Web Design Desk |
Cheap Web Hosting - When Cheaper is Better |
Cheap Web Hosting - When Cheaper is Better by Bob Frazer We compared standard features on 5 well known shared hosting accounts to see exactly what you get for your money – and the results may surprise you. What we really care about in our test is probably what you would care about as a small business owner looking for hosting for a basic site: adequate disk space, ample email accounts, and reasonable bandwidth. We looked over all the other bells and whistles – but weren’t really willing to pay loads extra for them. We were also looking for a short term contract (monthly or quarterly) – not a year or two commitment. Upscale Verio’s Bronze Plan - http://hosting.verio.com/index.php/unixwin_bronze.html Monthly Price (including set up fees) - $24.95 per month + free setup Basic Specs – 250 MB of diskspace, 7.5 GB of bandwidth, and 20 email accounts Extra’s – Web design software, free domain pointing, Urchin web stats, free chat software Our take – If this were 1998 I might consider paying $24.95 for a package like this…oh wait, it’s 2004. Mid Tier Interland’s b100 Account - http://www.interland.com/shared/bluehalo/?package=b100 Monthly Price (including set up fees) - $12.95 per month + free setup Basic Specs – 250 MB of diskspace, 10 GB of bandwidth, and 30 email accounts Extra’s – WebTrends web stats, access to log files, firewall protection Our take – This is one of the biggest brands in hosting and their prices have been reduced of late. Still pretty expensive compared to aggressive lower priced competitors. SuperbHosting’s U Power Service - http://www.superbhosting.net/upower.php Monthly Price (including set up fees) - $12.50 per month + free setup Basic Specs – 1000 MB of diskspace, 50 GB of bandwidth, and 250 email accounts Extra’s – Free domain, 30-day money back guarantee, daily data backups, free search engine submission, no content restrictions Our take – Another well known hosting service that seems to offer considerably more value in the mid-tier than other companies. Cheap Hosting IPowerWeb - http://www.ipowerweb.com/products/webhosting/index.html Monthly Price (including set up fees) - $9.95 per month + $30 setup Basic Specs – 800 MB of diskspace, 40 GB of bandwidth, and 400 email accounts Extra’s – $50 Google AdWords credit, money back guarantee, SSL included, unlimited email forwarding Our take – Often thought of as the low priced hosting leader. Their plans really shine when signing up for an annual account where the price drops to $7.95 per month. HostSave Standard Hosting - http://www.hostsave.com/hosting/plan_features.htm Monthly Price (including set up fees) - $8.95 per month + free setup Basic Specs – 1000 MB of diskspace, 100 GB of bandwidth, and 500 email accounts Extra’s – Free MySQL database, catch-all email address, PERL v5, log file access Our take – This looks like the best deal for our basic needs. They have a big brand name and all the features we need plus the MySQL database thrown in. Conclusions You can pay a lot for basic shared web hosting – you can also get it on the cheap. While certain specialty features might justify paying a premium, our analysis suggests that you can probably get the same specs – maybe even better specs – without paying more money. So for our hard earned bucks, cheaper is definitely better!
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