HostMonster Review and Test Results

Review

HOSTING PLANS

HostMonster offers two shared hosting plans — Standard and Pro. Both provide numerous unlimited features including disk space, bandwidth, domains hosted, e-mail accounts, subdomains, and parked domains. Free extras include one domain name (first year only), a drag and drop site builder, as well as the Mojo Marketplace library of applications and scripts. Both plans feature 24/7 US-based phone, chat, and e-mail support; a 30-day money-back guarantee; and HostMonster’s A+ Better Business Bureau rating (shared with their sister company, Bluehost).

PURCHASE PROCESS

The HostMonster experience begins with their website and simple two-step checkout process. The homepage offers shared hosting for “$4.95/mo*”. If you follow the asterisk down to the bottom of the page, you are informed that this is for the initial 36-month term and that renewal rates start at $6.99 per month. See screenshot below right. While we don’t like the idea of emphasizing the 36-month price, this is a common practice in the web hosting industry upon which we will not dwell. What we do take issue with is the fact that the renewal rates for the more commonly purchased shorter terms are nowhere to be found on the site — not even in the shopping cart.

We have experience with hosting companies that list their renewal rates on a separate page; and even companies that bury them in their Terms of Use. However, we have not often encountered a host that simply did not disclose the renewal rates within the shopping cart or the sales pages of their website. After unsuccessfully searching the HostMonster site, we called the sales line and were informed that the 1-year term plan renews at $9.99 per month.

HostMonster homepage. Click to enlarge.

While the HostMonster 2-step checkout process is fast, we found it to be deceptive. The first practice we took issue with was the fact that the shopping cart automatically selected two optional added-cost services (Site Backup Pro and SiteLock Domain Security). We have nothing against these services, but best business practices dictate that customers actively select any and all products/services added to their shopping cart. We unchecked the two items.

The shopping cart does make reference to renewal pricing within the fine print near the bottom of the page: “Renewal rates and discounts will be available through your control panel.” See screenshot below right. We have reviewed a good number of web hosting companies, but HostMonster is the first to inform us that renewal rates are made available after you make your purchase. Further, the shopping cart does not display the total amount due today or the recurring payment amount.

HostMonster shopping cart. Click to enlarge.

SETUP

We completed the checkout process using the PayPal payment option. One minute after receiving the PayPal receipt, the HostMonster “Welcome” e-mail arrived in our inbox. It provided the information required to upload our NCM Test Site quickly.

HostMonster includes the cPanel control panel with their shared hosting accounts. cPanel allows you to access webmaster functions from a single user-friendly page. It remains our control panel of choice.

WordPress is installed on HostMonster shared website hosting accounts by utilizing the Mojo Marketplace scripts installer. While we prefer the faster and pop-up-advertising-free Softaculous and Fantastico Deluxe script installers, Mojo Marketplace handles the task without notable difficulty.

Once the NCM Test Site was up and running, we set up Dotcom Monitor page-load speed and reliability testing. Ten days later we reviewed the test results.

HostMonster Speed Test Results Chart. Click to enlarge.

TESTING

All website hosting services reviewed by NCM Online are purchased and subjected to our 10-day test for uptime and speed. HostMonster speed and uptime testing began on April 18th, 2014 and concluded on April 27th, 2014.

While not the fastest shared hosting provider reviewed to date, HostMonster recorded very good page load speeds. Page-load speed was fastest when accessed from the Colorado testing location with an NCM Test Page load time of only 0.9516 seconds. Site speed was slowest when accessed from Asia. However, HostMonster recorded a comparably excellent average of 1.4786 seconds to load our test site when accessed from the Hong Kong testing location.

HostMonster Uptime Test Results Chart. Click to enlarge.

Overall, HostMonster recorded a very good average speed of 1.3804 seconds to load our test site from 13 locations worldwide, and an excellent 0.9722 seconds from 7 U.S. locations. See screenshot right.

Tested for uptime every 15 minutes over 10 days, the HostMonster produced a perfect reliability score of 100%. See uptime test results chart below right.

Pros

• Unlimited disk space
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited e-mail accounts
• Unlimited subdomains
• Unlimited domains hosted
• Unlimited parked domains
• Free domain name (1-year)
• Free drag-and-drop site builder
• PayPal payment option
• US-based, 24/7 phone, chat and e-mail support
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• Good page-load speeds
• 100% uptime test result

Cons

• Renewal rates are made available after your hosting purchase
• Two optional items automatically added to shopping cart during checkout process
• Shopping cart does not display total amount due or the recurring cost
• The Mojo Marketplace WordPress installer is slow and includes pop-up advertising

Conclusion

Despite the numerous positive aspects of their shared hosting plans, HostMonster’s dubious pricing disclosure practices make them impossible to endorse at this time. Should the company decide to correct their questionable policies, we would be happy to reconsider their current ranking.

HostMonster has earned 3.5 stars and is not recommended by NCM Online.

Pricing and Features

Cheap website hosting company price comparisons based on 1-year term list price before coupon/promo codes or limited time/introductory offer discounts. These are the renewal rates for the second year of hosting. To ensure that you receive the most affordable HostMonster pricing possible, please visit our Web Hosting Coupon Codes page for current discounts and special offers before making any purchases.

Plan	Standard	Pro
Disk Storage	UNLIMITED	UNLIMITED
Domain Hosting	UNLIMITED	UNLIMITED
GB of Site Transfer	UNLIMITED	UNLIMITED
POP3/POP3 Secure Email Support	UNLIMITED	UNLIMITED
IMAP Secure Email Support	UNLIMITED	UNLIMITED
Forwarding Email Accounts	UNLIMITED	UNLIMITED
Add-on Domains	UNLIMITED	UNLIMITED
Parked Domains	UNLIMITED	UNLIMITED
Subdomains	UNLIMITED	UNLIMITED
Free Domain Name Registration	1 Year	1 Year
3 Web-based Email Solutions
Free Drag and Drop Site Builder
Support International Domain Names
Search Engine Submission
cPanel Account Control Panel
FTP Access
Web File Manager
Secure Shell (SSH) Access
Server Side Includes
Hotlink Protection
Override .htaccess Support
Log Files
Site Statistics
Customizable Error Pages
Custom Cronjobs
Spam Assassin Protection
24×7 Support
30 Day Money-back Guarantee
CGI/Databases
MySQL Databases
PostgreSQL Databases
CGI-BIN
CGI Library
PHP 5
Support for Custom PHP.INI Files
Perl 5
Python
Ruby/Ruby on Rails
MySQL 5 Database Server
PostgreSQL Database Server
Javascript Support
DHTML Support
Flash Support
Shockwave Support
SimpleScripts 1-Click Script Installs
Free Website Scripts
Message Forum (PHPBB and More)
Form-mail Scripts
Social Networking Scripts
Blog Support (WordPress, b2evolution, …)
Mailing Lists
Image Galleries (Coppermine and more)
Poll and Survey Software
Moodle
Tikiwiki
Drupal
Joomla
Project Management Scripts
Help Center/Support Ticket Scripts
E-Commerce Features
SSL Secure Server
OS Commerce Shopping Cart
Agora Shopping Cart
Cube Cart Shopping Cart
Zen Cart Shopping Cart
Free Generated Certificate
Password Protected Directories
OpenPGP/GPG Encryption
Multimedia Features
Streaming Video Support
Streaming Audio Support
Real Audio and Video Support
MIDI File Support
Add Custom MIME Types
World Class Technology
Dual Quad Processor Performance Servers
UPS Power Backup
Diesel Generator Backup Power
Linux Operating System
Customized Apache Web Server
24/7 Network Monitoring
Courtesy Site Backups
Multiple 10 Gigabit Ethernet Connections
Advanced Features
Increased Server Performance	X
SSL Certificate	X
Site Backup Pro	X
Premium Spam Protection	X
Enhanced Security	X
Domain Privacy	X
Dedicated IP	X
Price per Month*	$9.99	$24.99

*Prices based on 1-year term before the application of coupon/promo codes and introductory/limited-time offer discounts. While you may pay less for the first year of hosting, the prices displayed on this page are the 1-year term renewal rates.

Company Information

Founded in 1996, HostMonster has since offered thousands of customers affordable internet hosting packages to help build their personal and business websites. The firm is dedicated to providing top-quality service hosting with the best servers set up with top feature sets. For website administration, they have a plethora of premium tools including secure data backups. Their top-tier services are provided with maximum uptime while still beating the prices of many other hosting companies.

There is an online demo website that allows prospective customers to fully understand how HostMonster can enable them to build their websites best. This site has access to cPanel, the site management page, and a wide variety of options allowing the individual to create their website with the most advanced features. The Mojo Marketplace gives every customer access over a hundred plugins, open-source apps, and themes. These are even all easy to use with a one-click installation. Those who host with HostMonster also receive a complementary Yellow Pages listing, complementary Moo.com business cards, one hundred dollars to use in Google AdWords, and a complementary Yext scan for local web presence examination. Free quotes for customers who require custom programming and professional web design are offered.

For Drupal, PHPB, WordPress, Joomla, and other frequently used content management systems, discounts are offered on premium themes. Postini’s quality anti-spam filtering for e-mail can be purchased for a dollar each month for each e-mail address. For less than one hundred dollars per year, the firm can provide PCI Compliance Service by McAfee. That is only 45% of the normal price.

Downtime is not a threat as HostMonster has some of the best fully redundant systems to maintain reliability for their customers’ websites. Their services are accessible to all types of customers ranging from personal to corporate use. The firm’s customer service team is completely based in America. The support offered is incredibly reliable, quick, and accessible at all hours of the day. They can be reached by live chat or a toll-free number. Webhosting with HostMonster is a convenient and low-price solution for anyone in need of quality webhosting.

HostMonster Inc. 560 Timpanogos Pkwy Orem, UT 84097 866-573-4678 801-494-8462

How to Install WordPress

This video tutorial demonstrates the installation of WordPress on a HostMonster shared hosting account using the cPanel control panel and the Mojo Marketplace applications installer.