Hostwinds VPS Review 2020
Review Contents:
Hostwinds.com is a multiple award winning client-centered web hosting company located in the United States (US) of America. 2018 they got the “Best of the Year” reward of PCMAG.com, which is just one of the many rewards the service has been able to collect.
The web hosting and VPS provider was founded in 2010 in the US. It was originally established in Tulsa, Oklahoma but today their headquarters are at their second office, in Seattle.
More so, Hostwinds.com has two data centres, one in Dallas, the other in Seattle, which helps to provide customers with recovery of data in cases of disaster. Since inception, the company has been solely owned and managed by the CEO, Peter Holden.
The employees of Hostwinds are allegedly selfless, hard-working and very professional, thereby helping this organization provide high quality web hosting services alongside unbeatable customer service and support.
They specialize majorly on web hosting but offer a wide range of other services including VPS hosting, dedicated servers, Windows VPS, unlimited hosting, Minecraft servers and Virtual private network (VPN) services.
With the use of advanced system servers via latest technologies, Hostwinds’ servers have high performances and system stability. As an example, these servers have fail-proof that easily help in data recovery should there be network failures, your website remains unaffected and therefore stays actively online.
Below is a mini review on the products of Hostwinds with much emphasis on the virtual private server (VPS);
Hostwinds Product Range
As mentioned earlier, Hostwinds offer a comprehensive range of hosting services such as unlimited hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting including both Windows and Linux VPS, cloud hosting and dedicated servers. Moreover, Hostwinds is one of the few web hosting providers offering an own in-house VPN service.
Unlimited Shared Web Hosting
The unlimited hosting gives clients unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space and domains, albeit, these offers are dependent on the plan of choice, be it Basic Shared, Advanced or Ultimate plan.
While with the Basic and Advanced plan users enjoy unlimited bandwidth and storage, the Ultimate plan additionally comes with unlimited Domains. All three Shared Web Hosting plans are quite affordable: $3.29, $4.23 and $5.17 are the monthly cost respectively. Especially the unlimited plan with even unlimited domains is quite cost-effective.
Business Web Hosting
The Business Web Hosting packages come with additional features, compared to the private Shared plans. The additional business hosting features are unlimited FTP accounts, especially fast web servers (up to 500% faster), optimized MySQL, increased resources and generally fewer sites per server. Those packages are suitable for higher traffic volume.
Reseller Hosting
Using the reseller hosting, you enjoy instant setup, unlimited subdomains and also comes with increasing profit as you get more clients.
The Hostwinds reseller offer is ideal for IT service providers/freelance developers and agencies. White labeling allows you to offer web hosting to your customers as a web designer or design agency. Hostwinds takes a back seat and your customer receives web design, domain name and hosting all from you, from one source. Of course customers like that. With reseller hosting you enjoy all the advantages of hostwinds, such as 24-hour support, instant setups, full management and daily backups. So you can offer your own customers an excellent hosting service, but you don’t have to take care of it yourself.
Dedicated Servers
Dedicated Servers are the most powerful hosting packages you can get, as you get an entire server for yourself, all sources are dedicated. This comes with nightly backups and full management and technical support is made available at all times. Dedicated servers are suitable for very comprehensive, large projects but also for technically demanding games.
Minecraft Servers
Those VPS are precisely tailored to the requirements of Minecraft servers. This offers a stable system while additional features such as disk space, CPU core, bandwidth size etc. are plan dependent.
VPN
With this provider it is possible to get a web hosting and a Virtual Private Network at the same time, which is very practical. The VPN helps you in establishing a secure connection through an encrypted data tunnel, thereby protecting your connection from external harm.
Hostwinds VPS (Virtual Private Server)
This is a major specialty of hosting company. If you need sophisticated hardware, unrivaled support, then the VPS package is optimal. With Hostwinds VPS, customers enjoy full management from the company, instant setup, daily backups, solid state drives and of course ever ready and available technical support.
Unlike other products, the VPS enables usage across multiple locations, free snapshots, DDOS protection, free website transfers, solid state drives and surely 100% satisfaction guarantee. In a similar manner to others, the company offers several VPS packages at increasing prices and more sophisticated features at each higher plan.
Hostwinds offer basically two types of VPS namely Windows VPS and Linux VPS;
Windows VPS
Like the dedicated servers, Windows VPS gives plan-dependent features. It is a good choice if you need more disk space for your website.
The windows VPS utilizes the latest hardware accompanied by effective features and entirely managed by their team of staffs. This offer comes with instant setup; nightly backups that gets your data stored in the data base each and every night, hence, gives you less to worry about and you are on your way to a sound sleep at night. Additionally, your windows server is setup for cloud control, thereby giving you access to it from wherever you are. This VPS type also gives room for addition of RAM or CPU core anytime you so wish.
Hence, your server can be modified or upgraded to meet your personal requirements at one’s will, thanks to the instant scalability feature. So as your website grows, you can increase the RAM from just 8 GB to 96 GB. Likewise, the disk space can be increased from 150 GB to 750 GB. This server also enjoys full-time monitoring by dedicated team of Hostwinds, thereby ensure optimum performance. More so, unexpected problems are fixed quickly in order to ensure you run hitch-free at all times.
Hostwinds VPS with Windows operating system is available in 4 different packages; the first package costs $16.99 monthly and offers 1 CPU core, 1 GB RAM, 30 GB disk space, 1 TB / 1 Gbps port. The second package costs $27.99 per month having similar features as the first package, only that this has 30 GB disk space and 2 TB / 1 Gbps port. The third package goes for $45.99 per month. It comes with 2 CPU cores, 4 GB RAM, 75 GB disk space and a 2 TB / 1 Gbps port. The fourth package however comes with 2 CPU cores, 6GB RAM, 100 GB disk space and 2 TB / 1 Gbps port, all for a monthly charge of $56.99.
Unmanaged Windows Plans
Unmanaged Windows VPS Pricing:
Managed Windows Plans
Linux VPS
Linux VPS is the most commonly used operating system for web hosting globally and their servers are a preferred choice for numerous applications and websites. Besides, it is usually cheaper than the Windows VPS. The Linux VPS like the windows VPS also utilizes the latest hardware technology with full management by dedicated team of the Hostwinds. Similarly, the Linux VPS comes in different packages. The supported distros are
- Debian
- Fedora
- CentOS
- Ubuntu
The first package at a monthly price of $10.99 has hardware features of 1 CPU core, 1 GB RAM, 30 GB disk space and 1 TB / 1 Gbps port. The second package offers features of 1 CPU core, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB disk space and a 2 TB / 1 Gbps port, for a monthly price of $21.99. The third package costs $39.99 per month. It offers 2 CPU cores, 4 GB RAM, 75 GB disk space and a bandwidth of 2 TB / 1 Gbps port. The fourth package has hardware features of 2 CPU cores, 6 GB RAM, 100 GB disk space and 2 TB / 1 Gbps port which costs $50.99 per month.
Unmanaged Linux Plans
Unmanaged Linux VPS are always the cheapest, no matter at which hosting provider, also at Hostwinds:
Managed Linux Plans
By the way, all the VPS packages come with fascinating discount offers to give you 100% satisfaction.
Hostwinds VPS cPanel
On hostwinds cPanel is not included by default in the VPS packages due to licensing restrictions. It can be purchased for a monthly license fee of $15.
Unfortunately it is not possible for Hostwinds to offer cPanel as an included service with VPS packages. This is the case with most VPS providers. The reason for this is that cPanel is a private company where hosting providers must purchase licenses to offer cPanel. Licenses are always per server. In shared hosting packages the monthly costs of a cPanel license on a server are shared among all users. With a VPS or dedicated server the user would use one installation alone. The hosting company cannot bear these costs for the user.
As said, with shared hosting as well as reseller hosting cPanel is always included for free.
Hostwinds VPS Backup
With all VPS packages there is the possibility to add automatic server backups as an addon. The backup add-on costs only $1 per month, but is worth its weight in gold. If you’re used to make backups by hand, you know that this one dollar is well invested, because backups are a time consuming task and should not be forgotten. In case of a hack or other technical problem it is absolutely necessary to be able to restore a working version of your system. For the backup storage there is also a monthly fee, but only $0.03 Per GB. Backups are performed once every 24 hours, at nighttime.
Server Backup at a glance:
- Cost: $1 / month (Addon)
- Storage: $0.03 / GB / month
- Every 24 hours
Hostwinds VPS SSL
Within its VPS packages Hostwinds supports free SSL certificates through Let’s Encrypt. So with Hostwinds VPS SSL (https) is included free of charge.
Cloud Hosting
The cloud hosting packages include a lot of features. One of them is the ability to choose between hourly and monthly billing which is a great benefit for customers who don’t need hostwinds’ services all the time. In case you use their cloud server only for applications that are needed once a week or couple of times a month, it makes sense to just pay for those hours which might be way less than the monthly cap.
For customers who don’t want the hustle of caring for the server themselves or who simply don’t have the technical knowledge to do so hostwinds of course offers fully managed solutions. For extra fast systems they have SSDs like at every state-of-the-art web hosting service.
Even the usage of the server gets simplified by customized server templates that are especially easy to use.
For secure server connections Hostwinds offers automatic SSH key deployment which means that the data connection for you to your server will be encrypted.
Also their cloud systems are easily scalable, so if the required capacities of your projects change, you can upgrade to higher performance at any given point. The same count for downgrades in case less performance would seem to be sufficient.
One important point is backups. So of course Hostwinds VPS and other hosting products offer backups and system snapshots to make sure your data will definitely never get lost.
Hostwinds.com Dedicated Servers
Dedicated servers are servers that are rented in their entirety, so the hardware won’t be shared as on cloud server solutions. A dedicated server will be all yours as long as you rent it. This means that those servers provide the highest performance and therefore are the priciest ones.
On the case of Hostwinds.com dedicated servers start at $106/month. However, at the moment they have an extraordinary discount of more than 50% so they offer dedicated servers starting from $42.40 per month. Which is a remarkable offer you should consider using.
Please note: Most users agree that Virtual Private Servers are preferable to dedicated servers as for most use cases the latter are overkill. An entire server has such a high capacity that there are rarely online projects and applications that make use of these resources. VPS have the advantage that they are scalable and you are not bound to the initial resources.
Hostwinds WordPress Hosting
WordPress hosting at Hostwinds is simple, affordable and straightforward. It is nothing else than a shared hosting with WordPress preinstalled. So as a customer you don’t have to know anything about WordPress installation – the technical support does it all for you. Unlike other hosters, with Hostwinds you can be sure that your website gets the resources it needs and runs properly. Note, however, that for very large and resource-intensive projects like larger shops etc. a VPS may be more useful or even necessary.
As already mentioned, the same prices apply for WordPress hosting as for shared hosting.
A service, which the hosting company offers free of charge, is the relocation of websites or web projects to their servers. So if you want to move your website to Hostwinds, the very professional customer service will help you.
Hostwinds Technical Features
The hosting company also offers e-commerce systems such as CPV Lab to meet your marketing needs. Additionally, there is the blog system using the WordPress hosting platform. Other scripts include Vbulletin, Magneto, Drupal etc. However, these come with additional charges within $21.99 and $224.99 monthly for the CPVLAB, while WordPress costs additional charges between $6.99 and $10.99 for the basic and ultimate plans.
Customer Support
With Hostwinds, you can be sure of unrivaled customer support. Even when you come with They offer 24/7 customer and tech support through the different platforms on their website ranging from live chat, phone calls whether you are new and do not have an account yet. Additionally, they support contact through e-mail and support ticket all available on the website, likewise you can reach them on different social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn network. The best part of the contact support is the swift response time.
At this point we have to emphasize that Hostswind’s customer support is truly world class: Even if you write to them because of a more challenging technical problem, and not just typical beginner’s questions, a tech-savvy support team member will actually give qualified answers and really help you out. This alone is a big argument in favor of Hostwinds. This is also the experience of other customers, as you can read here:
Hostwinds review Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/comments/42plbe/hostwinds_vps_thoughts/
Payment Methods
The hosting company accepts the following payment methods:
- Credit Card
- Paypal
- Cryptocurrency
- Alipay
What they don’t accept are paper checks.
What we especially like is the fact that with hostwinds you can also pay with Bitcoin and other crypto currencies. In our opinion, this is essential for a modern provider in the field of technology/Internet. Nevertheless, crypto currency payments are still not found with all hosting providers. At Hostwinds you can pay with about 15 different crypto coins, among them well-known ones like Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Bitcoin Cash but also less known ones like DOGE, BlackCoin, Vertcoin or Waves.
What has not been possible with the crypto currency payment method so far are automated recurring payments. This means that you have to pay the bills by hand when they are due.
A big benefit is also the fact that they offer a 60 days money back guarantee granting customers enough time to find out whether the service meets their online project’s requirements. Hence, if you are not satisfied with their services, you will get a refund within 2 months after opening the account with them without any form of questioning.
Social Media
These are the official social media accounts of Hostwinds:
Twitter
Facebook
Linkedin
Instagram
Security
The data centers of this host are as well secured as possible. Armed personnel guard the servers around the clock, at least that’s the case in Seattle. In addition, there is permanent video surveillance and access only with a card key. In addition, service staff are on site around the clock, who can solve problems immediately at any time.
In addition, the servers run with redundant power supply, which means that there are 2 power sources, of which only one runs at any one time, should this fail, the system immediately accesses the other power source. Of course, the data centers are cooled accordingly.
In addition, the provider has a solid automatic backup system.
More security precautions in the hosting area are hardly possible.
General Customer Satisfaction
Hostwinds User Reviews
Based on a number of reviews on platforms such as www.hostadvice.com and www.whoishostingthis.com, Hostwinds enjoys a very good reputation as a large chunk of users gives the provider a very high rating, more specifically on their 24/7 Tech and support with arguably the best response time you can get anywhere in the world.
Additionally, users have shown to enjoy the robust nature of the company in that they offer wide range of services. Especially the reseller hosting or the white labeling offer are very popular, which gives users freedom to sell services under their personal brand.
Other enticing offers that customers tend to praise is the flexibility of the company to cater for small business owners, non-profit organizations, WordPress users as well as managed and unmanaged VPS clients. However, a number of complaints have been made based on the prices of their products and services compared to other VPS providers.
Bottom Line
Based on Hostwinds Reviews of numerous customers so far, Hostwinds is a really good VPS provider due to its reliability as it utilizes the latest hardware technology alongside 24/7 tech and customer support enabled by the dedicated members of staff to give your website or blog the optimum performance and security.
Yes, Hostwinds is not the cheapest hosting provider on the market. But it has to be said that quality always has its price. For a strong, solid and very reliable system with excellent customer service, you have to pay a few dollars more in hosting. The technical basis of a professional online project is not a place where you should save money and take the cheapest. Nowadays a well functioning website is crucial for companies. There is virtually no business without a reasonable internet presence, and the hosting behind it must work flawlessly.
Especially in the field of hosting, cheap usually means poor performance, low technical standards and unstable systems. And nothing is more annoying than when the website is suddenly offline or the back-end cannot be reached because the CPU of a shared hosting package at a cheap hosting provider was unfortunately completely overloaded by other users. We’ve had it all before. This doesn’t happen with this hosting provider!