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Hosting.co.uk Review: 7 Pros & 4 Cons After Using It!

It’s always nice to explore hosting companies that are more country-specific, and Hosting.co.uk is a great example of one.

Hosting.co.uk was founded in 2012, making it younger than some of the really big names in hosting.

But, since its founding, it’s become one of the largest hosts in the United Kingdom.

So now it’s time to wonder: did Hosting.co.uk earn its popularity? Maybe there weren’t any better competitors? Or it’s just luck?

And is it even worth considering if you don’t live in the UK?

I’ll answer all those questions, and more, right now.

Let’s start with what the good parts about Hosting.co.uk are:

Hosting.co.uk: Pros

Pro #1: Good performance

Performance is essential to evaluating hosts.

Luckily, Hosting.co.uk has no real problems with performance—quite the contrary!

Hosting.co.uk guarantees 99.9% uptime for its web hosting plans. That sounds good, but actually translates to more downtime than you’d think.

The good news, though, is that this is just the bare minimum that Hosting.co.uk guarantees.

In reality, uptime is much better than 99.9%, with downtime being a very rare occurrence.

Additionally, some of the higher tiers have 99.99% uptime guarantees, which is much better.

And as an added bonus, response times are pretty good, too!

Plus, British customers will be happy to hear that Hosting.co.uk uses a data center in the United Kingdom to power its plans:

hosting.co.uk-datacenter

Having your host’s data center so close by will keep your site fast.

Pro #2: Nice array of hosting products

In this review, I’m mostly focusing on the mainstream hosting products that Hosting.co.uk offers, and of them, I’m mostly focusing on the web hosting plans (that’s what most of you are interested in).

But, it never hurts to have options.

So while Hosting.co.uk has the mainstream forms of hosting that most hosts offer:

hosting.co.uk-types of hosting1

It also has these:

hosting.co.uk-types of hosting2

These aren’t types of hosting in the deeper, structural sense that the first list is defined by. These are variations of managed solutions for certain software and content management systems (CMS).

Many hosting companies will offer managed WordPress hosting (or otherwise WordPress-friendly un-managed hosting), but that’s often the extent of it.

Some hosts will list CMS software like above, and advertise as if they offer individualized hosting tailor-made for each software.

But these lists are typically exaggerated: they usually just list software that CAN be installed on a hosting plan. But these CMS’s can be installed on almost any host, so it’s not really a unique feature.

But here’s how Hosting.co.uk stands out:

Each of these comes with their own set of plans. Meaning, they’re actually unique products, with their own prices and support for the specified software.

Fundamentally, the features for this second list of solution-based hosting are similar, though there are some differences. The key thing here is having support for a certain kind of software.

But that’s great news for people who are looking into making more unique kinds of sites (like forums or social networks, for example), but who lack expertise and resources.

Pro #3: Low prices.

Let’s look at the starting prices for the four main hosting products offered:

hosting.co.uk-prices-general

These are low starting prices across the board.

For example, web hosting typically starts at closer to $4 a month, and VPS hosting often starts at closer to $20 a month.

Even when you take into account the exchange rate from British to American currency, these products still start cheaper than the norm.

But, it’s even better than the starting prices. Let me show you what I mean—using the web hosting plans as an example:

hosting.co.uk-prices-web hosting

Most hosting companies advertise a low starting price, but there are important caveats to it:

First, the price per month usually only applies to up-front purchases of 2 or more years of commitment. When paying for even just a year, the price rises.

Secondly, the price typically renews at significantly higher cost after the first term of use expires.

But hosting.co.uk doesn’t do either of these things for its web hosting prices:

Instead, the low prices stay the same after the first term expires.

hosting.co.uk-price-lock

And, the low prices are still low even if you pay for just a year, instead of more. In fact, the prices above are for MONTHLY payments—which are more expensive in the long run, but not that much more so.

Note, however, that only the shared web hosting has the option of monthly payments.

Reseller, VPS, and dedicated hosting do not—but they DO have the price lock guarantee.

So Hosting.co.uk doesn’t just have lower starting prices—it has lower prices OVERALL, is more straightforward about pricing, and is more flexible in how it allows customers to pay.

Pro #4: Overall, good features

I’m mostly talking about the web hosting plans here, but it’s true for all plans.

Basically, Hosting.co.uk isn’t loaded with features, but has the offerings that we’ve come to expect out of decent plans.

And with the price taken into account, the feature sets are even better.

But let’s look at the shared web hosting plans first:

hosting.co.uk-features-web hosting

Overall, these are pretty solid features.

10GB of storage space may not sound like a lot, but it’s actually pretty good for the price and for an entry-level plan. Most people on these beginner plans won’t need all that space.

One unique point is that you can actually run 2 sites on the first plan. This is super rare—almost every other hosting company limits you to 1 site on their entry-level plan.

Otherwise, most of these things are standard, but solid. Frankly, once you have hosting and 1-click installs and cPanel in there, it’s not too hard to set up a site as you want.

Also, there are some nice security features:

hosting.co.uk-features-web hosting2

Plus, daily backups are included for FREE on all tiers and an anti-spam tool is included for all tiers as well.

And lastly, the web hosting plans are actually cloud-based, making them a step above the typical web hosting plans of competing services.

So the web hosting plans are definitely well-featured for the prices. And the other plans are, too.

Pro #5: Eco-friendly hosting

Some of you may know that hosting is not an environmentally-friendly business. Data centers use tons of energy and contribute to carbon emissions.

But for the most part, this is just considered an unfortunate fact of life. A handful of hosts here and there try to be better for the environment (GreenGeeks comes to mind), but they’re rare.

And apparently, Hosting.co.uk is one of those few hosts!

These are a couple of the concrete measures they take:

hosting.co.uk-eco friendly

It may not be the most important thing to all of you reading this. But many people would appreciate the opportunity to ease their conscience.

And if you’re already pretty interested in the types of products Hosting.co.uk offers, why not choose the host that’s good for the environment?

Pro #6: Good customer support

Customer support is a strong point of Hosting.co.uk, one that the company emphasizes a lot.

And it shouldn’t come as a surprise: if you remember my discussion of the different hosting products offered, support is a key part of that.

So yes, customer support representatives are very good—they’re helpful, responsive, and easy to contact:

hosting.co.uk-support-ticket

But what about the informational support material?

It’s not as good, but still solid:

hosting.co.uk-support-knowledge base

It mostly consists of the knowledge base. My main qualm is that I think there could be more articles:

If you take a quick look at the article counts for each topic category, it’s not that many articles for the array of services that Hosting.co.uk offers.

The articles themselves are usually solid, but sometimes they can be pretty short.

Still, the knowledge base is overall a good resource anyway. So all in all, Hosting.co.uk has pretty solid customer support!

Pro #7: Hosting.co.uk has Secure data centers

Hosting.co.uk may be limited in its number of data centers, but it secures those data centers well. The data centers themselves are state of the art.

But on top of that:

hosting.co.uk-security

Not to mention, advanced network monitoring is used 24/7.

I won’t lie to you: this is what you should expect of hosting companies, and it’s not that exceptional. BUT, it’s a relief to see nonetheless.

Hosting.co.uk: Cons

Con #1: Confusing info on site

I promise this is related to the main point—but let’s look at the cloud hosting plans for a sec:

confusing info

Looks pretty good, right?

Those prices are super low—in fact, they’re about the same as the web hosting prices, but for a higher quality form of hosting!

Except…they’re not “about” the same as the web hosting prices. They’re the same prices, and they have the same features.

And if you look at the FAQ section of the cloud hosting page…

FAQ

But, SOME parts of the cloud hosting page are different from the web hosting page.

So was there formerly a cloud package that Hosting.co.uk dropped, and they forgot to update the site?

OR is there a cloud hosting package that has content jumbled in from the shared page, and they forgot to update it?

Well, my friends, the answer is that the web hosting IS cloud hosting (which makes the web hosting even more impressive).

But you would have no idea of that from the site–I only know it because I talked with the company to figure it out.

If such a major point can be unclear on the website, then it’s very possible some minor details you’re interested in could be outdated as well. Or, there could be attractive features not listed.

Con #2: Some limits on premium hosting

This won’t be an issue for most people reading this. Hosting.co.uk’s VPS and dedicated plans are still pretty high-powered:

hosting.co.uk vpshosting.co.uk dedicated

However, if you’re looking for a plan that can support a very resource-intensive site or project, Hosting.co.uk still may not go far enough with these plans.

With the VPS plans (the first image), the highest tier is 4GB of RAM. But companies offering high-powered VPS or cloud plans may go up to 64GB of RAM, or even more.

It’s a similar story with CPU cores—the limit here is 2 cores for the VPS plans, but other companies can go into the dozens. Repeat with storage, too.

With the dedicated plans (the second image), the storage totals are impressive. BUT, the latter two plans, despite supporting a lot of storage, its HDD storage.

This is an older storage method that doesn’t perform as well as SSD storage, which the first two plans offer.

And other hosts that go big on dedicated plans will also offer more RAM or CPU cores on their higher tiers.

And lastly, hosts that put more priority in heavy-handed hosting plans like VPS or dedicated will often have more flexible, customizable billing and feature-setup.

Don’t get me wrong: most resource-intensive sites will still be well supported by Hosting.co.uk’s existing plans. And many hosts offer a range similar to Hosting.co.uk.

But people who need to max out on resources will need to look at other hosts that specialize more in premium forms of hosting.

Con #3: May not be ideal for non-UK or non-European customers

I write this as an American, and I recognize that this complaint can be levied against American hosting companies as well.

Nonetheless, it’s a point of note. Obviously, Hosting.co.uk is great if you live in the UK, or nearby.

That’s because its data centers are located right in the UK:

datacenter

But if you’re working in a different continent, you may want a host with data centers closer to you for better performance.

Though, that being said, Hosting.co.uk still performs well even if you live outside the UK!

Do we recommend Hosting.co.uk?

Now comes Hosting.co.uk’s moment of truth:

Yes, we do recommend it!

But first, the exceptions: if you’re not in Europe, and want closer data centers, that’s one restriction.

Second, some may prefer companies with more high-end solutions, or value plans that load up on features for the lowest price point.

But outside of that, Hosting.co.uk is a great option. It performs well, offers a variety of hosting products, has good support, decent features, and is great when it comes to pricing.

But if you’re not sure…just try it!

money back

Happy hosting!

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