InterServer vs Hostwinds – Close, but Only One Winner [2024]

While both InterServer and Hostwinds provide a wide range of feature-packed hosting plans for individuals and businesses, only one of them offers excellent value for your money.

InterServer is cheaper than Hostwinds, yet it has better features, more consistent performance, and a more robust security suite. It offers the better deal of the two hosts by a wide margin.

To make a comprehensive comparison between InterServer and Hostwinds, I tested them for pricing, features, performance, support, and security. It was Hostwinds’ unstable performance and high prices that made it lose this battle.

Continue reading to see how each service performed in this comparison.

1. Plans and Pricing

InterServer Offers Cheaper VPS Plans

Both InterServer and Hostwinds offer lots of hosting plans including shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated servers. All of InterServer’s VPS packages are fully managed and configurable, whereas Hostwinds offers both managed and unmanaged VPS packages.

Not only are Hostwinds’ VPS plans more expensive than InterServer’s (even with promotional discounts), but they also renew at a higher price. On the other hand, you don’t get overcharged with InterServer, as its VPS plans have fixed prices and do not feature renewal fees.

Both hosts offer free website migration. Hostwinds offers a free domain (with annual billing) and money-back guarantee (ranging from 48 hours to 30 days), depending on your subscription. InterServer doesn’t offer a free domain, but it offers a 30-day money-back guarantee with its web hosting packages.

Even though both services offer affordable hosting, InterServer outshines Hostwinds by offering cheaper hosting in both the short term and long term.

2. Features

More VPS Storage with Hostwinds – More Options with InterServer

This is a tough round since both InterServer and Hostwinds offer feature-loaded, SSD-powered VPS packages for Linux and Windows. Additionally, InterServer offers VPS packages for WordPress as well.

With Hostwinds managed VPS for Linux, you can get up to 750 GB SSD storage, 9 TB bandwidth, 96 GB RAM, and 16 CPUs. With InterServer, you can get up to 480 GB SSD storage, 32768 MB RAM, 16 TB bandwidth, and 16 CPUs.

Using InterServer’s Webuzo control panel, you’ll be able to deploy hundreds of popular CMS applications instantly, such as WordPress, Drupal, and PrestaShop for free. You also have the option to choose from cPanel or DirectAdmin control panels.

Use the comparison table below to compare InterServer and Hostwinds:

Both hosts offer feature-rich VPS hosting packages to meet different needs. If you prefer more storage, Hostwinds will be a good option. However, if you’d rather have fully managed servers and more options, InterServer is the best option.

3. Performance

InterServer Has Better Uptime

Both InterServer and Hostwinds have two server locations in the US, but Hostwinds recently added a third data center in the Netherlands. This definitely made up for some of its slow loading speeds from Europe and Asia.

Both hosts use SSD storage with their plans. SSD storage performs much faster than the regular HDD storage, in terms of website data retrieval and processing. This reflects directly on the websites loading speed and overall performance.

Free CloudFlare CDN (Content Delivery Network) is also included with all the plans offered by both hosts. This feature boosts your website’s loading speeds from different locations around the world by placing it on a global network of cloud servers.

Hostwinds promises a 99.9999% uptime guarantee and InterServer promises a 99.9% uptime guarantee, but several downtimes have been reported with Hostwinds, while Interserver proved on several occasions to have exceeded its own uptime.

Although Hostwinds showed slightly better loading speeds than InterServer, that can be fixed by activating CloudFlare. Hostwinds’ downtimes, however, are a real deal breaker. This is why InterServer wins the performance round.

4. Security

InterServer Includes More Free Security Features with Its Plans

Both hosts have their own home-developed security packages. InterServer includes InterShield with all its plans while Hostwinds’ WindSheild package is offered as an optional paid add-on.

InterSheild blocks web attacks (including DDoS/Brute-Force attacks), scans for viruses, applies Machine Learning Firewall, and has its own inhouse malware database, which is obtained from thousands of servers and websites around the world.

InterServer also includes its own Inter-Insurance which cleans out any compromised, hacked or exploited accounts.

Hostwinds’ security is pretty much all included with its WindSheild paid package, which includes three services – firewall setup, security audit, and server hardening. This also includes DDoS/Brute-Force protection.

Both hosts rely on CloudLinux OS for their servers, which securely isolates each account on the server from other accounts on the same server, to protect it against any unwanted threats targeting the other accounts. At the same time it ensures the fair allocation of server resources among all accounts on the server.

InterServer includes free automatic weekly backups with all its plans while Hostwinds undertakes daily backups with their plans.

While Hostwinds makes you pay extra to secure your website, InterServer offers advanced security features for free with its packages, making it the winner of this section.

5. Support

Hostwinds Has a More Organized Knowledge Base

Even though both InterServer and Hostwinds have an extensive knowledge base, it’s easier to navigate the website and find what you’re looking for with Hostwinds.

InterServer’s customer support is available 24/7 through live chat, ticket support, email, and phone. It even operates native speaking phone support centers in the US, UK, Israel, Brazil, and India. Even though the live chat is highly responsive, they’re not very knowledgeable.

Hostwinds also offers 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone, email, and ticket support. The live chat was responsive, but like InterServer, the representative wasn’t very knowledgeable either.

When it comes to customer support, both hosts lack reliability. However, Hostwinds manages to edge ahead in this aspect due to its slightly more organized knowledge base, which compensates for this drawback. In the support round, Hostwinds emerges as the winner by a narrow margin.

Hostwinds Loses Out to InterServer

Hostwinds put up a fight against InterServer. However, InterServer managed to beat Hostwinds in three out of five sections, especially in the pricing round. InterServer offers better value for your money, even after renewal. It also provides more reliable performance and more security features – something that Hostwinds actually charges you for.

It’s no surprise that InterServer has made it as one of the top hosts in our list of the best web hosting services.

FAQ

Which host is better, InterServer or Hostwinds?

InterServer is definitely an overall better choice than Hostwinds, and is one of the most recommended web hosts by our experts. You have a lot of high-quality plans that are suitable for almost all types of hosting. You also pay much less with InterServer compared to Hostwinds. See where InterServer is ranked in our expert list of the best web hosting services.

Does Hostwinds offer WordPress hosting?

No. Hostwinds doesn’t offer WordPress hosting packages. However, it allows you to install WordPress through Softaculous from your cPanel with any shared hosting plan. Need reliable managed WordPress hosting? Don’t miss our detailed list of the best managed WordPress hosting services.

Does InterServer use SSD?

Yes. InterServer offers ultra SSD storage with most of its hosting packages including shared, VPS, and WordPress hosting. InterServer is also featured in our list of the best recommended SSD hosting services.

Does Hostwinds offer a free domain?

Yes. Hostwinds offers a free domain name registration with its annual subscriptions. It also offers free website transfer. If you don’t know which name to choose, you can take a look at this ultimate guide to choosing a domain name.