HostMetro
Hosting Plans
2
Starting at / per month
2.95
Reviews
0
Hosting Plans
2
Starting at / per month
2.95
Reviews
0
When it comes to choosing a crucial service provider like a web
host, large businesses and corporations need to work with hosting companies
that have it all - a fully-customizable cpanel, cutting-edge drive technology,
power redundancy, and state of the art website security system. However, for
the majority of personal bloggers, newbies, and small businesses with smaller
needs, they just need a reliable hosting with near-excellent uptime, simple
interface, affordable packages, and necessary tools to help them launch,
manage, and grow their blogs.
HostMetro hosting is all that a personal blogger or small businesses
need. If you are looking for a hosting service with simplified packaging, reliable
customer service, and offering great value for your money, then this is worth
consideration.
Founded in 2003, HostMetro is a popular web hosting company that
majorly focuses on meeting the hosting needs of a specific line of people
looking for hosting services. The company has packages that target new or
experienced bloggers who only needs simplified hosting for a small business or
personal blog at an affordable price point.
Their data center is situated in Elk Grove Village, Illinois; just
15 minutes’ drive from north of Chicago. As per the HostMetro description,
their data center offers network connectivity, redundancy in power, security,
and fire suppression. What’s more, their network infrastructure features
multiple 10GB/S connections to give users some of the fastest and most reliable
server speeds online.
HostMetro also states that their servers are run by Dual Quad-Core
Intel processor that has 96GB of RAM. Also, RAID-protected storage and MySQL
database servers have SSD drives for increased loading speeds and reliability.
To keep each hosting account isolated, HostMetro servers use
CloudLinux so that if one server gets a resource spike, the effect will not be
spilled on other websites or accounts. Traditional hosting services do not have
control over individual accounts in case one server gets a resource spike. With
a CloudLinux-based system, servers are more secure and stable and provide
needed resources to each website in a reliable and swift manner.
In terms of hosting plans, HostMetro offers two hosting packages, with
both built on the prototype of shared-server. There is no dedicated or VPS
hosting available. As mentioned earlier, HostMetro services and packages are
aimed at new bloggers who do not have extensive needs. Small businesses with
relatively low traffic will find this hosting service reliable and great as
well.
HostMetro, a Linux-based web host, focuses its efforts on providing
affordable, shared-hosting packages. However, as compared to other web hosts,
HostMetro only offers two shared hosting plans- Mega Max and Super Max. This
makes everything simple. Besides, these two plans are offered at an affordable
price, and it gets better if you purchase either of them for a longer period;
the more the length of your contract, the lesser the subscription fee.
Both the Mega Max plan and Super Max plan are shared hosting
packages that come with state-of-art cloud technology, a number of ‘unlimited’
and ‘maximum’ features including unlimited domain hosting, great eCommerce
elements, free shared SSL certificate, and a whole lot of great perks. Both
packages also include unlimited FTP and email accounts, free website builder,
and MySQL databases. There is also an option to install a website app, which
you get to choose from the many web apps available. This comes with a script
installation tool.
For Mega Max plan, the effective prices are $2.45 per month while
you get to pay $4.95 per month for the Super Max hosting package. See how
affordable this hosting service is? Note that, each plan offers one free
domain. To secure payment and make it more convenient, this company allows users
to purchase their hosting services via PayPal and credit card.
With both plans, you get maximum levels of bandwidth and disc space.
‘Maximum’ in this case means there is a capping for data usage. However, for
most users, the quotas will be satisfactory, according to HostMetro website.
If your site has a lot of content or you are receiving a lot of
traffic that ends up using more data than what you have been allocated, you can
request for more space. However, your increased storage will be revoked if
HostMetro finds out that 15% of your 2GB disk space is taken by your
multimedia, email storage, or backup. Therefore, don’t use your account as your
storage space or a way of sharing files.
Below, we breakdown what each hosting package include, beyond
storage and disk space:
For Mega Max Plan, you get unlimited FTP accounts, access to a free
online website builder, unlimited MySQL databases, and an option to transfer
your website content to HostMetro site if it is not larger than 3GB. There are
also common hosting features such as;
-
Unlimited email accounts to
help you create a domain-specific email address
-
eCommerce integration for an
extra amount
-
PayPal, OsCommerce, ZenCart,
and Google Checkout integration to make payment processing easier
-
WordPress integration to make
building your site easier
-
Inbuilt website analytics to
help you monitor your traffic and site performance
-
Support for audio streaming
-
Advanced firewall protection to
safeguard your website and its content
-
Support for streaming video
once you request for extra storage
-
For Super Max Plan, you get all
the above features in addition to the following;
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Free domain privacy for the
first domain that you register with HostMetro
-
Free search engine submissions,
SEO consultation, marketing, and SEO tools
-
Free SiteLock and SSL
certificate for eCommerce sites
-
Daily malware scans to keep
your website secure all the time
| Plan Name | Disk Space | Bandwidth | Currency | Admin panel | OS | Websites | Scripting | Email-Transport | Database | SSH | Databackups | Free Domain | 1-Click Installer | Websites Builder | Location | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Super Max Plan | - | - | USD | cPanel |  |
Unlimited | PHP | IMAP, POP3 | MySQL |  |
|
 |
|
|
 |
$ 6.95 |
| Mega Max Plan | - | - | USD | cPanel | |
Unlimited | PHP | IMAP, POP3 | MySQL | |
|
|
|
|
|
$ 2.95 |
When it comes to uptime, there is a minimum threshold, and that's
excellence. The rule of thumb is; anything less than 99.99% uptime guarantee is
a no-go zone. However, this applies only to pricey hosting. For a
budget-friendly shared host like HostMetro, anything close to that is
acceptable. According to HostMetro, they have a 99.99% uptime guarantee;
however, a few run tests will reveal 99.95%. What’s more, the host offers a
site’s response rate range of 1,000ms to 2400ms. This is not so bad for a
shared host like HostMetro.
As per their terms of service, HostMetro offers credit to your
account plus one month of free hosting if their uptime falls below their
promised 99.99% minimum level. This, however, is exclusive of the times when
uptime is affected by things the company has little control of such as backbone
provider failures, denial of service attacks, issues with DNS, connection
issues between the client and their servers, as well as any unscheduled
downtime. If you experience any downtime caused by any other problem other than
the ones listed, simply send them a request for additional hosting service by
emailing them on support@hostmetro.com.
Of course, you must provide a justification.
Additionally, there are free weekly backups provided that ensures
you get back online in case your website develops major problems. Since
HostMetro is a relatively new hosting service, there seems to be scarce
information online regarding what customers are saying about this hosting
reliability and speed. This should not raise any alarm, but it's always nice to
see what actual customers are saying about its speeds and reliability.
HostMetro takes security very seriously. They conduct weekly backup
of user’s resources. Although some host provides daily backups, weekly rate is
still good and will help you get back to your feet in case your website runs
into major problems. The only downside to their backups is that current backup
overwrites older backups. Therefore, only backup your files once a week and
remember not to backup files exceeding 1GB.
On the positive note, HostMetro data center has backup generators with
N+2 system. To enhance uptime more, the company has 24/7 video surveillance at
their data center in Elk Grove as well as screening equipment, biometric
authentication points, badge, and tracking system. The company conducts daily
malware and spam scans.
In addition, HostMetro employs CloudLinux to keep individual hosting
accounts isolated. This helps prevent traffic influx or resource spike from one
account on the shared hosting doesn’t affect other websites or accounts. This
gives it an upper hand over most hosting companies employing traditional shared
hosting packages.
With Cloud Linux, you can be assured of a more secure and stable
server, with guaranteed 99.99% uptime to each website.
It appears that this web hosting company prioritizes on security for
their user’s accounts and resources. They have their data center located in a
secure place in Elk Grove. Their network has redundant network notes with
speeds of 10 GB/s to ensure no downtime of websites hosted on their SaaS
servers. There is complete redundancy in network connectivity, security, power,
fire suppression, and HVAC. This makes their data center one of the most secure
and efficient in web hosting industry.
These security measures are for both users on Max Plan and Super Max
Plan. However, if you are on Super Max Plan, then you have an option of having
free domain privacy. This hides your crucial information from WhoIs search. For
users looking for free domain privacy for their extra domains or for domains
that are not on the Super Max Plan, you can pay $6 every year.
The Super Max Plan also allows for SiteLock security and SSL
certificates. For users on the Mega Max Plan, they will have to pay $2.50 every
month for every SiteLock or SSL seal needed.
HostMetro runs on CloudLinux, which can support MySQL, PHP, Python,
Ruby, and Perl. In addition, it supports LAMP web development and also has the
foundation needed for CloudFlare CDN configuration. One of their major
drawbacks is that they have older hardware configuration.
Currently, their servers run on the Intel Xeon L55020 @ 2.27GHz.
Although this is commendable, when compared to most hosting services, HostMetro
has a lower quad-core server. However, they make up for that by having large
RAM installs and efficient SSD drives. This means their older hardware is
highly optimized to provide top performance and is part of the reason their server
costs are affordable.
However, despite their older software configuration, very few users
will be able to notice the difference between performances of a website hosted
on HostMetro and one hosted on another hosting using modern software configuration.
It ensures your website perform just as good as to how it would have performed
were it hosted by larger hosting companies.
Like most web hosting companies, HostMetro gives its users access to
a standard cPanel. It features an interface that's similar to those offered by
most other hosts and includes developer tools such as email setup, file
manager, subdomain setup, FTP access, and access to phpMyAdmin. Users in Super
Max Plan will also find icons for extra SEO tools. In addition to basic cPanel
access, you will also get FTP access. This might not be necessary if you are
getting started online, but later you can require it for files transfer.
You will also find multiple built-in tools that you will find
helpful when creating a website. There is also a website builder loaded with
dozens of design templates that are easy to customize. All you need to do is go
to your cPanel and click on website builder, select your desired template, and
start customizing.
With HostMetro’s cPanel, you can handle virtually all the aspects of
your website including email addresses, technical details, domains, FTP
accounts, applications, and many more. You also have several options for
managing your content including:
-
Managing and uploading web
pages stored in the File Manager
-
Dragging and dropping files
into your dashboard
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Create more FTP accounts for
your employees/clients
-
Besides these features,
HostMetro cPanel also comes loaded with many other cool options such as;
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Installing popular web
application such as osCommerce, phpBB forums, WordPress, etc.
-
Data backup through Backup
Wizard
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Quick view server PHP
configuration, customize error pages, install Ruby Gems, etc.
-
Virus protection and frequent
file scanning. With this cPanel, you can keep your files safe using passwords
to prevent unauthorized individuals from using your resources. You can also ban
users from accessing certain areas of your site.
-
Create email accounts for your
website
-
Spam deterrents such as
SpamAssassin and BoxTrapper
-
Easy access to your emails
-
Mail filtering
Many SEO experts prefer cPanel over other types of control panels
because of its user-friendly interface and access to crucial information about
web traffic. With it, you can generate web stats using three stats generators.
It also makes it easier for one to get crucial information regarding error logs
your site visitors’ encounter on certain pages, tracking, bandwidth, and raw
FTP access logs.
HostMetro cPanel also comes with a Getting Started Wizard to make
setting up your account easier. You will also be given access to a ton of
onscreen documentation and step-by-step video tutorials on how to get started.
Like most of its competitors in this shared hosting market,
HostMetro tries its best when it comes to addressing the needs of its
customers. They have published documentation in their knowledgebase section
where they address commonly encountered problems. In this section, you will
find detailed written guides as well as tutorials for specific categories such
as SEO, email, eCommerce, billing, cPanel help, domain management, and more. Regardless
of whether you are new to blogging or a seasoned blogger, you will find these
documentations helpful. There’s also an articles and FAQs page where you can
learn about this hosting and website setup.
However, despite the knowledgebase section having a lot of
resourceful guides, we noted that the company has not updated most of its
publications for a few years now. Nonetheless, HostMetro remains active on its
Twitter feed and Facebook page. They have not added many videos on their
YouTube channel though.
If you fail to get help from the published guides, you can start an
online chat with their support via email or telephone. HostMetro states that
their support team is available 24/7.
All of your technical issues are processed through online chat,
telephone or email. To make a support request, start by creating a new ticket, after
which it’s forwarded to the respective department.
Alternatively, if you wish to solve your issues in real time, you
can always give the customer reps a call or initiate a request via online chat.
The support team is well versed with hosting and website creation issue and
will be quick to help.
Below are ways you can use to reach HostMetro customer service;
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Online chat via their website-
HostMetro.com
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U.S.A Toll-Free number- 1-(800)
485-9730
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Email addresses- Billing@HostMetro.com, Sales@HostMetro.com
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Resources- HostMetro
Knowledgebase
Having been around for over a decade, HostMetro understands the
importance of addressing technical issues and queries from their users in a
timely and helpful manner. That’s why they have managed to survive in this
ever-competitive, ever-changing web hosting market. The company has an
experienced team of great professionals who provide a high level of customer
care service to their users.
One of the outstanding features that HostMetro offers is its price
lock guarantee. Many host companies lure users with great deals during the
first year of subscription, then raise their rates gradually.
However, HostMetro values its customers by guaranteeing your initial
hosting rate as long as you remain a recurring customer. This makes it
relatively cheaper in the long-run. For payment methods, they accept both
credit card and PayPal options.
On top of its price lock guarantee, HostMetro also offers a 30-day
money back guarantee, which is only applicable to new users; reoccurring
customers are not covered by this guarantee. The 30 days period will give you
enough time to test out this service to see if it suits your website needs.
The simple nature of HostMetro means it doesn't offer a lot of extras.
They do not have a huge variety of add-on services to augment the value of
their packing, unlike many other hosting providers in the shared hosting
market.
However, they do have several add-ons. For instance, you can
register a domain after signing up HostMetro, and also get an SSL certificate
for your blog.
This hosting service also offers Softaculous, one of the best
one-click installation script popular with many hosting providers. Softaculous
enables you to install several popular tools, platforms, and content management
systems on your server. For instance, through Softaculous, you can install
WordPress, the world’s most popular blogging and CMS platform, with a few
clicks. The whole process saves you a lot of time and frustrations since
installation takes a few minutes.
Other application installations offered by Softaculous include b2evolution,
phpBB, Joomla, and eCommerce tools such as CuberCart and PrestaShop.
HostMetro is a reliable hosting service for beginners. It is best
suited for website owners who are looking for an affordable hosting for their
simple websites. Below are the reasons you will want to consider hosting your
website with HostMetro;
Simple and easy-to-use interface
HostMetro excels in its simplicity. With only two shared hosting
packages that have honest and straightforward pricing, you will not go wrong
with this hosting services. In this ever-competitive shared hosting
environment, it is hard to find hosts that are specific in their payments.
Besides, it has a simple-to-use cPanel which makes building a site easier and
tackling technical tasks quick.
Price lock guarantee
Most hosting service lure customers with cheap hosting at first,
then gradually increase the rate once you become a recurring customer. However,
with HostMetro, you will not experience anything like this; their price lock
guarantee is incredibly innovative.
With this guarantee, you are assured that the price you will pay at
the start is what you will be paying even when renewing your plan. This simple
and straightforward pricing makes it a perfect hosting for budget-conscious
website owners who don't have a spare budget to cater for rising hosting fees
and hidden charges.
Small team support
environment
As compared to other big hosting services, in HostMetro, you will
feel more at home and well taken care of because you are given undivided
attention. It has a multi-tiered level of support which allows you to address
any issues swiftly. With many large-scale shared hosting services, you will
rarely get an opportunity to be served to satisfaction since there are many
users waiting in the queue to be served. Sometimes when dealing with hosting
issues, it can be important to feel like a human, not just another user.
A commendable uptime
A host with less than 99.9% uptime guarantee is a no-go zone. With
HostMetro, it has an impressive 99.92% uptime, and thus your website will be up
and running virtually all the time.
Besides, the site response rate ranges from 1,000ms to 2,400ms. This
is commendable for a super affordable shared hostas HostMetro.
Speedy live chat support
HostMetro has an experienced team of professionals in their customer
care center that is available 24/7. They reply to queries from their customers
very fast and are friendly. Their stellar customer support is one of the main
reasons they have managed to remain relevant and a popular choice for many
beginners for over a decade.
CloudLinux support
Every hosting account on HostMetro is isolated thanks to the
Cloud-Linux system. This means that if one account encounters a resource spike,
other sites will not be negatively affected.
Clear terms of service
One thing that is common when it comes to most budget-hosting
companies is vague terms of service statements. However, HostMetro has clear
terms of service with clear payment methods and rates. This allows you to
budget for your payment and to know when you hit the capping provided.
With HostMetro, every account has a capping of 200,000 inodes and
hosting accounts should not use more than 10% of the reserved system resources
for more than 90 seconds. See how clear HostMetro terms of services are?
As with everything else, HostMetro cannot be the best hosting
service for everyone needs. In fact, it is only suited to a specific audience –
bloggers who are just starting out and are looking for the most affordable hosting
service.
Here are some of the weaknesses of HostMetro as a hosting service;
Relatively slower site
speed and performance
When you compare HostMetro’s site loading speed and performance with
other hosting services, you will notice that it is slower. This could be
attributed to their older server hardware configuration. HostMetro does not use
modern web servers, and thus performance issues will crop up once in a while.
However, the older server hardware configuration is optimized for greater
performance by having large RAM installs and capable SSD drives.
Overall, you still cannot compare loading speed and performance of a
site hosted by HostMetro and another similar site hosted by a service using
modern servers; the difference will be noticeable. But this is not to say it is
not efficient; for new bloggers and small businesses, the company is an
efficient and fast hosting service. What's more, there is an account credit in
case their servers falls below their promised 99.90% uptime rate.
Account throttle limits
Many hosts have their own version of throttle confines on shared
hosting plans, but HostMetro has overly strict limits. For instance, they have
a policy whereby you should not use over 10% of the system resources for more
than 90 seconds. If your website exceeds this limit, it could be flagged down
and taken offline.
If you are scaling your website and expecting a significant increase
in levels of traffic, then you are better off choosing another host. You will
not want a scenario where your website was taken down because of an influx of
traffic brought by one of your post going viral or your website becoming
popular.
Limited hosting packages
In an effort to simplify things, HostMetro only style of hosting is
shared hosting. This is a great choice for people who are looking for an
affordable hosting for their personal website project. However, if you are
looking for a high-performing host or a host that can cope up with the rising
demands of a website as it grows, then you will want a powerful hosting service
that can support that.
If you are planning on scaling your website soon, you might find
that after a short time, you have outgrown your hosting options. This means you
will need to go through the exhausting process of migrating your website to
another host.
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Does HostMetro offer customer service options?
Yes. There are a variety of ways you can use to get in touch with
HostMetro customer care team. You can get them via email, telephone, or online
live chat on their website. The fast response of HostMetro is quite impressive.
They also have a knowledge base where you can get helpful guides that explain
how to solve common problems regarding website development and hosting.
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Does this host offer a price-lock guarantee to end users?
Yes, there is a price-lock guarantee. This means that you will have
the same hosting price year-on-year. You will not have to pay hefty renewal
fees like those charged by most hosting providers. This is a tremendous deal if you plan on
sticking with them in the long term.
-
Is there a cancellation policy?
Yes. Should you be dissatisfied with HostMetro services, there is a
30-day money back guarantee for new customers. Note that this is only offered
to new clients and not for account renewals. Customers must request
cancellation within the 30 day period of the account being created. Refunds are
offered for hosting fees only minus the domain fee.
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Does HostMetro offer a control panel?
Of course. HostMetro offers the cPanel control panel. This control
panel includes developer tools such as email setup, file manager, subdomain
setup, FTP access, and access to phpMyAdmin. The cPanel is easy to use and is similar
to most other hosting interfaces.
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Does this company offer free website transfer?
Yes. If you’re coming from another web host, HostMetro makes it much
easier for you. They provide a dedicated support which will happily migrate
your existing site free of any charge. However, your site needs to be less than
3GB in size.
-
Do they offer free backups?
Yes. This company includes free backups. However, HostMetro only
includes weekly backups which aren’t guaranteed. For this reason, consider
utilizing a plugin or additional method backup on a regular basis to ensure you
have your files and data should you need them.
-
Do HostMetro offer domain names?
Yes. It offers a free domain registration. This is a great deal
especially if you are starting from scratch. The domain is free for one year
then after that it will be charged normally. The initial registration does not
include domain privacy.
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Which security features does this web host offer?
The top tier plan includes free access to SiteLock Security Seal
which carries out daily scans for malware and other threats. It also includes
an SSL certificate to keep customer data safe. Lower tier plans can get the
services at a fee.
-
What programming languages does HostMetro offer?
They do support Perl 5.10, PHP 5.6, Ruby on Rails 1.8 and Python
2.6.
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Does this company offer uptime guarantee?
Yes. HostMetro offers an uptime guarantee of 99.99% over 12 months
and credit customers with a month of free service should they fail to meet the
target. However, this does not account to downtime caused by things such as
DDoS attacks, scheduled maintenance, backbone power provider failure and DNS
issues.
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Are there any restrictions on what clients can use their site for?
Yes. Customers should not video stream sites, run image hosting
sites or use their sites as a backup. Additionally, they are not allowed to run
gambling sites, sell controlled substances or do anything illegal.
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Does HostMetro offer sitebuilding?
Yes, all accounts have free access to a site builder. The builder
has hundreds of themes and plugins to create a professional website.
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Does HostMetro offer SSL certificates?
Yes. You can purchase an SSL certificate from them along with their
hosting services. They provide a bit range of SSL certificates from domain
validated, extended validated, company validated, wildcard as well as
Multi-domain SSL certificates.
-
Does HostMetro offer unlimited host bandwidth and space?
Their plans are limited although they set it so high that a majority
of accounts never reach it. If you do consume the resources up to 90% and you
haven’t violated the terms of service, then HostMetro will allot more capacity
to you.
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What applications can I easily install?
You get softaculous installer to offer easier installations of
applications such as Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, and ecommerce shopping carts.
HostMetro’s plans are designed to be as straightforward and simple
as possible. It is a great option for people that are getting started online.
However, it is pretty restrictive especially if you are looking for a long-term
plan.
The bottom line is that HostMetro is a reliable web host with a
great technical team that is ready to help you 24/7. The company strives to
deliver competitively priced hosting solutions that make it easy for you to
create and manage a website. With an impressive uptime record and the fact that
it offers cPanel hosting for maintaining and managing a hosting account makes
it a great fit for most webmasters today. Overall, HostMetro is a quite
affordable and reliable shared hosting service whose main target is small
businesses and individuals looking for hosting service for their personal
blogs.