I switched web hosts a few days ago, and as you may have noticed, I also switched blogging engines (part of the eventual move to Expression Engine which is still very much in the works..).
One of my largest complaints about Movable Type is the amount of time it takes to rebuild your blog after publishing. I posted a screenshot that illustrates how long it took to rebuild Movable Type entries on Dreamhost’s Private Server. One of the factors that will help me decide which host I ultimately stick with is the responsiveness of the server, and whether it can actually handle the load caused by a Movable Type rebuild.
Because I’m indecisive, I signed up with two separate hosting companies: Bluefur Hosting, which is based here in the Vancouver area, and Pair Networks, an American company. I’ve had some experience with Pair before, and only left them because Dreamhost was offering a better deal at the time. All these years later I still carry a soft spot in my heart for Pair because they were the first web host I used when I registered my first domain back in 1998.
I set up Movable Type on my Bluefur account and on my Pair account, making sure to install the same themes, and plugins, and keeping an eye on settings and options. I exported entries from WordPress and imported them into each Movable Type blog. Below are the results of my very informal test.
First, Bluefur:
Next, Pair:
While I really like being able to pay in Canadian dollars, time is money, even on a very small blog like mine. I have a few more days to make up my mind. In the meantime, I’ll be going through Bluefur’s website to see if there’s a package that might give me somewhat better performance at a comparable price to what I’m paying at Pair.
Visit