Ukraine-based FREEhost.UA provides its Unix hosting services mainly in Ukraine and Russia, and it has been providing these services since 2003. To date, it has registered over 140,000 domains and hosted more than 20,000 websites for its customers.
FREEhost.UA owns its own data center in Kiev, Ukraine. Its website can be switched between the Ukrainian and Russian languages.
Features and Ease of Use
FREEhost.UA provides Unix hosting packages that feature:
- 99.99% uptime guarantee
- Daily backups stored on a separate server for 14 days
- Domain registration and transfer service
- Hosting for up to 30 add-on domains
- Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates
One of FREEhost.UA’s main selling points is that you get SSD storage irrespective of which package you choose. These SSD drives (with RAID 5) ensure faster page loading speeds.
FREEhost.UA monitors your websites regularly to protect you against malware and DDoS attacks. Also, daily backups are stored in a separate server and are retained for up to 14 days.
The Unix control panel makes it easy to manage your hosting, and you can try it out for free on the vendor’s website. The control panel allows you to access backups, install applications like WordPress and Joomla, integrate Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools, and monitor your server’s resource usage.
With all hosting packages, you receive a free website builder that offers over 100 useful templates to help you get started. This site builder allows for easy integration of social media and the addition of other elements like contact forms and maps to your website.
Pricing and Support
FREEhost.UA offers eight hosting packages; each one having a description of who will benefit from the particular plan. The starter Business Card package provides a free domain, 250 MB space, and an SSL certificate. The features and resources increase steadily up to the Expert package that allows you to host 30 websites on 20 GB of SSD storage. All packages apart from the most basic Business Card package provide a free website builder.
Although you don’t get unlimited disk storage or add-on domains, you do get great value for the resources you get. A free domain is included when you pay for a year up-front, and you have two opportunities to try before you buy: a 7-day free trial and 30-day money-back guarantee.
FREEhost.UA’s support is pretty impressive. You can contact the staff by email, phone, Skype and live chat. I tested the live chat to see if the Russian-speaking support agent would answer my questions in English:
For self-support purposes, there is a regularly-updated blog, a forum that was very active a few years ago, and a limited FAQ knowledge base.
