HostMonster is a solid and affordable web hosting provider for beginners.
Offering both shared and VPS hosting plans that can easily be scaled and upgraded, HostMonster is a great hosting solution for site owners that plan on growing quickly.
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HostMonster isn’t as popular as it was in 2008.
Here is how they’ve trended over the years:
Features
HostMonster offers a number of features that you won’t always find in popular hosting companies (see: Linode, Flywheel, or Verio).
Here are some of those features:
1) Demos Available: When you are looking to host your first website it can be a stressful experience. You may not know what you’ll need to do or where you have to go after signing up. HostMonster has made this easy by offering several demos for you to check out before you give your credit card information. You can access the control panel to their demo site, and it’s all clickable. Once there you can see exactly what you will see for your website.
The demo includes full access to their help center, email options, site manager, and backups. You are also able to see their one-click install options like WordPress and Weebly. What you will be viewing is the cPanel interface which is a widely accepted and popular option that HostMonster offers across it’s hosting plans. The opportunity to “test drive” an account is a great option for anyone who is worried about what they will experience once they get behind the wheel.
2) Basic Features: This is yet another feature that beginners will love and that differentiates HostMonster from many other hosting providers. All of the features that are available on their most expensive shared plan (Business Pro) are available for the cheapest plan as well. The only difference between them, as far as features are concerned, is the starter plan only allows one website.
The Plus and Business both allow unlimited sites. Other than that difference you will receive things that other hosts may charge a premium to get. Things like unlimited disk space and bandwidth, unlimited parked domains and about 100 other features including one-click installs, courtesy backups, and many eCommerce features. If you are new to hosting you can appreciate that all of the available options come standard with the primary account to allow you to figure out what you need as you grow.
3) Protected Servers: Many hosting companies have outdated equipment that isn’t maintained very well, and some others don’t even own the servers where your site is stored. Many people looking for affordable shared hosting end up with server issues and downtime that they have no control over. HostMonster has taken several measures to keep your data safe and running.
Their data center is maintained 24/7 by technicians and has a balanced/synchronized power system to maintain the servers during a power outage. For further security, there is a backup power supply and a live monitoring system to point out problems quickly. HostMonster’s parent company owns all of their own equipment and manages a support staff in the U.S. so if any problems do occur they can help you get back up and running quickly.
Customer Support
HostMonster offers a 24/7 support team available via live chat and telephone.
Not the best customer support ratings when you compare them to companies like Siteground and InMotion, but not terrible either.
Reviews
We did a thorough search of the internet looking for the most informative hostmonster reviews. Customers seem to be happy with the experience that Hostmonster provides.
Here we have a customer that is very happy with the value that Hostmonster provides: “Their prices are unbeatable for that type of quality. They have many plugins such as WordPress. They even have a MARKET!”
Another customer pleased with uptime states: “I host about 10 different domains currently with Hostmonster and the only downtime I have ever had was planned and they would send emails in advance notifying me of the planned outage including rates, times, and expected length.”
Although, there were some users that experienced problems and left negative reviews. We found that most people had issues with their tech support and wait times.
One customer states: “About 3 years ago things began to change and tech support began to wane. In the past year, support is basically non existent…Whenever we call for any type of help, hold time is at minimum 45min to 2 hours and then the tech person doesn’t have an answer.”
Along with support issues some customers are also unable to use their email: “Tech support wait times have become much longer, with the techs visibly multitasking between tickets. The techs have also gotten worse in their knowledge of the system…E-mail deliverability has become abysmal. They have signed on so many spammers, that their mail servers are blacklisted around the globe.”
Pros
1) Money Back Guaranee: HostMonster offers an industry standard 30 day money back guarantee for hosting fees.
2) Socially Active: The company has a very lively Twitter account that attempts to reach out and resolve issues quickly.
3) Uptime Guarantee: Hostmonster offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, but doesn’t seem to show details on their website.
4) Beginner Guides: In addition to the other beginner benefits, HostMonster has several how-to guides for anyone just starting out on the platform.
5) Shared Hosting Explanation: This provider shows exactly what they mean by unlimited shared plans through a detailed page on the subject.
6) Affordable: HostMonster has many affordable options in their shared, VPS and dedicated server pricing.
Cons
1) No Cloud Hosting: At this time, HostMonster doesn’t seem to offer cloud hosting options.
2) Average Reviews: The reviews of this host seem to fall toward an average rating.
3) Email Deliverability: With email filters becoming more advanced, HostMonster emails seem to end up in places other than the inbox.
Summary
HostMonster specializes in inexpensive shared hosting that has several features. If you have never hosted a website before this company offers several features to make it easy and understandable. You can also grow your account as you and your site develops to include faster response times and more websites.
If you are looking for cloud hosting with a company that has the highest reviews you will find other providers that suit your needs better.