Web Hosting Reviews Online

Stardate -316458.1

The Lunarpages Web Hosting company got its name from a Star Trek episode. I am not sure which episode or series, only that it involved images of a moon, planets and lunar material, if that helps narrow it down. After discovering this trivial fact, I set out on mission to go where no reviewer has gone before: determine whether Lunarpages’ hosting performance is stellar.

I did some probing of Lunarpages and found that the company got its start in the late 1990’s giving out free web hosting on the planet earth. Even when Lunarpages began charging for hosting, the competition was no where near what we see in the web hosting industry today where we see hosts piling up like tribbles. Over the years, Lunarpages began adding dedicated, VPS and Windows hosting to their shared offerings. Lunarpages determined to grow at a slow pace rather than risk crossing the neutral zone at warp speed. Timing and business acumen seem to have been critical factors in the company’s growth. Here is where they stand today:

• Over 100,000 accounts hosted
• Datacenters located in Los Angeles, Riverside and Las Vegas
• More than 2500 servers under ownership

Lunarpages Features/Pricing – The Ferengi Factor

Initial tricorder readings taken on the Lunarpages Basic Plan ($6.95/month) indicated enough bandwidth to drive a starship through (Unlimited) and more disk space (Unlimited) than you can shake a phaser at. One thing I learned from doing research for this Lunarpages review was that big, established corporate web hosts purchase large volumes of bandwidth at discount prices, sort of the Wal-Mart effect. A few standard features that came up on the main view screen were:

• Ruby on Rails 6
• MySQL 5
• PHP 5
• Python
• JSP
• ASP

And some unique features:

• 1 free domain for life
• CoffeeCup software valued at $700
• CrazyEgg tracking/stats

Taking a look under the hood at the dilithium crystals, I saw that Lunarpages is powered by the well-known Dell PowerEdge line of servers, which Lunarpages says is “the most innovative and secure servers in the industry.” PowerEdge appears to be more of a generic name and it’s not clear specifically which models are currently in use. I will update this review if I find out.

Control Panel – Bridge to Engineering

After logging in, I saw a nice and neat tabbed layout of “website information,” “Upgrades/Addons,” “Billing History,” and “Specials” below some big fat icons for “Helpdesk,” “FAQ,” “Tutorials” and “Network Status.” I was relieved to see the familiar cPanel icons from the cPanel X theme. I have grown very comfortable with cPanel over the years and have developed a respect for the package after testing other control panels.

Feeling a bit lazy, I went for the Fantastico icon. In case you don’t know, Fantastico is a third party script library feature that web hosts embed into their cPanel control panels. Each of the popularly known scripts, many open source or free, can be auto installed in seconds with a scant few clicks–no MySQL database setup, no uploading files or chmoding files (all tasks that Vulcans enjoy). A feature like this very much appeals to the programmatically challenged folk like myself–I’m a doctor, not a web developer, Jim. At the time of this review, only 37 scripts were available. I successfully one-click installed and uninstalled 5 of them with no problems. Some important scripts that other hosts offer like Drupal, Mambo and Typo3 were sadly missing from the Lunarpages Fantastico offering. Transporter malfunction?

What about the versions of the scripts listed? Were they current? It is extremely important to have available the most current versions of the scripts. I can tell you from experience that some hosts do not keep these current so users end up installing outdated and less secure versions of scripts. Not good. I poked around in the Fantastico section and found that WordPress and OSCommerce—both scripts that I use—were exactly the same versions as appear on the official web sites.

Lunarpages Support – Hailing Frequencies Open?

Another point that came through in researching Lunarpages was the uncanny emphasis they place on customer support. It seems they go out of their way to make the customer feel that 24/7 support is available if needed. The words “Phone Support,” “Ask a Question” and the support phone number were plastered all over the Lunarpages.com website. The welcome email clearly listed multiple avenues of contacting support.

I took note of this because with some hosts, I get the impression that they are deliberately burying the contact info. Some hosts would prefer not hear my whining. This tactic can backfire with stubborn webmasters like myself who just try all the harder until they find a way to be heard. I never felt that Lunarpages was cloaking customer support; if anything, they were promoting it. Cloaking didn’t work for the Romulans and it won’t work for web hosts.

Email Support Test

I decided to find out for myself if Lunarpages customer support was willing to lower their shields for me. I sent an email support request at exactly 2:53 am before I went to bed saying that at I didn’t see Drupal in the Fantastico package and asking if there were some way to install it.

After I woke up the next morning and logged on, I was glad to have received a response in my inbox at 10:31 am with a ticket number kindly stating that Drupal is not currently offered for installation in cPanel’s Fantastico and that I could manually download and install it. A download URL was provided along with encouragement to contact Lunarpages again if needed.

Phone Support Test

My tests had been going well. Now it was time to turn on my communicator and make the dreaded customer support phone call. This is where web hosts always seem to implode. Come to think of it, most hosts probably don’t even offer phone support. If they do, they tend to force the customer to hold a long time and listen to elevator music interspersed with promotional plugs.

On my first attempt, I held for a musicless 17 minutes and was disconnected. I have no idea if the problem was due to my cell phone or the Lunarpages call center. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. On the second attempt, I held for 10 minutes and was relieved to get a very professional sounding and courteous support rep (I think his name was Josh). I basically asked him why I couldn’t install AWStats through cPanel. He explained that this script wasn’t available through cPanel. I would have to visit the AWStats site and upload/install the current version to my site myself. That wasn’t really the answer I was hoping for, but I certainly appreciated Josh’s courteous and confident manner. He further confirmed my suspicions that the reason many scripts were not available for automatic install in the Lunarpages cPanel was due to security concerns.

Was the positive impression I had about Lunarpages customer support accurate? I’d have to say waiting on hold for 10 minutes was not much fun. But then again, by web hosting company standards, I don’t think that 10 minutes is too terribly unreasonable.

Set a course for the Lunarpages Star System?

I would have given Lunarpages a 5/5 rating if they had offered the full panoply of cPanel scripts and perhaps lessened my customer support hold time a bit. In fact, I may yet upgrade the rating. They appear quite conservative in what scripts are allowed for installation in the control panel. Other hosts do offer more scripts. Unlike some other hosts, though, Lunarpages does not claim to offer features they don’t support.

Pros: Large, established, experienced host offering huge amounts of bandwidth and disk space at low prices. Knowledgeable, courteous customer support. Unique features like a free domain for life, CoffeeCup software and CrazyEgg stats.
Cons: Lack of a few Fantastico script installations like Drupal, Mambo and Typo3. No AWStats.
Bottomline: Engage? They’ve got the bandwidth, diskspace, low pricing and support–one of the best hosts I have ever reviewed. Unless you’re like me and rely too much on the control panel’s one-click installation scripts, Lunarpages is a logical choice.
Rating:

–Reviewed by Emory Rowland

With a decade of experience, a datacenter, U.S. call center and affordable hosting solutions, IX Web Hosting stands strong among hosting companies.

Features and Pricing

As is the case with many hosts, IX Web Hosting quotes the absolute lowest price on their hosting plans page. In order to determine the actual price, one must proceed through the sign up process. The lowest price is provided with a 24 month billing cycle.

The shortest billing cycle is $4 more than the 24 month price, and comes with a hefty $30 setup fee. There is an even greater difference on the most expensive of their three plans with a $6 a month price hike. Therefore the unlimited nature of their $3.95/month plan may look great at first, but if you’re not interested in making a long-term commitment this price can be $7.95. Yet, this is still on par with, and in some cases slightly less than the competition.

IX Web Hosting also provides free domain registration with their hosting. If you ever leave IX Web Hosting, you retain ownership of the domain name.

IX provides some advantages that set them apart. These include their “own data center,” being in business since 1999, and a U.S.-based call center.

One’s own data center can be both good and bad for the same reason: it provides them with complete control. This control can be assumed to be good as it allows the company to maintain their servers and architecture directly, but this is also an extended responsibility that they must manage well. With as much experience as IX Web Hosting appears to have, they should possess a pretty good handle on this.

Ten years of hosting experience conveys some fiscal stability, so it doesn’t look like IX Web Hosting is going anywhere soon. It also shows that they have remained competitive with the myriad of hosting companies in the industry.

A call center located in the United States is also no doubt a great advantage as technology companies are infamous for having outsourced support. It is worth noting that although domestic support representatives are a substantial benefit, it is not exclusive to IX Web Hosting as other web hosts maintain in-house support channels.

IX Web Hosting also provides dedicated SSL certificates for $50 when purchased with web hosting, which is a good deal compared to other hosts. Like other hosts, a shared SSL certificate is provided for free with their hosting.

If design services are required, IX provides solutions that deliver results that are largely professional looking. This is convenient if one is interested in finding hosting and design services with the same company.

As is the trend with many hosts, IX provides free ad coupons, with up to $75 in Google AdWords credits for instance. These can be useful if maintaining a commercial website where the main purpose of the site is to advertise or sell a product or service. There is also a Merchant Service that is available on a quoted basis.

Terms of Service

IX Web Hosting’s terms of service are comprehensive and are composed of 25 different sections. If there is a question of technicality, one is sure to find the answer in these terms as nothing is left ambiguous.

Like many good hosts, IX provides a 30 day money-back guarantee in which they will refund all payments made. Yet they go far beyond this to offer a money-back guarantee at any time if one is not satisfied with their services. In this case they will refund the current month’s fees along with any fees already paid for future months. They only ask that a customer provides a brief explanation to help them understand why the cancellation is being made, but this isn’t required and there is no hassle.

They also provide for a 99.9% Uptime Guarantee where if uptime is not maintained to that level in a 12-month period the customer may request a service credit. A 12-month period is unusual for the web hosting industry and further shows that IX favors longer subscription periods.

The terms of use are mostly straightforward and reasonable. The unlimited nature of services provided are, like with many hosts, restricted by the physical space on a server and the capacity of resources. Resources must be used for legitimate purposes, as with any host.

Control Panel

Some individuals may be saddened to find that IX does not use the industry-standard cPanel control panel for Linux web hosting, but rather a version of Psoft’s H-Sphere platform (now owned by Parallels). The control panel appears to utilize a theme that is years old with tacky clipart-based icons. Yet the essential functionality is present throughout.

MySQL databases, unlike with many hosts, are disabled by default. Therefore they must be enabled in the control panel before any databases can be created. This is as simple as clicking a link to enable it, yet it seems like an unnecessary task given the nature of the service.

The control panel provides a collection of “EasyApps,” which are applications that can be easily installed in a “one click” fashion.

Testing

Upon first signing up I received a welcome email. In this, it informed me there was an issue with the automatic creation of my account and there would be a delay. Fortunately it was only nine minutes later before I received a confirmation that my account was created.

The service provides a customer with a randomly assigned username. This is used to log into FTP and is used to preface the names of databases.

IX requires customers to use their email as their username and a password to login to the account administration panel. Yet when I initially attempted to do so, using the FTP password provided for the account, I could not. I did not receive any other record of a password so I was forced to reset my password before I could start using the account.

I also tested out their EasyApps solution in the control panel. I was able to install a WordPress blog within seconds. I was only required to enter some information specific to WordPress such as an admin username, password, email, and blog title and description and it was instantly setup. This is a very convenient feature if one is looking to setup their site quickly without much knowledge in regards to uploading files and configuring databases.

Customer Support

I connected to their web-based live chat system on a Monday at 2:45 PM. IX Web Hosting utilizes the popular Live Person chat system. I was promptly connected to a representative within thirty seconds and they quickly responded to my question about using their one-click application installation system.

Their response was straightforward and satisfactory, yet some of their grammar seemed slightly-off and their name caused me to question their physical location. They responded that their live chat operations are based in the Ukraine.

IX Web Hosting is being truthful when they state that their call center is in the U.S., yet they can’t say the same for their live chat. This is no doubt in an attempt to cut costs, but in some instances this could pose a problem. In my case the representative’s ability to communicate in English was at the level that they understood my question and responded clearly, but the possibility remains that not every representative is like this.

At 3:05 PM on that Monday I called their toll-free customer service line, pressed two for the technical support option, and was connected to a representative within thirty seconds who just asked for my domain name. I proceeded to question him about the one-click install applications that are provided and he guided me through finding the location of this in the control panel. I was off the phone within a couple minutes and was very satisfied with my support experience. The phone representative was definitely based in the U.S., as the IX Web Hosting website promises.

They also provide ticket support for issues that may be more technical in nature, or require more information to be provided on the part of the customer. In this case the customer is guided through a process of identifying their issue and providing the appropriate information.

Overall support is quick to respond and very helpful. IX Web Hosting seems to have compromised when it comes to live chat by outsourcing this support channel, yet they have understood the advantage of maintaining domestic phone representatives.

Conclusion

Doing this review convinced me that IX Web Hosting is overall a very good host leveraging many years of experience and responsive support. If for any reason a customer is unsatisfied they are able to cancel at anytime without any sort of termination fee. This conveys a commitment to good service and a solid hosting solution.

Pros: Slightly less expensive than competition; quick, responsive support; ability to cancel at anytime; phone support is based in U.S.
Cons: Overseas live chat support
Bottomline: Solid host with quick support and a good feature offering
Rating:

HostGator (HostGator.Com) has become one of the better known web hosts in the industry by being themselves. Though nothing they do is completely spectacular or unbelievable, they do what they should do. That is, HostGator actually answers their phones, replies to their emails, responds to live chat requests, doesn’t rip you off, and provides quality hosting. It’s actually quite sad that most hosts can’t seem to get these things right, but it’s great for HostGator as they’ve banked on it and it’s translated into success.

At first glance, HostGator is not too impressive. They have a fairly generic web site, a logo with a fairly lame slogan – “we eat up the competition” (the alligator in the logo is eating the “H”) (sorry HostGator), ordinary copy on their text, an apparent lack of updates on their site, a pretty standard ModernBill setup, cPanel, and basically everything an average web host has.

However, that’s the beauty of HostGator. They don’t have too many bells and whistles, marketing ploys, or anything of the sort. What you see is what you get and it’s that simple. HostGator’s terms of service is pretty standard, as is their order process. Marketing isn’t shoved down your throat at every page and billing is simple. The order process takes about 5 minutes and HostGator accepts both credit cards and PayPal (which is always nice), as well as debit cards.

HostGator Support

I found it interesting how HostGator accepts quite a few forms of payments, so I contact them, and be a little, different. I requested a live chat, and it went like this ­ I was George, pretending to be someone whose English wasn’t the best.

Chat Information Please wait for a HostGator operator to respond.
Chat Information Welcome to HostGator! You are now chatting with ‘Bueford’
Bueford: Welcome to HostGator, how may I assist you?
George: Hi Bueford!
George: Hi Bueford!
George: I have a question regarding your order process – the process at which you order.
George: Would you be willing to assist me with answering these questions regarding the ordering process at HostGator.com?
Chat Information Please wait while I transfer the chat to ‘Kafel’.
Chat Information Welcome to HostGator! You are now chatting with ‘Kafel’
George: Hello?
Kafel: sure, go ahead
George: Why was I transferred from Bueford?
George: Never the matter. My question is this.
Kafel: he is tied up with another chat and didn’t want to keep you holding
George: Oh, very well then! tell Bueford I appreciate his kindness.
George: My question is this. I live in another country and I am unable to pay with a credit card or with PayPal, as my country does not support PayPal.
Kafel: I will do
George: Do I have the ability to “DHL 5-7 Day International Express” HostGator.com a check for the amount of the total of my order?
Kafel: One moment please…
George: That is fine. I will wait one moment. You’re welcome.
George: Excuse my English, please. English is not the principal language of the country that I live in.
Kafel: yes, you could send a bank check to us and once we receive it we will apply it to your account
Kafel: You could call me on the phone if you’d like
Kafel: and by the way your English is excellent
George: That is okay, Kafel. I do not have a telephone that calls international numbers.
George: That sounds very good, Kaefel! Thank you very much for your help in assistance with helping and assisting me with your order process at HostGator.com.
George: I will be honored and excited to be hosted by such a company as HostGator.com.
Kafel: Oh ok.. I thought you were calling from within the US
Kafel: Thanks for your kind word. Looking forward to assisting you in the future
George: Have a wonderful day, Kafel! Many wishes to you and your family!

They handled the somewhat different situation quite well and answered the question (which was not a standard process, apparently). It’s nice to see companies that don’t always go by the book and offer to help you, without you having to constantly request their help. I later spoke to Kafel as Douglas and told him who I was and that he did a very good job in handling the situation.

HostGator’s phone support was just as good, and when I asked the three standard questions (Do you support mod_rewrite, mod_security, and are your servers Windows or Linux (Linux)) they were answered promptly. I sent those three questions, along with “Do you support PHP5 and Ruby on Rails?” at 5:44 PM on a Monday, and got a response about 10 minutes later that said:

“We support PHP4.4 We support mod_rewrite Our servers on Linux this on our shared server but if you take dedicated server then we installed php5 and mod_security on your server.”

It wasn’t worded too well, but it did answer most of the questions (Ruby on Rails was completely ignored).

HostGator offers some other services such as web design, merchant services, domain registration, SSL certificates (which at $75 each, are overpriced), and script installation. They outline all of their upgrades quite clearly in the Addons section of the Support Center, which is always nice.

The actual HostGator control panel is cPanel. There is absolutely nothing that I can tell that is different than any other standard installation of cPanel. It has the standard mail and database features. Speed was good. Everything worked fine and installation of the scripts I tried worked just fine.

Pros: Good support, easy to contact, competitive pricing, plenty of features with cPanel, straight forward
Cons: Not too many free addons or extra features, no Web 2.0 technology support
Bottomline: HostGator is a solid hosting company that provides excellent support and competitive pricing without too many frills or marketing ploys.
Rating:

–Thanks to Douglas Hanna for this review!

24/7 U.S. Phone Support, No Overseas Outsourcing

I was excited to write a review about BlueHost, mainly because I’ve heard a lot of good things about them. With so many web hosts, and so few (good and honest) reviews, it’s really hard to tell who’s good and who isn’t.

From looking at the BlueHost.com web site, the company appears to be a serious and professional web host. A visually appealing web site, clearly posted contact information, lots of awards (from legitimate places), and grammatically correct text on site, all help make BlueHost seem like a formidable web host. A great feature (that seems to be awfully rare) is that BlueHost provides a demo of their control panel (a very slightly customized cPanel using the X skin) that actually works and isn’t impossible to find. It’s a great feature that allows you to review how cPanel works if you aren’t familiar with it.

BlueHost Features and Pricing

The features BlueHost provides seem pretty standard (nothing lacking) with all of the expected features of a web host such as cPanel, multiple database support, FTP, email, etc. BlueHost’s one (the only one I could find, at least) package features unlimited diskspace, and unlimited bandwidth. There’s a limited number of databases (50 each for MySQL and
Postgre) and more FTP and email accounts than you could ever use (1,000 and 2500, respectively). Unlimited numbers of addon domains, parked domains, and subdomains are given. Pricing varies depending how long you sign up for:

• 3 Months: $9.95/month + $30.00 Setup + Domain ($10.00 if purchased from BlueHost)
• 6 Months: $8.95/month + $30.00 Setup + Domain ($10.00 if purchased from BlueHost)
• 12 Months: $7.95/month (no setup fee, free domain included)
• 24 Months: $6.95/month (no setup fee, free domain included)

I have never been a big fan of a minimum of three months contract, and you do have to click around (to the second step in their order process, actually) just to find out the price. Ignoring the minimum contract length, pricing is quite competitive.

Terms of Service

BlueHost has a very unique Terms of Service – there’s no legal jargon at all. It’s just some bullet points on a page with the major points included in most Terms of Service agreements. The shady point is “All activities may be monitored, recorded, and examined by any authorized person, including law enforcement.” with a semi-shady “Any violation found or fraudulent activity that system personnel deem inappropriate may have your account immediately terminated without notice and any recorded evidence reported to authorized persons.” However, in fairness to BlueHost, the points are quite clear, and not hidden within a 10 page agreement.

cPanel Control Panel

Two clicks later, I was into my control panel. If you know about cPanel, you can probably skip this paragraph. It’s all very standard. You have the same SQL, subdomain, email, etc. features as every other cPanel. There’s a few nice addons such as a domain manager, a sitebuilder, and some options to manage your account (basically, it just logs you into their billing system, but still convenient). BlueHost has Fantastico, which from what I saw, was up-to-date with the latest stable versions of all of the scripts. The cPanel went very fast and did everything it was supposed to do.

Script Installation

Like a lot of cPanel hosts, BlueHost supports addon domains. I set up a few addon domains, and everything worked well, and without any problems. BlueHost doesn’t allow SSH/Shell Access by default, but says it will enable shell access for your account if you fax a copy of your driver’s license, passport, etc. to them. I installed some basic scripts (a blog, a CMS, a forum) without any problems. Speed was about average, and BlueHost seems to keep up in terms of software updates and the like.

BlueHost Support

I called their support department using their toll-free number. I was talking to someone within about 30 seconds after dialing. I asked some basic questions: Do you support mod_rewrite (Yes), do you support mod_security (didn’t know, but checked), and do you keep your Fantastico up-to-date with the latest versions (Yes)? Support was nice enough, and keep to know what they were talking about. The representative obviously wasn’t reading from a prompt (no delay with answers).

I decided to test the BlueHost support out with some more complicated issues that an average webmaster may run across. I was caller #2, and had to wait about a minute or two. I spoke to a different representative (meaning they have more than one tech on duty, always nice) and asked does BlueHost support PHP5 (they have two servers that do, and can move your account if needed), if they support Ruby on Rails (nope), and if I should use ‘localhost’ as my host name with the script I was trying to install (Yes). I reworded the questions slightly and sent them to BlueHost support via email at 4:50 PM on a Monday. By 5:17 PM, I had a helpful response.

All and all, BlueHost seems like a good web host. The company certainly has their act together and by all means can be labelled as a top quality web host with great features and support.

1&1.com is a giant web hosting company. They have almost 6 million customers and more than 2,400 employees, and in excess of 37,000 servers. You’ve probably seen their 10+ page ads in magazines or heard about them from friends or colleagues. They are definitely an industry leader and a well known company in the web hosting industry.

1&1 offers a few main service types: domain registration, mail hosting, Linux hosting, Windows hosting, virtual private servers, dedicated servers, eshops, and Microsoft Sharepoint hosting. This review will discuss the pros and cons of 1&1 as a Linux hosting provider.

The company’s offerings are quite inexpensive. 1&1 offers a lot of space and bandwidth for very little money. You have to pay six months in advance for many of the plans, but the six months of their least expensive plan still comes out to be less than $20. Be sure to read the order and refund terms carefully. 1&1 will try to lock you in for longer if you choose some of their special offers.

Each account includes plenty of email accounts, databases, a control panel, a 90 day money back guarantee, and 24/7 support.

I called their sales department and the office was closed due to weather. I gave up trying to reach technical support representative over the phone after waiting on hold for more than 10 minutes. Their hold queue didn’t tell me when I should have expected my call to be answered, so who knows how long it takes to get through to a human. Among bigger web hosting companies, support seems to be the worst aspect. 1&1 doesn’t seem to be an exception in that regard.

An email sent at 11:07 PM on Friday the 16th got an answer at 3:26 AM on Tuesday, March 20, 2007.

Bigger web hosts have their advantages, though. The main ones that apply to 1&1 are: they have a top notch data center and network and lots of partnerships with interesting companies. Furthermore, you don’t have to worry about the company disappearing or going under and there is always someone to turn to if there are serious problems.

1&1’s partnerships range from being an ICANN accredited domain registrar to having partnerships with companies like Google (for ads) and Plesk (for control panels). A lot of these partnerships have helped 1&1 develop its marketing center, which offers discounts and vouchers on major web sites and tools like Google Adwords or Microsoft Adcenter to 1&1 customers. These offers add a lot of value to the accounts and can make a difference for someone starting out on the web.

The company’s custom control panel isn’t bad. It offers all of the expected features and has some nice add-ons that aren’t typically found in control panels. Most of the features, including billing, can be easily managed via the control panel, which has one login.

The control panel features a whole bunch of tools ranging from blog systems (a custom WordPress install) to web site builders to statistics programs and everything in between. Most of the little applications are pretty user friendly and will easily serve the needs of a newbie or an average web site owner. Each one has its own customization options and can be customized to a certain extent.

In my tests, FTP access was pretty quick and problem free. 1&1 likes to assign every install and many folders an odd series of letters and numbers as identifiers. This annoyed me personally, but was easy enough to get used to and understand.

Getting used to the control panel is not difficult. After a few minutes of playing around with, I was able to get a good idea of how it worked and was up and running. If you aren’t sure how to do something, 1&1 offers a lot of in-depth help articles and tutorials. I was able to get answers to a majority of my simple questions by looking at these documents.

Would I use 1&1 personally? No. Would I recommend them to a new web site owner who was just looking to get started and didn’t want to spend too much money? Most likely. As they say, you get what you pay for – and with 1&1, there is definitely a lot of value for your $20 a year.

Bottomline: For people new to the world of web site creation and hosting, 1&1 is a solid choice if your web site is not mission critical
Pros: Powerful control panel with lots of features, inexpensive pricing, useful marketing tools
Cons: Lack of customer service, some sneaky terms in ordering process
Rating:

–Review and testing by Douglas Hanna for Clickfire