freeman » 18 Aug 2022, 8:58 am » wrote: ↑
Check out InMotion hosting. I had a brief but excellent relationship with them. They may still be somewhat independent. Customer service was stupendous (10-15 years ago). (found this after posting - not that I know shinola about Larry Ludwig)
https://larryludwig.com/inmotion-hosting-review/
I've had a relationship with hostmonster for about 20 years, but they were bought by
Endurance International Group that owns a giant gob of all the big name web hosting companies in the world.
Years ago I was told that GoDaddy were cheats, and used to register web names that folks did searches for on their site, and then turn around and offer them for sale.
Simple machines is not as fancy, and perhaps not as user friendly, but there are a lot of modifications that can be applied. They have a forum with a lot of dedicated folks that want to help. Open Source software dependent on donations.
https://simplemachines.org/
I forgot to mention that after Host Monster got bought out their customer service went to crap. Prior to that they would usually answer in less than 45 seconds. Fortunately I haven't needed customer service but on average of perhaps once every couple of years.
Also when I searched for a new host for one of my sites (when I went with InMotion), the first thing I did was call their customer service number for people with established accounts, to see how long it took them to answer. They were all quick to answer on the sales lines, not so much on the customer service lines.