I’ve seen many reviews on Hostwinds, and one of the things that strikes me so hard is that Hostwinds prioritizes new technology. They are one of the most reliable and affordable web hosting options in the web hosting industry.
What’s a good host without the best uptime and technology if it isn’t that they make running your website a breeze?
Besides, I’ve tested Hostwinds to confirm if they are worth it. From my findings, I have an unbiased review to back things up.
To help you make an informed decision before opting for Hostwind for your web hosting needs. You’ll find the essential things you should know in this review, so let’s get started.
About HostWind
In 2010, Peter Holden launched Hostwinds in Seattle, Washington, and the company has experienced gradual growth since then. Hostwinds has about 100-200 staff presently.
From the number of employees assessed, Hostwinds is still new in the web hosting industry compared to big names like GoDaddy and HostGator.
However, Hostwinds doesn’t need size or popularity to be a remarkable web host. They compete with top hosting companies, especially in performance, features, and affordability.
Hostwinds presently has customized hardware, and they steadily update their hosting software.
One thing that makes Hostwind stand out is that it offers a wide range of hosting services, including shared, VPS, business, dedicated servers, resellers, and cloud hosting.
Since they have various hosting options, Hostwind is ideal for startups and established businesses. This web hosting company also offers hosting services to its clients at low-cost prices.
Hostwinds Pros and Cons
Hostwinds prides itself as a reliable web hosting provider for its multiple services, blazing speed, high performance, and excellent customer support.
But, like other web hosting companies, they also have downsides, and knowing their good and bad sides will help you figure out if they are the right web host for your website needs.
Pros
Here are the advantages of choosing Hostwinds.
- Migration is Free Thisis one of the key features to look out for in a web host. Hostwind offers free migration for at most 60 days, and you can migrate from a previous website after purchasing your desired hosting package. Also, Hostwinds migration is regulated by their technical team.
- Unlimited Email Address: Hostwinds offers unlimited email accounts across all shared hosting plans. By offering branded email accounts, they allow your website to experience a professional ambiance.
- Access to Website Builder: What I like about Hostwind is that they allow customers to have access to special services. They offer you a Weebly website builder; you can design your website, launch it, and obtain a domain name all at once.
- Easy-to-Use Control Panel and Dashboard: Hostwinds has an intuitive dashboard, and it’s easy to navigate their control panel because it appears modernized. You can access your services, domains, and transactions from there.
- No Limits to Disk Space: I also like that Hostwinds offers unlimited disk space across all its shared hosting plans. With Hostwinds, you can have a small or big website by maximizing or reducing space.
Cons
Here are Hostwinds’s drawbacks.
- No Free Domain Name: Most web hosting providers offer a free domain name across all their plans for the first year. But Hostwinds doesn’t do the same. You’ll have to purchase a domain name from them or somewhere else.
- Prorated Money-Back Guarantee: The good news is that Hostwinds offers a money-back guarantee. But their charges are prorated. This means they’ll still charge you for the time you used.
- Limited Server Locations: One of the things Hostwinds lacks is multiple server locations. They have only three data centers; one is located in Amsterdam, and two are located in the US. This means the sites could have a slower response time to users outside Europe or the US.
Hostwinds Services
You should consider Hostwinds if you’re looking for a versatile and powerful web hosting service. Hostwinds offers many web hosting options to help you keep your website up and running.
They offer shared, VPS, cloud, reseller, WordPress, and business hosting packages. These services are ideal for big and small businesses. Here’s a summary of Hostwinds’ web hosting options.
1. Shared Hosting
Shared hosting means that your website will share the same server with other websites. With Hostwinds, you will get a dedicated IP address and a cPanel account.
Besides, Hostwinds also offers options to add monitoring services and cloud backups to your shared account if you want.
Shared hosting is the best platform to start if you are a beginner. It is the most affordable option, and you get multiple features that help you grow and manage your website as you go.
What I like about Hostwind is that they offer Solid State Drive (SSDs), and they are perfect for those looking for secure, fast, and less expensive web hosting. Shared hosting is also ideal for small websites with small traffic and personal sites.
With reliable uptime, numerous shared hosting packages to decide on, and complete server maintenance by Hostwinds Systems Administrators, this web hosting option is the best for various websites.
2. Business Web Hosting
Business web hosting is an excellent option for different sizes of businesses. Hostwinds offers business hosting plans on SSDs to allow you to enjoy the best performance.
Hostwinds also boosts business hosting performance by using a LiteSpeed web server.
Hostwinds’s business hosting plans require powerful servers with fewer customers sharing the same resources. However, they provide more resources than they do with shared hosting. They offer maximized CPU, increased inode limits, and increased outbound email limits.
3. Reseller Web Hosting
With Reseller web hosting service, you function as a web hosting vendor without dealing with server management processes.
This web hosting option is slightly comparable to shared and business web hosting, and it is perfect for web designers and entrepreneurs who want to provide web hosting to their customers instead of hiring the hosting services of a hosting company.
When you sign up for Hostwinds’s reseller hosting, they allow you to offer web hosting to your clients easily by renting out their server space. So, while you sell Hostwinds services, they help you handle all the heavy-duty on the backend.
4. White Label Reseller
White label reseller is similar to the reseller web hosting option. But, with this package, you’ll only offer Hostwinds web hosting services to your customers under your brand name.
While you offer services with your company name, Hostwinds provides all the technical support and infrastructure you need.
5. VPS Hosting
Hostwinds offers a Virtual private server to help you host your applications and website. They offer Linux-based hosting plans, Windows, managed, and Unmanaged Linux VPS.
Hostwinds Unmanaged Linux VPS services provide server configuration management and full root access to your account.
Unmanaged VPS is an excellent hosting option for saving your account if troubleshooting and monitoring your server makes you uncomfortable or if you don’t require technical support for your hosting services.
Hostwinds offers affordable VPS hosting solutions to help you save costs. Plus, the service comes with many in-built infrastructures for your benefit.
6. Cloud Servers
Hostwinds provides cloud server hosting services, a virtualized private server with reliable resources. The resources in this hosting option include disk space, RAM, and CPU cores. You can also use them as you want.
What I like about this web hosting option is that you can easily add cloud server resources to have more scalability than dedicated servers.
Hostwinds offers cloud servers with a control portal, and this enables full access to a wide range of customization and management mechanisms.
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HostWinds Hosting Plans and Pricing
Hostwinds offers a wide range of affordable hosting plans. From their shared hosting option to their business and VPS Linux plans. Generally, they deliver moderate prices in the market. Here are the prices they offer in each plan and the features that come with it.
1. Shared Hosting
Hostwinds offers three popular hosting plans for beginners:
- Basic ($5.24/month): This plan comes with unlimited bandwidth, 1 domain, and unlimited disk space.
- Advanced ($6.74/month): Hostwinds offers advanced shared hosting with 4 domains, unlimited bandwidth, and disk space.
- Ultimate ($8.24/month): This plan offers unlimited domains, disk space, and bandwidth.
2. Business Hosting
Hostwinds offers business-level hosting plans with your business needs in mind.
- Basic ($8.99/month): This plan offers 1 domain, unlimited bandwidth and disk space.
- Advanced ($10.49/month): This business plan offers 4 domains, unlimited disk space, and bandwidth.
- Ultimate ($12.74/month): This plan offers disk space, domains, and bandwidths without limit.
3. VPS Hosting
Hostwinds provides fully managed Linux VPS hosting plans to offer you power.
- 1 GB RAM ($8.24/month): This plan comes with 1 CPU core, 30 GB storage, and 1 TB bandwidth.
- 2 GB RAM ($16.49/month): This plan offers 50 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth, and 1 CPU core.
- 4 GB RAM ($29.99/month): This plan offers 75 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth, and 2 CPU cores.
4. Cloud Servers
Hostwinds offers reliable and fast cloud server hosting per hour to meet your site needs.
- 2 GB RAM ($0.013875/hour): This plan comes with 50 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth, and 1 CPU core.
- 6 GB RAM ($0.040264/hour): This plan offers 100 GB storage, 2 CPU cores, and 2 TB bandwidth.
- 12 GB RAM ($0.069431/hour): This plan offers 200 GB storage, 4 TB bandwidth, and 4 CPU cores.
Hostwinds Performance
One of the best parts of web hosting is the host’s uptime performance. If you have a poor website, your customers will withdraw gradually and won’t find your products or services available and accessible. Thankfully, you can depend on Hostwinds’ performance.
This web hosting provider stands solidly at a performance rate of 99.99%. Also, their loading speed and TTFB scores are super fast. Besides, you can consider them if you have an audience in North America or Europe.
Hostwinds Support
Hostwinds have one of the best support crews. They are friendly and knowledgeable, and they offer support through the following contact channels:
- Support Ticket: Hostwinds offers support through ticket channels. However, this platform is available to paid clients.
- Tutorials: If you’re a fast learner and prefer self-solutions, this platform is for you. Hostwinds offers support through tutorials, and they have helpful learning aids for you to use.
- Mailing Address: Hostwinds allows you to send them direct mail, and they respond as soon as you do.
- Live Chat: Hostwinds also recommends support through live chat, and the support team caters to existing and potential customers.
Hostwinds Features
Hostwinds provides multiple features to help you meet your needs and have more online success. They offer features that allow you to migrate an existing site and get unlimited bandwidth, storage, and free SSL certificates.
Here are some essential features Hostwinds offers:
1. Unlimited Bandwidth and Disk Space
Hostwinds offers unlimited storage and bandwidth. They offer this feature across all plans, including the basic packages. It allows you to transfer data between websites for free. You’ll also have visitors on your website without limits and at no cost.
2. cPanel and User-Friendly Dashboard
Hostwinds offers cPanel to allow you to manage your website. Their dashboard is also modernized and easy to use. You can easily access email accounts, FTP accounts, and file managers from the dashboard interface. Hostwind also offers backup options for cPanel or Apache SpamAssassin to help you stop spam.
3. Weebly Website Builder
Hostwinds offers a Weebly website builder for shared and business hosting packages. This web-building tool uses the drag-and-drop format to help you design your website within minutes.
The website builder is perfect for beginners or small website owners who want to build simple yet attractive websites without expert assistance. Hostwinds allows you to customize layouts, employing different themes.
4. Nightly Backups
One of the best things you can get from Hostwinds is their backup services. They offer nightly backups for your website to safeguard your important files.
If something goes wrong with your website, such as malware invasions, you can restore it to a recent version.
However, the basic shared hosting plans do not offer this feature regularly. They may only provide weekly or bi-weekly backups or ignore them.
5. Security Features
Hostwinds offers multiple security features to help you feel safe online. They use Internet encryption software and SSL protocols when operating with personal information, such as credit card details. They also offer WildCard SSL and RapidSSL for extra charges.
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Expert Review: Do We Recommend it?
Hostwinds was created to provide adequate hosting services to customers in need and to unravel the hosting problems that most web hosting providers encounter. They are a small company, but they are up to standard. So, I recommend them.
Another reason why I recommend them is that their server speed is super fast, and they offer a reliable customer support team.
Hostwinds also has various web hosting plans that suit everyone’s needs, and they use a new version of cPanel and aesthetic UI for easy website management.
Finally, I recommend Hostwinds because it is easy to scale. They help you adapt to traffic, and having data centers in Amsterdam and the US means you can target an international audience.
Who is Hostwinds Best For?
Hostwinds is best for:
- Business Owners and Clients Looking for Multiple Web Hosting Options: If you are looking for various hosting plans, Hostwinds offers shared, VPS, reseller, business, and dedicated hosting services. So you can select the plan that fits your website needs.
- Entrepreneurs, Web Designers, and Web: As a business owner or web expert, you can resell your hosting packages, and Hostwinds can help you take care of the technical infrastructure.
- Small and Medium-Sized Businesses: Hostwinds caters to all sizes of business. They have hosting features for everyone across all plans, including SSD, cPanel, Weebly website builder, and Softaculous 1-click installs.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I get started with Hostwinds?
You can get started with Hostwinds by purchasing their products and services on their official website.
Which is better, between Hostwinds shared and business hosting options?
Both can work well for you, depending on your website needs and budget. If you have a small budget and you’re a beginner, you should consider the shared hosting option. However, if you have a large budget, upgrading to a Hostwinds business plan would be best instead of the shared hosting standard plan.
Does Hostwinds use cPanel?
Yes, Hostwinds uses the latest cPanel technology. This is available to help you have a better web hosting experience. They upgrade to the latest control panel version from time to time.
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Conclusion
Hostwinds remains one of the best web hosting companies we have reviewed. They are still new, but they are reliable. Their technical nature might not be perfect, but they provide customization options for cloud servers, VPS, and dedicated server hosting. If you’re looking for a web host offering decent pricing structures and industry-rated performance, you should add Hostwinds to your list.
