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HostMetro Review

Posted by fplanque on May 21, 2013 in Reviews
HostMetro Review

General

HostMetro is a relatively new hosting company born from the reunion of several web hosting industry veterans. They have of 50 years of combined experience and they are set out to make things right.

Features

HostMetro won't make false claims about unlimited space and bandwidth (like many competitors do) but they assure you you will have enough for any normal web site (which means you can't run a file archiving service or a video sharing site; oustide of that you never have to worry about space or transfer limitations).

Hosting Plans / Packages

The standard hosting plan is called Mega Max Hosting. It includes the following:

  • No limits on space
  • No limits on transfer
  • No limits on domains
  • No limits on email addresses
  • No limits on databases

You also get a few additional interesting goodies:

  • Free domain name
  • Free domain name privacy, which is pretty rare
  • Free website builder - you actually get 2 different ones
  • Free website transfer service, if needed

HostMetro also offers a business hosting plan called Business Max Hosting, which includes a few additional features:

  • SSL Package
  • SEO Package including a dedicated IP address
  • SiteLock Security Seal

We recommend starting with the standard plan and upgrading to the business plan when you need it.

Control Panel

The control panel is CPanel 11 and will feel familiar to anyone having used cpanel web hosting before.

It is to be noted that HostMetro's CPanel is *not* overloaded with ads, promos and other distracting boxes trying to upsell you options on your account, which is refreshing.

Easy Web Application Installer

Popular web applications, including b2evolution, can be easily installed with the Softaculous installer which saves you precious time. With Softaculous, you don't need to manually configure a database and then configure that database in teh script you are trying to install. Everything is done automatically.

Performance

Our test site at HostMetro showed excellent performance.

Regarding FTP transfers, we were able to use several simultaneous connections in order to perform extremely fast site updates.

Security

The servers run mod_suphp which is the best practice for securing shared web hosting accounts.

In addition, the system refused to execute scripts with group writeable permissions. This means that, compared to average web hosts, the system has extra layers of security to prevent hacking of your website.

Regarding FTP transfers, we were able to use SFTP, which is excellent for security.

Overall, we give HostMetro a perfect security score. Their security is cutting edge and above average.

Customer Support

HostMetro's customer support is US based and has already won several awards.

They are available 24/7.

Customer Satisfaction

So far, the user feedback we got is very positive.

HostMetro is also proud to offer a full money back guarantee for the first 45 days.

Finally, they promise not to raise your renewal rates for as long as you stay with them, which is extremely rare in the industry.

Conclusion

HostMetro currently offers top of the line hosting quality for an extremely low introductory price, which they promise not to raise for as long as your keep their account with them. At this level of quality the price is likely to increase for future customers, so you may as well grab the deal while it's still available (remember you have 45 days to try them out or ask for your money back).

Check out HostMetro now »

Tags: review

12 comments

User ratings
5 star:
 
(3)
4 star:
 
(0)
3 star:
 
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1 star:
 
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12 ratings
Average user rating:
(2.5)

Comment from: Paul Ackers

Paul Ackers

I have signed up 3 days ago because of the low price. Definitely a good move. My site has never been as fast as since I transferred it to hostmetro. Everything just works! perfect.

2013-05-23 @ 03:53

Comment from: Lawrence

Lawrence

I signed up. Everything sounded great. Website fails. Not sure if they got hit with a virus or what. They seem to be having the same problem I was having on Hostmonster and Justhost. That’s was why I was going to move my stuff.

2013-10-28 @ 04:21

Comment from: Howard Hoyt

Howard Hoyt

Unable to get straight answer from hostmetro WHY my error_log disappears approx every two hours.

2013-12-30 @ 16:49

Comment from: Mike Webmaster

Mike Webmaster

I was with 2 main hosting company’s on here.. had lots of problem’s.. moving to Host Metro was a good move! great people.. no problem’s, they do what they say.. always there for me.. i will stay with them..

2014-02-23 @ 13:35

Comment from: Will

Will

I have been using HostMetro for a year already and have nothing but great comments for them. Their support team provided me with excellent, fast service when I needed anything from them. Since I have received such great service and performance, I’m using them again for my next website.

Great job, guys!

2014-03-25 @ 15:24

Comment from: Lisa

Lisa

I need to issue a strong warning against HostMetro.

They have been nothing but trouble, extremely unhelpful, rude, dismissive. They blatantly lie about server uptime, they delete files without warning or confirmation, they lock me out of my account for no reason, they refuse to co-operate or answer emails. Their attitude stinks. I have given them numerous opportunities to sort out many of the issues with my hosting, but they have just been rude, ignorant and extremely unhelpful, unreasonable, often providing completely inaccurate advice.

The absolutely worst host ever - even worse than 1&1, and that’s something. So, people, stay away from HostMetro as they will rip you off. I would not host with them again if they paid me.

2014-05-05 @ 13:49

Comment from: John Ad

John Ad

I have been using Hostmetro with their hosting system and I am not happy at all.
Firstly, the sites are amazingly slow.
Second, they keep on suspending the account. They told that they suspend it because I am sending spam with my wordpress plugin Akismet.
I told them that Akismet is an official Wordpress.com plugin, and it is for malware and spam protection. The support is inexperienced, and sends me reports of the external attacks Akismet is blocking, claiming Akismet is sending these!
They suspend the whole website without informing.
Don’t buy it because it is cheap. It’s a waste of money

2014-12-25 @ 09:05

Comment from: daniel

daniel

After wasting my time + money for months, I finally decide to leave this rubbish company: HostMetro.

I had to admit HostMetro’s cheap prices attracted me at first. Their initial services seemed to meet my websites. However, half to one year later, I felt very slow connections which stopped the normal payment process of the sites. I requested their helps many times but they pushed me with lots of irrelevant excuses during the past months.

Yesterday I found my SSL in the valid period was gone without any reason. I sent several help tickets in a day without any responses. That’s their boasted 24/7 services. That’s the way they treated long-term customers who had sent them money for years! They know you can’t get our money back so they don’t care about you!

Now it’s all over. My websites are back to normal. Bye-bye, HostMetro.com.
Hoping my bloody lesson might alarm you: stay away from HostMetro!

2016-03-29 @ 01:14

Comment from: David

David

I have been with hostmetro for just over a year if you ever want a Web page to load do not buy any of their packages. On average while monitoring my websites they get around 4000ms response time. As for their wild guarantees of 99% uptime this is a real joke. They struggle to get 97% uptime.
They also recently suspended my whole account as one of my websites had high resource usage. Why couldn’t they just stop one website that caused the issue. Instead they caused my other hosted websites to go down. I paid for 3 years upfront which was a mistake as they say if I cancel my account I will not get a refund for the 20 months I have left. AVOID AT ALL COSTS THIS HOST IS WORSE THAN USELESS.

2016-05-02 @ 09:29

Comment from: MP

MP

This is the worst hosting service I’ve ever had the sad fate of using. They suspended my service because I had a cron job sending emails within my organization. They called it mail abuse. They wouldn’t un-suspend my account. I couldn’t talk to anyone because their phones don’t work. No one answers the online chat. Finally, I spoke with someone via their online chat and they said that they couldn’t help me. I received random emails from the admin asking me obscure questions like, “What are you going to do about this?” But they wouldn’t let me access my account to do anything about it. I know you’re thinking, this is a cheap service, but I PROMISE YOU WILL REGRET USING HOSTMETRO!

2016-11-30 @ 05:25

Comment from: Buddy

Buddy

First, I want to say that I’ve been with Hostmetro for about two year. I have not had any major problems with them but I do feel they were not completely honest in the claims.

First, the price. The price is GREAT! I got my first 3 years of hosting at a 50% discount and they are still offering this to new customers. (first 3 years of hosting was less than $45.00) I will renew next year at around $88.00. I haven’t found many hosting companies that can touch the price.

Second, the maximum hosting space and maximum bandwidth are definitely limited! You cannot have any unused files or compressed files on their server. I believe they started me out at 10gb and I know I requested one increase (maybe 2). I’m now at 25gb. Before any increases, you must delete all unused files, empty your trash, and remove any compressed files. It’s kind of a pain to get more space.

Next, the service is VERY slow. It takes my Wordpress home page and a single post page about 25 seconds to load. I’ve had my site on Hostmonster and it moved MUCH faster so it isn’t the theme or WP install. The other WP issue I’ve had is CPU usage. I upload a lot of images and I have a quiz/survey plugin that I add things to rarely but when I do… It’s a lot of items. Every time I get a spare weekend to upload student problems, ASPIRE questions, or extra credit assignments I go over the 10% CPU usage and the site gets suspended. :( The last issue I have with WP on Hostmetro is they do not want you to use WP plugins “if possible". They do want you to use WP-SuperCache which “reduces overall resource hit on the server". Here is the email they sent me:

1)Upgrade your WordPress to the latest version if you haven’t. You are probably reluctant to upgrade if it’s already working but note that every WordPres update always contains bug fixes and improvements so there is no reason not to upgrade.

2) Remove all the plugins.
I know the plug-ins are nice. Are you sure you really need those plug-ins?. If you don’t need them, just delete it only use the inevitable one.

3)Only activate plug-ins when you need them.
For example, you don’t need to activate a Theme previewing plug-in if you are not planning to change a theme. You don’t need to activate a WordPress database backup plug-in if you are not auto scheduling a backup, and so on.

4)Install WP-SuperCache if you haven’t. [Most Important One]
It is clear that the wp supercache has great performance while having the lowest overall resource hit on the server. It should always be using the least amount of memory and CPU time that it possibly can.

5)Reduce PHP/Database calls as much as you can.
Most CPU usage is caused by the number PHP and database calls. Using WP-SuperCache helps this tremendously but sometimes it can’t be helped that your
blog still has to do some PHP/Database calls. If you can reduce it though, do it. For example if a plug-in allows you to set an option whether to write a log or not (like number of spam comments caught, etc), then disable it. This will reduce the number of database insertion/update calls.

6) Reduce the number of Widgets and other components as much as possible.
Although putting a weather widget or other widgets are cool, do you really need them? Besides cluttering your blog and turning visitors off it can also put a strain on the server. Turn them off!

7)Repair and Optimize. Your database has been updated a lot of times in the last day, whether you’ve posted or not. There’s a lot of chance for errors there. The process can be completed through the cPanel.

a) Under the Databases section, click on PHPMyAdmin –>> Select your wordpress database.

b) Notice the table that appears. This contains all your posts, categories, comments, blogroll links, users, etc.

c) Scroll to the bottom. Click on Check All.

d) To the right of Check All you’ll find a drop down. Choose Repair

e) Repeat the process and choose Optimize from the menu. (Note that you really only need to do this if you have a lot of overhead in
your tables. Check it often.)

8) Close any Post Writing Pages when you’re not using them. WordPress will Auto-Save and it uses server resources and builds up CPU usage.

9) Turn off the Formatting Options in Settings
In WordPress, under Settings->Writing uncheck both Formatting options. Especially turn off “WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically”.

10) Don’t post via e-mail/word. Write your posts in the Write interface and copy/paste it into Word when you’re done or when you take a break. Don’t make WP spend time parsing your Word file.

11) Use Summaries in Feeds. Under Settings->Reading, select use Summaries in Feeds.

12) Under Settings-Discussion, turn off any e-mail notifications you don’t need; especially redundant ones.
If you go to your blog often, don’t worry about having it e-mail you for comments. Just turn that off.

13) Reduce image/video/flash/etc sizes. Use Photoshop, Gimp etc to reduce the image size.

14) Rename the file wp-cron.php to wp-cron.php.bak

15)If all else fail, switch to a simpler theme and definitely it will reduce the CPU usage.

The last thing I want to add is about their customer service. I haven’t had any problems with their customer service. They answer the phone quickly. (Unless you call too many times while having a problem. In that case, use your husband’s/wife’s phone and they answer within 2 minutes.) The phone number they provide only allows you to speak to someone on a “level 1″. All tech responses MUST go through an email. They do reply fairly quickly and I’ve found them to be helpful.

I plan on keeping my blog with them simply because of the price…

2017-03-25 @ 20:00

Comment from: joanna

joanna

Hostmetro.com is the worst hosting company

They do not offer proper support and their servers are constantly having issues. I do not recommend this hosting service to anyone anywhere complete scammers

2017-05-01 @ 01:49

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