asp.net core hosting – ASP.NET Hosting Reviews and Guides

How to Fix 404 Error ASP.NET Core

Jacques Hunt — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 04:13:22 +0000

I have checked that some users experience this error 404 when deploying ASP.NET Core applications and I decide to write this tutorial. I hope it will fix the issue.

Fix 404 Error ASP.NET Core

I found 2 ways to handle 404 error. In fact using these solution you can handle any HTTP status code errors. To handle the error, both the solution are using configure() method of Startup.cs class. For those who are not aware about Startup.cs, it is entry point for application itself.

Solution 1

Now coming back to our solution 1, within configure method define a custom middleware via app.Use which checks for status code value in response object. And if is 404 then it redirects to Home controller. See highlighted code.

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
{
    loggerFactory.AddConsole(Configuration.GetSection("Logging"));
    loggerFactory.AddDebug();

    app.UseApplicationInsightsRequestTelemetry();
    app.Use(async (context, next) =>
    {
        await next();
        if (context.Response.StatusCode == 404)
        {
            context.Request.Path = "/Home"; 
            await next();
        }
    });

    app.UseIISPlatformHandler(options => options.AuthenticationDescriptions.Clear());
    app.UseApplicationInsightsExceptionTelemetry();
    app.UseStaticFiles();
    app.UseIdentity();
    // To configure external authentication please see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=532715
    app.UseMvc(routes =>
    {
        routes.MapRoute(
            name: "default",
            template: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
    });
}

Solution 2

The other solution is to use a built-in middlware StatusCodePagesMiddleware. This middleware can be used to handle the response status code is between 400 and 600. This middleware allows to return a generic error response or allows you to also redirect to any controller action or another middleware. See below all different variations of this middleware.

app.UseStatusCodePages();

// app.UseStatusCodePages(context => context.HttpContext.Response.SendAsync("Handler, status code: " + context.HttpContext.Response.StatusCode, "text/plain"));
// app.UseStatusCodePages("text/plain", "Response, status code: {0}");
// app.UseStatusCodePagesWithRedirects("~/errors/{0}"); // PathBase relative
// app.UseStatusCodePagesWithRedirects("~/errors/{0}"); // PathBase relative
// app.UseStatusCodePagesWithRedirects("/base/errors/{0}"); // Absolute
// app.UseStatusCodePages(builder => builder.UseWelcomePage());
// app.UseStatusCodePagesWithReExecute("/errors/{0}");

Now to handle the 404 error, we shall use app.UseStatusCodePagesWithReExecute which accepts a path where you wish to redirect.

app.UseStatusCodePagesWithReExecute("/Home/Errors/{0}");

So we are redirecting here to Home Controller and Errors action method.

public IActionResult Errors(string errCode)
{
    ViewData["ErrorID"] = "The following error " + errCode + " occured";
    return View("~/Views/Shared/Error.cshtml");
}

The {0} is nothing but the HTTP status error code. Below is the implementation of Errors action method.It adds the status code in ViewData and then returns to Error.cshtml shared view. You can also return to specific error page based on the error code.

public IActionResult Errors(string errCode) 
{
    if (errCode == "500" | errCode == "404") 
    {
      return View($"~/Views/Home/Error/{errCode}.cshtml"); 
    }

    return View("~/Views/Shared/Error.cshtml"); 
}

Conclusion

So, if the error code is 500 or 404 then return to Home/Error/500.cshtml or 404.cshtml.

You must have seen on many websites, forums about app.UseErrorPage(); to handle the errors. But this is no longer available with RC1 release of ASP.NET Core 1.0. This was available until beta 5 or 6.

HostForLIFEASP.NET vs TMDHosting – ASP.NET Core Hosting Secret Revealed

Jacques Hunt — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 07:10:37 +0000

In this review, we will compare both hosting providers that offer ASP.NET Core hosting. Let’s get started

About Company

Founded in 2007, HostForLIFEASP.NET become one of the largest ASP.NET hosting in Europe. HostForLIFEASP.NET is awarded as No #1 Microsoft Recommended Windows ASP.NET Core hosting provider. HostForLIFEASP.NET serve many clients around the world. They specialize in Windows ASP.NET Core hosting. This provider offer wide range of ASP.NET Core hosting services; shared hosting, cloud hosting, reseller hosting, dedicated server. In addition, they also offer domain registration and SSL as well.

TMD Hosting is one of favourite ASP.NET hosting, they have been in web hosting for years, they have built an outstanding infrastructure. All their data centers are certified under the SSAE-16 standard that guarantees their high levels of operation. Raised floors, climate control, 24/7 biometric security, fire suppression systems, water detection systems, UPS & generators are some of the things that make the home of your website as secure as possible.

HostForLIFEASP.NET vs TMDHosting ASP.NET Core Hosting Performance

HostForLIFEASP.NET sites are hosted in Intel Xeon Quad Core servers at UK in their data centers at London. The data centers are well equipped and connects to 10 backbone providers. TMDHosting as explained above, they have good infrastructure and all their data centers are certified under the SSAE-16 standard and they have good security system.

We talked about the hardware of their servers. Now we’ll see how it performs.

Speed Test

Speed is an important factor to consider before choosing a web host. So we purchased two domain names and hosted each one on both HostForLIFEASP.NET and TMDHosting with same theme files. I used LoadImpact to check the loading time of two test sites.

HostForLIFEASP.NET loaded in 1.12 seconds to load which is a good speed. TMDHosting was slower taking around 1.92 seconds. HostForLIFEASP.NET test site was almost twice faster than TMDHosting.

Response time of sites hosted on HostForLIFEASP.NET

Maximum Response Time: 2.0 seconds

Minimum Response Time: 253.09 milliseconds

HostForLIFEASP.NET’s server performance seems to be solid, healthy and consistent.

Response time of sites hosted on TMDHosting

Max Response Time: 2.7 seconds

Minimum Response Time: 312.09 milliseconds

TMDHosting started at an excellent server response time of 155ms, but once the traffic passed 25, it started slowing down heavily. The server become completely unresponsive and the rejection list was very high. Moreover, the final result has high number of failed attempt. TMDHosting fared well for lower traffic and completely fell apart once the traffic hit 26 mark.

From the above results, we know that HostForLIFEASP.NET is clearly the winner for speed. You can trust your ASP.NET Core website with HostForLIFEASP.NET if you need fast speed performance.

Their ASP.NET Hosting Core Pricing Scheme

HostForLIFEASP.NET offers 4 basic shared ASP.NET Core shared web hosting packages so that customers can choose the most proper one according to their current budget and needs, which are named Classic, Budget, Economy, and Business. Their shared hosting plan priced at €3.49/mo, €5.50/mo, €8.00/mo and €11.00/mo. However, now, thanks to the compelling discount the company offers, the effective price of the plans is lowered to €2.97/mo, €4.67/mo, €6.80/mo and €9.34/mo.

For TMDHosting, the price of its fundamental arrangement is set at $ 3.99/mo. By correlation, it appears that HostForLIFEASP.NET is more reasonable than TMDHosting, yet there are a few confinements if clients mean to recover their cash.

Control Panel for ASP.NET Core Hosting

Both HostForLIFEASP.NET and TMDHosting uses Plesk panel for their ASP.NET, the most used control panel. You don’t need the help of a geek to use it. It provides everything you need. It is important to have a user friendly interface and these one-click script installers are a boon to all newbies who do not have much experience with these platforms.

You can find Plesk demo on google and this is one of the best control panel for ASP.NET Core hosting. Most of ASP.NET Core hosting provider use this control panel.

Server Reliability? Any Downtime?

Besides price and features, we believe this is the most important thing to select ASP.NET Core hosting provider. How is their reliability? How is their speed? Just imagine, you get cheap ASP.NET Core hosting plan, but your site down almost everyday. We believe it will impact to your business. This is why we said that this is the most important thing if you are serious in online business. Your uptime and speed are number one.

Uptime is the measure of how well the web host fits the “reliably” part of performance. Both HostForLIFEASP.NET and TMDHosting claim industry-standard uptime of 99.9%. Any measure of uptime by customers is going to anecdotal (including mine – neither me nor my clients have had noticeable downtime with either). Their uptime claims are supposed to be audited – so we’ll give them both a tie on reliability.

According to the monitoring statistics, TMDHosting has achieved only 99.88% uptime in the past month and required an average of 530ms for server responses, neither of which are satisfying for all-level users. Check its uptime record in the following image.

HostForLIFEASP.NET based on our monitoring statistic, they can achieve 100% uptime guarantee with an average 200ms for server response, this is very quick and reliable server. This is the provider that you can rely one

HostForLIFEASP.NET vs TMDHosting Customer Support

Good quality customer support is extremely important with ASP.NET Core hosting providers. If your website goes down, you need to be able to contact someone immediately to help you with the issue. You will also want someone who can help you through the process of getting your hosting setup if you don’t have much technical experience.

HostForLIFEASP.NET provides 24/7/365 support response time for its customers. Although they don’t offer phone support, but their ticketing system is very effective. We have used them for ASP.NET Core hosting, and they are able to provide friendly, helpful customer service. They also have a very fast response time.

TMDHosting in other hand have good technical support. We also try to contact them and they always respond any inquiry through email, live chat within few minutes.

Final Verdict – HostForLIFEASP.NET or TMDHosting for ASP.NET Core Hosting?

If you are serious businessman or web developer, than I would highly recommend you to use HostForLIFEASP.NET. With almost 1 decade in ASP.NET Core hosting business, you can count on this hosting provider. They have good track in hosting business, has been awarded as Microsoft Golden Partner. You don’t need to worry about this hosting provider. We have hosted few sites with them and we’ve not experienced any major outages till date.

Use Serilog ASP.NET Core to SQL Server Database

Jacques Hunt — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 04:03:24 +0000

Logging is an essential feature for any application, as it is necessary for detecting, investigating, and debugging issues. Serilog is a third-party, open source library that allows .NET developers to log structured data to the console, to files, and to several other kinds of data stores.

This article discusses how we can use Serilog to log structured data to a SQL Server database. To work with the code examples provided in this article, you should have Visual Studio 2019 installed in your system.

Create Your First ASP.NET Core 3.0 Project

Make sure you create your ASP.NET Core project in Visual Studio. We assume that you have installed Visual Studio on your computer.

Install the NuGet packages for Serilog

To work with Serilog, you should install the Serilog packages from NuGet. You can do this either via the NuGet package manager inside the Visual Studio 2019 IDE, or by executing the following commands at the NuGet package manager console:

Install-Package Serilog
Install-Package Serilog.AspNetCore
Install-Package Serilog.Sinks.MSSqlServer
Install-Package Serilog.Settings.Configuration

Initialize Serilog in Program.cs in ASP.NET Core

The following code snippet illustrates how you can plug Serilog into ASP.NET Core. Note how the UseSerilog() extension method has been used to set Serilog as the logging provider.

public static IWebHost BuildWebHost(string[] args) =>
            WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
                   .UseStartup()
                   .UseSerilog()
                   .Build();

Build an example web host in ASP.NET Core

Naturally, we’ll need an application to illustrate the use of Serilog. Here is the complete source code of the Program class for our example app. Note how we’ve configured and built the web host.

    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            IConfigurationRoot configuration = new
            ConfigurationBuilder().AddJsonFile("appsettings.json",
            optional: false, reloadOnChange: true).Build();
            Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration().ReadFrom.Configuration
            (configuration).CreateLogger();
            BuildWebHost(args).Run();
        }
        public static IWebHost BuildWebHost(string[] args) =>
            WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
                .UseStartup()
                .UseSerilog()
                .Build();
    }

Configure database connection settings in ASP.NET Core

When you create a new ASP.NET Core project in Visual Studio, the appsettings.json file is created by default. Here is where you can specify the database connection string and other configuration information. Open the appsettings.json file from the project we created earlier and enter the following information:

{
  "Serilog": {
    "MinimumLevel": "Information",
    "WriteTo": [
      {
        "Name": "MSSqlServer",
        "Args": {
          "connectionString": "Data Source=LAPTOP-ULJMOJQ5;Initial
           Catalog=Research;    
     User Id=joydip; Password=sa123#;",
          "tableName": "Log",
          "autoCreateSqlTable": true
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Create a database table to log data in SQL Server

You might want to create the log table yourself as well. Below is the script you can use to create a log table in the SQL Server database.

CREATE TABLE [Log] (
   [Id] int IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
   [Message] nvarchar(max) NULL,
   [MessageTemplate] nvarchar(max) NULL,
   [Level] nvarchar(max) NULL,
   [TimeStamp] datetimeoffset(7) NOT NULL,
   [Exception] nvarchar(max) NULL,
   [Properties] nvarchar(max) NULL
   CONSTRAINT [PK_Log]
     PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([Id] ASC)
)

When you run the application, a new table named Log will be created and the ASP.NET Core startup events will be logged there. Figure 1 below shows the data that has been logged inside the Log table.

Log data in action methods in ASP.NET Core

You can leverage dependency injection to inject a logger instance in your controller as shown in the code snippet below:

public class DefaultController : Controller
{
   private readonly ILogger _logger;
   public DefaultController(ILogger logger)
   {
      _logger = logger;
   }
}

The following code snippet illustrates how you can take advantage of Serilog in your controller’s action methods to log data.

public class DefaultController : Controller
    {
        private readonly ILogger _logger;
        public DefaultController(ILogger logger)
        {
            _logger = logger;
        }
        public IActionResult Index()
        {
            _logger.LogInformation("Hello World");
            return View();
        }
    }

Although independent of .NET Core, Serilog plugs into the ASP.NET Core ecosystem nicely, making structured logging easy and convenient. Serilog also takes advantage of dozens of sinks to send the logs to many different logging targets ranging from text files to databases to hosting providers. I will post other interesting post in next post.

HostForLIFE vs HostGator – ASP.NET Core Hosting Secret Revealed

Jacques Hunt — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 03:40:19 +0000

The two organizations are ASP.NET hosting suppliers, both positioned in the Best and Cheap ASP.NET Hosting in 2018. Also, the accompanying post will do an examination between their ASP.NET Core hosting, through which individuals will see their disparities better.

Short Introduction About HostForLIFEASP.NET and HostGator

HostGator founded in a dorm room at Florida Atlantic University by Brent Oxley, HostGator has grown into a leading provider of Shared, Reseller, VPS, and Dedicated web hosting. HostGator is headquartered in Houston and Austin, Texas, with several international offices throughout the globe. HostGator has helped countless people get online. Below are just a handful of website hosting reviews from our affiliates and industry experts including: email hosting reviews, reseller hosting reviews, VPS hosting reviews, dedicated hosting reviews, shared hosting reviews, WordPress hosting reviews, and more.

HostForLIFEASP.NET vs HostGator ASP.NET Core Hosting Performance

HostForLIFEASP.NET sites are hosted in Intel Xeon Quad Core servers at UK in their data centers at London. The data centers are well equipped and connects to 10 backbone providers. HostGator is EIG hosting provider and they invest billion dollars to build secure data center.

We talked about the hardware of their servers. Now we’ll see how it performs.

Speed Test

Speed is an important factor to consider before choosing a web host. So we purchased two domain names and hosted each one on both HostForLIFEASP.NET and HostGator with same theme files. I used LoadImpact to check the loading time of two test sites.

HostForLIFEASP.NET loaded in 1.32 seconds to load which is a good speed. HostGator was slower taking around 2.52 seconds. HostForLIFEASP.NET test site was almost twice faster than HostGator.

Response time of sites hosted on HostForLIFEASP.NET

Maximum Response Time: 2.0 seconds

Minimum Response Time: 253.09 milliseconds

HostForLIFEASP.NET’s server performance seems to be solid, healthy and consistent.

Response time of sites hosted on HostGator

Max Response Time: 3.8 seconds

Minimum Response Time: 392.09 milliseconds

HostGator started at an excellent server response time of 215ms, but once the traffic passed 25, it started slowing down heavily. The server become completely unresponsive and the rejection list was very high. Moreover, the final result has high number of failed attempt. HostGator fared well for lower traffic and completely fell apart once the traffic hit 26 mark.

From the above results, we know that HostForLIFEASP.NET is clearly the winner for speed. You can trust your ASP.NET Core website with HostForLIFEASP.NET if you need fast speed performance.

Their ASP.NET Hosting Core Pricing Scheme

For HostGator, the price of its fundamental arrangement is set at $ 4.76/mo. By correlation, it appears that HostForLIFEASP.NET is more reasonable than Hostgator, yet there are a few confinements if clients mean to recover their cash.

Control Panel for ASP.NET Core Hosting

Both HostForLIFEASP.NET and HostGator uses Plesk panel for their ASP.NET, the most used control panel. You don’t need the help of a geek to use it. It provides everything you need. It is important to have a user friendly interface and these one-click script installers are a boon to all newbies who do not have much experience with these platforms.

You can find Plesk demo on google and this is one of the best control panel for ASP.NET Core hosting. Most of ASP.NET Core hosting provider use this control panel.

Server Reliability? Any Downtime?

Uptime is the measure of how well the web host fits the “reliably” part of performance. Both HostForLIFEASP.NET and HostGator claim industry-standard uptime of 99.9%. Any measure of uptime by customers is going to anecdotal (including mine – neither me nor my clients have had noticeable downtime with either). Their uptime claims are supposed to be audited – so we’ll give them both a tie on reliability.

According to the monitoring statistics, HostGator has achieved only 99.82% uptime in the past month and required an average of 530ms for server responses, neither of which are satisfying for all-level users. Check its uptime record in the following image.

HostForLIFEASP.NET vs HostGator Customer Support

HostGator in other hand has 24/7/365 phone, live chat, and email support. But sometimes, their agent is not available to chat. We have tested to contact them via live chat but it keeps hanging and suddenly they go offline. But, when the agent is available, they are quite helpful and assist our inquiries. Sometimes they also asked us to create ticket to support department.

Final Verdict – HostForLIFEASP.NET or HostGator for ASP.NET Core Hosting?

Find All Secret about ASP.NET Core Hosting Here! HostForLIFEASP.NET vs HostingUK

Jacques Hunt — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 04:42:34 +0000

Short Introduction About HostForLIFEASP.NET and HostingUK.NET

HostingUK.NET was formed in 1998 with a team of very successful and proven industry veterans with the intent of delivering the best value in Windows hosting. It is an employee owned and operated company. Their employees’ average over 3 years of hosting experience and are backed by senior staff with over 10 years of experience. With the growing need for affordable ASP.NET Core hosting, the company set out to deliver the best Windows hosting at a price where everyone can afford to have their piece of the World Wide Web.

HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Core Hosting Faster than HostingUK.NET

HostForLIFEASP.NET sites are hosted in Intel Xeon Quad Core servers at UK in their data centers at London. The data centers are well equipped and connects to 10 backbone providers. HostingUK.NET also have great data center, they invest billion for great data center.

We talked about the hardware of their servers. Now we’ll see how it performs.

Speed Test

Speed is an important factor to consider before choosing a web host. So we purchased two domain names and hosted each one on both HostForLIFEASP.NET and HostingUK.NET with same theme files. I used LoadImpact to check the loading time of two test sites.

HostForLIFEASP.NET loaded in 1.12 seconds to load which is a good speed. HostingUK.NET was slower taking around 2.12 seconds. HostForLIFEASP.NET test site was almost twice faster than HostingUK.NET.

Response time of sites hosted on HostForLIFEASP.NET

Maximum Response Time: 2.2 seconds

Minimum Response Time: 223.09 milliseconds

HostForLIFEASP.NET’s server performance seems to be solid, healthy and consistent.

Response time of sites hosted on HostingUK.NET

Max Response Time: 3.5 seconds

Minimum Response Time: 382.09 milliseconds

HostingUK.NET started at an excellent server response time of 235ms, but once the traffic passed 25, it started slowing down heavily. The server become completely unresponsive and the rejection list was very high. Moreover, the final result has high number of failed attempt. HostingUK.NET fared well for lower traffic and completely fell apart once the traffic hit 26 mark.

From the above results, we know that HostForLIFEASP.NET is clearly the winner for speed. You can trust your ASP.NET Core website with HostForLIFEASP.NET if you need fast speed performance.

Who is Cheaper for ASP.NET Core Hosting?

HostingUK.NET also offer 4 shared ASP.NET Core hosting packages which start from Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Dev plan. The price start from £3.95 per month until £94.95 per month.

Control Panel for ASP.NET Core Hosting

Both HostForLIFEASP.NET and HostingUK.NET uses Plesk panel for their ASP.NET, the most used control panel. You don’t need the help of a geek to use it. It provides everything you need. It is important to have a user friendly interface and these one-click script installers are a boon to all newbies who do not have much experience with these platforms.

You can find Plesk demo on google and this is one of the best control panel for ASP.NET Core hosting. Most of ASP.NET Core hosting provider use this control panel.

Server Reliability? Any Downtime?

Uptime is the measure of how well the web host fits the “reliably” part of performance. Both HostForLIFEASP.NET and HostingUK.NET claim industry-standard uptime of 99.9%. Any measure of uptime by customers is going to anecdotal (including mine – neither me nor my clients have had noticeable downtime with either). Their uptime claims are supposed to be audited – so we’ll give them both a tie on reliability.

According to the monitoring statistics, HostingUK.NET has achieved only 99.90% uptime in the past month and required an average of 630ms for server responses, neither of which are satisfying for all-level users. Check its uptime record in the following image.

HostForLIFEASP.NET vs HostingUK.NET Customer Support

ASPNETHosting.co.uk in other hand has 24/7/365 phone, live chat, and email support. But sometimes, their agent is not available to chat. We have tested to contact them via live chat but it keeps hanging and suddenly they go offline. But, when the agent is available, they are quite helpful and assist our inquiries. Sometimes they also asked us to create ticket to support department.

Final Verdict – HostForLIFEASP.NET or HostingUK.NET for ASP.NET Core Hosting?

ASP.NET Core Hosting Secret Revealed – HostForLIFEASP.NET vs ASPNETHosting.co.uk

Jacques Hunt — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 04:15:32 +0000

The two organizations are ASP.NET hosting suppliers, both positioned in the Best and Cheap ASP.NET Hosting in 2017. Also, the accompanying post will do an examination between their ASP.NET Core hosting, through which individuals will see their disparities better.

Short Introduction About HostForLIFEASP.NET and ASPNETHosting.co.uk

ASPNETHosting.co.uk was formed in 2008 with a team of very successful and proven industry veterans with the intent of delivering the best value in Windows hosting. It is an employee owned and operated company. Their employees’ average over 4 years of hosting experience and are backed by senior staff with over 10 years of experience. With the growing need for affordable hosting, the company set out to deliver the best Windows hosting at a price where everyone can afford to have their piece of the World Wide Web.

HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Core Hosting Faster than ASPNETHosting.co.uk

HostForLIFEASP.NET sites are hosted in Dual Xeon servers at UK in their data centers at London. The data centers are well equipped and connects to 10 backbone providers. Also, ASPNETHosting.co.uk invest millions of dollars every year in new technologies for better performance.

We talked about the hardware of their servers. Now we’ll see how it performs.

Speed Test

Speed is an important factor to consider before choosing a web host. So we purchased two domain names and hosted each one on both HostForLIFEASP.NET and ASPNETHosting.co.uk with same theme files. I used LoadImpact to check the loading time of two test sites.

HostForLIFEASP.NET loaded in 1.12 seconds to load which is a good speed. ASPNETHosting.co.uk was slower taking around 1.92 seconds. HostForLIFEASP.NET test site was almost twice faster than ASPNETHosting.co.uk.

Response time of sites hosted on HostForLIFEASP.NET

Maximum Response Time: 2.2 seconds

Minimum Response Time: 223.09 milliseconds

HostForLIFEASP.NET’s server performance seems to be solid, healthy and consistent.

Response time of sites hosted on ASPNETHosting.co.uk

Max Response Time: 3.5 seconds

Minimum Response Time: 382.09 milliseconds

ASPNETHosting.co.uk started at an excellent server response time of 272ms, but once the traffic passed 25, it started slowing down heavily. The server become completely unresponsive and the rejection list was very high. Moreover, the final result has high number of failed attempt. ASPNETHosting.co.uk fared well for lower traffic and completely fell apart once the traffic hit 26 mark.

From the above results, we know that HostForLIFEASP.NET is clearly the winner for speed. You can trust your ASP.NET Core website with HostForLIFEASP.NET if you need fast speed performance.

Who is Cheaper for ASP.NET Core Hosting?

ASPNETHosting.co.uk also offer 4 shared ASP.NET Core hosting packages which start from Starter, Professional, Business, and Developer plan. The price start from £3.59 per month until £17.00 per month.

Control Panel for ASP.NET Core Hosting

Both HostForLIFEASP.NET and ASPNETHosting.co.uk uses Plesk panel for their ASP.NET, the most used control panel. You don’t need the help of a geek to use it. It provides everything you need. It is important to have a user friendly interface and these one-click script installers are a boon to all newbies who do not have much experience with these platforms.

You can find Plesk demo on google and this is one of the best control panel for ASP.NET Core hosting. Most of ASP.NET Core hosting provider use this control panel.

Server Reliability? Any Downtime?

Uptime is the measure of how well the web host fits the “reliably” part of performance. Both HostForLIFEASP.NET and ASPNETHosting.co.uk claim industry-standard uptime of 99.9%. Any measure of uptime by customers is going to anecdotal (including mine – neither me nor my clients have had noticeable downtime with either). Their uptime claims are supposed to be audited – so we’ll give them both a tie on reliability.

According to the monitoring statistics, ASPNETHosting.co.uk has achieved only 99.90% uptime in the past month and required an average of 630ms for server responses, neither of which are satisfying for all-level users. Check its uptime record in the following image.

HostForLIFEASP.NET vs ASPNETHosting.co.uk Customer Support

Final Verdict – HostForLIFEASP.NET or ASPNETHosting.co.uk for ASP.NET Core Hosting?

HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Core 1.1 Hosting Review

Jacques Hunt — Mon, 08 May 2017 04:46:08 +0000

Today, we are going to be diving into HostForLIFEASP.NET .NET Core Hosting. They have been in this business for a decade. So they definitely know their way around the hosting world. Check out their full reviews below and see if they might make a good fit for your ASP.NET Core 1.1. site.

HostForLIFEASP.NET. ASP.NET Core 1.1 Hosting Features

HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Hosting originally founded in 2007, has data centers located in Europe (Amsterdam, London, Paris, Milan, and Frankfurt), US (Dallas and Washington), and Asia (Singapore). They are privately owned.

HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Hosting offers a variety of different hosting packages on their windows hosting platform:

Shared Hosting
Reseller Hosting
Cloud Hosting
Dedicated Hosting (Unmanaged and Managed plans)

Today we are going to be testing their ASP.NET Core shared hosting plan which starts at under EUR 5.00 a month.

Classic Hosting

The Classic package at HostForLIFEASP.NET includes 24/7 customer support, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited website hosting, unlimited disk space, 1 MSSQL database, 1 MySQL database, and unlimited email accounts.

Budget Hosting

Budget hosting package includes 24/7 customer support, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space, 2 MSSQL database, 2 MySQL database, unlimited email addresses and unlimited websites.

Economy Hosting

The third ASP.NET web-hosting package available at HostForLIFEASP.NET that customers can opt for is Economy hosting. Economy hosting package guarantees round the clock customer support, along with unlimited bandwidth, unlimited websites, unlimited disk space, unlimited email addresses, premium DNS, malware scanner and customizable mobile site.

Irrespective of the ASP.NET web hosting package you choose at HostForLIFEASP.NET, you will get round the clock customer support service.

Business Hosting

The final ASP.NET web-hosting package available at HostForLIFEASP.NET that customers can opt for is Business hosting. Business hosting package guarantees round the clock customer support, along with unlimited bandwidth, unlimited websites, unlimited disk space, unlimited email addresses, premium DNS, malware scanner, customizable mobile site, free domain name for life.

HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Core 1.1 Hosting Testing Speed

We’ve tested more than 25 different shared hosts so far. We have to admit that we’ve seen nothing like this before. The site that we hosted on HostForLIFEASP.NET Hosting took just 165 ms to load up fully! And it wasn’t like it was a very light site, either.

This essentially makes HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Hosting the fastest shared hosting that we’ve ever tested. And we are on their basic plan (Classic plan). So, considering our plan doesn’t even get the additional advanced speed-boosters like memcached and all that’s included in their “Budget or Economy” hosting plans (more expensive) makes it an incredible feat for their most basic plan.

We ran the page load test multiple times in a day and from multiple locations, and the results remained consistent throughout all of them, no matter which time of the day we were performing the test at.

Uptime Stats

The particular site we have hosted with HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Hosting is yet to experience a single downtime in the past 4 months. This is one of the rarest occasions when we’ve experienced true 100% uptime for several months at a stretch.

Apart from that, HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Hosting also has the standard 99.9% uptime guarantee. Though we forgot about uptime even being a thing since we started hosting the site with HostForLIFEASP.NET. After a while, it became so ridiculous that we were feeling like wasting money paying Pingdom for uptime monitoring because we were never once getting the much-dreaded “Pingdom Alert” email.

HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Hosting Support Efficiency

HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Hosting offers you support 24*7 all through 360 days. Whether you’re looking for expert assistance with ASP.NET setup or some tips for marketing your site, their Tech Support Team has assembled a series of tutorials, guides, and step-by-step resources to make launching a website with ASP.NET hassle-free.

The support response times were pretty impressive. They will answer satisfactorily within 15 minutes of posting support tickets. Also, they offer free site transfers from your previous/existing host, no matter which plan you sign up for.

HostForLIFEASP.NET’s commitment to customer service is made clear by the technology they’ve built to support their users. Easily submit new issues regarding billing, development, site transfer, installations, and more using their Support Ticketing System they’ve developed in-house.

Wrapping HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Core 1.1 Hosting Review Up

HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Hosting may not be as famous as Godaddy or HostGator, and we wouldn’t even have come across them unless we’d read some very good reviews of them on WHT. We decided to take the plunge and test them out, and so far it’s been one of the best hosting-related decisions we’ve taken for a site of mine.

Frankly, HostForLIFEASP.NET isn’t just another cheap ASP.NET host, nor do they claim to be one. If you’re looking for quality ASP.NET Core 1.1 hosting, fast performance with little to no (if you’re lucky like me) downtime, you can opt for HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Hosting with your eyes closed.

Honestly, we can’t think of a single notable glitch. Yes, we’d have liked if they were a bit cheaper for short-term billing. Yes, we’d also be glad if they allowed a couple more domains on the lowest plan, but then again, Iwemay be asking for too much and not remembering what they’re already offering for the money is way better than most of their competitors that we’ve tested.

All in all, HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Hosting is a fantastic shared host. If you want a no-nonsense shared ASP.NET Core 1.1 host with crazy fast load times, incredible uptime, and tons of features backed with great support, you won’t go wrong with HostForLIFEASP.NET Hosting. And that’s it for this HostForLIFEASP.NET ASP.NET Core Hosting review, if you’re still not sure, you can check out some of our other web hosting reviews to get a broader idea.

How to Deploy ASP.NET Core Using Heroku

Jacques Hunt — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 04:26:25 +0000

This post is about hosting ASP.NET Core applications on Heroku using Docker. Heroku is a cloud Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) supporting several programming languages that is used as a web application deployment model. Heroku, one of the first cloud platforms, has been in development since June 2007, when it supported only the Ruby programming language, but now supports Java, Node.js, Scala, Clojure, Python, PHP, and Go. Heroku doesn’t support .NET or .NET Core natively, but recently they started supporting Docker. In this post we are using Docker to deploy my application to Heroku, there is build pack option is also available (Build Pack is the deployment mechanism which is supported by Heroku natively.), but there is no official build pack for .NET available yet.

Here is some details about the Dockerfile commands and runtime from Heroku documentation. Few important points, which is required compared to dockerfile used in ASP.NET Core are.

The web process must listen for HTTP traffic on $PORT, which is set by Heroku. EXPOSE in Dockerfile is not respected, but can be used for local testing.
CMD is required. If CMD is missing, the registry will return an error.

For deployment you require two prerequisites.

First you build the project, then you need to create the Docker image, and finally you need to publish the image to Heroku. I have created a MVC project using dotnet new command.

Once you created the project, you can build it using dotnet publish command.

dotnet publish -c Release

So your project will be compiled and output will be generated in the bin\Release\netcoreapp1.1\publish folder.

To deploy to Heroku, first you need to login to the container registry using heroku container:login command, once you login, you can build a docker image.

docker build -t helloworld-aspnetcore ./bin/Release/netcoreapp1.1/publish

Here is the Dockerfile we are using.

FROM microsoft/dotnet:1.1.0-runtime



WORKDIR /app 

COPY . .



CMD ASPNETCORE_URLS=http://*:$PORT dotnet helloworld-aspnetcore.dll

Since we are running the already published application, my base image is dotnet runtime. And we are using ASPNETCORE_URLS environment variable to bind the $PORT value from Heroku to Kestrel. Initialy we tried using the command line options but it was not working. And you need to copy the Dockerfile to the publish folder,otherwise the command will fail.

Once you build the container, you need to tag it and push it according to this naming template. Here is the commands.

docker tag helloworld-aspnetcore registry.heroku.com/helloworld-aspnetcore/web

In this helloworld-aspnetcore is my app name. You can create apps either using the Web dashboard or using Heroku CLI – heroku create is the command to create an app using CLI. Once you tag it, you need to push the image to Heroku registry, here is the command.

docker push registry.heroku.com/helloworld-aspnetcore/web

This might take some time depends on the image size and your network bandwidth. Since we already hosted, we are pushing the Web application only.

Now you can browse the app using https://helloworld-aspnetcore.herokuapp.com/ url, if deployment was successful and Kestrel started, you will see an ASP.NET MVC Home Page. If you are viewing an application error page, you need to look into the logs from Heroku.

Also make sure you’re running a dynos in Heroku, otherwise your app won’t work. You can create and use it from Resources menu.