HostMonster Web Hosting

Despite its imposing name, HostMonster isn't particularly monstrous in any way. In fact, it's a good, albeit unremarkable, web hosting service that offers the core tools you need to build personal or small business sites. HostMonster has respectable shared, dedicated, and virtual private server (VPS) options, but its basic features keep it from matching the exemplary functionality of Editors' Choice winners DreamHost, HostGator, and Hostwinds.

(Credit: HostMonster)

Shared Hosting

If you don't want to spend too much money on web hosting, shared hosting is the way to go. With this most basic hosting tier, your website lives on a server with other websites. In other words, the sites share a single server's cost and resources. As a result, shared web hosting is cheap web hosting. Shared hosting isn't powerful, so your site may load slowly or become unavailable if your content (or that of one of your cohabitants) receives a big social media hit.

HostMonster's shared hosting plans lack month-to-month payment options, which is a ding against the service. You must sign up for an annual plan at minimum, but HostMonster throws a few bones your way if you commit to a two- or three-year plan.

The Linux-based Basic shared hosting package costs $12.99 per month for a 12-month term. This rate is discounted during your first billing cycle to $6.95 per month for 12 months. Unfortunately, these rates are not easy to find on the pricing page; you must navigate the site's plan cost comparison page to find them. A Basic package includes a free domain name that you can keep for as long as you use HostMonster, a free domain transfer, 50GB of storage, unlimited monthly data transfers, five email accounts, and the ability to host a single website.

The Plus package ($17.99 per month for 12 months) is the next step up, and it offers unlimited website storage, unlimited email accounts, unlimited websites, and spam prevention for one website. Choice Plus ($19.99 per month for 12 months) is HostMonster's recommended shared hosting plan. It builds upon the Plus package by adding domain privacy protection and CodeGuard website backups for one year.

Finally, the Pro plan ($33.99 per month for 12 months) includes everything in Choice Plus, as well as high-performance servers, automated backups, and a premium SSL certificate.

If you don't want a lengthy commitment check out HostGator. It offers month-to-month payment options, which is good if you need short-term hosting. It also includes unlimited emails, domains, monthly data transfers, and Windows-based servers.

VPS Hosting

If you need web hosting that's more powerful than shared hosting, but less expensive than dedicated web hosting, HostMonster has several Linux-based VPS packages. VPS, or virtual private server hosting, is exactly what it sounds like. You pay for space on a shared server, but one with far fewer server mates. Regardless of the tier you select—there are four in total—you'll enjoy a free domain name and SSL certificate.

The $59.99 per month Standard plan includes 2GB of RAM, 30GB of storage, and 1TB of monthly data transfers. The $71.99 per month Enhanced package ups the RAM, storage, and monthly data transfers to 4GB, 60GB, and 2TB, respectively. Next up the ladder is the $107.99 per month Premium plan, which comes with 6GB of RAM, 90GB of storage, and 2TB of monthly data transfers. The top-tier Ultimate package, which is $143.99 per month, blesses you with 8GB of RAM, 120GB of storage, and 3TB of monthly data transfers.

Those are good plans, but Hostwinds tops them with unlimited monthly data transfers and Windows-based options starting as low as $10.99 per month.

(Credit: HostMonster)

Dedicated Hosting

If you need even more hosting muscle, consider HostMonster's dedicated server plans (starting at $169 per month). With dedicated hosting, your site lives on a server alone, leveraging its full power—this is the hardware you need to power a site designed to handle millions of visitors per year. The Linux-powered servers can be outfitted with up to 2TB of hard drive space, 16GB of RAM, and 15TB of data transfers per month, roughly the same specs as the dedicated hosting service offered by Bluehost (the web hosts have the same parent company).

These plans don't quite beat the ones offered by AccuWeb. AccuWeb one-ups HostMonster with six configurable server types starting at $110 per month for 8TB of storage, 32GB of RAM, unlimited data transfers, and a choice of Linux or Windows operating systems.

No WordPress, Cloud, or Reseller Hosting

HostMonster lacks optimized WordPress hosting. You can install and run a WordPress website using the available plans, but HostMonster does not have WordPress-focused hosting that handles specialized security, backup, and the like. The customer service rep we spoke with (more on that in a bit) suggested checking out BlueHost's offerings for optimized WordPress hosting, as that company is HostMonster's sister site.

This is not a bad idea. Bluehost strikes a good balance between pricing and features, offering services that appeal to hobbyists and professionals. Great uptime, WordPress-enhancing tools, e-commerce add-ons, and overall flexibility make Bluehost a web host you can count on for a rock-solid website. Likewise, WP Engine should be on your radar if you want enterprise-class WordPress hosting.

HostMonster doesn't offer cloud hosting, either. If you want that type of hosting, please check out DreamHost, which offers fantastic cloud-based hosting with highly competitive rates and a feature-packed toolset that includes site-building software and unlimited data transfers across the board.

As you might expect, HostMonster also lacks reseller hosting plans. Hostwinds has strong reseller plans for people who want to open hosting businesses.

(Credit: HostMonster)

Setting Up a HostMonster Site

HostMonster gives you several tools for building a website, including Weebly, a well-known choice among web-based website builders. Weeby's drag-and-drop functionality let me quickly build an attractive page complete with slideshows, contact forms, social media links, and more.

Weebly's free version gives you basic Weebly functionality (you can create six pages and add custom HTML), but upgrading to the $12 per month Professional tier offers even more flexibility (custom themes, password-protected pages, and more).

HostMonster supports various e-commerce shopping carts, including AgoraCart, CubeCart, OS Commerce, and Zen Cart.

Security Features

HostMonster web hosting packages include many security features, including antispam and hotlink protection. That said, if you want higher-end protection, sign up for HostMonster's Business Plus package, which comes with an SSL certificate and two kinds of antispam protection.

HostMonster's email supports DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) authentication technology for added security.

Terrific Uptime

Website uptime is one of the most important aspects of a hosting service. If your site is down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your products or services, which is bad for business. You can't take the chance that they'll visit someone else's business and not return.

For this test, we used a website monitoring tool to track our HostMonster-hosted test site's uptime over 14 days. Every 15 minutes, the tool pinged our website and sent us an email if it couldn't contact the site for at least one minute. The data revealed that HostMonster is incredibly stable; it didn't go down once during the testing period.

(Credit: HostMonster)

Customer Service and Money-Back Guarantee

We contacted HostMonster's tech support via web chat on a weekday afternoon to ask a representative about the differences between the company's various offerings. A rep quickly fielded our question and offered a detailed breakdown.

We later fired up the web chat on a weekday morning to ask a representative about how to import our WordPress setup into HostMonster. A rep came to our aid a few seconds later and pasted a helpful link into the chat that contained step-by-step instructions. The person on the other side of the computer also suggested calling the 24-hour support squad if we needed step-by-step guidance.

HostMonster hosting packages come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is par for the web hosting course.

Verdict: A Fine Web Host, But Not the Best of the Bunch

HostMonster makes setting up a site or blog a breeze. It's good for basic site building, but lacks the optimized WordPress, reseller, and cloud features that could help it compete with the big dogs. Furthermore, its lack of month-to-month pricing plans may turn off people on tight budgets. DreamHost, HostGator, and Hostwinds—our Editors' Choice winners for web hosting services—offer more features and flexibility.