Hostwinds provides a collection of internet hosting plans for various makes use of and necessities, and ranks among the many best web hosting services in consequence. There’s a internet hosting plan for everybody, with choices starting from low cost shared internet hosting to superior cloud internet hosting and devoted servers.
Hostwinds review: Snapshot
Although it’s slightly dearer than some rivals, our Hostwinds review will present that this firm provides wonderful worth for cash throughout the board.
On prime of this, each facet of Hostwinds’ service is backed by superior instruments and wonderful efficiency. Shared internet hosting comes with a number one 99.9999% uptime assure, and we noticed nothing to counsel that that is an exaggeration. This locations the corporate among the many best web hosting services on efficiency alone.
In addition, you’ll profit from a neat cPanel management panel. Installing scripts and apps could be very simple because of the Softaculous one-click installer, and there’s even a Weebly-based web site builder that will help you get began.
If you’re on the lookout for a strong internet hosting supplier with a spread of nice options, Hostwinds is a good possibility. But if worth for cash is your precedence, rivals reminiscent of Bluehost and Hostinger might be higher suited to your wants.
Score: 4.5/5
Read on for our full and detailed review.
Hostwinds’ rivals
| Hostwinds | Bluehost | Hostinger | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Score | 4.5/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 |
| Pros | – Decent efficiency – Excellent assist sources – Great vary of internet hosting merchandise | – Feature-rich internet hosting options – Beginner-friendly management panel – 30-day money-back assure | – Great worth for cash throughout the board – Neat hPanel management panel – Excellent safety instruments |
| Cons | – Pricing is slightly unclear at instances – Website is troublesome to navigate | – No month-to-month subscription choices – Performance may be a difficulty | – Strict useful resource limitations with some accounts – Performance may be a difficulty – Limited high-end internet hosting choices |
| Verdict | Hostwinds provides a spread of internet hosting merchandise, making it a pretty possibility for these seeking to scale their web site sooner or later. | Bluehost is likely one of the world’s hottest internet hosts, and it’s simple to see why. | If you’re on the lookout for a finances internet hosting supplier, Hostinger is arguably the best choice in the marketplace right now. |
| View offers | Visit site | Visit site | Visit site |
Key options
Although Hostwinds is slightly costly in comparison with among the alternate options, it boasts a superb number of superior instruments and options. Along with the required fundamentals, you’ll profit from limitless storage and bandwidth and a set of administration instruments.
For starters, Hostwinds provides a fundamental model of the Weebly web site builder with each shared internet hosting subscription. It’s slightly restricted, nevertheless it’s a good way for these with little time and tech expertise to get on-line.
Another neat software is the Softaculous App Installer. With this, you possibly can set up a number of content material administration programs (CMS), scripts and different helpful applications that will help you get essentially the most out of your internet hosting account. Simply choose the script you need to set up and comply with the prompts. In normal, installations shouldn’t take greater than a few minutes.
Hostwinds: key options and highlights
If you’re transferring an present web site to Hostwinds from one other internet hosting supplier, you’ll love the free web site migration service. In brief, the Hostwinds technical assist workforce will maintain all the migration, transferring your web site and its information to your new server.
Hostwinds additionally provides built-in Cloudflare integration, which allows you to optimize your web site’s efficiency and safety. Benefit from the facility of one of many world’s largest content material supply networks (CDN) and benefit from the built-in DDoS safety.
What’s new?
Hostwinds is within the strategy of overhauling its web site and internet hosting plans, addressing ongoing points with the goal of bettering the shopper expertise.
For starters, all the web site has been re-designed, eradicating the damaged hyperlinks and navigation points that we’ve discovered so irritating up to now. Multi-lingual assist has additionally been added, making Hostwinds that little bit extra accessible to non-English audio system.
The assist web site has additionally been up to date, with cellular accessibility added to all tutorials. The product documentation, which was typically slightly dense and onerous to navigate, has been separated into clear blocks, and new content material is being added often.
On prime of this, the corporate has not too long ago discontinued its Reseller internet hosting line. Existing clients received’t be affected, however new subscriptions are unavailable on the present time. Overall, it’s good to see Hostwinds addressing points which were round for some time.
Pricing
Hostwinds provides a number of internet hosting choices, together with shared, VPS, cloud, and devoted servers. There are three shared options, with costs starting from $5.24 to $8.24 a month for an preliminary subscription. Note, although, that costs will improve considerably on renewal.
Managed and unmanaged VPS internet hosting is obtainable in each Windows and Linux flavors. Linux VPS begins at $8.24 a month for a managed plan or $4.99 a month for an unmanaged solution. Windows VPS begins from $12.74 a month for managed hosting or $10.99 for unmanaged.
Cloud internet hosting starts from $0.006931 per hour (roughly $4.99 a month), whereas extra superior dedicated servers can be found from $106 a month.
| Plan sort/function | Basic Shared | Advanced Shared | Ultimate Shared |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per 30 days | $8.99* | $10.99* | $12.99* |
| Cost per yr | $83.88* | $107.88* | $131.88* |
| Unlimited bandwidth | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Unlimited storage | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Website connections | 1 | 4 | Unlimited |
| Free SSL | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
*We’ve listed the usual costs right here. Expect to obtain a reduction of as much as 50% to your first billing cycle.
Testing Hostwinds
In order to comprehensively examine Hostwinds to the competitors, we analyzed a collection of its options and instruments to see the way it carried out. This included making a WordPress web site, checking its server response instances, and seeing how easy it was to arrange an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates.
How do you create a WordPress web site with Hostwinds?
Creating a brand new WordPress web site with Hostwinds is a really simple course of. Hostwinds provides the Softaculous one-click installer, which you should utilize to put in WordPress—or different applications—to your internet hosting in a matter of minutes.
When you log into your cPanel management panel for the primary time, you may be prompted to put in WordPress and begin your first web site. Simply click on on the button, configure any of the settings you wish to, and hit set up.
The full set up course of took us not more than a few minutes, which was good to see. A placeholder theme was added to help with the positioning creation course of, and a number of helpful suggestions was supplied to assist newcomers get began.
Once you’ve put in WordPress, you possibly can start customizing your web site by navigating to your WordPress admin panel. Here, you can see all the anticipated modifying and web site administration instruments. You can even be capable of entry the total theme and plugin libraries as required.
How does Hostwinds carry out?
To check Hostwinds’ efficiency, we created a easy WordPress web site and monitored it utilizing Uptime.com. Both availability and server response time was monitored often over a seven-day interval, and the outcomes had been nice to see.
For one, our assessments returned a 100% uptime determine, which is pretty much as good as you will get. This is in line with Hostwinds’ industry-leading 99.9999% uptime assure.
The common server response time of 285ms was additionally good to see. This locations Hostwinds’ shared internet hosting up there with one of the best performing in the marketplace. What’s extra, the response instances had been very constant, with few spikes and a slowest response of simply 524ms.
How simple is it to arrange an SSL certificates?
Installing a legitimate SSL certificates is essential to make sure that all knowledge transmissions to and out of your web site are encrypted and protected against prying eyes. Many internet hosting firms present streamlined SSL administration instruments, however Hostwinds isn’t considered one of them.
Instead, it depends on the inventory commonplace cPanel SSL instruments. With these, you possibly can set up and handle your SSL installations, nevertheless it’s not the best course of we’ve seen.
By default, a self-signed SSL certificates might be put in. This is healthier than nothing, however we’d advocate upgrading to a third-party SSL for added safety. If you comply with the prompts so as to add a customized SSL, HostWinds will encourage you to buy a premium certificates.
However, it typically isn’t essential to pay for an SSL certificates except you may have a big web site coping with a number of delicate knowledge transmissions, particularly with the suite of free third-party choices obtainable.
To set up a free SSL certificates from a third-party supply, you will have to add it instantly inside your SSL administration panel. This is comparatively simple to do, however newcomers with little expertise will possible grow to be confused by the technical terminology that’s used.
The competitors
Hostwinds has labored by way of some main enhancements over the previous few months, and it now sits alongside one of the best internet hosting choices in the marketplace. It is slightly costly, although, with the most affordable shared internet hosting plan ranging from $5.24 a month.
This does, nonetheless, unlock entry to a superb vary of options, so the worth for cash remains to be nice. You will profit from a full cPanel management panel, in addition to good assist, limitless storage and bandwidth, and an awesome number of safety and knowledge backup instruments.
Another standard possibility is Bluehost, which provides finances internet hosting from simply $2.95 a month. This makes it one of many extra reasonably priced choices obtainable, and the corporate has an awesome fame as a beginner-friendly host.
With a base-level plan, you may be restricted to simply 50GB of SSD storage. Like Hostwinds, although, Bluehost provides a free area, top-notch assist, and streamlined one-click installations. However, its safety instruments might be higher. Read our Bluehost review to study extra in regards to the service.
Alternatively, you may like to make use of Hostinger if you happen to’re on a decent finances. Its shared internet hosting begins at simply $1.39 a month, and also you received’t discover higher worth for cash anyplace.
As to be anticipated, internet hosting that’s this low cost does include limitations, and you’ll solely be capable of join one web site with 30GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth. Hostinger is thought for its wonderful safety instruments, although, and its native hPanel management panel is arguably much more beginner-friendly than Hostwinds’ cPanel. Our complete Hostinger review explains what we product of the internet hosting supplier.
| Product | Hostwinds | Bluehost | Hostinger |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control panel | cPanel | Custom cPanel interfaceYes | hPanel |
| Free area | Yes | Yes | Yes (with improve) |
| One-click installations | Yes, a whole bunch obtainable by way of Softaculous | Yes, a whole bunch obtainable by way of Softaculous | Yes, greater than 100 functions |
| Support | 24/7 dwell chat, e-mail, and on-line ticketing | 24/7 dwell chat and telephone | 24/7 dwell chat and on-line ticketing |
| Basic plan | $5.24 a month | $2.95 a month | $1.39 a month |
The verdict
All issues thought-about, there’s loads to love about Hostwinds and its webhosting merchandise. It provides every little thing from low cost shared internet hosting to superior devoted server and cloud options. And every little thing is backed by the facility of contemporary server infrastructure and a spread of nice options.
One factor that stands out about Hostwinds’ shared internet hosting is its nice efficiency. During our assessments, we skilled 100% uptime and industry-leading server response instances.
Hostwinds additionally makes it simple to begin a brand new web site, with full entry to the Softaculous one-click installer and a fundamental Weebly web site builder integration. Benefit from the facility of the Cloudflare content material supply community, and guarantee your web site is totally secured always.
On the draw back, Hostwinds isn’t the most affordable host we’ve seen. Competitors like Hostinger current higher choices for these on a decent finances. Installing an SSL certificates would require some technical data, and the corporate actually doesn’t promote its costs very effectively.
At the top of the day, although, there’s a motive why Hostwinds is likely one of the world’s hottest internet hosts. It provides wonderful service throughout the board, making it an possibility effectively value contemplating.
