1-grid.com review

First impression

Established in 1997 as part of Webafrica, which was a top internet connectivity provider at the time, 1-Grid began operations as Gridhost and operates as a web hosting company from Cape Town, South Africa. The company provides multiple hosting solutions such as Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated Servers, and Reseller Hosting. The company also offers domain registration services together with website-building tools to assist both individuals and businesses in launching their digital footprint. Their team of over 40 hosting specialists currently supports more than 77,000 websites on their servers. 

Trial Period

Unfortunately, 1-Grid does not provide a free trial period for any of their products, nor do they offer a refund policy within the initial days of purchase.

Billing Cycle

1-Grid's Shared & VPS hosting plans allow users to subscribe on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis, with discounts of up to 10% available for longer commitments.

They accept payments via Visa and Mastercard, Instant EFT, PayFast and Zapper, and debit orders. Payments can also be made using SnapScan, an awesome app where you can make quick, convenient, and secure payments directly from your phone.

Control Panel

The hosting services by this provider include the Plesk Control Panel as a standard feature. Plesk functions as an all-inclusive web hosting control panel designed to streamline server and website management tasks for web hosts and website owners. The intuitive interface enables users to manage key hosting elements including website files, databases, email accounts, and domains with ease. This solution works on Linux and Windows operating systems. 1-Grid provides dedicated cPanel plans in addition to Plesk options.

Limits

1-Grid's Shared Hosting packages are offered in three categories: Small, Medium, and Large. The Small, their most basic package, provides 10GB SSD space, accommodates 100 POP/IMAP email accounts, and has a limit of a single website. The Medium plan comes with 25GB SSD space, unlimited POP/IMAP email accounts, and a limit of 200 sites, while the Large package comes with 50GB SSD disk space with unlimited POP/IMAP email accounts and no limit on the amount of websites you can host. All Shared Hosting packages also provide free registration of a co.za, .online, .shop, or .store domain name as well as unlimited traffic.

Their VPS plans come in both Linux and Windows options, and as with their shared hosting, also in three options. The Small plan features 1 vCPU, 2GB RAM, 50GB SSD storage, and 2TB Bandwidth. The Medium plan has 2 vCPU Cores, 4GB RAM, 100GB SSD storage, and 3TB Bandwidth, and lastly, the Large plan offers 3x vCPU Cores, 6GB RAM, 150GB SSD storage, and 4TB Bandwidth.

Website Builder

They provide their own website builder, available in three paid tiers, each offering varying limits on the amount of pages one can create and if e-commerce features are included or not. This builder comes with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, customizable templates, SEO tools, as well as image optimization to improve Google rankings. With this builder, users can create professional-looking websites quickly and without any coding knowledge.

Security

They run their business from two enterprise-grade PCI DSS and ISO-compliant data centers, both located in Cape Town, and maintain high levels of security to safeguard your data and ensure confidentiality. PCI DSS compliance necessitate network firewall infrastructure, data in motion and data rest encryption, DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack filtering, and Spam, Virus, and Malware protection. 1-Grid does not offer free SSL certificates with their hosting packages, but high-level certificates from Thawte or Comodo can be purchased separately at extra cost.

OS

1-Grid's Shared Hosting packages run on the CentOS 7 operating system, well-known to be stable, long-term supported, and RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) compliant, hence being a generally preferred choice by servers and business installations. Their VPS packages, however, allow clients to choose between Centos 7, Ubuntu 20.0, AlmaLinux 8, or Rocky Linux 8 (this has an additional monthly fee). Windows-based plans come with the choice between Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard, Windows Server 2016, or Windows Server 2019.

Support

1-Grid offers technical assistance through Email, Phone, or Live Chat (available from Monday to Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM). However, my experience with their support was extremely frustrating. The Live Chat responses were unhelpful and took over an hour to receive, with the agents failing to address my issues. Similarly, my emails to their support team went unanswered for days, leaving me frustrated and still waiting for a response hours after the emails were sent.

Conclusion

1-Grid offers affordable plans with solid security features. However, their support services are lacking compared to some of the other providers. If you're in the market for a new hosting provider, it's worth exploring other options that offer better support and pricing.