Homestead is a company that is geared towards the newbie webmaster. Before I start I do want to let you know that they are an EIG owned company. EIG owns over 90 web hosting companies like ApolloHosting, Dot5Hosting, PowWeb, and Hostgator. Meaning, you don’t need any experience at all to take advantage of their hosting and website builders? They are quite popular and have software developed by Intuit which has developed an ‘easy to use website builder” that anyone can learn in an instant. But, what are webmasters saying about their experience working with Homestead?
When I review a web hosting company I like to look at their features, uptime, reliability, performance, customer support and cost. After I fully digest everything they have to offer I will reach a conclusion on their company. Please check out the rating system at the top of this page to get a general overview of my thoughts on their company. So, this is another company I don’t want to recommend for various reasons. Stay tuned because I will give reasons on why I don’t recommend their service.
Homestead Features
HomeStead offers three different web hosting packages. They do something a little different than other companies. Meaning they don’t use the words “shared”, “VPS”, or “dedicated” anywhere on their website. Thus, they are geared towards the newbie webmaster that doesn’t know much about web hosting; they simply want to buy a domain and use a site builder and get their website up in running quickly.
Starter Plan
There first plan is called the “Starter” plan which is $4.99/month. It’s a plan that offers 25 MB of storage, 5 GB of bandwidth per month, up to 5 pages, no email account, and web statistics, and a website builder. Really, not a much is offered with this plan, and WebHostingHub offers so much more and for less.
Business Plan
Homestead offers a “Business” plan which is $19.99/month. This plan includes 5 GB of storage, 100 GB of bandwidth per month, up to 100 pages, supports 3 sites, 5 email accounts, web statistics, and a website builder.
Business Plus
Homestead offers a “Business” plan which is $19.99/month. This plan includes 5 GB of storage, 100 GB of bandwidth per month, up to 100 pages, supports 3 sites, 5 email accounts, web statistics, and a website builder.
Website Builder
Obviously, this is Homestead’s focal point. They want anyone in the world to be able to create a website with minimal knowledge. It should be very easy and you don’t have to know any coding or have really any technical knowledge. They use Intuit Website Builder which is actually pretty easy to use. Everything is drag and drop. Meaning if you want a title in a specific spot you just highlight it and move it to the desired destination. You can easily add pictures and videos and drag them around to wherever you want them. Editing pages and inserting contact forms is very easy, too. They do offer a lot of video tutorials which are very helpful. Designing websites is really a breeze with this site builder.
Here is a video review I found on Homestead which does give you an inside look at that website builder:
Homestead Uptime & Performance
Uptime
With Homestead you can trust that your website is going to be up 99.9% of the time. There isn’t going to be a whole lot of downtime. They have a pretty good datacenter that you can trust will always be up. Obviously, as a webmaster your going to want your website to be up all the time and with Homestead you can trust that it will be up for most of the time.
Performance
In terms of performance Homestead has some very buggy issues. For instance, you can’t upload medium to high quality images without their web hosting builder crashing. This is really a huge draw back because you’re limited to using poor quality graphics. This will make your website look like it was designed in 1997, as I have already mentioned in this review. Past users are actually reporting that they have gotten 404 errors on their websites from time to time. Here is a screenshot showing what one customer has said about their experience:
Homestead Customer Support
Homestead’s customer support makes me sick. When you tried to cancel the service, you might be surprised to know that there won’t be anyone to attend to your call. There have been a lot of billing concerns where people signed up for their free trial and cancelled, but still got billed. You won’t even have an answer on how to get in touch with someone. If you’re lucky to get connected to their customer support, you might be disconnected several times.
With their customer support, you will have to waste a lot of time because you have to be on standby before you can even get them to do anything. Their customer support team isn’t friendly and prompt as you would expect them to be. Sometimes you may even feel that their customer support doesn’t know what they’re doing. In general people are not satisfied with their customer support at all.
Homestead Summary
This hosting company isn‘t recommended at all, and in fact you’ll find many negative reviews about them. Don’t get me wrong I think the idea of what they are trying to do is great, but it simply won’t work for you. The templates look like they were created in 1997 and your website won’t look modern or even remotely professional. One big pain for them is their customer support; they also have a lot of billing issues. They offer features that appeal to first time webmasters, but they are overpriced and of very poor quality.
But, your in luck if you’re looking for a better alternative. In fact, there are many hosting companies out there such as InMotion, GreenGeeks, and WebHostingHub that are cheaper, and a whole lot better for your websites needs. If an employ of Homestead is reading this can you please let us know what you’re doing to make your service better? If you have any experience working with them would you take 5 minutes out of your day to leave your experience with them? Please feel free to share my Homestead review on any social media sites you actively participate on. Thanks for reading.
I started this special section for Homestead in September of 2015. There have been a lot of Homestead web hosting reviews in the past and I really believe this adds a lot of creditability to my Homestead review. What I do is research the web for information on Homestead. I then write up a summary of the piece of contend I have found.
Once I have written a summary I then post it up on tbwhs.com for everyone to read. I then file it in 1 of the 3 following categories; positive, negative, and neutral. I try to update my research as often as I can. Please take a couple minutes to read the content I have found on Homestead down below:
Interviews are a great way to find out information on what it’s like to use Homestead. I am a big fan of interviews and I like to talk with webmasters about their experience with Homestead. What I do is conduct an email interview with other webmasters so that everyone can get a better understanding of what it’s like to use Homestead. I then publish the interview for everyone to read.
If you have experience with Homestead I am looking to talk with you. Please send me a email through my contact page or you can always reach out to me on Twitter @tbwhs.com.