Established in 1999 and bought by Deluxe (a US-based small enterprise monetary providers firm) in 2008, Hostopia is a white-label platform for its dad or mum firm’s suite of enterprise options. They perform as an all-in-one resolution for small companies, providing all the pieces from web hosting to making a full-blown advertising technique for a given model. In 2018 in addition they acquired Digiweb, a long-standing telecommunications firm from Ireland and expanded their space of experience.
In 2020, Hostopia’s division in Australia began to collaborate with Equinix, an American multinational firm specialised in web connection and knowledge facilities, as a way to enhance its service supply and connectivity for greater than 50,000 clients. All in all, Hostopia isn’t any stranger to growth and it continues to develop nonetheless, slowly however steadily.
The international community of their companions and resellers covers a number of areas throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.
Hostopia’s official web site is agreeable to the attention in its simplicity and ease of use, though it’s not too beneficiant in terms of details about the corporate itself. The web site includes a weblog and a likable one in addition, with some fairly good recommendation for somebody beginning or operating a small enterprise. The solely noticeable weak point is that the weblog is up to date each few months and the oldest articles date from 2018, which doesn’t offer you a lot materials to learn by.
Out of the social networks, Hostopia appears to be lively on LinkedIn solely.
Plans and pricing
Besides providing gross sales and advertising providers, Hostopia’s is a supplier of reseller web hosting with enterprise companions everywhere in the globe. Since their providers are extra geared in direction of small to middle-sized companies with a number of web sites, fairly heavy site visitors and massive desires, there isn’t plenty of exact details about their internet hosting packages.
Hostopia’s web site will offer you a quick perception into the scope of providers they’ve on the provide together with net design, professional-looking on-line presence constructing instruments, multi-site internet hosting plans (with a SaaS method), business email, e-commerce options, on-line listing administration for SEO and online fax services. However, to get extra details about partnering with Hostopia or schedule a demo, you’ll must get in contact with their staff.
At current, Hostopia presents no free trial nor a money-back assure.
Some of the supported cost strategies with Hostopia embrace all main credit score/debit playing cards, PayPal and financial institution transfers.
Ease of use
With a aim to shut the hole between normal service suppliers and buyer bases whose companies have want for such providers, Hostopia discovered its place available on the market. Their providers are recognized to be moderately priced, well-rounded and supplemented with a staff of skilled consultants (and an clever platform) which might be there to assist your enterprise develop to its full potential.
To kick issues off with Hostopia, you’ll must get in contact with their staff and you are able to do it through toll-free phone quantity (if you happen to’re within the USA), an internet type or e mail. The e mail doesn’t appear to be out there throughout the weekend, nevertheless, and if it’s a matter of urgency, you might be inspired to get in contact with them by different contact channels. In any occasion, after a session with Hostopia’s agent you must have a deeper perception into the set of providers you’re going to obtain in addition to your orientation price.
Hostopia ought to handle all the pieces from domains, web site migrations (that are largely free-of-charge), extra in-depth buyer help, a lot of technical manuals and WebsiteOS help documentation, full coaching and help with creating your model. This preliminary interval is a three-month funding, for which you’ll must pay a price. However, provided that Hostopia’s contracts are open-ended, you’re not required to make any long-term commitments, which implies you possibly can bail out at any level.
Hostopia’s reseller packages are hosted on a hybrid UNIX/Windows working system they usually help ASP, PHP, ColdFusion and MySQL.
Their DIY web site constructing instruments with drag-and-drop performance will let you construct a lovely web site with ease, and it is going to be each search engine optimization optimized and mobile-friendly. You’ll solely have to substantiate the title of your web site, fill in primary info and choose a design you wish to use, with greater than a ample variety of templates at your disposal. All the necessary ecommerce features are supported as effectively, permitting you to construct a totally useful webstore.
Speed and expertise
Although Hostopia’s web site doesn’t say a lot in regards to the velocity efficiency, GTmetrix, as all the time, does. The web page took 4.6 seconds to completely load which isn’t image good, however it’s considerably higher than the common results of 8.1 seconds. All different very important net metrics had been about or above the common rating leading to a B (81%) as a conclusive grade, which (once more) seems to be fairly good as compared with the common.
Hostopia’s web site reassures us to really feel “assured with their SLAs and uptime ensures”, however we had been unable to search out the precise proportion this refers to. In any case, we intently monitored the uptime efficiency of Hostopia’s important web site for over a month (through UptimeRobot) and acquired some fairly good outcomes. The reported common uptime for one month was in keeping with {industry} normal of 99.90%. There had been a complete of 4 situations of downtime the place the longest one endured for 19 minutes straight, which, whereas not best, is presentable efficiency nonetheless.
Support
Unfortunately for newcomers, that is the place Hostopia displays a scarcity of consistency, comprehensiveness and care generally. The first help channel you’ll discover on their web site is a toll-free phone quantity, which is (regrettably) solely legitimate for the USA. There can also be an e mail deal with and an internet request type, however not a hint of the most well-liked help channel total – dwell chat.
In spite of that, evidently what Hostopia lacks in amount, it tries to make up for with the standard of their help workers, since there are many praiseful feedback from their clients on internet hosting boards everywhere in the web. However, there may be additionally some criticism from dissatisfied ex-customers describing their help as “unresponsive”, “incomplete” and (as a ending blow) “virtually non-existent”.
As for self-support decisions, if we exclude Hostopia’s official weblog, there are none. Besides a quick description of all of their providers, one fast introduction video about their web site builder and round 30 weblog articles, there may be nothing to guide you on the trail of self-sufficiency.
The competitors
Choosing between Hostopia and HostGator relies upon closely in your precise enterprise wants in addition to in your technical information. Hostopia is a supplier of reseller providers oriented in direction of small to midsize enterprise with a number of web sites, whereas HostGator presents all kinds of internet hosting varieties and choices with some wonderful novice-friendly options, corresponding to 45-day money-back assure. Therefore, if that is going to be your first skilled web site, HostGator is a a lot safer guess. However, if this isn’t the case, you possibly can strive your luck with both of them.
Much like HostGator, Bluehost is an extremely beginner-friendly host with a 24/7 buyer help, tons of easy-to-follow how-tos, an industry-standard management panel, one-click installs and a drag-and-drop web site builder. Hostopia, however, has barely skilled business-focused customers in thoughts. Thus, in case you are searching for an area for a private weblog or a easy web site, Hostopia is perhaps a bit an excessive amount of.
Both Hostopia and DigitalOcean are US-based hosting suppliers geared in direction of customers with an conceited quantity of technical knowhow. However, not like Hostopia, DigitalOcean offers all new customers with a beneficiant 60-day-long free trial with free credit score of $100, which makes it a lot simpler to go for them.
Hostopia and Steadfast are each from the USA, and are virtually the identical in terms of the shortcomings of their buyer help providers. However, whereas Hostopia presents reseller internet hosting merchandise, Steadfast can offer you its personal absolutely customizable VPS, VDS and bare metal dedicated server resolution, and all at a good value.
Final verdict
To reply the query of whether or not Hostopia is an precise utopia for a small enterprise or not, we’ll must pose an extra one. Have you been looking out for an organization with a worldwide infrastructure and a long-standing profession in supplying full-service web options for small companies specifically? If the reply is “sure”, you must undoubtedly get in contact with Hostopia’s staff and see what they will do to make your enterprise flourish like by no means earlier than.
However, if the reply is “no”, take a look at hosts corresponding to HostGator and Bluehost, as a result of each have confirmed to be dependable, well-rounded and really user-friendly.
