shared or reseller hosting

[michael_s]

I've seen the recent posts about preferred web hosting providers. What about reseller hosting? At least I think that's what I need. I'd like to host a client's three sites, which I can do on my shared account at bluehost as subdomains. (i know some here don't like bluehost, but I've been there forever. Maybe it's time to change.)
But... I want them to be able to set up and manage their own email accounts for these particular domains. Which I can't do at bluehost. They see every email associated with the main domain. (mine)

Options?

Thanks

[wurm]

I thought you could do that with an Add On Domain at your main hosting site. I can still recommend Hostmantis and they also happen to have Reseller Hosting if indeed that's what you need.

[bik]

Yes, if you want these clients to be able to log in and work in their own cPanel for managing email, you would want a reseller account.

My own experience with a reseller account was not good. Performance of the server I was on was much worse than the regular shared "business plan" server I had been on previously.

That might have just been my bad luck.

Still, if email is the main issue and you would otherwise be good with keeping all the web stuff together, maybe look at separate email hosting for each client?

[clay]

bik wrote:
My own experience with a reseller account was not good. Performance of the server I was on was much worse than the regular shared "business plan" server I had been on previously.

That might have just been my bad luck.

I have a reseller account...I have personally had great experience with mine (as have my client sites). I have not noticed poor performance, but I think this will vary from host to host depending on server hardware specs, network utilization and how oversold the server is (eg how many reseller accounts on a particular server).

But, yes, a reseller account will give you the ability to keep different domains/accounts separate, as much as you'd like. If performance is important to you, be sure to buy a reseller account from a host that doesn't appear to oversell their servers too much. If it looks too cheap to be legit, they are likely overselling/overstuffing their servers. Quality hardware, support and bandwidth is not free. A server that costs a host $100/month (number pulled out of thin air) to run has to make enough money to cover the hardware costs, bandwidth costs and support costs. If a host can sell 20 x $5/month accounts, that's one thing. But if they stuff 40 of those same $5 accounts on the same hardware, you will see performance suffer. I understand (and have seen first hand) that most sites don't use a ton of compute, disk, transfer resources. But if someone on one of those 40 accounts add a moderately high-trafficked site, watch out. If 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 high traffic sites get added, you're really in for a world of pain. You have no way to know how many accounts are on a server. But, you're probably better off spending just a little more money in the hopes that you get reasonable performance on all aspects of the site.

good luck!