As someone whose lived on free mud hosting for a couple years, I realize the value of centralized information. I'm going to start working on a webpage where free hosts are listed, with cross-comparisons of features, realiability, ect.

Off the top of my head I know of these people offering free hosting:

Frostmud.com
amber.org.uk
isunlimited.net
zeno.biyg.org
evileyehosting.com
kaaomud.us.to
hostingunlimitedservices.com

I intend to cross-referrence them for the following features:

Name | Intial Payment? | Founded | Downtime Guarantee | UPS? | Data Backups | Rating


as well as a written review about upsides/downsides. I also am going to setup a system where the hosts can be both rated and reviewed on the site. If it goes well, my next project will be one for paid hosts.

Any suggestions for me? Anything else that should be cross referrenced? I added the initial payment to it because frostmud is too good to be disqualified for having a $5 setup fee.

Any and all Suggestions are appreciated.

How about speed/lag? I'd like to know if my server is laggy at all, hopefully not. :P

As for making a webpage for this, why not just have it as an article on here? :)

[EDIT] Quota size too.

I think it'd be a pretty interesting comparison, but I agree with Zeno, why not just make it an article here rather than yet another site for us all to bookmark?
Are you also looking at non-public free hosts? I ask because I'm hosting Zeno's SBI and Remcon/Shira's LoP currently and have hosted others before too, all for free, but I don't offer free hosting to others generally, it's more a word of mouth thing, but I'd certainly be interested to see if my server is laggy or how it compares to other free hosts..

I thought about that, actually, but it doesn't really allow for as much. I could post information here in articles and I'm sure it would be helpful, but with a seperate website I can allow users to review and rate the hosts, make comments, ect.

As for speed/lag. I'm sure I could find people in different locations to ping each of them like 10 times and I could average them and list according to location. Can you think of any other kind of test I could do?

Easy tests could be just to sign on a MUD I suppose. Sign on a few MUDs hosted by the host, to make sure one MUD isn't lagging.

Or ask them to do a speedtest, I have my speed stats up.

I've got my speedtests posted too, but I'd be more curious to see what outsiders find trying to hit my server.. I'm not sure how accurate logging onto some of the muds hosted by that site would really be though. *shrug*

Brinson, you didn't answer my other question though..

I suppose that would depend on the nature of the hosting. As long as the host is "accepting users" on some level I see no problem in listing them, could call them "By Application Only" or something and put it on the checklist.

That'd work for me. :smile:
My deal is that I'm still doing it for free at this point for friends and friends of friends because I don't feel that I'm up to par for doing it commercially yet, with emphasis on yet. :wink:

I can ping any of them as needed. but also you missed one of the better free hosting sites in my opinion. slayn.net

Some of you may already be aware of divineright.org but I didn't see it in the thread so I decided to post. They ask for an intial donation of an unspecified amount, so it's not actually free. I have applied for the free/$5 package with each of the following:

frostmud.com
divineright.org
evileyehosting.com
isunlimited.net
hostingunlimitedservices.com

I also plan to apply to zeno for some space when I have been here for one week. It will be interesting to see who responds first. I did not apply to amber or slayn because they seem to want more experienced admins who have an ETA for public opening. However, several of those listed above do enourage newbie admins to apply.

My free hosting service is at moocowpenguin.net, I'd be pretty curious how my speed tests and such compare to the other free MUD hosts out there.

Thanks for the post. I've applied to you as well. Cheers.

Before selecting your first host, you might consider some of the experiences I've gathered over the years: Hosting Alternatives.

I got the first response (out of 6 applications) 2 hours ago. It was from Scion at divineright.org. The donation amount he asked for in the email (site simply says one-time donation required) was $20. Does this seem reasonable?

Standard linux shell account
Disk space on mirrored RAID-1 array (for web site, MUD, or other file storage)
Reserved port for your MUD
Subdomain: yourmud.divineright.org on request
Email address: youraccount@divineright.org
POP3S, IMAPS, shell, and HTTPS access to your email
Access to Java, C, C++, Perl, Python, PHP and other languages via SSH
MySQL database upon request
MailMan mailing list upon request

I have responded asking about space, bandwidth and also for the connect info for some muds currently being hosted there.

No amount is "reasonable" if it's a free MUD host. And $20 is far from it.

I think that if you were voluntarily offering a donation to help offset the costs of maintaining an otherwise free host that you've been very happy with for some time, $20 is indeed a very reasonable, and generous, gesture, but as Zeno rightly points out, for a free host, no amount is reasonable as a fee, one-time or otherwise.

Frost MUD is probably one of the worst host I have ever gone with. He had his server up and running, then once it went down he strated charging absurd amounts for his hosting.

Thanks for the tip TZ. I am pleased to announce I have received my first ever FreeHosting package from moocowpenguin creations about 8 hours ago. Thanks Jon. I'm hoping to get the code running after work today. I'll keep you posted on my experience with the new host and also let you know if/how any of the other 4 hosts respond to my applications. Cheers.

-Ryanicus

TaylorZell: So, are you saying that you're only complaint with Frost is his pricing?

Ryanicus: Gratz on getting approved for that free hosting through Moo Cow Penguin, you were only three more days from being approvable under Zeno too. *shrug*

Uhh…a $5 setup is abserd?
..
If you're talking about his paid hosting, well, its not -the- cheapest but $6, $11 and $15 is hardly abserd…