Whc.ca review

First impression

Web Hosting Canada (WHC) is a privately owned IT and infrastructure company based in Montreal, Quebec. It was founded in 2003 by Emil Falcon, who is still the CEO to this day, making it one of the oldest web hosting companies in Canada and, if Trustpilot reviews are anything to go by, one of the best in the business. They are accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Canadian Internet Registry Authority (CIRA), and recognized as an official CPanel, CloudLinux, and SpamExperts partner.

WHC caters primarily to the local Canadian market, providing their 60 000+ seemingly happy customers with a range of web hosting services, including Shared Web Hosting, Managed WordPress Hosting, Cloud Hosting, and Dedicated Server Hosting. Their servers, powered by sustainable hydroelectric energy, thus reducing their carbon footprint, are housed within two ISO 27001:2005 certified data centers, located on the East and West Coast respectively. They come with a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and run on blazing-fast SSD RAID-10 storage drives with LiteSpeed acceleration and a fully redundant network with multiple failovers, ensuring super-fast loading speeds should one be connecting from anywhere in Canada. 

All packages come packed with tools, including multiple Site Builders, 1-click installation for WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and popular e-commerce tools such as PrestaShop, OpenCart, and Magento to name a few. 

WHC will also transfer your website and domain free of charge and within 24 hours, should you consider moving to them.

Trial Period

WHC doesn't offer a free trial, but if you feel they don't live up to your expectations, simply cancel within 30 days for a complete refund.

Billing Cycle

They offer different billing cycles on their hosting plans. You can either sign-up monthly, annually, for 2 years, or 3 years. The longer you commit, the more discount will be applied on checkout. 

WHC accepts Mastercard, Visa, PayPal or wire transfers from Canadian bank accounts as valid payment methods.

Control Panel

The Linux control panel of choice is the industry-leading cPanel, as for Windows-based servers, customers will have Plesk Obisidian3.

Limits

WHC offers three plans on their Shared Hosting, namely Go, Pro, and Enterprise. Their entry-level plan is affordable but very basic, definitely not suited for anything more than a personal project as you only get 500MB RAM with 1 Core CPU. The Pro package has 1GB RAM and 2 Core CPUs whilst the Enterprise comes with 2GB RAM and 4 Core CPUs. There are no limits on the allocated disc space or website traffic on any Shared plans.

As for WordPress hosting, they also offer three plans, all limited to one website per plan. WP Go will give you 10GB full SSD disc space and a limit of up to 25,000 visitors per month, WP Pro comes with 25GB SSD space and 100,000 visitors maximum per month, and should that not be enough there is the WP Beast package that packs 50GB space and a monthly limit of 500,000 visitors. Thousands of free themes, multi-level caching, automatic updates, and daily backups are included in all plans.

If you purchase a Web Pro hosting plan or higher and pay annually, you will also get a free domain name registration.

Security

Their data centers are secured by on-site surveillance teams, restricted access by security badge, video surveillance, and fire detection/suppression systems, and all WHC packages come with built-in security that provides basic Malware, Anti-Virus, and Anti-Spam protection, as well as a Free SSL certificate. There is also advanced security at a monthly cost via their SiteSafe Protection, which provides automated scans, alerting you in case of problems.

OS

Their main focus is Linux-based hosting but they also offer Windows hosting via their Windows Cloud Servers.

Support

WHC offers their customers 24/7 support, in English or French, via phone, email, or live chat. There is also a toll-free number for Canadian residents. Their staff members are fast to respond and friendly. I put them to the test and although my questions weren't too technical, they were quick to rather direct me to their knowledge base (decent with detailed tutorials for sorting out most basic issues) instead of answering themselves.

Personally, I feel that their support is average and lacks enthusiasm and one can't help but wonder how fast complex issues will be sorted out.

Conclusion

Web Hosting Canada offers decent and reliable hosting at affordable prices. A good option for anyone based within Canada's borders.