If you're looking for recommendations and opinions, I would shamelessly recommend taking a look at the data I collect. I track many of the big hosting companies and what people are saying about them.
I had started out with their free plan for a few of the smaller websites I maintain. But their limitations (facebook api) and downtimes discouraged me from upgrading to their paid plans. Eventually, I moved those sites back to one of my DO boxes.
BudgetVM. The price is right. I have had a couple of downs over the past two years. One was several hours. Not for mission critical 100% up time cases. But great for casual sites/ web apps. Did I mention the price is right?
They haven't been bad at all. I have had maybe 5 instances with them over the past two years and have 3 now. The speed is good in Dallas, not so good on the one instance I had in LA. I have one important VM for clients (have complained a few times over the past couple of years). They appear to know which one this is and have it on a fast node. It hasn't been down except reboots in nearly a year.
I'm happy with their customer service and response times also. But probably I wouldn't use them for high level mission critical stuff.
http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/compare/