Overview

Site5 is a medium-sized web hosting company that was founded in 1999 by Matt Lightner and Rod Armstrong in Austin, Texas. The two were former gaming site specialists with an enthusiasm for hosting which was prime at the time. During the naming of the company, they avoided using the word hosting just to be unique and diverse in future. In 2011, Matt Lightner passed away and Rod decided to sell Site5 to Ben Welch Bolen and Joel Brown who became CEO and President of the company respectively. Ever since its establishment, this firm has been on the forefront to fight global warming. It has participated in different green energy initiatives including planting of trees and active research on renewable energy.

Most of Site5’s infrastructure is engineered to mainly serve designers and developers. As such, it boasts very flexible and diverse pricing plans that cut across various levels of consumers. It boasts an in-house support department that operates 24/7 via live chat feature and call system that’s reachable during business hours. Unlike its competitors, it markets its packages without excessive technical jargon so anyone can easily tell what each plan has in it for them. Interestingly, it handles all server administration functions which is great for users with limited technical knowledge. Root permissions can be obtained while using their virtual private servers but general maintenance is the company’s obligation.

Site5 has its datacenter in Austin, the same location that its offices reside. As for its hosting packages, they’re are mostly billed on a monthly basis but still subscriptions can be made annually and biannually. It’s worth noting that the prices advertised on their homepage are monthly rates for subscriptions paid biannually. If you prefer monthly charges, they’re slightly costlier but nevertheless perfect for short-term hosting.

Another amazing feature is the free migration for existing sites and web projects from other hosting providers. The only limitation to this free service is the number of web projects to be per migrated per account. The terms of service state allow for a single site transfer but does not specify the size limitation.

If for whatever reason Site5’s hosting services are not impressive, you can cancel the contract before the expiry of your subscription. For customers using shared web and reseller packages, the money-back guarantee period is 45 days while VPS clients it’s 15.

Site5 Hosting Packages

Site5 offers three hosting packages namely Shared Web Hosting, Fully-managed VPS, and Reseller Hosting. Each package offers a decent number of plans with various web management features to satiate the needs of each client. Any web project residing on its servers automatically gets a United States IP address mostly because of its single-location datacenter. Account management is via Backstage, WHM and cPanel. In other packages, billing of the two latter control panels is done separately from the hosting fee.

In case it’s your first time using this web hosting provider, it helps to first contact their sales engineer for an in-depth information about their packages. Some of web features they advertise are unclear and not covered sufficiently in the support articles and frequently asked questions sections. In our Site5 review, we’ll analyze the entails of each hosting package later and how much you have to pay to enjoy your preferred plan.

Shared Web Hosting

Essentially, this entails hosting a web project or a site on a server whose hardware resources are shared. On creating an account, Site5 allots you a web space where you place your site files so that they can be accessed online by your target audience. Now, the interesting thing is that Site5 doesn’t limit site size and amount of data that’s transferred from its servers by your visitors. Put otherwise, all plans on the shared web hosting package feature unlimited disk space and bandwidth. What does this mean for you? You’ll not have to worry about exceeding the disk space or bandwidth when your site grows and its files get bigger.

Another feature enjoyed by users of this package is easy account management. They offer free Backstage Account Manager whose purpose is to give quick access to all account info. It allows you to edit settings and review configurations without jumping from one webpage to another. Some of the information viewable here includes domain registration history, account subscription status, and billing activity. Additionally, you can bookmark important info to ensure it’s reachable on demand.

From your account’s control panel, you can install popular third party scripts in a single click using Softaculous. Site5 offers this tool for free allowing anyone to install ad management add-ons, calendars, portals/CMS, Database tools, ecommerce apps, libraries, guest books, image galleries, and social networking shortcuts. Moreover, you can view site statistics using AWStats irrespective of the shared hosting plan that you pick. It allows you to access logs, errors logs, subdomain stats, visitor info, etc.

Site5 offers domains and subdomains which provide a pathway to your website. Depending on the plan your account is on, you can host one or multiple domains and point them to specific locations of your website. Additionally, Site5 provides email and web statistics functionality for the domain and its sub.

As for the hardware, shared web servers are powered by 64GB RAM, RAID-10 hard disk, and dual E5-2630 Sandy Bridge processors with 8 cores each.

Pricing Plans

-          HostBasic

Charging $6.95 per month on a biannual subscription, hostBasic provides unmetered disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and web space capable of hosting a single website. Other perks include free migration, free backups, and 99% uptime guarantee. Annual subscription costs an average of $8.95 per month.

-          HostPro

Costing $10.95 per month on a biannual contract, this plan gives unmetered disk space, bandwidth, and space to host an unlimited number of websites. If using a monthly contract, it will cost you $12.95 per month while annual contracts $11.95 per month.

-          HostPro + Turbo

This plan is closely similar to HostPro in features (unlimited sites, bandwidth, and disk space). However, it comes with a Turbo add-on that accelerates site loading speeds. It costs $13.99 per month on a biannual contract, $14.95 per month on an annual subscription, and $19.95 on a monthly basis.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller services involve purchasing web hosting accounts in bulk and distributing them to third parties at a commission. Site5 allows for complete anonymity meaning your clients will never find out you are a Site5’s reseller. To facilitate this, all reseller servers have custom domain names that are completely anonymous and in no way pointing back to the company’s registered title. The same concept applies to DNS services which do not mention Site5 anywhere in the public WHOIS record. Put simply, the company provides the best hosting platform for your reselling services but never takes the credit even when your brand grows.

Reseller accounts arrive with free billing software whose purpose is to take care of payment services by your clients. Site5 offers WHM control panel and its license which gives full permission to use the all-in-one management tool. With it, you can manage your clients number, provide support services, and monitor payment. It also allows you to integrate secure socket layer into the network to make websites exchange info with browsers securely. Your clients will share a single SSL certificate but you can apply for a dedicated cert from Wildcard if the free one is insufficient.

An amazing and unique gesture by Site5 is the free reseller hosting book that’s written by Abrahim Ikasud. The book equips resellers with web hosting skills and knowledge on expectations and challenges of the field. Also, it helps in directing resellers on where to get clients, retaining them, and being competitive in the field. It is a manual for both experts and novices in the web hosting and reselling niches.

Pricing Plans

-          Starter

With the server location being in US, this plan costs $25.95 per month while on an annual subscription. It is ideal for anyone starting up a reselling firm or has less than 20 clients. It offers a disk space of 50GB, 500GB bandwidth, WHM control panel, and unmetered resold accounts. The money back guarantee period is 45 days.

-          Standard

Costing $36.95 on an annual subscription, this plan is perfect for medium-sized web host reselling companies with around 50 clients. The account features 80GB of disk space, 700GB bandwidth, unmetered resold accounts, domain reseller portal, and custom DNS settings. If looking for short term contract, you can pay for the plan on a monthly basis.

-          Premier

Costing $54.95 per month, premier plan is great for large and medium-scale resellers with over 100 clients. It offers 120GB hard disk space, 1000GB bandwidth, free billing software, free backups, WHM control panel, free migration services when coming from another hosting provider.

Fully Managed VPS

Virtual Private Servers offer dedicated hosting by splitting a single server into multiple independent system units. Site5 provides this service using KVM VPS technology and runs the files of the units using solid state drives. It eliminates the bad neighbor effect where one user in a shared resource environment exceeds normal allocation. The company isolates each VPS account into a fully independent unit which gives you more control over resources. This way, the web experience is ameliorated and downtime completely lessened.

Did you also know that you can use the VPS to resell web spaces? Well, Site5 allows you to purchase a server with powerful system resources and using WHM and cPanel resell the hosting space for a profit. The service is different from the standard reseller shared web hosting package in that the resources are 100% dedicated. Therefore, you can oversell without affecting other users on the same server hardware.

As the name of the package suggests, VPS hosting here is completely managed. It is Site5’s role to keep the hosting platform working optimally instead of the user. It does this by handling server updates, rolling out security fixes, and proactively monitoring VPS performance. Additionally, the company updates the control panels as soon as new stable versions are released. With this, you can easily manage your account without worrying about technical functions that you’d find in unmanaged environments.

When it comes to hardware, Site5 brings on board the latest technologies in memory management, processing power, and storage. The servers use RAID 10 storage technology which enhances a smooth usage experience when using a bigger storage drive. Since 2016, they’ve replaced traditional SATA disks with SSDs which are more reliable and faster. On processors, they use dual Intel E5-2630V4 processors which are mostly found on high-end gaming systems. For memory, the server nodes have up to 256GB RAM which can comfortably be split to more than 100 virtual machines.

Other features supported by Site5’s VPS include shell access which is disabled by default, Cron Jobs, FTP & SFTP, MySQL database, one-click script installer, site analytics tools, ecommerce CMS, mailing servers, and multiple programming languages such as Perl, Ruby, Python, and Server Side Includes (SSI).

Pricing Plans

-          VPS2

VPS2 costs $62 per month for a system with 2 CPU cores, 2GB memory, 50GB disk space, and 1TB bandwidth. You can include in the plan cPanel or WHM for an additional $10 per month. You’ll also have 2 dedicated IP addresses pointing to the private server.

-          VPS3

This plan costs $89 per month for a system with 2 CPU cores, 3GB memory, 1.5TB bandwidth, and 75GB disk space. 2 IP addresses are included as well as a separately-billed use of WHM and cPanel control panels.

-          VPS4

The starting price for this plan is $117 per month for a VPs system with 4 CPU cores, 2TB bandwidth, 100GB disk space, and 4GB RAM. The billing cycle is annual.

-          VPS5

VPS5 costs $166 per month for a virtual system with 4 CPU cores, 5GB RAM, 2.5TB bandwidth, and 125GB disk space.

-          VPS6

This plan’s asking price is $188 per month for a system with 150 GB storage space, 6GB memory, 6 CPU cores, and 3TB bandwidth.

-          VPS7

Its costs $276 per month to purchase this plan. Site5 provides a system with 4TB bandwidth, 8GB memory, 8 CPU cores, and 200GB disk space.

-          VPS8

Pure Hosting Features

On this section, we’ll explore features that Pure Hosting has in regards to performance, security, speed, control, customer service, and overall web experience.

Performance and Speed

Established in 1999, Pure Hosting has been in the hosting industry for close to a decade now. Through all that time, the company has worked smart to keep up with the ever-changing technologies in the hosting niche. With the likes of Intel Xeon and Dell powered server machines making way into their datacenter, it’s safe to host any web project with them. Let’s go through some of the features and tools employed in their network to enhance performance:

·         Few system units per server – even in their shared hosting network, resource allocation is fairly decent. Most of the servers have between 5 to 20 accounts residing on them. This lessens the workload on the hardware resources and ultimately improves content delivery to target audience.

·         Intel Xeon CPUs – Pure Hosting owns machines running the Xeon E5 series which is an excellent choice for computing and hosting tasks. With each CPU socket capable of housing 8 cores, the company successfully cuts energy costs. The cost benefit is then transferred to users who pay less to host sites and services with them.

·         SATA disks – although most web hosting providers are using Solid State Drives currently, SATA disks are not a bad choice either. Besides benefitting from relatively large storage spaces, the disks are significantly faster than IDE drives. Your website or service will not be served at the fastest speeds possible, but still content delivery will be tolerable and arguably decent.

·         Dedicated IP addresses – some plans have systems with static IP addresses which lessens the domain name server resolution time by outdated browsers. Another benefit is that you can migrate to a new URL without worrying about customers not finding you. Again, as long as your site’s IP address is cached somewhere on your visitors’ network, it will still maintain its rank on the search engines.

·         Apache Web Server – Apache is lightweight web server that’s capable of compressing site data to enhance transfer speeds. As such, websites stored on Pure Hosting servers load quicker which, in turn, improves their popularity and reputation.

·         Dedicated Resources – this is one of the exciting features that Pure Hosting has in regards to performance. They offer dedicated servers, which are capable of hosting multiple web projects efficiently, at rather competitive prices. With their cheapest plan going at £125 per month and running 16GB of memory, it’s hard to find a competitor in the UK that beats this.

Security

Any 21^st century website is at risk of an illegal intrusion or attack at some point in its lifetime. As such, the best web hosting provider applies both physical and system measures to guard against these disastrous likelihoods. Some of the security measures and features that Pure Hosting applies include:

·         Shared secure socket layer (SSL) – An SSL certificate is provided for free to users of shared hosting. Principally, it enhances connection security as well as data privacy when a web server and a browser are communicating. It’s almost impossible to intercept data or sniff sensitive information while outside Pure Hosting network. The protocol uses 2048-bit RSA protection to encrypt data which can take centuries to decrypt without a key. Pure Hosting is the holder of the key on that shared network.

·         ISO certified datacenter – ISO certification is a very thorough process since it requires every company that applies for it to have sufficient security measures prior. Now, Pure Hosting includes in the center autonomous temperature control systems, fire detection sensors, UPS, generators, and physical intrusion detectors. Without proper authorization, one can hardly access the Colchester location where the servers reside.

·         Backups – Almost all packages have plans with automatic data backup systems. The backups occur on a daily basis and are retained for up to 7 days. Unfortunately, data is not mirrored to offsite locations which is risky in case the datacenter damages.

·         Account protection – The servers keep a log of the IP addresses which access a particular account. The log has a timestamp of when a login occurred, OS, and browser used to access it. As such, an unauthorized login can quickly be detected and prevented before information is stolen. Moreover, when creating an account, you’ll be required to set credentials that are difficult to guess or crack by brute forcing.

·         MySQL database – It is Pure Hosting default database. Apart from being fast, MySQL is very efficient in maintaining data integrity on any operating environment. It is also compatible with both Windows and Linux servers.

Control Panel

Unlike most web hosting providers which use cPanel, WHM, Plesk, and other popular control panels, Pure Hosting offers its own web interface panel. Although offering basic features, it is very easy to use when new to web hosting. With it, you can control system resource allocation quotas, set backup frequencies, create domains and subs, and create unlimited email accounts. You can also check when your subscription is expiring and even set various payment methods with minimal procedures.

Another important feature which you can control via the panel is power on/off cycle. This is important when running apps that are intensive on resources that deplete such as the bandwidth. Amazingly, you can schedule tasks, restart non-responding services, and reboot the system with a single click from the administrative panel. With so much control on your hands, it is easy to manage any system with very little technical knowhow.

Customer Support System

Pure Hosting has both a land-based and an online support center. If you’re in UK, you can reach the company by calling +44(0)7557 996 899 or visiting in person their land-based offices. Nevertheless, online support system is by far the most convenient platform to reach them. They offer a 24-hour live chat window and an email address that you can send concerns, questions, or any other feedback.

Additionally, Pure Hosting Website has a wide range of Frequently Asked Questions and their answers. Sometimes you may find the FAQ page offline when they’re updating content on it. However, you can always chat them up on the live support channel for quicker help.

Money Back Guarantee

Although not explicitly advertised, Pure Hosting trial period is two weeks. Their consumer contract regulation allows for cancellation of any plan purchased on their website before the end of two weeks. Even then, there are terms and conditions which guide reimbursement in the event of ending a contract with them. These include:

-          Your account should not have contravened rules of engagement which are provided for their terms page.

-          Outstanding fees while on a prepay basis are not refundable. So even if you cancelled the contract before making a payment, you’ll still owe the company.

-          Unused reseller funds can only be recovered once you close your account.

-          Domain credits are non-refundable especially when acquired on a discounted price.

-          Plan subscribed to must have been paid for on an annual basis.

Extras

·         Site Builders

Pure Hosting lacks an inbuilt site builder but can host websites created by popular frameworks and tools including WordPress, Weebly, Jimdo, Strikingly, and Webs. It also supports uploading of web files from an offline source via FTP.

·         Coding Languages

Pure Hosting serves sites built using PHP, Perl, HTML5, SSI, XHTML, and Python languages. Databases supported on the hosting platform include MySQL and MS SQL Server.

Pure Hosting Pros And Cons

No hosting provider can be completely worst or best at what it offers. So, here we’ll check out some of advantages and disadvantages of hosting with Pure Hosting.

Advantages

-          Free backups for managed setups

If you’re on the managed network or system setup, all your data will be stored in an offsite location at least once a day. You can retrieve it before seven days have elapsed since the time of the last backup.

-          Multiple communication channels

Pure Hosting provide multiple yet quick communication channels including live chat, email support, and calls. Their customer care services are available 24/7 and are offered in English. Also, you can benefit from reading their FAQ page to learn more about features they’ve documented in their plans.

-          Variety of hosting packages

This company serves a wide range of customers from small-scale businesses to gigantic entities with huge operational transactions daily. They offer shared hosting, VPS services, and dedicated server setups at fairly competitive rates.

-          Topnotch physical security

The web host’s datacenter is secure from unauthorized intrusion, fire breakouts, temperature burnouts, and physical data theft. Again, they’re ISO certified meaning they’ve met all basic requirements of a modern web hosting provider. As such, it is easy to rely on their services as a hosting company.

-          Reliable storage

All their servers use SATA, RAID, and SAS disks for storage. Albeit they’re not the fastest in the market today, but still they’re very reliable. Data failure is unlikely with frequent hardware upgrades ongoing at least once a year.

-          AWS-Stats traffic analyzer

You can use this tool to check how your site is performing against its competitors. Also, you can view traffic to your site and the conversation rates in case it is a commercial setup.

-          Privileged access

Users of dedicated servers have root access to the operating systems. They can control features and set system configurations to serve web projects optimally.

-          Powerful processors

The servers run on Dell CPUs with Intel Xeon E5 series. These processors are very powerful and considering some packages have one or two allocated, you can be sure performance will be premium.

-          Remote login

Pure Hosting supports login via SSH as well RDP for graphical user interface. Also, some plans offer systems with dedicated IP addresses so that you don’t have to bother setting a domain name for the system.

-          Custom quotes

In case you don’t get a product or hosting service that you wanted, you can get a free quote from Pure Hosting’s experts. They’ll help you come up with a plan that suits your individual needs.

Disadvantages

-          Provider’s site is on an insecure network

Modern browsers warn against providing any personal information on the website. For whatever reason, they have not implemented a secure socket layer between the web server and the browser. It can be risky creating an account with them on a public network or even trusting them with private credentials.

-          Short trial period

Pure Hosting has not put the 14 days within which you can cancel your subscription to open view. You have scour the terms of service page to capture this information.

-          Lacks an optimized environment for content management systems

Frameworks such as Drupal, Magento, and WordPress are quickly getting absorbed in hosting businesses. Pure Hosting lacks an optimized environment for such applications.

-          Targets audience in the UK only

Although you can host a web project with them even when you’re from outside the UK, the prices will vary from time to time. Remember, exchange rates affect the amount that you’ll part with after converting the prices to your local currency.

Pure Hosting Frequently Asked Questions

Where’s Pure Hosting Company based?

Pure Hosting offices are based in Essex, a region in the UK while their datacenters are in Colchester.

Which hosting packages are available at Pure Hosting?

Pure Hosting has three main packages namely shared hosting, virtual servers, and dedicated servers. Shared hosting provides an environment where system resources are apportioned to each unit on demand. Virtual servers feature units which run independently from one another. They do not share the resources apportioned to them. A dedicated system can be a portion or the whole server that’s committed to carrying out a hosting function. The plans in the latter package are the costliest.

Which is the cheapest plan at Pure Hosting?

The cheapest plan at Pure Hosting is Shared Hosting entry plan. It is designed for small-scale sites with traffic of up to 10,000 views a month. It goes for £12 per month.

Can I host a website when living outside England?

Yes, but the charges will be frustrating since they’ll keep fluctuating from time to time. We feel it’s best to use Pure Hosting services when your target audience are in the UK. For a reason other than that, it might be a little costly to host a website with them.

Does Pure Hosting offer domain sale services?

No. But they offer slots to create domains appended with their company’s name. Additionally, you can create an unlimited number of subdomains in a single account.

Can the company host my WordPress-based site?

Sure, WordPress sites can be hosted with Pure Hosting. But unfortunately they have no optimized environment that guarantees that the updates reach your site in time or content delivery is smooth and fast.

How do I communicate with Pure Hosting support team when I cannot call?

In our experience, live chat worked best compared to other communication channels. However, for future reference emailing Pure Hosting support team is more reliable. Calls are convenient for customers based in the UK.