It was nearly impossible for me to find a reliable web hosting company when asking for recommendations. My friends told me about a few hosts but they lost their positive reviews for some reason.
It was as if the big hosting companies were starting to get complacent.
I found InterServer through a recommendation and it ticked all my boxes for my new website.
InterServer has dedicated WordPress hosting plans. Their policies proved interesting. Most importantly, the web host also has attractive prices. I know that if I need to update from my basic plan to dedicated hosting, their rates are among the best.
Interserver Features
Standard Web Hosting
There are a few interesting hosting packages to look at. InterServer understands not all websites have the same needs.
It was one of the aspects which attracted me to the company at the beginning.
Why would I pay for an ultimate hosting plan when I was not going to get hundreds of thousands of visitors? Standard web hosting is the type of plan which puts your website in the public domain. It offers just the right tools and resources to get started. It’s also the most affordable plan.
Still, this affordable plan has a few tools to get any type of website off the ground. All administrative work is made through CPanel. If you’re not familiar with the control panel, you need to know it’s the standard for most web hosts.
You also get the price lock guarantee with this starter package. It means the hosting price will not increase as long as you’re signed up with the host. For me, it’s a clear indication that I needed to check the company out. I’ve launched a few more websites at other hosts and the price went up from one year to another.
Pro Hosting
This hosting option is specifically made for professionals. Webmasters or those who create, grow and sell websites have a dedicated plan here.
If this is your situation, you need to know you can benefit from unlimited domains and separate accounts for each customer or website within the same plan.
If you’re looking to separate your websites from the same server, you also have an upgrade option to create unique IP addresses for each website. It’s the main reason you have the liberty to host websites separately, even if you own more than one.
Disk space is what determines the pricing of these packages. Options include 80GB, 100GB, 200GB, and 240GB disk space.
ASP.NET Hosting
A .NET website can benefit from Windows hosting. InterServer offers specialized Windows hosting. There are benefits to this specialized hosting plan. For example, most users are familiar with the Windows operating system and its intuitive file management. It may prove easier to choose a dedicated hosting plan in this case.
E-Commerce Solutions
Dedicated e-commerce websites have different needs to a company website or a blog.
For example, I used to work on a WooCommerce website for an online store where we had over 5,000 products. This meant 5,000 pages needed to load fast to simplify the shopping process.
InterServer offers SSL certificates and simple WooCommerce, Magento and OpenCart hosting.
A few SEO tools are added by InterServer here. For example, the company offers meta tags and meta description edit options from CPanel. Photos are also automatically compressed to improve website load speed.
A typical WooCommerce hosting plan starts at $5 per month. It has unlimited storage. I know this plan is particularly appealing for those who have larger e-commerce websites with multiple pictures for thousands of products.
Non-Profit Hosting
What I find interesting in this plan is that InteServer offers free websites hosting for non-profit organizations.
I think it’s an excellent description of what the company truly values. Non-profits often do the work the state should do but without any benefit. This is why any non-profit can sign up for a free InterServer website.
While you might think it’s complicated and not achievable, you don’t need to think twice about it. If you represent a non-profit organization, you need to send an e-mail to Interserve's customer service team with your tax identification letter. Based on this letter, you can set up a website with regular tools but without having to pay for monthly hosting.
Student Hosting
You know students rarely have money for their classes, books, and daily expenses. But InterServer offers a helping hand to students who want to set up a website. If you’re a first-year student, you can benefit from 1-year free website hosting on InterServer.
I find it particularly interesting to see how the hosting provider backs students in a stage of their lives where they are very creative. Students have over 100 cloud apps to contribute to their website’s development in the backend as well.
WordPress Hosting
Professional WordPress websites are also cared for with a dedicated plan at InterServer. But why would you choose a dedicated plan over a regular plan for your WordPress website?
In very simple terms, the website is optimized for faster loading speed. High performance is crucial on high traffic websites. I’d certainly recommend this hosting plan for those who might be migrating from another host or for those looking to upgrade a successful website.
Joomla Hosting
Joomla has its own strengths and weaknesses. It’s very popular and as a result, you can find many developers to work with when you want to customize your website. It’s also SEO-friendly. However, its customization remains something that may be hard to match. InterServer offers one-click install scripts for Joomla websites.
Pricing
Standard web hosting starts at $4 per month. Windows web hosting starts at $28.5 per month. WordPress VPS hosting starts at $6 per month for 2048MB memory. Its most powerful version costs $96 per month and its powered by 4 CPU cores based on 32,768MB memory.
Pros
Cons
Final Verdict
InterServer works with individual accounts as well as with reseller accounts. Launched in 1998, the company now has datacenters in New Jersey and Los Angeles. Most importantly, it has a dedicated team working 24/7 to ensure all websites are up and running in optimum conditions.
But I think InterServer is a bit different from its dedicated hosting plans. Non-profit organizations and students even benefit from free hosting. But I think the scalability of each plan is clear. Policies such as those referring to lifetime price lock also mean you know exactly what you’re going to pay for your website even 10 years from now.
If you want to start with InterServer website hosting, you can set up a standard web hosting plan at a very low rate. This already gives you an idea of the cloud apps you can use to optimize your website.
