If we talk about InterServer, then it is one of the best underdogs in the web hosting arena that I have ever come across. Although it is not that popular like other companies in the web hosting world, nor it does host millions of sites, but it is an excellent option for someone planning to host their websites.
They started offering web hosting services since 1999, which means it is just not a newcomer; instead, they hold a great experience in the web hosting domain. Instead of marketing, InterServer believes in technological expansion and building quality infrastructure. It helps them in providing exceptional services to their customers, and that’s why you can see most of their reviews are praising their services.
But does InterServer worths investing and choosing over other competitors?
Here are the things that I love the most about InterServer and why you should choose it.
Excellent Uptime
Despite having a small company, InterServer uses highly secured infrastructure, redundant power, and an HVAC system for stable air-conditioning, and raised floors to protect their servers from water damage. All this helps them in providing a stable uptime, and that’s why they claim a guarantee of 99.99% uptime.
In our test, we merely found their servers down. But to be honest, they are not precisely serving what they are claiming. The average uptime we got was around 99.95%, which means we faced around 20 minutes of downtime in a month.
But the main reason why I got this much downtime because of some technical error that took almost a whole day to solved. And still, it is far better than most of the other top-rated hosting service providers. Plus, who knows if it was just my bad luck that I faced this kind of downtime.
Overall, I can say InterServer is skating on thin ice. Though the major downtime I faced because of some technical error, and if we remove that, then I can say that InterServer is very reliable.
Insane Load Time
Now, this is the thing that impressed me a lot. Speed is something that can make or break your overall game. Even, according to research, 60% of people leave a webpage if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. That is enough to define how crucial the page speed is.
While testing, TTFB was consistently below 0.20 seconds, and the time to load the webpage entirely was merely between .50 seconds to .70 seconds, and that is insanely fast.
On top of that, they have optimized their web hosting for some popular scripts and services like WordPress and Joomla. It helps you attain a high-quality service with highly optimized speed.
However, the thing that you need to keep in mind is that my site is hosted in NY datacentre, and I used US location to test it. Also, my website was well optimized, and we used the least plugins to achieve such page speed.
Excellent Customer Support
Customer support is essential, even if you are not a beginner. It offers both informational materials and contacting the representative type of customer support.
If you visit the bottom of their website, you’ll see a section of tips articles. Here you can get almost all kinds of detailed articles with proper images and videos. However, it is not perfectly organized, and you might need to invest a bit of extra time while finding the right solution for your problem. But that is not a big deal.
On the other hand, they offer three options for contacting customer support that includes live chat, phone support, and ticket system. Even they also have an online forum where so many professionals are available to help you out in any issues.
The customer support is excellent. They have a highly educated and knowledgeable customer support. I have not had any bad experience with any of their representative. At this budget, it is definitely one of the best hosting providers with impeccable customer support.
Price Lock Guarantee
Unlike other tricky web-hosting providers, InterServer is extremely transparent when it comes to renewal pricing. Most of the web hosts increase their renewal charges.
While InterServer promises the same pricing as long as you continue its services. It means, if you have opted for a plan which costs $5/month, then you’ll be paying the same amount even after 10 or 20 years. Honestly, this thing amazed me a lot. It is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Strong Security
InterServer offers an in-house security package that comes with each purchase. Security is something that InterServer has taken very seriously. They have created a tool called InterShield that creates a database of bad IPs and precludes any kinds of access requests from them.
Also, this InterShield scans every uploaded content for viruses to maintain security. Along with that, it blocks all known hacking attacks. Overall, this single tool is much stronger to protect your website from attacks.
On top of that, all of their plans come with free weekly backups. So, even if something happens, you’ll have a backup of your website that you can restore to make your website functioning again.
Lots of freebies
Along with maintaining such quality services, they offer a bunch of free stuff that can save some extra bucks from your pocket.
From free weekly backups to free website migration, CDN, and SSL, they are offering a lot of things for free. You will also get access to a one-click script installer that can let you install over 450 apps in a single click. And this is only for Linux Servers. InterServer also offers to host with Windows platform too.
Every migrated website goes through multiple tests to find out if something harmful data detected on your website.
Excellent Refund Policies
InterServer offers a 30-day refund policy that allows customers to get all the money back if they didn’t find the service helpful. But even if you have surpassed the 30-day period and you have decided to cancel their service, then you can contact their billing team and ask for a refund for the rest of the period.
You just need to comply with their terms and conditions, and you’ll get a refund. It is really great to see a mid-range hosting provider is offering such services.
These were some of the things that I loved about InterServer. But that doesn’t mean that their web hosting doesn’t have any flaws. Here are some of the cons of InterServer-
Poorly Designed Interface
The interface of their website is very poorly designed. Although it is not the worst user interface I have ever seen, it is not so far from the bottom. Also, the navigation of the website is just Okay-ish, and you need to do a bit of hard work to reach the right page.
Another thing that bothered me is that there throughout the sites, you can find so many typos and poorly formatted sentences. Now, I am not a Grammar Nazi, but these things affect the overall credibility and professionalism.
If you visit InterServer’s website without reading any review, then I am sure you would probably run away without finding the other qualities of the service. A website is the face of the company, and if it is below par, then it can affect severely. Luckily, I am not the one who judges the book by its cover.
Only one shared hosting plan
Although the shared hostings are commonly used by webmasters who expect moderate traffic, and this InterServer plan fulfills most of the needs. But having an option to upgrade their plan could be just a better add-on to the service.
It helps people with less technical knowledge to easily upgrade their plan without worrying about site migration and other technical stuff. However, the shared hostings have never been the right solution for high traffic sites.
Thereunto, even if you sign up with the shared hosting plan, and later you want to shift to the VPS or even a dedicated server, then you can do that too with InterServer.
Confusing Customer Dashboard
Although the customer area is pretty neat and clean, there are a lot of options that don’t even function properly. Even most of them are empty by default.
To illustrate, you can find a button to download your backups. I thought that would either take me to download the page or directly start downloading the backup file. But that button doesn’t lead me anywhere — just a blank screen.
So, I connected with customer support for further assistance regarding the backup. The guy, on the other hand, told me that I could download the backup file directly from the cPanel. It seems fine, but that doesn’t justify having a “Download Backup” button in the customer dashboard.
So, Do I recommend InterServer?
Of course, Yes.
InterServer is a great, reliable, and trusted web hosting company with strong technical masterships. They offer excellent speed, reliable uptime, and, most important, excellent customer support. On top of that, the locked price for life makes it the best choice for webmasters expecting moderate traffic.
However, they need to work on certain areas, for instance, their knowledge base, dashboard area, and other basic stuff. But even after that, the team behind InterServer helps a lot. And this might be the reason why I love InterServer a lot.
Services InterServer Offers
Throughout the article, I was talking about its most popular shared hosting plan. But it offers a bunch of other hosting services as well. Here are some of the popular services provided by InterServer-
Shared Hosting
InterServer is very popular because of their Shared Hosting plan. It is one of the most budget-friendly options if you want to host your website with them. It offers an unlimited allocation of storage and bandwidth. Along with that, you’ll get a lot of free stuff that includes SSL, CDN, and InterShield Security.
Their shared hosting plan costs just $5 per month. But if you sign up for a longer duration, you can get an additional discount on your monthly hosting fee. For example, if you opt for a 36 months plan, then you just need to pay $4/month.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting is great for someone who constantly sells part of its hosting with multiple individuals. For example, if you are a developer who regularly develops websites for your clients or if you are someone who just wants to start your own web hosting business, then reseller hosting is an excellent option for you. They offer five different reseller hosting plans. You can choose the one according to your needs.
VPS and Cloud Hosting
VPS and cloud hosting plans are typically for websites with medium to high traffic. So, you can say that once you outgrow your shared hosting plan, you can move to VPS so that it can handle your big amount of traffic. These VPS and cloud hosting plans are much similar to InterServer’s shared hosting plan, but the only difference is that it hosts your website in a cloud-based server.
The monthly cost of these VPS depends on the configuration of cores, storage, memory, and data transfer. Pricing starts at $6/month and goes up to $96/month. These plans don’t come with any money-back guarantee and refunds, so I suggest you opt for monthly billings only. However, you can pay for a year upfront to receive a 10% discount.
Dedicated Servers
Dedicated servers are most potent, highly customizable, now looking for something more powerful, and one of the most expensive options to host your website. It is commonly used by those who run resource-heavy websites that boast a high level of traffic. It is especially for those who surpassed the VPS hosting’s limits.
Pricing wise, these are the costliest option for someone to host their website. Pricing starts at $50/month and goes up to $995/month.
Colocation Services
Colocation service is something where you pay InterServer to store and maintain a physical server that you own. It means you are renting a physical server where you need to pay for all the stuff like electrical connection, security, etc.
You can choose any of their datacentre for colocation. The pricing depends on how much physical space you are looking for. You can manage your server by your own software, or you can buy InterServer’s server management service.
