PowWeb Review – Web Hosting Service

Looking for simplicity? PowWeb can give you that. They only have one hosting plan and it’s a shared hosting plan. This type of web hosting service is perfect for those that are just starting out or that have limited knowledge of how to web hosting works. PowWeb gives their customers $200 in advertising credits for Bing and Google AdWords. This PowWeb review gives a thorough description of all the features that PowWeb offers.

We have also included some relevant recommendations if it turns out, after reading our PowWeb review, that this service isn’t for you.

PowWeb Overview

PowWeb is a pretty standard shared hosting company that offers a lot in the way of usability and versatility. As you will see in our PowWeb review, their servers are load balanced and they offer unmetered disk space and bandwidth. They have one click installation of WordPress and several other scripts that are popular among starting web designers. They are also set up for eCommerce websites.

Since 2012, PowWeb has had no outages. This makes their average uptime 100%. They also have an exceptional page load speed of 27ms. The reliability is amazing. It wasn’t always that way though. From 2005 to 2008, PowWeb had an average of around 99.905%. It is nice to see they have improved.

Pricing Information

Because they only have one plan, it makes pricing easier. New clients of PowWeb can expect to pay $3.80/month for the promotional period. After that, it returns to their regular price of $11.95/month. For this price, you get unlimited disk space, scalable bandwidth, and free advertising credits that total $200. You can also get a free Yellow Pages.com listing. Be aware, if you decide you only want to sign up for a one-year term the starting price will be $4.18/month.

Security & Risk

As one expects from a single plan, shared hosting company, the security is not the greatest. While PowWeb offers password-protected directories, error and referral logs, and raw log files there is not much in the way of true security on their end. They do however offer a shared SSL certificate.

Usability & User Friendliness

They also have a built-in OsCommerce shopping cart or a ShopSite Starter shopping cart ready for you to use on an eCommerce website. PayPal integration is also set up for you.

PowWeb also gives you access to DNS management, so you can change the A records, Cnames, and MX records if you want. You can also access your file manager from the control panel via your web browser or a third-party FTP client.

For those that want to build their own website without any coding, PowWeb has an easy-to-use editor. It has over 100 templates with multiple color schemes, flash movie capabilities, SEO features, and a SiteMap generator.

Customer Support & Additional Info

PowWeb has live chat assistance 24/7, and they have a toll-free number for technical support. On top of that, there are hundreds of support documents and tutorials in their database to help you with your own troubleshooting. To back it all up, they have a 30-day money back guarantee to allow you to try their services risk-free.

Unfortunately, their customer service reviews are scattered. There are many customers that are completely happy with PowWeb and the support their agents provide. There are just as many that complain that they can’t get good service when trying to talk to the support team. This leaves us to believe that they are inconsistent with the support they provide.

PowWeb Overall Rating

This PowWeb review has described a lot of their features in detail. Here’s what we find the most important to note.

What we like:

• Excellent Uptime – While they had a rough start, PowWeb is now one of the most reliable shared hosting companies online.
• Super-Fast Page Load Times – 27ms is excellent. The average page load speed in the web hosting industry is 700ms.

What we don’t like:

• Limited Security – The curse of cheap shared hosting is that most hosting companies do not provide the best security features. You do get what you pay for.
• No Extensive Scalability – While their bandwidth is scalable, there’s only so much they can allow on a shared server to keep it balanced.

Rating

Web Hosting Plans & Prices: 3/5
Security & Risk: 2/5
Usability: 4/5
Customer Support: 3/5

PowWeb Top Alternatives

If you’re still trying to decide, look at these top competitors.

• A Small Orange – A Small Orange is also a ‘one plan’ web hosting company. They are a little cheaper than PowWeb and use cPanel as their control panel. They have great customer service reviews and their uptime and speed are similar to PowWeb’s.
• Bluehost – Looking for more options? Bluehost has a variety of hosting plans on many levels. They offer reseller accounts, VPS, and dedicated servers to those looking for more than just shared hosting. Bluehost has starting prices that are comparable to PowWeb, but after the promotional period, they become more expensive.
• TMDHosting – TMDHosting is just as fast and reliable as PowWeb.They have more shared hosting options and can provide VPS and dedicated servers as well. They also have more security than PowWeb and Bluehost.

Our Verdict

This concludes our PowWeb review. They make things simple by having only one plan. However, there are many potential website owners that want more from their web hosting service. We recommend PowWeb for those that need a quick fix for a small website or blog since they have excellent uptime and speed along with an instant installation of WordPress.

Do you have questions about PowWeb? If so, please leave them in the comments below. We would love to hear from you!