Update – 6/16/2009 – Since writting this review of byte host I have found their service to be horrible. They are cheap but you get what you pay for. Go Daddy has recently updated their PHP version which now makes it a great platform again.

While searching for a PHP host I found support people and marketing information completely useless. The best way to go about it is getting a free account and immediately running phpinfo to find out what they have installed because most of the time they have no idea. It got funny reading the marketing information and then finding out that the last time they complied the PHP kernal or installed it was around the windows 95 release. I won’t name names (cough “godaddy.com” cough) but anyway back to my point.. I actually use godaddy for this site as its just html and javascript and its actually very reliable but using it for a php site with JSON and XML support was not possible.

The trouble comes when you want to get into working with AJAX and web 2.0 features. Most hosts just don’t know customers needs and have no idea how to fix issues. Many times I tried calling customer support and asking why the phpinfo page did not match the marketing page but I couldn’t find a knowledgeable person to help me troubleshoot the issue.

Luckily, I found an amazing PHP host. Here are some reasons why they fit my needs as of 10/27/2007:

• cPanel X – fully featured web hosting control panel system. With good documentation sprinkled in.
• PHP version 5.2.4 – As for specifically PHP 5.2.x – many changes were introduced from ver 5.1.0 to 5.2.0 – there’s even a migration documentation from 5.1.0 to 5.2.0 ! One of the major additions are the JSON and ZIP (using zlib). The JSON extension bridges a big gap – you can now create javascript JSON variables directly from php arrays !
• MySQL version 5.0.27-standard
• Apache version 2.2.6 (Unix) – has a whole lot more to offer than Apache 1.3. But the only thing I’m interested in is the RegExp part of mod_rewrite which offers more pattern syntax characters like ? (extends the meaning of) character.

The PHP 5 was configured to work with JSON, XML, and MySql. I didn’t have one question and all the latest php modules worked without a problem. One thing to note is the free account does not support mysql remote connections. Once you sign up for the payed plan starting at $2.99 the mysql and remote connections all come to life with all the admin page goodies! I get no refer bonus or anything. I just like to give credit where credit is due. Good job byethost. http://byethost.com/freeplans.php.

Good Luck and Happy Coding,
Jason