HostMonster is reviewed based on their web hosting features, speed, reliability, technical support and price, from our real hosting experience with them from 2009.
HostMonster, as an industry-acknowledged shared web hosting provider, was founded in 1999. It is designed for personal and small businesses by offering a powerful and unlimited shared hosting package.
HostMonster has 3 dedicated data centers in Provo, Utah that have been invested over 10 million USD in 2010. With approximately 500 staffs and 5,000 servers, HostMonster is serving 1 million customers, and it’s still fast growing with 1000 new customers for each month. Besides, HostMonster offers customized Linux Kernel for segregating CPU, disk I/O, and memory for the fair.
Overall Rating
With an over 13 years’ development, HostMonster has been topping the list of numerous web hosting review sites. Also, it is trusted by almost all of their customers, and is recommended as one of the top 5 web hosts by our editors.
Community Reputation
With a million existing customers, HostMonster has a brilliant reputation in web hosting communities. After researching on the web, we rarely see a reasonable SCAM report about HostMonster.
By now, our sister site BestHostingSearch.NET have received 22 HostMonster reviews from verified customers, the 100% of customers are highly satisfied with the HostMonster web hosting service. See the review statistics chart as below.
HostMonster Review > Price
HostMonster devotes itself in offering cost-effective hosting service since its inception into this industry, so customers only need to spend $3.49 each month by visiting via this exclusive promotion link, already 42% off the regular price of $5.99/mo.
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1 year plan$4.95/mo
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2 years plan$3.95/mo
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3 years plan$3.49/mo
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Credit CardYes
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PayPalYes
Besides, as the sister brand of BlueHost, HostMonster provides customers with a risk-free and worry-free hosting service by offering a 30-day full refund and anytime prorated refund guarantee. To use this policy, customers only need to send their cancellation requests to HostMonster via email of [email protected], phone of (866) 573-4678, or online chat, and then they can get their refund.
For the charge of domain name, customers are not obliged to pay the registration fee after sending the cancellation request. If they do not want these domains anymore, just tell HostMonster support staffs and terminate the account within the initial 3 calendar days, then they can get all of their money back without paying extra domain registration fee.
Features
HostMonster hosting service is developer-friendly, supporting almost all the latest cutting-edge technologies and are seriously considering the new features requested from their existing customers. Take an example. Recently, HostMonster just upgraded all their servers for PHP 5.3.10, Ruby 1.9.2 and Rails 3.2.2.
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Disk SpaceUnlimited
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BandwidthUnlimited
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Free Domain1
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Hosting DomainUnlimited
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Google AdWords$100 FREE
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FTPUnlimited
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Full Refund30 Days
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Money BackAnytime
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Support24×7 US
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AccountsUnlimited
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ForwardersUnlimited
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Auto RespondersUnlimited
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Disk storageUnlimited
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Web-based EmailYes
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PHP5.2.17 & 5.3.10
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Ruby on Rails1.9 & 3.2.2
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Python (FastCGI)Yes
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Perl (FastCGI)Yes
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MySQLUnlimited
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PostgreSQLUnlimited
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Cron JobYes
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Shell Access (SSH)Yes
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Image MagickYes
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.htaccess OverridesYes
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Customize PHP.iniYes
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Control PanelcPanel
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FantasticoYes
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SimpleScriptsYes
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WordPressYes
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JoomlaYes
HostMonster Review > Performance
HostMonster uses 100% Dell servers with 24x AMD Opteron(tm) Processors, 32GB DDR3 and RAID 10 SATA III. Compared to other web hosts colocating the data centers, HostMonster invested the data centers by themselves with BlueHost. So far, this web host has invested over 20 million USD on their 3 dedicated data centers in Provo, Utah.
Also, their data centers are all using four separate physical fiber lines, two diverse entrances with access to all major IP/transit providers and over 15,000 MBits network bandwidth. According to our monitoring data in the passing 30 days, HostMonster has been keeping 342ms server response time in the real world.
Reliability
HostMonster offers the reliable hosting service using their customized Linux kernel and dedicated data centers. Also, this company segregates CPU, disk I/O and memory, which limits the over-using server resources by the bad users.
Meanwhile, the HostMonster data centers are built with the following high specifications:
- 4.7 Megawatts of power available for use
- 20 tons of cooling capacity installed
- 20488 U of total server space
- 4x 750 KW UPS
- Four separate physical fiber lines brought directly into building
- Complete isolation of hot and cold aisles
In March, 2012, we set up a monitor activity for a testing site hosted on the shared platform of HostMonster. The monitor tool accesses the site in every 5 minutes automatically. We found that HostMonster has committed 99.98% hosting uptime. Besides, we haven’t experienced any serious server down or network break during these days.
Customer Service
Like most other outstanding hosting companies, HostMonster offers all the customers a responsive technical support team, which is available 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week. Specialized in this field, all the support staffs have rich support experiences, so customers can get the best help whenever they need.
Besides, HostMonster offers multiple channels for customers to seek for help via telephone, email, and live chat. All of these methods are 100% US based. Thus, customers can contact with experts effectively.
How about Hosting Joomla & Drupal with HostMonster?
From what we have discussed above, HostMonster provides customers with a reliable and affordable hosting environment. In the meantime, it offers a 100% Joomla and Drupal compatible hosting service with the following features.
- HostMonster uses the newest versions of MySQL and multiple versions of PHP5.2.x & 5.3.x.
- This web host uses Apache 2.x, which is the most recommended script web server along with mod_mysql, mod_xml, and mod_zlib.
- This company offers a large storage that mounts to 256MB PHP memory_limit, fully supporting the large and complex Joomla and Drupal sites.
- It uses suPHP for the highest level of site security. This way, all the scripts executed on the server need to be authorized with the permission of website owners.
Conclusion – HostMonster is Highly Recommended
Due to affordable hosting price, various features, excellent reliability and speed, as well as efficient support service, HostMonster has done a great job in terms of web hosting service. Thus, we highly recommend this web host for those who are seeking for an ideal hosting solution.