AwardSpace.com review

First impression

AwardSpace was established in 2003 in Kiel, Germany, when Zetta Hosting Solutions Ltd, a firm that handled mostly free HTML hosting, and AttractSoft GmbH, a reputable software development firm, merged. They wanted to offer free LAMP hosting (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) without ads so that anyone could own a website and online presence. Besides the free hosting, they also offer a variety of paid services such as Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, Domain Registrations, and SSL Certificates.

They now serve their expanding customer base of more than 2.5 million from their TIER 3+ data center in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Trial Period

As a trial run for their services, they offer free hosting without ads, 1000MB disk space and 5GB bandwidth.

For VPS or Shared Hosting, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you are not pleased with their web hosting service, simply request a refund within 30 days, and they will provide a full refund – no questions asked.

Billing Cycle

Shared and VPS hosting plan subscribers are required to sign up for a year. They do take all the usual credit cards such as Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club, and PayPal, as payment.

Control Panel

AwardSpace includes its own uniquely designed control panel with all of its hosting plans. At first glance, I thought it was very plain-looking, but I have found it even more user-friendly than industry standard cPanel (although of course you can tell that they based theirs on cPanel).

This control panel allows you to manage all aspects of your hosting account, such as domains, website builder, databases, and more, without any hassle from one easy location. To my surprise, they even provide this with their free hosting plan.

Limits

Their Free Hosting package limits users to 1GB of disk space, which I assume is on standard HDDs, and 5GB of bandwidth per month. Included with this package is their website builder, Anti-Virus, and Anti-Spam, but not a free domain, custom MX, A, or CNAME records, backups of data, or SSH access.

Shared Hosting plan seekers can avail themselves of the fact that there are three packages available, i.e., Basic, Web Pro Plus, and Max Pack Plus. They include Unlimited Disk Space, Unlimited Monthly Traffic, and Free SSL certificate as standard. While they vary based on the fact that customers can host 2 sites on the basic package, 10 on the Web Pro Plus with a free domain name, and Unlimited on the Max Pack Plus with 2 free domain names.

There are three plans in VPS as well. Starter VPS comes with 1vCPU, 1GB RAM, 25GB Disk Space, 2TB Monthly Traffic, 50 Mbit/s Bandwidth, and 1 IP address. Pro VPS comes with 2vCPUs, 2GB RAM, 50GB Disk Space, 4TB Monthly Traffic, 100 Mbit/s Bandwidth, and 1 IP address, while Advanced VPS comes with 4vCPUs, 4GB RAM, 100GB Disk Space, 8TB Monthly Traffic, 100 Mbit/s Bandwidth, and 1 IP address. 

Website Builder

All AwardSpace hosting plans include Zacky Website Builder. It is an easy-to-use but quite simple website creation tool with pre-made templates that are not only fully responsive but also SEO optimized. It supports features such as Google Analytics tracking and Facebook pixels tracking.

Security

Their Bulgarian data center is ISO 27001 certified and has implemented measures to counter all the risks involved in the security of data they handle. Their hosting packages are secured by a firewall against all forms of general attacks, a free SSL certificate by Let’s Encrypt, Spam, and antivirus, and RAID backups in case you need to restore your site.

If you require a higher-level SSL, you can purchase a RapidSSL, GeoTrust QuickSSL Premium, GeoTrust True BusinessID, or a GeoTrust TrueBizID Wildcard SSL certificate in the "Buy Services" section of the control panel.

OS

AwardSpace employs Debian 10 (Buster), a free Unix-like operating system that grants access to a repository with more than 43,000 free open-source software, as the standard operating system (OS) on their Free and Shared Hosting packages. VPS clients are allowed to install their own personal Linux version of choice or choose between Debian 9 (Stretch), Debian 8 (Jessie), Debian 7 (Wheezy), CentOS 6 and 7, OpenSUSE 42.2 Leap, or Ubuntu 16.04, which is offered with one-click installs.

Support

There is support provided by Email and Ticketing System, where you log issues in the support area of the control panel. Although there is around-the-clock support for free plan users, it may be slightly slower than paid plan support, which, in my experience, averaged a blistering 10 minutes. AwardSpace even provides an hour-guaranteed reply to paying customers. On their website, there is also a FAQ section that addresses most questions.

Worth noting, however, is that their toll-free phone numbers and Live Chat option on the site are for sales purposes only and not for support.

Conclusion

I actually didn't have much hope - free sites are usually not very good. I was wrong. AwardSpace hosting gives you much more than you need for someone who wishes to get his/her online presence up and running. Their free options are perfect for new startups, personal blogs, or just plain simple sites. For small to medium-sized companies, their Shared Hosting and VPS options give you quality hosting on a scalable basis with incredible and fast service. A great option for someone with a small budget.