Website Host Reviews

Host Geek provides affordable web hosting and pride themselves on superior Australian based customer service. They offer a range of hosting services including business hosting, email hosting, reseller hosting and streamed hosting for radio broadcasters.

Features:

Host Geek provide a high quality, reliable web hosting solution for small business and have an impressive selection of features, whether you are a beginner or expert.

Their basic hosting plans start from a very low $5/month which includes 10GB of bandwith, more than enough for a website beginner. Host Geek allow website owners a lot of flexibility to upgrade their plan if if website has additional requirements.

One feature that we think sets Host Geek apart from the rest is their Shoutcast hosting which allows radio stations to stream their broadcasts online. This can potentially increase the radio stations audience exponentially and is not a common hosting service provided by Australian website hosts.

Reliability:

Host Geek has a solid background in web hosting with over 6 years of experience in hosting Australian websites. They offer a 99.9% uptime and pride themselves on their fast servers based in Australia.

Support:

Host Geek offers 24/7 quality customer support based in Australia. They have every communication method conceivable including phone, email, livechat, call back and ticket support as well as a knowledgebase. We tested their phone support and found that they answered within a few rings.

Host Geek also are happy to transfer your hosting from an old hosting provider for free.

Overall:

Host Geek are clearly a low cost host. But what impressed us was the features and unbeatable support that came for such a competitive price. We found it hard to fault Host Geek and can see why website owners in Australia would be very happy with using Host Geeks services.

2 Consumer Reviews

Smarty Host offers affordable website hosting which is reliable and secure. Smary Host has affordable hosting plans starting at $11 a month. Smarty Host are an Australian company with servers based in Australia which can be a real benefit for businesses based in Australia.

Features:

SmartyHost offer a range of hosting solutions from a basic hosting plan which offers 1GB of space and 5GB of bandwith, through to larger packages that include 20GB of space and 100GB of bandwidth. The advanced plan offers unlimited databases, a free SSL, free domain name as well as $50 worth of Google Adwords credits.

SmartyHost provide an easy to use control panel which a beginner could understand, virus protection, POP/IMAP email support, webmail access, PHP5 and MySQL.

They also have a focus on offering an easy to use site builder which seems impressive. With over 500 templates available you are sure to find a design that suits your business type.

Reliability:

SmartyHost has been operating since 1999 which is relatively long for website hosting companies. They are confident of providing 99.9% uptime.

Support:

SmartyHost offer phone and email support as well as a comprehensive knowledgebase. Their contact times are Monday-Friday 8.30 – 5.30 which can be a concern if your website has issues outside of these hours.

Overall:

SmartyHost is a good allrounder with a god uptime and an impressive range of features. They have positioned themselves in the Australian market as an affordable website host and they seem to live up to their billing.

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Web Central are a MelbourneIT company and offer high performance hosting with a focus on security and reliability. With a 99.99 uptime guarantee, you can be assured your website will be open for business the vast majority of the time. Web Central also guarantee that their servers are Australian based.

Features:

Web Central provide powerful load balancing servers with business grade security. Managing your website is made simple with feature such as Mission Control which allows you to manage your hosting and 3rd party aplications like WebMatrix to allow you to install apps with one click.

Their hosting is available with Windows Server 2008 ans ASP Net 4.0. Scripting languages include ASP, PHP, Cold Fusion 9, Perl 5.1, CGI and .Net.

Reliability:

Web Central are so confident that their server uptime will be 99.99% that they guarantee it. They also offer a 30 day money back guarantee on their hosting.

Support:

Web Central offer genuine 24/7 phone and email support and also offer a call back service.

Overall:

Web Central offer high quality website hosting with guaranteed 99.99% uptime. They are a solid host that provide a range of solution, from small one page websites to high end complex ecommerce websites. However, you will have to pay a little bit more than some of the budget hosting options to host your website with Web Central.

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Melbourne IT provides web hosting services for a range of websites; from small brochure websites, larger interactive websites through to complex online stores. MelbourneIT has grown rapidly over recent years and provides hosting to over 300,000 customers.

Features:

MelbourneIT offer a large number of features, even at the basic starter plan. Some of the many features worth highlighting are: powerful website statistics, easy to use control panel, webmail access, PHP, MySQL, Web based file manager and virus protection.

Although their plans cost more than many of their competitors, it is worth noting that they offer generous disk space and bandwidth. For example, the starter plan offers 5GB of disk space and 200GB of bandwidth which would provide plenty of “growing room” for a new website to develop and expand its visitor numbers.

Reliability:

MelbourneIT has a good history of performance with 99.9% uptime.

Support:

MelbourneIT provide 24/7 phone support. However, they are very difficult to contact the majority of the time and support can be an issue with this company. They do also provide a usseful knowledge base with many frequesntly asked questions.

Overall:

The features and performance offered by MelbourneIT is very impressive and we can see how this hosting service would be well suited to larger more complex websites with large visitor numbers. For smaller website owners, we question that the price of just under $26/month for a starter hosting package is really worth it? There are probably better options out there for Australian businesses needing a simple, low cost hosting plan.

1 Consumer Review

Digital Pacific are a carbon-neutral web host provider offering a wide range of scalable services including shared hosting, VPS, dedicated servers and reseller hosting. Digital Pacific are suitable for individuals, small to medium size business and corporations. They have a strong focus on relaibility and have plenty of experience having operating for over 10 years.

Features:

Digital Pacific are proud to offer carbon-neutral hosting and offer Rapid Restore which means your data is backed up three times a day for peace of mind.  They offer a 99.99% uptime guarantee as well as a 30 day money back guarantee. Users can administer their website through cPanel and Fantastico Deluxe. They offer a large range of apps which can be installed with one click and these include: Joomla, WordPress, phpBB, Gallery, SugarCRM, PHPNuke, Magento, osCommerce and PrestaShop. There are loads more though, the apps mentioned are just a few highlights.

Programming and development tools include Cron Jobs, SSH Access, Perl Modules and CGI.There is also an easy website builder with over 300 templates to choose from.

Their basic hosting plan includes 10GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth. All the larger hosting plans have unlimited bandwidth.

Digital Pacific has a great range of features sure to please the majority of website owners.

Reliability:

Digital Pacific offer a 99.99% uptime guarantee and will provide a 10% credit to your next invoice for each hour of downtime (upon request).

Support:

Digital Pacific offer technical support Mon-Fri 9am -6pm aest via phone or email. On weekends they are available from 10am – 6pm via email only. They also offer a helpful knowledgebase and a set of video tutorials.

Overall:

Digital Pacific provide a reliable hosting solution which is highly scaleable. With a wide range of features they would be an appropriate solution for website beginners through to large corporations. Their pricing seems to be middle of the road; not offering budget hosting, but certainly cheaper than hosts such as MelbourneIT.

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