An assessment of Free Hostia

We, at gingerplumber.co.uk, have selected 'Free Hostia' to be our current domain and hosting vendor. Hence we suppose that this brief evaluation of 'Free Hostia' is probably going to be quite useful for other folks from all over the Globe who are looking for domain name and web hosting solutions. We state individuals from all around the Globe, since the mere fact is that 'Free Hostia' presently offers domain and hosting services in several data center facility sites: in North America (Chicago, IL), in the UK (Maidenhead, 20 miles outside London), in Sweden (Stockholm) and in Australia (Sydney). That way, encompassing nearly the whole planet. At least from the point of view of the Internet. So, here is what you could anticipate from 'Free Hostia' in brief:

Shared Site Hosting Solutions

The first detail we, at gingerplumber.co.uk, have discerned is the low prices of the shared hosting plans delivered by 'Free Hostia'. Shared doesn't sound very well, does it? Well, that's what it is called: shared hosting. The good news here is that the web site hosting accounts provided by 'Free Hostia' are powered by an in-house created, avant-garde cloud web hosting platform (each hosting service, such as mail, databases, web site hosting CP, data storage, DNS, stats, and so on, is being run on an independent host of web servers in a cluster). This is something EVERY cPanel web hosting supplier on the Earth will have big difficulties with, because cPanel is a one-server based web page hosting environment (each hosting service, like email, databases, hosting Control Panel, disk storage, DNS, stats, and so on, is being dealt with by one single server), cPanel is not open source (that is why the cPanel-based web site hosting companies are unable to add extra functionality and handle it the way they want it) and there is no open source file platform (they have to devise their own file platform), which is the premise of any cloud web hosting service. Let's return to the shared web space hosting accounts, which are powered by a genuine clustered web site hosting system. With a shared web hosting package, each client pays just for his/her account, thus keeping the web space hosting price really low (because numerous customers are hosted on one and the same web hosting server). To cut a long story short, a shared hosting package, which is hosted on a clustered web site hosting solution, enables you to pay only for the resources that you actually need, evading a situation where you pay for an advanced web page hosting account that you cannot truly use, or for a small webspace hosting plan that cannot host your web page. The possibility to upgrade your account from one plan to another with only two clicks of the mouse gives you the flexibility to start with a basic plan and upgrade as your Internet presence grows. Hence, you economize cash that you can spend on advertising the web page while it is still novel. Every webspace hosting plan offered by 'Free Hostia' sports an online web site builder and over forty widely used script-driven software applications among them WordPress, Joomla, Zen Cart and Moodle that will spare you hundreds of dollars for web site design solutions. 'Free Hostia' distributes shared website hosting accounts in a number of different geographical regions around the Globe. There is one datacenter facility in Chicago covering the US and Canada; 2 European data centers - in the UK and in Sweden; and another one in Australia, which covers the Asia Pacific. Thus, approximately the whole Earth is covered to supply you and your visitors with a steady and fast webspace hosting solution at a desired place. Altogether, the shared hosting solutions delivered 'Free Hostia' are quite well equipped and come at an affordable price (starting from $0.00 for the Chocolate plan).

Semi-dedicated Web Servers

To people with little to no practice, a VPS web hosting server may appear complicated to manage. That's probably why 'Free Hostia' also keeps semi-dedicated web servers in its main American server farm facility in Chicago. Managing these plans is comparable to handling a conventional shared hosting account via a web hosting Control Panel GUI. They have all the specs of a shared web site hosting plan such as a fee-free website builder and a web app installer, but the system resource quota provided by a semi-dedicated server web hosting plan is many times larger than that of a shared web hosting plan. For instance, the CPU power that can be utilized is about 5 times as much as compared to the shared site hosting accounts. When matched against a shared hosting plan, the quota of database queries added within the semi-dedicated hosting packages is enormous: 90 000 / hour. An unmetered hosted domain quota is a rule too. The semi-dedicated web server hosting accounts do not include root privileges (we, at gingerplumber.co.uk, consider this a little weakness), but the benefit is that they are managed through the same webspace hosting Control Panel interface as the shared packages. This signifies that a well-known graphical environment is offered to all users who do not feel self-confident enough to handle a private virtual web server, yet require more power and reserves than a VPS server can provide them with. This is so due to the fact that the semi-dedicated servers share the reserves of the same powerful leading edge servers as the ones which host the virtual private web hosting server accounts, yet, the number of the semi-dedicated hosting servers is quite low (somewhere between twenty to 30 per server), whereas the virtual private hosting servers can reach a much higher number (80 to 120 per server). Having that info in mind, the semi-dedicated servers provided by 'Free Hostia' can be branded as being amazingly affordable (as far as cost is concerned), starting from $29.95 for the Boabab package.

Dedicated Servers

According to gingerplumber.co.uk, huge sites such as social networks, community and corporate portals or popular online storefronts with 1000s of customers need a much more powerful webspace hosting environment. It appears that the blokes from 'Free Hostia' have reached the same conclusion as well. To satisfy its users' expectations, 'Free Hostia' delivers a number of dedicated hosting servers that can manage millions of daily visits. That evaluation stands on the hardware specs the dedicated web hosting servers have: Dual and Quad-core processors, up to 4 GB of RAM, 2000 GB of disk space and Gigabit NICs will definitely ensure the quick and steady performance of any kind of website. In 'Free Hostia's opinion, the original hardware specs can be upgraded for more resource-requiring web sites. We, from gingerplumber.co.uk, think that all dedicated server specs furnished by 'Free Hostia' are also suitable for kickstarting a hosting reseller business as each server ships with free billing transaction software platform and a free-of-charge domain reseller account. Sadly, the dedicated web servers supplied by 'Free Hostia' are all unmanaged. We, at gingerplumber.co.uk, deem this a slight weakness, which can be righted by paying a monthly fee of $32.00 USD. So, if you are in need of aid, the Managed Services upgrade provides a few extra services such as a regular backup, software installation, dedicated hosting server surveillance and troubleshooting operations. A bunch of web site hosting Control Panel (CP) GUIs are available with each of the dedicated web hosting servers - Hepsia, cPanel and DirectAdmin. Our (gingerplumber.co.uk's) prediction is that the splendid point and click File Manager added in the Hepsia webspace hosting CP will perhaps make the recourse to any File Transfer Protocol client pointless. Our (gingerplumber.co.uk's) conclusion is that the dedicated servers furnished by 'Free Hostia' don't seem to be very cheap (still the Hepsia hosting CP and the unlimited hosted domain name allowance will doubtlessly make you smile), commencing from $139.95 for the Arctic package.