HostGeek.com.au review

First impression

Host Geek is a 100% Australian-owned and operated web hosting services provider, with their head office in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. Established back in 2005, they offer a range of hosting services including Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting, Domain Registrations, as well as SHOUTcast Stream Hosting, a service that lets you stream your own “radio station”. They also have a website designing & developing services, that include Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), content creation, and Social Media Marketing, to complement their hosting offerings.

Trial Period

Although there is no free trial on offer, Host Geek does have a “Happiness Guarantee” in place. If you aren’t happy with anything they offer, or their hosting doesn’t live up to your expectations, simply contact their support within 30 days of opening your hosting account and they’ll refund your money – no questions asked. Refunds are processed by either PayPal or Cheque.

Billing Cycle

Host Geek provides users with flexible billing cycles for both Shared Hosting and VPS plans, allowing them to choose between monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, annual, and bi-annually payment options. Opting for an annual commitment or longer entitles users to two months of free service.

They currently accept all major Credit Cards, PayPal, and Bank Deposits as valid methods of payment.

Control Panel

On their Shared Hosting plans they include cPanel. This Linux-based control panel provides users with an easy-to-use dashboard that allows them to manage a range of elements on their hosting account, such as publishing websites, backup, transferring & managing files, launching databases, creating and managing email accounts, and more. 

On VPS plans cPanel also includes WHM (WebHost Manager). It offers a suite of tools to easily create, delete, or suspend your cPanel accounts, manage and monitor your sites, reset passwords, and manage DNS zone files to name a few. 

Limits

Host Geek features four Shared Hosting plans their clients can choose from, the Basic Geek, the Savvy Geek, the Super Geek, and lastly the Fancy Geek.

The Basic Geek starts with 10GB bandwidth, 400MB SSD disk space, 100x POP/IMAP email accounts, and 10x MySQL databases. Although they include plenty of email addresses and databases, the ratio doesn’t quite make sense as 400MB of disc space is very little and this plan would probably only work for users that are after emails on a personalized domain rather than showcasing their website. The Savvy Geek, their most popular plan, comes with 20GB bandwidth, and 1GB SSD disc space, which is still very lightweight in my opinion, whilst the Super Geek features 40GB bandwidth, and 2GB SSD space. The Fancy Geek however packs a bit more punch and boasts 60GB bandwidth and 4GB SSD space.

All these plans except for the Basic Geek come standard with unlimited POP/IMAP email Accounts and MySQL databases, while the Savvy and Fancy Geek plans also include a free domain. 

Their VPS plans also come in four options that range from 20GB standard HDD space (can be upgraded to SSD for an additional $5 per month), 50GB bandwidth, 2x CPU Cores, and 1.5GB RAM on the Managed VPS 1 plan, up to 100GB SSD space, 250GB bandwidth, 4x CPU Cores, and 5GB RAM on the Managed VPS 4 plan.

These plans are scalable and offer add-ons like extra RAM, Geo Redundant DNS, Additional IP addresses, and more at an extra monthly fee.

Website Builder

Host Geek does not provide a website builder as part of their plans. Instead, they offer a website design service where they create static and eCommerce WordPress websites for their clients. Recently, this service has been relocated from its main website to a separate domain, hostgeekdesigns.com.

Security

Host Geek's plans benefit from network firewall protection, DDoS attack protection, and advanced spam and virus filtering. Additionally, they offer the Sucuri Website Security suite, which involves malware and breach scanning every 6 hours, monitoring brand reputation and blacklists, implementing an HTTPS and PCI compliant firewall, advanced DDoS mitigation, malware removal and cleanup, and virtual patching and PHP hardening. They also provide various SSL certificates, including Premium Wildcard SSL and True BusinessID with EV SSL certificates. However, these services are not included for free and are subject to a monthly fee.

OS

Their Shared Hosting plans operate on LiteSpeed web servers alongside the CloudLinux operating system. On the other hand, VPS plans utilize Alma Linux, a CentOS alternative provided by the creators of CloudLinux, available at no extra charge, or CloudLinux, which does incur an additional cost.

Support

Host Geek support is available around the clock via Phone, Email, or Live Chat, and they proudly claim they offer “unmatched geektastic support”, however, this is where things started to fall apart for me. I tried contacting them multiple times via email, and still waiting for a response days later, and their Live Chat function doesn’t seem to work on their site. I eventually had to resort to their Facebook page and get assistance there. Luckily their Phone support still works.

Conclusion

Although Host Geek offers budget-friendly shared and VPS plans with good uptime and running on premium hardware, I am somewhat reluctant to say I would recommend them. For me personally, there are too many gray areas when it comes to their security and their support was well below par. Maybe shop around first before signing up with this company.