InterServer WebHosting Review 2019: Affordable Managed Hosting Who Are Big On Support
ABOUT INTERSERVER
InterServer.net has been providing webhosting services for the past 19 years. Although technology has changed from the time we started in 1999, our core principles of quality, service, and support have remained the same. Their company has evolved its product offering to include Shared Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Quick Servers, and Dedicated Servers along with colocation services to continue to exceed our customers’ expectations and remain BEST IN CLASS.
InterServer is a web hosting provider that is able to provide you a series of great offers that are designed for you to pay less when you purchase a hosting package or a domain name. You can register domains for as low as $1.99 as part of the current offer and then, you can move on and purchase a hosting package, too. These are also cheap, especially if you need a shared hosting package to host a blog or another small website. 24/7 support is available and they also help you migrate your website, for free.
If you are looking to make money as a reseller, you can purchase one of the five different packages and you can then manage them all with the aid of a single management panel. Premium hardware and daily backups are just some of the perks that interserver.net has. They also feature a great deal when it comes to cloud VPS solutions or dedicated servers. You can purchase any of these using the standard features, or you can configure your own servers and pay the according price each month.
Highlights: InterServer features top of the line hardware within their hosting packages and gives you constant price discounts to help you whenever you need them.
Interserver Hosting Plans
Interserver is not targeting specific group of sites, instead it has expanded to every level. Likewise, their hosting packages satisfy every customer need and fulfilled their requirement.
VPS and Dedicated Hosting for Businesses
InterServer offers a full suite of hosting packages — everything from shared hosting to virtual private server (VPS) and dedicated hosting, where they also optimize for speed.
Hosting Features
Before going into more detail, let’s compare these options which InterServer offers:
ASP.NET Hosting | VPS Hosting | Dedicated Hosting | |
Features |
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Pricing | from $5/month | from $6/month | from $50/month |
InterServer Speed Review
Still, as the location of its data center is on the east coast of America, which is far away from Europe and other places, users on other continents may find it frustrating to wait for the loading of web pages.
InterServer Reliability Review
To guarantee the safety of clients’ information, InterServer utilizes a secure connection when payment information is collected. And, customers have given many positive comments on the security of their websites.
InterServer Feature Review
It seems quite convenient and economic for InterServer users to migrate a website because the company promises to handle the migration for free. However, no further information about detailed disk space and database could be found on InterServer’s web page. Besides, the company does not give support to Perl, a popular programming language.
InterServer Technical Support Review
By the means of live chat, phone, or ticket system, InterServer customers are promised to get immediate response. Yet, some people complained about the service since they received no response when they visited InterServer website and inquired some questions before buying. Besides, people fail to find sufficient tutorials and FAQs, which makes it difficult to collect enough information about the company’s web hosting.
What You Like the Most About Interserver?
- Price Lock Guarantee
- 30 Days Money Back Guarantee
- Free Website Migration
- $1.99 Domain Registration
- Privately Owned Data Centers
- SSD Enhanced Server
- 50% WordPress Capacity
- One Click Install Script
What Not-So-Good About Interserver?
- Sub Domain are not allowed in WordPress Hosting
- Currently, they don’t have data center outside US.
Conclusion
From the moment I embarked on that earlier client’s e-commerce site design and personally noted all the great features Interserver hosting has, I started to recommend Interserver more than other hosting companies.
If you are going to buy hosting for the first time and wanted to play safe, choose Interserver with no further thoughts.
It is a perfect host for small businesses and Bloggers/Enterpreneurs.
I value integrity and protect my business clients interests with informed choices. If something hasn’t been tried, tested, and trusted, I do not recommend it.
I really cannot give Interserver anything less than an A+. At the moment, getting something better would probably be quite cumbersome.
Windows and Linux VPS
VPS hosting comes in both Linux and Windows flavors. You can pick any number of slices you like for a fixed amount per slice. InterServer uses a VPS control panel called Bread Basket that appears to be proprietary. The panel also comes with hundreds of 1-click install apps.
InterServer’s Array of Linux Distributions
InterServer’s dedicated hosting plans are pretty beefy, featuring Intel Atom and Xeon CPUs.
Linux Distrobutions
They offer more operating systems than most web hosts. You can choose the usual Cloud Linux distro, or you can also opt for Centos, Ubuntu, Gentoo, and Red Hat Fedora.
Windows Servers With ASP.NET MVC
Some businesses prefer Windows hosting and InterServer features an ASP.NET Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework that comes with all the bells and whistles, including over 100 1-click installs.
How ASP.NET MVC Helps Development
You might need ASP.NET MVC to help you manage complexity when working on apps that are test-driven or require large development teams. It also gives you full design and behavior control over your application.
Five Reasons to Try InterServer’s Unlimited Shared Hosting
On its shared web hosting plans, InterServer offers unlimited storage, transfer, websites, and email, as well as free SSL certificates. That’s kind of a big deal.
You may think that other hosts also give unlimited storage and bandwidth — but you’d be wrong. So why is it a such a bargain?
Special Shared Features
- Free SSL Certificates
- Unlimited Storage
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- CloudFlare CDN
- Pricing and Value.
Free SSL Certificates
Some hosts offer free SSL certificates. But they are usually only on their higher-end plans
Otherwise, these certificates will usually cost you extra cash.
Unlimited Storage and Bandwidth
With some other hosting providers, “unlimited bandwidth” isn’t really unlimited. Although these other web host providers say their plans don’t have usage caps, if they find you hogging all the shared server’s resources, they’ll throttle you back or ask you to upgrade.
On the other hand, with InterServer shared plans, unlimited actually means unlimited. How can they offer this promise? Behind the scenes, they limit all their servers to run at 50% of the hardware’s capacity. You’ll never max it out because when capacity starts creeping over the halfway mark, they beef up the server.
CloudFlare CDN
If your site will have visitors from all over the world, you will want a Content Delivery Netnetwork (CDN). It allows browsers from anywhere to connect to a server that is close to them.
InterServer’s shared hosting is boosted by Cloudflare’s content delivery network (CDN) for free. Cloudflare CDN makes your website load faster with caching and delivery optimization.
It also protects your site from a ton of security threats. You’ll need to sign up for a Cloudflare account to activate its benefits, but it’s completely free if you purchase a hosting package via InterServer.
Pricing and Value
Even if InterServer didn’t include all of these great features, it would be hard to beat at just $5 per month.
But given all the extras it provides, InterServer offers some of the best value on the internet.
SitePad Site Builder
I tried out the shared hosting plan and purchased a domain for it. Even though InterServer is a Drupal hosting partner and also offers WordPress installs, I opted to use their site builder, SitePad to create my website.
Difficult Dashboards
The InterServer dashboard is a layer above the cPanel dashboard. The domains dashboard was also on a separate page.
At first, it was a bit confusing finding my way around this maze. It was befuddling enough that I didn’t even realize that I hadn’t actually paid for my domain, even though I’d already purchased hosting.
Customer Service
When I ran into trouble with the domain purchasing issue, I had a less-than-stellar interaction with customer service live chat.
SitePad Is a Good Site Builder
SitePad doesn’t get much splashy coverage, but actually quite good at what it does.
There are almost 300 themes to choose from — and most of them look pretty slick.
Adding text, pages, and even a blog are a snap, just as you’d expect from a professional site builder.
Is InterServer Good for E-Commerce?
InterServer does offer e-commerce functionality through it’s 1-click add-ons and Softaculous. They also give you a free SSL certificate, but you’ll need to call support to get it turned on.
E-commerce functionality isn’t available in the SitePad site builder so you’ll have to do it from scratch.
Necessary E-Commerce Features
When selecting a host for e-commerce purposes, these are the key features and functionalities you should look for:
- E-commerce Plug-In Support
- Easy-Install Payment Systems
- PCI Compliance
- Bandwidth
- Storage.
E-commerce Plug-In Support
This feature eliminates a lot of hassle when setting up your shop.
Easy-Install Payment Systems
You do not want to do this manually. It can be expensive and time-consuming.
So unless you are an expert, this is the way to go.
PCI Compliance
PCI compliance is short for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. If you are going to be taking credit cards (and you will be losing out on a lot of sales if you don’t), you need it.
So make sure your site is PCI compliant from the very beginning.
Note that PCI compliance isn’t part of InterServer’s shared hosting plans. You’ll need to get compliance from whichever add-on you use (eg, OpenCart) or from the WordPress e-commerce plug-in you choose.
Bandwidth
Everyone knows that people online are impatient. But whereas a slow blog might lose you a few readers, a slow online store could cost you thousands of dollars.
As a result, you want your e-commerce website to be as fast as possible. You don’t want to give your customers time to change their minds just when their about to buy.
Storage
Customer and user data can take up tons of space. So you don’t want to have to worry about storage capacity on your store. Be ready!
InterServer for E-Commerce?
Considering all these things, I’d say that InterServer wouldn’t be my first choice for hosting an e-commerce site.
But you might be different. Setting up an e-commerce site is always a big decision that requires making a lot of choices.
Power and Uptime Guarantees
InterServer offers customers an uptime guarantee to a level of 99.9% and uninterrupted power 100% of the time. Their SLA defines downtime as being “unable to send data to or receive from a server.”
Uptime Guarantee
You can get up to 50% credit off the month’s cost of your hosting plan if they don’t deliver on their guarantee.
You’ll need to catch your site being down, however, because Interserver doesn’t offer a way to monitor uptime.
You can use a service like Uptime Robot’s free service to keep tabs on your site’s availability.
Reseller Program
If you like digging into the grunty side of web hosting, you might be a good candidate for InterServers reseller hosting plan.
Unlike the affiliate program, you need to know your geeky stuff well and put effort into running your own hosting service.
Customer Support
One of Interserver’s standout features as a web host is providing 24/7 support service for its customers.
Even better, the level of support you get has nothing to do with which plan you choose. Everyone gets the same access to phone, ticket or chat support, regardless of plan.
InterServer will also migrate your existing site to their servers for free.
Liking This Host?
If InterServer looks interesting to you, check out these hosts who offer similar services and plans, like transparent pricing, fast servers, your choice of data centers, business focus, and domain purchasing.
- InMotion
- Web Hosting Hub
- GreenGeeks
- A2 Hosting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is InterServer’s WordPress plan more expensive than its shared hosting plan?
When I asked the sales team this question, they explained that the increased price is due to the additional security measures required to prevent hacks on WordPress hosting.
These measures include “strong mod_security ruleset from Atomicorp, daily virus scanners on all internal pages, additional backups and blacklists some known bad WordPress plugins.”
Are InterServer’s 1-click installs free on a shared hosting plan?
Some installs are free, like WordPress. Others, like OpenCart, carry an additional monthly cost (often $5/month), over and above your plan’s cost.
Can I really get free InterServer hosting if I’m a student?
Yes. Students can get one year of the standard shared hosting plan for free. When the first year is over, you’ll be charged the $5/month plan fee.
What’s the deal with free nonprofit hosting on Interserver?
Hosting is completely free for nonprofits who provide their 501(c)(3) information. All Interserver asks in return is a text link on the bottom of your homepage that says, “Powered by InterServer,” with a link back to their site.
Do I get a free domain with my hosting plan?
No. InterServer doesn’t provide free domains.
Does Interserver offer a way to get a server up quickly?
Yes. InterServer can get a dedicated “Quick Server” online in about 20 minutes.
Does Interserver offer any additional perks?
Yes! All shared hosting plans come with $100 in Google Adwords Credits and a 20% Template Monster discount. VPS and Dedicated plans are excluded from these perks.
Does InterServer really give you unlimited storage and bandwidth?
Yes. Their strategy is to continuously operate at 50% capacity, ensuring that you’ll always have the overhead you need for resources.