Hero Zzyzzx has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Monks,
I've been doing a bit of research into shared mod_perl web hosting. Unfortunately, mod_perl shared hosting seems like a pretty low demand item, meaning few companies advertise it, if they do it at all. I also don't want to spend time learning PHP when I can do it with perl.

I'm developing a site for my brother's collectible coin business, and I'm now looking for the best mod_perl shared host out there. If things take off, we'll consider moving to a dedicated server, but we're not there yet, financially.

Do any of you have experience with any particular mod_perl host, and if so, what was it?

Most of the host review sites suck, because I don't trust "objective" reviews on a site that relies on ads from the companies they review for their existence.

I have a few companies in mind, roughly in order:

  1. Kattare.com- seems like a small shop, but thier prices are good and they've been very responsive and knowledgeable
  2. HostPro- Good packages and prices, but many, many people hate them.
  3. Superb Internet- Some good reviews, good packages, but I don't know if I trust them, and they aren't responsive to my questions.

I wouldn't ask this of the Monestary, except that I feel this is perl-specific, and current resources on it are woefully inadequate.

Thanks for anything!

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: mod_perl shared hosting
by rucker (Scribe) on May 22, 2001 at 22:25 UTC
    You're probably not finding anything because using mod_perl in a shared environment is not safe. E.g. namespace pollution

      One reason I like Kattare is that they'll let you run your own httpd processes on a different port, avoiding the namespace pollution problem, and then proxy to the port to translate it to port 80.

      So, yes, I am aware of the security implications, but there appears to be ways around it.

        It sounds like you're looking more for a web hosting company that allows you to run your own servers. IMHO, this totally breaks the purpose of using mod_perl. I can just imagine how the machines perform with N users running their own apache servers. Why don't you go with straight perl and find a web host that has perl and CGI + suexec?