Since 2009, Hosting99 has been offering web hosting solutions. The company provides shared hosting, Content Management System (CMS) hosting, cloud hosting, Virtual Private Servers (VPS), reseller hosting, and domain names.
Its offices are located in Italy, Spain, and the United States, and its servers are in Italy, Germany, France, Holland, and the United States. Its web page is available in Italian only.
Features and Ease of Use
For shared hosting, Hosting99 offers three plans that suit small business websites and personal blogs. These are the provided features:
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
- Daily automatic backup on the top plan
- Free SSL on all but the base plan
- Free domain (.it, .eu, .biz, .com, .net, .org, .info)
- 1GB, 2GB, or 5GB storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
Hosting99 offers PHP and Ruby support to all shared hosting customers. However, if you want to use Python or Perl, you’ll need the top plan as they aren’t supported on the other two plans.
One other restriction that I don’t like is the lack of access to the php.ini file. If you have ever had to deal with plugin or theme issues in WordPress because of resource limits, you’ll know how great it is to have access to php.ini. It controls upload sizes, file timeouts, resource limits, and many other variables. However, only those on the top plan have access to this file.
Hosting99 allows one website, two websites, and three websites respectively on the three plans. Also, it provides easy setup with CloudFlare CDN to enhance your website load time. With this feature, visitors will get your website served from the closest server to them.
This hosting company provides an antivirus filter for your server and email, as well as firewalls. Another feature that improves security and performance is its isolation of accounts.
For hosting management, you get cPanel. Through it, you can set up cron jobs, access your databases and PHPMyAdmin.
You don’t need to know how to manually set up applications and CMSes because Hosting99 provides a one-click installer for WordPress, Joomla!, and 290+ scripts.
Pricing and Support
Hosting99 dishes out some low-cost prices, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the features they offer. On top of that, they throw in a free domain with their top plan. However, it’s only the top plan that comes with this perk. And speaking of freebies, the free SSL is also restricted, as it’s only available in two out of the three plans.
There’s no monthly subscription period on offer, but only one-year hosting. The good thing is that there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee, so your risk is mitigated. The company takes payment through PayPal, and once you pay, your plan is instantly activated.
Hosting99 accepts monthly payments for VPS and you get RAID 10 and DDoS protection, too.
Hosting99 offers phone support from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM from Monday to Friday. There is a live chat and ticket system that work 24/7, and promise a 20-minute response time. I used the live chat to be in touch with a support agent.
There’s also a knowledge base section with tutorials.
