Hostwinds is bad - my honest review

I have been using HW for some months. I see that Hostwinds support is really great, but there seem to be security issues with their hosting. My websites got virus and malware all the time. And sometime, it takes too long to receive my incoming emails.

virus and malware -- big deal breaker.
 
I've never tried them but i might. Apart from security, are there other things or issues worth mentioning?
 
I have been using HW for some months. I see that Hostwinds support is really great, but there seem to be security issues with their hosting. My websites got virus and malware all the time. And sometime, it takes too long to receive my incoming emails.


We run the latest version of mod_security with premium OWASP rule set's. We also add rules as we become aware of new exploits and vulnerabilities.

If your website is getting virus and malware, then you most likely have backdoor php scripts that are allowing the attackers to get in.

If you have a VPS ask for support to install + setup mod_security. Then have them run a full scan on your server.

The fact that you have viruses and malware has nothing to do with our hosting, but everything to do with the files that you are uploading to your server. Using cracked and nulled software, or plugins not directly downloaded from wordpress.com can lead to this. Our team is dedicated to helping you out however, so please PM me, or put in a ticket :)
 
I can only speak from my experience.. i was told a few months ago i needed to upgrade and it was a disaster.. they suggested a level 4 vps.. crashed several times a day.. they kept upgrading till finally at a level 8 i had had enough and just moved to hostgator which i used to think was bad but their shared account for 9.99 seems to be able to run my site better than a level 8 HW vps...


Also love to inform you that they have automatically upgraded you to a VPS without asking permission... nice sales move. Anyway I used to use them a lot by have found that they arent as good as they were when i first started using them.

Honestly... I wouldnt call them bad per-say... just classless sales tactics and terrible customer service (depending on who you get) Used to recommend them all the time.. not anymore.
 
Actually it will look like I am marketing Siteground,but they over 20 people on chat,lol,and they are like super fast,their chat support is just so good,I thought it was fake. I spend 2 hours chatting with one guy from support (about relative things of course). On the other side hostwinds support is good,until there is problem,then they don't want to help.

Are you saying that Siteground is providing all type of support on live chat? If yes, then it's great because most companies don't offer technical support on live chat and just ask you to open a support ticket which will take one or two hours to reply.
 
I can only speak from my experience.. i was told a few months ago i needed to upgrade and it was a disaster.. they suggested a level 4 vps.. crashed several times a day.. they kept upgrading till finally at a level 8 i had had enough and just moved to hostgator which i used to think was bad but their shared account for 9.99 seems to be able to run my site better than a level 8 HW vps...


Also love to inform you that they have automatically upgraded you to a VPS without asking permission... nice sales move. Anyway I used to use them a lot by have found that they arent as good as they were when i first started using them.

Honestly... I wouldnt call them bad per-say... just classless sales tactics and terrible customer service (depending on who you get) Used to recommend them all the time.. not anymore.



Hey,

I am terribly sorry you had some bad experiences with our hosting, and I would like to get some more information as to the exact issues you were having. I have added you on Skype. I would appreciate it if you could please shoot me a PM with your email on file. While you may no longer use our services, we are still dedicated to improving the experience for our clients as much as we possibly can. I am hopeful that we can learn from your experiences so that we can do better in the future. I would really appreciate your help with this. There is no reason at all while shared hosting should, or even could outperform a level 8 VPS. The only thing I can think of is that Hostgator runs cloud linux, which will prevent runaway scripts from using all of the available RAM or CPU power. Please shoot me a PM, or add me back on skype so that we may talk more.
 
Hey,

I am terribly sorry you had some bad experiences with our hosting, and I would like to get some more information as to the exact issues you were having. I have added you on Skype. I would appreciate it if you could please shoot me a PM with your email on file. While you may no longer use our services, we are still dedicated to improving the experience for our clients as much as we possibly can. I am hopeful that we can learn from your experiences so that we can do better in the future. I would really appreciate your help with this. There is no reason at all while shared hosting should, or even could outperform a level 8 VPS. The only thing I can think of is that Hostgator runs cloud linux, which will prevent runaway scripts from using all of the available RAM or CPU power. Please shoot me a PM, or add me back on skype so that we may talk more.

Yea you guys always did have an excuse as to why your products didnt work.. I remember that... was never your fault. Anyway, you want me to contact you so that I can spend time helping you improve things? If you really wanted to improve things you could have done it in one of the 100s of tickets I had open with you...


Like i said.. dont think HWs is bad... just very shady tactics when it comes to pushing your crappy VPS. You want to stop my service.. fine.. dont just tell me that you have already upgraded me and it will now cost me 4X more... come on. Not to mention the other times this was done.. scripts were left behind... subdomains were ignored... come on... I'm sure there are many satisfied customers. Your servers are fast and your tech support doesnt speak broken English but I honestly believe that the satisfied customers are only satisfied because they haevnt dealt with any real problems with you guys.
 
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I have been using Hostwinds for 5 years with no issues, support has been always Top Notch, never had any downtime!
 
Yea you guys always did have an excuse as to why your products didnt work.. I remember that... was never your fault. Anyway, you want me to contact you so that I can spend time helping you improve things? If you really wanted to improve things you could have done it in one of the 100s of tickets I had open with you...


Like i said.. dont think HWs is bad... just very shady tactics when it comes to pushing your crappy VPS. You want to stop my service.. fine.. dont just tell me that you have already upgraded me and it will now cost me 4X more... come on. Not to mention the other times this was done.. scripts were left behind... subdomains were ignored... come on... I'm sure there are many satisfied customers. Your servers are fast and your tech support doesnt speak broken English but I honestly believe that the satisfied customers are only satisfied because they haevnt dealt with any real problems with you guys.

At the time of selecting my first VPS for my vbulletin forum, many people suggested me Hostwinds and KnownHost. I selected and registered with KnownHost just because of their attractive website which make me feel relax and comfortable that I'm going with right choice. But now I came to know that Hostwinds is not bad. :D And I guess you guys are offering compatible pricing and quick support. I will suggest you guys to upgrade your design to attract more customers. :)
 
At the time of selecting my first VPS for my vbulletin forum, many people suggested me Hostwinds and KnownHost. I selected and registered with KnownHost just because of their attractive website which make me feel relax and comfortable that I'm going with right choice. But now I came to know that Hostwinds is not bad. :D And I guess you guys are offering compatible pricing and quick support. I will suggest you guys to upgrade your design to attract more customers. :)

Not sure why you are quoting me and saying that.. but you might want to reread.
 
That's good that you're sharing your review about good and bad products.
I've seen these days that everyone is tired from the host that starts from hot like Hostinger and Hostwinds. Is there any combination?
 
Let me be 100% honest with you guys. I just bought a server from HW Friday. The initial process was actually pretty good they were able to give me 50% off my first month even though the server I wanted wasn't covered over the promotion they are currently running. But then things just went down hill from there. They had told me that the process of building the server usually takes 2 - 3 hours and will definitely be completed within 24 hours. 31 hours later I am still wondering whats going on, I am then told that they were unable to install the OS onto the hard drive and were having a senior tech head down to take a look at it as we were speaking. My question is why didn't they have the senior tech take care of that after 5 hours of the first guy not being able to do that. it seemed ridiculous at the time and honestly still does. So after that I get a message saying that they figured out the problem and I would have access to the server within 10 minutes. I took that time to shut down all my services and compress them so i could transfer, I receive the credentials and attempt to login only to find that they had forgotten to configure the internet correctly and my port speed was locked at about 5mbps. At this point i'm infuriated because I was experiencing down time for no reason. Two hours later they let me know that their is nothing that they can do until Monday when a manager gets there. So I had to unpack all my stuff and start my services on my current host as well as pay for a whole month of service with them because my due date had been reached. so a server that originally cost me only 148 dollars had now cost me 360 dollars, and that's not even including the overtime I paid my staff on two separate occasions when they assured me things would be done that night (night time is the optimal time to do any maintenance) So i'm currently waiting for Monday and I must say I have never been more frustrated with a company the current provider (Limestone Networks) is providing a server with the absolute worst network connection with only 35% of my users being able to connect. Weekends are usually the best for us but because of all the lag we have witnessed one of the worst weekends of all time. I am not very optimistic about them at this point, in fact I am expecting more garbage from them on monday I will update you guys when that day comes. But as it stands right now this is the worst hosting company I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with.
 
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