Is HostPapa Scam? You Must Read Before You Try

Is HostPapa scam? Here we answer this question by presenting the pros and cons of its web hosting service. Note that all the conclusions are coming from real customer feedbacks, performance testing in the real world, and our in-depth review concerning about its price, features, and technical support.

Up to now, we have been hosted a small Joomla websites on the shared platform of HostPapa for about 1 year. During this period, we are monitoring the site closely. In below, we have listed the advantages and disadvantages to make clear whether HostPapa is a scam.

The Pros

HostPapa is a trustworthy green hosting that has been trusted and recommended by a large number of webmasters and authority organizations. It has been in the industry since 2006, and this long history gives them rich experiences of offering a top-level hosting service. Besides, by purchasing 100% green renewable energy, HostPapa succeeds in offering a green hosting that causes little impact on the environment. In the following, we’d like to present the benefits offered by this company in detail.

• Affordable Price
  It only offers an all-in-one web hosting solution that is priced at $6.99/mo, $7.99/mo, and $8.99/mo for the 3-year, 2-year, and 1-year plan respectively. At present, however, this host has released a beneficial discount that reduces the price down to $3.95/mo, $4.95/mo and $5.95/mo effectively for the 3 billing cycles.

	1 Year	2 Years	3 Years
Regular Price	$8.99/mo	$7.99/mo	$6.99/mo
Sales Now!	44% Off	44% Off	44% Off
Discounted Price	$5.95/mo	$4.95/mo	$3.95/mo
How to Claim	Link Activation	Link Activation	Link Activation

• Risk-Free Purchase
  With the 30 days money back guarantee, customers can feel totally worry-free as they can get a refund if they cancel their accounts before the initial 30 calendar days of registration. Besides, to put an end to the vulnerabilities of online dealing, this company allows customers to pay via one of the most secure payment methods of PayPal.
• 99% Uptime
  As the quality data center infrastructure is the heart of any reliable hosting offering, HostPapa locates all of its robust web servers at multiple world-class server spaces, featuring advanced electrical system, automatic climate control, 24×7 manned security, and unceasing network monitoring. With these solid facilities, this company succeeds in guaranteeing an average of 99.87% uptime according to our performance testing.
• Technical Support
  In order to enhance customer satisfaction level, HostPapa offers a helpful 24/7 support service, with which customers can get a good assistance at any time they need. All the support staffs are professional and knowledgeable, and can be contacted via phone, e-mail, and live chat.

The Cons

In addition to the advantages listed above, HostPapa hosting service also has some drawbacks, especially in terms of features, upgradability, and hosting speed.

• Features

  In fact, this company provides its customers with a long list of competitive features, such as an unlimited allocation of disk storage and monthly data transfer, free domain name, unlimited domain hosting, cPanel control panel, free advertising credits and many more. However, many of these benefits actually have some certain registrations. For instance, the server resources are not unlimited. If the consumption is too much, the sites might be terminated with or without notification.

  Besides, the free domain is only valid for the first year of qualifying plans, and the $100 ad credits for Google AdWords are merely available for residents of United States.

• Hosting Speed
  We have carried out a performance testing 3 months ago, with a view to figuring out whether HostPapa can offer a fast hosting service or not. As a result, its hosting speed is not slow with 519ms for server response, but is also not fast as compared with many other web hosts available in the market.
• Upgrade Options
  It is a little bit frustrating to find that this host only offers shared web hosting with no VPS and dedicated server. To be honest, this is not the good news for customers who wish to set up a large site with rich contents and plugins. Besides, if the sites grow so fast that a web hosting is not powerful enough, customers may need to transfer their domains to other companies, which is complicated and time-consuming.

Better Alternatives

Without doubt, HostPapa is not a scam. However, although it is a good hosting provider offering cheap price, 99% uptime, and responsive technical support, we still decide to recommend some better options due to its disadvantages. These alternatives are Arvixe, WebHostingHub and JustHost – the leading green web hosts that provide cost-effective packages, excellent hosting performance, and unmatched customer service.