Hostwinds web hosting review | IT PRO

Hostwinds gives a sequence of hosting plans for various makes use of and necessities, and ranks among the many finest web hosting companies consequently. There’s a hosting plan for everybody, with choices starting from low cost shared hosting to superior cloud hosting and devoted servers. 

Hostwinds review: Snapshot

Although it’s a bit of costlier than some opponents, our Hostwinds review will present that this firm gives 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 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 finest web hosting companies on efficiency alone. 

In addition, you’ll profit from a neat cPanel management panel. Installing scripts and apps may be very simple because of the Softaculous one-click installer, and there’s even a Weebly-based web site builder that can assist you get began. 

If you’re searching for a strong hosting supplier with a spread of nice options, Hostwinds is a good possibility. But if worth for cash is your precedence, opponents similar to Bluehost and Hostinger may very well be higher suited to your wants. 

Score: 4.5/5

Read on for the total Hostwinds review.

Hostwinds’ opponents

How does Hostwinds evaluate to its most important opponents?

  Hostwinds Bluehost Hostinger
Score 4.5/5 3.5/5 4/5
Pros – Decent efficiency
– Excellent assist sources
– Great vary of hosting merchandise
– Feature-rich shared hosting plans
– Beginner-friendly cPanel management panel
– Impressive 24/7 assist
– Great worth for cash throughout
the board – Neat hPanel management panel – Excellent safety instruments
Cons – Pricing is a bit of unclear at occasions
– Website is tough to navigate
– Deceptive introductory costs
– Terrible efficiency
– Underpowered VPS and devoted
server plans
– Strict useful resource limitations with
some accounts – Performance may be a difficulty – Limited high-end hosting choices
Verdict Hostwinds gives a spread of hosting merchandise, making it a beautiful possibility for these seeking to scale their web site sooner or later. Bluehost is a highly regarded web host that’s advisable by WordPress.org, nevertheless it’s removed from essentially the most highly effective we’ve used.  If you’re searching for a funds hosting
supplier, Hostinger is arguably the most suitable choice available on the market right now. 
View offers
Visit site
url_id=2380&aff_click_id=hawk-custom-tracking”>Visit site

Hostwinds: Key options

Although Hostwinds is a bit of costly in comparison with among the options, it boasts a wonderful number of superior instruments and options. Along with the mandatory fundamentals, you’ll profit from limitless storage and bandwidth and a collection of administration instruments. 

For starters, Hostwinds gives a primary model of the Weebly web site builder with each shared hosting subscription. It’s a bit of restricted, nevertheless it’s a good way for these with little time and tech abilities to get on-line. 

Another neat instrument is the Softaculous App Installer. With this, you possibly can set up a number of CMS, scripts and different helpful packages that can assist you get essentially the most out of your hosting account. Simply choose the script you wish to set up and observe the prompts. In normal, installations shouldn’t take greater than a few minutes.

Hostwinds' Softaculous one-click installer plugin within its dashboard

If you’re transferring an present web site to Hostwinds from one other hosting supplier, you’ll love the free web site migration service. In quick, the Hostwinds technical assist group will handle the whole migration, transferring your web site and its recordsdata to your new server. 

Hostwinds additionally gives built-in Cloudflare integration, which lets you optimise your web site’s efficiency and safety. Benefit from the facility of one of many world’s largest CDNs and benefit from the built-in DDoS safety.

Hostwinds' user interface with a Cloudflare pop-up window

Hostwinds: What’s new in 2022? 

Hostwinds is within the strategy of overhauling its web site and hosting plans, addressing ongoing points with the goal of bettering the client expertise. 

For starters, the whole web site has been re-designed, eradicating the damaged hyperlinks and navigation points that we’ve discovered so irritating prior 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 cell accessibility added to all tutorials. The product documentation, which was typically a bit of dense and laborious to navigate, has been separated into clear blocks, and new content material is being added often. 

On prime of this, the corporate has lately discontinued its Reseller 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 have been round for some time.

Hostwinds: Pricing

Hostwinds gives a number of hosting choices, together with shared, VPS, cloud, and devoted servers. There are three shared options, with costs starting from £4.30 to £6.76 a month for an preliminary subscription. Note, although, that costs will improve considerably on renewal. 

Managed and unmanaged VPS hosting is accessible in each Windows and Linux flavours throughout a variety of choices for storage, RAM, and bandwidth. Linux VPS begins at £6.76 a month for a managed plan or £4.09 a month for an unmanaged resolution. Windows VPS begins from £10.45 a month for managed hosting or £9.01 for unmanaged. 

Cloud hosting begins from 0.0057 per hour (roughly £4.09 a month), whereas extra superior devoted servers can be found from £86.93 a month.

Hostwinds’ pricing plans

Shared, enterprise, and reseller hosting

Plan kind/characteristic Basic Shared Business Basic Reseller Basic Advanced Shared Business Advanced Reseller Advanced Ultimate Shared Business Ultimate Reseller Ultimate
Cost monthly £7.37*

£9.83*

£5.73* £9.01* £11.47* £7.37* £10.65* £13.93* £9.01*
Cost per yr £88.44* £117.96* £68.76* £108.12* £137.64* £88.44* £127.80* £167.16 £108.12*
Unlimited bandwidth
Unlimited storage
Website connections One One One Four Four Four Unlimited Unlimited 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 evaluate Hostwinds to the competitors, we analysed a sequence of its options and instruments to see the way it carried out. This included making a WordPress web site, checking its server response occasions, and seeing how easy it was to arrange an SSL certificates.

How do you create a WordPress web site with Hostwinds?

Hostwinds' WordPress installation options window

Creating a brand new WordPress web site with Hostwinds is a really simple course of. Hostwinds gives the Softaculous one-click installer, which you should utilize to put in WordPress—or different packages—to your 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 location creation course of, and a number of helpful ideas was offered to assist inexperienced persons get began. 

Once you’ve put in WordPress, you possibly can start customising your web site by navigating to your WordPress admin panel. Here, you can see the entire anticipated modifying and web site administration instruments. You will even be capable to entry the total theme and plugin libraries as required.

How does Hostwinds carry out?

The author's Hostwinds site's performance plotted on a graph

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 have 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 step with Hostwinds’ industry-leading 99.9999% uptime assure. 

The common server response time of 285ms was additionally good to see. This locations Hostwinds’ shared hosting up there with the very best performing available on the market. What’s extra, the response occasions have been very constant, with few spikes and a slowest response of simply 524ms.

How simple is it to arrange an SSL certificates?

Hostwinds' SSL certificate options menu in its user dashboard

Installing a sound SSL certificates is essential to make sure that all information transmissions to and out of your web site are encrypted and shielded from prying eyes. Many hosting corporations present streamlined SSL administration instruments, however Hostwinds isn’t one in every 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 only 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 observe 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 until you will have a big web site coping with a variety of delicate information transmissions, particularly with the suite of free third-party choices out there. 

To set up a free SSL certificates from a third-party supply, you’ll need to add it straight inside your SSL administration panel. This is comparatively simple to do, however inexperienced persons with little expertise will possible grow to be confused by the technical terminology that’s used.

Alternatives to Hostwinds

Hostwinds has labored by means of some main enhancements over the previous few months, and it now sits alongside the very best hosting choices available on the market. It is a bit of costly, although, with the most affordable shared hosting plan ranging from £6.50 a month

This does, nonetheless, unlock entry to a wonderful 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 amazing number of safety and information backup instruments. 

Another common possibility is Bluehost, which gives funds hosting from simply £6.50 a month after the discounted preliminary time period. This makes it one of many extra reasonably priced choices out there, and the corporate has an amazing status as a beginner-friendly host. 

With a base-level plan, you may be restricted to simply 50GB of SSD storage. Like Hostwinds, although, Bluehost gives a free area, top-notch assist, and streamlined one-click installations. However, its safety instruments may very well be higher.

Alternatively, you may like to make use of Hostinger for those who’re on a decent funds. Its shared hosting begins at simply £2.99 a month, and also you received’t discover higher worth for cash anyplace. 

As to be anticipated, hosting that’s this low cost does include limitations, and you’ll solely be capable to 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.

Hostwinds’ options in comparison with the competitors

Product Hostwinds Bluehost Hostinger
Control panel cPanel Custom cPanel interfaceYes hPanel
Free area ✔ (with improve)
One-click installations ✔ (a whole bunch out there by means of Softaculous) ✔ (a whole bunch out there by means of Softaculous) ✔ (greater than 100 purposes)
Support 24/7 stay chat, e mail, and on-line ticketing 24/7 stay chat and cellphone 24/7 stay chat and on-line ticketing
Basic plan £6.50 a month £6.50 a month £2.99 a month

Hostwinds: The verdict

All issues thought-about, there’s lots to love about Hostwinds and its web hosting merchandise. It gives every little thing from low cost shared hosting to superior devoted server and cloud options. And every little thing is backed by the facility of recent server infrastructure and a spread of nice options. 

One factor that stands out about Hostwinds’ shared hosting is its nice efficiency. During our assessments, we skilled 100% uptime and industry-leading server response occasions. 

Hostwinds additionally makes it simple to begin a brand new web site, with full entry to the Softaculous one-click installer and a primary 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 funds. Installing an SSL certificates would require some technical data, and the corporate actually doesn’t promote its costs very properly. 

At the tip of the day, although, there’s a cause why Hostwinds is among the world’s hottest web hosts. It gives wonderful service throughout the board, making it an possibility properly value contemplating.

Featured Resources

Three methods handbook coding is killing your online business productiveness

…and how one can repair it

Free Download

Goodbye broadcasts, whats up conversations

Drive conversations throughout the funnel with the WhatsApp Business Platform

Free Download

Winning with multi-cloud

How to drive a aggressive benefit and overcome information integration challenges

Free Download

Talking to a enterprise ought to really feel like messaging a good friend

Managing buyer conversations at scale with the WhatsApp Business Platform

Free Download

https://www.itpro.co.uk/network-internet/web-hosting/368152/hostwinds-web-hosting-review

Related Posts