Who was your first provider?

MasonMason AdministratorOG
in General

Always interested to hear what people's first ever provider for web hosting and/or server hosting was.

Is your first hosting hosting provider still around? Do you still have services with them?

I didn't get into the hosting scene until 2014 (late bloomer compared to most of y'all). Went with Bluehost at the time and got a small VPS w/ cPanel. After a year or so, I started looking for alternatives and realized how much I was overpaying compared to the other big players and low end companies. Migrated everything over to ZappieHost, who was my first low end host, when they had their Canada location (OVH).

What's your story?

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  • Mr_TomMr_Tom OG

    First provider for web hosting was Servage.net

    First VPS was with Bytemark UK.

    First dedi was @Clouvider if I remember correctly after discovering LET (still got it too).

    Thanked by (1)Clouvider
  • valkyrievalkyrie

    DigitalOcean in late 2013 iirc, was first provider and the first vps was from them too, dedi was a Kimsufi KS-1 but its gone :trollface:

  • ehabehab

    DigitalOcean

  • dosaidosai OG

    Ramnode 128MB OVZ. I was using it as a vpn to bypass my college's wifi.

  • daffydaffy

    Linode

    FreeVPS.org - Grab a free VPS! | SOGo Webmail - Powered by Alinto

  • hanoihanoi OG

    bravenet - vpsforex - SliceHost

  • Matt247Matt247

    VPS: Shinjiru
    Webhosting: ServerFreak

  • tetechtetech OG

    Debbie Mc.... oh wait, provider.

    Thanked by (1)bdl
  • debaserdebaser OG

    My very very very first provider was ASHosting, one of the few affordable Dutch shared webhosting providers back in ~1997-98. They used Cobalt Raq of course.

    The brand still exists, but I think they were sold a few times.

    As for dedi/VM see here

    @debaser said:
    Thought this would be a fun topic for here. Shamelessly stolen from OGF.

    My first dedi was in 2003-4 I guess, didn’t keep it for a long time as I only used for mail and a text only Usenet server. Bit of expensive for that. Don’t know what the provider was called. I still know the AS umber though: AS8587.

    I cancelled it when I could get a colocated server for almost nothing at the ISP I worked for at the time.

    My first VPS was a RootDS Mild at Webperoni, a German provider that was later bought by Server4you. I think it came with 20GB storage and 750GB traffic. We’re talking 2006 here.

    Got another dedi after that, at @Hetzner_OL, some Opteron server in 2008. After that, some Kimsufi thingies.

    My first vm in the Low End realm was from @liteserver in 2011 2014 and it has only gone downhill from there.

  • ChievoChievo OG

    Fastcomet . i was clueless and blind pricing is extremely balooned even not litespeed

    I believe in the good luck. Harder than I work luckier i get.

  • ChriswayneChriswayne

    Maybe vultr?

    Personal hobby: collect vps in various regions.

  • TheDPTheDP OG

    First dedi would be at NetSonic in ‘05 and first VPS would be at Spry Hosting/VPSLink in ‘07.

  • lentrolentro Hosting Provider

    I started off with playing with drag-and-drop web builders, then built web apps deployed on managed services (like Heroku). Only recently have I worked on the OS level as well.

    Web:
    Weebly/Wix (2015)

    VPS:
    Azure (2018)

    Dedi:
    Kimsufi (2019)

  • yoursunnyyoursunny OG

    My first website is on a desktop computer at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, circa 2006-2008.
    I was in charge of developing the student housing department website.
    I'm paid enough for my own meals as well as sometimes taking pretty girls to school cafeteria for dinners, and I'm allowed to host my own website on the same server.

    The server has 512MB RAM and 100Mbps port, and runs Windows Server 2003.
    Websites are on IIS 6.0, and different websites may use ASP, ASP.Net, PHP, or Java Servlet via Tomcat.
    Databases include Microsoft Access, SQL Server Express, and MySQL.
    There's also a separate VLC server for streaming media over UDP multicast, but it only works within the university campus.
    File transfer is through FTP, with one FTP account per website.
    There's no control panel, and everything is configured via remote desktop.

    The server is placed in a room with 24x7 air conditioning, next to some audio equipment of an auditorium.
    In exchange of colocation, the manager of the auditorium would login to the guest account and play minesweeper.
    However, I didn't know that exchange, so I disabled the guest account during a re-installation.

    A week later, I found the websites offline.
    It turned out that, the manager found that he couldn't login to the computer anymore, so he brought in his own computer and placed it next to ours.
    His computer touched the ESC key on the server, so that the server stuck on the boot menu when I rebooted Windows.
    I resolved this problem by unplugging the keyboard.

    I'm pretty sure the computer is dead by now, as it's been 15 years.

    So who's my first provider?

    • Myself, since I'm creating the IIS sites and FTP accounts?
    • The student housing department, who owns the server and allows me to use it?
    • The auditorium manager, who allows us to colocate the server in his equipment room?
    • The student services division, who oversees both the student housing department and the auditorium?

    HostBrr aff best VPS; VirmAche aff worst VPS.
    Unable to push-up due to shoulder injury 😣

  • skorousskorous OG

    @Mason said: Always interested to hear what people's first ever provider for web hosting and/or server hosting was.

    Depends on your interpretation. I was working for a local university department back in '96 and one of our projects was to set up our own web service, email, etc... on the then relatively new Linux. Think it was Slackware like version 2 or something. So in a sense I was my own first provider.

  • kuroneko23kuroneko23 OG

    VPS : Vultr
    WebHost : @SmallWeb <3

    Thanked by (1)MichaelCee
  • AndreiAndrei Services Provider
    edited April 2021

    My first dedicated server, and also first provider, was XLHost, back in 2006, when their website and offers looked like this: http://web.archive.org/web/20060525182633/http://xlhost.com:80/

    I see they're still in business, however I haven't used them for quite a lot of years.

    Seems so unreal thinking that you now pay $10 for a vps with similar features as a $300 server back then... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Thanked by (1)Ganonk
  • havochavoc OGContent Writer

    Either GCP or Alpha not sure

  • avelineaveline Hosting ProviderOG

    Burstnet but they are out of business :-)

    Misaka.io | Blazing fast AnyCast DNS with 60+ POPs GeoDNS, AXFR, DNSSEC supported.
    And Reliable high-performance virtual server | Ashburn, New York, Seattle, San Jose, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, São Paulo, Johannesburg

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  • MasonMason AdministratorOG

    @debaser said: As for dedi/VM see here

    Whoops. You created the same topic AND I even responded to it a few months back. My memory is failing me ;)

    @Mr_Tom said: First dedi was @Clouvider if I remember correctly after discovering LET (still got it too).

    Howdy, neighbor! :) My personal "flagship" dedi is with Clouvider NYC, premium stuff

    I think my first dedi was with DatabaseByDesign in Philly. Had three with them total, down to one right now.

    @yoursunny said: His computer touched the ESC key on the server, so that the server stuck on the boot menu when I rebooted Windows.

    That bastard, I hope he has minesweeper nightmares now!

    @havoc said: Alpha

    Alpha.... racks? or VPS? Either yikes or nice on that one.

    Thanked by (1)Clouvider

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  • havochavoc OGContent Writer

    @Mason said: Alpha.... racks? or VPS? Either yikes or nice on that one.

    VPS the dude in Bulgeria. Was pretty legit even back then. 1 EUR a month if memory serves so would be competitive even now

    Thanked by (1)Mason
  • MasonMason AdministratorOG

    @havoc said:

    @Mason said: Alpha.... racks? or VPS? Either yikes or nice on that one.

    VPS the dude in Bulgeria. Was pretty legit even back then. 1 EUR a month if memory serves so would be competitive even now

    Aye, Alex is a good dude. Have had services with them for about 4 years now.

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  • AaronSSAaronSS

    I honestly have no idea....???

  • seriesnseriesn OG

    Good ol BurstNet.

    Nexus Bytes Ryzen Powered NVMe VPS | NYC|Miami|LA|London|Netherlands| Singapore|Tokyo
    Storage VPS | LiteSpeed Powered Web Hosting + SSH access | Switcher Special |

  • LeeLee OG

    Not sure who my 1st ever provider was, but my 1st dedicated server was from Rackshack.net in late 2001. A Cobalt RaQ 4i

  • angstromangstrom OG
    edited April 2021

    My first provider was Hostigation, which was later acquired by (and absorbed by) anyNode

    "A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)

  • MewMew

    I just googled for the cheapest provider and went with the most decent looking one on the first page.

  • rcy026rcy026

    I ran a ISP in the 1990's, before it was cool, so back then I was the host.
    My first externally hosted VPS must have been with JohnCompanies or RootBSD, since they were basically the only ones supporting BSD in the early 2000's. But it was expensive and a pita to manage, so I pretty soon moved everything to dedicated hardware at Layered Tech (later called Datapipe, today known as Rackspace) and ran my own hardware for about 10 years.
    I drifted away from the provider part of the business when I went into consulting and instead slowly descended into the lowend customer swamp, and here I am today, idling away with my $7 KVM's.

  • YmpkerYmpker OGContent Writer
    edited April 2021

    I think it may have very well been Strato. When I was 8 and wanted to host my own gameserver my dad ordered a VPS for me from Strato. He was happy that I wanted to learn about computers (he worked as a sysadmin) and helped me out a bit.

    Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.

  • debaserdebaser OG

    @Ympker said:
    Strato.

    I can not hear that name without thinking of their horrible tv commercials.

    When I was 8

    Nice age to start. When I was 8 the WWW was released :#.

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