HostPapa Review

Website: http://www.hostpapa.com

HostPapa is a hosting company with two headquarters in Niagara Falls, NY and Ontario, Canada. Since launching in 2006, HostPapa has been growing rapidly, establishing service in the UK, Europe and most recently in May of 2011, Australia. HostPapa was one of the first hosting companies to publicly establish a “green” energy policy, making them one of the harbingers of eco-friendly web hosting. Having over 50,000 happy customers and the promise of a free domain for life, HostPapa is a very appealing option for affordable hosting.

HostPapa Highlights

Like most hosting companies. HostPapa offers unlimited disk space, bandwidth and domains, 24-hour support and a 30-day money-back guarantee. They also use Cpanel, the world’s most widely-used control panel. Besides the usual offerings, HostPapa has a few unique features that aren’t part of the average hosting plan.

Free Domain for Life – Whether the domain is brand new or one you’ve had for years, HostPapa offers to keep renewing it at no charge. This could save you money every year, and it removes the need for a separate account (and separate billing) with a registrar like GoDaddy.com. As long as you transfer it to HostPapa, they’ll handle the rest. Indefinitely.

Accommodates Mobile Devices Affordably – HostPapa can “mobilize” your domain for all major smartphones at a surprisingly affordable rate. They offer a 30-day free trial and another 2 months free upon signup. After that, it’s only about $5 per month (with a yearly commitment). Most mobile developers charge quite a bit more than $5 monthly, so this could save a ton of money, especially for a website that relies on mobile traffic. They have a demo mobile site and several case studies online to examine.

Fluency in Spanish – While many web hosts focus on English-speaking customers. HostPapa is very friendly towards Spanish speakers. Their entire website translates into proper Spanish (graphics included), and their Facebook page is bilingual as well. So, if you, your colleagues or your consultants are Spanish speakers, having a bilingual web host has obvious benefits. For those without any Spanish-speaking associates, HostPapa enables you to hire technologists that primarily speak Spanish.

Pioneers of Green Hosting – HostPapa’s systems were among the first to be powered entirely by renewable green energy. Eventually, many other web hosts followed suit, and HostPapa deserves some credit for helping to make green hosting an industry standard. HostPapa also stays involved in environmentalist groups and events. After GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons callously hunted down an African elephant, HostPapa turned such horrible news into a sale that benefited the charity “Save The Elephants.” More recently, they celebrated Earth Day (and 10,000 Facebook “likes”) by planting 10,000 trees. Some hosts are modestly green, and some are green just to keep up with the competition, but HostPapa clearly has a genuine, longstanding commitment to preserving the planet.

HostPapa Weaknesses

One Single, Standard Plan – While HostPapa’s hosting is reliable, they offer no way to purchase more power than their standard plan affords. Those who have present or future needs for virtual private servers or dedicated servers might want to consider avoiding HostPapa, as they simply don’t offer those options.

Long Commitments – HostPapa’s hosting is purchased on an annual basis. Although they quote monthly rates, all of their listed rates are based on 1-year, 2-year or 3-year commitments. Even with a 3-year contract, their standard rate is $5.95 per month, which is bested by quite a few hosts with comparable, cheaper hosting plans that don’t require a multi-year commitment.

Primitive Templates – While HostPapa’s Soholaunch templates are free with their hosting, most customers would probably be better off using a template for a popular CMS like Drupal, Joomla or WordPress. There are some surprisingly sharp CMS templates that are freely available to anyone, not just a HostPapa customer. Because there are better website templates that require no hosting commitment to anyone, this feature is hardly a bonus. In fact, it might mislead less tech-savvy customers to settle for a template that is functionally and aesthetically inferior to free alternatives.

HostPapa Uptime and Reliability

Since June of 2007, HostPapa has maintained a 99.98% uptime, which is considered absolutely outstanding. In many months, uptime is at 100%.

Most customers report reliable, and problem-free hosting with the company, and praise their service. “HostPapa has been hosting several of my websites for almost three years now, including The Wisdom Page, an extremely popular source of wisdom-related resources. I had dealt with another hosting service during the previous dozen years, and the switch to HostPapa was like stepping from gloom into bright sunshine.”

Conclusion

HostPapa is without a doubt a great company with competitive services. They’ve grown past the 50,000 customer milestone, and they’re opening new locations all over the world. They also wrote the book on green hosting and remain actively involved in eco-friendly causes. The company is clearly vibrant, active, progressive and healthy, and their hosting is a reflection of their professionalism. Online forums and webhosting message boards are littered with positive comments about the company, which is rare in an industry that tends to over promise, and underdeliver.

But, if you have a need for more powerful hosting, or have an aversion to multi-year commitments, HostPapa probably shouldn’t be your top choice. Instead, I’d look for hosts with scalable services or competitive, no-commitment monthly rates.

* Click here to view HostPapa’s latest plans & offers

HostPapa Reviews

“Good, like I knew it would be. The great value for my money is what first attracted me to HostPapa and it’s the reason why several years later I’m still with them and recommend them to all my friends.”

“They do exactly what they advertise and I’ve been very happy with the service over the past few years.”

“I have no complaints, other than it may be a little slow. The price and features are great for the value. I have had my site up and running for almost 3 years and have not had any issues.”

“I feel the term ‘under-promise, over deliver’ is appropriate for the service I’ve received over the last 2 years.”

“Host Papa has been dependable, affordable, easy to use and the support staff are on the ball. I switched to Host Papa and encourage others to do the same.”

“We have been with Hostpapa for a couple years after we switched from one of the major web hosting companies. Everything about Hostpapa has been so much better than our old host”

Peter North

Peter is a Director of Digital Marketing at an investment holdings company in Washington DC. He’s worked for nonprofits, startups and established enterprises, and he’s left a long trail of happy clients and effective websites.

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