WestHost Review - 8th out of 30 hosts (stats after 40+ months of ...

Westhost hosting review

WestHost was founded in 1998 by Chis Russell, they merged with UK2 Group in 2008. WestHost is one of the oldest web hosts out there. It’s also worth mentioning that UK2 Group also owns MidPhase hosting.

They claim to offer reliable web hosting that is affordable. We carefully investigated them by using their service and doing a background check to find out what other users think. Our unbiased review lets you know whether WestHost is worth it or not.

In order to make our review accurate, we bought WestHost “Personal Plan” back in June 2015 and set up a basic WordPress website. Our test site can be seen here and in-depth performance stats (uptime & speed) here. Click “History” to dig deeper.

General Info & Hosting Overview

SPEED:	881ms (February 2018 to January 2020 average)
UPTIME:	99.98% (February 2018 to January 2020 average)
SUPPORT:	24/7 Live Chat
APPS:	WordPress, AbanteCart, Joomla, PrestaShop
FEATURES:	Unlimited email accounts, 50GB disk space & 1000GB bandwidth
HOSTING PLANS:	Shared, WordPress, VPS, and Dedicated Servers
SITE TRANSFER:	Free website migration
PRICING:	Starting at $1.99/mo (renews at $4.99/mo)

Pros of Using WestHost Hosting

WestHost offers a free domain name for life, along with a few other helpful ‘extras’.

1. A free Domain Name for Life

You heard it right. If you stick with WestHost, they’ll not charge you for domain name renewal (which is usually around $10 to $15 /year). They’ll ensure you enjoy a free domain name for as long as you host with them. (Free domain comes with only Preferred and Business level plans)

2. Uptime Right Above Industry Average

Over the past 24 months, they had an average uptime of 99.98 percent. They’ve been quite good over the past 24 months and in the past 12 months, they have shown outstanding results – hitting 100% of uptime in several months.

Last 12-month average uptime:

January 2020 average uptime: 100%
December 2019 average uptime: 100%
November 2019 average uptime: 100%
October 2019 average uptime: 99.99%
September 2019 average uptime: 99.99%
August 2019 average uptime: 100%
July 2019 average uptime: 100%
June 2019 average uptime: 99.98%
May 2019 average uptime: 100%
April 2019 average uptime: 100%
March 2019 average uptime: 100%
February 2019 average uptime: 100%

westhost-performance-24months — **Live test site**: hostingfacts-wh.com | **Avg. uptime and speed**: 24-months+

2. Free Migration and 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

WestHost will help you transfer your files and website from your current web host to their server. They also offer a full refund backed by their 30-days money-back policy. If for any reason you decide that their service is not for you within 30 days of registration, they will refund you in full. This only applies to their shared hosting plans.

3. Instant Activation

Unlike with most web hosts (especially inMotion hosting & Web Hosting Hub), you don’t have to wait for hours or days for your account to be activated. With WestHost, your account will be activated instantly.

4. Enhanced Security with Nightly Backups

With regular nightly backups for most of their web hosting plans, support for Cloudflare CDN, and Automatic Malware Removal for their plans, WestHost seems to be a very secure host.

5. One-Click Apps and Website Builder

WestHost offers a one-click installation for many of the top apps on the Internet through Softaculous. That includes everything from WordPress to Joomla, Drupal, and Magento.

However, while those apps are tailor-made for savvy webmasters, novice bloggers might need a little more help.

Fortunately, WestHost also offers a DIY website builder and online store options, too.

The website builder includes over 165 drag-and-drop themes, plus an all-in-one plan that includes a domain name, hosting, and email addresses. Basically, everything you need to start your first site under one roof.

And at only a $3.71/mo starting introductory price point, it’s still an affordable, convenient option so you don’t have to set up or connect all of these things manually.

6. Relatively Transparent Pricing List

Web hosts are notorious for burying costs in the places you least expect them.

You usually have to pour over their terms of service to find the biggest ones. And even then, there is often a ton of upsells waiting for you like a landmine during the checkout process.

Many of these ‘hidden’ costs revolve around increased renewal rates. That’s why we were glad (and frankly, surprised) to see WestHost has a big price list of these details for all of their products. Everything is literally all out in the open for you to review — no tricky legalese to decipher.

The only tedious thing is that you’ll have to sort through dozens, if not hundreds, of their product variations to find specific answers (like the renewal rate differences between domain names with .coms vs. .org).

But either way, we applaud their effort to at least be open about all of the ways their products could cost you more in the near future.

Cons of Using WestHost Hosting

Unfortunately, WestHost posts average (or slightly below average) where it counts.

1. Slower Than Ideal Load Time

Our test revealed their average page load time to be 881ms over the past 24 months, which is not the worst that we’ve seen but still slower than the top-rated hosts.

WestHost average load time:

WestHost-2019-2020-statistics — **WestHost average speed 2019-2020** | See stats

2. 40+ Minutes to Get in Touch with Their Support

Not sure if it’s a con, but it took 40 minutes to get in touch with their customer support. Having said that, the support assistant was friendly and helpful. We’re also impressed by the fact that they offer a toll-free number for people who want to contact them from the U.S.

We also did a background check to find out what other customers think about WestHost and found that their customers had mixed reviews about their support.

WestHost support

Scott was helpful, but it took a lot of time to get in touch

3. Not “Truly” Unlimited

While some WestHost shared hosting plans promise unlimited files, bandwidth, and databases, it is important to note that their fine print says otherwise. Here’s a direct quote from their Terms and Conditions page:

“Our unlimited shared hosting is designed to meet the needs of most small businesses and personal websites; it is not designed to meet the needs of large businesses or client services that fall outside the average usage pattern for shared hosting and may be better suited for hosting plans that provide expanded features. Accounts with a large number of files (inode counts in excess of 200,000), databases exceeding 5GB in size or a cumulative size of all databases in excess of 10GB can have a significant impact on server performance. We reserve the right to request that the number of inodes (files and directories) and/or database sizes be reduced to help ensure server performance. Failure to comply with these requests may result in termination of your account.”

Essentially, even though they promised unlimited hosting, your account should generally not have databases that exceed a cumulative 10GB. If they deem your files too many and your databases too big, they can request that you reduce your files or upgrade to a better plan. Failure to do this can lead to your account being terminated.

We’re not happy that they hid what their “unlimited” hosting really allows on their Terms and Conditions page.

With that said, we believe that there’s nothing called “unlimited hosting” and that WestHost is generous enough for the prices they offer.

4. Cheaper Plans Come with a 3-Year Commitment

With most of their plans, especially their shared hosting plans, the prices are too expensive and are not properly communicated: for example, the Personal plan is advertised as $1.99 monthly but you can only get that price if you pay for one to three years at once. The actual price is $8 per month, and the minimum term you can pay for is 3 months at $9.00/mo.

5. Some Restrictions…

Some of their plans are too restrictive. For example, their WordPress hosting plans only allow 1 domain name per server. We believe that they can do better than this.

6. Intro Pricing Period Too Short

All web hosts will reel you in with an incredibly low starting price. It often looks too good to be true because it is: after your first term, the price jumps back up to normal levels (often two or three times the initial rate).

The silver lining is that most hosts will allow you to lock-in that low rate for up to three years. So you’re saving a ton of money over that time period.

The problem with WestHost is that while they do have a really affordable rate initially ($1.99/mo), you can only purchase it for a single year. After that, the price then jumps to $8/mo.

WestHost 12-Month Intro Pricing Period

Compare that ‘lost’ ~$6/mo over the course of two years in comparison, and you’re basically overpaying by around $144 over the first three years.

That’s not the only issue, though.

WestHost’s cheapest shared hosting option (the Personal plan) does not offer a free domain name, dedicated IP address, or SSL certificate. Only their more expensive plans include those things. So all of a sudden, what looked pretty affordable at $1.99/mo now ends up looking really expensive when you factor in all of these ‘hidden’ costs.

WestHost Pricing, Hosting Plans & Quick Facts

Here’s a quick overview of the various hosting plans offered by WestHost:

	Personal Hosting Plan	Preferred Hosting Plan	Business Hosting Plan
Pricing	$1.99/month Renews at $8.00/mo	$5.20/month Renews at $13.00/mo	$6.40/month Renews at $16.00/mo
Websites	1	Unlimited	Unlimited
Bandwidth	1000GB	2500GB	Unmetered
Storage	50GB	200GB	Unmetered
Email Accounts	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Other Features	–	• Free Domain	• Free Domain • Free SSL Security • Free Dedicated IP

Quick Facts

Free Domain: Only on Business + Preferred Plans
Ease of Signup: Quick signup process.
Money-Back: 30-day money-back guarantee.
Payment Methods: Credit Card, Paypal.
Hidden Fees and Clauses: Shared hosting accounts must not exceed 200,000 inodes or 10GB total database size.
Upsells: No upsells.
Account Activation: Instant Activation.
Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: cPanel.
Installation of Apps and CMSs (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): Quick installation of popular apps and CMSs via Softaculous.

Do We Recommend WestHost?

No, we don’t.

WestHost is an average host. They have an average uptime, average page loading speeds, and really average support. The only reason why it’s still rated in our top 10 is their low pricing.

You’d be better off finding a different host on our site.

P.S. If you want to see hosting providers that ranked above WestHost, check our best web hosts here.

If you’ve used WestHost, please leave a review below. Good or bad – doesn’t really matter as we’re trying to keep our reviews transparent and honest.

We only accept user-reviews that give value to our visitors. Not all reviews will be published. If you wish your review to be approved, we recommend you to write valid, unique and helpful reviews – either positive or negative. Thanks for your support!

Important: Web host companies cannot pay to delete or change the reviews. But we provide them an opportunity to answer or comment on any review, to keep the process honest and fair for both sides.

5 user reviews for WestHost
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Joanne

1 — November 10, 2020

From Good to TERRIBLE

I've been with Westhost since it's inception and last year my entire business was disrupted. The so called changes they made to improve services left my company with downed emails and websites, only to find that I was migrated to a plan that only supported one of my sites and if I wanted the remaining 8 sites and associated email addresses I had to make additional purchases. You would think that for a customer that's been with for over 20 years carrying a Business would have been given more care and consideration.

I've requested a phone call to resolve all of this and was told I could only submit my issues to the support team by email and some will respond. This company has done me a grave disservice, THE WORST!

Richard H

1 — October 23, 2020

They were once good. Now very bad

For more than 10 years I have used and recommended to my clients Westhost. Then about a year ago, the technical support department moved from mostly competent people in Utah to incompetent staff in U.K. I have been very frustrated with their support. So, I have started shifting accounts away from Westhost.

One thing that irritates me very much is their "100% Lifetime Satisfaction Promise" which is boldly stated on their About Us page. I recently approached Westhost for a refund of the unused service (13 months left) and they said that they do not offer refunds. Therefore their "100% Lifetime Satisfaction Promise" is meaningless.

Nolan

1 — August 21, 2019

Problems, problems, problems

WestHost is a no.

From the first day, our account was activated incorrectly. This resulted in the first experience with their longer than average support queues. I was finally able to contact a representative using their live chat (after two hours of waiting), who advised my the IP address of shared server had been set up incorrectly and the A Record needed updating. This process is available to users but is well-hidden in their cPanel, so I waited another 20 minutes for the representative to handle it.

After this I was able to try installing software, but was met with multiple applications with unresolvable dependencies. Finally, forced to accept my fifth choice for site software, I got my site set up. I went to work the next day, and upon coming home decided to work on the website - but I can't because the account has been suspended for "fraud". This began another 2 hour wait in the support queue before being told the company doesn't have any direct record of what flagged my account, but that they couldn't ever reactivate my service and that my domain would not be transferable. When I asked for a supervisor or administrator I was told they would not be able to do anything because the fraud detection system is automated and my account was already suspended.

I of course requested a refund and while this was granted, I was told it may take over a week to see the funds returned. Needless to say, I'm looking for a new hosting provider.

E.G.

2 — December 23, 2016

Established Host, But Doesn't Keep Up

I have been with Westhost for many years, maybe 10 or more. When I first selected Westhost they were right on top of everything. But, they keep slipping. At one point between me and my clients I was managing 6 accounts there, but I’ve been moving them all away because of poor service.

Tech support is awesome when you call in — for as long as they are on the call. However, the follow-up is pitiful. If the problem is bigger than the front line tech can handle, it does not get escalated, and I rarely get a follow-up email or call as promised. You have to hound them.

The kicker for me is the slowness. We built a WordPress site which ran OK. We had several slowness issues, so I hired another developer (specialist) to assist. He concluded it was issues with Westhost, but when we called them, the tech treated us like kids and emphatically insisted that their system was fine. We moved the site to another host and it was noticeably faster — like 3X. On another website, one page took 40+ seconds to load on Westhost. We talked with them about the problems repeatedly and they couldn’t / wouldn’t fix anything. Yes, it is a heavy page, but not that heavy. We moved it to another host and without any optimization it loaded in about 4 seconds. 10 times faster! We worked with that host a little and now it loads in 2-3 seconds. Westhost has fallen behind the curve, and they don’t know why.

Keep looking if you’re considering Westhost.

James S

4 — May 4, 2016

Performance is OK, customer support is great

I use WestHost for my small e-commerce site that gets approx. 1000 visits/month. I know it’s not much, that’s why I opted in for WestHost shared hosting (according to my research it’s pretty cheap).

I’ve seen some temporary glitches – a bit slow loading times or site being offline, but that has never been very long (probably 5 minutes max).

However, I must give a big thumbs up to their customer support as whenever I have issues, it never took more than 5 minutes to get in touch with them (using live chat) and in ALL cases they’ve answered my questions very professionally. If you ask me to rate WestHost, I’d give it 7,5/10.