A review of some popular web hosts
At In Focus Design, we set up a lot of websites for individuals and businesses who realize the value of having a website, but have no idea how to make a website a reality. In the process of designing pages, researching and registering available domain names, and searching for the best web host for our client’s particular needs, we have had the opportunity to work with a number of web hosting services currently available. As you might guess, not all web hosts are created equally.
While choosing the best web host for your needs depends on a variety of factors (space requirements, security, programming language support, etc.) it seems that most web hosts offer similar services at similar prices. There are some small differences in features and price, but the biggest differences seem to be found in the areas of reliability and customer service.
We offer the following reviews of web hosting services:
IMHosted: This company has a nice-looking professional website of its own. It uses off-shored tech support, but the tech support is available through instant messaging, which is great for more immediate response to trouble issues. E-mail tech support is also available, and the response times are reasonable. Account access is through traditional cPanel interface, which is easy to use. Hosting packages are inexpensive and fully featured. They also offer hosting packages for businesses, which is a plus. The only minor complaint we had with IMHosted is that their new account set up was a bit slow, as was FTP access.
Midphase: New site set up is extremely fast with Midphase. Tech support (through e-mailed trouble tickets) used to be much faster, but has slowed down in recent years. Bandwidth and other features are competitive, and they have one of the best business packages available. Midphase also provides traditional cPanel interface for you to manage your account. Midphase is a bit more expensive than some other options out there, and we have had some recent issues with “mystery billings.” Our experience with their more expensive “Virtual Private Server” was abysmal–support for issues outside of our control was non-existent.
BlueHost: In our opinion, BlueHost is currently one of the best web hosts out there. They offer a full range of bandwidth and features at an affordable price. New account set up is fast, and tech support has been solid. cPanel is the account interface here, as well. BlueHost also offers a premium package–for a bit more money, they’ll put your site on a server with a limited number of other sites, thus increasing site speed.
Hostmonster: Like BlueHost, Hostmonster offers a full range of features for a low price. New accounts are fast and easy to set up, and tech support has been responsive and fast. Our only complaint is that Hostmonster uses its own version of the cPanel interface. Instead of the cPanel’s standard small icons, Hostmonster replaced these buttons with huge, ugly icons that make the whole interface appear like a cumbersome big-button phone. Mousing over an icon produces a pop-up box that explains what the button is for. This might be useful to some folks, but we found it really irritating.
Infinology: In truth, we have not used this host recently. We stopped using it because at the time, it did not keep pace with the feature offerings of other hosts (specifically database and programming language support). While it has since added some of the features that were missing, at a $20 a month starting price, Infinology is expensive compared to other hosting options.
iPowerWeb: Our experience with iPowerWeb was generally positive. They are inexpensive, use the cPanel interface, and new account set up was fast and easy. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) we had no opportunity to work with their tech support. One drawback we found is that their offerings for bandwidth and hard drive space were less than some other providers out there.
Terrabyte: This Canadian company sells domain name registrations in addition to offering web hosting. We used them extensively in years past, but dropped them for cost reasons (higher priced in general than other options) and because their custom interface was cumbersome and antiquated. Feature offerings also did not measure up, in particular the limited numbers of databases one could have per account.
GoDaddy: We have no direct experience with GoDaddy as a web host provider, however we recently checked them out at the request of a client. While GoDaddy offers super cheap hosting, it is limited on features. It provides limited bandwidth and no support of PHP or MySQL. If setting up a new hosting account is anything like setting up a domain registration, expect about 40 overly busy screens, each with not-so-obvious checkboxes that will sign you up for e-mail on everything including Bob Parsons’s kitchen sink, if you negelect to check them all off.
We use GoDaddy consistently for domain registration, and find they have good prices and even better customer service. If we could recommend one thing to the company, it would be to get rid of the “Go Daddy Girls,” an offensive concept on a number of levels. We hope you’re listening, Bob.
It’s been our observation that “top ten” lists of web host providers are not static. As web host providers gain recognition, they also gain a flood of clients. Sometimes the end result is that these companies grow too fast, and they can’t maintain the quality that put them at the top in the first place. Bottom line, it’s probably worth it to do a web host provider review every few years to make sure you are with the best web host for your website needs.