Server Setup - From dreamhost to what?

I've been using DreamHost for a long time - mostly for blogs and such.

But now that I'm developing web apps, I think it's ti开发者_运维知识库me to switch. One reason is that DreamHost limits the number of emails I can send per hour/day. But I also don't see any startups using DreamHost, which is another sign.

What should I switch to? I haven no server experience at all besides my time with dreamhost.

I'd recommend you get a VPS with a decent hosting company.

Pay the extra for a control panel (CPanel or Plesk are the main ones usually) so you have an easy way to add services, create virtual hosts and configure dns.. will save you some time.

You'll also get root access to it so you can do anything you want after that - including breaking it.

EC2 is a good option, depending on your budget. You can get the equivalent of a dreamhost shared account, but with root, the price depending on the services you select. You can also go much, much better if you have the money. A lot of startups are starting to use it, it does make many things much easier.

There is some server work though. There are "point and click" server AMI's out there, but you will have to learn some server tasks a little beyond FTP (or SSH if you used it on dreamhost).

Good luck! I am in the process of switching from dreamhost to EC2 for most of my development. I'll still use dreamhost for a couple of things here and there, just no actual applications.