Name: MochaHost
Plans: Shared, Reseller, VPS, and Dedicated.
Website: www.mochahost.com
Summary: Do not use MochaHost. Much better options. Tried and tested. This MochaHost review shows why.
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MochaHost was founded in 2002. They operate in Silicon Valley, California. Multiple datacenters located in Chicago, Illinois. Lots of site owners have used them in the past years. Have 180-day money-back guarantee. Lifetime discounts. Very cheap host. Have lots of appealing offers.
In my MochaHost review, I will show their features. Next, performance. Then, MochaHost uptime. Next, customer support. Lastly, a summary.
MochaHost Features
Offer plans for Linux and Windows. MochaHost offers shared, WordPress, reseller VPS, and dedicated plans.
Shared Plans
Shared Linux
Soho
- One website.
- Unlimited storage.
- Unlimited traffic.
- cPanel.
Business
- Unlimited websites, storage, traffic.
- cPanel.
- Free SEO tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- WordPress Optimized.
- Website builder.
- One free domain (lifetime).
Mocha
- Unlimited websites, storage, traffic.
- cPanel.
- Free SEO tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- WordPress Optimized.
- Website builder.
- One free domain (lifetime).
- Free IP.
- 2 GB RAM.
- Trust Seals.
- PCI Scanning.
Shared Windows
SoHo
- 1 Website.
- Unlimited storage.
- Unlimited traffic.
- WebSitePanel.
- Windows Server 2012.
- 10 Databases (MS SQL).
- 200 MB database size.
- MS SQL Version 2008 R2.
- $2.48/month.
Business
- Unlimited websites, storage, traffic.
- WebSitePanel.
- Windows Server 2012.
- Unlimited Databases (MS SQL).
- Unlimited database size.
- MS SQL Version 2008 R2.
- MySQL Store Procedures.
- MySQL Remote Access.
- One free domain. For Life.
- 3.98/month.
Mocha
- An unlimited website, storage, traffic.
- WebSitePanel.
- Windows Server 2012.
- Unlimited Databases (MS SQL).
- Unlimited database size.
- MS SQL Version 2008 R2.
- MySQL Store Procedures.
- MySQL Remote Access.
- Free SSL.
- Trust Seals.
- PCI Scanning.
- One free domain. For Life.
- $7.17/month.
Very cheap prices. Much cheaper than GlowHost and Hostnine. Price does go up $1-2 a month. This is a renewal price. MochaHost does use the unlimited sales pitch. Everything is advertised as unlimited. Really it is limited. I logged onto live chat. I asked what the inode limits were. Liam (support agent) told me “there is no limitation”. They do have exact limits for VPS plans.
WordPress Plans
WP Starter
- 200 GB space.
- 1 WordPress site.
- 1 GB RAM.
- 100,000 monthly visits.
- $2.48/month.
WP Premium
- Unlimited space.
- 10 WordPress sites.
- 2 GB RAM
- Millions monthly visitors.
- Free domain.
- $3.98/month.
WP Advanced
- Unlimited space.
- Unlimited WordPress sites.
- 4 GB RAM.
- Millions monthly visitors.
- Free domain.
- Free SSL.
- $6.48/month.
VPS Plans
Linux
Ristretto4
- 512 MB RAM.
- 1 GB RAM Burstable.
- 1.2 GH CPU.
- 40 GB Storage.
- 500 GB Monthly Traffic.
- $7.98/month.
Perfetto1
- 1 GB RAM.
- 2 GB RAM Burstable.
- 2.4 GH CPU.
- 60 GB Storage.
- 1,000 GB Monthly Traffic.
- SEO Tools
- WHM.
- Plesk.
- Free Migration.
- $9.98/month.
Perfetto2
- 2 GB RAM.
- 4 GB RAM Burstable.
- 4.8 GH CPU.
- 80 GB Storage.
- Unmetered Bandwidth.
- SEO Tools
- WHM.
- Plesk.
- Free Migration.
- Free Domain (for life).
- Super SSD Cache.
- Free SSL.
- $14.98/month.
Windows
Perfetto1-R2
- 1 GB RAM
- 1 GB Dynamic RAM.
- 2.4 GH CPU.
- 60 GB.
- 1 TB Monthly Traffic.
- WebMatix.
- SmarterMail.
- MS SQL Express.
- $9.08/month.
Perfetto2-R2
- 2 GB RAM
- 1 GB Dynamic RAM.
- 2.4 GH CPU.
- 80 GB.
- Unmetered monthly traffic.
- WebMatix.
- SmarterMail.
- MS SQL Express.
- WebSitePanel.
- Plesk.
- One domain (free for life).
- Free SSL.
- Super SSD Cache.
- $14.98/month.
Perfetto3-R2
- 2 GB RAM
- 1 GB Dynamic RAM.
- 4.8 GH CPU.
- 100 GB.
- Unmetered monthly traffic.
- WebMatix.
- SmarterMail.
- MS SQL Express.
- WebSitePanel.
- Plesk.
- One domain (free for life).
- Free SSL.
- Super SSD Cache.
- $19.98/month.
Reseller Plans
Linux
Mocha2
- Unlimited User & Domains.
- Unlimited Traffic.
- 25 GB Storage.
- Free WHM.
- Free SEO Tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- 180 Website Apps.
- One free domain. (lifetime).
- Site Builder.
- Enom reseller account.
- $9.89/month.
Espresso
- Unlimited User & Domains.
- Unlimited Traffic.
- 35 GB Storage.
- Free WHM.
- Free SEO Tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- 180 Website Apps.
- One free domain. (lifetime).
- Site Builder.
- Enom reseller account.
- Client Billing (ClientExec).
- Static IP.
- SVN Support.
- Private SSL support.
- Remote MySQL access.
- $14.12/month.
Latte
- Unlimited User & Domains.
- Unlimited Traffic.
- 55 GB Storage.
- Free WHM.
- Free SEO Tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- 180 Website Apps.
- One free domain. (lifetime).
- Site Builder.
- Enom reseller account.
- Client Billing (ClientExec).
- Static IP.
- SVN Support.
- Private SSL support.
- Remote MySQL access.
- $21.20/month.
Americano2
- Unlimited User & Domains.
- 800 MB RAM.
- 2 GB RAM burstable.
- 70 GB Storage.
- Free WHM.
- Free SEO Tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- 180 Website Apps.
- One free domain. (lifetime).
- Site Builder.
- Enom reseller account.
- Client Billing (ClientExec).
- Static IP.
- SVN Support.
- Supper SSD Cache.
- Private SSL support.
- Remote MySQL access.
- $49.97/month.
Cappuccino2
- Unlimited User & Domains.
- 1.3 GB RAM.
- 2 GB RAM burstable.
- 100 GB Storage.
- Free WHM.
- Free SEO Tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- 180 Website Apps.
- One free domain. (lifetime).
- Site Builder.
- Enom reseller account.
- Client Billing (ClientExec).
- Static IP.
- SVN Support.
- Supper SSD Cache.
- Private SSL support.
- Remote MySQL access.
- $64.95/month.
Macchiato2
- Unlimited User & Domains.
- 1.5 GB RAM.
- 4 GB RAM burstable.
- 150 GB Storage.
- Free WHM.
- Free SEO Tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- 180 Website Apps.
- One free domain. (lifetime).
- Site Builder.
- Enom reseller account.
- Client Billing (ClientExec).
- Static IP.
- SVN Support.
- Supper SSD Cache.
- Private SSL support.
- Remote MySQL access.
- $74.95/month.
Altura2
- Unlimited User & Domains.
- 1 GB RAM.
- 1 CPU core.
- 2.4 GHz.
- 100 GB Storage.
- Free WHM.
- Free SEO Tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- 180 Website Apps.
- One free domain. (lifetime).
- Site Builder.
- Enom reseller account.
- Client Billing (ClientExec).
- Static IP.
- SVN Support.
- Supper SSD Cache.
- Private SSL support.
- Remote MySQL access.
- $84.85/month.
Barista2
- Unlimited User & Domains.
- 3 GB RAM.
- 2 CPU core.
- 4.4 GHz.
- 250 GB Storage.
- Free WHM.
- Free SEO Tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- 180 Website Apps.
- One free domain. (lifetime).
- Site Builder.
- Enom reseller account.
- Client Billing (ClientExec).
- Static IP.
- SVN Support.
- Supper SSD Cache.
- Private SSL support.
- Remote MySQL access.
- $154.95/month.
Moshi2
- Unlimited User & Domains.
- 6 GB RAM.
- 4 CPU core.
- 9.6 GHz.
- 2x 250 GB Storage.
- Free WHM.
- Free SEO Tools.
- Search Engine Submission.
- 180 Website Apps.
- One free domain. (lifetime).
- Site Builder.
- Enom reseller account.
- Client Billing (ClientExec).
- Static IP.
- SVN Support.
- Supper SSD Cache.
- Private SSL support.
- Remote MySQL access.
- $294.95/month.
Dedicated Plans
Linux
MochaHost has nine dedicated plans.
- Altura-3. $19/month.
- Ankola-3. $30/month.
- Barista-3. $47/month.
- Barahona-3. $64/month.
- Matari-3. $81/month.
- Moshi-3. $98/month.
- Moshi-4. $120/month.
- Moshi-5. $142/month.
- Moshi-6. $164/month.
Windows
- Altura-3. $24/month.
- Ankola-3. $35/month.
- Barista-3. $52/month.
- Barahona-3. $69/month.
- Matari-3. $86/month.
- Moshi-3. $103/month.
- Moshi-4. $125/month.
- Moshi-5. $147/month.
- Moshi-6. $169/month.
Can pay monthly, yearly, bi-yearly, or 3 years. Also, you can pay every 6 months. Their prices are cheap. Some of the lowest prices in the industry. Much cheaper than LiquidWeb and InterServer. However, the renewal price is double. For Altura-3. Once month cost $24/month. But upon renewal it’s $48/month.
Website Builder – “Parallels Plesk Site Builder.”
You can use this site builder to create a site, blog, or photo gallery. You can choose from a number of designs. Where you can use banners, menu styles, logos, and even the option to buy images. Then you decide the pages that you want to use. For example, “about us,” products, eShops, forums, etc. Then you can edit the content of your site with different modules. It was pretty easy to use, and I mastered it in about 20-30 minutes. Mission accomplished!
So basically, MochaHost should be able to offer their clients with everything you need to run a successful website. They claim to have “premium datacenters” and even generators that back them up.
Found this video on YouTube:
A lot of webmasters sign up for them because they have insanely low prices. These prices almost look too good to be true! They are even backed by an 180 money-back guarantee.
Security
MochaHost does take the security of your server very seriously. In today’s technology era; websites getting hacked is a real problem amongst webmasters. Therefore, MochaHost has partnered with SiteLock, which is a service that can help protect your server from malware. Also, can restore your website to a previous state. Without you having to do anything. This service will cost you an extra monthly fee.
MochaHost Speed & Uptime
Performance
MochaHost has a lot of systems put in place. This “should” help their speed. Load protection helps MochaHost monitor sites. It helps everyone on a shared server. This helps with:
- High CPU usage.
- Memory usage.
- High I/o activities.
Test MochaHost out for speed. Tested them from many locations. Here are their results:
Los Angeles | 2.78 ms |
Dallas | 5.39 ms |
New York | 3.08 ms |
Singapore | 4.36 ms |
London | 3.8 ms |
Amsterdam | 4.08 ms |
San Francisco | 4.3 ms |
After 9 lookups, the average response time of your name server ns1.mochahost.com is 3.97 milliseconds:
Tested MochaHost for web page loading speed:
Loading Time | First Byte | Start Render | Speed Index | |
First View | 1.253s | 0.142s | 0.804s | 821 |
Repeat View | 0.979s | 0.073s | 0.293s | 571 |
My experience with MochaHost was lacking. The site ran very slow. Very slow! Research shows problems. WhoIsHostingThis.com, HostAdvice, and WebHostingGeeks has lots of reviews. These all show issues with speed. But, HostSearch.com has reviews which state good things about speed.
Uptime
MochaHost has a 100% uptime guarantee. It is a red flag. Can not promise that. Do have a server status page. It shows if there are any issues.
Also, “never reboot protection.” Claim to be the only host that offers this. They provide updates and do not have to reboot.
Research shows a lot of problems. First, my experience was 51.6% uptime. Only tried them for three days before I called it quits. Uptime was horrible. Many other hosting review sites have lots of problems. Their customers seem to gripe about uptime.
MochaHost Customer Service
It is a must to have good support. Many ways to contact MochaHost.
- Live chat.
- 1.888.81.MOCHA (toll-free).
- eMail support.
- Support ticket.
My experience with support was bad. Support did not fully read my questions. It takes 8 hours to get a response. Have to explain things over and over again. Live chat gave canned answers. Many other sites have lots of complaints on MochaHost. Tbwhs.com has lots of negative reviews on MochaHost, too.
MochaHost Review Summary
Do I recommend them? No! Had a horrible experience with them. Many other site owners have too. Shared plans are limited. It seems they require upgrades all the time. MochaHost is cheap. You get what you pay for, and it’s no fun using MochaHost. Could cost you lots of time. Could have speed issues. Uptime is lacking. Support is poor. My MochaHost reviews are bad. Not a lot of good I can say.
It is better to use WebHostingHub.com for shared hosting. They are cheap. For VPS and dedicated site owners. I would read my InMotion or RoseHosting reviews.
Research on MochaHost.
Interviews on MochaHost.
MochaHost – Lost A Customer After 3 Days
Over the years I have read a lot of negative and positive things about MochaHost. Mostly, it seems like webmasters are always complaining about them. Personally, I have never hosted with this web hosting company, but I wanted to give them an evaluation in 2015 to see what it’s actually like to host with them. As you can clearly see I have collected a handful of reviews about MochaHost over the years (some good and some bad), but like I said I wanted to try them out for myself to see if they are a reliable web hosting company or not.
Before I want to get started with them, I wanted to ask them a couple questions about what plan would be right for me. I was attracted to MochaHost because well let’s face it their shared hosting plans are insanely cheap. Some of the most affordable hosting plans I have seen in the industry in years. Seriously, just take a look at the screenshot down below that shows you their prices for shared plans:
However, when I talked to MochaHost, they told me the Soho plan wouldn’t work for a WordPress site. It does not support WordPress. They recommended that I use one of their plans that were set up for “Wordpress” only websites. So I went ahead and signed up with the WP Starter plan. This plan is for 1 WordPress site that allows 100,000 monthly hits a day. It shouldn’t have any problem whatsoever hosting my small website.
I had some problems with their system accepting my business’s credit card. I tried it twice and finally got it to go through. See the chat I had with their billing department down below:
Already I have noticed a couple typos with live chat; the response “yes, please, mind that now your Client Status: Pending. (I’m guessing that means my status is pending).
Time To Get Started
Ok, for this test I am putting leopardgeckoland.com on their WP Starter plan ($4.95/month). At 1:45 (5/23/15) I signed up for the account. It says right on their “Order” page it takes 12-24 hours before your account will be activated and you will receive your login details. I can’t wait to get started with my new MochaHost account! I did receive a “Thank you for signing with MochaHost!” email. Kind of funny, but shouldn’t the subject be “Thank you for signing up with MochaHost.” They do say they are a San Jose, California-based company so hopefully they are not outsourcing their customer support to India or some place. Believe me, I will be putting them to the test. My first impression is a little biased already, but maybe they will be a good experience.
My server was all setup at 12:58 PM (5/24/15). It took about 11 hours to setup the server. Not too bad really. However, I am all ready to switch my website over. I can’t login to my cPanel though. It says my username and password are not valid. So, I jumped back on live chat to sort this problem out. See the chat down below:
I am pointing my DNS to MochaHost’s servers now. Logged into my GoDaddy account and made the changes at 11:02 AM (5/24/15). I did use my temporary login for cPanel and went ahead and setup my WordPress installation on MochaHost’s servers. Pretty excited to start working on my leopard gecko website now!
MochaHost Is Ready Now
The DNS has fully propagated over, and I’m happy to start using my new host. Been wanting to play with my Divi theme for a long time now and today is finally that day. I switched over my leopard gecko site to MochaHost servers and began updating leopardgeckoland.com. Used WP Clone to make an exact copy of my website and easily installed WordPress onto my server with MochaHost. I was toying around and was making some changes on my gecko site and noticed it was taking ages to load. I logged into my cPanel with MochaHost and was shocked. Look at the CPU usage it’s at 92% already. I just messed around with the site for 45 minutes now? This site has less than 10 pages on it? These servers are geared for WordPress too! What is the problem with MochaHost?
I installed Pingdom Tools to monitor MochaHost uptime and noticed that my site was offline? Seriously, I thought MochaHost had a 100% uptime policy. I waited about 15 minutes, and the site was still down so I figured I would go ahead and work on something else on tbwhs.com instead of just keep hitting the refresh button, hoping that my website comes back online.
At about the 30 minute point I started to get rather annoyed with the downtime on my new server. Below are a series of tickets that I went back and forth with MochaHost for about a day or so.
Ticket Responses From MochaHost
As you can see from the ticket chat above that about 1 day and 1 hour went by. My website was offline for 25 hours straight. This is not taking care of things promptly. We went back and forth about reloading cPanel (which never happened), needing to upgrade a VPS for a website that gets literally no traffic at all, and then there would be a charge for reinstalling cPanel. As soon as I told them I was about to cancel my account, my server almost seemed to instantly come back on.
In between these ticket responses I logged on to their live chat to ask about my server and a refund for the 100% uptime policy. This is a screenshot of our chat message down below:
New Problem But Server Is Back Up
Ok, now I am happy because my server is back up. However, whenever I try to use the Divi theme, I get an internal error message. I have been using Divi for about 6 months on my InMotion server with no problems at all. I switch back to a generic theme that WordPress provides, and the site shows content again. Clearly, I want to use Divi for the development of this website. I don’t want to use a generic WordPress theme. Paid good money for Divi and love the framework. I am annoyed at this point already because we took 25 hours to get a server back online, and now we have a new problem. Getting them to actually listen to my problem has already proven to be a chore. Please see the chat below about Divi:
MochaHost couldn’t figure it out, so they started a support ticket for me. The agent actually switched the theme to Base WP and then to Divi (by Elegant Themes) and broke the website. He left the 500 internal error snapshot of the site so that their higher tier support could take a look at it. I wasn’t thrilled with them starting a support ticket since last time I got exactly nowhere with them. As you can clearly see that I made it perfectly clear that every time I activated Divi, my website would have a 500 internal error message. The responses I would get from them were completely useless. In fact, they thought they fixed it. Here are the series of support tickets that were sent back and forth:
That’s It – I Am Quitting MochaHost
This evaluation of MochaHost is over. Never in 6+ years have I seen uptime this poor. The support is laughable. I can’t take it anymore! I am canceling my account. As you can clearly see they don’t even bother to read the information that you provide them with. They do respond to tickets in 1-8 hours, but not really helpful at all. Live chat takes about 5-10 minutes between responses.
They would switch to a generic WordPress theme and tell me it works now. I probably could have dragged it on longer and longer and probably wouldn’t get anywhere with them. I have a lot more important things to do with my time like evaluate other hosts, web design, and SEO work. It’s just so sad how bad support is with MochaHost. Another thing that really is a huge negative is the downtime. I had 1 day, 11 hours, and 14 minutes of downtime with them. I was only with them for 3 days, and it was not a fun experience. Here are my uptime stats provided by Pingdom Tools:
They have a 100% uptime policy, which I will be filling out a request for, but I have read that they deny you when you actually take them up on that offer. I did put in my request for it, but I figure the $4.95 I spent probably won’t ever be seen again. I will be sure to keep you updated on this though.
**Update**
MochaHost did give me my money back for the web hosting plan, so it isn’t all bad. However, at first, they told me they would just give me credit to my account which I could use on next months bill. I pointed them to this post and automagically the next business day I noticed that MochaHost did refund me for $4.95.
Final Points
If you have learned anything from my MochaHost evaluation; they are NOT worth your time or money. They are very cheap, but support and the service are horrible. Seriously, who in their right mind would put up with 1 day of straight down time? Live chat takes 5-10 minutes in between responses. Support tickets are pretty much worthless. Really, I can’t think of anything good to say about MochaHost. You can expect that you will have downtime with them. I am closing my account with them as of 5/27/15.
Don’t worry if you’re using MochaHost you can always migrate away from them. My evaluation of their service shows that they were not a great experience. In fact, I really can’t stand them now. Anyone that ever ask me about MochaHost will get pointed to this article. If you’re looking for a quality web hosting company, go with InMotion Hosting. They have SSD hosting, free transfers, excellent support, and I have been doing business with them for over 8 years now.