From time to time we receive e-mails from CFDJ readers, sent by beginners and advanced developers alike, asking us what we think about a particular hosting company or seeking our opinion as to what a "first-time" developer should be looking for in terms of offered features and pricing, who's the best, who's the cheapest and so on.

At this time there's no one specific company out there that we endorse. From my personal experience and from talking to some of our editors, I can say that there are a number of good ones out there — and a corresponding number of bad ones who'll rip you off on the price, bleed you dry for any additional hosting options, offer little or no support and be down as often as they're up.

There are just far too many hosting companies out there for you to look at them all without the risk of overlooking someone. But thanks to SYS-CON, help is on the way.

A convenient place to start is the ColdFusion Buyer's Guide and you can find this at www.sys-con.com/cold-fusion/BuyersGuide/ or by clicking through CFDJ's Web site at www.sys-con.com/coldfusion. The Buyer's Guide is a free resource that companies can list themselves in. It's subdivided into listings for 12 key categories and each entry contains both a brief description of the product/services offered and — most important — a link to the Web site of the company concerned.

We currently list a good bunch of hosting companies and more are adding themselves every day, which makes it an ideal place to start looking since it offers you a good overview of the industry. Also, as a quick plug for any hosting companies that might be reading this, listing your product takes less than a minute and can be done at any time.

So let's imagine that you've been to the site, have read a bunch of descriptions, checked out various companies' Web sites, printed out long lists of features and looked at the bottom line and highlighted all of the prices....

Whew, possibly after going through all that you took two aspirin and decided to take a quick nap. But where do you go next? Just how good are these companies?

Well, the next place that you should head over to is the CFDJ Readers Choice Awards located at http://www.sys-con.com/coldfusion/article.cfm?id=274. Voting is possible right up until just a few weeks before the Allaire Conference in November and there are live stats available on the Web site, presenting the most important opinions of all: those of our subscribers, the people who are actually using the various hosting companies.

By now you should have your list narrowed down to just a few choices based on your budget, the features offered and, of course, your own particular needs. But you still may have further questions. With sometimes-pricey startup fees, many discounts for long-term contracts, and the hassle and possible downtime of having to switch companies later on, you really want to make the best choice here and now.

For specific questions, the ColdFusion Forums represent another good resource that we offer — it's where writers and readers come together in a community well able to answer your questions. So if you want to know (for example) whether www.BestCFHostingEver.com really is as good as it seems, or if you have nagging reservations about how fast they are so far as support is concerned, then come post your question. Most likely you'll receive several answers.

The flip side to this whole discussion is to consider doing the hosting yourself, which is something that I'll be taking a look at next month, and weighing the pros and cons. Stay tuned!