HostPapa review

Editor's Overall rating

Users' Overall rating
+ 0 Positive Reviews - - 0 Negative Reviews
Price ValueNot Rated
PerformanceNot Rated
SupportNot Rated
Control PanelNot Rated
Overall experienceNot Rated
HostPapa control panel

Started in Oakville, ON, Canada in 2006, HostPapa is one of the first hosting companies to market their services as an environmentally friendly hosting service provider. Started by the CEO Jamie Opalchuk, Hostpapa.com is not afraid to promote the various green initiatives it has undertaken.

In one of its most controversial promotions, in 2011, they offered to give a free domain name and 3 months hosting to any GoDaddy customers who wanted to move. This was after the GoDaddy CEO was reported to have participated in Elephant hunting in Africa. Further, they offered to donate $5 to the charity “Save the Elephants” during that period. To further their Green Hosting initiative, in the same year, they aimed to donate 10,000 trees through the charity “Love Trees” from new hosting sign ups.

Perhaps their biggest achievement was being named to the PROFIT 500 ranking of Canada’s Fastest Growing companies in 2014. Listed in position 251, it is said to have recorded 223% revenue growth in five years.

 

HostPapa web hosting products and features

Hostpapa.com boasts that all its operations are 100% green energy powered. It offers 3 main products which are Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting and Reseller hosting. It also offers at a lesser degree a Website Builder service for those that want to create their own sites.

1. Shared Hosting:

HostPapa targets mainly community based organizations that care about the environment. As such they have a one size fits all shared hosting model that starts from $3.95 per month. The common features for this plan include:

  • Unlimited Disk Space
  • Unlimited Domain Names on one account
  • FREE Domain Name but only works in the first year before renewal
  • Unlimited Monthly Bandwidth
  • Personal Website Tools
  • FREE Setup
  • FREE Website Builder Software
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
  • $50 Worth of Facebook Ad Credits
  • $75 Worth of Amazon Product Ads
  • $50 Free Ad Credits on Bing/Yahoo Paid Search
  • Search Engine Optimization Tools valued at $120

2. VPS Hosting:

For those with larger websites or have outgrown their shared hosting server, the HostPapa VPS Hosting service works very well for them. Users can either choose their Linux VPS Plans or their Windows VPS Plans. The plans start from $49.99 per month they offer the following features:

  • Starts at $9.99 for the first month
  • Free WebsitePanel CP license
  • Free WHMCS license
  • Unlimited MySQL 5 Databases
  • Supreme Quality Servers and Data Center
  • Root Access to VPS
  • Secure IMAP and POP3 servers
  • Up to $500 Free Marketing Credits
  • 24/7 Customer Support
  • Automated Remote Backup
  • Dedicated IP Addresses for a Fee
  • Fully Managed servers

3. Reseller hosting:

If you want to start your own web hosting business but don’t have enough funds, then the HostPapa Reseller package is just perfect for you. Starting at $19.95 per month, it offers the following features for the budding webmaster:

  • Free Reseller Hosting Setup
  • Disk space starting at 50 GB
  • Bandwidth starting at 500 GB
  • Cpanel & WHM Panels
  • Unlimited Domains Hosting
  • Unlimited Cpanels
  • Choose between Client Exec or WHMCS
  • You can name nameservers in your brand
  • Supporting Many languages
  • Minimum 3 IP Addresses
  • Your Brand’s Control Panel
  • RAID Backup
  • No Contracts

 

Infrastructure, reliability, support and user experience

Hostpapa claims to have their data centers in Toronto, Canada. This allows it to have high speed connections just like US datacenters but maintain lower running costs. One would expect a Green hosting company to have lower uptimes but they have been consistent with their 99.9% uptime guarantee without major issues.

Customer support is 24/7/365 days. However, it should be noted that during non-office hours on weekends, they do not have live support or telephone support. This can be challenging to new webmasters who usually need assistance at the worst times.

For a lot of users, who seem to be medium sized organizations who love the conservation message, the company services are of the highest quality. Most of these organizations do not need frequent updates to their websites. As such the shared hosting offered by the company would suit them perfectly.

The biggest challenge with users is that the company does not guarantee backups on their servers. Stories abound online of their clients losing all their data due to lack of data backups.

 

HostPapa advantages

  • Environmentally conscience even in their operations
  • Strong growth in a short time
  • Multilingual customer support
  • Great presence on social media
  • 99% Uptime Guarantee
  • Low pricing for great service

 

HostPapa disadvantages

  • Live Chat and Telephone Support off during non-office hours on weekends
  • Free Domain name is charged if you exit their hosting plan
  • Expensive cancellation fees during 30 day guarantee period
  • Company still relatively unknown outside Canada
  • No offer for refunds if the 99.9% uptime guarantee is broken
  • Frequent data loss due to lack of backups

 

Overall HostPapa Review

For a company that is still new in the market, HostPapa has definitely created a niche for themselves. For those organizations who value being environmentally friendly this is a perfect choice. They are relatively affordable compared to their peers.

Perhaps their best is in the fact that they are not afraid to target the international clientele. Their Facebook page is in English, Spanish and French thus giving great service to other language speakers. Their financial success is proof that though there may be some negative reviews online, they are still a great hosting company.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Click stars below to rate.
Price Value
Performance
Support
Control Panel
Overall experience