10 ColdFusion Hosts Under $10/month
From time to time (usually when I’m setting up a new client), I scour the web for new hosting providers offering ColdFusion hosting at a reasonable price. This is usually a frustrating experience because so many providers offer other scripting solutions at well under $10 a month but once you add ColdFusion, the price skyrockets to $20 a month or more.
That isn’t to say that hosts like HostMySite aren’t worth the money. HostMySite is a fantastic option for clients who don’t mind spending a little more every month for a proven record of service, support, and uptime.
In my experience as a developer, however, I find that many clients can be…”frugal”. Some see hosting prices and want to know why their quote for hosting is so much higher than other prices they’ve seen online. Or they simply don’t need the level of service and performance provided by a HostMySite or CrystalTech. It’s those clients that I compiled this list for.
To qualify for the list, hosts had to offer deals that broke down to $10/month or less (US dollars) in a maximum of one year installments. All listed hosting packages include at least 1 non-Access database. Hosts are listed in alphabetical order. I make no claims as to the service, support, or reliability of any of the providers, though any comments offering insight into their track records are certainly appreciated and encouraged.
So, without further rambling, I present to you 10 hosting providers offering ColdFusion hosting for under $10 a month.
10 ColdFusion Hosts Under $10/month
| Host | Price/mo | Price/yr | Setup | Disk | Traffic | CF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anumina | $8.95 | - | - | 2G | 1000G | MX 7 |
| DailyRazor | $7.95 | $95.40 | - | 1G | 50G | MX 7 |
| Gearworx | $15.95 | $119.40 | - | 4G | 55G | MX 7 |
| Host Department | $10.95 | $95.40 | - | - | - | 6.1 |
| Hostfolio | $9.95 | $99.95 | - | 4.5G | 125G | MX 7 |
| Hostingatoz | - | $64.99 | - | 1G | 20G | MX 7 |
| HostingFuse | $8.00 | $80.00 | - | 200M | 6G | MX 7 |
| IX Web hosting | $6.95 | - | - | 500G | 3500G | 5 |
| Viux | $9.95 | - | 1G | 10G | MX 7 | |
| Xtreme Host | $9.98 | - | - | 3G | 15G | MX 7 |
An Honorable Mention goes to CQHost who offers ColdFusion MX 7 hosting with 500MB disk space for $9.50 per month when you pay for 2 years of service.
I’d also like to mention a site that is attempting to offer free ColdFusion MX 7 hosting in the near(?) future: freecoldfusionhosting.com. This site is the project of Pablo Varando who owns easycfm.com. Pablo aims to provide 1G disk/5GB Traffic with 1 MS SQL Database/Unlimited Access Databases.
Before anyone points it out, I am aware of the fact that GoDaddy offers cheap CF hosting, however, I had such a miserable experience setting up a site there that I couldn’t bring myself to place them in the table, which brings me to my closing advice….
Before signing up for any of these hosts, I urge you to contact them to discuss custom tags and disabled tags. Some of the hosts provide this information online but most do not. For example, Host Department, like GoDaddy, disables COCONTENT, CFOBJECT, CFREGISTRY, CFADMINSECURITY, CFEXECUTE, and CFDIRECTORY. If you just need a place to host some basic dynamic pages, that may be acceptable; but if you’re planning on building out a real-world application, using a host that disables CFOBJECT can be like buying a car with a weed wacker engine. Sure, you’ll eventually get to where you’re going, but the time it’s going to take to get there just isn’t worth the savings.
-rG
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About two months ago I would have whole heartedly recommended Xtreme Host. I have hosted with them for years. But, about 2 months ago the only support guy / president of Xtreme Host stopped responding to emails, support tickets and voice mail. Problems with non responsive web servers, failed email server new accounts not set up… you can read about all issues in the Forum. http://www.xtreme-host.com/cgi-bin/ib/ikonboard.cgi
Thanks for this list, it will come in very handy. I think I found one small error in your table though. The Viux plan offers 1G of disk space and 10G of traffic, not the other way around. Thanks again!
a couple of years ago i used http://www.nexpoint.net. they had a $99/yr CF plan.
They do still have a $99/annual plan, and CF is listed… but it says “additional fees may apply”. not sure under which condition(s) the “additional fees” may (or may not) apply… but i figured i’d pass this along just for the sake of keeping the list comprehensive
Great information. Bookmarked for future reference.
Thanks for the useful list. I am currently hosted with http://www.hostingatoz.com for over an year which is one of the cheapest ColdFusion 7 MX hosting provider. I am on their S-III shared hosting plan which is for $19.99/year (yes, this is annual prices not monthly
). Fast support and good uptime. What else you can expect for these prices
I’ll affirm the mention of Gearworx. Great support and good prices. I have several sites with them now.
Also http://www.canwebhost.com at $8 USD/mo. Excellent support.
Thanx for posting this list – I had not heard of most of them so it’s good to know there actually is quite a bit of choice in this area.
As for GoDaddy, I host a simple site with them and it’s fine but you definitely need to go in with your eyes open. See this thread on my blog – 111 comments, mostly complaining about GoDaddy’s support and lack of CF features:
http://corfield.org/entry/GoDaddy_and_ColdFusion_MX_7
I have been using DailyRazor since the first of the year. They have been professional and responsive to my every need. i would give them a good recommendation. One of the differences is if you are going to offer hosting in a way that your client can deal with the ftp side of things. Fer instance, most will not give you multiple ftp log-ins on the Windows side. DailyRazor will as well as allowing for web users so that multiple users can have access to their hosting/email setups.
Great list! What I’d really like to find in a cheap host now is SVN hosting – I’d love to be able to setup a remote repository… Someone from Adobe needs to email the folks at IX Web Hosting and see if they would be interested in an upgrade – CF5???
@Tony: Thanks for letting me know about the error. Change made.
@Sean: Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I have read that thread on your site. Unfortunately it was too late for me by then but I encourage others to read it to get an idea of the frustration that comes with GoDaddy CF Hosting.
@Jim: I couldn’t believe anyone was still on CF 5 either! Shows how much attention CF must get there.
@Everyone: Thanks so much for the comments. I got a such a great turnout on this post that I’m going to start posting regular updates. Hopefully this list can become more informative and comprehensive with each post.
@Jim – cvsdude.org is who i use for remote svn hosting…
Stokia has always been extremely cheap for a little less than $3 / month ($35 a year which includes domain registration). If you want an account that supports SQL Server 2005, it only goes up to about $9/month.
One more to add to the list: hostnexus.com offers their basic CF plan on Windows or Linux for $9.95 per month (300 MB disk space, 10 GB transfer, 3 domains). I haven’t used them myself but I’ve heard good things.
I currently have a couple of sites hosted on HostExcellence, because they are a cheap CF host, and I absolutely hate it. The tech support response time sucks (usually next-day), the responses are always from some sort of script, they use CF5 and when I asked if they had any plan to upgrade, they said no. They also disable several tags (though with CF5, the only one I ran into that I wanted was CFHeader). So if anyone is looking at them, I would discourage you. I am abandoning ship.
Ok, it may not be under $10, but CrystalTech offers a $16.95 a month plan. The allow you to point up to 25 domain names at your single hosting account. They give you 1 free SQL Server datasource as well as 2gb of diskspace and 200gb of bandwidth a month.
With their current promotion of free hosting till 2008, the price drops below $10 a month and is well worth the money…
http://crystaltech.com/summer07.aspx?uid=1905
Quote from their CF hosting page:
“Reliable and secure ColdFusion web hosting that includes Adobe Flex 2 for deploying powerful and flexible applications, CFFILE, CFDIRECTORY and CFOBJECT tags in addition to the other highly functional services found in CFMX 7″
http://crystaltech.com/cfmx.aspx
@Jeff
Thanks for the post. CrystalTech is definitely one of the more reliable hosts out there, which is why I used to host with them. The reason I stopped hosting with them, however, is that I don’t like the way they require you to write your own redirect for subdomains and require that each subdomain has its own visible subfolder off the main domain, i.e. http://www.domain.com/subdomain/. That’s not really a viable option when setting up a site for a business.
As far as the special goes, I’m trying to show hosts whose regular price ends up less than $10 a month. After the special ends, CT will be back up to $17/month (or more). It’s also unclear what ‘free hosting’ actually means. The asterisk states that you’re required to pay for 2 months service, a setup fee, and additional options, whatever that means.
I think they are basically saying you purchase a year upfront and then you get the rest of this year free. When I signed up, they offered me something like 4 months free if I purchased a year of hosting. It came out to something like $8 a month at the time. Now I am back to paying the $17 a month…
Yeah it is annoying how they handle your subdomains.
Some others:
BMC Hosting: http://www.bmchosting.com/
HostNexus: http://www.hostnexus.com/solutions/coldfusion.htm
Hosting-coldfusion: http://www.hosting-coldfusion.com/home.asp?source=1-hcf2-YYjcoEXUS8aDSvtdLbWzzJ
GearHost has CF accounts for under $10. Not all of them are at that pricepoint, but some of them are. I’ve used them for 5 years and have been VERY happy with them.
On many recommendations on CF-Talk List and easyCFM, I finally signed up with hostingatoz.com about 3 months ago to host a few of my personal sites. I would say that my exp. with them so far is okay. Server seems to be good and uptime is okay I but love the prices. $19.99/year for ColdFusion hosting. Wow!
And yeah they have only following tags and functions disabled.
TAGS: CFEXECUTE, CFREGISTRY
FUNCTIONS: GetProfileString, SetProfileString
They do allow CFFile and CFOBJECT tags!
Just thought I’d mention. Fusebox 5 will not run using GoDaddy
How long does ColdFusion have existed?I would not think that much if they are reliable & old enought.I never heard them before.
Hi Avery. ColdFusion’s been around since in 1995. If you’re interested in the history Check it out here.
Just thought I would mention http://www.ehosting.ca/plans.php as a reliable host for coldfusion development. I have a small coldspring application running on one of their plans. CreateObject() is enabled !!!
did you guys forget ucvhost.com?
$2/month and they’ve been existing like since forever. Nice support too via Yahoo messenger. They barely respond to support emails. But of course, its always cool to chat and have your problems solved as you list them out… instantly.
“you guys”?
LOL… I wish I had a team to work for me sometimes. Good tip though, Ezra. When I get around to generating another list I will definitely include them. That’s one heck of a price.
-Glenn
It’s been at least a few months back about the cf hosting companies, and it looks like most offer cf7 or below, it would be real nice to have an update on cf8 hosting.
Thks.