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DAP Certified Web Hosts

Last updated: 12/01/2019

DAP works off-the-shelf on almost all web hosts.

But as in any industry, some hosts are just outdated, some run old and outdated software, or do not offer a choice to upgrade to the latest server software (like a recent version of PHP or MySQL). Some are just not helpful at all. And some just don’t have a clue!

So, if you had the choice of picking a new web host, then here are the web hosts we use ourselves, and highly recommend, and they have everything readily available that DAP needs to run smoothly.

Recommended Web Hosts

1) LiquidWeb

2) SiteGround

 

 VPS Hosting

If keeping your site(s) running almost all the time, and having insanely great support from your web host, are both important to you, then you should go with a VPS server from LiquidWeb or SiteGround. For about $50 a month, you can get yourself a great server, with terrific up-time and support. And did we say support is crazy good?

Shared Hosting

If you can’t afford the $50 a month for a VPS server, or don’t (yet) see the value of high site availability and great support, then the next best option is shared hosting, where you share a server with other business owners. Not all shared hosts are made equal. And that’s why we still recommend Siteground as our #1 choice for shared hosting as well.

Managed WordPress Hosting

DAP also works on “Managed WordPress Hosting” accounts like nexcess.net, etc. You’ll have to work with the hosting team to help you setup DAP hourly cron.

But DAP does not work with WP Engine as it does not support “PHP Sessions”. If you want to use a Managed WP hosting platform, be sure to check if they support PHP session.

Hosts Not Recommended

DAP works fine on all of the following web hosts – unless we specifically mention that it won’t.

But just because DAP works fine on these hosts, doesn’t mean their service or support is good enough for the long term.

So if you are already hosting with one of these hosts below, then you already know how well they work (or don’t), but if you’re happy with them, then there’s no further issue.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is great for registering your domain names. For hosting? Not so much.

We do have a large number of DAP users who use Godaddy for hosting, and they all either totally love it, or hate it. More hate it than love it. No middle ground.

We’ve ourselves have witnessed many issues with some GoDaddy-hosted sites. Their email systems don’t always work consistently on all servers. It works great for some, while some of our other users have reported that even simple admin notification emails from DAP don’t get sent correctly. To compound the issue, Godaddy queues up even real-time emails on their end, and only send them out as batches. Which means even instant “Thank You” emails sent to your buyers with their membership login info, may not get sent for a couple of hours, even though DAP has actually sent them out, but are being intercepted and put on a queue by Godaddy to be sent out “later” in a “batch”.

And then there are the random blank pages and “internal server errors” (500 error). If you search Google for “Godaddy internal server error”, you will see enough folks to form a small nation, complaining about it. And most them aren’t even using DAP (we wish!).

1and1.com

These guys are still stuck in the 90’s, and provide you with some really primitive admin tools.

For instance, the process for setting up a cron job on 99.99% of the other hosts takes about 2 minutes, because it’s point-and-click-and-type. On 1and1, if you see the tutorial they’ve provided ( http://faq.1and1.com/scripting_languages_supported/cron_jobs/3.html ), they’ve made it very complicated, that it would take us too much time just to setup a simple cron job!

And spending 20 minutes for something that normally takes 2 minutes on other hosts, is simply not worth our time. So if you’re on 1and1, we won’t be able to set up cron jobs for you for free. We would have to charge you to set it up for you, so just be aware of that.

And for some reason, their servers always seem to give us a lot of grief with installation & support. So we do not recommend them.

Windows-based hosts

Make sure your server is running some for of Unix (Linux/BSD/etc). DAP and WickedCoolPlugins.com plugins do not work well on Windows-hosted servers. Please see this post for more details.

What Does It Mean If Your Host Is Not Listed Here?

If your host is not shown here, then don’t worry – it doesn’t necessarily mean that DAP won’t work on your host. DAP works well on most hosting platforms.

We just recommend that we use ourselves or have done countless installations on, for our DAP users, and highly recommend (or recommend against, in some cases) if you have the option of picking a new web host.

This is exactly why we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee when you purchase DAP – so that you can make sure DAP can run on your current web site, and also help you decide if DAP will work for you.

So there’s no risk to you, regardless of who you are hosting with.

Disclaimer: We only recommend products and services that we absolutely love and believe in. When recommending such third-party products or services, we may sometimes use affiliate links, which means if you go on to purchase the product or service recommended, we may earn a commission from those purchases.
Click Here to Leave a Comment Below 47 comments
Anna - November 25, 2009

I use BlueHost. What has been your experience with this hosting company?

Anna

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Ravi Jayagopal - November 25, 2009

Anna,

Yes, DAP works fine with BlueHost.

– Ravi

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Steve - November 29, 2009

Hi Ravi,

What do you think of Dreamhost?
I see the link points to another host. Any opinions on MediaTemple?

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Ravi Jayagopal - November 29, 2009

Steve,

Sorry about that. See now. Link is fixed.

I’ve heard good things about MediaTemple, but have no personal experience (either myself or through any of my clients/DAP users).

– Ravi

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Bob Jenkins - December 5, 2009

Hey Ravi, just to let you know I moved my DAP site away from GVO/Kiosk and onto a VPS with http://ServintHosting.com

Been very smooth so far, although they did need to enable PDO the first time.

Bob

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Josh Stinson - December 16, 2009

A note about bluehost – they don’t allow users to send email through any ports, so using DAP’s SMTP option will be difficult.

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Dave - February 6, 2010

I had a problem with bluehost. DAP worked fine but one of the updates made it unworkable. Does it work now? I’ve still got it on the website but I do not have it activated on wordpress

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Ken Goods - February 13, 2010

Is anyone using DAP successfully on HostGator’s servers?

TIA!

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Ravi Jayagopal - February 13, 2010

Dave, we don’t know what changes bluehost made on your server. So unable to comment if DAP will work now on your servers. But if you had an issue with a specific version of DAP, then just download the latest one from your member’s area, and upload it.

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Ravi Jayagopal - February 13, 2010

Ken, lots are using HostGator (HG). We are using HG for one of our own membership sites, plus almost ALL of our “Membership Site In A Box” sites for our clients have been setup on HG.

– Ravi Jayagopal

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Brad - February 21, 2010

Ravi,

Does DAP get around the following HostGator Email list limits? Dream Host doesn’t have the same limitations, and it seems it would be easy to have more than 50 Products (and hence Email List). Thanks.

Hatching: 20 Lists Max
Baby : 25 Lists Max
Business: 50 Lists Max

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Ravi Jayagopal - February 22, 2010

Brad,

Are you asking about email list “size”? Then none of the host really have a size limitation.

What they do impose is an hourly “Email Sending” limitation. You can only send X emails per hour.

For that, DAP does have in-built email scheduling. You can set the hourly limit on out going emails, on the “SMTP” screen. That way you stay under your host’s hourly-email-sending limit.

– Ravi

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Brad - February 22, 2010

Ravi,

No, I was asking about the number of email lists we are allowed to maintain. HostGator has the limits I posted above. I think you may be getting around these limits by keeping the DAP email lists in a database, but I wanted to be sure. Thanks again.

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Ravi Jayagopal - February 22, 2010

Brad,

DAP doesn’t use your web host’s list. All DAP user information is stored in DAP’s own database.

So what you are asking about is not an issue.

– Ravi

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Michael E Samuels - February 27, 2010

Is this option (Digital Access Pass) suitable for a paid subscription newsletter?

Does REGISTER.COM support DAP?

Any experience with VISTAPRINT websites?

Does DAP have a payment feature? Password Protection?

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Ravi Jayagopal - March 4, 2010

Michael,

Yes, DAP is suitable for a paid subscription newsletter. Does Register.com offer web hosting services too? I thought they were just a domain name registrar. Vistaprint just prints cards as far as I know, so have no idea if they offer web hosting. DAP does have a payment feature and can password-protect content. Please see http://DigitalAccessPass.com/features.php

– Ravi Jayagopal

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Christina - April 14, 2010

Just wanted to let everyone know that FatCow has PDO enabled so DAP will work on their servers.

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Minimum Requirements To Run DAP — DAP Documentation - May 7, 2010

[…] Check with your web host. If they can’t help, then here are a couple of recommended, DAP-Certified web hosts. […]

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Kenny Salter - June 19, 2010

I am interested in using WPCDN to host my dap site. They are running lightspeed server instead of apache Can dap run on lightspeed server?

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DAP-Supported Shopping Carts — DAP Documentation - August 19, 2010

[…] But 1ShoppingCart order processing works great with all other hosts. […]

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Your Host Does Not Support Cron Jobs — DAP Documentation - October 9, 2010

[…] Short answer: Fire them and get a better host. […]

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DAP vs Aweber — DAP Documentation - December 8, 2010

[…] if you can't afford even that, then simply use DAP on a decent web host. We ourselves use just DAP and AuthSMTP.com to send out emails to all of our users. DAP also has […]

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Thom Quinn - November 27, 2011

Any known issues with DAP and hosting with zippykid.com?

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Joe - January 11, 2012

I’m thinking about getting the Bluehost Pro for $19.95 a month. Have you had any experience with that one Ravi? Does the extra $10 really improve the performance?

Thanks!

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Ravi Jayagopal - January 12, 2012

Joe,

Looks like the “BlueHost Pro” comes with a free dedicated IP, free SSL and “increased” memory and CPU usage (though they don’t say how much more it really is). But for just $10 more per month, rather than a $30-$50 per month VPS server, it’s still a pretty decent deal. But remember that you’ll still be on a shared server.

If you have multiple web sites that are beginning to get popular and get more traffic, then the best way to go is a VPS server from Liquid Web, which is what we use and highly recommend.

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Ravi Jayagopal - January 12, 2012

No known issues. As long as they allow you to install your own plugins, setup cron, and meet the minimum requirements of DAP, there should be no issues.

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Joe - January 13, 2012

I appreciate the feedback. I decided to start off with Hostgator (using your link above 🙂 ) If I need more power later I can always upgrade to Liquidweb.

So far I’m impressed with Hostgator. Pages load faster than other webhosts I have used.

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Mitch - March 15, 2012

Media Temple works well, but we’re looking into wpengine.com for better wordpress specific support.

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Paul Aaron Travis - May 20, 2012

PS. Let us know how you like WPengine.com, it just looks terribly expensive ($29/mo to host ONE domain name).

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Laura Fuentes - July 9, 2012

I am thinking of going to WPengine as a host. does it support DAP? -thanks

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Veena Prashanth - July 10, 2012

>>I am thinking of going to WPengine as a host. does it support DAP? << Few users that used it had issues with content protection, .htaccess redirects, cron etc. So I dont think there are DAP users that have used WPEngine successfully.

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Laura - July 10, 2012

Thank you so much! I will use liquidweb as you suggested. They were very informative and nice. For $60mo they give me my own dedicated server plus support. Can’t beat that.

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Laura Fuentes - July 15, 2012

Do you have someone you recommend to migrate? and do you recommend rackspace?

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Bridget - March 12, 2013

Hi, just wondering whether DAP works fine with Justhost

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Ravi Jayagopal - March 13, 2013

We haven’t heard of any issues with justhost, so we suppose it should work fine.

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Tom - June 28, 2013

I am a WordPress and DAP newbie, and was very interested to learn in the process of setting up DAP about using DAP with AWS SES for email to have full control over my email.

Unfortunately I selected my hosting service (HostMonster) and paid a year in advance before I purchased DAP. This evening I was distressed to learn from HostMonster support that they do not support SMTP relay email installations, so the AWS SES solution is out, unless I switch host providers.

Ugggghhhhh!
Not only an expensive lesson, but time consuming and frustrating.

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Linda Bowen - March 14, 2014

Any issues with Greengeeks or Siteground?

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Veena Prashanth - March 14, 2014

Hi Linda,

>>Any issues with Greengeeks or Siteground? << No known issues. Please make sure they meet the following minimum requirements: http://www.digitalaccesspass.com/doc/minimum-requirements-to-run-dap/

Thanks,
Veena

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Darwin - October 27, 2014

Went from GoDaddy (issues with mail) to Bluehost (issues with availability – dead in the afternoon) to hostGator. Holding my breath.
But, I must say that HG is more responsive and easier to deal with so far. They even suggested some changes out of the box that would make life easier.
We started with the “Business Shared” version there. – $15/mo.

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Daisy Peel - November 21, 2014

Are you still recommending HostGator and LiquidWeb as hosting solutions? Heard HG was suffering some widespread outages recently?

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Veena Prashanth - November 21, 2014

Hi Daisy,

>>Are you still recommending HostGator and LiquidWeb as hosting solutions? Heard HG was suffering some widespread outages recently?<< LiquidWeb is at the top of our list. They are really good with tech support. Not sure what is causing HG issues but DAP works well on HG servers. Hopefully they will figure it out soon. Thanks, Veena

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Steve Dimmick - January 18, 2015

SiteGround supports DAP and they have their own SuperCacher system which is custom built for improving WordPress performance.

In addition they have their optional WordPress Booster which improves performance even more and allows you to control which pages are cached and which are not – perfect for hosting membership sites.

BTW, I have verified the DAP requirements list with SiteGround – they support all required items 100%.

I have previously hosted with many, many other hosting companies. SiteGround service and their support is the best yet – better than Hostgator, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, Bluehost and many others.

I am on one of their Cloud hosting packages.

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Sha - November 12, 2015

Hi, what is your experience with Hostmonster? Thanks!

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Veena Prashanth - November 12, 2015

Hi Sha,

We are not aware of any known issues with Hostmonster. It works fine with DAP.

Please make sure they support the minimum requirements to run DAP:

http://www.digitalaccesspass.com/doc/minimum-requirements-to-run-dap/

Thanks,
Veena

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David Esiat - November 11, 2019

I use Ipage. Does it work?

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Veena Prashanth - November 11, 2019

Hi David,

It used to work and we had customers that used ipage but we’ve not tested DAP with ipage in a long time. So not sure if it will work.

I would recommend moving to LiquidWeb or Siteground. Both work well with DAP and offer great tech support.
-Veena

-Veena

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