Hostwinds stands out from other web hosting companies because it puts customer happiness and new technology at the top of its list of priorities. From small businesses just starting out to large companies that have been around for a while, they offer the right mix of performance and price, making sure that their services are strong and their value is unbeatable.
As a hosting expert and website owner, I’ve come across Hostwinds in the past. The general verdict is that Hostwinds was built for medium/large-scale businesses. To confirm this, I decided to test this hosting provider and come up with a thorough, unbiased review.
Hostwinds, a company founded in 2010 by Peter Holden, directly owns all of its hardware and continuously updates its hosting software. A wide range of hosting services, including shared, business, reseller, VPS, cloud, WordPress, and dedicated hosting, are provided by the company. Their wide variety of packages guarantees that both established businesses and tiny startups can find the ideal hosting solution for their requirements. The firm prides itself on delivering top-level service to customers at a fair price.
The reputation of Hostwindsis solidified by its impressive customer ratings across multiple platforms. On HostAdvice, they have received a rating of 4.7 based on 1165 reviews. Additionally, they boast a rating of 4 on Trustpilot from 673 reviews. Although not BBB accredited, the overall consensus among users appears to be highly favorable.
In my professional view, Hostwindsis a standout hosting company, offering a comprehensive range of services that are intended to meet a variety of customer demands while upholding a high standard of customer service.
Hostwinds
Looking for reliability and performance without breaking the bank? Hostwinds delivers high-quality web hosting solutions that fit your needs. From shared to dedicated hosting, their diverse range of plans has got you covered.
At HostAdvice, our experts have developed an S.I hosting rating guide that measures and gives scores on how hosting providers perform so you can choose the right one for your business.
Parameter
Score
Why we gave this score
PRICES
7.0
Hostwinds gives you a plethora of hosting options at affordable prices. However, I gave them 7 because their refund period only lasts for 3 days. Boosted plans are also significantly pricier.
FEATURES
9.5
Hostwinds offers the latest cPanel, free SSL certificates, nightly backups, and enterprise firewall for higher plans. However, I scored them 9.5 because they don’t offer SiteLock security.
PERFORMANCE
8.5
Hostwinds has an average time to first byte of 51ms and an overall performance of 98%. However, I gave them 8.5 because their loading time (2.4s) is slower than the recommended 2s
USER-FRIENDLINESS
9.5
Hostwinds’s account management dashboard has a pleasing UI and it’s easy to navigate. You also have 1-click WordPress installs and the latest cPanel. However, I gave it 9.5 because you cannot install WordPress manually.
SUPPORT
8.0
Hostwinds has excellent live chat support and a vast knowledge base. However, I am giving them 8.0 because they don’t have email and phone support.
Hostwinds Prices & Plans – 2023
Hostwinds offers shared, VPS, reseller, WordPress, dedicated, and cloud hosting. They have different categories of VPS plans and they also offer white-label reseller hosting, web application hosting, and business hosting.
Hostwinds hosting plans come with a 72-hour refund policy. The countdown starts when your initial payment is confirmed. You can pay through Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, and crypto.
Hostwinds doesn’t recommend any shared hosting plan specifically. The only major difference between the plans is the number of domains allocated. They all come with the latest cPanel, Weebly site builder, unlimited FTP accounts, free dedicated IP, solid state drives, and SSL certificates.
TipTip: Hostwinds shared hosting plans are perfect for freelancers, career professionals, and small businesses looking to own and manage a website.
Hostwinds has a wide range of options in its Managed Linux plans. You can select the plan with the right storage and bandwidth for your business. All plans come with enterprise firewalls, custom ISO’s, snapshots, nightly backups, server monitoring, and much more.
TipTip: Hostwinds Linux managed hosting plans are perfect for medium-sized businesses that want to stay flexible while ensuring network privacy.
Hostwinds offers dedicated hosting web hosting plans. They are highly customizable and you can have more storage, RAM, and bandwidth for an extra fee.
TipTip: Hostwinds dedicated servers are best for large institutions and established businesses that need secure hosting for sensitive customer data. Hotels, hospitals, and large eComm businesses can find the right hosting plan in this category.
The features on the reseller hosting plan are quite similar to the shared hosting plan features. You get unlimited databases, email accounts, FTP accounts, and subdomains. Your customers also get to enjoy the latest cPanel and 24/7 support.
TipTip: Hostwinds reseller hosting plan is perfect for entrepreneurs, web developers, and agencies who want to offer web hosting to their clients.
Hostwinds does not recommend any specific plan under its cloud server category. The only difference is you get more CPUs, RAM, storage, and bandwidth for higher plans.
TipTip: Hostwinds cloud server plans are best for businesses looking for an extra secure web hosting package for an affordable price.
Hostwinds offers a few unique features on its VPS, and cloud server hosting plans. They include snapshots, firewall, volumes, and load balancers.
Snapshots help you take a complete real-time backup of your Linux VPS and also deploy a fleet of pre-configured Linux servers just a few clicks away. The enterprise firewall gives you an additional layer of security while the volumes give you extra storage space. Load balancers help to assign your traffic to multiple servers to help increase efficiency and uptime.
Hostwinds
Looking for reliability and performance without breaking the bank? Hostwinds delivers high-quality web hosting solutions that fit your needs. From shared to dedicated hosting, their diverse range of plans has got you covered.
When hunting for a web hosting provider, there are three important performance metrics you must consider. They are server speed, uptime, and loading time.
Server speed reflects how quickly a user on your website receives data from the host’s server.
Uptime shows how consistently your host’s servers stay online.
Loading time measures how quickly your web pages load when customers use your website.
Higher server speed and quicker loading time will allow for a seamless customer experience which will lead to less bounce rate from your website.
Hostwinds promised a 99.99% uptime guarantee to all their customers. To measure the accuracy of this claim, I tested the host’s speed and load times using GTMetrix. The test was carried out on modernclassics.com – a website hosted on Hostwinds.
These were the results:
Modernclassics.com had a superfast response time (time to first byte) of 51ms and a fully loaded time of 2.4s.
The website had an excellent overall performance of 98%. This is far above average.
Level Of Support
Live chat
Hostwinds recommends live chat support channels for both existing and prospective customers. I checked for the support section on the homepage and tried to access the support channel from there.
After clicking on the ‘Live Chat With Us’ button, the chatbox opened immediately and the agent was on hand to answer my questions.
The agent was super helpful and I was impressed. Hostwinds has its live chat customer support channel on lock.
Support ticket
The support ticket channel is only available to paid customers. After you log in, you will be able to file your complaint and get ASAP unique solutions for your problem.
Tutorials
If you learn faster on your own, you will find the Hostwinds Tutorial support section very helpful. There are a whole lot of resources for you right here.
Mailing address
You can also send direct mail to the Hostwinds office. Here’s their mailing address:
Hostwinds
Looking for reliability and performance without breaking the bank? Hostwinds delivers high-quality web hosting solutions that fit your needs. From shared to dedicated hosting, their diverse range of plans has got you covered.
Hostwinds designed a simple UI that makes registering and signing up hassle-free. You can click the ‘Get Started’ button on the homepage to proceed.
You will be directed to the shared web hosting plan package. There, you can pick a plan to start the registration process.
Input your client information and pick a domain name.
Select your preferred payment method after confirming your preferred plans and add-ons.
After you are done with payment, you will be able to access the account management dashboard.
The UI of Hostwinds is quite pleasing and it makes it easy to navigate. From here, you can easily log in to your webmail and cPanel.
Hostwinds Control Panel
Hostwinds prides itself on staying up to date with the latest cPanel. This makes it easier for you to manage your files, site builder, databases, emails, and so on.
Installing WordPress on Hostwinds
You can install WordPress on Hostwinds using the Softaculous App Installer. The first thing you do is log into your cPanel and locate the installer.
After you open the installer, click on the top script and then on WordPress.
Click on ‘Install Now’ and make your required configurations.
After you make the necessary adjustments and click ‘Install’, you will be directed here.
Follow the link to access your WordPress dashboard.
Add an email account with Hostwinds
It is easy to add an email account on your Hostwinds cPanel. Go to the Emails section and click on ‘Email accounts
Go to ‘Add Email Account’, fill out the necessary details, and click on ‘Create Account’.
You should have your email immediately.
Conclusion: Do We Recommend Hostwinds?
Hostwinds was built to solve the problems of bigger web hosts and provide only the best hosting service to its customers. I’d say they lived up to that standard and I will recommend them. For starters, they have superfast server speed and their customer support is excellent.
They also utilize the latest cPanel and a simple aesthetic UI to make website management easier. Hostwinds offers a broad range of hosting plans and you can easily find one that suits your business regardless of your current audience.
Hostwinds is perfect for medium-sized organizations and growing businesses with long-term vision. Scalability is easy on this platform, and you can adapt to traffic easily. They have data centers in the US and Amsterdam which means you can target a global audience.
Hostwinds
Looking for reliability and performance without breaking the bank? Hostwinds delivers high-quality web hosting solutions that fit your needs. From shared to dedicated hosting, their diverse range of plans has got you covered.
I've been using Resellers service for 4 months, Support is really fast in responding, but they didn't actually solve almost any of issues. Issues are like that, that I've never experienced before with WordPress installations on other Hosts. Now I've moved to another Host, transfered exactly all websites and they all work with this Host. My conclusion, they have extra fast responding Support, but HostWinds is not an environment, especially PHP environment for WordPress.
Moved from Hostgator ( nothing to do with their service - just annoyed with spam on upsells ) . Same site, different host. Site ran so slow. Tried every things support suggested and no change. Gave up and moved to another host ( BlueHost ). Noticeable difference in staff abilities and knowledge. Very happy with my new host.
I've been using Resellers service for 4 months, Support is really fast in responding, but they didn't actually solve almost any of issues. Issues are like that, that I've never experienced before with WordPress installations on other Hosts. Now I've moved to another Host, transfered exactly all websites and they all work with this Host. My conclusion, they have extra fast responding Support, but HostWinds is not an environment, especially PHP environment for WordPress.
I ordered. I gave my accurate personal data. I provided them with my correct Credit Card and CVC. And they deducted the money. THEN, after they deducted the money from the account they refused me service to verify unless I send them a Government ID, a picture of my Credit Card AND some weird form where I should sign that said card belongs to me (As if the GOVERNMENT ID matching the name on the CC wasn't enough). I wanted to start a project today and have no printer available. Thanks for wasting an hour of my time.
Effortless Hosting Experience with Exceptional Support and Polite Chat Assistants
These lads have an easy and very friendly interface. Their support has a chat option for texts messaging. The chat support guys are awesome and polite. I have got two cpanel accounts.
The best rates per hour for cloud servers. And I can switch between the plans which are scalable enough. Support is also good. Easy to manage with their control panel. Worth!
In my opinion, Hostwinds' customer service is their best option. Prices are just okay. I can afford their service. I have had no downtime since I started three months ago.
First, people need to be aware that the only communication is through a ticket system. You will never be able to get ahold of an actual person by phone. Second, they set me up with the wrong hosting plan and when I needed to change it, they had me buy a new plan with a promise to credit my account from the unused old plan. They never canceled the old plan and never credited my account, which means I paid for 2 plans.
Fastest Dedicated Server Setup - Impressive Delivery Time in Just 48 Minutes!
A dedicated server was set up in 48 minutes. I didn't expect such speed. They have average prices, but the server delivery was fast! Very well done. :)
Hostwinds uses the latest cPanel available to better serve its customers. The platform always upgrades to the newest version of the control panel once it hits the market.
What kind of customer support is offered by Hostwinds?
Hostwinds offers live chat support and DIY tutorials to all existing and prospective customers. However, it only offers email ticket support to registered customers.
Who owns Hostwinds?
Peter Holden. He founded Hostwinds in 2010 and currently serves as its CEO.
Is Hostwinds better than HostGator?
Hostwinds has better ease of use and more web hosting plans. However, HostGator has better customer support and a wider server footprint.
HostAdvice.com provides professional web hosting reviews fully independent of any other entity. Our reviews are unbiased, honest, and apply the same evaluation standards to all those reviewed.While monetary compensation is received from a few of the companies listed on this site, compensation of services and products have no influence on the direction or conclusions of our reviews. Nor does the compensation influence our rankings for certain host companies.This compensation covers account purchasing costs, testing costs and royalties paid to reviewers.
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