10.HostMonster

Summary

One-stop hosting plan, unlimited space and bandwidth, MySQL support, PHP5 and Perl5 as standard, wide choice of tools and software to install and a convenient hassle free control panel – that's what HostMonster comes with. Add 100% US-based support and $100 free credits on Google AdWords advertising, mix with the competitive price, shake and serve!

HostMonster specializes in customer satisfaction – you'll never get stuck with its services, whether you want to add a new domain, create a mailbox, or do something more complex. The company is located in Utah and claims that everything, including technical support personnel, resides there. With over one million websites hosted and 15+ years of experience, HostMonster looks monstrously promising.

The $4.95 per month price is a good deal, but the renewal price is $6.95, which is more or less average. The free domain name and site builder included with all new accounts let a newbie webmaster jump in quickly, and experienced clients will find custom cron jobs, raw access logs, and SSH available right from the beginning.

Secure SSL server and loads of eCommerce platforms make it easy to launch a new online store within a few hours. The Google credits and free search engine optimization services will come in handy as soon as you start promoting it.

Reliability

According to test results measured by Pingdom™, the overall uptime value was 99.50%* during the measurement period. Client's data is not backed up automatically, so you should either take care of this aspect of data security yourself or purchase the backup services offered for $12.95/month.

Speed characteristics are average for this class of web hosting. Pingdom™ benchmarking showed an average response time of 0,634* seconds, which is possibly due to the narrow 15 mbps connection.

Money Back Guarantee

Aside from the typical 30 day full money back guarantee HostMonster offers, there's also a "super full" money back guarantee that works for 3 calendar days after the purchase and includes a refund for dedicated IP and Postini anti-spam services. All other payments, including SSL certificates, Site Backup Pro, SEO Package, SiteLock, and domain privacy are non-refundable. You must also pay for your free domain if you want to keep it for yourself after cancellation.

Ease of Use

HostMonster implements an interesting approach to the control panel. In addition to the well-known hosting control panel application, cPanel, they offer a lite version of the "Command Center" control panel.

Command Center's menu is pared down to the most common tasks a web master may need: creating and managing e-mail boxes, adding domain names, assigning a design template to a site, and filling the site with content.

The link to cPanel is at the top of the page along with links to additional options: dedicated IP, Postini, DNS management, billing account management, and others.

The main control panel is more or less standard with the exception of links to third-party services, billing, and video tutorials. In addition to the free Weebly Site Builder available from the Command Center, HostMonster also offers an alternative: the Simple Scripts installation framework that allows the setup of several other web publishing solutions such as BasicPages or liveSite.

Not all of them are free, of course, but the real problem is that not all of them actually work. We had no problems using BasicPages, but Trendy Site Builder's trial failed to work, requesting the ionCube PHP loader library.

Offering multiple third-party software is a common marketing trick, but does it help if they simply don't install?

We also tried to install several other products including CMS, CRM, and blogs without any further problems.

Basically, HostMonster is not at all intimidating and provides every type of functionality a user needs including assisting novices with its smart and simple Command Center. Unfortunately, not all of the suggested third-party scripts worked as expected, which could indicate that the staff doesn't actually test all of them for compatibility.

Technical Support

HostMonster is equipped with multiple user communication channels but achieves only average response times. The responses were, however, precise and informative.

Other support channels are phone, community forum, and plenty of self-assistance materials. The personnel at HostMonster picked up the phone after 2 minutes – an average value again.

When you want to solve a problem yourself, you can enjoy dozens of video tutorials and an informative knowledge base containing answers to virtually anything, but when you need the help of a pro, you will probably have to wait on the queue.

Conclusion

It looks extremely cost effective at first glance, but HostMonster is a wolf in lamb's clothing. The default plan costs $4.95, but the company offers a Pro Package with free SSL, dedicated IP, daily backups, and higher CPU and bandwidth priority. With the Pro Package you probably won't notice longer hosting response times, the 200k file count limit, and 100 MySQL table cap. But it costs $19.95/month, not $4.95, and that's way over the top.

The number of third-party software offerings is impressive, but not all of them are actually compatible with the web host. The unhurried technical support is partially offset by the rich informational resources and the handy quick-start Command Center.

HostMonster is not ideal but is still a comfortable choice if you're looking for an easy-to-launch web hosting solution.