Name: FatCow
Plans: Shared, VPS, and Dedicated.
Website: www.FatCow.com
Summary: FatCow is a decent cheap web hosting option. These FatCow web hosting reviews will show what other webmasters are saying about hosting with them.
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FatCow
is a green web hosting company that was established in 1997. But, what are other webmasters saying about their experiences with them? In this review you will learn just that. They have a fun and creative way of promoting there brand while providing a cost efficient service to people all around the world. There main emphasis on there hosting service is simply put; they want to offer a “one time” payment service per year that is affordable, practical, and of high value for beginners and advanced users.
When I review a web hosting company I like to look at 5 different areas. I will go over their features, performance, uptime, customer service, and their price. I have created a rating system found at the top of this page which shows how I rate them on all these key areas. In this full FatCow review I am going to point out some areas of interest, so please don’t tune me out yet as I will weigh the pros and cons of Fatcow’s service.
FatCow Features
They used to just offer a shared web hosting plan, but now they offer VPS and dedicated plans too. I was actually surprised that they started offering VPS and dedicated packages because over the years they just offered a shared plan for one yearly rate.
Shared Plan
There is only one package which you can take advantage of for their shared plan. You don’t have the luxury of picking from 3-4 plans like a lot of other web hosting companies offer. Please note if you are a big corporation or are going to expect a massive amount of traffic this FatCow shared plan wouldn’t be your best bet. They are good though for small niche sites, local businesses, blog niches, and essentially anything that isn’t going to be overly complex. Typically, when I get a client that is on a tight budget I will point them to FatCow.
FatCow is cheap but they pack lots of value. Don’t worry just because it’s a no strings kind of service you are not going to get short changed. Your still going to get a free domain when signing up with FatCow, website builders (drag and drop), email accounts (POP mailboxes), script support, an SSL secure server, and a backbone for your site which is the control panel.
VPS Plans
FatCow is now offering 3 different VPS plans. The prices are as follows:
- The “basic” for $19.99/month.
- The “business” for $47.99/month.
- The “optimum” for $79.99/month.
Dedicated Plans
FatCow also offers three dedicated hosting plans. The prices are as follows:
The “startup” for $119.99/month.
The “professional” for $151.99/month.
The “enterprise” for $191.99/month.
Control Panel
Now before you roll your eyes because FatCow uses there own in-house control panel (vDeck) it’s not so bad once you get used to it. In fact, the graphical user interface with it is quite nice. Really, works quite well and if you just can’t figure out how to change a setting like adding a FTP account or something there is a tutorial on the sidebar which can walk you through it. True, over the years I have become accustom to cPanel that InMotion and Hostgator use, in fact most web hosts use cPanel, but really I don’t mind the FatCow one at all.
Security
FatCow does offer a service that will help safeguard your files. Meaning they have a special service called SiteLock which 1 adds added protection to your server and 2 can restore any files that might have been corrupt if your website was infected with malware. This service is not free though. Instead you will have to pay an extra monthly expense.
Easy Website Builder
For those of you that want to use a website builder they have one included with all of their packages. I always like to test out site builders even though I am a full-time web designer, it’s fun to see the customization and bells and whistles you can do with an easy to create tool called “Website Creator”, by cm4all. They do offer a number of different packages if you don’t just want the “Limited Edition” which allows you to build a 9 page website, choose from over 100 templates, live statistics, and so much more. For instance, you can purchase the “Premium edition” or “eCommerce edition”.
So once you get into you pick your category. For example, if your doing a photography website you could click on all their templates and then customize the design, colors, and graphics. Then you add in your pages and then edit your content. It’s very easy to use and I believe my 60 year old mother could probably figure it out even though she still calls me when she has trouble with Facebook.
You can edit, move, and delete pages on your site with minimal effort. There are a plethora of “page types” to choose from and you can easily design a photo album, blog or online eShop. It’s all WYSIWYG interface so you don’t have to know any coding.
Then you click publish and your good to go. Very easy to make changes and has a lot of customization you can do with it. It’s really one of the coolest site builders I have seen in a long time.
The best part is FatCow allows you to test it out before even signing up.
FatCow Performance
I can’t recall one instance where me or a client of mine had an extended amount of downtime. They use server redundancy on there servers in there datacenters so they can withstand surges in traffic without your site’s performance being compromised. A lot of companies like GoDaddy will overload their servers which causes them to run very slow. FatCow keeps a close eye on the number of sites that will be on any server to insure your performance doesn’t suffer.
FatCow Customer Service
I was surprised at how good FatCow’s support is.
While I haven’t talked to them all that much, when I did they were very helpful. They have a lot of FAQ’s and an active message board in which they commonly will update there users with big changes. It’s always nice to deal with them because their communication is very good and they will take the time to help there customers with there concerns. You can easily get ahold of the 24/7 and their response times are fantastic.
I recall awhile back when I was having some issues with moving a site from StartLogic to FatCow and was a little unsure about doing the transfer. FatCow’s customer support not only provided the information to me and actually explained it. A lot of other web hosting services would just point you in the right direction but offer you little assistance. Their techs are very knowledgeable and happy to help if you have any questions or concerns with your servers.
FatCow Summary
If you are going to run a small or large website you might want to give FatCow a shot. Yes, they are owned by EIG and I generally do not recommend hosting that is owned by EIG. If you find FatCow won’t work for your hosting needs please check out my InMotion and GreenGeeks reviews to see what they have to offer.
If you found this review helpful could you please take the time to leave a comment about your experience with FatCow in the review section at the top of this page. Lastly, don’t forget to please share this FatCow review on any social media sites down below that you actively participate on. Thanks for reading.
This is a special section which has been added exclusively for Fatcow. This part adds value to my Fatcow review because you get a chance to see the research I have done on them. I spend a lot of time just reading information on the internet about different hosting companies. Then to summarize the content I have found I then publish a summary of the content I found.
Each piece of content is then categorized into 3 different sections. The three sections I categorize them in are positive, negative, and neutral . This makes it easy for you to see what good, bad, and neutral things other webmasters are saying about their experience working with the company. Please take a second to view my research I have done on Fatcow down below.
Interviews are a great way to get some feedback on other webmasters that have used Fatcow over the years. These emails provide us with some real user experience that shows exactly what it is like to host with Fatcow.
What I typically do is contact webmasters that have used their service in the past. I ask them if I can email them and ask them about 5-7 questions about Fatcow. Typically, my responses are pretty good and I learn a lot about the company in question. Then I publish the content on tbwhs.com for everyone to read. If you would like to do an email interview with me on Fatcow I would highly recommend that you contact me through my contact page. I do participate on Twitter so you can always send me a tweet @tbwhs if you would like.