BUYING A CHEAP WEB HOSTING PACKAGE
Compare It To Other Web Hosting Packages - Test Its Support Team
Thursday 1st July 2010 – 2:35 PM
Today I bought a 1 Year web hosting package from knet hosting
for only £14.95. The lowest priced package I had time to find. I did come across uk-cheapest
who offer their cheapest web hosting package at £1.59 per month but this totals £22.42 (12 x £1.59 = £19.08 + £3.34 V.A.T = £22.42).
Both prices for these web hosting packages were based on me already having my own domain name, which I had (websitecreationvideos.com from
name cheap), as opposed to me ordering a new domain
name from them.
The reason for buying a cheap web hosting package is because I want to see if there is any truth about them being “cheap ‘n’ nasty” and more precisely whether or not you should use them. So for this example I am comparing the knet web hosting package bought above with my current nethosted web hosting package which cost me £34.95 (their cheapest web hosting package). It hosts my websitecreationhelp.com domain name which I bought on 2nd June 2009 with the web hosting package.
Thursday 1st July 2010 – 2:55 PM
Received an email from knet hosting to say everything is up and running, which I was pleasantly surprised by because they stated this part of the process could take up to two hours. Anyway, this now meant I had to go to namecheap.com and change the name servers for websitecreationvideos.com to point to the knet hosting name servers (details of which were in the knet hosting email).
The Packages And Their Differences
One of the major gripes with “cheap ‘n’ nasty” web hosting packages is that their service support is rubbish and their web hosting package does not
contain enough features. So now am I going to compare the control panel features first (both knet and nethosted use the CPanel control – Accelerated
2).
I will look at the STATS column first, Knet results followed by NetHosted results:
Apache Version
Knet: 2.2.13 – NetHosted: 2.2.14
CPanel Pro 1.0 (RC1)
Knet & NetHosted
PHP Version
Knet: 5.2.10 – NetHosted: 5.2.12
MySQL Version (NetHosted also supports PostgreSQL)
Knet: 5.0.91 Community-log – NetHosted: 5.0.90 Community
Now I will look at the tools/features/services/etc of the CPanel itself, on each web hosting package, and only remark on what is different between them.
Therefore assume the CPanels are the same except where remarked on:
Preferences
Knet has a Shortcut feature and Change Language feature
Mail
Knet: SPAM Assassin (Switched Off by default)
NetHosted: Assp Deluxe (SPAM Filter) v4
Files
Both the same
Logs
Knet has a feature, called Choose Log Programs, which allows you to choose which Statistic Services (Analog, Awstats and Webalizer) to use.
Security
Knet has two extras features – SSL/TLS Manager (Certificates Manager) and SSH / Shell Access (Secure FTP basically). Even though these are technical they
are still added extras.
Domains
Both the same
Database
NetHosted has support for PostgreSQL databases as well
Software
Knet includes – Ruby On Rails (Technical Programming Language) support/apps (RubyGems), CGI Center (Guestbook, Clock, etc apps) and Fantastico De Luxe
(Software/Script Installer)
NetHosted includes – Installatron (Software/Script Installer)
Both Knet and NetHosted include RVSiteBuilder (Website Builder)
Advanced
NetHosted includes a Virus Scanner
With regards to the software installers, NetHosted has more software in its list of programs and is more up-to-date with latest versions of those programs.
Overall I would say NetHosted has the better CPanel. Although Knet does have some extra programs, not seen in the NetHosted CPanel, they do tend to be
slightly less useful and/or too technical for the average person. Probably why NetHosted has not included them in their CPanel.
So far, CPanel-wise, NetHosted is slightly better than Knet when it comes to software but saying this most of the programs in the software list can be
downloaded/installed manually by going to the appropriate software websites. Therefore, feature-wise, Knet is slighty better because it offers more
security access and supports the ruby programming language.
As a package here are their main features:
Disk Space
Knet: 500MB – NetHosted: 250MB
Monthly Bandwidth Allowance
Knet: 20GB – NetHosted: 5GB
Website Hosting
Knet: 5 Websites – NetHosted: 2 Websites
MySQL Databases
Knet: 5 – NetHosted: 10
Parked Domains
Knet: 5 – NetHosted: 1
Add-On Domains
Knet: 5 – NetHosted: 1
Sub-Domains
Knet: Unlimited – NetHosted: 10
From the above Knet still has the advantage and at only £14.95 per year it seems great value for money. However, let’s look at the gripes that many people
associated with cheap ‘n’ nasty web hosting.
The Gripes
When you hear of cheap web hosting you normally hear – THEIR SERVERS ARE SLOW (Making your website slow), THEIR PRICES ARE TOO CHEAP (Therefore
they cannot possibly afford the quality/faster servers and experienced staff of the competition) and THERE IS A CATCH (Because people cannot believe the
price and feel there must be something lacking in the package and/or something pricey will be added later). So what is the truth?
THE SERVERS ARE SLOW
If this is the case it might not be due to cheaper servers (computers and other hardware). A cheaper web hosting company could be using faster, better
quality, servers than their expensive rivals; in which case the slowness would more than likely be down to the number of websites hosted on each server
with the cheaper web hosting company.
Hosting too many websites on a server is okay to a degree as long as not all websites are heavy on traffic at the same time. A good web hosting company,
with expensive or cheap web hosting packages, will cap the number of websites hosted per server. A number you should ask them about before joining them.
THEIR PRICES ARE TOO CHEAP
Many web hosting companies that offer cheap web hosting packages normally make that web hosting package pay for itself via expensive domain names and/or
other, extra, services. They might make the initial package cheap in the hope you will upgrade to a more professional package for example or they might
charge heavily for domain names and domain transfers. So look at your overall payment to reason whether or not your web hosting package really is as cheap
as you first thought.
THERE IS A CATCH
Normally the so-called CATCH associated with cheaper web hosting companies is their overall service or lack of it – Rubbish Technical Support being the
main culprit. To be fair to the web hosting companies, to a degree, a lot of user issues are down to the fact that the user does not know what are they
are doing in the first place and/or do not read the manuals and therefore create their own problems.
This then puts added resources (i.e. extra staff) into the “level of service” equation. Too many “I don’t know what I am doing” user problems will put a
resources strain on any company, not to mention price increases. So before blaming a web hosting company for being too expensive think about its “problem
users” impact.
If you complain about a web hosting company being too cheap, and therefore avoid it, think again. It could just be that they know the limits of their
server/hardware and/or the budgets of their average customers and that is the reason why they only deal with, restricted functionality, cheap web hosting
packages. Or they could be cheap because they have more customers and can therefore afford to bring the price down.
It’s like a Mobile Phone shop. They have “rich” customers who can afford a £300+ blackberry phone and “poor” customers who can only afford a £25 phone,
but at the same time have “rich” customers who only need a £25 phone (to carry around with them when in high theft areas) and “poor” customers who have
saved £300+ to buy their parents a blackberry phone. The point being, a “rich” person will not always judge the cheaper phone shop as being too cheap
simply because they may be buying a phone from it one day. So do not judge a cheaper web hosting company until you have tried one of their packages.
I am trying Knet Hosting and so far I see no real difference between Knet and NetHosted in terms of performance. Obviously, at some point over this next
year I may have to put their support center to the test and also monitor the overall performance of the websitecreationvideos.com website but until
then.....
I will update this web page, if need be, with any developments (good or bad!).
Sunday 4th July 2010 – 12:06 PM
Today the website is down!! I can get to it without the domain name being entered into a web browser’s address bar, using the raw domain name used by
KNet when your domain name and name servers have not been resolved (set up basically), but cannot use websitecreationvideos.com directly.
So I contacted KNet Hosting (who are hosting my web space) and then Name Cheap (who are pointing my domain name to the knet webspace via the name servers)
to see who was reasonable. This is one of the downsides to having a separate web space and domain name.
Name Cheap responded almost immediately and stated the name servers on KNet’s side of things were poorly set up and that I should contact them, which I
did at 12:06 pm but got no reply. I checked for a reply, or at least an acknowledgement that they had received my email, again at 4:11 pm but still no
luck.
Finally! At 8:27 pm I get an email with an apology, which I replied to at 9:14 pm asking what the problem was. It turned out to be a server wide problem
that they say should not of affected their service – their reply came in at 9:15 pm (within 1 minute of my 9:14 pm reply), which is dammed fast by any
standards.
So do I hold a grudge for this 8 Hours or so of downtime? Of course not. You cannot blame a hosting company for technical problems all the time. I’m not
perfect at what I do and I do not expect others to be, even if I am paying them. So at this time I still rate KNet Hosting as a good company.
Wednesday 21st July 2010 – 11:33 PM
Three weeks after buying the knet hosting Basic Plan (web hosting package) I asked them to void it for me as I no longer needed it, which they promptly
did for me with no problems whatsoever. Their customer service throughout has been excellent.
Although I was prepared to test run this Basic Plan for 1 Year, I saw no need to. I had compared its cpanel (control panel) softwares/scripts against the
cpanel softwares/scripts of my nethosted Basic Plan and was satisfied with what the knet hosting cpanel had to offer, especially for the Basic Plan price
of just £14.95 a year. Furthermore, I did not experience any more drop outs (down-time / website not live) situations and overall felt confident about the
service.
You could argue that I should of kept on with the up-time tests for the rest of the year, which would be a valid argument, but at the same time; when you
have a feel for something you distinctly know whether or not the good or bad times are to continue. And I had the feeling that knet hosting was good enough
for basic website hosting.
Conclusions
I definitely would not use a cheaper web hosting plan for Video Streaming for example, simply because for the cheap price you would not be allocated
enough server resources and hosting plan features to accommodate your video requirements, but I would at least recommend a cheaper web hosting plan for
general HTML Websites (i.e. Text and Picture websites) and for running PHP Scripts such as Blogs and Forums. I would also recommend cheaper web hosting
plans if you just need a start-up/test website, especially if it is your first experience with building a website.
Hopefully this section has shown you that a cheaper web hosting plan, and therefore its provider, can have great customer service, features and softwares
behind it…..even if it does mean looking through pages of a search engine just to find it. It’s a shame that too many bad web hosting companies are out
there tarnishing the image of their industry, but unfortunately this can be said of many industries.
At the end of the day it is down to Trial & Error – Look at reviews, forums, blogs, testimonials and so on to guage what hosting providers are good.
Unfortunately you might have to try a few of them out before picking the right one but, fortunately, these days that has become easier with more and more
web hosting providers offering a 30-Day Trial of their web hosting packages (plans) with money-back guarantees. So you might want to explore that
possibility first.
Saturday 31st July 2010 – 2:31 PM
I have just purchased a £24.95 Per Year web hosting package (BASIC Plan) from Krystal Hosting
and uploaded my free computer lessons (yoingco.com) website content into its web space. I got a free domain name with the purchase, so I registered
freecomputerlessons.co.uk. This means my krystal
hosting web space now has the domain name of freecomputerlessons.co.uk assigned to it.
You can read the full story on my Blog.