I need help!

[SDragon]

Okay, so maybe the title of this thread is profoundly lucid, but this isn't about what that might suggest.


I'm trying to start my own webcomic. I have most of the technical details worked out, and have decided that I'm going to use Drupal as my CMS, for a number of reasons. My biggest problem at this point is looking for a free hosting service, preferably with the option of registering a domain (I'm willing to consider prices for that). If necessary, I might be willing to advance to a better, paid service, but not until I see how well the comic takes off, and I don't want to count my eggs quite yet.

I've already sent an email off to Comic Genesis asking if they would support Drupal, and that's my first choice if they give me a yes. If they don't, I'm not entirely sure where to turn. The other free hosting sites I've seen don't look ideal if I want to keep an archive for very long.

Does anyone know of any good sites? Are there any suggestions? All help is appreciated!

-edit:

Here's the list of hosts I've found so far:

Webcomic-specific[/u]

Comic Genesis
Drunk Duck
Smack Jeeves


General[/u]

AwardSpace
BryanSoft
Host Helpers
x10 Hosting

[Nomadic]

I might suggest giving drunk duck a try. If the comic takes off you will want a paid version but until then drunk duck is pretty good for doing what you want. Free hosts almost never let you use php (which drupal is so no php no drupal). Drunk duck takes care of that issue. If it does take off I might suggest lunarpages as a paid host with their basic account option. You can get 2 years for the equivalent of about $2 a month (just put comeback50 into the promo code field... after the 2 years its about $4 a month plus the $20 or so to keep the domain so not all that bad).

[SDragon]

I'll be sure to check them out. I'll probably send them roughly the same email that I sent to Comic Genesis. Most of the services I've found that weren't comic-oriented did support PHP, but disk size was a bit of an issue, since I'd be keeping archives as well. The two main ones I found were Awardspace and Oxyhost . The latter looks like it offers better free services, while the former has the option of paid hosting; even it's cheapest paid plan looks better.

I'm going to wait to see what other people chime in first, though. I don't want to rush this decision.

[Elemental_Elf]

I like the latter's pitch but I really want to see a site built with their tech.

[Nomadic]

The drawback for the latter one is that they have php safe mode enabled (which will destroy your ability to use drupal). Of course you can get that turned off by posting 100 quality posts on their forums.

[SDragon]

The former doesn't use cron for it's free hosting, which turned out to be the problem I was having with scheduling. If the latter site doesn't have cron either, then my best option between those two sites would be paid hosting.

I got one of my books today, and it suggests a few hosts for webcomics. Drunk Duck and Comic Genesis were both mentioned, along with a couple others. It also had a list of CMSs that can be used; yes, Drupal was on the list, but the review made it sound more iffy than my experiences seem. Also, I found out the reason I wasn't able to use Autokeen Lite for a CMS is because it's in Perl, not PHP.

[SDragon]

I'm probably going to start with a host optimized for webcomics, like Drunk Duck or Comic Genesis, at very least until I can afford paid hosting. I still want to look into free hosting for some of my other projects though, so here are some other options I'm looking at:

 Host Helpers
 x10 Hosting
 Host Aider
 Free Hostin


I'll edit my prior post to include the names of the hosting sites in just a moment, and maybe even add all these options to the first post. Which looks the best?

[SDragon]

turns out Host Aider is out; they suffer from severe downtime. However, one guy on their forums suggested BryanSoft, and that looks pretty decent so far.


I'm going to go edit the first post and put up all the options so far, for convenience.

[SDragon]

Major bump. I may or may not start that webcomic after all, but I would still be interested in advice on a free host. BryanSoft looks like the best so far, but I can't get to the registration page, which is... odd, if nothing else.

Also, it looks like OxyHost isn't around anymore, so I took that one off the list. If anyone has any recommendations, please feel free to let me know! :)

Edit-- It looks like FreeHostin and HostAider aren't up anymore, either. Hm...