Figuring out what makes for the best MySQL host is a somewhat tricky proposition. On the one hand, it seems like a clear win to be allowed more databases. Sure you could try to cram your forums, your store, your mailing list, etc. on into one database with a jillion tables, but would you really want to? It gives me a headache just thinking about it. Every upgrade could be a nightmare of name collisions and sql changes. I’ll pass, thanks.

On the other hand, allowing a lot of databases without providing the storage (and transfer) to use to their fullest isn’t really much of an improvement. And you also need to worry about general hosting issues… I mean, is the host reliable? How is their support? And so on…

In the end, it became a lot of mental tradeoff between all of these factors. And it produced a list that is unexpectedly quite different in order than, say, the general Unix hosting list. So here are my choices for the best in MySQL hosting. Make of it what you will. They are all good hosts, or I wouldn’t recommend them here.