Stablehost Web Hosting Services Review

When it comes to starting or managing a website, hosting is one of the most important elements, but it can also be confusing or overwhelming to many. If you are starting a website, you will be told to choose a good hosting service, but it can be difficult to determine what that means when you have never worked with a website. There are some web hosting services that have good reputations, and many people choose them based solely on that factor. Today, we will compare Stablehost with three other popular web hosts to see what makes them great, and we’ll determine if any of them are right for your website.  

What Is Stablehost?

Stablehost is a web hosting service that has been around for almost ten years. They are privately-owned and provide excellent web hosting services along with great customer care. As a web hosting service, they provide the storage for all of your website data, and they make it accessible to people who are browsing the web. When someone types your web address into their web browser, Stablehost makes sure they can access it; they are the link between internet users and the web pages you have created.

Product Specs

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Stablehost provides clustered web hosting. This works by storing your website information on several servers instead of just one. If one server is experiencing a problem or running slowly, your website data will be transferred to a better server right away. This is a great benefit of the Stablehost service when compared to traditional hosting services that only provide access to a single server. The use of multiple servers means your website will never go down for more than 60 seconds, and it can be transferred to a larger server if you experience unusually high traffic. So a surge of visitors won’t be a problem.

If your website reaches the point where you have outgrown the shared server model, you can choose to use Stablehost’s VPS hosting service. This virtual private server makes your hosting environment personal and customizable. It allows you to use KVM virtual machines to install your own operating system, and you can also choose between three locations for your data center. Since this option is more complicated, Stablehost will also give you access to level 3 service technicians with a thorough knowledge of the Stablehost servers.

When you purchase a web hosting plan from Stablehost, you will choose from three plans with varying resources and prices. No matter which plan you choose, you will have unlimited bandwidth and disk space, and 24/7 support. The support team usually responds to questions via e-mail within 20 minutes. A chat support option is also available. You will be given the ability to create e-mail accounts for your website. Stablehost allows you to create an unlimited number of e-mail addresses, and each one has an unlimited number of forwards, auto-replies, and mailing lists.

Of the three plans offered by Stablehost, the most affordable plan is meant for hosting one domain and is a good choice if you are starting your first website. The second plan is for larger businesses and allows you to host an unlimited number of domains. The most expensive plan is for very large businesses with large websites and includes VIP support access and a higher limit on files and MySQL connections. This top-notch plan also includes a spam filter for your e-mail account and free website repair in the event of a successful website hack. This plan is clearly made for businesses who need the best and most comprehensive customer service and support and are able to pay for that level of service.

If you are looking to start an online store, you will need to purchase SSL certificates. These security certificates will protect sensitive customer information such as credit card numbers. These are available from most web hosting services, and Stablehost is no exception. Stablehost also offers access to cPanel, which is a popular control panel that makes web design, analytics, and statistics simple to access and manage. If you are new to web design, you can use the drag and drop designer to easily customize your website. For more advanced designers, Stablehost supports PHP 5.3.x, 5.4.x, 5.5.x, 5.6.x, and 7.0.x, MariaDB and MySQL, and Perl 5.8.8. In addition to the 24/7 support, Stablehost will give you access to FAQs and a knowledge base of helpful articles to answer any questions you may have or give you ideas for your website.

Pricing

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You can sign up for Stablehost on their website and prices for each plan are around $3.50/month, $7.50/month, and $28.50/month. Additional services like VPS hosting will be added to these base prices.

How It Compares

We picked a few similar products available on the market to see how they compare.

GoDaddy

Bluehost

FastComet

Stablehost

Stablehost logo

Price: $7.50

Ease of Use 

Whether you are new or have experience working with a hosting service, Stablehost makes it easy to get started and to maintain your site. Their drag and drop features are great for beginners, but they offer more customization for those who need it and have more technical skills.

Features

The clustered web hosting is a unique and valuable feature offered by Stablehost. They also offer unlimited e-mail addresses, and for more extensive plans, there are spam filters and website repair services in case of hacking. They don’t offer the same options seen at other hosting sites like managed WordPress hosting, but they offer very customizable plans.

Uptime

When tested, Stablehost’s uptime was as high as 100% but was 99.92% on average.

Customer Support

All customers of Stablehost have access to 24/7 support, and the response time is fast. If you upgrade to more extensive hosting plans, you can even get VIP customer service or access to people with more expertise.

Pros

  • Clustered web hosting
  • E-mail spam filters
  • Website repair if hacked

Cons

  • No managed WordPress hosting available

About GoDaddy

GoDaddy is a web hosting service that was founded on ease of use. It is a hosting service known for being great for beginning website owners or new small businesses, but they also offer the necessary resources to take care of larger businesses. GoDaddy has five different packages to meet your needs. The first is very basic and works well for small businesses or personal websites.

If you have a blog or online store, GoDaddy offers a managed WordPress plan. With this, GoDaddy will take care of the technical details like setup and updates. This doesn’t cost much more than the basic plan and will reduce your workload and the need for some technical knowledge. For more speed and features for your business website, you might upgrade to the business hosting which gives you access to cPanel and a free Office 365 e-mail.

GoDaddy also offers two more advanced hosting options, VPS and dedicated servers. The VPS option is meant for larger businesses who need more speed and storage than those using the business service. This option also offers more flexibility and features. Finally, the dedicated server is the best option if you want to have complete control and ownership over your server. GoDaddy will be able to set you up quickly with a dedicated server.

Customer support is available to you 24/7 through various methods, and GoDaddy offers a 30-day, money-back guarantee since they are sure you will be happy with their services. No matter which plan you choose, unlimited storage is available from GoDaddy, which is not commonly offered. One downside is that GoDaddy doesn’t offer cloud hosting like many of its competitors.

GoDaddy

domain category

Price:

You can sign up for GoDaddy for around $7.99/month, $8.99/month, $29.99/month, or $129.99/month depending which plan meets your needs. While most plans can be paid monthly, others will require the entire annual cost upfront.

Ease of Use  

GoDaddy is very easy to use, but some users have had a difficult time with subscription cancellation. The fact that GoDaddy offers everything in one place makes it a simple choice, especially for beginners.

Features

GoDaddy offers a well-rounded full line of services. If you choose GoDaddy, you won’t need to worry about coordinating with another site for your domain or web design. They have a good range of packages available, but they do not offer cloud hosting. The free domain and free Office 365 e-mail accounts that are available with some packages are a great benefit.

Uptime

GoDaddy achieved uptime as high as 100% but averaging at 99.97%, which is very good.

Customer Support

GoDaddy is known for having excellent customer support, and they are available 24/7 by almost every method of contact you can think of.

Pros

  • Nice offering of free bonuses with your plan
  • Good customer service
  • Managed WordPress hosting option

Cons

  • No e-mail with some plans
  • No month-to-month payment option on some plans
  • No cloud hosting

About Bluehost

Bluehost is a very popular option, especially for bloggers and other WordPress users. This is because they offer managed WordPress hosting. While other hosts are starting to offer similar features, Bluehost was one of the first to do this and has remained popular in the blogging community. You can get a free domain name with your Bluehost purchase depending on the option you choose, which is very nice and makes starting your website very convenient.

Bluehost offers 24/7 customer support and can migrate your existing website to Bluehost for a fee. Like some others, Bluehost offers a 30-day, money-back guarantee, so you can cancel with no penalty if you aren’t happy. They provide access to cPanel which is the most common and popular control panel. SEO is made easy through Bluehost, which is great for driving traffic to your website, and you can also get free SSD and SSL.

For larger businesses or other types of websites, Bluehost is not as popular. There is a feature called CPU Protection on the shared servers which could slow your website down. This only kicks in if your website is using too much of the server’s resources, and it is good for the other sites on the server who need access to those resources, but it can cause problems for you. There is also a smaller amount of storage available for more basic Bluehost plans. Bluehost offers three plans: shared, VPS, and dedicated, so finding the right option is easier. There is not as much variety and customization available in the plan options as you would see from some other hosting services.

Bluehost

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Price:

The Bluehost services are available for around $7.99/month, $29.99/month, and $119.99/month depending on the plan you choose.

Ease of Use  

Bluehost is built to work easily for beginners. As a new website owner, you shouldn’t have any trouble navigating Bluehost.

Features

Bluehost was one of the first to offer managed WordPress hosting, and this is one reason they remain so popular today. They are a great choice for simple SEO, and they offer free SSD and SSL as well as a free domain in some cases. Their services are great for blogs and smaller sites, but they don’t always live up to the competition when it comes to larger businesses and sites.

Uptime

Bluehost’s uptime was as high as 100% when tested but averaged 99.94%.

Customer Support

Bluehost offers live chat and e-mail as well as 24/7 phone support. They also offer answers to many common questions on their website and have a forum which can be useful when you want to figure things out quickly.

Pros

  • Managed WordPress hosting available
  • Easy SEO
  • Free domain, SSD, and SSL

Cons

  • Not as popular for larger businesses
  • Basic plans don’t offer as much storage as some competitors
  • Plan options are not as customizable

About FastComet

FastComet is a smaller and newer hosting service compared to the others we looked at. It is a private company with fewer employees, which means you will get a more personal level of service. Although they are small, they provide services that compare to the well-established companies, especially when it comes to uptime.

Their customer support is a high point. The employees are very knowledgeable, experienced, and have handled larger businesses in the past, but they are also fast, friendly, and available. The live chat is quick and personal. There are quite a few free bonuses provided by FastComet. You will get free daily backups, Cloudfare CDN, migrations, and domains. Cloudfare CDN is a valuable add-on that is not even offered by some web hosts, but with FastComet it is free. The free domains included with FastComet are not limited to a one-year time span; they are free for life. We haven’t seen that offered by anyone else. They also have a 45-day, money-back guarantee which is a bit longer than the 30-day guarantee you usually see from other companies.

While the features, service, and uptime are great, the speed is not the best. This is a pretty big deal, so it could be enough to prevent more people from using FastComet. However, the money-back guarantee means you can try it for yourself and cancel if the speeds do cause any problems for you. FastComet offers three basic plans: StartSmart, ScaleRight, and SpeedUp. The StartSmart is great for new and small websites. ScaleRight offers the ability to host multiple sites and provides more storage space. The highest plan, SpeedUp, provides even more storage and offers a boost in speed. They have also recently added VPS hosting.

  FastComet

FastComet black friday sale

Price:

The basic options from FastComet cost around $2.95/month, $5.95/month, and $9.95/month. VPS is available for between $60 and $140, and dedicated service costs between $140 and $420. While the basic services are very affordable, the advanced services are more expensive than competitors’.

Ease of Use 

FastComet is easy to get started with. According to some users, you can have a site ready in as little as 30 minutes. However, there are a lot of plan options, so it might be hard for you to determine which is right for you. Their site builder is nice, but they don’t offer as many functions to improve easy of use as some competitors. Their customer support team is always available to make things easier, though.

Features

FastComet offers many things that either aren’t offered by others or cost money, while FastComet offers them for free. For instance, the free domain for life, unlimited migrations, daily backups, and Cloudfare CDN are all wonderful features. They also offer most of the standard features available from other services. 

Uptime

FastComet has great uptime, averaging at 99.97%.

Customer Support

The customer support from FastComet is fast, personal, and top-notch. You will speak with experts rather than call center employees.

Pros

  • Personal and excellent customer support
  • Many free bonuses

Cons

  • VPS and dedicated server are expensive
  • Lower speeds
  • Can be more expensive for extensive plans

Conclusion

Your choice for web hosting service will ultimately depend on the type of site you have or plan to start and what services or features are valuable to you. Stablehost, with its clustered web hosting, will provide stability for any site, ensuring that your site is always available and fast for visitors. They don’t offer a managed WordPress hosting though, so it might not be the best option for a blogger or other WordPress user. If you are interested in the spam filter or are worried about being hacked, the protections offered by Stablehost could win you over. The price is also lower than other hosts with comparable features. Overall, we give Stable host 4 out of 5 stars and recommend giving it a try.


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