I’ve made the switch. I’m extremely picky about web hosts, and I don’t have many crazy requirements. I barely use any disk space or bandwidth, and although I care about uptime, I probably wouldn’t notice it if I went down for a while.

What I care about is a good price, the ability to pay monthly, quick, and instant access. I am looking for something more of a playground. I program all day at work, so I want to try out new things in my free time. If they don’t work, no big deal.

That being said, I think I found my soulmate in Steadfast Networks. Now, I’ve only been a customer for a little over 24 hours, but so far I’ve had a great experience.

I was a godaddy customer at their $4.95 a month plan. I was only allowed to host this domain. Their control panel while extensive was difficult to navigate and every major action seemed to take several minutes for the server to process. I don’t fault them, but I wasn’t thrilled.

The other day, I discovered that some web hosts are offering an “unlimited domains” under a single account. This was perfect for me, I could play on multiple domains for the same low price. So I began the search for a new provider since godaddy did not offer this service in their basic package.

After reading a ton of reviews, I took a serious look at Site5, Bluehost, and Hostgator. While Bluehost and Hostgator looked great, I didn’t like the fact that you had to sign up for a year. There’s little chance I would leave within a year, but if the service is terrible right at the start, I would want to move. So, sorry Bluehost and Hostgator.

I came within minutes of signing up with Site5, until I found hostjury.com which seems to be one of the few websites host reviews that isn’t an obvious marketing site for a web host. Site5, while it seemed to enjoy great ratings before, was recently bombing out on Site5. Supposedly, some new management was causing problems. While I can’t confirm this one way or the other, I decided not to go with them.

From hostjury, coming in around #5 was Steadfast Networks. From the reviews, the customers seemed to love them. They offered multiple domains and I could pay monthly if I so desired. After doing some snooping, I signed up with their 2nd level account at $4.95 a month.

I was blown away by how quickly I had access to the account and how wonderful their control panel was. It was simple and straight forward. Let’s be honest, most people using these control panels know a thing or two about computers and we don’t need to be glamored by graphics. We just want to be able to do things quickly ::cough godaddy cough::. I transfered a few domains from godaddy paid and free hosting and within minutes the sites were up and running. Multiple domains under a single account.

I tried their one click install of wordpress, and while it worked it was a few versions behind. I decided I’d do it myself. Steadfast’s DB tool was great, the FTP worked immediately, and everything seemed great. Within an hour I had several blog software up and running.

As of right now I’d give Steadfast Networks a 10/10. As long as the uptime is reasonable and they don’t screw up billing I don’t see where this could go wrong. I’ll try to update as I get some more time on their servers.