Overview

Lunarpages is among the oldest web hosting providers in existence today. Starting from scratch in a garage in California in 1998, the company has grown tremendously and now hosts over 150,000 sites, including clients such as BlackBerry, Microsoft, Sony, Cisco and more. Lunarpages was founded by Ron Riddle who decided to swap careers from a brick mason to a webmaster. After a few years of wading into the murky world of online business, he decided to partner with Maximilian Anderson, a Swedish programmer he met online; together they developed Lunarpages which they’ve grown together and now has data centers in California, Nevada, and Arizona.

What this company offers is not necessarily different from what you’d get from other web hosts. However, it is the attention to details in hosting options, excellent support, and transparency in regards to its infrastructure that should push Lunarpages to your list of preferred companies when making a decision.

Lunarpages specializes in scalable web hosting aimed at developers, businesses, as well as industry-leaders. The web host offers both Window and Linux hosting services that cover various categories including shared, VPS, cloud and dedicated hosting.

In this review, we examine their plans, features, strengths & weaknesses, and FAQs.

Lunarpages Features

Lunarpages offers a number of unique features that helps to set them apart from the crowd in the hosting space. Here are some of those features.

Performance and Speed

Like any other business, web hosting companies have to always adapt to changing customer needs if they are to survive in the overly competitive digital space. This is true for LunarPages, a web host that’s still operating more than 20 years later.

To get a better understanding of this firm, we have to delve deep into its performance features which is undoubtedly the main reason why it has managed to survive this long. For starters, this firm offers various personal and business packages each backed by a highly scalable hosting architecture. We would be doing this company a disservice if we just generalized its performance; so, to avoid this, let's take a look at some of the features that help it maintain such successful performance and speed counts.

Enterprise SSD Storage

Solid State Drives offer speed improvements over the traditional hard disk drive solutions. These improved read/write speeds directly reflect on your website or web app’s performance. This is as a result of the over ten-fold I/O speeds and file fetching capabilities. Ideally, your site should always have instant loading which is precisely what LunarPages offers on its SSD backed hosting services. However, while the company does offer unlimited storage options on some of their plans, they haven’t specified if such plans actually run on their enterprise SSDs.

Scalable Architecture

LunarPage’s hosting architecture is all about scalability; this results in scalability options in just about every computing allocation. The company, therefore, allows RAM, CPU, disk space and bandwidth upgrades depending on your hosting package. These upgrades make it easy to step up your plan’s performance on the go without having to result in excessive charges which would otherwise obstruct the very essence of scalability which is economically viable performance.

Multi-OS Environment Support

Over the past decade, we have witnessed considerable investments in various operating systems each with its pros and cons, especially in performance capabilities. LunarPages recognizes the need to offer their customers the freedom of selecting which OS to use. Currently, the firm is offering Linux backed LAMP and windows OS hosting. This freedom allows developers to host their apps on the recommended platform thus ripping maximum performance from the service. It’s important to note that each platform features various speed optimization scripts to streamline your service’s interaction with the hardware further. The result is a general increase in performance across the entire platform as each site gets hosted on a compatible operating system.

Intel Xeon E-series Processors

LunarPages relies on the latest lineup of Intel Xeon server class CPUs. These offer a competitive edge over traditional desktop processors, especially in multi-core workloads. Having your site hosted on a server that runs one of these will grant you more processing power for your custom apps. Besides, it also should be able to record additional computing capacity to handle those traffic spikes that occur every time you have a sales campaign going on your site. These performance improvements also reflect on your visitor’s end whereby they experience much better loading speeds.

Multiple Data Centers

LunarPages currently operates three SAS 70 type 2 data centers. This grants you the much-needed freedom to decide which data center you would prefer to host you site on. Each of these facilities gets multiple gigabit internet connections backed by redundant power supply to ensure that the servers never go offline. The firm currently has data centers in Las Vegas, NV and Irvine, C., and the Hawthorne data center.

Security

This company takes website security seriously by offering top features for security. For instance, all their hosting packages come with DDoS protection to prevent attacks that inconveniently take websites down.

Check more Lunarpages security features below.

SecureLive

This is an advanced security system designed for a variety of platforms such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and many more. Installing the plugin will enable you to identify and block threats, and hackers and see any reports of malicious activity on your site.

SecureLive goes a notch higher to report the hackers to appropriate authorities. LunarPages used this system for real-time monitoring and blocks violators through bans. It has been endorsed by industry experts in independent testing as it has been tested to be effective at blocking online theft.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

Lunarpages utilizes SSL certificates to enhance the safety of information exchanged between the site and visitors. Having one on your site not only ensures secure transactions but also helps to put your customers’ minds at ease when it comes to completing payments. Lunarpages offers free dedicated SSL certificate for business plan. Shared SSL certificate will only function with cgi/perl and HTML based scripts. However, SSL does not work with ASP, PHP and JSP pages because of the security-based restrictions on the servers.

Backups

Backups are important in the event you blunder with your website. Luckily for you Lunarpages is committed to ensuring all your data files are backed up each night. This is a great feature because third party tools and plug-ins are known to cause site crashes sometimes. Therefore, you can install any plugins and third-party software without fear.

This company offers R1Sost Managed Backup which backs up at the block level instead of file level. This feature reduces disk I/O and shortens backup windows compared to file-based full backups. Another impressive feature with R1Soft backups is that you have 5 restore points to choose from hence you can be sure to restore earlier site versions. Lunarpages provides 24/7 support for backups and offer it for free. So, if you need to restore backup, you can just need to contact the support team to have it sent to you.

LunarPages Control Panel

LunarPages relies on two control panel solutions to manage their hosting platform. For the shared hosting architecture, the company offers the popular cPanel control panel software. On their dedicated and VPS platform, there’s the additional choice of utilizing LunarPages Control Panel (LPCP). While the two do defer in terms of functionality and pricing, most of the features are uniform across the two programs.

We take a look at their functionality below:

Email Management

LunarPages allows unlimited emails on their plans. Therefore, for one to fully take advantage of this opportunity, you can use the cPanel email tab to create unlimited email addresses, manage existing email accounts create forwarders, set up mass mailing orders, and even configure your anti-spam settings on the go.

DNS Management

This tab offers a centralized domain name configuration tab. You can add parked domains, subdomains, and even remove irrelevant ones to ensure that all your traffic points in the right direction. On the other hand, you can use the DNS zone editor tool to manage the DNS zones for your domains directly from cPanel.

Account Information and Stats

If you have multiple teams working on your site, then it’s advisable to create user accounts with set permission levels. To do so, you can use the accounts tab on cPanel which lists all active user accounts and admins for easier management. The tab also displays a few basic stats such as performance logs and visitor count.

Customer Support

Lunarpages has on-site team of experts ready to help its customers. The company has dedicated lines for customers in the US, UK and Canada to ensure enough coverage for any customers who needs assistance. You will be impressed by their US-based team of experts who listen and respond in the most professional and polite way possible. For their phone support, you can reach them starting 7 AM to 5 PM for shared hosting clients.

For VPS and dedicated hosting clients, there is a 24/7 phone support. This company also offers Live Chat for quick responses through the website. However, the live chat support is only available for sales. You can also submit a ticket through the website though their response time may take up to 12 hours. This may be a lot of time especially if you are facing a potentially money-losing issue.

Knowledgebase

The web host also provides users with a knowledgebase as well as frequently asked questions sections. There are numerous articles where you can find solutions to common challenges. The company also provides a full-blown wiki page where you can browse through the over 430 guides to common problems that clients face. And if you feel chatty, you can visit their user forums for simple solutions to common issues. There is no doubt that you will find speedy answers to sticky situations you encounter at Lunarpages.

Lunarpages Extras

Money-back guarantee

Lunarpages does offer a solid 30-day money back guarantee. It is certainly a big relief to know that if you are dissatisfied with your plan from Lunarpages, you can cancel to get your money back or upgrade to a better plan. As with other web hosts, this company does not refund the fees for domain or setup costs depending on the plan you choose.

Ecommerce features

Building an ecommerce store at Lunarpages is a breeze due to the choice of shopping carts and ecommerce platforms you get. These platforms offer the tools that small businesses require for building and managing the store even when you know nothing about coding. The best part about it is that they are very affordable to ensure that small businesses make sufficient profits.

Additionally, this web host offers Weebly hosting plans with customizable templates, unlimited web pages and an advanced platform for ecommerce. Using Weebly you can easily sell products online and offer secure experiences to customers across mobile and web. This platform offers a whole plethora of themes, discount codes and you can easily track your inventory. Besides, Weebly will automatically set up your site to be optimized on various search engines. You can also use most popular payment methods such as PayPal and Stripe.

Weebly Website Builder

Weebly offers a drag-and-drop website building experience making it not only easy to use but also eliminating the need to have technical programming knowledge. The builder comes with over 40 professionally built themes for you to select and customize according to your needs.

Microsoft Exchange

LunarPages provides Microsoft exchange 2016 email support to all its clients which is not only cost-effective but also offers universal compatibility.

R1soft Managed Backups

R1soft offers disaster recovery solution as a service. The software runs on a separate server to avoid bogging down on your server resources. The backups are available for as long as you wish and are easy to restore from the disk-based, block-level backup storage solution.

Fax to Email

While the good old fax may be seeing declined usage now, there are still some firms that rely on fax services on a daily basis. If this sounds like your business, you’ll be glad to know that LunarPages offers the fax to email service which conveniently sends and receives faxes in the format of webmail. This provides added security and mobility as you can access the faxes on the go.

Up to $100 Google AdWords Credit

LunarPages is offering up to $100 AdWords credit on select hosting plans. The credit will go a long way into subsidizing the cost of advertising your site.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Lunarpages

Strengths

Reliable Customer Support

While the customer service provided by Lunarpages is not the best, it is commendably decent. You can access the customer support team via phone, live chat or by email. The email system is available 24/7. The response to the emails may however take some time to get a reply, but when you finally do, the answers given are often detailed and personal.

They have also made available two types of documentation to boost their customer service reliability. The first one is the knowledge base system which consists of easy to understand articles but with no images. The second documentation is the support wiki which contains over 400 guides on common topics well written to help customers navigate and get instant answers to the most common issues.

Fast Site Loading Speed

Apart from great customer experience, fast site loading speed is paramount as it has a huge bearing on a site’s ability to rank high on search results and also on user experience. Lunarpages has an above average loading speed which helps attract and retain more customers from sites with slow loading speed.

Their Pricing system is Straight Forward

Unlike most web hosting platforms that charge low introductory prices and increase them later, Lunarpages is pretty straightforward on its pricing model. Failing to inform the client about the real price will only make the customer experience worse and get negative reviews.

Lunarpages does not play any such tricks. They offer a fixed rate whether you subscribe for one or several years. Like most web host, Lunarpages does not offer a monthly subscription; however, there’s a 30-day money back guarantee in case you’re dissatisfied with its products or services.

Lunarpages Uptime

Lunarpages guarantees you a reliable, stable uptime for your site with a little above the average of industry uptime. Unfortunately, Lunarpages does not specify if there’s any kind of compensation if your site experiences a downtime below the promised as is the case with most web hosting companies today.

Free Site Transfer and Domain Name

Site transfer can be very costly and time-consuming in most cases. Lunarpages makes this easy by helping you move your site into their servers and getting your site working for free. While most web host offers the same free of charge, there are usually exemptions based on the maximum size or the number of pages a site must have to be eligible for this service.

Another great feature offered by Lunarpages is the free domain. This will come in handy if you’re looking to keep your initial costs low.

Free Backup and Restoration

This is a rare feature only available with very few hosting platforms despite being a lifesaver to site owners. Lunarpages automatically backs up your site on a nightly basis. This is great news, particularly because plug-ins and third party don’t always work well together and might cause a crash to your site with no warning. Lunarpages helps to eliminate such risks with nightly backups and free restoration. In case, you need backups, you only have to contact them and they’ll provide them free of charge.

Weaknesses of Lunarpages

Complains about the customer support

For most web host’s customer service, you can get help through a call, email or via IM. Unfortunately, Lunarpages has a limit when it comes to accessing customer support. For instance, even though they offer the live chat system, is only limited for sales issues. Their phone call system is available but not 24/7 throughout the year. Their main focus is the ticket system which takes a relatively long time to get a replay. So however great their responses might be, the time taken to get a response might cause damage especially if your site is facing serious issues that require immediate attention.

Their Website is not the easiest to Navigate

There is plenty of customer support information on their website. However, the information is not designed to help beginners with little or no web hosting knowledge. Their clustered website makes it hard for navigation. If you are a beginner, you might need to first learn the basics from somewhere else.

They charge for cPanel

cPanel is one of the plans that Lunarpages offer. This feature has been known to be offered as a built-in part of a web hosting package. The price might be low but when you compare to her competitors who offer the same for free, but it is quite unreasonable.

The risk of Account Suspension

The unlimited features they offer are in real sense limited to some extent. You might get your account suspended due to “high resource usage.” Although only giant websites can achieve this, the mild thought of waking up to your account suspended is mind-blowing.

Frequently Asked Questions about LunarPages

How many data centers does LunarPages own?

LunarPages relies on its three peerless data centers located across the US. The data centers have redundancy measures to ensure that your site never goes offline. Currently, the firm has data centers in the following locations: Las Vegas, NV. Irvine, CA. and Hawthorne, CA.

Do they have a refund policy?

Yes, LunarPages has a 30-day money back guarantee. Of course, this service is subject to terms and conditions so be sure to go through their SLA before filing for a refund.

Will I get a free SSL certificate?

Yes, LunarPages is offering free SSL certificates on select plans such as the business hosting plans. It's important to note that the company only covers the cost for up to one year after which you have to pay for the certificate to extend usage.

Can I host an email account?

Yes, LunarPages offers unlimited email hosting with the majority of their hosting plans. Take advantage of this service to create personalized email addresses that customers can associate with your brand.

Is there a limit on the number of visitors per month?

No, LunarPages does not limit the access to your site. Instead, the company measures bandwidth consumption which is limited or unlimited depending on your plan of choice.

Is LunarPages recommended for developers?

Yes, from supporting multiple operating systems such as LAMP stack Linux and Windows to private cloud LunarPages is all about dev support. The firm even named one of their products under the reseller package to developer reseller hosting.

Does LunarPages offer a content delivery network (CDN)?

Yes, LunarPages relies on Cloudflare CDN which is one of the most advanced content caching and DDOS blocking service on the internet. Having your site cached on their multiple CDN servers will significantly improve its response time.

How is LunarPages customer support like?

Apart from the 24/7 online chat support the firm has also invested a lot in their help center that regularly updates blog posts, guides, and tutorials based on the most frequent queries they face each day. Support inquiries and questions can be sent via email or on phone whereby the working hours are Monday through Friday 7:00 am to 5:00 pm Pacific time. It’s important to note that dedicated and VPS support is available 24/7/365.

Does LunarPages offer a website builder?

Yes, LunarPages includes a free copy of Weebly website builder with every account. Weebly on its part is an easy to use drag and drop builder that features hundreds of professionally built themes.

What payment options are supported by LunarPages?

LunarPages currently supports PayPal, credit cards, money order, Alipay and checks. You can always change your payment method on your customer account page under billing and contacts information.

Who created LunarPages?

The firm was founded in 1998 in California and is a subsidiary of add2net Inc. which offers affordable website hosting all over the globe.

Does LunarPages offer an uptime guarantee?

Unfortunately, no, LunarPages has an entire page dedicated to its uptime logs but doesn’t offer any financial commitment on maintaining the indicated uptime. On the brighter side, the firm’s latest uptime count is above the industry average and seems they aren’t that many complaints about the lack of a guarantee.

Do they offer any bonuses?

Yes, LunarPages offers up to $100 worth of Google AdWords credits and up to $50 Facebook AdWords credits which will go a long way in easing your advertising budget.

Is LunarPages recommended for e-commerce?

No, the firm does not offer any customized plans for the perfect e-commerce experience. While you can manually configure your site to access the Mojo market place, the firm fails to include such on the stand hosting packages.

Will I get a control panel?

Yes, LunarPages includes two control panel solutions for their hosting packages. These are cPanel and LunarPages Control Panel (LPCP). These offer similar functionality and capabilities.

What makes LunarPages different?

Unlike other firms, LunarPages does not offer an uptime guarantee. Instead, the firm directs all is energies into ensuring that the clientele never experiences unmitigated downtime. While the firm has been in existence for the last 20 years, they have managed to stay relevant even without an uptime guarantee this goes to show just how committed they are in delivering quality hosting services with minimal to no downtime at all.

Can I use my favorite CMS with LunarPages shared hosting?

Yes, LunarPages supports all the popular content management systems (CMS) from the popular WordPress to Drupal and even Joomla. The firm goes an extra mile to make these packages easy to install. Its one-click install option enables you to easily migrate your CMS site from your previous host worry-free as all the modules will work the same after this.