For the last month or so, I’ve been having performance problems on my web hosting provider:

• Process were (and still are) getting randomly killed for allegedly using “too much CPU.”  Log file activity had entries like this:[Wed Dec 26 19:43:04 2007] [crit] [client 67.161.90.241] (12)Cannot allocate memory: default_handler: mmap failed: /i/wunderground_dec252007.jpg

  Disabling some Wordpress plugins made the problem “less worse.”

• It takes ~10 minutes to process three days of web site log files.   If I try to process a week’s worth, the process gets killed.  It’s not like I’ve had an abundance of blogging.
• Snafu with their billing.  I wasn’t actually double-billed — ironically — despite receiving an invoice.  They have been moderately open about it, but since my renewal term is up in a month, it makes time to consider other options.

That’s where I hope you all can come in. Do you have any recommendations on web hosting?

My basic requirements aren’t extreme:

• Apache web server
• Perl
• MySQL database
• Ssh access - or an usable control panel letting me edit .htaccess
• ~10Gb of transfer/month
• ~1.5Gb of storage
• Support for multiple domains (at least 5)
• Support for multiple email addresses (at least 20)
• Technical support knows more about their systems than I do

Very nice to have:

• Php enabled on the web server
• Python
• Support for subdomains
• Technical support is reachable by phone — For most of the issues, email works out better, but if the server melts down, I want to talk with someone with a clue.  Now.

Dreamhost’s plan includes all of the above for $20/month, thus it seems reasonable.   I wouldn’t be averse to paying more if there was a substantial benefit.  As a fall-back, I could use Amazon’s EC2, but it’s overkill for a J-list blogger like myself.