By Pete Griffin
Are you a small business not getting enough support from your current hosting provider? Perhaps you're looking to set up a personal blog and want a host that makes it easy for you to build and maintain your site from scratch? Web Hosting Hub might just be a great fit for you. Find out more about this provider in my complete Web Hosting Hub review.
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Highlights
- Small-business friendly
- U.S. based 24/7 support
- Zero-downtime website transfers
- 90-day money-back guarantee
- Free Web builder
- E-commerce tools
- Over 310 easy-to-install free applications
- Softaculous (1-click installer)
- Up to $200 free advertising credits
- Shared hosting from $6.99 per month
Since 2010, Web Hosting Hub has been striving to make Web hosting reliable, affordable and secure, with a particular focus on helping small businesses create an online presence. Despite their small-business friendliness, Web Hosting Hub offers scalable and affordable web hosting solutions for all requirements, whether you’re looking to build a blog, an e-commerce store, a business website, or a larger corporate online space. The company has East and West coast data centers for faster speed and enhanced support. Its 200+ knowledgeable, U.S.-based team members are available around the clock for more than 40,000 customers worldwide.
Ideal For
I really like what Web Hosting Hub is trying to do. The company doesn’t offer so many services that it spreads itself thin. It focuses on one thing (shared Web hosting) as opposed to trying to do too much (like VPS, cloud, and dedicated server hosting). Because of that, they have become shared hosting specialists. All shoppers want to know, though, is if Web Hosting Hub is good. The company is not going to be an industry giant, but they are a great option for customers looking to get shared hosting features at a fantastic price.
Nearly every Web Hosting Hub user review compliments the provider on its ease of use. With tons of tools, cPanel control panel, and unlimited websites, domains, storage, and bandwidth, what’s not to like? Your Web Hosting Hub login gives you access to useful resources like the one-click application installer, e-commerce software, and a free website builder. In short, the company has made it very easy for rookies to create online projects that are professional looking—and performing—for a very low monthly fee.
Hosting Features
With unlimited Web Hosting Hub FTP accounts, disk space, email accounts, and bandwidth included in all plans, the company gives users lots of room to do their thing. Each of its three shared hosting plans (Spark, Nitro, and Dynamo) offer different levels of MySQL databases, parked domains, sub-domains, and websites. While the Spark starter plan is limited to two Web Hosting Hub websites, both Nitro and Dynamo are unlimited in pretty much every respect. Back-up is available, but for an extra fee of $1 per month for all three plans. Many Web Hosting Hub customer reviews have high praises for the company’s support staff. I find them to be very helpful for issues as simple as figuring out my Web Hosting Hub email settings, to more complex tasks like arranging the products in my online store into categories.
Technology
Web Hosting Hub has a number of proprietary and third-party technologies that support its hosting platform. The HUB Power Unit is a system used by the provider to allocate power to each hosting customer, depending on the plan you have chosen. The more HUB Power Units your plan allows for, the more effectively your website will be able to do things like stream media, accommodate spikes in traffic, perform smoothly as an e-commerce store, and allow for multiple, simultaneous visitor connections. Spark offers the fewest Power Units, Nitro a little more, while Dynamo offers the most power for your site.
That should have caught the attention of the developer in you. If not, wait until what’s next. If you are planning on running JavaScript programs, you’ll be happy to know that Web Hosting Hub node js integration will allow you to do so. Additionally, the Web Hosting Hub nameservers and DNS give you complete control over how you want to organize your sub-domains behind the scenes. As a component of its eco-friendly technologies, the company uses energy-efficient solid-state drives to deliver your content quickly and has opened the first green data center in Los Angeles.
Pricing
Web Hosting Hub pricing certainly holds true to the cost-effective service the company promises. The provider's rates are among the lowest in the marketplace and, with features like bandwidth and email accounts unlimited across every plan, you certainly get a lot more for your money compared to what can be found elsewhere. Another great cost-incentive that I like is the company’s generous inclusion of $200 in advertising credits for new the Dynamo plan customers. Nitro users enjoy $150 of credits to play with, while Spark users receive a tempting $50. The added advertising credits make the higher plans like Spark rather enticing. Below are the current Web Hosting Hub prices. Bear in mind that after the introductory period is over, all plans rise to a standard monthly rate.
Plan | Introductory Offer | Standard Monthly Rate |
---|---|---|
Spark | $4.99/Month | $6.99 |
Nitro | $6.99/Month | $8.99 |
Dynamo | $8.99/Month | $10.99 |
If needed, the company offers monthly data backups for $1 a month as well as custom Web design services for an extra fee (Nitro and Dynamo customers receive a discount on Web design).
Ease of Use
In general, Web Hosting Hub is intuitive and easy to use. The clean, well-organized front-end of its templates is mirrored by the orderly proprietary site builder. With one-click installation of over 310 applications (from WordPress and Joomla to OpenCart and Magento), a Web Hosting Hub tutorial, and an on-boarding process which includes a phone consultation to answer any final questions, the company does everything it can to make getting started with its service as smooth as possible
Web Hosting Hub's free website builder allows first-timers to build a good looking site quickly and easily – even with no Web design experience. For e-commerce sites, a specific e-commerce hosting plan is available, complete with fast-loading pages, SSL for extra security, and a warehouse full of shopping carts and other easy to install tools.
Website Builder Features
If you want to hand your website build over to an expert, Web Hosting Hub offers Web design services which are available with up to 30% off when you choose one of its hosting plans. However, if you'd rather do it yourself, there are plenty of tools to help with that that, too, as part of the intuitive Web Hosting Hub site builder. Some users require a more supportive package to help them design their site. For them, I recommend the Premium Website Builder plan ($6.99 per month)–crammed with over 500 Web Hosting Hub templates, point-and-click tools, and lots more to help any website look beautiful.
Pros and Cons
If you are a small business owner, Web Hosting Hub looks like a very worthwhile option to take your online store to the masses. They offer a variety of tools, services, and support designed for small business clientele. With enough on your plate, as it is, you don’t need to spend tons of time on your website. Everything that I have discovered about Web Hosting Hub recognized that and they aim to make the time that you do spend performing admin tasks on your online store as quick and easy as possible. Not surprisingly, most of the things that they do well truly have the small business owner in mind. In that same vein, the areas where they could stand to improve also impact small businesses.
Here are the top three pros and cons that I feel stand out for Web Hosting Hub:
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Small business friendly | Back up costs extra |
Highly cost competitive | No VPS or dedicated server hosting |
1-click installation of 310+ applications | Not marketed for personal use |
Customer Support
Web Hosting Hub is dedicated to stellar customer support. As part of the onboarding process, you’ll receive a call from a customer services representative to walk you through setting up your website. Web Hosting Hub’s support is more than just an initial welcome to the company. Users enjoy 24/7 telephone support, email and ticket support, as well as live chat available directly from the website. The help center features an extensive FAQ, as well as tutorials on email, website and domain queries, and a thorough knowledge base.
Coupons, Discounts & Promotions
I find it very refreshing when a Web hosting company takes it upon themselves to organize third-party promos on its site. Such is the case with Web Hosting Hub. Don’t bother searching the Web; you’ll be wasting time. All of the current Web Hosting Hub coupons are listed on a promotions page on the main website. It also explains the reason for any invalid offers. Additionally, the three shared hosting plans reflect Web Hosting Hub discounts for new users during the introductory period.
Free Offers
You are not going to find any free offers from Web Hosting Hub. I honestly don’t think that you would need one, though. The company’s hosting plans are so affordable and come with many free extras like domains, Ad Words, and a site builder. There isn’t any need to give it away for free when it’s already such a great value as-is. If, for some reason, you don’t find that Web Hosting Hub is the best provider for you, then take advantage of the 90-day money-back guarantee. Three months to use the service worry-free? That’s a no-brainer!
cPanel
The typical shared hosting user has very little development experience and is more comfortable with intuitive, graphic user interfaces (GUIs) as opposed to a more sterile command line environment. Web Hosting Hub understands this and provides many tools to help these tech tyros, such as having cPanel as the control panel. Web Hosting Hub cPanel hosting includes one-click installs, great email management, and dozens of built-in domain controls. The company even has a cPanel demo to help new users get acquainted. One Web Hosting Hub cPanel login gives access to the instinctively organized control center. Easy-to-use account management, applications, analytics, and advanced administrative devices can be found here.
VPS Hosting
Web Hosting Hub exclusively offers shared hosting services. Even though its shared hosting is incredibly safe, there is value in the added security and scalability afforded with VPS hosting. The customer service staff at Web Hosting Hub completely understand that some users are going to require a VPS plan. As such, they do not shy away from encouraging those customers to look elsewhere. In fact, there is a page in the company’s help center that compares VPS hosting providers for customers. Personally, I find it very refreshing that Web Hosting Hub would provide that level of service as opposed to trying to force a square peg in a round hole.
Shared Hosting
If you are only going to do one thing, you better do it well. For Web Hosting Hub, that one thing is shared hosting and the company excels at it. For a very affordable price, users receive free domains, multiple websites and transfers, and a site builder. One thing that I really like about Web Hosting Hub is the auto-installation of the WordPress CMS and shopping cart software. Incorporating these functions automatically into its shared hosting plans makes an already practical service even more valuable.
Dedicated Hosting
As one might think, a company that only offers shared hosting packages does not provide dedicated hosting. I poked around a little and it doesn’t look as if Web Hosting Hub is going to dip its toes in the dedicated hosting waters anytime soon. On the company’s help center page, they refer customers requiring dedicated hosting (for traffic spikes, server environment control, and project size) to its sister company for help. Per customer, dedicated servers take up a lot of data center space and consume massive amounts of energy. Given that, Web Hosting Hub is able to keep its shared hosting costs down by avoiding dedicated hosting, altogether.
Cloud Hosting
Being a shared hosting specialist, Web Hosting Hub does not offer anything in the way of cloud hosting services. Unlike with VPS and dedicated hosting, the company does not have a partner or other provider to whom it can refer potential cloud users. However, customers searching for shared hosting are rarely in the market for cloud hosting. The features and benefits of each have very few elements in common.
All hosting plans include unlimited Web Hosting Hub email accounts with features such as auto-responders and forwarding capabilities. Email security is slightly better than some competitors’, though. The secure POP3/IMAP accounts use SPAM Safe and McAfee software to eliminate spam and viruses. Web Hosting Hub webmail is a great feature as well, letting users access their email from anywhere, even from mobile devices.
Conclusion
Loaded with great tools like the Learning Center tutorial library, one-click application installation, and the cPanel control panel, Web Hosting Hub is a fantastic option for online retailers who prefer to spend more time interacting with their customers as opposed to working on their website. Full-featured, technically sound, and highly cost-competitive, this is a great service for anyone ready to make a mark online quickly, easily and affordably. If you're looking for more advanced or technical services such as a dedicated server or high-volume e-commerce capabilities, Web Hosting Hub is probably not the best hosting provider for you. But if your goal is to start or migrate well-maintained websites which represent your businesses or online projects, Web Hosting Hub is certainly worth exploring. I recommend taking a closer look for yourself.
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