# Is shared hosting evil? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 14, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-shared-hosting-evil/68185 "2006-02-14T18:53:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aseldo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/e95f7d/32.png) [@aseldo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/aseldo)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-shared-hosting-evil/68185/1 "2006-02-14T18:53:53Z")
I moved a rails application to textdrive using their low-cost shared plan. Once on textdrive my app would display ‘proxy errors’ periodically. Hitting reload seemed to be all that was needed to get past the proxy error. After discussions with their support people I decided the proxy errors were being caused by apache server restarts – because there were many of us sharing one apache server there were relatively constant restarts. I slapped my head and immediately started looking for another solution that didn’t involve sharing an apache instance with tens or hundreds of other users. I want to emphasize that my experience with textdrive was not all bad – I blame myself for not thinking through how shared hosting would impact my application. Now I’m trying to decide if shared hosting is simply evil, or did I just have a bad experience. - Are proxy errors common on all shared accounts, regardless of the hosting service? - If you are happy with your shared hosting experience – meaning that your application runs reliably – which hosting service are you using? My main goal is to figure out if my experience is typical or not. And if there are shared services out there that work fine, which ones are they? My main apps are now running on VPS sites but I have a few low volume mainly personal/hobby sites that are still running on a modest server in my basement. I really like the aspect of running at a professionally managed colo on someone else’s hardware. I would like to migrate these to a low cost service. These are not business sites and don’t have strict up time requirements, and I don’t want to spend much money, so a shared hosting service is probably what I need. But I would like to know what to expect. Thanks for your help. -Kelly ---
**Author:** ![aseldo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/e95f7d/32.png) [@aseldo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/aseldo)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 7:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-shared-hosting-evil/68185/2 "2006-02-14T19:06:31Z")
On 2/14/06, Kelly F. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > My main apps are now running on VPS sites but I have a few low volume > mainly personal/hobby sites that are still running on a modest server in my > basement. I really like the aspect of running at a professionally managed > colo on someone else’s hardware. I would like to migrate these to a low cost > service. These are not business sites and don’t have strict up time > requirements, and I don’t want to spend much money, so a shared hosting > service is probably what I need. But I would like to know what to expect. I use a single virtual private server for all of my hobby sites. Each site is just another virtual host in the Apache config. It works well enough for what it is and it’s pretty cheap when you spread it across several sites. – James ---
**Author:** ![aseldo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/e95f7d/32.png) [@aseldo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/aseldo)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 7:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-shared-hosting-evil/68185/3 "2006-02-14T19:36:47Z")
On 2/14/06, Kelly F. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > involve sharing > If you are happy with your shared hosting experience – meaning that your > service is probably what I need. But I would like to know what to expect. I have VPS space available. I’m basically wanting to host a few people on my machine and cover the costs of my colocation fee. If you’re interested, contact me directly. Cheers, Aaron K. ---
**Author:** ![aseldo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/e95f7d/32.png) [@aseldo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/aseldo)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 8:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-shared-hosting-evil/68185/4 "2006-02-14T20:37:23Z")
On Tue, 2006-02-14 at 09:52 -0800, Kelly F. wrote: > These are not business sites and don’t have strict up time > requirements, and I don’t want to spend much money, so a shared > hosting > service is probably what I need. But I would like to know what to > expect. I’ve heard rumors of companies that have horrible downtime issues. We’ve been very fortunate to have very little downtime and because Rails is still fairly new in the hosting world (and we’ve been doing it for a year+ now)… we are feeling fairly confident in our setup. The biggest problem that we have seen is trying to fit Rails into an existing platform that is designed for PHP hosting. We’re Rails guys… and we focus on Rails hosting as a priority… (and PostgreSQL). I believe that our customers can feel and see the difference. Shared Rails hosting is not trivial and it takes a lot of trial and error to get it close to _right_. We’re getting closer to _right_ and will be making an announcement very soon about our latest approach to solving this problem. 🙂 -Robby – /\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* - Robby R., Founder & Executive Director \* - PLANET ARGON, LLC | [www.planetargon.com](http://www.planetargon.com) \* - Ruby on Rails Development, Consulting, and Hosting \* - Portland, Oregon | p: 503.351.4730 | f: 815.642.4068 \* - blog: [www.robbyonrails.com](http://www.robbyonrails.com) | book: [www.programmingrails.com](http://www.programmingrails.com) \* \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*/