The sad state of shared hosting in asp.net

I'm new to asp.net and just finished writing my site. I just want to share my
experience with you guys. I'm just a hobbyist  trying to gain experience with
asp.net, and I must say that I really like programming in asp.net, it is a great
language to program in (especially in c#), but the finding a cheap hosting
solution is a nightmare. For example on my site I would like to run scheduled
tasks, I gave up as almost no hosting company offers the support. Next I wanted
to use URL rewriting, lo and behold I'm screwed again, as you need to have
direct access to IIS 6.0 to do some isapi mapping. Most of my site relies on
using an open source url rewriter module, so I am now limited to hosts that run
IIS 7.0, as it supports extensionless rewriting. I made the mistake of using a
SQL Server 2005 database, most of my site has stored procedures written in it,
and I also use specific xml related features in SQL Server 2005 like
query.modify, query.replace, etc... The vast majority of hosts out there charge
double the price for a SQL Server 2005 database with a lousy 300MB, even though
it is more then I would use, it seems like a rip off.

 The cheapest shared host that I could find that offers most of the above is $20
a month at discountasp.net... It just seems ridiculous to spend $20 a month for
shared hosting, I think you could get a VPS on a PHP hosting site for that price
and a lot more. I'll probably end up going with them after I download windows
2008 server, so I can properly test out my site, since IIS 5.1 on WinXP doesn't
cut it. I really hope asp.net shared hosting packages improve in the future,
because at the moment they don't hold a candle to PHP hosting packages. At least
install useful third party components, no one needs 20 components to email, or
stupid tree view components. If you don't know what components to add go copy a
$3 a month PHP hosting package, they usually have everything you need and
more.

I totally agree with your comments. ASP.NET hosting sucks at best and has a long
way to catch up. It seems like the hosters do not have a clue as to what is
needed to host a real world SEO friendly site. I'm in the same boat as you are
every host I talk to has some or the other limitation. This is very bad for
asp.net developers and Microsoft. With all the open source and freebies,
Hobbiests will move to PHP/MySQL...Too bad!

I really wish we could sit down and discuss this, over Espresso maybe. 

Personally...I value everything discountasp.net offers in their shared
accounts.

Having created a lot of information services on SQL Server I don't see what the
problem is with the default allotment.
As an example, the entire world's employee records for one large company is 30MB
on SQL Server.
We could hash this out forever but spend some time with SQL Server optimization
and you'll love it.

In all honesty I don't think it's reasonable to expect a host to offer
dirt-cheap prices, would be suspicious at best if they did.
By the way, most of us pay more each month for Pizza, or Internet access.

> I'm just a hobbyist  trying to gain experience with asp.net

> ... The vast majority of hosts out there charge double the price for a SQL
Server 2005 database with a lousy 300MB 

  If you are just a hobbyist trying to gain experience you do not need more than
300 MB for SQL, do you? But if you need more, there are hosting providers that
offer more at a fair price. For example, 1000 MB at $10/month at
www.dotnetpark.com

P.S. It is easy to offer cheap PHP/mySQL hosting. Web hosting provider can
install free Linux, free mySQL, free PHP. Windows hosting provider must pay for
Windows and for MS SQL. Also ASP.NET sites (and IIS pools) need more RAM.

Keep in mind that you are always free to choose not to use ASP.NET.  If costs
are a major issue, then perhaps developing LAMP apps is the way to go.  It works
for hundreds of thousands of other developers, you might look into it.

Jeff