Background:
Joel Carlo has never been particularly interested in doing just one thing. Over nearly three decades, his work has spanned web development, design, illustration, video and audio production, and that mix of technical and creative skills shapes both his client work and his own projects at joelcarlo.net.
Originally from the US, Joel moved to Spain in 2010 and built a business around hosting and maintaining websites for clients. That work remains an important part of his professional life, alongside a marketing role and a growing creative venture.
At aymat.org, he coaches music producers who struggle to finish their tracks, supporting them whether they're stuck on one part of a song or simply need someone to help them along, and then helping them release their music or even start their own label. It's a natural extension of what he's learned: technical knowledge and creativity, put to work helping others bring their ideas to life.
Challenge and Requirements:
When Hosting Becomes Another Job
Alongside his own projects, Joel manages hosting for client websites, maintaining the infrastructure that lets other people's businesses operate online. That work demands reliability, organization and the ability to resolve technical problems without letting them consume his day.
After his previous host was acquired, rising costs and inconsistent support made the service harder to justify.
Updates, One Site at a Time
Without central management, every update across his 40-plus sites had to be done manually, one login at a time. A change to a PHP version could occasionally take a site down, leaving a client on the phone and Joel reverting changes under pressure.
A Migration That Hit a Wall
When Joel contacted A2 Hosting about moving roughly 40 websites, the team offered migration assistance, then asked him to log into cPanel at his previous provider. His account used a proprietary control panel instead, so the migration couldn't proceed as planned and Joel had to take it on himself.
Joel wasn't simply looking for a cheaper plan. He was looking for:
The Solution:
Joel compared several providers and read the reviews before choosing A2 Hosting, now hosting.com. The pricing made sense, and what he didn't anticipate was how much the move would change his day-to-day workflow.
He uses two hosting.com accounts: a managed account for his client sites and an unmanaged VPS for his own projects.
What hosting.com provides for Aymat:
cPanel, which Joel had never properly used before joining and now, in his words, is completely obsessed with
Support that answers quickly, with, in his experience, no wait longer than an hour and replies that are clear, thorough and actionable
Orbi, hosting.com's AI support assistant, for near-immediate, thorough and precise answers when he wants to investigate a question without waiting
The migration itself became a project. Joel tackled around 10 sites a week and finished in just under a month, checking each site after the move, updating permalink URLs, bringing themes and plugins up to date and recreating mail accounts.
Having to do it himself while learning a new control panel wasn't ideal, but the support team stayed available to guide him, which made a difficult transition considerably easier.
Looking back, Joel calls the experience a blessing: it introduced him to tools that fundamentally changed how he manages his sites.
For Joel, good hosting isn't the destination. It's what makes the next project possible.
Impact:
Updates From One Place
Tasks that once meant logging into each site individually are now handled from one central location, so routine maintenance across his roughly 30 client sites takes far less effort.
Answers Within the Hour
Joel doesn't think he's ever waited more than an hour for a response from the support team, and Orbi gives him near-immediate help when he wants to work through an issue on his own.
More Room for the Work That Matters
A reliable, manageable setup gives Joel more flexibility and time for the work he cares about: building, collaborating and helping producers turn unfinished ideas into something they can share.
A Recommendation Without Hesitation
After using dozens of providers over the years, Joel calls hosting.com the best he's ever used, and when people ask him about hosting, it's the name he gives them.
"Honestly, after working as a developer for as long as I have, there isn't much I haven't done in this field. But one thing has always been consistent: without hosting, I couldn't do what I do. And after using dozens of providers over the years, hosting.com has been the best I've ever used hands down. Everything about your company reflects how I feel hosting can and should be."
-Joel Carlo, Aymat
