WestHost Reviews – There Is Room For Improvement

The name WestHost may neither be common in the mouths of many, but I was surprised that they actually have over one million domains on their servers. I was reading where Yoast (the popular SEO plugin) wrote them up a positive review. So, I wanted to dive a little deeper and check them out for myself. It is probably the company you will turn to when for secured shared hosting services coupled with a balance of affordability and performance.

Since its Establishment in 1998, WestHost’s mission has been to ensure a secure, powerful, and affordable hosting environment. Later in 2008, it was acquired by the UK2 Group, a large holding company. Sometimes changes in management can either be a very positive thing for a hosting company or they can be detrimental. In this full WestHost review, I am going to look at their features, performance, uptime, and then customer support. Then I will either recommend you use them, or point you to another web hosting company.

WestHost Features

Shared Plans

This hosting is suitable for small businesses or individuals who only want small websites. “Small” in terms of the number of web pages and visitors. Nevertheless, these servers are still capable of handling a good amount of traffic.

Personal Hosting. This is good for starters. It offers 1000GB bandwidth and 50GB storage at a monthly price of $4. You can purchase a domain name with this plan for $12.50/year.

Preferred Hosting. The start off price is $8 a month and it comes with a storage capacity of 200GB and 2500GB bandwidth. It also allows you to host unlimited MySQL databases and websites. This plan does come with a free domain name.

Business Hosting. Here you will get started with a monthly price of $12. Disk space, storage capacity, databases, and websites are unlimited. In addition, you are also awarded a free dedicated IP address, a free SSL certificate, and a free domain.

I do like how the first tow plans the “Personal” and the “Preferred” don’t use the words “unlimited bandwidth”. However, the “Business” plan does state that you get unlimited bandwidth.

Cloud Hosting

WestHost does offer 3 different cloud hosting plans for those that are looking for a cloud server. This plan has self-healing and failover features. All plans come with a network speed of 1 GigE Port and 1 dedicated IP address. You do get a free domain name with all of their cloud plans, too.

Burst. This basic plan costs $50 in a month and has a disk space of 20GB and 500GB bandwidth. The CPU is 1.2 GHz and there is 1128 MB of RAM.

Storm. This plan has a RAM of 1880MB, 3GHz dedicated CPU, 50GB worth of space, 1250 bandwidth at a monthly cost of $100. The CPU is 3 GHz and there is 1880 MB of RAM.

Monsoon. At a price of $150 per month, you will get 2250GB bandwidth, a disk space of 90GB, and a RAM of 3384MB. The CPU is 5.4 GHz, too.

Reseller Plans

The hosting plans are reseller basic, reseller plus, and reseller pro. Reseller basic offers 20GB disk space, 500GB bandwidth, at $50 per month. Reseller plus comes with 1250GB bandwidth, 50GB storage, and 1880MB RAM at $100 a month. Whereas reseller pro offers 3384MB RAM, 90GB storage, and 2250GB bandwidth at a monthly cost of $150.

You do get free setups, a cPanel license, and free billing software with all of their plans. One thing I do like about WestHost is they do a free snapshot of your server weekly.

Managed Dedicated Plans

WestHost does offer a number of managed dedicated plans. The details are down below:

Unmanaged Dedicated servers

WestHost does offer a number of unmanaged dedicated plans. The details are down below:

Domain Names

One thing that is always nice is to be able to register domain names with any hosting company you sign up for.  Most of their plans do allow a free domain name whenever you sign up with them.  If you are purchasing your first domain name I would highly recommend you read this article I wrote on “how do you buy a domain name“.

I do like how you can register a ton of different domain names with WestHost.  Meaning you can buy .com, .net, .org, and about 100 different extensions.  They really do have a lot of extensions that you can purchase.  The prices are really reasonably priced.  Meaning that are about the same price at NameCheap, Network Solutions, and GoDaddy.  You can even buy domain name protection too if you want to.

Domain transfers can be done with WestHost.  However, there is a fee for this.  A lot of hosts will offer free domain transfers, though.  Depending on the domain name will determine the price.  For .com and .net it does cost $12.50.

WestHost Performance & Uptime

Uptime

Whenever you run a website you want the uptime to be as close to 100% as possible.  Every second, minute and hour that your website is down you’re a losing business.  WestHost does generally have pretty decent uptime.  They do have a 99.9% uptime guarantee.  From the research, I have done it does look like WestHost does honor that for the most part.  It doesn’t look like webmasters are constantly moaning about the extended amounts of downtime they have been receiving.

Performance

Whenever you sign up for a web hosting company it’s ideal to have your website load quickly.  Seeing how I work in the web design and SEO industry I know just how vital performance is for top rankings on Google.  A lot of webmasters are shocked to find out that some websites do not perform as quick as they do on others.  In fact, a real life example is my site hosted on MochaHost servers does not perform the same on WireNine’s servers.  This is because different hosting companies use different hardware.

I have checked with WestHost and found out they are not using SSD hosting.  This is much faster than the old mechanical drives that a lot of host like WestHost is still using.  I would like to see them add a least an option to upgrade to SSD hosting even if it does cost a little extra money.  For that reason, I give their performance rating a 3 out of 5.

WestHost Customer Support

One thing I have come to expect over the years is 24/7 customer support that is there to answer any questions or concerns you might have.  For one, they need to be there at all hours of the day to answer your questions.  For two, they need to be able to provide you with great advice to the less than savvy tech.  Meaning, that they need to be able to quickly resolve issues without having to escalate them to a higher tier of support.

You can get in contact with WestHost a number of different ways; live chat, telephone, or through their email ticketing system.  WestHost does state on their website that they have U.S. based customer support which is great if your in the United States.

However, I have done a lot of research on WestHost from various sources around the internet.  Webmasters have been stating that customer support has been going downhill for quite some time now.  I have heard that UK2 Group bought them out a number of years ago and has changed the quality of customer support.  This is one mistake that I believe Hostgator made when EIG bought them out in years ago.  Meaning if this was 2 years ago customer support would have been exceptional.  However, as of 2014 and 2015, it looks like support has gone downhill.  In fact, the number one problem people seem to complain about is their customer support.

WestHost Review Summary

So, do I recommend that you use WestHost?  No.  Just because I don’t recommend them doesn’t mean you’re going to have a ton of problems with them, though.  Their shared plans and VPS plans are a little bit higher than other hosting companies.  However, their cloud and dedicated plans are right on par with other companies in the web hosting industry.  Their uptime is pretty good.  However, WestHost is not using SSD hosting.  Their customer support is about average, but I have read various reviews on them that state it’s going downhill.  I really feel there are a lot better hosting companies you can use if you’re seeking a web hosting plan.

If you’re looking for a shared plan I would highly recommend that you check out my SiteGround hosting review.  They are cheaper and use SSD hosting.  They also have wonderful support.

However, if you’re looking for a VPS or Dedicated plan I would recommend that you read my InMotion web hosting review.  I personally use them for tbwhs.com and have been using them for many years now.

I really would like to get more feedback on WestHost.  So, if you have experience using them I would ask that you please comment and rate them in the user review section at the top of this review.  Once, I get a enough feedback on them I will be able to get a better understanding of them.  Thanks for reading.

I started this special section for WestHost so I could show you the research I have done on their company.  I spend several hours researching them prior to writing them a review.  I have read countless articles on their company and try to keep every host I review on a level playing ground.  Once, I read the content on them I will then categorize it into three separate sections; positive, negative, and neutral.  I like to write a short summary of the content.  Based on whether or not the content is praising WestHost will determine where the content will be filed.  Please take a couple minutes to view my research down below:

I started this special section for WestHost so I can conduct 1 on 1 email interviews with webmasters that have used them before.  This gives us all a better understanding of what it’s actually like to host with WestHost.  Then I publish the interview in this section.  If you have experience with WestHost I am looking for you.  Please feel free to contact me through my contact page.  That or you can always contact me through Twitter @tbwhs.