Web Hosting Hub Review

Company Information

Founded in: 2001
Company Headquarters: Virginia Beach, VA

Pricing

Web Hosting Hub provides only one hosting package with different pricing structures based upon the length of the hosting contract. The company's pricing is competitive with other affordable web hosting packages, although it lacks the add-ons and extras that are common in many other packages. Web Hosting Hub's lone add-on is its domain privacy feature which masks your information from the site's public profile so that you can enjoy additional privacy and security. The cost for this feature is 75 cents/month. You will be automatically charged for the domain privacy add-on unless you specifically uncheck the box before checking out.

Web Hosting Hub's plans are priced as follows:

You should be aware that Web Hosting Hub's automatic renewal price is $8.95/month and that you will be automatically charged this higher price for a twelve month period at the end of your term unless you intentionally cancel your service.

Money Back Guarantee

Web Hosting Hub offers a full 90 day money back guarantee to all of its customers. If you're unsatisfied at any time within the first 90 days of your contract you can cancel your service and request a full refund. Most web hosting companies offer a similar guarantee but do not refund setup fees or domain fees. Because Web Hosting Hub does not have setup fees or domain registration fees you can actually receive 100% of your money back if you apply for the money back guarantee within the allotted time.

Features

The features included in Web Hosting Hub's standard package are comprehensive and are more than sufficient for most small to medium sized websites. There's no question that they offer many of the same features offered by other web hosting services such as FatCow and Just Host. Noticeably absent from Web Hosting Hub's offerings is anonymous FTP access, although you can surely build a beautiful and successful website without these extras. Overall, the company's package is both respectable and useful for most people looking to build a website quickly and easily.

Hosting Features:

• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited disk space
• Unlimited websites
• Unlimited email accounts
• Unlimited MySQL databases

Site Building Tools:

• cPanel control panel
• CGI Support
• FTP access

Programming Tools:

• PHP 5
• MYSQL 5
• Perl 5
• Python
• GnuPG encryption
• PHP MyAdmin

Integrated Applications:

• WordPress
• b2evolution
• Nucleus
• Joomla/Mambo
• Drupal
• Moodle
• Geeklog
• OScommerce
• Cube Cart
• Google Checkout integration
• PayPal integration
• Web statistics analytics

Ease of Use

Registration for a Web Hosting Hub account is relatively straightforward, but the final steps of the setup require contacting the company's customer support system, which takes slightly more time and effort than the setup most web hosting services which provide ways to confirm your account independently. Web Hosting Hub uses the cPanel control panel which is among the easiest control panels to use. While some web hosts have made an effort to bring more popular applications as well as customer support phone numbers to the forefront of the cPanel, Web Hosting Hub leaves the cPanel in its standard form, which may require new users to dig around in search of their desired programs. Once a user plays around with it though, it shouldn't take very long to master.

Page 1 of WordPress Setup

Page 2 of WordPress Setup

Page 3 of WordPress Setup

Completed WordPress Setup in Live Form

I also attempted to set up an email address with my Web Hosting Hub account. The process was extremely straightforward.

Email Setup Application

Accessing the mail was also rather intuitive, and I was impressed to see multiple ways to check the email (through horde, SquirrelMail and roundcube). I chose SquirrelMail, and was delighted to see that my test email appeared only seconds after I sent it.

Mail Retrieval Options

SquirrelMail Inbox

Customer Support

Web Hosting Hub offers multiple customer support options, all of which are professional and efficient. 24/7 customer support for technical problems and billing is available, but the phone support for sales is only available from 8am-12pm EST. I called customer support 5 times and was never on hold for more than 1 minute. The representatives were always courteous, knowledgeable and helpful. The only exception was immediately upon setup, when I was told that my domain would take 2-24 hours to propagate. This wait time is a standard part of the setup process. I called back after 22 hours, the site had not yet been propagated, and the (very friendly) representative told me to wait longer. Three hours later, my site still did not appear. When I called again, the representative looked into the issue and realized that the initial customer service representative had typed my domain incorrectly into the backend, which lead the wrong domain to propagate. He fixed the problem and it took about 3 more hours for the site to become active.

Live chat is also available 24/7. One thing I specifically appreciated about Web Hosting Hub's chat support is that it offers an audible ping when you've been answered so that you needn't keep the chat box open on your screen. Although the system warned me that there may be a wait to receive a chat response, each of my chats was answered within 20 seconds.

Sample Chat with Web Hosting Hub

Web Hosting Hub also has 24/7 email support. I emailed them in the early morning on a Wednesday and was impressed by the speed of response. I received an automatic confirmation within 2 minutes and a full response only 8 minutes later.

Email Response from Web Hosting Hub

In light of this phenomenal personal support, I was rather surprised to see that the self-help section of the site was hidden at the very bottom of the website. Once I found it, however, I was impressed to see dozens of clearly presented videos depicting a range of operations.

Summary

Positive Features

• No domain registration fee with any plan
• Affordable pricing
• Very accessible customer service

Negative Features

• No anonymous FTP