Host Gator

Plan Reviewed: Hatchling

Pros

• Great customer service available 24/7
• 45 day money back guarantee
• Pro-rated refund for unused months
• Extensive number of free scripts
• eCommerce extras
• Supports almost every scripting and programming language

Cons

• No free domain name
• No site promotion credits
• No ASP.net support, No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
Host Gator's Hatchling plan is an excellent web hosting option that provides you with comprehensive software support and great customer service. This website is actually hosted by Host Gator, and we highly recommend them.

The plan includes support for just about every scripting and programming language you would want to use. MySQL, CGI, PHP, Ruby on Rails, SSH, Perl, Python, SSI, and Cron are just a few of the things Host Gator supports. With support for these scripting and programming languages you should be able to do just about anything you want with your website. However, if you have a website or database that requires ASP.net or Cold Fusion to run properly, you should look at Host Gator's Swamp plan for ASP.net support and IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan for Cold Fusion support. The 45 day money back guarantee is also a step above what you would usually get with a web hosting company. If you prefer a short-term plan, Host Gator only charges a $5 setup fee as opposed to the standard $30 setup fee. Host Gator does this because they know once you try their service, you'll stay a customer. The main draw of Host Gator's service is probably their great customer service. Our experiences with them have all been positive and have left us feeling great about their service.

Host Gator's service has 2 drawbacks. There is not a free domain name included with the plan, and there are no site promotion credits, such as Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing, included with it. However, the lack of site promotion credits is not that big of a deal. Despite these drawbacks, Host Gator's Hatchling plan gets our highest recommendation.

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Host Monster

Plan Reviewed: Basic

Pros

• Customer service available 24/7
• 30-day money back guarantee
• Pro-rated refund for unused months
• eCommerce extras
• $50 Google AdWords&trade credit
• $50 Yahoo Search Marketing credit
• Power back-up and server load balancing for higher reliability

Cons

• No ASP.net support, No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
Host Monster's Basic plan is a great web hosting option that supports a long list of web applications, programming languages, scripts, and multimedia.

Like many other web hosting plans, Host Monster's service lacks support for ASP.net and Cold Fusion. If you have a website or database that requires that software to run properly then you should look at Host Gator's Swamp plan for ASP.net support and IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan for Cold Fusion support.

The Basic plan gives you support for PHP, Perl, Python, CGI, Ruby, Flash, and JavaScript. The Basic plan gives you the ability to do 100 MySQL databases and 100 PostgreSQL databases. Host Monster's service has both POP3 and IMAP email support. Virtually all forms of multimedia come supported with any of Host Monster's services. We highly recommend HostMonster's Basic plan as it meets our "market standard" in terms of price, and they provide great 24/7 customer service.

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IX Webhosting

Plan Reviewed: Expert

Pros

• Customer service available 24/7
• 30-day money back guarantee
• Pro-rated refund for unused months
• $25 Google AdWords&trade credit
• $50 Yahoo Search Marketing credit
• Power back-up and server load balancing for higher reliability

Cons

• Limited mailbox storage space
• No Ruby on Rails support, No ASP.net support, No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
IX Webhosting's Expert plan is a great web hosting option that gives you a very comprehensive service. You get exactly what you need to get your site up and working. However, it is important to note that IX Webhosting uses H-Sphere which is not the most common control panel used with web hosting services. H-Sphere is less intuitive to use than cPanel.

If you plan on using Cold Fusion to create your website, we recommend signing up for IX Webhosting's next level plan, their Business Plus plan. If you want to use cPanel with Cold Fusion, we recommend going with Go Daddy as it's the only web hosting provider in our survey that has these capabilites.

IX Webhosting's Expert plan gives you the ability to do 100 MySQL databases and even has support for PostgreSQL databases. In terms of email you get both POP3 and IMAP support. When it comes to multimedia there is not really anything that the Business Plus plan does not support.

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Bluehost

Plan Reviewed: Professional

Pros

• Customer service available 24/7
• 30-day money back guarantee
• Pro-rated refund for unused months
• $50 Google AdWords&trade credit
• $50 Yahoo Search Marketing credit
• Power backup and Data backup

Cons

• No ASP.net support, No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
Bluehost's Professional plan is a good low cost option that supports a long list of web applications, programming languages, scripts, and multimedia. If you have a website or database that requires ASP.net or Cold Fusion to run properly then you should look at Host Gator's Swamp plan for ASP.net support and IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan for Cold Fusion support.

The Professional plan gives you support for PHP, Perl, Python, CGI, Ruby, Flash, and JavaScript. It also gives you the ability to do 50 MySQL databases and 50 PostgreSQL databases. Bluehost's service has both POP3 and IMAP email support. Virtually all forms of multimedia are supported with any of Bluehost's services.

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Go Daddy

Plan Reviewed: Economy

Pros

• 24/7 phone and email support
• Pro-rated refund for unused months
• $20 Google AdWords&trade credit
• $25 Microsoft Adcenter credit

Cons

• $1.99 domain name
• No chat support
• No audio or video support

Conclusion
If you plan on using Cold Fusion to create your website, Go Daddy's Economy plan is the only one in our survey that uses cPanel. cPanel is the most common control panel used with web hosting services and is very easy to use. The other plan that supports Cold Fusion is IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan, but they use H-Sphere. One drawback to Go Daddy's Economy plan is that it doesn't have audio or video support.

The plan supports all the expected scripting and programming languages like Perl, PHP, CGI, and SQL. Although you only get 10 GB of disk space and 300 GB of bandwidth, this is far more than the average user needs especially since the plan doesn't include audio or video support.

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FastDomain

Plan Reviewed: Basic

Pros

• Customer service available 24/7
• 30-day money back guarantee
• Pro-rated refund for unused months
• 1 free domain
• 24/7 monitoring and support
• eCommerce extras

Cons

• No site promotion credits
• No ASP.net support, No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
FastDomain's Basic plan is a good web hosting option. The Basic plan supports a long list of web applications, programming languages, scripts, and multimedia. However, the Basic plan lacks support for ASP.net and Cold Fusion. If you have a website or database that requires that software to run properly then you should look at Host Gator's Swamp plan for ASP.net support and IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan for Cold Fusion support.

The Basic plan gives you support for PHP, Perl, Python, CGI, Ruby, Flash, and JavaScript. It also gives you the ability to do 100 MySQL databases and 100 PostgreSQL databases. FastDomain's service also has both POP3 and IMAP email support. Virtually all forms of multimedia come supported with any of their services.

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Dot 5 Hosting

Plan Reviewed: Basic

Pros

• Customer service available 24/7
• 30-day money back guarantee
• Pro-rated refund for unused months
• eCommerce extras
• $30 Google AdWords&trade credit
• $50 Yahoo Search marketing credit
• Server load balancing for higher reliability

Cons

• vDeck control panel interface
• No ASP.net support, No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
Dot 5 Hosting's Basic plan is one of the least expensive web hosting services available on the internet. If you don't mind using vDeck, their service is a great deal especially since it supports a good range of web applications, programming languages, and scripts. It's important to note that vDeck is less intuitive to use than cPanel. The Basic plan doesn't support ASP.net or Cold Fusion, so if you have a website or database that requires that software to run properly then you should look at Host Gator's Swamp plan for ASP.net support and IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan for Cold Fusion support.

The Basic plan gives you support for PHP, Perl, Python, CGI, Flash, and JavaScript. Dot 5 places no restrictions on the number of MySQL databases that you can have. Dot 5's service only has POP3 email support but that is typical of most web hosting services.

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StartLogic

Plan Reviewed: Pro Logic

Pros

• Customer service available 24/7
• 30-day money back guarantee
• Pro-rated refund for unused months
• Extensive number of free scripts
• eCommerce extras
• $30 Google AdWords&trade credit
• $50 Yahoo Search Marketing credit

Cons

• vDeck control panel interface
• No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
StartLogic's ProLogic is a good web hosting plan, but it uses vDeck instead of cPanel. vDeck isn't the most common control panel used with web hosting services as it's less intuitive than cPanel. The ProLogic plan only allows for you to have 25 MySQL databases. However, only those looking to set up databases will need to worry about this restriction.

Although the ProLogic plan uses vDeck, it supports all the expected scripting and programming languages like Perl, PHP, CGI, and SQL. The email features are rather standard with POP3 mailboxes and spam filtering. The ProLogic plan gives you a good range of scripts that support bulletin boards, blogs, RSS feeds, image galleries, and guest books. The included eCommerce features are enough to get a basic shopping site up and running with some work. The addition of these features is a nice touch for a plan that is not specifically for eCommerce.

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Yahoo

Plan Reviewed: Small Business

Pros

• Customer service available 24/7
• 30-day money back guarantee
• $50 Google AdWords&trade credit
• $100 Yahoo Search Marketing credit

Cons

• No pro-rated refund for unused months
• $8.96 monthly rate for the first 3 months, then $11.95 every month after
• Lacks support for a lot of programming and scripting languages

Conclusion
Yahoo's Small Business plan is a decent option for those that willing to pay more for a slightly more simplified service that is aimed at the less experienced user as well as those who are doing databases. Before you sign up, you need to make sure that the plan supports your scripting language. The Small Business plan lacks support for ASP.net and Cold Fusion, since the Yahoo servers run a Unix based operating system. If you have a website or database that requires that specific windows software to run properly then you should look at Host Gator's Swamp plan for ASP.net support and IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan for Cold Fusion support.

The cost of Yahoo's Small Business plan starts out reasonably enough at $8.96 a month, but that is only a teaser rate. After 3 months, the cost of the service goes up to $11.95, which in comparison to many other web hosting plans is a bit high. If you decide to cancel your service after the 30 day money back guarantee period, you aren't given a refund. The Small Business plan gives you support for PHP, Perl, CGI, and Flash. The Small Business plan also gives you the ability to do unlimited MySQL databases. Yahoo's service gives you an unlimited amount of email storage along with 1,000 email accounts. In addition, virtually all forms of multimedia come supported with Yahoo's Small Business plan.

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Web Hosting Pad

Plan Reviewed: Basic

Pros

• 30-day money back guarantee
• $30 Google AdWords&trade credit
• $25 Yahoo Search marketing credit

Cons

• No pro-rated refund for unused months
• No chat support
• No ASP.net support, No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
Web Hosting Pad provides a good service, which supports a wide range of software, but they have one huge drawback. They don't offer a pro-rated refund for unused months. In other words, if you decide to cancel your service after the 30 day money back guarantee period, you aren't given a refund. Another thing Web Hosting Pad's service does not have is support for ASP.net or Cold Fusion. If you have a website or database that requires that software to run properly, you should look at Host Gator's Swamp plan for ASP.net support and IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan for Cold Fusion support.

Web Hosting Pad includes a free domain and gives you $75 in search engine marketing credits. Their service includes support for PHP, Perl, Python, MySQL, and Ruby on Rails. With support for these scripting and programming languages you should be able to do just about anything you want with your website.

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Lunarpages

Plan Reviewed: Basic

Pros

• 30-day money back guarantee
• Free software and bonuses
• Free website scripts
• eCommerce extras

Cons

• No pro-rated refund for unused months
• No site promotion credits
• No chat support
• No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
Lunarpages doesn't have chat support and has limited hours for phone support. They also don't offer a pro-rated refund. If you decide to cancel your service after the 30 day money back guarantee period, you aren't given a refund. They also don't support Cold Fusion. If you have a website or database that requires that software to run properly then you should look at IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan for Cold Fusion support. If you can live with these shortcomings, their Basic plan is a solid web hosting option.

The plan supports all the expected scripting and programming languages like Perl, PHP, CGI, and SQL. With the plan, you also receive over $775 in free software and bonuses. Lunarpages monitors their servers 24/7 and experiences 99.9% uptime on all of their servers and network equipment. There are no site promotion credits, such as Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing, included with the plan. The lack of site promotion credits is not that big of a deal, but it might be worth taking into account.

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HostMDS

Plan Reviewed: Basic

Pros

• 24/7 monitoring and support
• 30-day money back guarantee
• Pro-rated refund for unused months
• $25 Yahoo Search Marketing credit
• $50 MSN Adcenter credits

Cons

• No Google AdWords&trade credits
• No ASP.net support, No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
HostMDS' Basic plan is a good low cost option that supports the expected list of web applications, programming languages, scripts, and multimedia. However, HostMDS doesn't support ASP.net or Cold Fusion. If you have a website or database that requires that software to run properly then you should look at Host Gator's Swamp plan for ASP.net support and IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan for Cold Fusion support.

HostMDS provides clustered web serving technology to their customers meaning that your website will always load on the fastest available server. We also like the fact that they offer an anytime pro-rated refund, meaning that you can get a refund for your unused months if the service does not meet your expectations.

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Inmotion Hosting

Plan Reviewed: Launch

Pros

• Customer service available 24/7
• 90-day money back guarantee
• 2 free domains

Cons

• No pro-rated refund for unused months
• Not eCommerce ready
• No site promotion credits
• No Ruby on Rails support, No ASP.net support, No Cold Fusion support

Conclusion
Although InMotion Hosting's Launch plan has 24/7 customer service and a 90 day money back guarantee, their service falls short for not offering a pro-rated refund. If you decide to cancel your service after the 90 day money back guarantee period, you aren't given a refund. InMotion Hosting doesn't support Ruby on Rails, ASP.net, or Cold Fusion. If you have a website or database that requires that software to run properly then you should look at Host Gator or Fast Domain for Ruby on Rails support, Host Gator's Swamp plan for ASP.net support, and IX Webhosting's Business Plus plan for Cold Fusion support.

The plan supports Perl, PHP, and CGI, but only offers 2 MySQL databases. The Launch plan isn't eCommerce ready meaning they don't provide you with software to setup a store front or manage shopping carts. However, their next level plan, Power, is only $2 more per month and is eCommerce ready.

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