Who I Use: Hosting & Domain

I get quite a few emails each day, but without a doubt, the most popular topic isn't support, recruiter, or request email; believe it or not, I'm most frequently asked who I use for my domain and hosting.  Can you blame people though?  Finding a good hosting provider and domain registrar can be a nightmare -- believe me, I've been through it all.  On top of my domain debacle, I've worked with (and been held hostage by) hundreds of hosting providers.  This post is created as a future reference for me to forward people to;  these are the people I trust.

Web Hosting:  Media Temple

I signed up with Media Temple 4 years ago when my blog's traffic was too intense for shared hosting.  Why Media Temple?  Media Temple donates web hosting to a large number of open source projects and blogs we all love, including MooTools, jQuery, CSS-Tricks, and this blog (I paid when I signed up, but later became sponsored).  My Media Temple virtual server has been awesome;  fast, reliable, and highly configurable.  In the few times I've needed support, I've been able to tweet @mediatemple and get someone on the case right away.  Non-emergency tickets are often closed within a few hours, something 95% of other hosting providers dont' do.

If you don't need a virtual server or simply don't want to use Media Temple, I used Dreamhost before moving to Media Temple.  Dreamhost was good for what I needed at the time, and their support was reasonably responsive.

Domains:  Name.com

Back when my domain was stolen, I was a complete mess.  Because of this site, I've gone from a small web design shop to working at epic places like SitePen and Mozilla.  People know my site by my domain, so much of my online identity would have been gone -- a prospect that terrified me.  In stepped in Name.com, who worked like hell to get my domain back -- bear in mind, I'd never paid them a dime.  Since then, I've moved all of my domains (over a dozen) to Name.com and haven't had any issues.  I signed up for a special security service which provides me a keychain/number generator, and to log into my account, I need to use the generator.  I have no worries about my domain being taken again.

So that's who I use.  The links above are affiliate links but there's no greater endorsement than actually using these vendors (do a WHOIS search and check out the registrar and nameservers if you'd like).  When you don't have the luxury of hosting your own site(s), having someone you trust is invaluable.  When you have had a domain stolen...ugh, just trust me, you want a good domain registrar.  Anyways, this is who I use!