If you're looking for UK web hosting, read on...
In December 2015 we transformed Just Chat by moving onto the WordPress platform. This allowed us to integrate the message boards with the chat forums, get rid of separate (and confusing) logins, and create a uniform design throughout the site. Unfortunately, towards the end of 2016 our UK web hosting company began to struggle and the site would crash roughly once per month. Unfortunately, these periods of downtime were significant. Sometimes the site would be down for an entire weekend. This prompted us to move to a different UK web hosting partner.
In January 2017 we switched to a different web host that comes highly recommended as a WordPress host. We signed up for a cloud hosting plan that was three times more expensive than what we were paying before. The plan came with significantly more server power than we had before, and we thought this move would resolve the issues we were facing.
However, almost from the beginning we could tell that things had not improved as we had hoped. Posting to the message boards was very slow, and the site would often crash. In fact, Just Chat would crash many, many times every single day. When we reached out to the support team of our new host, they were not able to explain the issue causing the poor performance. Instead, they encouraged us to disable certain functions that our community relies on — and to upgrade our plan.
We went ahead and disabled some of the WordPress functionality as recommended by the web host. We also increased the capability of the server we were on. Our hosting bill skyrocketed but performance did not improve. At one point, we were paying more than six times our previous monthly hosting bill — but Just Chat was still unreliable and kept on crashing.
At this point we started looking for a different company that offered UK web hosting. We knew that we wanted to take advantage of cloud hosting and that we would need dedicated resources, excellent performance, and great support. We know how to run an online community, but we don't know how to run a server — so we needed to find a web host that would manage everything for us. Finally, we needed the server to be located in the UK, since that's where most of our traffic comes from.
Luckily for us we stumbled upon Press Captain. After talking to Bryan, the owner of the company, we decided to make the switch. Bryan quickly moved everything over to Press Captain from our old host. Within a few hours Just Chat was blazingly fast and no longer crashed! We are paying less than we did at our previous host, and know that Bryan is looking after everything 'behind the scenes'. He was there every step of the way and is available whenever we need him.
If you are looking for managed cloud hosting, we highly recommend Press Captain. They specialise in WordPress hosting and offer hosting locations in London and across Europe, North America, and Australia. Their hosting plans are priced in US dollars but this works to your advantage if you're in the UK as you'll actually end up paying less than what a host that prices in pounds would charge for a similar service.
If you're just starting out, you'll pay as little as $30 per month for the starter plan. That's about £25. If you're looking for UK web hosting that won't let you down, take a look at Press Captain. We think they are great. If you are looking for a reliable web host that is fully managed, comes with unbeatable support, and will give your site amazing performance, give them a try.
