With Hostens even a hamster can have its personal web site, or we’ve got to imagine it could, since we didn’t discover a hamster of sound thoughts that may verify this. Nevertheless, Hostens began its journey as a division of firm Interneto vizija in 2003, and has since grown to serve greater than 150,000 prospects all through Europe. Achieving their objective to create a stability between affordability and enterprise-level know-how, they grew to become Lithuania’s finest identified web hosting firm in 2005.
Hostens owns and operates “state-of-the-art” information heart which meets the worldwide requirements of tier 3 know-how (this means 99.98% availability). Located in Vilnius, Lithuania, it’s conveniently located at Europe’s geographic midpoint.
The touchdown web page of Hostens’s major web site is irresistibly paying homage to kids’s image books with its idyllic cartoonish panorama, everlasting sunshine and slightly charming mascot within the type of a hamster. The part in regards to the firm gives a good quantity of details about its historical past, information facilities and staff behind it, all with images. The web site itself is out there in a number of languages apart from English, together with: Estonian, Latvian, Ukrainian, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian and Chinese (Mandarin, to be particular).
Now, let’s discuss Hostens’s official weblog and the (mis)adventures of a well-recognized little critter emanating his cuteness past the boundaries of the digital world. So what does the weblog have to supply beside this? In truth, the whole lot it ought to: an excessive amount of up-to-date, informative and instructive articles on varied related and interconnected subjects.
When it involves social networks, Hostens will be discovered on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and (though much less apparent) on Reddit. All accounts appear to be up to date fairly ceaselessly, apart from the Reddit one.
Plans and pricing
Hostens has three various kinds of internet hosting on the menu: shared hosting, VPS and reseller hosting, and three plans of various sizes are supplied for every of them. The entry-level shared hosting plan has lots to supply and for a really affordable worth of $3.00 per 30 days. It drops to $1.50 for those who commit for a 12 months, $1.20 for 2 of them and $0.90 for 3 years, which is probably the most cost-efficient resolution in case you are keen to make a long-term choice. This plan will offer you: 10GB of disk house, 1TB of bandwidth, helps as much as 10 web sites and databases, and 100 e mail accounts. Also, it consists of each day and weekly automated backups, the trade normal cPanel, Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates and an internet site builder.
In case their providers don’t meet your wants, there’s a 30-day money-back assure, however provided that the bill was paid by way of bank card or PayPal, and it (as anticipated) excludes a website registration and any add-ons.
As for cost strategies, along with these talked about above, Hostens permits you to pay by way of Alipay, BitPay (sure, they settle for bitcoins), Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, XRP, Boletol or DOKU.
Ease of use
Just as Hostens’s web site is straightforward to make use of, so is the method of selecting and buying the needed internet hosting plan. For each internet hosting kind, beneath the offered plans you could find a somewhat helpful FAQ part with a lot of the primary questions answered in an easy-to-follow method. When you determine on a plan, all particulars about will probably be displayed clearly, along with billing cycles to decide on type and applicable add-ons. Next, you’ll be requested to decide on a cost technique, and there are quite a lot of accessible.
If you might be new to Hostens, right here you’ll be required to supply plenty of private info, however nothing out of the extraordinary. Additionally, you may subscribe to obtain notifications about information and updates by way of SMS. If you wish to allow two-factor authentication to boost your sense of safety, that is the place you wish to do it. After making the cost, new customers can register their new area identify or switch an outdated one, supplied they’ve it.
After wrapping up the whole lot, it’s best to get entry to your just lately created web site with out a lot delay.
Hostens makes use of trade normal cPanel, which is useful each to newcomers as to those that are already accustomed to it. From there, you may simply arrange SSL and set up WordPress or different well-liked apps utilizing Installatrion, a useful one-click installer. As of late, Hostens enriched its internet hosting plans with a drag-and-drop web site builder to the delight of all those that awaited it. We shouldn’t neglect to say that every one shared internet hosting plans help Python, Ruby, and Git programming languages.
All in all, it’s onerous to disclaim that Hostens has a lot to supply, however one factor it (nonetheless) lacks is DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) assault safety. Being conscious of this situation for fairly a while, they even advise its personal prospects to implement DDoS safety options on their very own. Although the chance of being focused by a DDoS assault is comparatively low, it’s nonetheless a difficulty that must be addressed sooner somewhat than later.
Speed and expertise
Having all the required details about Hostens’s information facilities, we anticipated an ideal efficiency and that is precisely what we received. As a matter of truth, that is the primary time we’ve seen GTmetrix grade pace efficiency of an internet site with a flawless A (100%), which is nothing however spectacular. Hostens’s major web site took 2.8 seconds to completely load the web page (the common result’s 8.1) and 48 requests (the common being 89), which seems to be promising, to say the least.
Hostens presents 99.95% uptime assure, which doesn’t measure as much as tier 3 server’s potential of sustaining an uptime of 99.98%. Despite that, after monitoring uptime of Hostens’s major web site consistently for 2 weeks (via using UptimeRobot) we recorded no downtime in any way. One main oscillation in response time was recorded and some minor ones, however nothing important sufficient to have influence on the general efficiency.
Support
Although it lacks the curtness of a widely known hamster, Hostens’s knowledgebase has a lot to supply. An honest quantity of articles is split into corresponding classes, a few of that are extra informative and others are of tutorial-like nature. All articles are accessible via classes on the aspect bar as effectively, with a number of of the latest ones being highlighted. As another, you may merely use the search field.
If you continue to can’t discover the solutions you might be searching for (otherwise you would somewhat have extra private help), you might be welcome to get in contact with Hostens’s staff by way of dwell chat, e-mail, ticket or contact type. Their help staff is out there round the clock, so any issues, questions or issues must be resolved in a heartbeat.
However, though we didn’t have any disagreeable expertise with Hostens’s help, evidently, a specific amount of their prospects did, in keeping with a substantial variety of complaints that may be discovered all around the web, most notably on Trustpilot. User experiences range drastically, from those which might be greater than happy with Hostens’s providers to those that characterised them as “scoundrels and scammers” with “ineffective” buyer help. We perceive that nobody is ready to make everybody completely satisfied, however maybe there are points that Hostens ought to handle.
The competitors
At first look, MilesWeb and Hostens may appear a bit comparable: each hosts have fashionable user-friendly web sites occupied by the corporate’s mascot, feature-packed plans, entry to cPanel’s demo model and each are massive gamers of their environment (MilesWeb in India, Hostens in post-Soviet states). However, for these with excessive calls for, MilesWeb has extra on the menu, whereas Hostens appears excellent for newcomers and particular person bloggers.
Hostgator’s Snappy (their mascot that takes the type of an alligator) is a significant competitor to Hostens’s cute hamster, though we contemplate them equal in that space. Where they aren’t equal is the extensiveness of their providers. When it involves shared internet hosting plans, Hostgator can provide the whole lot Hostens can, but in addition with limitless bandwidth and disk house with all its plans.
Both Bluehost and Hostens are competent hosts and are somewhat beneficiant in direction of newcomers (free area, free SSL, cPanel, easy-installs and extra). While Hostens throws in an internet site builder to boost the deal, Bluehost has extra on the provide for demanding companies (similar to devoted servers) and, as of just lately, a managed WordPress internet hosting as an possibility.
Strato is one other somewhat robust competitor to Hostens, however one primarily based in Berlin, Germany (as their information heart is). Since each hosts’ information facilities are positioned inside Europe, each can enchantment to prospects from European international locations. Despite that, Strato is unavailable in a few of them, whereas Hostens covers each single nation. Besides that, Scooter’s H.P. Baxxter (regardless of being considered a profitable musician) can’t compete with the allure of Hostens’s anonymous hamster.
Final verdict
In the top, what does Hostens have to supply beside a cute hamster? Actually lots, and probably the whole lot a newbie or impartial blogger may want for. Of course, like with the whole lot, there are flaws. The lack of security from DDoS assaults and a few regarding feedback from outdated prospects are those we should always point out. Even so, is Hostens definitely worth the threat? Yes, indubitably, however for those who would somewhat keep on the protected aspect, hosts like GoDaddy, Hostgator and Bluehost are at all times an excellent guess.
