I have been doing rounds of analysis on different Hosting platforms. Today again I have encountered another interesting hosting platform- HostWinds.com.
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I will walk you through my detailed review about HostWinds.
Glad to give you some quick insights about this hosting platform.
About the company:
This is relatively a new company, established in 2010. They have offices located in Tulsa and Seattle. Well, this is a small Tier company with about 50-100 employees.
Since its formation in 2010, it has been owned by CEO Peter Holden. Apart from regular web hosting, they provide some newest and most advanced products in the industry.
All of their servers exist in Infomart datacentre located at Dallas, Texas. It is worth noting that, with such a small employee bandwidth they provide amazing services.
Uptime and Reliability:
Hostwinds guarantees 99.999% uptime. Something I would like to highlight is their immense confidence and ability to maintain such a stable uptime.
They use a high degree of redundancy just to be extremely sure, the site maintains the required uptime. They have incorporated multiple checks to maintain High Availability.
I found that they use different techniques to maintain the servers up and running, even if they have issues. Apart from RAID backups, they have fan cooling, classful network to enhance site performance and servers are built with multiple power sources to improve the uptime.
I would like to throw some light on their other features, which lets them provide reliable hosting services. Along with uptime, they carry nightly backups, provide 24/7 tech support and have high-end server configurations to suit your requirement.
They use solid-state drives unlike the traditional drives along with E5-2670 Series Intel CPU, multiple gigabit uplinks and redundant power supply.
In my opinion, they have incorporated the latest technology in a way that makes them secure and reliable. Their constant focus on uptime makes them a market differentiator.
Features:
Now coming to their feature list. This is really interesting since they bombard users with so many options and all of this at a really affordable rate.
They have hosting options available for – Shared Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Dedicated hosting and VPS. Before I discuss these plans, let me walk you through on what you get irrespective of the plan you choose.
Features |
Details |
|---|---|
| Disk Storage | Unlimited |
| Domain Hosting | Unlimited |
| Free Dedicated IP address | Yes |
| Panel | CPanel |
| Site Transfer | Unlimited GB |
| Sub-domains | Unlimited |
| Email Accounts | Unlimited |
| Auto-Installer | Softaculous |
| MySQL Databases | Unlimited |
| Visit HostWinds |
Well, they exactly know what their customers want. Now, let me discuss in more details about their shared hosting plans. So basically you have 3 options here-
- Basic
- Advanced
- Ultimate
These have few pricing and configuration difference, which we will see later. Along with this, you can enjoy unmetered bandwidth, nightly backups, and 24/7 support.
Next moving on to cloud hosting. They have 4 options here-
- Tier one
- Tier two
- Tier three
- Tier Four
Setting up cloud hosting is almost instantaneous. Ample of benefits here including – instant resizing of instances, backups and snapshots available, automatic SSH key deployment, 1Gbps port for every instance, SSD and HDD drives available, custom templates.
For VPS hosting they have more than expected options over here-
- Managed Linux
- Managed Windows
- Unmanaged Linux
- Unmanaged Windows
These options vary from 1 CPU Cores to 16 CPU Cores.
Finally moving to the dedicated server, they have 10 different options varying in the processor they use. Apart from this, you can choose the OS, Version, Hard drive capacity, RAM, IP address and Outbound bandwidth.
Well, that’s not all. There is something more, you can invest in their SSL, VPN, Shoutcast hosting or Enterprise Email Account.
Like I said earlier, they are completely technology driven and it’s so thrilling to see such a wide array of hosting options all under one roof.
Some of the services such as free website transfers, Unlimited FTP accounts are included in all their plans as opposed to several of their competitors. Something that differentiates them from others.
HostWinds offer a 60-day money back guarantee, which gives ample time to try them.
Support:
As mentioned on the website, they have a 24/7 support. My experience is, it’s practically zero wait time. So the moment you open the website, you can start chatting.
I used this option to check out on certain details and yes it is an absolutely stunning way they cater to their customer needs.
The live chat option simply makes your decision making faster.
The support person is well trained about the services available and can almost immediately provide the required details.
You can also open a ticket or use a toll-free number to get in touch. However, I think in most of the cases the live chat is the most effective way to reach out.
And yes, not to mention you could always get in touch with them over email, Twitter, Google+, Facebook or LinkedIn.
Plans and Pricing:
Coming to the most awaited portion of my review; well the pricing. As mentioned through this review, Hostwinds has a number of options and it is worth taking a brief tour around their pricing.
We will start with the most popular hosting- Shared hosting.
Shared Hosting Plans
Features |
Basic |
Advanced |
Ultimate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Space | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Panel | cPanel | cPanel | cPanel |
| Domains | 1 | 4 | Unlimited |
| Price | $3.74/mo | $5.24/mo | $6.74/mo |
| More Details | More Details | More Details |
Business Hosting Plans
They also have business hosting plans with Litespeed web servers and high performance.
Features |
Basic |
Advanced |
Ultimate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Space | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Panel | cPanel | cPanel | cPanel |
| Domains | 1 | 4 | Unlimited |
| Price | $7.49/mo | $8.99/mo | $11.24/mo |
| More Details | More Details | More Details |
Cloud Hosting Plans
Moving to cloud hosting prices. They have 4 options here.
As mentioned earlier, VPS has 4 different options. We will check each of this pricing options in detail.
Features |
Tier One |
Tier Two |
Tier Three |
Tier Four |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Space | 20 GB | 25 GB | 30 GB | 50 GB |
| RAM | 512 MB | 1 GB | 2 GB | 4 GB |
| CPU | 1 Core | 1 Core | 1 Core | 2 Cores |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB | 1 TB | 2 TB | 2 TB |
| Price | $4.49/mo | $8.99/mo | $10.79/mo | $22.49/mo |
| More Details | More Details | More Details | More Details |
VPS Hosting Plans
Plan Name |
Space |
RAM |
Transfer |
Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TIER 1 | 20 GB | 512 MB | 1 TB | $7.49/mo. |
| TIER 2 | 25 GB | 1 GB | 1 TB | $14.99/mo. |
| TIER 3 | 30 GB | 2 GB | 2 TB | $17.99/mo. |
| TIER 4 | 50 GB | 4 GB | 2 TB | $37.49/mo. |
| TIER 5 | 75 GB | 6 GB | 2 TB | $58.49/mo. |
| TIER 6 | 100 GB | 8 GB | 4 TB | $79.49/mo |
| TIER 7 | 120 GB | 12 GB | 5 TB | $100.49/mo |
| TIER 8 | 150 GB | 16 GB | 6 TB | $143.49/mo |
| TIER 9 | 325 GB | 32 GB | 8 TB | $311.99/mo |
| TIER 10 | 500 GB | 64 GB | 9 TB | $551.99/mo |
For dedicated hosting, the prices vary based on the OS and the chosen configuration.
It starts at about $135/month and for subsequent months it is about $180/month.
Other services pricing is-
- SSL Certificate- $75/year, $140/2 years, $200/3 years
- VPN- $12/month
- Shoutcast Hosting- $6.56/month to $39.56/month
- Enterprise Emails- $3.75/month to $33.75/month
By and large, I found the prices to be reasonable for the services they provide.
User-Friendly:
Something I just think, worth appreciating is their conscious attempt to maintain simplicity. It’s like one tour through the website, gives you a crystal clear idea of what do they offer.
Perfectly well-made services for experienced as well as novice users. They have detailed feature list and also provide small explanations to some technical jargons.
Clear pricing details and each service is well segregated. And just in case you still find it difficult to decide or follow any specific feature, you always have their live chat options.
Something I would like to highlight is, it is an extremely mobile responsive website. It’s like you could just pick a hosting option on the go. They are just user-friendly to the core.
Here is the screenshot of HostWind’s cPanel:
Summary:
Well finally to summarize, I would say, Hostwinds has cost-effective hosting solutions. Definitely, it will not make holes in your pocket.
They have tailor made all the features to suit needs of small to enterprise level business. Most plans have a nightly backup, so you just don’t need to worry about paying those extra bucks for every feature that gets added.
I found, Hostwinds to be extremely transparent about their services and offerings. They have detailed terms of the contract and it would be worth spending your effort to read this before choosing any specific plan.
But yes HostWinds is truly worth trying. So, if you are new to blogging or just getting started on your website, I would suggest you go for HostWind’s Basic Plan.
And BTW, I have negotiated some discounts with HostWinds just for you. Be sure to click the link below to get the discount.
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