Why I love Discountasp.Net?

Always ahead of the game

Long back when I started looking for .NET 4.0 hosting, I was very surprised to see that Discountasp.net had support for it. This is way before any other hosting I knew at that time supported .NET 4.0. The same happened when I wanted hosting support for Node.js on the Windows Platform. Guess what, Discountasp.net had it. I even remember asking them a question about deployment where they helped me to an extent of fixing my web.config (which was obviously my problem not theirs). Not only the support was quick, they owned the problem, fixed it and didn't even complain that it's my problem. For $10-20 a month this was unbelievable for me and I turned a fan overnight. Don't be surprised when I tell yo that they are supporting WebSockets too.

Control

We are developers and we love control. Perhaps Discountasp.net is the only one on Microsoft platform that gives you a great amount of control. Their control panel has cool functionality - start/stop website, recycle app pool. They also support IIS Manager. Just to let you know the experience of a fellow developer - "IIS tools at Discountasp.net are easier to use than the regular IIS installed on your server". That says a lot. I love the flexibility they give you given it's a shared hosting environment. I remember how much time I save now than having to go talk to a Tech Support rep at my previous cheap hosting company :).

Database

This was the most seamless of all database options I have used in shared hosting environment. I could connect via Sql Server Management Studio and use it as I am using my real database. Compared to the previous hosting provider I used, I could chose an add-on of my choice, I was able to upgrade from Sql Server 2008 to 2012 very easily (which btw was not even an option with the previous provider. They wouldn't support 2012). They have an Attach MDF File tool that is awesome. And they support SSL encrypted SQL connections.

Staging done Right

SnappHQ.Com has a new product from Discountasp.net. Guess what, Go from Staging to Production in just one click. Yes, that's right and what's more awesome? They are actually offering it free. Till when? Not sure, however I signed up at a good time. Hope you take the advantage too :).

Some other cool features:

  • Speed

    I checked the load time of the my website from my previous hosting provider vs Discountasp.net. Discountasp.net site loaded much faster. They also let you do a Monthly data transfer of 80 Gb. Guess What? Planning to move my podcast Chander Tech Podcast

  • Isolated App Pool

    Each website is hosted in an isolated App Pool and they support full trust.

.NET Community supporters

This is probably the best reason I will chose Discountasp.net over anyone else. There are people who promise and then deliver. Discountasp.net delivers even without promise. They are always out there supporting the community, taking the feedback and then applying it really well and enhancing their products. Snapp is a great example. It came up after discussion with devs and they put in a lot of investment both time and money and created an offering for the community. We all know that Discountasp.net is one of the first ones to sponsor any user group and has offered Generous Free 6-month hosting plans to attendees. I remember distributing about 600 of those at www.DallasDayOfDotNet.com last year. I actually ran into the Discountasp.net staff at a code camp in San Diego so it was nice to catch up with them. I know they provide free hosting for .NET user groups and events so if you are organizing one, you should contact them about this.

Special Thanks

We recently launched Chander Tech Podcast. and had more than 10k downloads in just 3 days. Discountasp.net guys happened to listen to the podcast and they approached me to sponsor the podcast as they realized that the content was helpful for the community and they wanted to encourage initiatives like this. Michael Ossou of Discountasp.net also invited me to his webcast series recently and Takeshi Eto and Frank Cheung have done a great job taking the developer feedback that I've given to them over a period of time and implement it to make great products.

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