Hostwinds: Is It Your Next Web Host?
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Founded in 2010, Hostwinds an award-winning hosting company with plenty of hosting plans. Depending on what you need, their shared hosting plans have a lot of top-notch features and dedicated and respectful customer service. Read everything you need to know about Hostwinds below.
Pros
Cons
Quick Stats
If you're a small or medium business unsure where to host your website, we've got you covered. Hostwinds is one of many web hosts, but is it the one for you? Finding the right web host for you can be overwhelming, and that's why we did our research to tell you everything you need to know about Hostwinds.
Hostwinds Hosting Plans
Let's start by talking about the web hosting types offered by Hostwinds. Other than shared hosting, they offer the following:
- VPS Hosting: There are multiple VPS hosting plans depending on if you want Windows or Linux, Managed or Unmanaged.
- Reseller Hosting: If you already have a server that you want to host for others, Hostwinds offer reseller hosting starting from $5.24/month.
- Business Hosting: Although it's similar to shared hosting, you'll share a server, but your resources will be similar to that of a private server. Business hosting plans start from $8.99/month.
- Cloud Hosting: Host your website on multiple servers with Hostwinds. There are multiple cloud hosting plans to choose from, and the price can be paid per hour.
- Dedicated Servers: Get your own private server with Hostwinds only for $90/month.
If you're a small or medium business, I think you're looking for shared hosting, and everything you need to know about it is listed below.
Hostwinds Shared Hosting Plans
Shared hosting is sharing a server and resources with other websites for a reasonable and affordable price. Web hosts shared hosting plans differ in the features and price, so what are Hostwinds plans like? Let's take a look:
Hostwinds plans in detail:
| Basic | Advanced | Ultimate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Name | 1 | 4 | Unlimited |
| Disk Space | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Backup | Included | Included | Included |
| SSL Certificate | Included | Included | Included |
| Website Builder | Included | Included | Included |
| Email Accounts | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Starting Price | $5.24/month | $6.74/month | $8.24/month |
| Renewal Price | $8.99/month | $10.99/month | $12.99/month |
Unfortunately, Hostwinds doesn't have any money-back guarantee, so you can't change your mind if you didn't like it.
Payment Methods
How can you pay for your Hostwinds plan? There are multiple ways depending on your preference. You can use:
- Credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express)
- PayPal
- Cryptocurrencies
- Alipay
Ease of Use
Hostwinds made everything as simple as possible for beginners. There's the easy-to-use cPanel where everything is available, including Softaculous that is the 1-click app installer. This means you can download the app of your choice in less than a minute.
Still, it's too good to be true. There are a few downsides to using this web hosting service. In the signup process, you might encounter a few errors when it comes to verification. It's nothing serious, just a little bit annoying.
Customer Support
In case you face any problems, you can contact Hostwinds customer support via live chat, email, ticket system, or phone. They're available 24/7 and will answer your question on live chat within a few minutes.
If you prefer, you can refer to their knowledge base; there are articles for both experts and beginners that'll guide you if you're stuck.
Security
Your website is safe and secure with Hostwinds security features. So what is it like in terms of security? Let's see:
Free SSL Certificate
All of Hostwinds shared hosting plans come with a free SSL certificate. So, your website will be marked as safe by search engines, and you'll get a higher SEO ranking with it.
The SSL certificate is used to encrypt data between the browser and server. It's an essential feature for e-commerce websites to encrypt sensitive information like payment information inserted by customers.
Password Protected Directories
Limit access to your website by adding passwords to certain parts of the website. This can be done from the cPanel if you're unsure how you can refer to Hostwinds' knowledge base.
Dedicated IP
Hostwinds has a free dedicated IP with all of its shared hosting plans. Most web hosts offer it with advanced plans or not at all. This is a huge advantage, as the dedicated IP provides customers two ways to open your website, either through the IP address or the domain name. Plus, it makes your website faster since you're not sharing your domain with others.
Spam Assassin Protection
Your email has a spam filter option to protect you from unsafe emails containing viruses and spam that might affect your website.
Hotlink Protection
To avoid other websites from connecting to your website and stealing your bandwidth, you can enable the hotlink protection from the cPanel if you don't know how to check Hostwinds' knowledge base.
24/7 Network Monitoring
Hostwinds monitors your website around the clock. If there's an issue, a ticket will be sent to the engineers to fix it.
Site Backup
Hostwinds shared hosting plans come with nightly backup, so you can sleep at night without worrying about losing any of your data. To make it even better, you can delete it whenever you like.
Load Times, Reliability, & Features
What's included in every plan? How reliable is Hostwinds? And what about its uptime? All these questions are going to be answered below.
Uptime & Speed
While they don't meet the 99.99% uptime guarantee, they still offer above-average uptime. This means your website will always be up and running. As for speed, let's just say with the SSD storage and the CDN, your website would be fast.
Features
Plans include the same features; the only thing that differs between plans is the price and domain name. Let's see the features:
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- Instant setup
- Unlimited subdomains
- Unlimited bandwidth and disk storage
- Free migration
- 1-click app installer
- Custom error pages
Yup, no matter which plan you choose, you'll get all these features.
Server Location
Hostwinds data centers are found in the United States, either in Dallas or Seattle. The third one is found in Amsterdam, Netherlands. They are secured and monitored for website safety hosted on Hostwinds.
Weebly, The Website Builder
Weebly is an easy-to-use website builder with a drag-and-drop editor, creating a website as easy as pie. If you create an online store, blog, personal website, or business website, Weebly has plenty of features to create the website.
Conclusion
Overall, Hostwinds is a good web host with plenty of features. However, once you pay for your plan, there's no going back because, unlike other web hosts, there's no money-back guarantee or free trial. That's why we recommend using one of the best web hosts like HostGator or Bluehost for your website; they're very secure and offer excellent features.