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.
These guys are good in terms of prices, customer, uptime. But when it comes to the support it takes a while, because I have to type everything and it takes time. If I could contact via skype voice or phone it would be way more faster…
Please make sure you send some bonus to your live chat agent Angela Hansen. I was stumbled upon with Wordpress update and Angela helped me quickly. The team always up for help.
Terrible hosting. Even one Wordpress site does not work on the "Ultimate Business" tariff plan!!! The support service does not solve the problem! When I don't use the site, the RAM is not used. As soon as I work with the site, I do elementary things: creating a new Wordpress page, adding a product, then the RAM is working at maximum and the site gives a 503 error. This can't be on a simple Wordpress site. Your hosting works disgusting!
2 day after They don't refund my money. All web page go home link.
2 day after They don't refund my money. All web page go home link. VERY BAD HOSTING. 2 day after They don't refund my money. All web page go home link. VERY BAD HOSTING. 2 day after They don't refund my money. All web page go home link. VERY BAD HOSTING.
I've used Hostwinds for nearly 2 years and they have been excellent during my stay. However, I am looking at leaving because they have IP issues, mainly, some of the major (Gmail, Outlook, MSN, etc) ISP's block email traffic, claiming it's SPAM. Apparently, they have some SPAMMERS on their servers and some IP blocks are blacklisted. I have been forced to get a Gmail account so I can send outbound emails, which is a major pain. I've raised this issue with tech support too many times to count but the problem persists. I'd love to stay with them but I have to move on.
I had the same issues, the Hostwinds staff never addressed the problem, they only offered more costly packages. I then upgraded from shared hosting to the dedicated IP package and still was on a blacklisted IP. I left them because they host spammers that dirty up their IP blocks. What good is it to have unlimited email addresses when the whole IP Block is blacklisted? If you plan on using your domain for email then choose another hosting.
I've moved from Shared hosting to Managed Linux VPS The support team is sucks, i felt that I'm an auditor or QA on their jobs They don't validate the requests. For example, I've asked to only allow access to specific ports to only 1 country, so all they did is added the country 2 letters in the CSF config page and added allowed ports to this country and they didn't remove the ports from TCP_IN section , it means there's no restrictions here, all they did is like confirming allowing my country !! so this ticket toke 6 hours, and ended up sending them the instructions how to do it , so !!
another issue, VPS assigned with IP address, this IP address was blacklisted on 3 major RBLs and outlook is blocking this IP too, and when i asked them to change it since we need a clean IP because we gonna sent emails from it, they said, it's extra cost option to change it ! and no gurantuee that new IP will be clean, why should i get a VPS with blacklisted IP ?
another topic i tried to delist our ip from all blacklisted RBLs and outlook too, but we faced a new issue, that our emails is not delivered in stays in queue for days because our server lost connection with the remote mail server we are sending emails to. Support answer: the remote server blocks your IP, talk to them to unblock
--- another topic, suddennly with no warrnings your server CPU usage go to 100% with no running prcoess !!! so you open a ticket and wait 2 hours for an answer that it's fixed !! node issue !!!!!! sorry for inconventict
--- another major issue happened with Hostwinds our VPS in server in Amsterdam, after we migrate our emails/website from shared hosting to this hosting we bought a volume storage 100GB and attached it to the server, and moved all emails files on it 70GB! a history of emails a 7 years history. and everything was good for 3 days and at 4/10/2021 the say facebook was down, the amsterdam server had a network issue at 10PM and we lost all the the connections with the VPS no way to day anything .. so i've opened a ticket and got no answer, go to live chat and got informed that there's network issue in amsterdam server, and we got access at 12AM but our CPU usage was 100% with no process running and i toke screenshot from control panel that shows CPU usage and storage usage was 68% of 100GB
they sent me at 2 am a reply that the issue was fixed and they sent me a screenshot from the same cpu usage | storage usage and i found that storage usage was 1% !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i replyed to the ticket .. WHERE OUR EMAILS !!! i supposed to sleep that time 2AM because i've work tomorrow at 8am need to wake up and i couldn't sleep till they fix the server . and got no replies, so i went to live chat and i'm fired !!! from 2 am to 6 am all they said they don't know what happened to the volume storage and filesystem corrupted, maybe you got hacked !!! WHAT THE HELL, GOT HACKED !! how ?? the server connection was down, and if we got hacked, the hacker will go the cloud volume and corrupt the file system ???? talk in more logic !!! support answer, they have nothing to do with it , network issue won't affact the filesystem of the volume storage!! and it's my fault that i didn't subscribe for backup plan!!!
when i asked is the backup plan includes volume storage ,and the golden answer: NO! so we lost 7 years of emails history and they do nothing !!!
final conclution Stay away from Hostwinds, Support are sucks Server Prices are very good, but no stability, no uptime 99.999999 like they said alot of down times delay in support reply on ticket you need to validate every request with your self Totally sucks
Your sites will be in good hands, dudes. Personally, I'm a fully satisfied Hostwinds customer. They are rock. High 99% uptime and very fast servers. I developed my Wordpress Website with optimum speed using the available softaculous addon in the Cpanel. Well done!
Hostwinds shared server is great for a personal site or small business. Their CPanel is easy to use with awesome support! Recommend to try them with no hesitations.
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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