IXWebHosting Review – Web Hosting Services

In the wide and hyper-competitive world of web hosting, IXWebHosting stands out as one of the most successful and longest running companies. Since the late 1990s, IX has distinguished themselves as a flexible, affordable, and reliable option for small website owners. Their low-cost VPS plans certainly aren’t for enterprise operations looking to serve massive audiences. However, IX’s service will more than cover the needs of almost any personal or small business website.

With a dedicated malware team, TrustE, and a low starting price for the SiteLock addon, this Linux-based host could be just what you’re looking for. Our IXWebHosting review will show you just what this web hosting company offers and some relevant recommendations so that an informed decision can be made about which web host you will use.

IXWebHosting Service Overview

IXWebHosting offers unlimited resources to all of their shared hosting plans. The main difference is the number of dedicated IP addresses and the number of free domain registrations they offer with each one. They also have plans for VPS servers and Cloud Servers. These two types of hosting allow you to select the control panel and operating system for you hosting account along with the resources that you don’t have to share with anyone else.
What about their reliability? Their uptime guarantee is 99.9%. They exceed this by having an excellent uptime average of 99.99%. Their page load speeds are nothing to laugh at either. They have an average page load speed of about 73ms. The industry average is 700ms, so IX Webhosting is super fast.

Pricing Information

IXWebhosting has incredible prices for their shared plans. They become even more affordable when you catch a sale or coupon code. Promotions have been known to go as low as $1.95/month for a 2-year plan. They only have a few plans for each type of hosting, making it easy for their new customers to choose what they need. Should you grow beyond that plan, you can upgrade, or purchase add-ons to expand just one feature.
Cloud hosting is not listed in the package list below becuase you must contact IXWebhosting for a customized quote. IXWebhosting does not post any resources on their website.

Psoft H-SpherePsoft H-SpherePsoft H-Sphere

Package Name Dedicated to Price Disk Space Bandwidth Websites Hosting Type
Expert Plan – Shared Small Sites $3.95-$7.95/mo Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited (1 free)
Business Plan – Shared Medium Sites $7.95-$14.95/mo Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited (2 free)
Unliited Plan – Shared Medium Sites $7.95-$14.95/mo Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited (3 free)
X4 Linux – VPS Growing Sites $54.95-$74.95/mo 50GB 1500GB Unlimited cPanel/Plesk
X8 Linux – VPS Large Sites $89.95-$97.95/mo 100GB 2000GB Unlimited cPanel/Plesk
X4 Windows – VPS Growing Sites $69.95-$89.95/mo 50GB 1500GB Unlimited Plesk/Custom
X8 Windows – VPS Large Sites $104.95-$112.95/mo 100GB 2000GB Unlimited Plesk/Custom

Security & Risk

It’s important that our ixwebhosting.com review touch on security, but the truth is that with any VPS, your site will be as secure as you make it. It’s the user’s job to follow best practices with regard to web safety and security.

That said, IX could save you some serious headaches if you take advantage of their one-click installs. These automated processes roll out a basic installation of a popular CMS (think WordPress or Magento) for you. That gives you the benefit of expert security configurations, which come baked into the one-click installs. IXWebhosting has also many security features for their shared hosting plans. These features include spam filtering, malware monitoring, eCommerce Hackershield, and 24/7 admin coverage. Their servers are also PCI-complaint and are secured and tested daily by McAfee software.

Usability & User Friendliness

IXWebhosting uses an administration control panel known as Psoft H-Sphere, which is a dumbed down version of cPanel. It is also much harder to use than cPanel, so IXWebhosting gets no points for usability in that regard. They do, however, offer support for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and many other web applications that are easy to use.

If you’re an experienced developer and plan get your hands dirty configuring your server, then you will appreciate the flexibility the company’s VPS boxes provide. Any standard server configuration can be done by SSH-ing into your box and using the command line.

But if “SSH” and “command line” are Greek to you, there will be some learning curve with IX (or any other VPS provider). Plan to spend some time getting familiar with Linux servers and their basic configurations.

Customer Support & Additional Info

There are more than 4 ways to get in contact with IXWebhosting when you need help. They have 24/7 customer support via phone, chat, email, and a ticket support system. They are also very active on social media, so you will get an answer to any questions asked on their Facebook or Twitter pages in a timely fashion.
In addition to easily accessible customer support, they have a high customer service rating. Most customers are very satisfied with their experience with IXWebhosting’s support team.

IX also offers paid “add-on” services. If you’re in e-commerce, they can set you up with an SSL Certificate. Similarly, online vendors who need a payment solution can take advantage of IX’s Merchant Account, a configurable payment gateway that accepts all major credit cards.

IXWebHosting Overall Rating

Have you found what you’re looking for in IXWebhosting? This IXWebhosting review brought to light these pros and cons for us.

What we like:

  • High Customer Service Rating – Excellent customer service is somewhat rare in the web hosting industry, but IX Webhosting pulls it off effortlessly.
  • 99.99% Average Uptime – This uptime percentage is outstanding. The industry average is 99.94%.
  • Very Fast Speeds – Speed is the last thing you’ll need to worry about with IX Webhosting’s servers.

What we don’t like:

  • Setup Fee – If you’re planning on paying monthly or quarterly, there is a $30 setup fee.
  • Unfriendly Control Panel – Psoft H-Sphere is a counterintuitive control panel that doesn’t impress us at all. If you want a better control panel, VPS and Cloud servers are the way to go.

Rating

Web Hosting Plans & Prices: 5/5
Security & Risk: 4/5
Usability: 3/5
Customer Support: 5/5

3 Top Alternatives

If reading our IXWebHosting review has raised any doubts in your mind, then you might want to consider one of these alternatives.

  • DigitalOcean: The established leader in VPS hosting. DigitalOcean provides everything IX does, but with a greater emphasis on enterprise users. They are better for users with resource intensive sites. Although Digital Ocean will be more expensive for users with low traffic, their high-capacity plans are a bargain compared to other enterprise hosting solutions.
  • Bluehost: On the other hand, Bluehost leads the way in shared hosting. Shared hosting has a its drawbacks, but for those needing to spin up lot of sites, the value can’t be beat. And Bluehost accounts come with cPanel pre-installed, which can be easier for those with no experience navigating the Linux shell.
  • Squarespace: If you just don’t want to deal with web hosting details, and would rather focus on building your website, a service like Squarespace offers super-fast hosting with zero server work required. Squarespace’s drag and drop interface also means you never have to code if you don’t want to.
  • TMDHosting – TMDHosting is one of the fastest web hosting services around. They offer SSD storage and 7 layers of cache.
  • JustHost – Another fast web hosting service with unlimited resources. They also have several different types of hosting and their prices are reasonable.

Our Verdict

If you like digging into the details of server configuration, or if any of IX’s one-click installs fits your needs perfectly, then the company could be a great choice for your web hosting. Those who need lots of server capacity, and those who have zero interest in ever using a command line, should probably look elsewhere.

We recommend IXWebhosting for those who have lots of patience. Their control panel is the worst thing about them. However, if you have patience, or if you have a webmaster to take care of the backend stuff for you, then the control panel might not be a problem.

Have you used or considered using IXWebHosting? Then let us know your thoughts on our IX Web Hosting review below!


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