Hostway Reviews – Lots of Mixed Feedback On Them

Hostway is a host that was founded in 1998.  It has been around as long as GoDaddy, Web.com, Network Solutions, and Hostgator.  It has been featured on CNNMoney, Los Angeles Times, and Fox Business.  They have 3 datacenters in the United States, 2 offices in the United States, 1 data center in Canada, and 1 office in Bulgaria.

Hostway is a host that offers lots of features.  They are mostly geared towards the more experienced site owner like Lunarpages, ServerPronto, and SingleHop.  Hostway offers a lot of plans.  This includes shared hosting plans.  I am going to show you all the plans they offer.

Features

Hostway is one of those hosts that has a ton of features.  Can easily set up eCommerce stores, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, or any other kind of script.  Can purchase managed servers, add extra storage, RAM, etc.  Should be able to handle anything you wish to develop.  It does come with an extra cost.

Shared Plans

Hostway offers 3 different shared hosting plans.  Their prices are on the higher end of the spectrum since StartLogic and MochaHost offer shared hosting plans for a much cheaper rate.  The first one is the Website Starter plan which is $6.95/month.  This comes with 50 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and 200 email accounts.  The second one is the FlexCloud Site plan which cost $12.95/month.  This comes with 300 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and 400 email accounts.  The third plan is the FlexCloud Site Pro plan which cost $29.95/month.  It comes with 1000 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and 1000 email accounts.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is a great option if you want to only pay for resources you use rather than paying an excess amount of resources that you don’t use.  Hostway does offer their clients a number of different options for cloud hosting. They offer 4 different plans; Public, VPC, DPC, and Hybrid.  There is no price specified on their website.  Instead, you need to contact them for a consultation.

VPS

Hostway does offer 6 different VPS plans.  VPS servers are great for websites that have overgrown a shared server.  These plans are both offered for Windows and Linux.  For their Linux plans, they offer a U100, U500, and U700 plan which cost anywhere from $29.95 to $69.95 a month.  For Windows plans, they also offer 3 different plans; W100, W500, and W700.  The price tag will be between $49.95 to $89.95.

However, one thing I don’t like about Hostway is you have to pay $2/month for an IP, $14.95/month for a cPanel license, and $5 for Plesk.  The makes the price tag even higher than other companies.

Dedicated

Hostway does offer a number of different dedicated plans both for the Linux and Windows operating system.  The prices for their dedicated plans are between $250 and $1600 per month.  You have the option to choose between 1 core to Octo-core processors.  You can even choose between SATA or SAS hard drives (600 GB’s and 2 TB’s).  For RAM you can choose between 4 GB and 128 GB.

I should note that their prices for dedicated servers are a lot more expensive than a lot of other companies like MDDHosting and Eleven2.

Email Hosting

So often businesses are just looking for email hosting or a plan where they can get their web hosting all in one place.  Hostway processes over 74 million emails each and every single day.  They can provide email addresses for 1  to 10,000 accounts.  They have the infrastructure to handle anything you might be needing.  This could be anything from small startups to large corporations.

Domain Names

You can purchase domain names with Hostway.  They offer 35+ domain extensions that you can purchase to get your website online.  Their prices are priced very modestly priced.  However, they are not as cheap at NameCheap which is my #1 recommended domain registrar.  Meaning that they are $10 to $70.  The price doesn’t ever go up like it does with a number of other registrars.  You can buy domain name protection (both light and full) domain protection.  This will cost you $5 to $10 extra a year.

However, watch out because with Hostway deleted domain redemption fees are $125.

Hostway Uptime & Performance

Uptime

Whenever you’re operating a website you don’t want it to go down daily, weekly, or monthly.  This is a very good thing about Hostway because the uptime is solid.  From the research, I have done it doesn’t look like webmasters are constantly complaining about uptime.  In fact, the most positive thing I can say about Hostway is their uptime is very good.

Performance

The infrastructure with Hostway is pretty solid.  They offer lots of RAM and high-end CPU’s.  You’re never going to be capped or short-changed with RAM because their plans can handle lots of server load.  But, one thing I don’t like about Hostway is they don’t offer SSD hard drives.  Instead, they offer SAS and SATA hard drives.  SAS hard drives do have a higher RPM, but it will cost you more money.  I would really like to see them offer SSD hard drives.

But, from the research I have done on Hostway, I don’t see a ton of complaints about their performance.  Webmasters seem to be pretty happy with the performance with Hostway.

Hostway Customer Support

Customer support is a very important part of any company in the IT field.  For me, since my business heavily relies on my online presence I literally live and die with the quality of the customer support.  If you have read any of the reviews at tbwhs.com you have noticed a lot of companies customer support like 1and1, WebHost4Life, and JustHost they can either make or break a web hosting company.

Hostway does have a toll-free number you can call 24/7.  Can even jump on live chat for technical support 24/7.  Also, they do have a support ticket which you can fill out and they will get back with you whenever you want to submit a ticket request.

From the research, I have done Hostway has many happy customers. They speak highly of their customer support.  But, Hostway has gotten some complaints about their customer support too.

Hostway Reviews Summary

So, do I recommend Hostway?  No.  But, this does not mean they are bad.  Other companies I recommend them.  Their uptime is fantastic.  Their performance is decent.  They do not use SSD hard drives.  They have a lot of features, though.  Servers can support anything.  The price is higher, though.  Also, customer support has been a bit of a gray area for some site owners.

Looking for a shared host?  I would recommend you read my WebHostingHub review.  They are much cheaper and use SSD hard drives.  I have been using them for about 6 years now.  Also, if you want a VPS or dedicated server I would encourage that you read my InMotion hosting review.  Rated #1 at tbwhs.com.

My research on Hostway is down below.

Interviews with Hostway customers are down below.