Lolipop.jp review

First impression

Lolipop is a Japanese Shared Hosting provider that forms part of the GMO Group of companies, a prominent name in domain registration and web hosting services in Japan. They encompass various internet-related entities, each seemingly specializing in its own field. Lolipop currently offers budget-friendly shared hosting plans, with a strong emphasis on WordPress hosting, and hosts in excess of 2 million websites.

Their focus is on the local market, and as such their website is only available in Japanese.

Trial Period

They offer a 10-day free trial for new users to experience and test out their services. Simply sign up for your preferred plan and should you feel unhappy with their service, cancel before the 10 days are up to avoid being billed. Unfortunately, they don’t offer any money-back guarantee on their plans after this period.

Billing Cycle

Lolipop hosting plans offer users with flexibility of signing up on either a monthly, annual, biennial, or triennial basis.

Valid payment methods include all major credit cards, such as Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Diners, and American Express, as well as PayPal, Convenience Store Settlements at 7-Eleven, Lawson, Family Mart, and Seicomart shops, Osaipo! Payments, Yuucho Transfers, or standard Bank Transfers.

Control Panel

To manage your website and hosting space, they include their own, in-house developed, Lolipop Control Panel. This panel, which is surprisingly easy to use, features a well-designed interface and comes with all the features and more that the more commercial panels like cPanel or ISPManager offer.

Limits

Lolipop Shared Hosting plans, all running on high-performance Apache 2.4x LiteSpeed web servers with super-fast SSD drives, LSCache (LiteSpeed Cache, a function on LiteSpeed servers to significantly reduce page load times), and an impressive 1000MBps connection, come in 5 scalable plans to choose from.

The Economy plan, which is shockingly cheap at only 99 Yen per month which is less than a dollar, comes with 120GB SSD disc space, 10x 1GB POP/IMAP email accounts, and 1x SQLite database, a server-less, self-contained, and lightweight database.

Their Light plan, the most popular one, features 350GB SSD space, 50x MySQL databases, and 10x 5GB POP/IMAP email accounts. Next up is the Standard plan that comes with 450GB SSD space, 100x MySQL databases, and 10x 5GB POP/IMAP email accounts, whilst the High-Speed plan has 500GB SSD space, unlimited MySQL databases, and 10x 20GB POP/IMAP email accounts.

Lastly, there is the Enterprise plan, still ridiculously cheap, that boasts an impeccable 1.2TB of SSD disc space (the most I have ever seen on a Shared Hosting plan), unlimited MySQL databases, and 10x 20GB POP/IMAP email accounts.

All these plans come standard with a free domain for as long as you are a client, with the two top-tier plans offering 2 domains each, and free SSL certificates by Let’s Encrypt.

Website Builder

Lolipop doesn't provide a website builder in any of their plans, however, except for the Economy plan, all other plans include a one-click installation for WordPress, a versatile content management system (CMS) equipped with tools for building websites, baserCMS, a website development framework with WebAPI that runs on PHP8 and CakePHP4, or EC Cube, a popular Japanese open-source e-commerce platform.

Security

Their Linux-based servers are protected by a SiteGuard WAF, which stands for web application firewall, to help protect hosting accounts by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic and typically offers protection against attacks such as cross-site forgery, cross-site-scripting (XSS), file inclusion, and SQL injection, among others. 

Additionally, every plan comes with free SSL certificates provided by Let’s Encrypt, advanced spam and virus filtering, and an "Overseas Attack Guard" feature. This function limits access from overseas IP addresses and prevents unauthorized access, such as site hijacking.

OS

Their servers, all Linux-based, utilize the CentOS operating system, a widely used, open-source Linux distribution known for its security, stability as well as being highly customizable.

Support

Their support agents are available 24/7 via Phone, Email, or Live Chat, with response times being really fast, but as they cater to the local Japanese market there are some difficulties in explaining your issues without it getting lost in translation. Their agents are however very professional and didn’t take long to provide me with the necessary assistance and answers.

Conclusion

Lolipop provides a variety of shared hosting plans at dirt cheap rates, offering ample SSD storage, powered by LiteSpeed web servers, and ensuring reliable security and uptime. I found their offerings quite impressive, with the only drawback being the absence of an English version on their website and limited English proficiency among their support agents. However, if you're in Japan and seeking a new hosting provider, Lolipop is definitely worth considering!