InterServer Web Hosting Review
4.5
Ranked 547 From 3955 Webhosting
| Web Hosting | $2.50 – $69.95 |
| WordPress Hosting | $6.00 – $96.00 |
| VPS Hosting | $6.00– $90.00 |
| Dedicated Server | $67.00– $530 |
| Reseller Hosting | $19.95- $69.95 |
Los Angeles ✓
$4.00 / mo.
- Free website migration
- Free SSL certificates
- Unlimited SSD storage
- 24/7 support
InterServer review: best all-rounder hosting?
In this InterServer review, I’ll take a very detailed look into this web hosting underdog. I’m going to analyze its plans and prices, ease of use, performance, security, and customer support. No stone will be left unturned. InterServer is not your usual hosting provider. It’s not a big name in the industry, and nobody is really talking about it. It’s more of an underdog, except that no one is getting upset if InterServer wins at something. They’re… Surprised more than anything.
The biggest surprise of all is that even if people don’t really acknowledge InterServer, the provider is 21 years old. So, how did it make it for so long without any notable marketing campaigns? Was it word of mouth? It must have something up its sleeve, right?
All the InterServer.net reviews I read created a positive image. It seems that InterServer is a really good provider. Or, this is among the most well-kept conspiracies of all time. Its website says that 70% of the customers are migrations, so there has to be a reason for that.
About InterServer
InterServer’s offering is very clear: unlimited resources at low rates. While it delivers on this promise, there aren’t many standout features beyond this. Also, it only has data centers within the US, so it’s not the ideal provider for an international site If you’re willing to look past that, though, InterServer provides excellent performance and complete flexibility at competitive prices. Long story short, InterServer provides great value if you’re looking for solid core features, good performance, and low prices. However, its lack of standout extra features, a slightly outdated-looking interface, and inconsistent user experience might be enough to turn you in the direction of other, slightly more expensive but more modern hosts.
Is InterServer right for your website? Read on to find out.
Best Web Hosting Companies
InterServer Review: Is It Still Relevant in 2024?
It would seem that most of InterServer’s solutions are meant for advanced users. However, shared hosting is by far the most used option as it can support both websites that are just launched and medium-sized businesses.
For a very long time, InterServer had only one shared hosting plan that was unlimited in every sense – number of websites, email accounts, storage, and bandwidth.
*Keep in mind that unlimited is very much limited by the server capacity itself. Anyway, to serve a bigger pool of people, InterServer now has 3 shared hosting packages. All of them come with the same features like free domain registration, unlimited storage space, bandwidth, and email accounts, as well as a possibility to connect unlimited domains. However, with more expensive plans, you get more server resources such as CPU cores and RAM.
InterServer Web Hosting
Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | Free SSL | Number of Sites | Price |
|
Unlimited SSD | Unlimited | + | Unlimited | $2.50 | ||
Unlimited SSD | Unlimited | + | 25 | $8.00 | ||
Unlimited SSD | Unlimited | + | Unlimited | $9.95 | ||
Unlimited SSD | Unlimited | + | Unlimited | $19.95 | ||
Unlimited SSD | Unlimited | + | Unlimited | $69.95 |
InterServer WordPress Hosting
Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | Price |
|
30 GB SSD | 2 TB | $6.00 | ||
60 GB SSD | 4 TB | $12.00 | ||
90 GB SSD | 6 TB | $18.00 | ||
120 GB SSD | 8 TB | $24.00 | ||
150 GB SSD | 10 TB | $30.00 | ||
180 GB SSD | 12 TB | $36.00 | ||
210 GB SSD | 14 TB | $42.00 | ||
240 GB SSD | 16 TB | $48.00 | ||
270 GB SSD | 18 TB | $54.00 | ||
300 GB SSD | 20 TB | $60.00 | ||
300 GB SSD | 22 TB | $66.00 | ||
360 GB SSD | 24 TB | $72.00 | ||
360 GB SSD | 26 TB | $78.00 | ||
420 GB SSD | 28 TB | $84.00 | ||
450 GB SSD | 30 TB | $90.00 | ||
480 GB SSD | 32 TB | $96.00 |
InterServer VPS Hosting
Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | CPU | RAM | Price |
|
30 GB SSD | 1 TB | 1 CORE | 2 GB | $6.00 | ||
60 GB SSD | 2 TB | 2 CORE | 4 GB | $12.00 | ||
90 GB SSD | 3 TB | 3 CORES | 6 GB | $18.00 | ||
120 GB SSD | 4 TB | 4 CORES | 8 GB | $24.00 | ||
150 GB SSD | 5 TB | 5 CORES | 10 GB | $30.00 | ||
180 GB SSD | 6 TB | 6 CORES | 12 GB | $36.00 | ||
210 GB SSD | 7 TB | 7 CORES | 14 GB | $42.00 | ||
240 GB SSD | 8 TB | 8 CORES | 16 GB | $48.00 | ||
270 GB SSD | 9 TB | 9 CORES | 18 GB | $54.00 | ||
30 GB SSD | 2 TB | 1 CORES | 2 GB | $10.00 | ||
60 GB SSD | 4 TB | 2 CORES | 4 GB | $20.00 | ||
90 GB SSD | 6 TB | 3 CORES | 6 GB | $30.00 | ||
120 GB SSD | 8 TB | 4 CORES | 8 GB | $40.00 | ||
150 GB SSD | 10 TB | 5 CORES | 10 GB | $50.00 | ||
180 GB SSD | 12 TB | 6 CORES | 12 GB | $60.00 | ||
210 GB SSD | 14 TB | 7 CORES | 14 GB | $70.00 | ||
240 GB SSD | 16 TB | 8 CORES | 16 GB | $80.00 | ||
270 GB SSD | 18 TB | 9 CORES | 18 GB | $90.00 |
InterServer Dedicated Server
Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | CPU | RAM | Price |
|
2000 GB | 150 TB | 6 CORE | 64 GB | $67.00 | ||
2000 GB | 150 TB | 6 CORE | 64 GB | $70.00 | ||
2000 GB | 150 TB | 12 CORES | 64 GB | $100.00 | ||
2000 GB | 150 TB | 12 CORES | 64 GB | $110.00 | ||
2000 GB | 150 TB | 4 CORES | 16 GB | $114.00 | ||
250 GB | 150 TB | 24 CORES | 128 GB | $170.00 | ||
2000 GB | 150 TB | 16 CORES | 128 GB | $179.00 | ||
2000 GB | 150 TB | 24 CORES | 128 GB | $180.00 | ||
2000 GB | 150 TB | 28 CORES | 128 GB | $210.00 | ||
2000 GB | 150 TB | 12 CORES | 128 GB | $225.00 | ||
2000 GB | 150 TB | 24 CORES | 128 GB | $250.00 | ||
2000 GB | 150 TB | 52 CORES | 128 GB | $500.00 | ||
250 GB | 150 TB | 24 CORES | 128 GB | $530.00 | ||
250 GB | 150 TB | 32 CORES | 128 GB | $500.00 |
InterServer Reseller Hosting
Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | Number of Sites | Price |
|
80 GB | 500 GB | 20 | $19.95 | ||
100 GB | 700 GB | 30 | $29.95 | ||
160 GB | 1000 GB | 40 | $39.95 | ||
200 GB | 1300 GB | 50 | $49.95 | ||
240 GB | 2000 GB | 70 | $69.95 |
Blazing-Fast Speeds With LiteSpeed Servers
While most shared hosting providers run their servers on the Apache software, InterServer offers LiteSpeed servers from the start. Apache is fine on its own, as it offers a wider range of compatibility with different operating systems. However, it’s not the most well-optimized software for websites based on content management systems (CMSs) like WordPress.
If you want the highest possible performance for a WordPress-based website, then LiteSpeed is by far the best server software available. Not only does it do a better job handling dynamic content, but WordPress even includes a specialized plugin for optimizing LiteSpeed caching: the aptly named LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress Plugin (LSCWP). This plugin can greatly increase loading times for any WordPress site hosted on a LiteSpeed server. Though you can install OpenLiteSpeed (LiteSpeed’s free version) or LiteSpeed with almost any hosting provider, the process can be fairly complicated and often costs extra. InterServer is one of the few providers to offer LiteSpeed web servers pre-installed with its regular hosting plans.
Keep Your Site Secure With Inter-Insurance
Not every provider places enough weight on security features for shared hosting plans. That’s doubly concerning when shared hosting can often be more vulnerable to DDoS attacks and data scams. InterServer does things differently by including its Inter-Insurance service on all plans. That’s the branded way of saying that InterServer will provide full account restoration on all compromised accounts, as well as active prevention to ensure that your hosting remains secure. Besides Inter-Insurance, you also get InterShield Security, which gathers data from every server hosted with InterServer. It then applies custom security rules after any attack, ensuring that the same one can never be repeated across the host’s network.
Creating a New Account With InterServer
To create a new account with InterServer, the first thing you have to do is head over to InterServer.net, select your desired hosting plan, and click on the over-enthusiastic “Buy Now!” button. After that, InterServer will ask you to input your desired domain name, followed by the usual required information like name, address, and phone number. Then you’ll have the option to add domain registration and Whois privacy to your package, select your billing interval (every 1, 6, 12, or 24 months), add coupons, and select “continue.” Once your payment has been processed, InterServer will send you a confirmation email. Once you activate your account through email, you’ll be able to access the InterServer control panel. There, you can easily access your hosting plan by selecting the “web hosting” panel and clicking on the gear icon next to your hostname. InterServer doesn’t offer a proprietary hosting management panel like some other hosts, nor does it include cPanel like most others. So, if you want to manage your hosting without any add-on costs, you’ll have to do it through DirectAdmin. In my professional opinion, this is a perfectly acceptable way to manage hosting – but in my personal opinion, it comes across as cheap and unintuitive. Though DirectAdmin can get the job done as well as any other hosting management panel, it can be harder to navigate, especially if you’re a beginner.
How to install WordPress on InterServer?
WordPress installation with InterServer is easy and takes just a couple of minutes. It has 3 steps involved – finding Softaculous in the cPanel, choosing the WordPress app, and filling out the installation form. Let me quickly show you how everything looks and where to find it. To find the Softaculous Apps Installer, you’ll need to scroll down cPanel a bit. It will be under the Software tab. Alternatively, you can use WordPress Manager by Softaculous. This way, you’ll save a couple of clicks.
How to create a professional email with InterServer?
One of the key things for a successful brand is a professional email, and that is very simple to set up with InterServer. All you’ll have to make sure of is that you have a working domain name. So to get that nice [email protected] instead of [email protected] email address, find the Email tab in the cPanel. As you can see, there are a lot of tools here for email management. You can customize autoresponders, create mailing lists, and even track the deliverability. However, to create and reach your email account, you’ll need the first one – the Email Accounts module.
Performance – is InterServer fast?
Just like everything in this InterServer review so far, the performance is also very much standard. InterServer shows very reliable 99.99% uptime, average server speed, and quite impressive website loading time when put under pressure. To see how InterServer performs, I ran it through multiple tests involving reliability monitoring, speed testing, and putting the provider under some stress.
InterServer uptime and response time
Long-term performance monitoring results are both great and average. The uptime stayed at 99.99%, which is amazing. Barely an hour of downtime is expected in a year, and that’s basically the best you can expect from any server. This result is even more appreciated when considering the provider’s official SLA uptime guarantee of 99.9%. On the other hand, we have the server response time. It averaged at 662ms, which is… Average. In comparison, performance-focused providers, like Hostinger or SiteGround, score below 300ms.
In any case, that’s raw numbers. How about an actual website?
InterServer stress testing
This is where the fun begins. I sent 50 virtual users using K6 software to my website. 50 visitors is a significant load on the server. For any shared hosting, that’s close to the maximum we would expect to pass the test. And it failed. Miserably. You can see those blue (speed), red (failures), and purple (requests) lines jumping all over the place while the grey (virtual users) line does its job. Well, all this traffic did not come through. So I had to find out how much InterServer can handle. I started decreasing the number of visitors by 5. The first test InterServer has passed was with 35 VUs.
The blue line represents speed, the red one – HTTP failures when the server was having struggles to keep up. Meanwhile, the grey line is our bots. In an ideal scenario, the blue line would be flat, and the red line would not be there at all. However, InterServer was having some difficulties supporting all this traffic. It did slow down, and there were a couple of failures.
Nonetheless, it still kept our website running and passed the test. So while InterServer is not capable of handling the ultimate maximum, it still does quite a good job. Honestly, the cheapest plan will support a small website that’s getting quite big traffic surges occasionally.
So all in all, InterServer’s performance, while not exactly spectacular, is still very good for shared hosting. Your website will remain live more than it is expected, speed is great, and the server can handle quite a lot of traffic.
Security – is InterServer secure?
Regarding security, InterServer doesn’t leave any stone unturned. When you purchase a plan, an SSL certificate is included for free. Backups are performed weekly, and Cloudflare is easy to integrate. Plus, you get free InterShield and Inter-Insurance. Like any other respectable hosting provider, InterServer offers a suite of standard security features. What I appreciated is that InterServer puts to shame other providers, more popular and expensive ones. How does it manage to do that? By going the extra mile, of course. Here’s a list of standard security features you have access to when purchasing an InterServer plan: A free Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate. You and I both know that not all providers offer one for free. So, let’s just take a moment and appreciate this. Okay, okay. Most of them do. But there is a couple of black sheep. Weekly backups – according to a customer support agent, the backups are stored on a remote server for added security.
You can integrate the Cloudflare content delivery network, which comes with DDoS attack protection.
InterServer also has a native security suite called InterShield. It includes 4 tools which are meant to detect and prevent attacks:
Automatic virus scanner with regular scans
Machine-learning firewall
Web attack blocking
In-house malware database
This sounds really good. Unfortunately, we’ll have to trust that it’s there and it works as everything is done in the backend. No input from you required.
Inter-Insurance is another free package that you get. There’s not much information about it, but it works for those who have their websites infected or hacked. InterServer promises to investigate the issue, restore your website, and try to make sure that the issue would not repeat in the future. All that is for free.
InterServer Prices, Hosting Plans:
Pros & Cons of Using InterServer Hosting
Pros
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Free website migration
- 30 day money back guarantee
Cons
- Limited server location – United States only
- Only Weekly backups no daily backups