Here at Web Hosting Geeks, we really write about web hosting because of only one reason: We really love this industry. Where else will you find such a wide ranging set of ever changing materials, technologies and services? Furthermore, where else will you find a world that needs so much explanation, so much guidance, and so much luck to get right? It’s got to be one of the coolest industries and businesses alive today, and as such, we’re tickled pink to be your all-in-one resource for all things web hosting related.
With that in mind, we’re going to continue our educational streak by bringing you yet another review of one of the smaller but better web hosting providers out there. The company is called Site5, and if you have never considered them for use as your web hosting provider, you might want to stick around: We’ll be giving you all of the information that you could possibly want about them, including who they are, what they offer, how reliable what they offer is, and how much you can expect to pay for it. Not only that, but we’ll also give you our personal thoughts on how good of an host they are. In other words, if you have yet to consider them as your own personal web host, then stick around: You’ve got a lot to learn, and we promise to teach it to you within the space of this single article.
Before we go any further, though, we do want to mention one thing: We’ve been bringing you these smaller reviews to help you find the local gems, the shining examples of small-time hosting business. However, if you haven’t yet check out our typical favorites (sites like Web Hosting Hub and HostGator) we still strongly encourage you to do so. They’ve been around and kicking it for a lot longer than Site5, and as such, they come with a certain amount of clout.
With that out of the way, though, let’s dive straight into who Site5 are and what they can offer!
Who is Site5?
At this point, if you’re not familiar with Site5 as an hosting provider, you’re probably wondering just who in the heck they are, and why you should even care. We’re not going to beat around the bush, so if you’re looking for a reason to pursue the company, here it is: Healthy hosting.
The entire platform on which Site5 stands is built around the idea of making web hosting healthy for both the customer and the provider. This is a concept that’s quite honestly missing from the industry today. It seems like every web hosting provider out there is trying to cram as many users onto their servers as possible, causing bottlenecking, buildups, and overloads. It’s a terrible situation, and one that Site5 hopes to avoid entirely by simply offering quality, one-of-a-kind hosting.
Site5 offers a lot of the same guarantees that we’ve seen with other web hosting providers, but with far more description and reassurance—this leads us to believe they can easily put their money where their mouth is. For instance, they offer a full 45 day money back guarantee on all of the hosting plans, except virtual private servers. For a VPS account you’ll have only 15 days, which makes sense, considering the amount of work that goes into setting that puppy up.
Additionally, they promise no outsourced support ever, no gimmicks, and a 6 hour support response guarantee. We’re especially stoked about the latter, as this guarantees that you’ll have a solution in hand to any hosting problems that you might encounter, and within 6 hours. That’s one heck of a guarantee, and if Site5 can really stick to it, they would immediately be pulled to the top of the pack in our eyes.
The Technology and the Team
At this point in our detailed reviews, we usually like to break down the technology and support that are physically being offered by the hosting provider. We’re not going to shirk that platform now, so without further ado, let’s crack open the nut that is Site5 and provide you with a deeper look under the bonnet.
First of all, Site5 is one of the few hosting providers we know of that has a dedicated team of developers and managers in-house: This means there’s an actual staff at each and every data center ensuring that your data is protected and live. All of this translates into a more rock-solid 99.99% up-time guarantee in our eyes.
Additionally, Site5 boasts a network of some 80 team members that stick around 24 hours a day. They’ve got locations in more than a dozen countries, as well, making sure that your data is delivered locally to the viewer—and to you—at a much higher speed than other hosting providers we could name.
On another note, Site5 seems to pride itself on being a green hosting provider, as well. Now, we like this a lot, but to be honest, we aren’t seeing too much proof that they’re doing their best to make this side of their hosting experience a reality. Sure, they’ve got green technology and their workers work from home. However, with no evidence of wind-powered servers or data centers (a la GreenGeeks) we’re not entirely sure they’re saving any polar bears. Still, they’re hefty purchasers of green credits and other such carbon-neutral offerings, which is easily worth something. So if finding a green host matters to you—and it always does to us—then you might want to give Site5 some extra consideration.
The Hosting Plans Themselves
Now, up until this point we’ve been talking an awful lot about who Site5 actually is, including what they offer on paper. And to give a quick wrap up, we think the services that Site5 have stated and guaranteed look pretty good. At least, it’s comparable to what other hosting providers are doing within the business. However, we have yet to talk about any of the specific plans that the company offers. That’s a big oversight, and we’re going to correct it right now! So without any further ado, let’s haul in and take a look at the actual prices, services, and platforms that Site5 can sling your way for some quality web hosting.
Shared Web Hosting
Ah, the most basic of the basic, and the most hunted of the hunted! Nine times out of ten, if you’re on the market for solid web hosting, this is the category you’ll be paying the most attention to. As such, we’re going to be sure to give it a full workup. If you’re curious to see what Site5 has to offer in the shared hosting realm, then merely slide on down below the break to view the list!
- Pricing: Right out of the box, we feel we need to have a quick discussion about pricing. You see, Site5 uses that dang tiered system of pricing that’s become so common within the web hosting world, whether we like it or not. We’re not complaining too much, though, as what Site5 is offering is really quite good. The lowest possible tier starts at only $4.95 a month. The highest possible tier is the HostPro + Turbo hosting package, which will cost you a tidy sum of $11.95 a month. That’s a bit high for a basic shared hosting package, but as we’ll explore in just a second, you’ll be getting a lot more than just a basic shared hosting deal. And all things considered, even the middle of the road $8.95 a month price tag is pretty good when compared to others in the industry. All in all, you’ll be certain you can find a bargain with Site5.
- Features: However, none of that pricing stuff adds up to an hill of beans if the hosting that you’ll get in return is rubbish. So what exactly is Site5 offering, and how good is it? In essence, we’d say it’s pretty good. At the lowest pricing rung you’ll get only one website, but with unlimited disk space, bandwidth, and a free migration. That’s more than enough to get you started, and with the two higher tiers, you can have an unlimited number of websites, to boot. For that same money you’ll also be getting a Backstage control panel, as well as a SiteAdmin variation of cPanel for your personal use. And at the highest possible pay tier, you’ll also get a Dedicated IP address, which is quite the boon for local businesses. Best of all, each of these tiers comes with a solid 99.99% up-time guarantee, which as far as we can tell, is fairly legit.
- Guarantees: Aside from that up-time guarantee that we already mentioned, each of these tiers also comes with a full 45 day money back guarantee to offset any concerns that you might have. So if you’re not quite sure if Site5 is the fit for you, go ahead and give their trial a try! If you don’t like it, you can always cancel again, with no questions asked by the provider.
Reseller Hosting
We’ve said it before, and we’re damn well going to say it again: Reseller hosting has got to be one of the coolest things to emerge on the web hosting scene in the last ten years. We absolutely love the stuff, and we’re excited to see more and more web hosting providers jumping up and on the bandwagon. Site5 is no different, and if you’re willing to consider using them as your next reseller spine, then keep on reading down below the break. We’ve got all the information you need and more lined up and ready to roll!
- Pricing: As with our last look at a Site5 hosting plan, we’re going to kick off the reseller portion of this review with a pricing breakdown. Essentially, we would call the prices that Site5 is offer a middle of the road way to go. That is to say, it’s not the cheapest we’ve ever seen, but it’s also by far not the most expensive. These section of things also happens to be broken up in tiers, though. At the lowest end you can pay only $23.95 a month, and for quite a lot of features—more on that in a moment. At the highest possible end you’ll be paying a whopping $49.95, but with quite a bit more material to work with than most other hosting providers might give you. So with all of that out of the way, let’s take a deeper look at what you’ll actually be getting for that money.
- The Features: At the lowest possible price range you’ll be paying $24 a month for 50 gigabytes of diskspace and 500 gigabytes of bandwidth. That’s a fairly normal assortment, and nothing to write home about really. You’ll also get all the works, including unlimited accounts, a cPanel and web master panel, free billing software, domain reseller accounts, and 3 IP addresses included. At the highest possible weight rank, you’ll be paying more or less $50 a month for 120 gigabytes of data, 1000 gigabytes of data transfer, and the same number of IP addresses. In fact, aside form the space and the size, you won’t be getting too much more in features for your money. That’s not a bad thing, however: This simply means that, even at the lowest pricing tier, you’re still getting world-class features for your money.
- Guarantees: When it comes to the guarantees side of things, Site5 hits all the buttons that we usually look for. They’ve got the same 99.99% uptime guarantee that we mentioned earlier with the shared hosting plan, as well as a promise to remain completely anonymous. Yes, the company ensures that no matter how your users poke and prod, they will never know that Site5 is really at the core of their hosting experience. And to us, that’s a guarantee worth shaking on!
Cloud Hosting
If reseller hosting is our bread and butter, then cloud hosting is that thing that keeps us up at night. No technology on the market today has as much power as cloud hosting to change the way we host website, deliver information, and grow onto the Net. As such, we’re more than stoked to see that Site5 has brought along an entire host of cloud hosting options, all of which provide more than enough features to get our mouths salivating. So without further ado, here’s the rundown you need.
- The Feature Sets: The way that Site5 has done their cloud hosting takes a bit of explaining, so here goes. Essentially, every kind of hosting that the provider offers comes with a cloud hosting variety. In other words, you are free to choose between a traditional nada cloud-based hosting method for each and every one of them. Within the cloud options, you’ll find the same three-tiered pricing agreements, so to keep things simple, we’re just going to give you a rundown of all three hosting methods and their prices. Starting with:
- Shared Cloud Hosting: This plan will cost you only $20.00 a month at the low-end, which strikes us as quite the bargain. Furthermore, you’ll get 100% redundant hosting, an unlimited number of hosted websites, and an easy to use control panel. Furthermore, they’ll make the transition from a tradition website to a cloud hosted variety put out by Site5 an easy one. That’s their guarantees, anyway. And of course, if you’d like a bit more oomph underneath the bonnet, prices only go up.
- Reseller Cloud Hosting: The combination of two of our favorite things! And to be fair, it isn’t even that pricy. For only $50 a month, you can enjoy some of the richest cloud-based reseller hosting on the market. This might seem expensive, but people really are clamoring to get their hands on cloud hosting, and having that word behind all of your services can be a tremendous boon for your new hosting business. We really do promise it.
- Cloud VPS Hosting: And last, but certainly not least, we have the virtual private server offering with a cloud backing. This is a really great way to get your website hosted, as you have all the power of a VPS, but all the versatility and scalability of a cloud based web host. This means you’ll get raw processing power, guaranteed uptime, dedicated resources, and the ultimate in increased performance when you need it. And to us, that’s easily worth $50 a month.
Virtual Private Server Hosting
On that note, it’s about high time we cracked open that virtual private server hosting nut and took a deeper look at what’s going on there. We’ve covered the cloud edition of this service, but what does a more traditional VPS hosting environment look like? To answer that, simply scroll on down below the break and get to reading!
- Pricing: As with the other hosting services offered by Site5, the VPS side of things is very tiered. Here you’ll find prices that range from $40 at the low end (Number One) and top out at $700 a month (Number Eleven) at the top. That’s a wide range of services and there’s no way we could cover them all, so instead, we’re simply going to do this.
- The Features as an Whole: To sum things up with VPS hosting at Site5, if you’re in need of a specific amount of features and power, you can rest assured that you’ll get it here at a price that matches. All of the prices we looked at are fair and plain, which makes the features what matter. In essence, you can start small with a single VPS, or you can upgrade to a massive, multi-core powerhouse for your huge business. It’s really up to you. Either way, you’ll be getting rock-solid services that will meet your needs, no matter which end they line up on.
The Support You’ll Be Getting
Here’s the part in the review where we really start needing to quantify the things we’ve been talking about in big chunks. One of the easiest ways to do so is through the tech support. A good tech support means good service, while a bad tech support line means bad service. So what’s Site5 packing?
On the whole, they seem to offer some really good services for you to draw from. They’ve got a support materials page with quite a lot of information from you to draw from as well as a Q&A and a knowledge base. And with lines that are always open via support ticket, telephone and live chat (not to mention that six hour response thing we mentioned earlier) we have no doubts that you’ll be getting some rock-solid service with Site5.
Overall Thoughts and Value
So at the end of the day, what do we really thing about Site5? To be honest, in our eyes they look like on of the stablest, most feature rich, and most understanding hosting providers currently in the game. They seem to have all of the features you’ll need to get your site hosted, no matter what level of the spectrum you’re on, and with prices that aren’t too outrageous to throwout. In other words, they look like an host you can trust, they come with good features, and their prices are competitive.
As always, though, feel free to check out Web Hosting Geeks user-submitted reviews for real-world information. And if you decide to host with Site5, do be sure to leave us a review letting us now how the whole kit and caboodle went. Additionally, we still recommend that you check out some of our other favorite hosting providers like Web Hosting Hub or InMotion before signing with a smaller host like Site5.
