TL;DR: What We Think of HostWinds
HostWinds stands out as an underrated gem in the hosting industry. It offers exceptional speed, reliability, and customer support. However, there is an important caveat to consider: the company offers a limited 3-day money-back guarantee. Regardless of the hosting plan chosen, you cannot request a refund after 72 hours.
Suitable for:
Small Business, eCommerce, Enterprise, or Developers-friendly
HostWinds Pros & Cons
HostWinds Pros
- Fast and reliable services
- Sterling reputation and support
- Lots of automated services
- Weebly website builder included
HostWinds Cons
- Shortest money-back guarantee period in market (3 days)
- No extra business services
- Slightly higher than usual starting prices
Evaluating HostWinds: A Breakdown of Performance, Security, and Other Key Features
Established in 2010 by Founder and CEO Peter Holden, Hostwinds has its roots in Seattle, Washington. Committed to delivering dependable and cost-effective web hosting solutions globally, Hostwinds offers an array of services, spanning shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated server hosting, and cloud hosting, tailored to accommodate the multifaceted requirements of its clientele.
In the following sections, we’ll take a closer look at how HostWinds performs across critical areas like hosting speed, server security, customer support, and overall value.
What Can You Expect from HostWinds in Terms of Speed & Uptime Performance?
While HostWinds offers essential performance features, its speed and uptime may not match the top-tier hosting providers. Key performance-enhancing features offered include:
In short, HostWinds provides reasonable speed and uptime for basic needs, but may not be the best option for users with demanding performance requirements.
Is Your Website Safe with HostWinds’s Security Measures?
Websites hosted at HostWinds are safe for basic security needs. While the provider may not offer advanced security measures, it still covers the fundamental safeguards necessary for most websites, including:
- Web Application Firewall (WAF), which blocks potential threats before they reach your site.
Daily backups are included as a standard feature, allowing for quick restoration of your website in case of any issues. Additionally, HostWinds offers free SSL certificates with an easy installation system, enabling users to secure their websites effortlessly. This encrypts communication and protects the data exchanged between your site and its visitors.
However, for websites requiring advanced security, HostWinds may not provide the high-level protection needed.
What Can You Expect from HostWinds’s Customer Support?
HostWinds offers a range of 24×7 customer support options to ensure users get timely assistance. Help is available via phone, live chat, and email. Additionally, you can also access the knowledge base for self-help guides and troubleshooting. User feedback indicates that customer support is generally satisfactory, with response times and issue resolution being adequate, though not exceptional.
Is HostWinds’s Pricing Justified by the Value and Features It Offers?
HostWinds is reasonable priced when weighed against its feature offerings and long-term cost. At $5.24 per month (renews at $6.99/mo), basic shared hosting allows you to host 1 website with 24/7 customer support, a free domain name, daily backup. Strangely, however, the company only offers a 3-days money back guarantee (yes, you read it right) – which is one of the main reasons it scored so low in our rating system. Higher plans with better features like VPS starts at $8.24/mo, cloud hosting at $4.99/mo and dedicated hosting at $115/mo.
How is HostWinds Rated Based on Overall Market Satisfaction?
We seldom see web shots with as high customer satisfaction as Hostwinds. They tout themselves as a customer-centric service and deliver on this in spades. Almost everyone who’s commented about them thinks that they’re simply awesome when it comes to support.
For additional insights, please refer to the user reviews section below.
Is HostWinds Suitable for Beginners?
Despite its many accolades, we can’t help but feel Hostwind’s newbie-level products have a bit of an issue. They’re pretty highly-priced, even considering introductory offers. The only thing that saves them is slight price hikes after the honeymoon period.
Plus, you can use the Weebly site builder, which may be why prices are higher.
Is HostWinds Suitable for Small Businesses?
Hostwinds is one service provider that draws clear lines between business customers and individuals. Business hosting is more expensive, but you get a correspondingly large allocation of resources.
There is one issue, though. Hostwinds doesn’t offer any business add-ons. That means for Microsoft, Google, marketing, or other needs, you have to seek them elsewhere.
Is HostWinds Suitable for Web Developers?
Prices are high enough here that most devs will want to stay away. They seriously don’t advertise any dev-friendly features, so it’s also a big question mark. All in all, it’s a big chance you’ll be taking.
Is It Possible to Host Custom Email with HostWinds?
Yes, you can host your own email accounts with HostWinds. This significantly reduces your costs by eliminating the need for expensive third-party email services.
How Easy Is the Onboarding Process with HostWinds?
Automation is the watchword at Hostwinds, so you can expect many things to be a relatively hands-off process. They also have a decent product documentation section to provide information. However, while it’s easy to use, don’t expect too much in this respect. Instead, rely on their legendary customer service folks.
Does HostWinds Offer a Free Trial?
Yes, HostWinds offers a 3-day free trial period. If you are not satisfied with their services for any reason, you can cancel within this period and receive a full refund.
Try now: Visit & Sign Up at HostWinds Official Website
HostWinds Plans & Pricing
HostWinds provides a range of web hosting plans designed to meet the needs of different users, including Shared, VPS, Dedicated, Cloud, and Reseller Hosting. The company also offers specialty services such as Adult Websites, Email, and Game Server Hosting.
- Shared Hosting: Starting from $5.24 – $8.24 per month
- VPS Hosting: Starting from $8.24 – $395.24 per month
- Dedicated Hosting: Starting from $115 – $207 per month
- Cloud Hosting: Starting from $4.99 – $328 per month
- Windows Hosting: Starting from $12.74 – $431.24 per month
Web hosting prices are subject to change, and promotional rates may only be available for a limited time or for new customers. To ensure you get the most accurate and current pricing details, we recommend visiting the official HostWinds website.
Consider Renewal Prices When Choosing
When evaluating hosting options, keep in mind that many providers offer substantial discounts during the initial signup period, but prices can rise significantly upon renewal. It’s crucial to research and compare renewal rates alongside introductory offers to get a clear picture of the long-term cost.
To help you in making an informed decision, we have prepared a summary table below comparing the initial signup and renewal costs of HostWinds services with several other providers we monitor.
Compare HostWinds’s Signup Cost Against Competitors
Web Host | Shared Hosting Signup Fees | Shared Hosting Renewal Fees | VPS Hosting Signup Fees | VPS Hosting Renewal Fees |
---|---|---|---|---|
HostWinds | $5.24 - 8.24/mo | $6.99 - 10.99/mo | $8.24 - 395.24/mo | $10.99 - 526.99/mo |
Verpex | $2.40 - 6.00/mo | $6.00 - 15.00/mo | $6.00 - 25.00/mo | $20.00 - 50.00/mo |
Hostinger | $2.99 - 9.99/mo | $7.99 - 24.99/mo | $4.49 - 19.99/mo | $13.99 - 59.99/mo |
N6 Cloud | $2.24 - 9.74/mo | $5.99 - 17.24/mo | $2.96 - 91.84/mo | $5.14 - 153.75/mo |
BlueHost | $1.99 - 9.99/mo | $6.99 - 18.99/mo | $46.99 - 94.99/mo | $65.99 - 140.99/mo |
Hostens | $4.99 - 11.25/mo | $9.99 - 22.49/mo | $50.99 - 90.99/mo | $50.99 - 90.99/mo |
Caution: Prices May Vary Web hosting prices can change frequently. For the most accurate and up-to-date pricing information, please visit the official HostWinds website.
Final Thought: Is HostWinds Right for You?
HostWinds blows in with a reputation for speed and reliability, offering a sanctuary of support that’s hard to overlook. Yes, you might find their prices leaning towards the higher side, but what you’re paying for is quality that often exceeds expectations. If you’re all about investing in top-tier service and features that make a difference, this web host stands ready to impress. However, if your budget is tight or your needs skew towards very specific business solutions, you might want to weigh your options a bit more carefully.
This service is the most scammy service i ever encountered. on 2 point during my own customer experience.
1) First their operator on the live tchat told me that they had a 3 days trial plan, otherwise i wouldn’t have added funds in the balance especially with prices like this, i spoke with him several times before purchasing and doing their trial, to be sure of what i would put my money in, still he didn’t specify about their refund policies and what would make my payment non eligable for refund, leading me in purchasing for overall 50dollars for nothing just to fast try their VPS.
2) the first 2 times i had to top up my balance to create a server, it required me to manually do it, and it was specified that i had to pay, but when i went to create my third VPS, it didn’t tell me to pay anything or that i was going to pay for something, it resulted in me paying 25 more dollars without agreeing for it.
After talking a long time with support and explaning them the problem all along trying to make them understand my situation, no matter what i would say and explain they didn’t want to refund me, when they obviously can, they are not a service a recommand at all, they don’t care about customers and are not ready to help you, they just want to take your money and don’t care, if you do any mistakes you will pay for it, now i have 50 dollars there i will never be able to use ever, its lost. Let me resume again, i payed 50 dollars i will never recover for a 3 days trial they proposed me, and didn’t want to help on any level to refund me at least a part of it. Scammer is the least i can think of them. Be carefull
So far, things are great. Before purchasing, I reached out to Hostwinds and asked several questions about features and functionality. They were all answered professionally, so I moved forward. I just left Hostblast due to poor communication and unpleasant surprises. I’m gladd to see that Hostwinds is on top of things.
The tech support is incredibly inadequate. Their tech team decided to run a check disk today without any approval or notice. This took down our web service. The only reason they knew about it was because we told them. Now we have to decide from my team what we need to do because if we tell them what to do, there is no guarantee they are going to listen because you can’t talk to anyone. We are talking about major decisions about our company’s data and they won’t get on a meeting to scope out a fix. The communication with HostWinds is not just lacking, it is impossible to have a complex conversation over a ticket. I mean there is a good chance there is nothing wrong with our drive and it is a controller. The reason why I know this is because there are multi-disk issues in batches. But the tech that has the ability to look into the errors isn’t really trying to find a solution just get the ticket completed.
We had a server set up and asked for a RAID that was set up wrong. So they did the RAID again and still didn’t get it right. I fell for any company that does not have an IT team because they would have no choice but to listen to what they say. They can’t be trusted because they will not research or do what is asked of them.
I don’t like to put company business out there, but it seems that the executive team doesn’t want to be reached (too much of a burden I guess). The fact that the support prompt on their IVR tells you about tickets and hangs up is a really good indicator that customer service is not a priority.
I don’t expect that this going to get me a meeting to discuss options but I don’t have any other action with HostWinds.
I would highly recommend that if you are looking for a server company make sure that you have some way to back up your data outside of HostWinds because there is a good chance you are going to need to restore your data.
HostWinds customer support is excellent. I never imagined I would care about customer support for a website but when I’m trying to keep my website up without working on it, it’s so nice to be able to tell them to complete the technical part and the site gets going little or no time input on my part. Also, their techs are available all the time, so I don’t waste time getting through AI to get to a human being.
Best hosting company I ever had. They are hiperfast in answering and solving any problem. Even now that I unsuscribed they helped me quickly so if I will ever open another website I will use this service, the servers are also very speedy. Great Job and super assistence
I was working with their affiliate marketing program, promoting their products. Each time a sale was made, I received a notification that I had earned $65 as a commission for the sale, which was in a pending status until it was approved so I could withdraw it. However, the approval never happened; it remained in the pending status for a month or two, then disappeared. The same thing happened repeatedly over two years, during which I brought them over 10 sales but couldn’t withdraw any of the commissions. Strangely, even if they didn’t approve it for some reason, it should not disappear from the account without any explanation. when I asked for the reason, I didn’t get an answer. In summary, this fraudulent company stole my time, effort, and money. I do not recommend them at all.
Date of experience: September 04, 2022
After I had initialized the (unmanaged) VPS instance, and logged in 3 or 4 times via ssh (without problems), suddenly I got authentication error from ssh,
—-
Received disconnect from IP-address port 22:2: Too many authentication failures
Disconnected from IP-address port 22
—-
I opened a ticket with support and I felt they were not helpful at all and they demanded that I bought managed support before they would help me.
I guessed that some program (e.g. fail2ban) running on the VPS instance was reacting to ssh attacks on the VPS, and banning all connections. I could not verify that, since I could not log in. Support did not comment on that.
I reinstalled the VPS instance but that did not help (at least not yesterday) so I shut the VPS down and wanted to try later.
I desided to try a last time this morning and reinstalled the server and tried again but initially with the same result as before.
But suddenly I got a password prompt and could log in and have no idea what caused that. Since than there have been no problems.
I decided to upgrade OS to the latest version (from Fedora 32 to Fedora 36) and that was painless but time consuming.
I will now continue to set up the server and will continue to be a Hostwinds customer, given that there are not any further problems of this sort.
Great guys at work for you.
Excellent customer support system.
I was running my website on their Advanced Web Hosting (shared hosting for 4 domains) plan for a month. I was getting 508 Resource Limit Reached errors after opening lots of tabs simultaneously, being heavily limited by their IOPS limit, according to cPanel. Also, their cPanel is very unstable, either throwing me out of my account every 2 minutes or pouring lots of red errors at me, stacked on top of each other the way they’re not even readable. This plan would probably fit a very lightweight website that doesn’t have anything more than text and a few icons stored on it, but not anything heavier than that. Again, that’s an Advanced plan for 4 domains, not the Basic one for a single domain. I can only imagine how the Ultimate plan with unlimited domains would perform if you put a few websites on it.
After the first month, I switched to the VPS plan from Hostwinds. And it performs almost perfectly. Maybe only the client area UI is a bit outdated, but it’s not that important when you visit it once a month. It has every setting you might need, such as firewall profiles, lots of Linux distros, IP management, logs, a simple graph for memory/CPU usage, SSH keys manager, and some other little things. I’ve had no 508 errors since then, and, combined with Cloudflare, my website is as responsive as it should be. I’m running it with a cPanel alternative called CyberPanel, but they offer cPanel as a paid option if you need it.
The point is, I can’t recommend their shared hosting, but I do recommend checking their VPS plans if you’re confident with this type of hosting. Only because they provide a good VPS service I’m raising the rating to 4, as of the shared hosting, I’d probably put 2 or even 1.
HostWinds customer support is excellent. I never imagined I would care about customer support for a website but when I’m trying to keep my website up without working on it, it’s so nice to be able to tell them to complete the technical part and the site gets going little or no time input on my part. Also, their techs are available all the time, so I don’t waste time getting through AI to get to a human being.
i bought a vps and he asked me to send some information after that i sent the legal information but he cancelled the order really it’s weird
Been with these people for 3 years and have no complaints. Performance and uptimes have been excellent. Just provisioned a managed VPS and I needed help twice – both times it was dealt with and sorted almost instantly.
Most of the complaints seem to be from people who have chosen the wrong service for their needs, are trying to run something which isn’t properly resourced (hey, we all like to save money, but …), or they have ventured into the unknown hoping they can figure it out.
I’ve been in the game for 25 years. If you select the right service, and you know what you’re doing, this crowd is good value for money, reliable, and friendly.
very easy to accomplish the domain updates, and the notifications helps to keep our domains active.
I enjoyed the features of Hostwinds. The payment transaction was smooth, basic, including add-ons. I was glad that I chose Hostwinds team help on management on tickets for me when changes require me to take charge of securely. I hope that my website is simple mode severe PECS SVG symbols and no complication about any buying and selling. I hope that Hostwinds can manage for me no need any unnecessary phone calls during my school work times. First school day increased a bit, or maybe wasn’t because I signed up. Not sure. Hostwinds EPanel is excellent. The Cloud and Account Home, every tab seems very advanced on storage, payment history, tools. But I clicked on MyDomain, nothing showed up yet. I think that some methods require 24 hours to take change. I am satisfied with my purchase.
I would never recommend using Hostwinds. They spout absolute rubbish.
I purchase a VPS and change the hostname, set up nothing on the VPS but after 1 day I am added to an Abuse List, they cant tell me why! I know why, I was assigned an IP by them that was already on 6 blacklist monitors. They accuse me of spamming, I have never spammed anyone in my life.
They then ask me for a picture of my ID and Credit card, not sure the storage of these images is legal, in this context, but it is so they can charge you $250 per hour at their own discretion.
There whole system and attitude is as though I have done something wrong, they break their own T&C’s treating customers like criminals.
An absolute joke – use Racknerds or Contabo, at least they treat you with respect!!!!
My overall experience with Hostwinds is very negative.
First, there’s the automatic renewal policy, that’s fine-tuned to make money in a hurry, and – I’m sure – a lot of it. There’s no way to turn it off; so you better remember when your subscription expires, and cancel at the very last moment!
Second, I had a serious issue with their own dashboard a while ago. They offer a “fully automatic and safe!” update for WordPress sites. That’s nice; but their junk crashed. I lost my entire website, one of them. No, I didn’t have a backup. The website is a decade old, doesn’t need updating at any time, and consequently the only backup had was a backup of all the files – minus the database. When I reported their own update app had caused this issue all they said was “we’ll restore your backup, if you have one”. No accountability for their own failures.
Third, it’s clear that there’s a lot of unsavory emails and who knows what else activity that originates from their servers. Not by Hostwinds themselves; but some of their customers. I’ve been in this game long enough to know when I can’t get email from point A to B, and get complaints from the big guys (“email rejected due to suspicious activity”, etc.) that I need to find the source, so that “I” can get unblocked. In reality, the “complainants” simply block a wide swath of IP addresses to stop spam, etc. And since I use their servers too, for email, I get blocked as well, and my business emails get blocked, returned and refused or marked as spam. Then I have to contact Hostwinds, who then – after the facts – contacts the “complainant”. If Hostwinds would monitor their outgoing traffic then I wouldn’t have to do THEIR job!
Fourth, I signed up years ago; but by now their prices are considerably higher than many competitors. Shop elsewhere.
Fifth, they get you locked in for 3 years, easily; but this will be my last round with them.
Sixth, they nickle and dime you for everything. Read the small print VERY carefully, or better yet: have a lawyer interpret it for you.
Oh, and: their tech support is very quick to reply. With an automated answer. And then the next day saying: sorry, can’t do that. Well, maybe… if you pay extra.
Stay away.
Support people have to read the entire sequence of tickets associated with a particular problem. More than 20 emails relating to the same request which is a VERY straight forward request, install Plesk. Lookiing at history does not seem to occur and support people are unaware of what has been done (or not done) so far. In some cases they may have to reach out directly to the customer. Just because things work for the support person doesn’t mean it is working under the conditions of the customer. I keep getting the same response and respond to it and then get the same response again, appear to ignore whatever I said. Nothing gets resolved. Had a problem with remote desktop and upgrading my server which neither appears to have been resolved (I have the email with the error messages on trying to upgrade). I solved my remote desktop problem after NO recommendations from the support people. There is NO documentation about when plesk needs to be installed and there is buried documentation on what server size is needed. But the most import thing here is support people need to (RTP) read the problem and sometime will need to reach out to the customer in direct dialogue. Dialogue means everything.
Their hosting service was non-functional and all their support staff did was pass the buck on by creating a new ticket. It became a ticket creation circle! I canceled within hours and they refused to refund my money in any capacity. They continue to ignore me and Paypal as well. They really need my $50 that badly! I consider them scam artists who should be reported to the government!
I had been searching for a Windows hosting provider and before I chose to go with Hostwinds I spent a LOT of time using the online chat feature to get the information I needed. I normally prefer phone conversations but I was so impressed by the response, knowledge, and patience that I received from every representative that I worked with. And the chat feature allows them to interact with you in ways that are not possible on the phone. Extremely impressed and very happy that I decided to go with them. The tech support I have received since purchasing my plan has been absolutely phenomenal as well.
In order to use the latest php version you’ll have to upgrade to one of their VPS plans instead. Also, if you choose the Basic plan and want a full backup on your data from their server, then you’ll have to open up a support ticket, ‘cos they have removed the Backup option in cPanel, so you can’t do it yourself.
This is not OK for me so I’ll change web host instead. Problem solved.
I read a number of reviews regarding white label web hosting services where Hostwinds ranked in the middle or near the end of the pack. Hostwinds was touted as having customer friendly pricing and excellent for beginning resellers. Since some of the reviewers are well known technology information sources, decided to give them a try. Signing up, was awkward or kludgy.
A chat box aid helped, directing me to the ticketing system which was fairly responsive. After selecting the reseller plan, tech support offered to help me port my website over. This was surprising and not mentioned as a prerequisite for the reseller program, but I complied by dumping an html copy of my website to a specified directory. I was given some credentials and a url link for documentation.
It was at this point that my frustration level began to increase. This effort was not intuitive and I am a website developer. The documentation seemed disjointed and never smoothly guided me through the next steps. Coming from Godaddy, where documentation and customer support is generally very good, the only thing I found good with Hostwinds is there response in the ticketing system. I would ask for assistance from individuals through the chat box but the frontline support often would direct me to the ticketing system along with another piece of documentation that did not fully address my issues. Finally at wits end, I began calling a support number. And although I called during their business hours, the phone service would pass me around through voice prompts and eventually hang up. After weeks of this, I finally found the instructions to cancel the service and ask for my money back. I had spent weeks and had not successfully set up the reseller features or product offerings. Hostwinds was one of the most disappointing undertakings I’ve experienced in some time. Great price but not worth the aggravation and time lost. One other thing, clicking whmcs link was terribly slow.
As far as July 8th, 2022 (just 2 days after purchase).
Hostwinds has an outstanding supportive service. So little time with them and they have proved that they are truly 24/7 customer support service. Due to fail on a third party service (which I wasn’t aware at the begining), I have contacted Hostwinds support service, which is always courteous and willing to help until you solve your issues or you have a clear picture of which side you need to look at to fix anything you may find on your way.
Update on July 22nd, 2022.
Purchased service was a Shared Hosting service, since I only need little web presence by now, no web store or blog, just text and some images. Like I said before, tech support is available 24/7 not like in other hosting services where there’s only people who answers without technical knowledge (I would say that’s 24/7 contact center, not tech support). There is a default setup when you get Shared hosting and gives you access to little configuration on the cPanel side (it is a shared service, keep that in mind). Nothing wrong with it and you can live with this service. Down side is that I had a very particular issue that was part of the files created on the default setup, went through Tier 1, 2 and 3 over a week and a half. No one seemed to know what was going on. Of course there’s a lot of combinations out there and several things can happen with all those combinations. But I would expect that someone there point in the right direction. There was even one person that suggested to move my plan into a VPS, so I could take care of every single thing on the configuration. Yeah, go spend at least 4 times what you need to spend to get rid of something that shouldn’t be there or I didn’t place there … hhhmmm. No brainer!
Ended moving my site somewhere else. Now on the refund period. Will see how it goes.
I dont like the Verification Process, because i ordered and the product was activated after that. a few minutes later it said pending again for manual verification.
After i did the Verification the Server credentials litteraly broke so i had to contact staff again.
Would be great if the system wouldn’t break itself again, but i dont have more to say. its just the verification, which was broking my server.
So far, things are great. Before purchasing, I reached out to Hostwinds and asked several questions about features and functionality. They were all answered professionally, so I moved forward. I just left Hostblast due to poor communication and unpleasant surprises. I’m gladd to see that Hostwinds is on top of things.
Best hosting company I ever had. They are hiperfast in answering and solving any problem. Even now that I unsuscribed they helped me quickly so if I will ever open another website I will use this service, the servers are also very speedy. Great Job and super assistence
Best experience with a cs team, very knowledgeable and patient with all my numerous questions, plan on recommending them often. UPDATE. i have asked repeatedly for a direct path link so i can redirect my domain to my root files, after 44 emails they cannot answer this simple and NORMAL question. instead they claim to be sending me links that start with / which is not possible to be a link, or they claim its a nameserver issue along with also claiming that they simply need another 48 hours so they can dump files for me to reflect on my domain when my domain is parked at godaddy and they ABSOLUTELY have no access to it. I would go on but i do not wish to bring my utter and senseless replies from them in the last 16 hours as a reply to my ONE and only question of this: Can you please provide me a direct path name to my root directory so that i may redirect my domain to be able to reflect said files? But if anyone wishes to see how they will gaslight you and lie over and over to cover up the simple fact that they have no clue what a link even is, i will gladly forward every single response to my one and only question willingly. Because at this point, i could not make up how often they will use excuses and outright lies in an attempt to cover up that they have no technical knowledge and are absolutely incapable of providing me with a direct link to my root files so that i can finally have my website back online along with any of my clients files. They clearly hire one native english speaker that mans the chat box who has enough techinal knowledge to answer questions yet after the purchase will simply redirect you to some calling center of CS reps who claim to be in technical supoprt without an ounce of actual techinal knowledge. I do however plan on making a video of each and every one of my 44 attempts to get this one question answered and uploading it to save anyone else from the utter lack of knowledge and to clearly illustrate how they will lie repeatedly in order to avoid being honest with a customer instead. Because the creation of this video along with the effort of going thru every single email ive gotten from them as a reply is far less labor intensive than to get my one and only question answered in any proficient way.
I ordered new service, i got brilliant help desk support
I absolutely love the support through the chat. I feel like there is always someone there and ready to help. This is the 6th similar server that I have setup with Hostwinds.
The only complaint that I have is that I cannot have one account with multiple billing types. For instance, I’d like each server to be billed and paid by my customer. But in order to do that now, I have to use different accounts / email addresses.
As a cost-conscious entrepreneur, I was initially drawn to Hostwinds because of their competitive pricing structure, particularly for their fully managed dedicated hosting services. The attractive hardware specifications and the generous disk space on offer seemed almost irresistible. However, as the adage goes, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. My experience with Hostwinds sadly affirmed this.
One of the first red flags was the slow ticket response time. In today’s digital era, speed and reliability are expected in customer service, especially in the web hosting sector. Regrettably, Hostwinds’ delayed responses were far from this standard, which in itself can be quite distressing when you’re facing technical difficulties.
The second major issue I encountered was during the migration process. It was chaotic, to say the least, and the technicians, who should have been the heroes of this phase, often appeared uninvolved and uninspired. Their responses seemed mechanical and lackluster, showing an unfortunate absence of empathy towards the predicament we were facing. As a customer, this made me feel ignored and unsupported.
The apex of the disappointment came when our sites went down for over three hours during this messy migration. To add insult to injury, the Hostwinds team, when asked for help, suggested I open a ticket with Cloudflare to inquire about the ideal settings, apparently due to their lack of knowledge about it. It was surprising and disconcerting that a reputable hosting provider would lack familiarity with such a common and crucial component of the web infrastructure.
To compound the frustration, when I asked for a refund due to these extensive issues, Hostwinds showed an unwillingness to cooperate. I believe a company should stand behind its service and when it fails to meet the expectations they set, a refund should be the minimum gesture of goodwill. Their refusal to issue a refund in this situation further erodes the trust in their customer service commitment.
While Hostwinds’ attractive pricing and impressive specs may initially draw you in, the actual experience leaves a lot to be desired. I regret to say that I cannot recommend them unless they make substantial improvements to their customer service, technical expertise, and refund policies. Excellent web hosting service is more than just offering enticing packages. It involves providing a seamless experience, swift support, and standing behind your service with a fair and responsive refund policy. Unfortunately, my experience with Hostwinds fell significantly short of these expectations.
I upgraded to 12GB 4 core VPS charging £111 per month and it wouldn’t even run 5 instances of MT4. The techs gaslit me telling me everything was fine and its not their problem if MT4 doesnt work. I couldn’t click on any of them or update anything. I restarted, rebooted and did everything asked then asked for refund within 3 days notice. Their billing REFUSED to refund me despite my consumer rights! This is a truly terrible company that gaslights you when you have an issue then refuses to refund you even when you ask for a partial refund. Stay away if using for Forex! 100% not worth it and their techs admit it themselves they have no clue about MT4 and claim that even buying more memory and processors with them, doesnt mean it should work. I have everything in writing to prove their ridiculous claims and refusal to refund. Forget these guys!
I spoke to a rep on chat and asked for docker and python support. Was told yes to both. Paid for managed vps. It is not managed very well… I get on the server and there is no python. I paid for cpanel and there was no python tools. Tech support said I had to install it myself. I complain so they said they would do it. Then there was no support on how to manage python via there system, no documentation. Was told I was on my own. Then I had a problem with the database and same message we can’t help you. I complain they finally gave in. So then asked how do I install python modules, where do I run pip install. Again no help. There technical staff said we don’t troubleshoot… I am paying for a managed server. They send you a screenshot of cryptic 1980’s screenshots that show that index.html is running. I ask where is index.html so I can locate it, again we can’t help you. The list goes on.