Do you recommend Host Monster?

[HCP]

I'm planning to sign up for a paid hosting account for the first time ever in my life, so I am very selective about it. At the moment, Host Monster has caught my eye. Are any of you guys one of their customers? Do you recommend them? Any cons to point out in particular?

[Sc0tt]

They have been around a long time but looking at their plan and how they keep increasing it at will to stay ahead of competition it looks like huge over selling. Unless someone is going to be hosting thousands of sites or using it for hosting downloads I don't see how you could possibly use all the space and bandwidth (with the exception of large sites with huge traffic). I'm sure if you did start to use anything near the limit your account would be terminated or experience performance problems.

Having said that, my view is based on what normally happens with plans of this size for the price. You may be lucky with them and be able to use it all.

You should read their ToS to make sure you know what they allow. Note that I have to use google to find their ToS easily.

http://www.hostmonster.com/terms-of-service.html

Its difficult when you buy for the first time because you don't know how much you actually need. The fact is most sites use hardly any space and next to no bandwidth. For example a small html site with a few graphics would take less than 10mb of space and probably use less than 100mb of bandwidth per month.

[HCP]

After reading numerous complaints from HM's customers, I have changed my mind to maybe go with ICDsoft's Universal Plan. There were much fewer complaints to ICDsoft, and apparently, their customer service help line is superb. Does the plan look decent?

[Sc0tt]

Yup.

Far more realistic and sustainable. I've never heard of them before so can't recommend them but it looks alot better than the first one. I had a quick look at how you pay and it looks like you can only pay yearly. This can be another sign of poor hosting. Check their terms and find out if they do pro rata refunds.

[Acer2000]

Hi,

I want to give you my opinion, hostmonster is the best one. I tried many before. I tried 1&1, midphase, 3iX, but I now stick with hostmonster, they have excellent support and my site is always up and running even though it uses lots of bandwidth. I can honestly tell you that hostmonster is the best around.

[jipjoe]

Originally Posted by Acer2000

Hi,

I want to give you my opinion, hostmonster is the best one. I tried many before. I tried 1&1, midphase, 3iX, but I now stick with hostmonster, they have excellent support and my site is always up and running even though it uses lots of bandwidth. I can honestly tell you that hostmonster is the best around.

So now that Hostmonster has been down along with a great many websites hosted with them for over 13 hours now, do you still feel that way?

Their support is closed for the holiday. A few have posted on their forum only to have the threads closed and not open for discussion even though webmasters were only trying to get an ETA was all-nothing more.

Since Blue and Monster are the same company does anyone have recommendations on a hosting company with real service that does not completely go away on the holidays?
Minor traffic, 5 websites, looking for good and reliable support.

[Acer2000]

So now that Hostmonster has been down along with a great many websites hosted with them for over 13 hours now, do you still feel that way?


To be honest with you: Yes! I still feel the same way. But hey, I understand your frustration too.

They are really good. The hard working IT people need to take time off for the holiday.

[Acer2000]

I always ask myself this question: Wait one day knowing that the next day you will receive excellent support, or host your websites with a company like 1&1 whose control panel has little to offer? I know how time consuming it was to install the PHPBB2 forum on 1&1. With hostmonster, it was just a few clicks. But perhaps I can help you with your problem. I have good experince with their control panel and how to create websites. Post here , i will try my best really to help you out. I have some time before I return to work :-)

[jipjoe]

The point is there are no holidays with websites.

Nobody can access their SQL and all of the databases are down-at least for many people.

I will start searching for another hosting company. Thanks for the offer to help.

[sobeit]

Originally Posted by jipjoe

The point is there are no holidays with websites.

Nobody can access their SQL and all of the databases are down-at least for many people.

I will start searching for another hosting company. Thanks for the offer to help.

check out ipower.com I have been using them for years.

[Skie]

Originally Posted by Acer2000

I always ask myself this question: Wait one day knowing that the next day you will receive excellent support, or host your websites with a company like 1&1 whose control panel has little to offer? I know how time consuming it was to install the PHPBB2 forum on 1&1. With hostmonster, it was just a few clicks. But perhaps I can help you with your problem. I have good experince with their control panel and how to create websites. Post here , i will try my best really to help you out. I have some time before I return to work :-)

Certain websites (especially businesses) can not wait a day or even several hours for support. They need it immediately. If you're running a website that sells products on the internet, even 1 hour of downtime will result in a loss of sales. I have a customer that makes over $100,000 in sales per month. Just a few hours of downtime can cost him thousands in sales. There's no room for any downtime with him or others with similar businesses.

Also, the control panel that HostMonster uses is CPanel. This is the most popular control panel for hosting companies. In other words, HM isn't the only host that uses cpanel. All that needs to be done is to look for another CPanel based hosting company. The biggest problem is knowing if they're any good.

[Skie]

Originally Posted by jipjoe

The point is there are no holidays with websites.

Nobody can access their SQL and all of the databases are down-at least for many people.

I will start searching for another hosting company. Thanks for the offer to help.

One of the best ways to see if a hosting company is reputable is to look at their forums or other public communications. Don't look for the "I love ABC Host" discussions. Look for the "I hate ABC Host" discussions. Pay attention to how they reply/respond to critisism. How they handle themselves even when someone is complaining is a good indication of how they most/all customers. Obviously, as a business, we run into people that can't be pleased no matter how polite and accomidating we are and these people need a firmer response. Fortunately, most of these "I will never be happy" customers are few and far between.

As long as you look at both sides of the discussion, you'll see who's in the wrong and how well the Hosting company handles themselves.

[shoshanaz]

I've used them for a few years (AKA bluehost.com, btw) and have been satisfied. Vastly better than hostm.com in terms of support.

This is a good choice for any site where you do not need 100% reliable access. They have occasional glitches that can bring a site down for a few hours. One time a disk crash cost some files for sites established within the 24 hrs before the crash.

HOWEVER.... overall this has proven to be a really good choice as a low-cost hosting company for the non-profit organizations and small business sites that I work with in the main.

If you do go with them, I've found that the email support is often very slow, but the online chat support is good and responsive.

They are not without issues, but of the dozen or so shared hosting companies with which I've dealt they are the best, and I continue to suggest hostmonster.com as an option to new clients on a limited budget.

If you need really really reliable hosting, you probably don't want shared hosting anyway.