General
Originally founded in 1998, iPage started as a full web solution provider based in Burlington, MA. But after 2000, they put their activities on hold to restart as a 100% web hosting company in 2007. With a leading team composed of the top men in the business and an aggressive hosting plan, iPage has made a powerful come-back.
Today, iPage's platform serves over 1,000,000 web sites and they are one of the top well known brands in the web hosting industry.
- Founded: 1998 - switched to 100% hosting in 2007
- Owner: EIG (Endurance International Group)
- Founder and CEO: Thomas Gorny
- Office location(s): Burlington, MA
- Data center location(s): 2 in Massachusetts
iPage offers a single all-in-one hosting plan -- in the Standard / Shared web hosting category -- which includes everything most individuals and small business need.
Green / Environment focus
[stars:5] 100% Wind Energy.
iPage is also seriously involved in the Green Hosting initiative: in order to minimize their carbon footprint, iPage purchases Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to cover the usage of electricity for their servers and offices. Relying 100% on wind energy, iPage offsets an energy efficiency comparable to planting 2,390 acres of trees.
If you want to support the green hosting initiative, iPage will give you your own Green Badge to place on your web site. This can be an asset for your business and attract more customers.
Standard / Shared web hosting
iPage's all-in-one shared hosting plan combines the best features in the industry with, probably, the lowest price point we observed at this quality level.
Features
[stars:5] State of the art, complete package.
As is standard now, you get "unlimited everything":
- Unlimited Disk Space
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- Unlimited domains
- Unlimited MySQL Databases
- Unlimited e-mail addresses
You also get essential features for helping you build, install and get your site up & running as quickly as possible:
- Intuitive site builder (drag & drop) with large database of free templates
Easy web application installer including:
- Blog (WordPress, b2evolution?)
- Photo gallery (ZenPhoto, Coppermine..)
- CMS (Drupal, Joomla!...)
- Forums (phpBB?)
Control Panel
[stars:5] vDeck is more intuitive than CPanel.
iPage has a custom built control panel called vDeck that we found very intuitive and easy to use -- actually even easier than the widely spread cPanel many other hosts would provide.
For example, creating new MySQL databases is significantly easier with vDeck than with cPanel.
Security
[stars:5] Monitoring + Backups + Security Suite.
iPage provides all the security features that are state-of-the-art in today's web hosting services. These include the following:
- Access & error logs - these allow you to check exactly what is going on on your site;
- 24x7 controlled monitoring - so that if any problem ever arises, it is detected immediately by the iPage technical staff;
- Nightly backups - so that in the worst case scenario, including if you overwrite your own files by mistake, you can always go back to yesterday's version of your site;
- Power back-up - so that your site keeps running in case of a power outtage,
- Free Advanced Security Suite - for additional security control.
Performance
[stars:5] Fast servers. No downtime observed.
iPage puts a lot of effort on reliability and security. They announce an 99.99% Uptime Guarantee. We have, indeed, not experienced any downtime during our tests.
Our tests also showed fast response times from their servers at any time of the day and on any day of the week.
Customer Support
[stars:4] 24x7 North American phone support.
iPage's customer support is among the best found in their hosting industry segment:
- Available 24x7
- North American phone support (under 2 minutes wait time)
- Live chat (instant response)
- Support ticket system (2 hours response time)
Customer Satisfaction & Guarantees
[stars:4.5] Anytime Money Back Guarantee.
iPage is so sure of their customer satisfaction rate that they can offer an "Anytime Money Back Guarantee" which, indeed, makes them a very safe choice to try if you are new to wbe hosting and not exactly sure where you're going.
- Anytime Money Back Guarantee
- Uptime Guarantee: 99.99%
- Award winning phone support
Conclusion
[stars:5] With their all-in-one plan at an excellent price, iPage is perfect for all personal and small businesses needs. And with its anytime money-back guarantee, you can try it out without ever feeling tied-up. Check them out today!