, Marty ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 7:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/7 "2007-11-08T19:38:24Z")
Out of curiosity, did you license the 64bit enterprise version or did you chroot the 32bit free version? I’m on SliceHost as well, and have been considering LiteSpeed, but didn’t want to futz with the chroot path. I’m not really live with any of my sites yet, so Apache +mongrel is more than adequate. I’m actually planning on going live with a couple of sites the way that it is, but look toward LiteSpeed Enterprise when the Mongrel clusters start maxing out my memory. Phillip ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 7:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/8 "2007-11-08T19:08:34Z")
I agree with a big thumbs up for LiteSpeed. We run LiteSpeed on our production and dev environments primarily for it’s ease of use with Rails. On top of that, it’s fast to boot and always “just works”. Cheers, – Travis B. Not sent from my iPhone. ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 7:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/9 "2007-11-08T19:45:25Z")
Ryan H. wrote: > Andrew mentioned HostingRails ([http://www.hostingrails.com/](http://www.hostingrails.com/))… does > anyone else have any experience with them? My site is running with them - [t-engine.onghu.com](http://t-engine.onghu.com) but it’s very low volume right now and runs on fcgi. I have plans to move it to Mongrel but haven’t got to it cos my site’s not fully deployed yet and hasn’t started hitting much load at all. It seems to work fine. On the other hand, they seem to be quite good and friendly and most queries get answered reasonably quickly. Sorry not much more experience with them! Cheers, Mohit. 11/9/2007 | 2:44 AM. ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 7:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/10 "2007-11-08T19:56:31Z")
Marty, I would very much like to see your notes. I started to do the chroot thing, but quickly decided against it. Thanks! Phillip ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 7:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/11 "2007-11-08T19:42:29Z")
On Nov 8, 2007 11:37 AM, Phillip K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Out of curiosity, did you license the 64bit enterprise version or did > you chroot the 32bit free version? I’m on SliceHost as well, and > have been considering LiteSpeed, but didn’t want to futz with the > chroot path. I’m not really live with any of my sites yet, so Apache > +mongrel is more than adequate. I’m actually planning on going live > with a couple of sites the way that it is, but look toward LiteSpeed > Enterprise when the Mongrel clusters start maxing out my memory. I stuck with the 32bit version and installed some library that allowed to to play nicely with the 64bit slice. It did hose me initially as I didn’t think about the 64bit/32bit executable issue so I was stuck for a day while I tried to determine the problem (it was my first try install LiteSpeed). I can look it up in my notes if you want to know exactly what I did. Cheers, Marty ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2007, 12:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/12 "2007-11-09T00:23:37Z")
Thanks! I do use Ubuntu on my slice, and this will help greatly when the time comes! Peace, Phillip ---
**Author:** ![rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rpheath](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rpheath)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-hosts-for-radiant/119609/13 "2007-11-08T20:28:47Z")
> I would very much like to see your notes. I started to do the chroot > thing, but quickly decided against it. [http://wiki.slicehost.com/doku.php?id=install\_litespeed\_on\_ubuntu](http://wiki.slicehost.com/doku.php?id=install_litespeed_on_ubuntu) I had posted my install notes on Slicehost’s wiki a while back and it’s still there. ia32-libs was the package I installed. I am running Ubuntu so if you’re not on Ubuntu then you may need to hunt around for the appropriate package for your distro. Cheers, Marty