Hostwinds Review 2023: Why “Not Bad” Isn’t Good Enough
4.5
Ranked 547 From 3955 Webhosting
| Web Hosting | $6.47 – $9.47 |
| VPS Hosting | $8.24 – $42.74 |
| Dedicated Server | $106– $239 |
| Cloud Hosting | $25.99– $111 |
| Reseller Hosting | $5.24- $8.24 |
Seattle ✓
$2.24 / mo.
- Terrific uptime in testing
- Excellent reseller and VPS hosting plans
- Good customer service
- Minecraft server hosting
About Hostwinds
Hostwinds offers robust tools to help you build attractive, functional websites. It’s a top choice overall, with stellar reseller and VPS hosting plans for small and large businesses.
US Street Price $4.50Although all customers are entitled to cancel HostPapa’s services at any moment, there is a 30‑day risk-free money‑back guarantee. However, it applies to shared and reseller web hosting plans only, which seems a bit reductive. As for the payment method, HostPapa accepts credit/debit cards and PayPal. Despite all the fancy promises, “not bad” is a good description for Hostwinds. Its hosting services are decent, and that’s about it. There’s nothing special about the service; no amazing feature or ability. While it works fine, many other hosting companies I tested provided better performance and more interesting features.
Hostwinds General Info & Hosting Overview
Best Web Hosting Companies
Hostwinds' Shared Hosting Plans
If your website doesn’t require high-end servers to keep it up and running, shared web hosting may be right up your alley. The low-cost web hosting places your website on a server with other websites, thus sharing system resources. You pay less money in this roommate situation, but big traffic spikes could cause your site to slow down—or even be unavailable for some time. Hosts do their best to prevent this from happening, but you should be aware that this is the shared hosting tradeoff. Hostwinds offers attractive, wallet-friendly, Linux-based shared hosting plans that come in three flavors: Basic, Advanced, and Ultimate. Unfortunately, Hostwinds lacks Windows-based plans. Basic (starting at $6.99 per month) offers unlimited monthly data transfers, unlimited storage, a free dedicated IP address, and the ability to host a single domain. Advanced (starting at $8.99 per month) builds upon Basic by letting you host up to six domains. Ultimate (starting at $10.99 per month) adds the ability to host an unlimited number of domains. Unless you’re on a tight budget, there’s not much reason to select anything other than the Ultimate plan if you want a Hostwinds shared hosting package that offers room to grow. As with other web hosting services, Hostwinds tosses discounts your way if you sign up for multiple months or years. HostGator, our Editors’ Choice for shared hosting, gives small- and medium-sized businesses even more room to expand their web presences. Its Hatchling plan (starting at $10.95 per month) offers unlimited disk space, bandwidth, databases, and email addresses, plus support for one domain and third-party applications, such as content management systems and e-commerce platforms. HostGator’s Baby plan (starting at $11.95 per month) builds on Hatchling’s offering by adding unlimited domains. The top-tier Business plan (starting at $16.95 per month) includes highly specialized options, such as a free dedicated IP and a secure socket layer (SSL) certificate upgrade. HostGator also lets you select Linux- or Windows-based server options. If you need to run Microsoft-specific scripts, you’ll appreciate the Windows option. For its flexibility, HostGator is the category’s top dog.
Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | Number of Sites | Price |
|
Unlimited | Unlimited | 1 | $6.47 | ||
| Advance | Unlimited | Unlimited | 4 | $8.24 | |
Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | $9.47 | ||
Hostwinds' VPS Hosting Plans
VPS hosting is for people who want to build their sites on servers that offer more power than what shared web hosting provides. With VPS hosting, your site still shares server space, but with far fewer other sites gobbling up resources. VPS hosting costs more money than shared hosting, but it’s worth the investment if you expect lots of traffic. VPS sites also tend to be more secure because some of their resources are isolated by virtualization. If you’re looking for VPS hosting, Hostwinds has you covered, with four tiers each of fully-managed Linux- and Windows-based plans. The lowest tier of managed Linux VPS hosting (starting at $10.99 per month) offers 1GB of RAM, one CPU core, 30GB of SSD disk space, and 1TB of monthly data transfers, while the highest tier plan (starting at whopping $526.99 per month) gives users access to 16 CPU cores, 96GB of RAM, 750GB of SSD disk space, and 9TB of monthly data transfers. Windows VPS hosting has the same range in terms of hardware capability, but with increased pricing (from $16.99 per month, up to $574.99 per month). There’s also a number of unmanaged hosting plans with both Linux and Windows options. For example, the lowest tier of unmanaged Linux VPS starts at just $4.99 per month (for 1GB of RAM, 30GB of disk space, 1TB monthly data transfers, and unlimited email), while the highest tier scales up to $328.99 per month (for 16 CPU cores, 96GB of RAM, 750GB of disk space, 9TB monthly data transfers, and unlimited email). The unmanaged Windows VPS plans start at $10.99 per month (for 1GB of RAM, 30GB of disk space, 1TB monthly data transfers, and unlimited email) and maxes out at $376.99 per month (16 CPU cores, 96GB of RAM, 750GB of disk space, 9TB monthly data transfers, and unlimited email). In short, Hostwinds has flexible, powerful VPS plans that outshine those of most of its rivals. As a result, Hostwinds is the PCMag Editors’ Choice for virtual private server web hosting.
Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | CPU | RAM | Price |
|
30 GB SSD | 1 TB | 1 CORE | 1 GB | $8.24 | ||
50 GB SSD | 2 TB | 1CORES | 2 GB | $16.49 | ||
75 GB SSD | 2 TB | 2CORES | 4 GB | $29.99 | ||
100 GB SSD | 2 TB | 2 CORES | 6 GB | $38.24 | ||
30 GB SSD | 1 TB | 1 CORE | 1 GB | $12.74 | ||
50 GB SSD | 2 TB | 1 CPU CORE | 2 GB | $20.99 | ||
75 GB SSD | 2 TB | 2 CORE | 4 GB | $34.49 | ||
100 GB SSD | 2 TB | 2 CORE | 6 GB | $42.74 |
Hostwinds' Dedicated Hosting Plans
Hostwinds gives you a choice of customizable or prefab Linux- or Windows-based dedicated servers. Dedicated hosting is powerful hosting that places your website on a server all by itself. As a result, your site has tremendous server resources to draw from so that it can withstand high traffic volumes. Both prefab and customizable server prices start at $122 per month, but either kind of server can cost much more, depending on how you configure them. You can outfit the configurable servers with up to 3TB of hard drive storage or 1TB of SSD storage (per drive bay, with a maximum of four drives depending on your server option), 96GB of RAM, and unlimited in-bound monthly data transfers. Outbound data transfers start at 10TB, with an additional scaling cost of up to $750 for unmetered outbound traffic. If you max out everything, you could easily spend nearly $1,500 per month. Hostwinds’ dedicated server offerings are quite good. Hostwinds’ dedicated packages fall a hair behind what AccuWeb offers, however. AccuWeb offers a massive catalog of dedicated packages, which can be further customized with an additional 512GB of memory, 8TB of storage, and 50TB of monthly data transfers. As a result, AccuWeb Hosting’s dedicated hosting plans surpass Hostwinds, the former category champ. AccuWeb now reigns as the Editors’ Choice for dedicated hosting.
Storage | Bandwidth | CPU | RAM | Price |
| |
1 TB | 10 TB | 4 CORES | 2 GB | $106 | ||
1 TB | 10 TB | 4 CORES | 16 GB | $112 | ||
1 TB | 10 TB | 4 CORES | 8 GB | $121 | ||
1 TB | 10 TB | 6 CORES | 48 GB | $136 | ||
1 TB | 10 TB | 6 CORES | 96 GB | $239 |
Hostwinds' WordPress Hosting Plans
If you fancy using the WordPress content management system to build your website, you’ll be happy to learn that you can install it on regular Hostwinds servers, as well as the company’s WordPress-optimized servers. Hostwinds’ WordPress plans start at $6.99 per month for one hosted domain and unlimited storage and monthly data transfers (its top-tier, $10.99-per-month Ultimate plan adds unlimited domains). That said, for WordPress hosting with extra punch, we suggest checking out A2, the category’s Editors’ Choice. The Linux-based A2 offers excellent WordPress hosting tiers, with shared plans starting at $2.99 per month, and offers unlimited storage and monthly data transfers from the $4.99 per month tier on up. The plans top out with the $43.99 per month Managed package that includes unlimited databases and websites. You also get a free SSL certificate across the board, too. For more on the fantastically popular content management system, you should read How to Get Started With WordPress.
1
From $10 to $200 a month
WordPress only, decent performance and affordable.
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Hostwinds' Cloud Hosting Plans
Hostwinds also offers cloud hosting, a version of web hosting that spreads CPU, RAM, and other resources across multiple servers. It’s quite unlike traditional hosting, which draws power from a single server. The advantage is that your site isn’t tied to a single server’s resources.
Hostwinds’ cloud hosting packages start are charged by the hour $4.99 per month for a skimpy 1GB of RAM, a single CPU core, and 1TB of monthly data transfers. The plans top out at a hefty $328.99 per month for 96GB of RAM, sixteen CPU cores, 750GB of storage, and 9TB of monthly data transfers. These are solid options, but DreamHost and 1&1 Ionos remain the category’s co-Editors’ Choice picks. DreamHost, which caters more toward small businesses, has packages start at $4.50 per month (for 512MB of RAM, 100GB of storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers) and top out at $48 per month (for four CPU cores, 8GB of RAM, 80GB of SSD storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers). 1&1 Ionos, on the other hand, has incredibly powerful cloud hosting packages that favor enterprise-level clients. Please read that review for 1&1 Ionos’ many cloud hosting options.
Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | CPU | RAM | Price |
|
30 GB SSD | 1 TB | 1 CORE | 1 GB | $4.99 | ||
50 GB SSD | 2 TB | 1 CORE | 2 GB | $9.99 | ||
75 GB SSD | 2 TB | 2 CORES | 4 GB | $18.99 | ||
100 GB SSD | 2 TB | 2 CORES | 6 GB | $28.99 | ||
150 GB SSD | 3 TB | 4 CORES | 8 GB | $38.99 | ||
200 GB SSD | 4 TB | 4 CORES | 12 GB | $49.99 | ||
300 GB SSD | 5 TB | 6 CORES | 16 GB | $76.99 | ||
400 GB SSD | 6 TB | 8 CORES | 32 GB | $42.74 | ||
500 GB SSD | 8 TB | 12 CORES | 64 GB | $215 | ||
750 GB SSD | 9 TB | 16 CORES | 96 GB | $329 |
More cheap webhosting provider
Hostwinds' Reseller Hosting Hosting Plans
If you’re looking to get into the web hosting business for yourself, but you don’t want to deal with managing servers and other infrastructure matters, check out Hostwinds’ excellent reseller hosting packages. With reseller hosting, you rent server space from an established player and resell it to your own customers. Hostwind’s reseller plans mirror its shared hosting plans, starting at $6.99 per month for unlimited email, storage, and data transfers. On offer are dedicated and VPS packages of both the Linux and Windows variety, as well as shared hosting, which is limited to Linux. The servers have the same RAM and storage amounts as those that Hostwinds supplies directly, which is not always the case. Hostwinds also lets you apply your own branding to the servers you rent, and it supplies 24/7 tech support, too.
Rivals web hosts, such as A2, GoDaddy, and HostGator, provide quality reseller offerings, too, but Hostwinds goes the extra mile with stacked specs in a variety of server categories. As a result, Hostwinds is the Editors’ Choice for reseller hosting.
Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | Number of Sites | Price |
|
Unlimited SSD | Unlimited | 1 | $5.25 | ||
Unlimited SSD | Unlimited | 4 | $6.74 | ||
Unlimited SSD | Unlimited | Unlimited | $8.24 |
Advantages of Hostwinds:
Building a Hostwinds Website – The website builder that’s included with Hostwinds’ hosting packages is Weebly. The website builder comes care of e-commerce platform Square, and offers way to quickly create a website, blog, or online store. There are are hundreds of themes and styles to choose from for your planned site. Weebly’s builder gives users drag and drop site elements, including text, images, dividers, videos, maps, and more. Weebly also optimizes you site for desktop and mobile configurations, making it easy to design a site that anyone can browse.
E-Commerce and Security – Hostwinds’ Softaculous library contains the Magento ecommerce app. We used Magento to create an attractive store, using its drag-and-drop store builder. Please read our Magento review for an in-depth look at this open-source shopping cart.
Excellent Uptime – Website uptime is an extremely important part of the web hosting experience. If your site is down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your products or services—and they might not come back. Fortunately, Hostwinds is extremely dependable.
Good Customer Service – Hostwinds offers 24/7 phone, web chat, and ticket-based customer support. We tested the chat support on a weekday evening, and we never had to wait more than a minute before a Hostwinds representative responded to my queries. The person on the other side of the chat window accurately explained the differences between shared and VPS hosting to me.
Hostwinds Prices, Hosting Plans:
Pros & Cons of Using Hostwinds Hosting
Pros
- Terrific uptime in testing
- Excellent reseller and VPS hosting plans
- Good customer service
Cons
- Not every plan has a Windows server option
- Short money-back guarantee window
Hostpapa FAQ's
How much does Hostwinds cost?
Hostwinds Pricing and Plans
Basic Ultimate
Introductory Pricing: $5.24 per month $8.24 per month
Renewal Pricing: $6.99 per month $10.99 per month
Contract Lengths Available One, three, six, we, 24 and 35 months One, three, six, we, 24 and 35 months
Storage Unlimited disk space Unlimited disk space
Is DreamHost a good website host?
DreamHost is one of the most reliable and fastest shared hosting providers in the industry. It offers a variety of features and technologies that contribute to its excellent performance, including: DreamHost CDN.
What is hostwinds used for?
Fast and Reliable web hosting for personal or business use. Everything you need to get your website online today!
Does Hostwinds offer shared hosting?
Yes. Hostwinds offers shared hosting, among many other services. This whole review is about the shared hosting, so if you want details, I strongly recommend that you jump back up. To reiterate my last point: It’s decent, but it could be better.