Handyhost.ru review

First impression

HandyHost is a Russian Web Hosting Services business established in 2009 with headquarters in Kirova, Arzamas region of Russia. This reputable company with an established customer base of more than 25,000 customers owns 2 data centers, located in Moscow and St. Petersburg respectively, and a server base in Germany to cater to clients in Europe. The services that they currently offer are Domain Registrations, Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting on Linux and Windows platforms, Dedicated Server Hosting, and SSL certificates.

Trial Period

New users may test HandyHost's Shared Hosting packages through a 30-day free trial to see if it suits their needs. You just need to register on their website to take advantage of this offer. HandyHost also provides a limited 3-day money-back guarantee for their VPS packages so you can test it out first before taking any risks.

If you are coming from a different supplier you can have up to 3 months free, which should be long enough to decide if they are for you or not.

Billing Cycle

HandyHost offers payment term flexibility for their Shared and VPS plans because clients can subscribe for monthly or annual commitments. They only have Dedicated Server plans available for monthly subscription, however.

All major credit cards such as MNP, Visa, Mastercard, and UnionPay, as well as payment gateways such as ENOT, Robokassa, and Webmoney, an international online payment settlement system that originated in Russia in 1998.

Control Panel

Their Shared Hosting plans include the ISPManager control panel, which is very famous for being easy to use and very user-friendly. It is popular with end users and less expensive than other panels like cPanel, Plesk, and DirectAdmin. Their VPS plans include some of the free panels like BrainyCP, VestaCP, Hestia, and FastPanel besides ISPManager.

Limits

HandyHost Shared Hosting plans offer lightning-fast speed with NVMe SSD drives, which are 7 times faster than normal HDDs. They come in 8 plans, from the vHost-0 plan that comes with 3GB NVMe SSD storage, 512MB RAM, 1x MySQL database, and 5x POP/IMAP mail accounts to the VIP-100 plan that includes 100GB NVMe SSD storage, 2700MB RAM, 100x MySQL databases, and 300x POP/IMAP email accounts.

It's worth mentioning here that you may choose the version of PHP of your site separately. Versions of PHP 5.2-5.6, 7.0–7.4, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2 are available.

Their root access Linux and Windows VPS packages, featuring dedicated IPv4 address and VNC access, are available in various configurations. The lower plans feature 1x Intel XEON Core CPU, 1GB RAM, and 20GB NVMe storage capacity, while the higher plans feature 4x Intel XEON Core CPU, 8GB RAM, and 120GB NVMe storage capacity. Linux users have the option of hosting their VPS server in Russia or Germany, but Windows-based plans only host in Russia.

Website Builder

While they don't offer a website builder as part of their hosting plans, they do offer five affordable "Constructor" plans based on the Site Pro website builder. This simple-to-use builder offers over 200 customizable templates and all the features to create professional-looking, and 100% responsive websites quickly and without coding expertise. It supports features such as SEO - website optimization, online payment gateways, social network integration, the ability to edit and add code (CSS, HTML, JS), and more.

Security

They keep their hosting accounts secure through free SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt, DDOS protection by default, and Anti-Virus and Spam software that scans all files on a daily basis.

All of their client's information is in RAID arrays and they back up daily to another server, so if your files are corrupted, you can restore without any problems.

More secure SSL certificates by Comodo, Thawte, RapidSSL, Geotrust, etc. are also available at an extra monthly fee.

OS

HandyHost Shared Hosting plans are driven by the CloudLinux Operating System, which is renowned for its ultra-security and super reliability, while VPS plans of HandyHost offer a wide variety of OS, including CloudLinux, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Astra Orel, AstraLinux SE, FreeBSD, Fedora, as well as Windows Server 2008 R2, windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, and Windows Server 2019 for Windows-based VPS plans.

Support

Their support team is available at all times, 365 days a year, via a Ticketing System, Email, Phone, or Live Chat. There is some language barrier, but their team members are polite, professional, and quick to assist. Response times are under 30 seconds on Live Chat and about 30 minutes on mail.

Conclusion

If you balance everything out, Handy Host is a great option for anybody needing Shared or VPS hosting solutions. They're reasonably priced, safe, offer good uptime, and their customer support is reliable. It's a particularly good option if you're from Europe or Russia.