InterServer web hosting review 2021

InterServer is a full-service web hosting supplier with 4 information facilities within the US. In our InterServer review, we take into account its key options and pricing, and examine it with the best web hosting companies we’ve examined.

InterServer review: Snapshot

InterServer affords a whole vary of hosting merchandise, from shared hosting to devoted servers, and it positions its pricing to be persistently cheaper than nearly all of its rivals. Throw in its limitless bandwidth and storage and free Cloudflare CDN, and it appears like a prime purchase.

However, InterServer’s pace, reliability, and buyer help want enchancment. SMEs requiring a strong, reliable host with helpful technical help might remorse selecting InterServer simply to avoid wasting a couple of {dollars} a month. Competitors like Hostwinds and HostGator supply a extra dependable service with higher technical help for the same value.

Score: 3/5

Read on for the total review.

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InterServer’s rivals

InterServer: Key options

InterServer’s web hosting plans have limitless cupboard space and limitless information. All websites get free Cloudflare CDN, 24/7 help, and a 99.9% uptime assure. A Price Lock Guarantee ensures your web hosting gained’t skyrocket in value later on the host’s whim, and InterServer affords free migration in your web site from different hosts. 

InterServer affords a considerably dated administration panel in your web sites, domains, and DNS settings. You should purchase, cancel, lock, and renew domains, make backups, administer mail, and arrange SSL certificates all from this single admin panel. Automatic backups of your web site, taken each week, could be downloaded right here, and it’s also possible to order free hosting migration from one other supplier. 

Many different hosting corporations routinely embrace cPanel, a robust and common web hosting management panel instrument that enhances such in-house admin instruments. It administers nearly each facet of your hosting, and affords administration of e mail addresses, information, databases, domains, software program, and safety, all from one central web page.

However, on InterServer, should you select the most affordable hosting plan, then you definately’ll must pay an additional $1 a month for cPanel. cPanel is included on the dearer IS Boost plans, and is out there for $1 a month for different plans. There’s additionally another, Direct Admin, you can select at no additional value.

InterServer: Key options and highlights

SitePad is the web site builder that InterServer contains without spending a dime on its hosting plans. It’s a drag-and-drop editor for creating an internet site, much like the best website builders obtainable.

Web hosting from InterServer doesn’t embrace a SitePad license, although, so you’ll be able to solely use the free model of the location builder. This severely limits the usefulness of SitePad, as web sites are restricted to only three pages, and you may solely select from between 15 themes. 

You can improve to a paid SitePad plan for $12 a 12 months to unlock limitless themes and pages. But at that value, there are a lot of better, easier-to-use website builders in the marketplace. SitePad’s interface is considerably clunky, and to get greatest outcomes you’ll want some web design expertise, which largely defeats the purpose of utilizing an internet site builder for almost all of customers.

Rapid deployment of common web-based software program is feasible with Softaculous, a program included with InterServer web hosting. Softaculous automates the set up of software program, so as a substitute of rummaging round with file managers or safe shell (SSH), you’ll be able to have a classy web site up and operating in a matter of minutes.

Softaculous has one-click installers for over 450 apps. If you need to construct something from a buyer help web site to a social networking web site, there’s sometimes an present app you’ll be able to set up utilizing Softaculous that can do the job.

InterServer: What’s new?

InterServer turned common within the shared hosting area for its singular, no-nonsense $5 a month plan. But in 2020, InterServer modified to a extra conventional web hosting pricing mannequin with a number of service ranges. Prices have been bumped, too, so the most affordable choice is now $7 a month after your introductory time period.

This irked some customers who most well-liked the simplicity of InterServer’s earlier one-size-fits-all pricing, however InterServer’s new pricing continues to be very aggressive.

InterServer: Pricing

InterServer differentiates its web hosting into 11 plans. Some of those embrace reseller plans, ASP.NET hosting plans, and managed WordPress hosting. You have the choice of paying month-to-month, each six months, yearly, each two years, and typically each three years. On the dearer plans, you’ll get a reduction of as much as 20% for paying upfront.

InterServer, like many different hosts, has an introductory supply, so you can begin out paying $2.50 a month. But you’ll rapidly be shuttled to the total value, which begins at $7 a month.

* When paid month-to-month, after the introductory supply has expired
** When paid yearly, after the introductory supply has expired

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Testing InterServer

We examined InterServer by shopping for an IS Boost 2 Core plan and deploying a WordPress web site on it. Then, utilizing Uptime.com, we ran 1000’s of uptime, response time, and web page load time exams from three areas within the US to get an thought of how briskly and dependable the service is.

How dependable is InterServer?

InterServer ensures a 99.9% uptime assure, however this doesn’t embrace any downtime attributable to scheduled upkeep, {hardware} failure, or any networks not owned by InterServer, so it’s a relatively weak assure.

Every 5 minutes for 2 weeks, we examined whether or not our web site hosted with InterServer was obtainable from Los Angeles, New York, and Dallas. InterServer was offline 4 occasions throughout this comparatively quick testing interval for intervals of as much as 42 minutes at a time. This resulted in uptime of 99.61%, which is poor.

It’s potential this was a very unfortunate time for InterServer, however 4 outages on totally different days throughout such a brief testing interval displays poorly on the service, and suggests it’s unreliable. A big variety of on-line opinions be aware that they too have had issues with InterServer’s reliability over the previous 12 months.

How quick do InterServer web sites reply?

Response time is a metric that may inform us how rapidly an internet site will start to load. A sluggish response time will see guests clicking away out of your web site as a result of it looks as if it’s not loading in any respect. 

InterServer averaged 651ms when examined from our three US areas, which is completely high quality however not excellent. In comparability, Amazon Lightsail’s response time was 116ms, and InMotion Hosting responded in a median of 163ms.

How rapidly do pages hosted on InterServer load?

Page load pace measures how lengthy a web page takes to load in its entirety. To pretty examine how rapidly pages load on totally different web site hosts, we use the identical WordPress web site on all hosts and entry them from a single US location. We take a number of readings to make a median.

Despite its mediocre efficiency in uptime and response time exams, InterServer carried out fairly effectively on this real-world take a look at. The web page loaded fully in a median of 234ms. This comparatively good pace is probably as a consequence of InterServer’s international content material caching, which delivers cached variations of your content material to customers from servers situated extra carefully to them.

In comparability, DreamHost, Amazon Lightsail, WordPress, and InMovement Hosting’s web page load speeds have been 139ms, 171ms, 473ms, and 739ms, respectively.

Alternatives to InterServer

InterServer’s low pricing and limitless plans are definitely interesting, however a number of corporations can trump it on many essential metrics. 

Since InterServer elevated its costs, it now not stands out within the market as a very excellent purchase. You don’t get a free area, and you need to pay additional for cPanel if you select InterServer, so most customers will find yourself paying roughly the identical value as they might in the event that they have been to decide on rivals like Hostwinds, Bluehost, or InMotion Hosting.

InterServer additionally cuts corners on help. Though it’s touted as a 24/7 service, reside chat is incessantly unavailable, and the outsourced technical help group lacks data on the merchandise. Often, they gave us conflicting or just incorrect data in what seemed to be an try to complete the chat as rapidly as potential. Similarly priced hosts like InMovement Hosting and Bluehost supply considerably higher technical help.

For SMEs searching for strong, dependable, and quick web hosting, InterServer is a little bit of a bet. HostGator is a competitor that gives higher common speeds and uptime at a value in step with InterServer. You get limitless bandwidth and storage, too, and the  technical help is best than InterServer’s. Hostinger is one other hosting firm that carried out higher than InterServer in testing.

* Based on the non-introductory value of the most affordable plan when paid yearly

InterServer: Final verdict

InterServer is an attention-grabbing web site host with merchandise that vary from shared and VPS to cloud and devoted hosting. Its low costs, unmetered bandwidth, limitless storage, 99.9% uptime assure, and one-click app set up make for a strong basis.

But throughout our testing interval, our InterServer web site went offline 4 occasions, and for a number of hours our web site was unavailable. Even when the host was up, the location response occasions have been comparatively sluggish. There’s a risk that InterServer has simply been having a nasty few weeks, so additional testing can be required, however this shaky efficiency needs to be thought-about in any buying choice.

InterServer’s poor buyer help can result in a irritating expertise, too. Tech help is usually unavailable, and they’re liable to providing incorrect data.

Overall, InterServer is an okay hosting supplier selection with a good pricing plan, but it surely’s surrounded within the market by many extra worthy rivals.

Further studying on web hosting

If you just like the look of InterServer’s limitless companies however not the service points, take a look at our information to the best unlimited hosting. If you’re planning on constructing your web site utilizing WordPress, flick thru our picks of the best WordPress hosting obtainable right now. 

But should you’d desire to make use of an internet site builder, take a look at our information to the best website builders to search out the service that fits you greatest.