Want Gay-Friendly Hosting? Out & Gay is a worthwhile web host
Written: Feb 21 '04 (Updated Feb 21 '04)
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Pros: Decently priced variety of hosting plans, good up-time, plenty of options included
Cons: Disc space may be to small for some, prices can increase quickly with extras
The Bottom Line: The prices are reasonable and most websites won't exceed the storage offered - therefore anyone who is looking for a solid hosting company should take a look
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| jps246's Full Review: Out & Gay |
Looking to start your own website and want to host it on a server that is both gay friendly and gay owned and operated? Out & Gay might just be the hosting service for you.
Out & Gay is a full service web hosting company that offers several different hosting plans that run the gamut from personal website hosting to more professional to larger business websites. Prices are fair and for anyone looking to support gay owned and operated businesses while expanding their web presence should be happy with Out & Gay.
What do I get with my hosting?
There are three basic levels of hosting plans at Out & Gay: Economy, Business and Re-Seller. The economy plan is geared towards individual users who have their own personal websites. The business option is aimed more at the small business looking to first get out onto the web and finally the re-seller option is for people who are looking to host multiple domains.
Economy Plans
The economy plan is made up of two options, the basic option and the pro option. The basic option includes:
* 100 MB Disk Space
* Web File Manager
* SSI, Perl, PHP, CGI
* 25 POP3 Mail Accounts
* 2 GB Monthly Bandwidth
* Webalizer Usage Reporting
* Front Page 2002 Extensions
* SquirrelMail Web-based Email
* Analog Web/FTP Log Analyzer
* Ensim Web Adminstration Panel
* Cpanel Web Adminstration Panel
The pro option includes all of the basic options plus:
* 200 MB Disk Space
* 4 MySql Databases
* 50 POP3 Mail Accounts
* Analog Web/FTP Log Analyzer
* 1 Mail List, 5 Sub/Parked Domains
The basic hosting option will cost you $4.95 a month or $49.50 a year and the pro option is $7.95 a month or $79.50 for the year. If you are interested in extra bandwidth it is $4 per gigabyte and extra storage space is $4 for each extra 50 megabytes.
Business Plans
The business plan has three different options to choose from, a basic, gold and platinum package. All three different options contain:
* 400 MB Disk Space
* Web File Manager
* SSI, Perl, PHP, CGI
* Unlimited POP3 EMail
* 5 GB Monthly Bandwidth
* Webalizer Usage Reporting
* Front Page 2002 Extensions
* SquirrelMail Web-based Email
* 5 MySql Databases, 5 User FTP
* Ensim Web Adminstration Panel
* Cpanel Web Adminstration Panel
* Weekly Backups & RAID Protection
* 5 Mail Lists, 5 Sub/Parked Domains
The gold package also includes:
* 600 MB Disk Space
* 10 GB Monthly Bandwidth
* 20 MySql Databases, 20 User FTP
* Unlimited Mail Lists, Sub/Parked Domains
And the platinum package adds:
* 1000 MB Disk Space
* 20 GB Monthly Bandwidth
* 50 MySql Databases, 50 User FTP
As you would expect, prices for the business packages are higher than the economy plan. The basic business package costs $14.95 a month or $149.50 a year, the gold package is $24.95 a month or $249.50 a year and the platinum package will set you back $39.95 a month or $399.50 a year.
Re-Seller Package
The re-seller package is only offered in a single form. It costs $39.95 a month or $399.50 a year. The package includes:
* 500 MB Disk Space
* Web File Manager
* SSI, Perl, PHP, CGI
* Unlimited POP3 EMail
* 5 Domain Names Included
* 20 GB Monthly Bandwidth
* Webalizer Usage Reporting
* Front Page 2002 Extensions
* SquirrelMail Web-based Email
* Ensim Web Adminstration Panel
* Cpanel Web Adminstration Panel
* 50 MySql Databases, 50 User FTP
* Weekly Backups & RAID Protection
* Unlimited Mail Lists, Sub/Parked Domains
To maintain and register your domain through Out & Gay, it will cost you $15 a year.
Customer Service and Guarantees
Out & Gay offers a 30 day money back guarantee so that you can try out any of the hosting services that they offer. However, be aware that the money back guarantee only is for 50% of your payment – so I would suggest just paying for a single month, not a yearly hosting package and that way you will not lose that much money until you are sure that you want to host your website on this server.
Out & Gay guarantees 99.9% uptime for their hosting options. Should the servers go down that host your website, they would credit you one day of hosting for each hour of downtime that your site is unavailable.
Customer service is available online during normal office hours (9 to 5) but on pacific time (so those of us on the east coast have to figure out what time it is there). The online service consists of the ability to chat directly with a representative. You provide a username and your question and you are connected to that person who will help you. Pretty nifty – though I always wonder if you’re not just chatting with a computer. Customer service is also reachable through email. There is no telephone customer support.
Well how is it?
I used to host a site on Out & Gay and was generally quite happy with the services that I received. My site was up whenever I checked it and I never had any problems accessing or working with the site. I had purchased the basic pro package to host my site.
My hosting experience on Out & Gay lasted for just over a year. In that time, I was satisified with the service that I was provided with. Setting up the account was easy and straightforward. You can pay with either Visa, Mastercard or Paypal and can either pay by month or by year. The account setup takes about a day to process and once that happens - you're good to go to start hosting your site.
You're site can be accessed via FTP or through the included Frontpage extensions if you have Frontpage. I always used Frontpage to edit the files and the interface was seamless and I had no problems setting up Frontpage to access the server.
Email can be setup either on your own computer using a POP server or you can access your emails from the internet through a webmail interface. Both are easy to setup and you are given the information for both methods when you sign up for your website hosting. You get up to 25 emails with the basic plan, but I found that I was only using 3 or 4 at the most.
The Webalizer tracking and stats information is very helpful. It provides a quick breakdown of traffic and visitors to your site and is included with all of the hosting options. It's always kind of neat to look and see where your traffic and your visitors are coming from.
However, I was outgrowing the disc space available on the site and didn’t want to have to pay the extra costs involved in purchasing more space. Therefore I switched to a host that offered a significantly larger amount of space for roughly the same price. But I was probably more of a special case with disc space – 200 megabytes in general is more than enough for any basic personal website.
I cannot speak to the business or the re-seller plans, as I have never had them, but if they offer the beneifts and services that are in the basic plan, then they provide a solid base to host your website from.
Final Thoughts
The prices on Out & Gay are reasonable and most personal website users will not exceed the 100 or 200 megabytes offered in the basic packages – therefore anyone who is looking for a solid hosting company should take a look at Out & Gay.
More Gay and Lesbian Related Reviews
Magazines, Newspapers and Books
Instinct Magazine / Genre Magazine / Out In The Mountains / The Advocate / Love Makes a Family / XY Magazine / Out Magazine / The Gay Guys Guide to Life / Gay Guy's Guide to Love / 501 Great Things About Being Gay / Metrosource / [2] Magazine / Unzipped Magazine / Men Magazine / Freshmen Magazine
Music & Movies
Work OUT (Dance Music) / Lie Down With Dogs (movie)
Writings
Finding Your Pride / Massachusetts Leads the Country In the Right Direction / Gay Marriage in Massachusetts - an Update
Shopping
Kleptomaniac
Recommended:
Yes
Monthly fees (US$): 4.95 to 39.95
Database used: MySQL
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