HostNowNow.com review

First impression

HostNowNow is a Nigerian web hosting services provider that was founded in 2004 by Ayodeji Niyi-Adesola, Emma Olorunsheyi, and Rishama Joshua. Although the company operates out of Lagos, Nigeria, its server infrastructure is based in the UK. They offer a range of services such as domain registrations, shared hosting, dedicated servers, VPS hosting, and web design services.

Trial Period

Unlike some providers that offer free trial periods so that users can test out their services before making a commitment, HostNowNow doesn't offer any, nor do they have a money-back guarantee in place. So if you sign up and it doesn’t work out, there’s unfortunately no safety net.

Billing Cycle

HostNowNow's shared hosting plans offer customers the choice between paying monthly, quarterly, twice a year, or yearly. However, the prices work out the same, so even if you pay in advance for a year, there is no discount on offer. The fact that there is no money-back guarantee in place would make me very cautious about choosing this billing cycle. VPS plans, on the other hand, are only available on month-to-month payments.

They currently accept all major credit cards and EFT payments.

Control Panel

This provider bundles the cPanel control panel with their shared and cloud hosting plans, while their dedicated server plans also offer Plesk Onyx as an option. Both solid options as cPanel is by far the most widely used control panel in the industry. It comes with a user-friendly interface from where one can manage all aspects of your website, such as emails, databases, DNS, and more with ease, while Plesk Onyx, the first truly developer-friendly Plesk panel, bridges traditional hosting with cloud workflows through features like container support and advanced WordPress tools.

Limits

Their shared hosting plans, all named after our feathered friends, are available in four options. The Robin, their entry-level option, comes with 20GB disc space, 20GB bandwidth, and 5 subdomains, and like a Robin - not too flashy, but surprisingly robust for its size. Next up is the Flamingo which features 15GB storage space, 40GB traffic, and 8 subdomains, while the Eagle and Hawk plans packs a bit more punch (like in real life), and boasts 30GB disc space 65GB bandwidth, 15 subdomains, and 130GB disc space, unlimited bandwidth and 30 subdomains respectively, both perfect for medium sized business websites. All plans come standard with a free SSL certificate by Let's Encrypt, as well as unlimited MySQL databases and POP/IMAP email accounts. It is worth noting, though, that these plans still run on standard HDDs and not SSD drives.

HostNowNow’s VPS plans, on the other hand, ditches the bird theme and go full safari with names like Fox, Panda, Jaguar, Hyena, Cheeta, and Leopard. These plans range from 1 vCPU, 1GB RAM, 25GB super-fast SSD disc space, and 1TB bandwidth on the Fox Cloud plan, up to 8 vCPUs, 16GB RAM, 320GB SSD storage space, and 6TB bandwidth on the Leopard, their top-tier VPS option.

Website Builder

This Nigerian provider offers the Site Builder website builder. It is not bundled free with any of their plans, but available as a paid add-on across four tiered options that differ with the amount of disc space, email accounts, and photographs/graphics included. This user-friendly builder features a drag-and-drop interface with over 200 easy customizable templates. They also haven't forgotten WordPress fans. Even if you skip their builder, they offer full support for WordPress installations.

Security

The security they offer is a bit of a concern to me. I couldn't find any information about what they have in place besides that all accounts are protected by Neustar's DDoS protection, an enterprise-grade, cloud-based defense system designed to absorb and mitigate complex distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in real time, and complimentary SSL certificates by Let's Encrypt (which are only valid for 90 days), and unfortunately their support confirmed this. This leaves some glaring gaps in their security setup, as there are no automated backups, WAF (web application firewall), 2FA (two-factor authentication), malware, or spam protection in place.

OS

HostNowNow's shared hosting plans all run on the CentOS operating system (OS), a very stable and secure operating system that is widely used in server and enterprise environments, while their VPS plans offer users a choice between CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and CoreOS, a lightweight, container-focused Linux distribution designed for running containerized workloads. Unfortunately, they don't offer any Windows-based VPS options.

Support

Should you run into trouble, you can contact their support agents via email, support tickets, and live chat, which are available Monday to Saturday 7:00 am - 11:59 pm, and Sunday from 12:00 pm - 11:59 pm (Western Africa Time), or by phone and WhatsApp, Monday to Friday 9:00 am - 5:00 pm. Response times are quick, with detailed answers from well-trained and friendly agents. Top-notch support that makes every interaction a pleasure!

Conclusion

Whether HostNowNow is a good hosting option depends on what you are after. They offer budget-friendly hosting plans, and their support is excellent, however, their security isn't up to par in my opinion, and if you need advanced enterprise-level features or Windows-based options, it would be best to look elsewhere. Good for small startups or individuals, not so much for larger businesses.