Name: Site5
Plans: Shared, VPS, and Cloud.
Website: www.site5.com
Summary: Site5 was an awesome web hosting company up until they were purchased by EIG. This Site5 review shows what others are saying about them.
Site5 is a web hosting provider established in 1999 headquartered in San Ramon, California and has their data center in the United States. They have a lot of hosting plans that are offered to their clients, worldwide. But, what are webmasters saying about their experience with Site5? After reading this review you will have a better understanding on whether or not they will be a suitable solution for your websites needs.
Whenever I review a web hosting company I like to look at a number of things. I like to see what all plans and features they offer. Then I like to take a look at their uptime and performance. I test out every companies customer support to see if they are speedy, knowledgeable, or lacking. Then at the end of this review I will provide you with a summary of them. I will then either recommend them or suggest that you use another company. So lets get started with this Site5 evaluation.
Site5 Features
They appeal to a lot of webmasters because they offer a ton of packages. Site5 offers servers in all locations – something you don’t see with other web hosts. You enter your zip code, and your server location is determined in order to provide faster loading times and better SEO rankings. Now lets take a look at all the features and plans Site5 offers people seeking web hosting.
Shared Plans
Site5 has 3 feature rich packages. All have unlimited disk space and bandwidth, along with free migration to their service. All three packages also have the easy website builder, backups, Backstage (for managing your accounts), and SiteAdmin.
- HostBasic is $4.95 per month, with a 2 year contract. If the customer chooses a 12 month contract, it is $5.95 per month. However, this package is not available on a monthly basis. Customers must sign on for at least one year. It allows you to have one website, but does not provide customers with a separate control panel or dedicated IP. You’re limited to one website with this plan so if you have several websites you’re going to have to upgrade to their HostPro or +Turbo plan.
- HostPro is $8.95 per month, and allows unlimited websites. You’re limited to one control panel and no dedicated IP. Customers can sign up for monthly service, so if you’re on a tight budget this should help you.
- HostPro + Turbo, which is $11.95 per month, adds the separate control panel, dedicated IP, and monthly contracts.
Shared Cloud Plans
Their cloud hosting services also has three different packages. This hosting package is recommended for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Site5 has designed its hosting to reduce downtime, even for customers who don’t have a large IT budget. Each package contains unlimited websites, and free services such as migration, dedicated IP, Backstage, custom cPanel, separate control panel, an easy website builder, backups, and redundant failover ability. They also have a 99.99% uptime guarantee.
- The Plus package is $20 per month. It provides 10 GB of disk space, 100 GB of bandwidth and unlimited websites.
- The Advanced Package is $27 per month, and has 20GB of disk space and 200 GB of bandwidth.
- The Premium Package is $36 per month, with 40 GB of disk space and 500GB of bandwidth.
VPS and Cloud VPS
VPS plans with Site5 is available for $25 per month. There are actually 11 different unmanaged plans you purchase with Site5.
Managed dedicated plans are also offer by Site5. Customers can add certain services to the amount of $72 per month (there are 11 plans to choose from for managed), with an additional $2 per IP after the first free one. The VPS offers services through both cPanel and Site Admin. Root access, however is additional, and backups are optional.
Cloud, or CVPS1, is $60 per month, with add-ons amounting to $75 per month. There are 11 different cloud VPS plans to choose from. Once again, the $2 fee per each additional IP address applies. Cloud also includes cPanel and SiteAdmin. Root access is additional, and backups are optional.
Reseller Plans
If customers want reseller hosting, there are also three plans. Each one offers unlimited reseller accounts, access to cPanel and WHM, RVSkin, free billing software, domain reseller account, 3 IP addresses, full and free migration to the host, custom DNS nameservers, backups, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
- The Starter plan is $23.95 per month, and is available on a monthly, three month, or 12 month contract. It provides 50 GB disc space and 500 GB bandwidth
- The Standard package is $33.95 per month, per 3 months, or per year, and has 80 GB diskspace and 700 GB bandwidth.
- The Premier package is $49.95 per month, three months, or year, with 120 GB disc space and 1000 GB of bandwidth.
Control Panel
I was a little unsure about what control panel Site5 offered their clients. I jumped on live chat and got in contact with Troy L. He clarified what control panel Site5 used. For VPS and reseller they use cPanel. For cloud and shared they use SiteAdmin. However SiteAdmin is still cPanel underneath, its just a custom theme for control panel. There are tutorials on Site5’s site which show you how to use everything with their control panel. I have no issues with using SiteAdmin or cPanel. Both work great!
Now, that I have gone over the plans and control panel Site5 uses I can now evaluate their performance, uptime, and customer support. Then at the end of this Site5 evaluation I can either recommend them or recommend that you go with another company.
Site5 Performance & Uptime
Performance
Whenever I gauge a web hosting performance I like to check with isitdownrightnow.com. This is an excellent site for gauging a hosts uptime. But, what I like to see is the response times of their services. A super speedy host will have response times under 20 ms. A speedy host will have response times in the 21-50 ms range. A slow web host will have response times of 51 ms or more. I have test Site5 and found out that they have speedy servers. Their response time is 35.33 ms. This is a decent response time. With Site5 you can trust that your website or websites are going to run at optimal speed.
Uptime
Uptime is another important factor to picking out a web host. Let’s face it as webmasters we want our website to be up 100% of the time, ideally. I checked with webhostingstuff.com and found out that they have monitored their uptime for 3,374 days. It was no surprise that their site was up 99.94% of the time over 9 years.
Site5 Customer Service
Whenever you’re running a website online you need to have 24/7 customer support. As a webmaster you really can’t have anything less. This means if there are problems or issues on your site you should be able to contact them anytime you want. Yes, this means at 3:04 A.M. on a Sunday morning. So if you do have technical problems you can log onto live chat, call them, or even send them a email to get your matters resolved right way.
I have tested out there live chat and you get answers within minutes. Phone calls are also instant. Just in case you’re wondering I have even tested out their email support. To my surprise I got an answer in just 1 hour. Customer support is very helpful and they certainly know what they are talking about. A lot of companies will offer you support, but I often question their expertise. This certainly isn’t the case with Site5.
So is there any downside to Site5 customer support? Well, there is a slight downside. Billing is only available to assist you 6 AM to 6 PM M-F. Really, this isn’t a huge issue with me. A lot of other companies will over billing assistance 24/7. For this reason I am giving them 4 out of 5 stars for customer support.
Site5 Summary
I usually don’t recommend EIG owned companies, and Site5 is no different. Now comes the time where you can voice your feedback on Site5. If you’re a past or existing customer of theirs I would highly encourage that you leave your feedback on them. This means good or bad experiences; I will be sure to post all the feedback. If you found this Site5 review helpful would you mind supporting tbwhs.com and sharing it on any social networking sites you actively participate on. Thanks for reading my review.
If Site5 won’t work for you I highly recommend that you check out my InMotion or WebHostingHub reviews. I personally use both of those companies; both of them are excellent companies too.