Founded in 2000, ValueHost is a Russian web hosting company that has an old-school feel but boasts excellent features that can support both personal and business websites. They have an excellent array of advanced features with developer tools and support for both MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. All plans come with a free domain with the purchase of at least an annual contract.
Features and Ease of Use
ValueHost offers excellent features for shared web hosting with a generous amount of SSD storage with each plan along with a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Here’s a rundown of their basic features:
- Unlimited add-on domains
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Free domain with a year’s worth of hosting
- Supports mailing lists
- MySQL and PostgreSQL databases
Most places support MySQL, but you don’t see PostgreSQL support that often. There are also few hosts that allow mailing lists, so the fact that ValueHost allows them is a bonus. Their plans also offer a wide variety of advanced features, including support for advanced developmental tools:
- Dedicated IP address with most plans
- Free SSL certificates (with higher-tier plans)
- Supports PHP 5.6 – 7.2, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, phpMyAdmin
- Supports cron jobs
- Daily backups
You won’t find many hosts that support more tools than this provider. You also get a dedicated IP address on most plans, which is a huge plus for those serious about their internet marketing efforts.
The downside to this host is that they don’t provide anything to support beginners, such as a website builder or an auto-installer. You’ll have to set up your website manually with just FTP and cPanel. If you don’t mind the learning curve, then you’ll be fine.
Pricing and Support
ValueHost offers four different plans for shared hosting. Here’s how each plan breaks down.
| Plan A | Plan B | Plan In | Plan M | |
| Storage | 25GB | 50GB | 75GB | 200GB |
| FTP Logins | 15 | 30 | 50 | 100 |
| Databases (on SSD servers) | 15 | 30 | 50 | 100 |
| Dedicated IP? | Optional | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSL Certificates? | Optional | Optional | Yes | Yes |
| Daily Backups? | Yes | Yes | Optional | Optional |
| Recovery From cPanel? | Yes | Yes | Optional | Optional |
I like the available storage and the number of databases supported on these plans, but I don’t like how you have to pay extra fees for certain features. For example, the lower-tier plans require you to pay for your SSL certificates. If you opt for the higher-tier plans and want daily backups and the ability to recover your data from cPanel, there’s an additional fee. I would have expected these features to be included in the higher-tier plans, but apparently, that’s not the case with this host. It feels like they’re trying to squeeze out some extra cash in a somewhat petty manner.
Furthermore, these plans are slightly more expensive than standard shared hosting from other providers, and that’s before paying for the upgrade fees. However, if you pay for a year’s hosting in advance, you will get a free domain — sometimes even multiple free domains, if you’re going for their higher-tier plans.
Support for this provider is a bit suspect. They offer live phone support, email support, and live chat support. However, when I attempted to contact them via live chat, I discovered the connection was not secure, which is a big red flag. It ended up not mattering because I was never able to reach anyone. There is a knowledge base available, but it’s written only in Russian, which may prove to be a bit of a deterrent for any foreign users of this service.
