Connecting with the right web hosting business is crucial if you are starting a blog, online store or company website.
If you do not select the right web host before launching your website, transferring all your web data over to a different provider is time-consuming and can cost extra money.
I have several years of experience managing and launching websites for various industries, and I am familiar with the business hosting plans that Hostwinds provides.
Therefore, we have created this comprehensive Hostwinds review for you, allowing you to determine whether this web hosting provider is right for your following website.
So how did we end up testing Hostwinds?
We set up a staging site at tybtestsite.com and tested Hostwinds for the following:
- Hosting Types & Features
- Performance & Speed
- Ease of Use
- Pricing & Value
- Security
- Help & Support
- WordPress Features
- All extras
Hostwinds Review From Our Experts
Hostwinds is one of the top web hosting companies in the industry, providing reliable and affordable shared, cloud, dedicated, and VPS Hosting for personal and business websites.
Hostwinds offers excellent customer service and numerous features to help you get your website off the ground.
Hostwinds has an excellent infrastructure that ensures your website will remain stable and secure, so you can focus on growing your business.
Hostwinds also has a wide range of hosting plans, depending on your budget and needs.
The Tweak Your Biz team and I rigorously test Hostwinds and other web hosting services yearly.
Our team reviews each host based on its performance, price, speed, accessible features, and more.
This Hostwinds review is updated as the company evolves its service.
Let’s take a look at everything Hostwinds has to offer!
Hostwinds Pros and Cons
Hostwinds is one of the leading hosting providers in the game.
They’ve been providing reliable hosting solutions since 2010 and offer a high level of customer service among other benefits.
Their primary focus is on quality hosting options that are fast, secure and reliable.
Hosting Pros
- Helpful support team
- Unlimited databases
- Numerous hosting packages
- Unlimited email accounts
- Unlimited disk space
- Free SSL certificates
- Free dedicated IP address
- Unlimited domains and subdomains
- No one owns Hostwinds’ servers
- Nightly backups (even in the basic plan)
Hosting Cons
- No free domains
- Other web hosts offer basic plans at a lower rate
- No eCommerce hosting
- Some users report their support ticket was never resolved.
Hostwinds Pricing & Plans
Let’s look at each of Hostwind’s pricing and plan options to see if they’re a good fit for you.
Hostwinds Shared Hosting is a popular option for those just getting started with their website or blog.
It’s easy to use, reliable, and affordable.
After setting up our staging site, we got to testing the following metrics:
- Speed
- Uptime
- Features
- Ease of Use
Hostwinds offers speeds that are more than enough for most websites and blogs. The average page load time on shared hosting is around 1 second, which is more than respectable.
We tested Hostwind’s shared hosting speeds on our staging site and found the following results:
Grade: A
Performance: 100%
Largest Content Paint: 134ms
Total Blocking Time: 9ms
Cumulative Layout Shift: 0.01
Hostwinds shared hosting offers great uptime with an average of 99.9%.
This is a good figure and we have not experienced any downtime while using their services.
Web Hosting Plans
- Basic: Starting at $5.24 per month
- Advanced: Starting at $6.74 per month
- Ultimate: Starting at $8.24 per month
Plan Features
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited domains
- Solid state drives
- Up-to-date cPanel
- Instant setup
- Unlimited storage
- Free dedicated IP address
- Free SSL certificates
SSL Included & Activated?
- Yes, SSL is included in every shared hosting plan.
Hostwinds shared hosting is easy to use for beginners, with a cPanel interface that’s intuitive and simple to navigate.
The cPanel offers an array of features, such as one-click WordPress installers, FTP access, and email accounts.
Here’s a screenshot of the cPanel to give you a better idea.Â
Hostwinds’ shared hosting plans are a solid choice, given the monthly price and the numerous features included in every plan.
In my experience, shared hosting through Hostwinds is fast, reliable, and easy to use.
After the promotional pricing period ends, the basic plan is still affordable at $5.24 per month.
And the only difference between each shared hosting plan is the number of domains a user can have.
Shared hosting through Hostwinds is perfect for small businesses looking to save money and maintain a professional-looking site.
Hostwinds VPS Hosting Review
Hostwinds offers VPS hosting, and their plans are incredibly affordable.
All of their packages come with an impressive amount of resources like bandwidth, storage, RAM, and CPU power.
Plus, with the root access that comes standard with all of their plans, you can customize your server to your exact specifications.
Below are the starting plans for Windows and Linux managed and unmanaged hosting.
Fully Managed Linux VPS Hosting
Plans start at:-
1 CPU
-
1 GB RAM
-
30 GB Storage
Fully Managed Windows VPS
Plans start at:-
1 CPU
-
1 GB RAM
-
30 GB Storage
Unmanaged Linux VPS Hosting
Plans start at:-
1 CPU
-
1 GB RAM
-
30 GB Storage
Hostwinds VPS Hosting Speed Review
When it comes to speed Hostwinds has a track record for reliability and performance with their VPS hosting.
Their network infrastructure is powerful enough to handle high traffic sites and they offer fast page loading speeds even during peak hours.
Using our staging site, we found the following information:
- Grade: A
- Performance: 100%
- Largest Content Paint: 138ms
- Total Blocking Time: 46ms
- Cumulative Layout Shift: 0
Hostwinds VPS Hosting Uptime Review
The uptime Hostwinds offers with their VPS hosting is one of the best in the industry.
They promise 99.9% uptime and have measures in place to ensure that your site remains online even during heavy traffic periods.
During our 3 months of testing, we never had any issues with uptime.
Hostwinds VPS Hosting Features
Web Hosting Plans
- Linux Managed
- Linux Unmanaged
- Windows Managed
- Windows Unmanaged
Plan Features
- 1 Gbps port
- 99.9999% uptime guarantee
- Multiple locations
- Enterprise firewall
- Free website transfer (for even one WordPress site)
- Custom ISO’s
- Snapshots
- Nightly backups
SSL Included & Activated?
- No, an SSL is not included in the virtual private server plans.
How Easy Is Hostwinds VPS Hosting To Use
Hostwinds has a very intuitive control panel interface that makes it easy to manage all aspects of your server, from creating backups to setting up domains and email accounts.
Plus, they offer helpful tutorials if you ever need assistance with anything.
Hostwinds VPS Hosting Our Final Take
Hostwinds is ideal if you are looking for a Linux or Windows VPS hosting option with plenty of storage.
Compared to other providers, Hostwinds gives its users much more storage.
Also, Hostwinds’ VPS hosting imitates dedicated server plans using virtual partitions, allowing users private resources even if the server is shared with someone else.
Hostwind’s VPs plans are very flexible.
For example, Hostwinds allows users to choose between managed and unmanaged sites.
Lastly, users can customize their VPS servers with Hostwinds, further explaining why it is an excellent option!
Hostwinds Dedicated Hosting Review
Hostwinds dedicated Hosting is a fantastic web hosting solution in our experience.
With dedicated servers, you don’t have to share resources with other customers, meaning you get the best performance without any slowdowns or interruptions.
Let’s see how tybtestsite.com performed with Hostwinds’ dedicated hosting.
2 x L5640 Dedicated Server
Plans start at:-
Processors: 2
-
CPU Cores: 6
-
CPU Threads: 12
i7-3930K Dedicated Server
Plans start at:-
Processors: 1
-
CPU Cores: 6
-
CPU Threads: 12
E3-1270 v2 Dedicated Server
Plans start at:-
Processors: 1
-
CPU Cores: 4
-
CPU Threads: 8
Hostwinds Dedicated Hosting Speed Review
The speed offered by Hostwinds is quite good – with servers located in US or Europe locations, depending on your preference.
Our tests show that we were able to achieve full speeds from our dedicated hosting package within minutes of going live.
This is what we found out from our testing:
- Grade: A
- Performance: 100%
- Largest Content Paint: 140ms
- Total Blocking Time: 12ms
- Cumulative Layout Shift: 0.01
Hostwinds Dedicated Hosting Uptime Review
Hostwinds offers fully managed dedicated hosting with an impressive 99.9% uptime guarantee.
This means that your site will stay online even during peak times of usage or unexpected traffic spikes.
Hostwinds also provides 24/7 monitoring to ensure your website runs smoothly and quickly at all times.
In our tests, we were pleased to find that Hostwinds delivered on its promise and achieved perfect uptime across all of our tests.
The few outages we did encounter were minimal and quickly resolved without any major disruptions in service.
Hostwinds Dedicated Hosting Features
Web Hosting Plans
- 13 dedicated servers to choose from
- Seven server drives to choose from
- 7 Bay #2 options
- 3 RAM storage options (8, 16, and 32 GB)
- CentOS or no RAID
- Five operating systems to choose from
- Seven outbound bandwidth limits (unlimited storage is available)
- 5 IPs to choose from (8, 16, 32, 64, and 128)
Plan Features
- Customizable RAID
- Dedicated resources
- Customizable RAM and the type of CPUs
- Server monitoring
- Automated backup service
- Full management
- Multiple data center locations for users to choose from
- High-quality networking
SSL Included & Activated?
- No, an SSL is not included or activated with the dedicated hosting provided by Hostwinds.
How Easy Is Hostwinds Dedicated Hosting To Use
Hostwinds dedicated hosting is easy to set up, manage and monitor.
Each plan comes with a simple control panel that allows you to adjust settings like:
- CPU cores
- Memory allocation
- Disk space
Hostwinds Dedicated Hosting Our Final Take
Hostwinds delivers fully managed dedicated hosting, meaning users can choose between a pre-configured server or a customized setup.
Also, users can choose between Linux or Windows servers.
The dedicated plans are more expensive than the shared hosting plans through Hostwinds, starting at around $150 a month.
Further, Hostwinds allows users to customize various aspects of their dedicated plan, including the following:
- RAM
- RAID
- IP addresses
- The operating system
- This customization is perfect for small businesses that are growing quickly
Additionally, dedicated plans are ideal for users who want more flexibility over the details and features included in their plans.
Hostwinds Cloud Hosting Review
In this section of the review, we’ll be taking a closer look at the cloud hosting options offered by Hostwinds.
This will include examining its speed, uptime, features, ease of use, and our final take on how it held up on our staging site.
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Hostwinds Cloud Hosting Speed Review
Hostwinds Cloud Hosting offers great speeds, thanks to its powerful cloud infrastructure and SSD drives.
Its servers are also optimized for speed through the latest technologies such as NGINX and HTTP/2, as well as its own custom-built caching system.
This allows you to get the most out of your hosting experience without sacrificing performance.
Using our staging site at tybtestsite.com we gathered the following info:
- Grade: A
- Performance: 100%
- Largest Content Paint: 147ms
- Total Blocking Time: 32ms
- Cumulative Layout Shift: 0
Hostwinds Cloud Hosting Uptime Review
As with the rest of its hosting plans, Hostwinds cloud hosting has an impressive uptime record of 99.99%.
With their cloud infrastructure and redundancy features, they ensure that your website is always up and running with minimal downtime.
They also offer a detailed real-time monitoring tool that gives you detailed information about any potential issues so you can take action quickly if necessary.Â
Any issue we experienced was quickly resolved by these fail-safes.Â
Hostwinds Cloud Hosting Features
Web Hosting Plans
- Cloud Servers
- Load Balancers
- Block Storage
- Object Storage
Plan Features
- 1 Gbps port
- Solid state drives
- Snapshots
- 99.9999% uptime
- Custom ISO’s
- Friendliness guarantee
- Multiple locations
- Enterprise firewall
- Free website transfer
SSL Included & Activated?
- No, an SSL is not included and activated with these plans.
How Easy Is Hostwinds Cloud Hosting To Use
In terms of ease of use, their cloud servers are incredibly user-friendly and intuitive.
They also provide step-by-step tutorials that make the setup process a breeze.
Plus, they offer 24/7 customer support should you ever run into any issues while setting up or running your website on their platform.
Hostwinds Cloud Hosting Our Final Take
The cloud hosting through Hostwinds is entirely customizable.
These plans make installing WordPress easy because it only demands one click.
Hostwind prices cloud hosting by the hour, and the lowest-tiered plan costs around $5 per month for bare minimum resources.
The detail that differentiates Hostwinds from other plans is that the company can scale according to your needs.
Therefore, you do not need to purchase a lot of resources upfront like you might with dedicated or shared hosting plans.
Hostwinds Customer Support Review
Hostwinds has an excellent customer support service.
For instance, users can utilize the live chat support available on the Hostwinds website.
Hostwinds support also offers numerous tutorials and a blog that answers frequently asked questions if users want to avoid contacting customer support.
Lastly, customers can email Hostwinds or use the phone support line at (888-404-1279) for help with any issues.
Based on current customer reviews, the best way to receive a fast response from customer support is to email or use the chat feature.
Hostwinds Security
Hostwinds takes security very seriously and offers a range of features designed to protect your website from malicious attacks.
They use the following protocols:
- High-end firewalls
- Regular malware scans
- Automated patching
- Two-factor authentication (2FA)
Hostwinds also implements a strict data privacy policy that is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
This policy outlines how Hostwinds stores and uses personal data, and it’s helpful for those who are concerned about the security of their website.
Hostwinds SSL
Hostwinds offers SSL certificates to help keep your website secure, no matter which hosting package you choose.
All of their shared hosting plans include a free Comodo PositiveSSL certificate, and they also have Premium SSL options available.Â
Is Hostwinds Good for Business?
Hostwinds is an excellent choice for business owners looking to host their web applications and websites. They provide reliable hosting solutions, designed to meet the needs of all businesses, large and small.
Their cutting-edge cloud technology offers fast server response times and unlimited storage capacity, ensuring that your website will never run out of space or be slowed down due to excessive traffic.
Hostwinds also has a wide variety of security features in place to protect your data from malicious attacks or accidental loss.
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Hosting Final Verdict
Hostwinds offers enterprise-grade hosting services that are ideal for those who want more control and flexibility over the features included in their plans.
Hostwinds provides excellent shared, VPS, cloud, and dedicated hosting options with solid-state drives, snapshots, customizable RAIDs, custom ISO’s, automated backup services, and more.
Hostwinds is worth a try for anyone who wants to maximize their VPS servers and experience excellent hosting speeds!
Hostwinds Alternatives
Here are some other options to Hostwinds if they don’t meet your specific needs.
Hostinger
Hostinger is a more affordable hosting resort, with plans starting at $1.99 per month.
Also, Hostinger allows users to scale their plans as their website grows.
Some of the features included in Hostinger plans include the following:
- A free domain name
- Reliable uptime
- Regular backups
- Excellent customer service
- High bandwidth
- Business-grade email addresses
- DDoS monitoring
- Unlimited SSL certificates
Hostinger’s array of plans is perfect for people with various needs.
For instance, Hostinger has shared hosting plans, which are ideal for beginners who are setting up a website.
Some of the downsides to Hostinger include the following:
- No cPanel
- No telephone support
- Nonstandard refund terms
- Users can only have one email account on the single shared hosting.
- Despite these downsides, Hostinger is an excellent host provider with some of the most affordable rates
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is pricier than other providers.
However, the company makes up for the more expensive plans by offering incredible speeds and industry-leading customer service.
One detail that allows A2 to stand out from others is the Turbo Boost feature.
With Turbo Boost, users experience website loading speeds up to 20 times faster than the basic plans at A2 Hosting.
A2 has various hosting options, including WordPress hosting and eCommerce hosting.
Further, A2’s eCommerce plans are compatible with various eCommerce software and solutions, making it easy to set up an online store.
Some of the downsides to selecting A2 Hosting include the following:
- The short-term plans are expensive
- The Turbo Boost feature costs extra
- Windows hosting is not yet available
Given the excellent speeds and the option for WordPress hosting, A2 Hosting is consistently a fan-favorite.
And if customers do not like their plan, the company provides a 30-day money-back guarantee.
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Hosting FAQ
Hostwinds is an excellent web hosting provider for businesses and individuals. Hostwinds offers reliable and affordable shared, cloud, reseller, and VPS Hosting, as well as several helpful features to get your website off the ground.
Yes, Hostwinds is a secure web hosting provider. Hostwinds has an excellent infrastructure that ensures your website will remain safe and stable, so you can focus on growing your business. Hostwinds also offers SSL certificates and other security features to keep your data safe.
Hostwinds is located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Hostwinds has been providing reliable web hosting services since 2010.
You can contact Hostwinds through their website, email address, live chat, and toll-free phone number. Hostwinds’ customer service representatives are available to help you 24/7. Hostwinds also has a helpful knowledge base with tutorials and frequently asked questions so you can find the answers you need quickly.
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Changing the domain name of your Hostwinds account can be a complicated procedure. Hostwinds offers two methods for changing the domain name: self-managed and managed. With self-managed, you will need to manually transfer all website files from the previous domain to the new one. Hostwinds also provides a managed hosting option, where Hostwinds will take care of the entire process for you to ensure that your website is fully functional after the transfer. Hostwinds recommends using managed Hosting whenever possible, as it is the easiest and most reliable way to change domains.
Setting up a new domain with Hostwinds is straightforward. First, you need to purchase hosting services. Hostwinds offers several plans depending on your budget and needs. Once you’ve chosen a plan, Hostwinds will provide you with the necessary information to set up your domain name. After that, Hostwinds will point your domain to their servers so that people can find your website. Hostwinds also offers free and premium SSL certificates to ensure your website is secure.
