Kickassd is a Canadian website hosting provider. They don’t advertise when they launched or how many customers they have, which suggests they are either quite new or relatively small. That said, they use top-quality hardware and have servers located in Canada and Germany. Their website is available in over 25 languages using a Google translator plugin, while support is available in English.
Features and Ease of Use
Kickassd offers a nice selection of shared hosting, WordPress hosting, and managed cloud hosting plans in addition to domain registration services.
As standard, their shared hosting packages include the following core features:
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
- Daily automatic R1Soft backups retained for 30 days
- Domain registration available at an additional cost
- Free SSL certificates
- From 10GB to 40GB SSD RAID 10 storage
- 500GB to 20,000GB bandwidth
The first feature to note regarding their hosting is their excellent infrastructure. They use 100% RAID 10 Solid State Disks (SSDs), which means their website loading speeds are on average 95% faster than other non-SSD web hosts. They also use LiteSpeed Web Server, which has been shown to produce better speeds for those using WordPress and Magento on their website.
They also use the CloudLinux OS for greater stability and security, and automatic R1Soft backups to the cloud. Ideally, I’d like to see more information about their server locations. On the upside, they do have a clear 99.9% uptime SLA.
Unfortunately for beginners, they don’t offer a website builder. However, they do support and install WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, and have a one-click installer for over 200 applications to help get novices set up quickly. More advanced users will be pleased to see support for PHP versions 5.6 to 7+, SSH access, and GIT.
Pricing and Support
Unfortunately, Kickassd’s packages do cost a premium. Even the most basic shared hosting package is several times more expensive than what you’ll find with other local or international companies. That said, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. The features are premium and the support is excellent.
Upon checkout, there are a couple of extra features you may opt for. You can add a dedicated IP address for a small monthly fee, or perhaps request email forwarding, ID protection, and DNS management services for the first year of your domain registration. This is also where you can indicate whether or not you require their free website migration service from your previous provider.
You can choose to be billed monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually. There’s a very small discount for purchasing a longer term. They don’t offer a free trial, but they do have a 30-day money back guarantee.
They offer support by telephone, email, and ticket. Their website also provides an excellent knowledge base and a Server Status page. Although I would have preferred the availability of live chat, they have consistently responded promptly to emails. Their team is friendly, helpful, and well-informed.
