Site5 is a web host that aims to serve designers and developers. Despite this, their web hosting plans could work for other small to medium business owners as well. Site5 offers free migrations, money back guarantees, 24/7 support, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. In our Site5 review, we assessed the web host based on plans and prices, security and risk, usability, and customer support. Below you will find the most important information about this web host in order to make a faster decision on which web host to sign up with.
Site5 Service Overview
Site5 provides unmetered disk space, unmetered bandwidth, disaster recovery backups, free migrations, and 24/7 support with all of their shared web hosting plans. Very few web hosts offer unmetered disk space and bandwidth with all of their hosting plans, so our Site5 review ranks them well in terms of plans.
The three types of website hosting Site5 offers are shared hosting, reseller hosting, fully managed VPS hosting. They promise your money back within 45 days of purchase if you’re unhappy with their shared or reseller hosting services. For fully managed VPS hosting, you only have 15 days to get a refund if you are unsatisfied with their service.
Pricing Information
Site5’s shared hosting plans range from $8.95-$19.95, which is slightly more expensive than other shared hosting plans. Some companies offer cheaper prices, but usually not with unmetered disk space and bandwidth. What we don’t like about their shared hosting plans is you have to sign up for a yearly billing cycle for the hostBasic version. In order to be on a monthly payment plan, you have to choose between hostPro and hostPro + Turbo. Reseller hosting is available on monthly billing cycles and ranges from $25.95-$54.95 per month.
| Package Name | Dedicated To | Price | Disk Space | Bandwidth | Websites | Hosting Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web Hosting | Personal bloggers and small businesses |
|
Unmetered | Unmetered |
|
N/a |
| Reseller Hosting | Businesses that want to sell web hosting | $25.95-$54.95/mo depending on plan | 50-120 GB depending on plan | 500-1,000 GB depending on plan | N/a | cPanel/WHM |
| Fully Managed VPS Hosting | Medium to large businesses | $72-$369/mo depending on plan | 50-250 GB depending on plan | 1-5 TB depending on plan | N/a | cPanel/WHM |
Site5’s fully managed VPS hosting plans cost $72-$359 per month. Overall, our Site5 review gives a low rating in the pricing category because you have no choice but to pay the extra $10 per month for cPanel on fully managed VPS hosting. They present the price as $10 less but the cPanel option isn’t uncheckable. It would be simpler for them to include it in the price.
Security & Risk
Although Site5 has good security features for their hosting plans, our Site5 review doesn’t give them a full score in this category. Some customers have experienced problems with the servers being hacked. Site5 also only keeps backups for seven days. We think backups should be stored longer than that. Some of the positives of Site5’s security include SSL certificates and malware protection available for purchase. Their malware protection is $49.99 per website per year.
Usability & User Friendliness
Site5 is fairly user-friendly, although it’s geared at a more advanced user base. A convenient feature they offer is free website migrations, so you can easily transfer a website to Site5 without extra costs. The web host also has a backstage account manager that gives you access to all of your account information from one location. This user-friendly feature prevents the hassle of switching from one website to another to review and edit your account information.
Customer Support & Additional Info
Site5 has a knowledge base where you can search for the answers to your questions before contacting customer support. You can get in touch with customer support via live chat and email. Site5 also has community forums where you can consult other users or Site5’s team for solutions to website-related problems. The web host makes announcements about site outages and maintenance on the forum to keep users up-to-date.
Site5 reviews from customers are a mixture of positive and negative when it comes to the web host’s customer support. Some have said Site5’s customer support deteriorated after the company was sold.
Site5 Service Overall Rating
What we like:
- Unmetered disk space and bandwidth on all of their shared web hosting plans
- Disaster recovery backups
- Live chat customer support option
- SSL certificates included
- Malware protection available for purchase
What we don’t like:
- They only store backups for seven days
- Customer support has reportedly gone bad after the company was sold
- Shared web hosting plans are a bit more expensive in comparison to other web hosts
Rating
Web Hosting Plans & Prices: 3/5
Security & Risk: 3/5
Usability: 4/5
Customer Support: 2/5
Site5 Top Alternatives
MDDHosting, InMotion Hosting, and GoDaddy are some of the top alternatives to Site5. Shared web hosting at MDDHosting costs $3.50-$9.50 per month, which is cheaper than Site5’s shared hosting plans. You receive unlimited disk space on the professional plan at $9.50 per month, but only 1 GB of storage space on the basic plan at $3.50 per month. Similar to Site5, they offer 24/7 support and a money back guarantee. Their money back guarantee is a bit shorter, however, at 30 days.
InMotion Hosting offers shared web hosting, reseller hosting, and VPS hosting like Site5. But it has additional hosting options, such as WordPress hosting and dedicated servers. InMotion Hosting has customer support available 24/7 too. They have received positive reviews on the quality of their customer support.
GoDaddy has fast page load times, one-click installs, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Their web hosting plans are slightly cheaper, ranging from $7.99-$16.99. Both Linux and Windows users can purchase GoDaddy web hosting. To help keep your website secure, they provide DDoS protection and 24/7 security monitoring.
Our Verdict
We don’t recommend Site5 as a web host because they’ve received too many negative reviews for their customer support over the past year. Without customer support as a consideration, Site5 is a decent web host. You may try it if you’re still interested in the features and plans they offer. There’s no harm in giving them a chance since they offer a 45-day money back guarantee on shared and reseller web hosting and a 15-day money back guarantee on fully managed VPS hosting. Have you used Site5 before? Leave your own Site5 review in the comments below.
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