Hostwinds Review

Author: Sarah Pritzker

In a Nutshell

Pros

• 100% satisfaction guarantee

• 500% faster speeds

• Unlimited bandwidth/disk space

• Softaculous auto-install

Cons

• Windows server not available for all plans

• PHP version not switchable

Hostwinds Highlights

Touting accolades from big names like HostAdvice, the YellowPages, and PCMag, Hostwinds is a reputable hosting service that is on the rise. To start with, it has a tremendous uptime guarantee, at 99.999%. And, according to current customers, that's an accurate statement. Additionally, Hostwinds’ robust service offerings make it an ideal choice for a wide range of businesses. You can select from shared hosting plans that are economical and offer free dedicated IP addresses and unlimited storage. Hostwinds also has dedicated hosting that is extremely customizable with loads of options and top-rate services, 10 tiers of VPS hosting, and WordPress hosting. In fact, Hostwinds even offers cloud hosting and a unique reseller hosting option if that’s an angle you want to explore.

Here are a few more features we really liked when reviewing Hostwinds:

– Security

Security is also important, and Hostwinds takes care of it for you. It has enterprise-grade firewalls to protect your websites and constant encryption. For an added bit of security, Hostwinds employs automatic SSH key deployment for further encryption on all server communications.

– Storage

Hostwinds uses object and block storage for more efficiency and flexibility. Block storage allows you to partition accordingly, organizing and using your storage with the formatting that suits your needs. Storage methods include SSD and HDD.

– Ecommerce Solution

Finally, Hostwinds uses Softaculous library to import the Magento Ecommerce app. With this tool, you can build, design, and manage an online store straight from your hosting platform. It’s easy to use, packed with features, and fully managed via the cPanel

Best For:

Hostwinds offers comprehensive packages and pricing plans to suit any business or budget. Suitable for

• SMB

• Medium businesses

• Enterprise level businesses

Ease of Use

Hostwinds is a hosting option that is extremely easy to use. It features the Softaculous auto-installer, so you can set everything up in just a few minutes. It also makes adding apps a breeze. Hostwinds has a demo right on the website, so you can play around with the cPanel and see what each feature does. What we really enjoyed about this service is that it is simple and straightforward. Even to a novice, the website setup and options are easily understood and navigated.

Pricing and Plans

Hostwinds has a wide range of packages and multiple plans for each one. Here is a sample pricing table to give you an idea of the pricing options:

Shared hosting plans offer nightly backups, 24/7 tech support, Softaculous auto-install, unlimited email accounts/FTP accounts, free dedicated IP address, and more. The plans are as follows

• Basic for $3.74/month gives you unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space, and 1 domain

• Advanced for $5.24/month offers everything from the Basic plan plus 4 domains

• Ultimate  for $6.74/month provides unlimited domain

The Business plans all feature Litespeed web servers, solid state drives, unlimited bandwidth/disk space, performance optimized MYSQL, and unlimited subdomains. Pricing is as follows

• Basic for $7.49/month

• Advanced for $8.99/month

• Ultimate for $11.24/mont

Hosting reseller plans are fully managed, instantly set up, and offer strong reliability with nightly backups and 24/7 tech support. Plans are

• Basic for $17.50/month for 10 cPanels

• Advanced for $35/month for 25 cPanels

• Ultimate for $68.75/month for 75 cPanel

The Linux Enterprise VPS hosting plans are a bit more complex because pricing varies depending on how many CPU cores you want. For a single CPU core, you’ll have 4 options

• Tier 1 for $7.49/month offers 512MB RAM, 20 GB disk space, and 1TB/1GBPS port

• Tier 2 for $14.99/month gives you 1GB RAM, 25GB disk space as well

• Tier 3 for $17.99/month provides all the above plus 2GB RAM, 30GB disk space, and 2TB/1GBPS port

• Tier 4 for $37.49/month has 4GB RAM, 50GB disk space, and an additional CPU core (for a total of 2

Once you add cores, you increase the price, and you also get more RAM, disk space, and bandwidth starting at $58.49/month for 3 cores, up to 16 cores for $551.99/month

Finally, the dedicated servers plans work on an a la carte style. You choose how much RAM, how many IP addresses, how much bandwidth, and which OS you’re using to make a customized dedicated server solution that works for your business.

Website Building Features

Hostwinds employs Trendy Tools, a type of website builder that makes building really quick. There are several dozen templates to choose from and the popular HTML5 drag-and-drop functionality to place and move elements. You can even employ your own code if you know how and want even more customization

Hostwinds uses a graphical online interface, cPanel, for website management. You can control every aspect of your website from any browser or computer that has internet access. We like that you can set up email accounts, deal with backups, create new domains, and basically do anything you want regarding your website via the cPanel

When you walk through the demo, it’s pretty impressive how much customization and flexibility you are afforded. For example, if you want to backup, you can choose full or partial backups, MySQL database backup, email forwarders, home directory, and more. You also get various restore options. It’s a wonderfully comprehensive list of choices in a surprisingly clear and understandable format.

Customer Support

Customer support is available 24/7/365, so they're always around if you have an issue. Around the clock support is essential in the hosting industry because problems with hosting can translate to major losses. Reach customer service via telephone, live chat, email, or online form

The live chat window is always there in case you have a question, and reps are friendly and ready to assist.

VPS and Cloud Hosting

Hostwinds offers VPS and cloud hosting options. Cloud services are super-fast (you can be up and running in less than a minute) and easy to set up. You can choose your own OS or use a prefab app for faster/easier setup. You can opt to be billed monthly or even hourly for cloud hosting, and you’ll get fully managed accounts as well. What’s more, Hostwinds offers backups and snapshots in case there is ever an issue

Hostwinds VPS services can be fully managed or unmanaged, and you can get VPS for both Windows and Linux. All VPS plans come with solid state drive, resilient security protocols, resource isolation, and fully controllable Windows server. They’re also easy to scale, offer nightly backups, and use the most sophisticated hardware for quality VPS service.

Shared and Dedicated Hosting

Hostwinds offers both shared and dedicated hosting services. Which one is best for you will depend on your business needs. If you have a limited budget or don’t have a tremendous amount of traffic to worry about, shared hosting is a more affordable option that lets you have the advantages of a managed hosting service without the high price tag. Alternatively, if you have heavy traffic and need more power, dedicated hosting, while more expensive, is the best option for you. Dedicated hosting also ensures faster speeds and greater privacy. As mentioned above, Hostwinds has customizable dedicated packages, and the options are pretty expansive, so you can get exactly what you are looking for.

Conclusion

Hostwinds is a professional, reliable, and dedicated hosting service that really goes the extra mile. Features like 99.999% uptime guarantee, super-fast speeds, strong security protocols, and redundant networks make Hostwinds attractive, and the multitude of options available ensure that anyone can find a solution that fits their price range and needs. Hostwinds comes highly recommended by our expert reviewers, so give it a try today

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