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I am currently looking for a reliable webhost that would allow me to run many (more than a dozen) Mysql databases.

Any recommendations in this space would be appreciated. It's easy to find a hosting plan that suits your needs, but from my past experience 90% of all web hosters are either crooks or plain incompetent. Signing up for any service not recommended by people you know is asking for trouble.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

As you know I'd always recommend pair Networks, except there is a reason you're specifically looking for some other company. In that case I'm afraid I can't help you much, as I've stopped looking for and comparing services since I'm with pair.

When life hands you a lemon, that's 40% of your RDA of vitamin C taken care of.

By all means I would like to go with Pair. I want my own webmaster plan as soon as my budget allows it!

Unfortunately a webmaster account "only" comes with 10 Mysql databases and each additional database adds 3 dollars to your monthly bill. This seems a little much for a purely virtual good.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

The other (probably cheapest) way is to get a static IP for your DSL line, put some *nix server there and somehow make a domain name point to your IP (like e.g. home.web-world.ch points to the BSD box sitting in my living-room). Downside is that it's not as fast and a bit more failure-prone than your average 8-uplink redundant-UPS 24/7-monitored professional ISP.
Cool thing is that you get a dedicated server of your own. :-)
I use mine for all the low-bandwidth much-CPU-time things I'm not allowed to do at pair.

Alternatively, get some cheap account (or use the one with NAO) and put the databases elsewhere.

When life hands you a lemon, that's 40% of your RDA of vitamin C taken care of.

Unfortunately I have a very strict traffic limit of 2 GB per week over here which I pretty much need for myself. Also I have a smoke signal grade upstream channel.

Alternatively, get some cheap account (or use the one with NAO) and put the databases elsewhere.

I'm afraid that then I could kiss performance good bye :)

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

Well if 200kbps upstream are sufficient, feel free to drop me a line and I can punch an SSH/FTP hole in my firewall for you. MySQL and PHP are working again, perl scripts still need the #!/usr/bin/perl trick, but I'll work on that tomorrow.

(On a side note, does anybody know of some "how to make mod_perl not being an absolute bitch to set up" doc?)

When life hands you a lemon, that's 40% of your RDA of vitamin C taken care of.

Thanks for all the answers!

A friend of mine is planning to buy a server with me and install it in a network center in Munich. It will take two years to get back the costs for this baby and all related costs but, hey, we're going to have our own box on a fat pipe without paying a dime for it.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

I would highly recommend 34sp. You only get one mySQL database but you can add as many as you like for a small extra cost. Their other hosting features are excellent and it's all quite cheap. I believe Booker and myself on both on it.
Being nosy now, WHY would you want 12+ databases?

I will inform myself about 34sp. They almost sound too good to be true and I can steel feel the bruises from the joy I had with various web hosters in the past. That's why I'm so suspicious.