Drupal Hosting Review: AN Hosting

You're probably here because you're looking for a good Drupal host. Maybe you've already read some reviews, or looked at a few "top 10" lists. You probably noticed most of them weren't written by someone actually using Drupal.

Sadly, most of the Drupal hosting reviews out there are fakes written by hosting company employees, either to brag about themselves, or to trash their competitors.

It's hard to know who to trust. My best advice is to do your research, and know who you're dealing with. With that in mind, allow me to introduce myself:

My name is John Forsythe, I'm the creator of DrupalModules.com, the most popular independent Drupal community ever built. I've been building sites with Drupal since 2006, and I'm a member of the Drupal Association. I also do technical reviewing for Packt Publishing, the premier publisher of Drupal books.

I make my living designing Drupal sites, and this site is my primary sales vehicle. So, who do I trust to host it? After several bad experiences with slow, unreliable hosting, I finally found the perfect fit with a company called AN Hosting.

I've been hosting my Drupal sites with AN Hosting for over a year now, and in my opinion they're the best Drupal host available. In this review, I'll explain why I chose AN Hosting as my Drupal hosting service, and give you a few examples of why I'm still using them more than a year later.

Why I Use AN Hosting For My Drupal Sites

Drupal makes a lot of database queries. In fact, database response time is the number one factor affecting the speed of your Drupal site. The longer it takes for your MySQL server to respond, the slower your pages are going to load. If you want fast Drupal hosting, you need fast database access.

Many hosting companies will put your database on slow, overloaded servers in order to save money. I won't name any names, but if you've been burned before, you know who I'm talking about. If it takes 10+ seconds just to load the Drupal admin page, it's time to change hosts.

The graph you see above is an actual real-life comparison of how this site ran on my previous host, and how it runs now. It turns out my site loads 23 times faster with AN Hosting. That's how important it is to get a host with fast database servers.

Download speeds are quick, too. File transfers max out my connection at over 900KB/s (Update: I have a 10mbit connection at home now, and downloads still max it out at over 1200KB/s!). It really is the fastest Drupal hosting I've tried. Try loading a few pages on this site, if you want to test it yourself.

Finally, A Reliable Drupal Hosting Service

With the rise of social media sites like Digg and Reddit, traffic tends to come in big spikes that can overload a low-quality server in minutes. It's important to find a host that won't pull the plug on your big day.

Recently, one of my articles was featured on the front page of Reddit. My site was instantly flooded with thousands of new visitors, but AN Hosting just kept going, the page didn't even slow down! If that's the kind of performance you need, AN Hosting is where you want to be.

AN Hosting is located in Chicago, Illinois, and they've been in business since 2001, so you don't have to worry about them disappearing overnight. They have a toll-free support line you can call 24/7, and a 30 day money back guarantee. If it's not the best Drupal hosting service you've ever used, you get your money back.

Pricing And Performance

Aside from the great service, the price is nice, too. For $6.95 a month, you get 500 GB of storage and 5 TB of transfer, which is more than enough for most Drupal sites.

Furthermore, they don't have any hidden SQL query limits, or other sneaky catches you'll find in the "usage agreements" of some other popular hosts.

Frequently Asked Questions

To conclude this review, I'll cover a few specific questions I often get:

1. Do Clean URLs work with AN Hosting?

Yes, there is full support for Clean URLs, and they work right out of the box with the default Drupal settings.

2. Does Drupal's multi-site feature work on AN Hosting?

Yes, I've set it up and tested it myself, and it works well.

3. Does AN Hosting support PHP5?

Yes, as of this writing they're using PHP 5.2.

4. Are there any discounts available?

For a limited time, you can get 3 months free. Just enter coupon code "ANother3" when you sign up.

4. I have another question, how do I contact you?

I'd be glad to help you out, here's my email address: