Hoster.by review

First impression

The website looks professional and user-friendly. Shared hosting packages are divided into Unix, Windows and CMS hosting (Drupal and Bitrix). The packages are rather small - 20Gb maximum. The number of domains, email accounts and databases is strictly limited. That’s why they seem slightly overpriced: from $2.79 to $27.94. In addition, Hoster.by has a separate kind of shared hosting packages called Secure. Their size is the same, however, more resources is given to them. And they are really highly secured. The price vary from $40 to $144.

VPS plans also seem a bit expensive, from $35 to $121. Though, they have a huge plus - they’re cloud VPS. It means that all of your data is secured, cloned and stored in a cloud storage. Same goes to Cloud hosting packages. Moreover, it is possible to configure your virtual server with required parameters for both Cloud and VPS servers.

Dedicated server, like Shared, are divided into regular and secure. The Secured packages configuration and price are well-balanced. As for regular servers, they have a strange configuration. Although, the RAM and disk space volume are quite high, the amount of CPU cores varies from 4 to 8 (4 physical, 4 logical). Due to this, it is uncertain that the processor will be capable to handle high load.

Trial period

The company offers 7-day trial period for Unix, CMS and Windows Shared hosting packages. For Cloud and VPS packages - from 2 to 4 weeks of trial is offered. It is also possible to request a 7-day trial period for Dedicated servers.

Billing cycle

It’s possible to purchase Unix, CMS and Windows Shared hosting for 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24 or 36 months. Secured shared hosting has monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual cycles. Dedicated and Secure dedicated servers can be purchased for 1, 3, 6 or 12 months. VPS packages do not have billing cycles. According to Hoster.by support team, you pre-fund your account for the amount required to cover the chosen resources cost. And a certain amount is deducted from your account each month, depending on the server load.

Control panel

cPanel is included to Shared Unix and CMS hosting packages and MSPControl - to Windows Shared ones. ISPmanager is included to Cloud hosting. cPanel and ISPmanager for VPS and Dedicated hosting are paid and rather expensive. For example, cPanel VPS is at $23.75/mo and cPanel Server is at $47.50/mo.

Limits

Usual domain name, mailbox, databases and disk space limits are applied to all Shared hosting packages. Cloud hosting, VPS and Dedicated servers have different RAM, disk space and CPU core amount limitations. All of them are indicated in the plans description. Apart them, all Cloud and VPS hosting packages bandwidth is limited to 50Gb/sec. As for Dedicated servers, bandwidth is limited to 50Gb (international traffic) for regular servers and to 30Gb (international traffic) for secure ones. Domestic (within Belarus) traffic is free for Dedicated plans.

Security

For Secured shared hosting and Secured Dedicated packages the company offers hardware and web-application firewall, malware scanning, pentesting, system logs analysis and IPMI via secure VPN (IPSec). In addition, backups are created every day and saved to a external storage. Also, every day backup creation is included to only Shared Windows hosting plans. As for Cloud hosting and VPS packages, backup storage is paid, at $0.05/1Gb per month. There is no information regarding other security features, such as anti-virus or anti-spam protection. So, assumingly, they are under user’s responsibility.

OS

CloudLinux runs on Shared Unix and CMS hosting servers; Windows Server 2012 or 2016 - on Windows Shared. For Cloud VPS it is possible to install Debian, CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise, CloudLinux, Ubuntu or Windows Server. Cloud hosting and Dedicated servers can use different Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS) or Windows Server as well as FreeBSD.

Support

The company provides 24/7 phone and email support. The support is quite slow but accurate. The knowledge base is rather full and covers basic topics. Also, it is possible to purchase additional technical support for Dedicated, VPS and Cloud hosting at $47.50 per month. The support team is responsible for software setup and installation, server monitoring and issue resolving.

Conclusion

Shared hosting packages are quite average but more expensive than the others. Though, CMS hosting seems to be a nice solution for those who plan to build their site on them. VPS and Dedicated packages look more attractive, especially the Secure Dedicated ones. Also, VPS and Cloud hosting are quite reliable as they use cloud system to secure the data. Nevertheless, all packages, except the ‘secure’ ones, seem to have no protection at all. So, Cloud, VPS and Dedicated hosting can be considered good for medium and large businesses and for proficient users. As for small businesses, it is possible to find more advantageous Shared hosting plans.