life-at-sea.com

managed by 'Free Hostia'

An assessment of Free Hostia

We, at life-at-sea.com, have selected 'Free Hostia' to be our current domain name and hosting supplier. Hence we believe that this short review of 'Free Hostia' is probably going to be very helpful for other individuals from all over the World in need of domain name and web hosting services. We say individuals from all around the Globe, because the mere truth is that 'Free Hostia' presently supplies domain and hosting services in multiple datacenter locations: in America (Chicago, IL), in Great Britain (Maidenhead, 20 miles outside London), in Scandinavia (Stockholm) and in Australia (Sydney). Thus, covering almost the entire World. At least from the point of view of the Internet. So, here is what you could anticipate from 'Free Hostia' in a few words:

Shared Web Hosting Plans

The first thing we, at life-at-sea.com, have noted is the reasonable prices of the shared webspace hosting plans delivered by 'Free Hostia'. Shared doesn't seem very good, does it? Well, that's what it is referred to as: shared web hosting. The good thing here is that the web space hosting accounts provided by 'Free Hostia' are driven by a custom designed, modern cloud web hosting platform (each hosting service, like email, databases, web space hosting CP, web space, DNS, statistics, and so on, runs on an individual set of web hosting servers in a cluster). This is a circumstance EVERY cPanel web hosting supplier on the Globe will have enormous troubles with, because cPanel is a one-server based web site hosting environment (each web hosting service, like email, databases, web page hosting CP, disk storage, DNS, statistics, and so on, runs on a single server), cPanel is not open source (therefore the cPanel-based hosting companies are not able to add new functionality and manipulate it the way they need it) and there is no open source file system (they have to develop their own file system), which is the premise of any cloud web hosting service. Let's go back to the shared web space hosting accounts, which are driven by an authentic cloud website hosting solution. With a shared site hosting account, each client pays only for his/her account, thus preserving the price very low (because plenty of customers use the same server). In short, a shared hosting account, which is hosted on a clustered web space hosting solution, allows you to pay solely for the reserves that you indeed need, refraining from a scenario where you pay for a feature-rich website hosting package that you cannot truly use, or for a basic web hosting account that cannot accommodate your web site. The possibility to upgrade your account from one package to another with just 2 mouse clicks grants you the flexibility to begin with a small plan and upgrade as your online presence expands. Thus, you spare capital that you can expend on promoting the web site while it is still novel. Each and every hosting plan offered by 'Free Hostia' contains an online website building tool and over forty popular script software applications such as WordPress, Joomla, Zen Cart and Moodle that will spare you hundreds of dollars for web page design solutions. 'Free Hostia' distributes shared web space hosting plans in several different geographical regions across the Globe. There is one data center facility in Chicago encompassing the USA and Canada; two European data center facilities - in the United Kingdom and in Sweden; and another one in Australia, which covers the Asia-Pacific. That way, practically the whole Earth is encompassed to supply you and your web site's visitors with a steady and reliable web space hosting solution at a preferred place. All in all, the shared hosting solutions provided 'Free Hostia' are very well equipped and are available at a good price (starting from $0.00 for the Chocolate package).

Semi-dedicated Web Servers

To people with little to no practice, a VPS may appear hard to handle. That's probably why 'Free Hostia' also stores semi-dedicated web servers in its main North American data center facility in Chicago. Administering these packages is comparable to administering a normal shared site hosting plan via a web space hosting CP user interface. They have all the functionalities of a shared web page hosting plan such as a free site builder and a web app installer, but the system resource quota offered by a semi-dedicated account is many times larger than that of a shared web space hosting package. For instance, the central processing unit power that can be used is about 5 times as much as compared with the shared web space hosting accounts. When matched against a shared web space hosting account, the number of database queries included within the semi-dedicated hosting accounts is great: 90 000 / hour. An unlimited hosted domain allowance is a pattern as well. The semi-dedicated server hosting accounts do not offer full root-level access (we, at life-at-sea.com, deem this a tiny disadvantage), but the good point is that they are managed via the same web space hosting CP user interface as the shared site hosting packages. This means that a well-known graphical interface is accessible by all customers who do not have enough confidence to manage a VPS server, but at the same time demand more power and system resources than a VPS can supply them with. This is so because the semi-dedicated web servers share the system resources of the same powerful first-rate hosting servers as the ones which accommodate the private virtual server web hosting packages, yet, the number of the semi-dedicated web servers is quite low (somewhere between twenty to 30 per physical machine), while the VPS web hosting servers can reach a much bigger number (eighty to 120 per physical server). Having that information in mind, the semi-dedicated servers provided by 'Free Hostia' can be classified as being amazingly cheap (as far as price is concerned), starting from $29.95 for the Boabab package.

Dedicated Web Servers

According to life-at-sea.com, huge web pages such as social networks, community and business portals or popular web shops with thousands of clients call for a much more powerful website hosting platform. It seems that the chaps from 'Free Hostia' have reached the same conclusion as well. To answer its users' expectations, 'Free Hostia' provides an array of dedicated hosting servers that can tackle millions of daily hits. That assessment stands on the hardware configurations the web hosting servers are offering: Dual and Quad-core processors, up to four gigabytes of RAM, 2000 gigabytes of disk storage and Gigabit NICs will undoubtedly ensure the quick and stable work of any sort of website. According to 'Free Hostia', the original hardware specifications can be upgraded for more resource-requiring sites. We, from life-at-sea.com, believe that all dedicated server solutions delivered by 'Free Hostia' are also appropriate for starting a hosting reseller business as every web hosting server ships with free-of-cost billing software platform and a cost-free domain reseller account. Sadly, the dedicated web hosting servers supplied by 'Free Hostia' are all unmanaged. We, at life-at-sea.com, regard this as a tiny problem, which can be adjusted by paying a monthly tax of $32.00 USD. So, if you are in need of aid, the Managed Services upgrade includes various additional services such as a regular backup, software installation, server surveillance and troubleshooting operations. A selection of hosting Control Panel (CP) tools are available with each of the dedicated web servers - Hepsia, cPanel and DirectAdmin. Our (life-at-sea.com's) prognosis is that the outstanding point and click File Manager added in the Hepsia web hosting Control Panel will possibly render the recourse to any FTP software program futile. Our (life-at-sea.com's) inference is that the dedicated servers supplied by 'Free Hostia' don't seem to be very inexpensive (yet the Hepsia Control Panel and the unmetered hosted domain name allowance will undoubtedly make you smile), starting from $139.95 for the Arctic package.