From customers, and from around the web with the source linked.
Left SiteGround because the plan renewed at several times the introductory price after the first year, and moved to Hetzner where the renewal matched the signup price.
“Renewal price! Same as most people here. SiteGround was $2.99/mo for the first 12 months and renewed at $17.99. I moved to Hetzner as renewal there is what i signed up for originally.”
Six years with A2, now Hosting.com, with no issues from the change apart from pricing, and great support.
“I have been with A2 for 6 years, and have had no issues with the change (except for pricing, which was always going to happen!) Support has been great.”
Started building a site on Bluehost, went another way, and found cancelling hard: no online option, and customer service kept questioning the reason for more than 15 minutes.
“I ended up going with another method and attempting to cancel is pretty difficult. There is no way to easily do it online....they make you go to customer service where they keep asking your questions about why.”
With A2/Hosting.com for over 12 years, says support feels less personal now but is more effective and faster for many issues, and that things have been stable lately.
“Support feels less personal now, but more effective and faster for many issues.”
Former A2 customer pleasantly surprised two years after the Hosting.com takeover: prices remain attractive, services run as intended and tech support is great once past the AI bot.
“BUT I am pleasantly surprised two years in! The prices remain attractive, services run as intended (EU based server), cpanel has everything I need and the tech support is actually great;”
Left Liquid Web over poor service and saved $100/month with a DigitalOcean droplet and RunCloud.
“left liquid web for similar shit service. I got a digital ocean droplet, set up a runcloud sever on it and voila- saved $100 per month on hosting.”
Pantheon communicated far better on its status page than WP Engine during the PHP incident.
“I think Pantheon did a far better job at communicating via their status update page today than WPE did.”
Sites on their IONOS account went down during the PHP incident while SiteGround and Krystal were fine.
“All of my sites on my IONOS account are dead. All the ones I have on Siteground and Krystal are perfectly fine.”
Found SiteGround middling: better than Bluehost and worse than Kinsta, with pricing that matches that middle position.
“My experience is that it was decidedly mid. Better than Bluehost, worse than Kinsta. I think the pricing reflects that pretty well honestly.”
Says their Hosting.com server stayed unpatched against a critical PHP exploit for 12+ hours, forcing them to take production servers down for a day, and plans to leave at renewal.
“I've had to pull my production webservers down for a full day because of their inability to roll out a vendor patch in a timely fashion.”
Hosts about 418 WordPress sites for work on a SiteGround server; sites keep going offline and SiteGround blames the uptime monitoring tools, which the poster disputes.
“At work, we currently use SiteGround for hosting WordPress websites. We've had issues with using UpTimeRobot and mySitesGuru monitoring tools, it keeps on taking the websites down.”
Moved to A2 Hosting for better performance than GoDaddy; after the Hosting.com acquisition the legacy plan rises from $11.99 to $16.99/month.
“This was at a monthly rate of $11.99 (with a 3 year term). They now want to charge me $16.99 per month for a three year term.”
Manages about 150 small-business client sites on SiteGround, likes the control panel and extra services and rarely needs support, but would not use its VPS or cloud plans for heavy sites.
“and the additional services and streamlined control panel are good for business owners and their office administrators. I manage ~150 client sites on SiteGround and rarely have to contact their support at all.”
SiteGround updated all their sites within an hour during a critical PHP patch while WP Engine lagged.
“My SiteGround websites were all updated within an hour this morning.”
Put premium sites on WP Engine expecting better security response; SiteGround patched in an hour while WP Engine lagged and a client site was shut down.
“I have all my premium sites on WP Engine because I thought they would be better in times like these. I thought wrong.”
DreamHost patched the PHP vulnerability while the WP Engine site was still not patched.
“I have a site on Dreamhost and one on WPEngine. Dreamhost was patched. WPEngine has not been patched”
WP Engine level 1 support knew nothing about the critical vulnerability and gave generic, outdated information hours later.
“When I contacted support about 22 hours ago the level 1 support knew nothing of the vulnerability and asked me to send him a link.”
Chose WP Engine for support and security features but is pissed at the slow PHP patch.
“I am on WPEngine because their custom support and security features. Of course i'm pissed.”
Several of their sites on Kinsta's London data centre were down for hours while waiting for Kinsta's engineers to explain the outage.
“I've a couple of sites that have been down for a few hours now. Apparently it's not Cloudflare related but still awaiting an announcement from their engineers. Anyone else having a problem?”
Runs everything on OVHcloud EU VPS instances; availability can be limited, but they are much cheaper than Hetzner for similar specs.
“I’m running everything on OVHcloud. They offer EU-based VPS instances, although availability can be somewhat limited. They’re also significantly cheaper than Hetzner, with their VPS-3 coming in at well under €20 per month.”
Briefly tried Kinsta and was unimpressed: the PHP worker limit made an optimized WooCommerce store struggle, and one yearly sales report made the site inaccessible.
“a very optimized woo store I manage that runs extremely fast on a vps didnt run well on Kinsta. Simply running a year sales report caused the php limit to be hit”
Very happy with SiteGround: one yearly plan covers 10–20 sites with unlimited mailboxes, the interface is easy and real people answer for troubleshooting.
“I’ve been very happy with siteground. A 300$ per year plan will cover 10-20 sites with unlimited email boxes and easy interface for all your tools even real people for troubleshooting”
Bought an OVH VPS at a very good price, but the account was banned without explanation and support was terrible, leaving two days to move a web app elsewhere.
“I bought a VPS from OVH. The price is very good, but the problem is they ban account without any consideration and the support is very very terrible.”
A Shopify and WooCommerce developer had a client paying about $600 a month on Shopify for a plan upgrade plus add-ons.
“A client of mine was paying about $ 600 a month on shopify and most of the addons and stuff was added by him later.”
A gift shop moved from WooCommerce to a static site with a small Shopify shop and no longer deals with broken Elementor updates.
“My dayjob ditched WooCommerce for Shopify for our little gift shop specifically so we could get off Wordpress+Elementor. Nice static site now with a little Shopify shop, and no more botched ElementorPro updates.”
A WordPress developer has a client paying $90 a month for Shopify add-ons that are free in WordPress, on top of transaction fees.
“I have a client who is paying $90USD/month (on top of the stripe subscription) for Shopify add-ons which are free in WP, like product tabs, Instagram feed, google review, product bundles, reporting.”
Long-time customer facing a steep renewal price increase and a support reply from an AI bot, after several outages in the past year that forced their first support tickets; switching hosts.
“This is after several outages the past year where I had to, for the first time ever, put in support tickets.”
Says Hosting.com support is now AI responses where they used to get a human with decent support.
“Their support is now AI responses from what I can tell. I used to actually get a human and the support was decent. No more.”
Had an A2 reseller account for nine years and says that after Hosting.com took over, WHM was inaccessible for days, cPanel crashed, prices rose and support was horrific, so they left.
“As soon as hosting .com took over, everything declined. WHM was inaccesable for days, cPanels would crash etc. I tried to give them a chance, but between performance, price increases, and horrific support”
A small-business owner dropped Squarespace because it cost about $300 a year and rebuilt the site themselves.
“I got rid of a Squarespace setup that was costing me about $300 a year”
A Wix user finds it super easy and reliable, and easy to go back and update their site.
“I use Wix and have also used GoDaddy. Super easy, super reliable, easy to go back and update.”
A business owner moved from WordPress to Squarespace because it is much easier to update and hand off to someone else.
“I use Squarespace and migrated from Wordpress. WP is very good and you can get a great custom website with it but I wanted something really easy to update and”
A business owner built their own site on Wix, finds it very easy and gets lots of compliments on it.
“I love WIX. I created it myself and get a lot of compliments on it.”
Likes SiteGround but the GoGeek renewal is $450 for one year, which seems expensive.
“The siteground renewal is $450 for the gogeek for 1 year. I do like siteground”
A Hostinger user finds it enough to host multiple browsing sites, though they prefer Google Workspace for high email volume.
“so far im using hostinger for browsing site hosting, enough to use for multiple.”
A developer has run multi-purpose projects on a Hostinger KVM 2 VPS for over a year with little downtime, though they had to set CPU limits.
“Hostinger has worked great for me though, currently using KVM 2 for multi-purpose projects and haven't had much downtime for over a year. I've had to put CPU limits but”
A Bluehost customer of about six years says it fits their multi-site and email needs well.
“I use bluehost and have for about 6 years. Per your post, fits the bill well.”
An InMotion Hosting customer runs a few sites there and barely has to think about hosting, which is the point.
“Been using InMotion for a few sites and I barely have to think about the hosting, which is kinda the point.”
A Hostinger customer says there is barely any human support and the price rises after the first term, though the platform itself is amazing.
“I have experience with hostinger. They barely have any human support, if you need help you will have to sit there beg the AI for an hour to connect you”
Has used HostArmada and FastComet; both pretty decent and far better than Hostinger for shared hosting.
“I have experienced HostArmada and Fast Comet both are pretty decent and far better then Hostinger.”
Good run with InMotion for client sites: consistent performance and solid support.
“I've had a good run with InMotion for client sites. Performance stays consistent and their support is solid.”
Used Linode in the past and found them easy to do business with; plans a major app there.
“I've used Linode in the past and they are easy to do business with”
On Hostinger Cloud Startup the server works well but support is poor and takes days.
“poor, horrible support and takes days ...”
A small host who used Hostinger says it has no phone line, only slow email support and occasional slow live chat, and migrating off it got harder.
“Hostinger doesn't have a support line, they have a very slow (and also quite awful) email support system and occasionally live chat which is still super slow and awful”
A Spaceship domain customer of three years stays because renewal pricing is very competitive.
“I have been with the for three years now. And the reason is they have very competitive renewal pricing.”
A small business uses Hostinger's builder for e-commerce and bookings at about £160 a year for two sites, but each appointment needs its own checkout.
“with their appointment system people have to fill out booking details and pay for each appointment immediately.”
A seasonal decorating business found Framer super easy and got a better-looking site than Squarespace templates with a few prompts.
“Framer was super easy to get started with, and with just a few prompts, I got something that looked better than the kind of boring Squarespace templates.”
A web agency uses Hostinger's Business plan for client sites and finds it easy to manage, though renewal costs rise each year.
“We do use Hostinger business plan and its pretty easy to manage.”
A site builder has struggled to get Squarespace's mobile and desktop designs to do what they want unless sticking to its predesigned blocks.
“I’ve had a lot of struggles, especially with squarespace, when trying to get both designs to do what I want.”
Finds SiteGround cheap, fast, good value with excellent support, with no limitations apart from one image optimizer issue.
“It's cheap, fast, good value and has excellent support.”
Prefers Kinsta over SiteGround for easier backups, restores and staging and faster sites; uses it for all their sites.
“and your site will load faster too). I use them for all my sites.”
A Rocket.net customer of three years on the 10-site business plan chats with a real human who stays until the issue is resolved.
“I host at rocket.net. I have the business plan with 10 spots. That works out to $10/each per month. $100. They don't do AI chatbot support, phone support, or email”
Ran sites and a SaaS on DigitalOcean Kubernetes and droplets but moved to AWS because all outgoing SMTP is blocked and support said it cannot be unblocked.
“But having to pay for an additional service jsut to send out welcome email or password change emails just feels wrong,”
Years on DigitalOcean, dislikes that everything has a public IP and that the managed databases have few tuning options, and has an unresolved network issue with dropped connections and DNS failures; support has been useless.
“I've been on DO for years. I hate the fact that everything has a public IP address, the managed databases have very few options for tuning”
Has used DigitalOcean for more than twelve years, likes the fixed payments and always-available resources, and recalls only one unrecoverable droplet crash; support is just OK.
“I'm using Digital Ocean for more than twelve years and i like the fixed payments and have always resources available.”
Using DigitalOcean since 2012 but, having seen abysmal support even before the layoffs, would never recommend it for an important workload.
“Been using it since 2012, but having experienced the already abysmal support before their layoffs, I will never pitch it to anyone with a remotely important workload.”
A user recommends InMotion's VPS, which has been pretty reliable in their experience.
“Check out InMotion, been pretty reliable in my experience.”
A WordPress developer of 18 years says SiteGround has been dismal every time they have tried a site on it.
“They get tons of positive reviews but have been dismal every single time I've tried any site on them for many, many years.”
A developer moved a client site from Bluehost to Krystal after cost-cutting led to issues, though they thought Bluehost's customer service was pretty good.
“I recently migrated a client site from Bluehost to Krystal Hosting.”
A digital goods seller with 20-30k monthly visitors is leaving Hostinger after more downtime than expected and a crypto-miner infection that was a nightmare to clean up.
“Downtime - there was more of it than I expected for a paid plan.”
A blogger on Bluehost for three years says the price went up every year and it isn't worth the hassle anymore.
“I looked for the cheapest option but year after year it went up in price and isn't worth the hassle anymore.”
A user says they have used SiteGround for years and it has been awesome.
“We have been using SiteGround for years and they have been awesome!”
A user likes Rocket.net's support, which always goes out of its way to help customers.
“I personal like how rocket.net's support helps and always go out of their way to help customers.”
A long-time developer found neither Hostinger's AI nor its human support could fix a simple FTP problem, and calls the support unacceptable.
“a simple file transfer protoco; and neither their AI or (so called) human helper can help it.”
Bluehost is a nightmare to cancel and tries to charge at renewal even after you tried to stop everything.
“They will be a nightmare when you want to cancel, and try to charge you at renewal even after you tried to stop everything.”
Switched from SiteGround to WP Engine and saw speed improvements with responsive support.
“I switched from Siteground and saw speed improvements. Support is responsive.”
A Hostinger customer of six years never renews; they buy a new promo plan and migrate the site to avoid the renewal price.
“I’ve been with them for six years. My premium plan is up and I didn’t renew. Instead I bought a new business plan with the better ssd drive and I”
Runs multiple high-traffic sites on ChemiCloud for the past year with nothing to complain about.
“ChemiCloud is my recommendation if you're willing to lock in for a few years upfront, great pricing and I've had nothing to complain about running multiple high traffic websites over the last year”
Bluehost raised the renewal to over $700 from about $250 for three years.
“they raised the price to over $700 for my renewal. Originally it was about $250 for three years.”
Six years of issues: DNS changes never going live, support staff lying, and SSL auto-renew breaking randomly.
“dns changes never going live and having multiple support tickets over it. Staff straight up lying to me, relying on technical illiteracy of their average customer. SSL auto renew just breaking randomly.”
SiteGround auto-installed an AI plugin that broke their site's forms and cost over $10k; they are leaving.
“Siteground pushed an Ai plugin onto all of their hosted sites without consent (or in our case warning) that broke aspects of our site and caused over 10k in damages.”
Switched a ton of sites from SiteGround and WP Engine to Kinsta; support fantastic and servers solid.
“Kinsta. Well worth it as the support is fantastic and servers are solid.”
A Hostinger customer cancelled within 30 days but was refused a refund and kept being charged; support is AI-only and they filed a card dispute.
“The **hostinger** website clearly advertised a 30-day money-back guarantee for all services. I canceled my **hostinger** service within the 30 days, but **hostinger** refused to refund me.”
Bluehost raised their WordPress price roughly 10x on auto-renewal and would do nothing about it.
“bluehost raised its wordpress press on me by roughly 10x year over year. They bit me when I wasn't looking on an auto-renewal. Wouldn't do anything about it.”
A developer has found Namecheap solid for domains and simple hosting.
“Namecheap has been solid for domains and simple hosting in my experience.”
A Hostinger Business customer gets constant 429 errors in wp-admin from their office network; support confirmed new rate limits but won't adjust them.
“Over the past several weeks, I started getting constant HTTP 429 “Too Many Requests” errors while simply using the WordPress admin panel on multiple websites hosted with Hostinger (Business plan hosting).”
Five days down after the cPanel incident and Bluehost's response suggested files were missing.
“Its Been FIVE DAYS and STILL NOT BACK UP.. we have had a response that sounds like all the files are missing!”
Website down for at least three days during the Bluehost outage.
“My website has been down for at least 3 days”
Bluehost VPS outage after the cPanel vulnerability: the longest outage they have experienced with the host.
“This is the longest outage I've experienced with them.”
During the cPanel-related outage, the live tech lied about what was going on.
“the live tech I reached flat out lied to me about what was going on.”
A Hostinger customer says their site is down all the time and the only support is an AI chatbot, so they'd never recommend it.
“I will never recomend anyone to use hostinger, i am using there hosting plan, all the time my webiste is down, and they said we are fixing, no support team”
A new business site on Bluehost took 10-15 seconds per page and the WordPress backend was nearly unusable; switching hosts fixed it.
“It was so incredibly slow, it would routinely take 10-15 seconds to load a page. Sometimes they just wouldn't load at all. WordPress backend was almost unusable.”
A Bluehost customer paying $21.99 a month for what is now a $13.99 plan was refused any credit for the remaining prepaid term.
“We are currently paying $21.99/month for what is essentially the equivalent of a plan Bluehost now offers for $13.99/month for 50 sites and 50GB storage. We have been grossly overpaying”
SiteGround defaulted to annual billing and auto-renew, charging about $400 unauthorised; refund took 5 hours of chat.
“they will DEFAULT your payments to annual, AND they'll charge your card 2 weeks early for an annual payment you never approved.”
DNS suddenly stopped pointing to domains and SiteGround support could not explain why.
“DNS names are suddenly not pointing to domains and they cannot explain why”
With SiteGround for many years and says they have fantastic customer support.
“They have fantastic customer support.”
SiteGround is usually willing to work with anyone; they phoned about the bot-check page and it got fixed.
“SiteGround is usually willing to work with anyone. I just got off the phone with them about this Very thing and they're going to get back to me in about a half an hour.”
A DreamHost customer of over 10 years can go straight to a human in chat and has always found support understood and fixed the issue.
“You can choose to talk to a bot, but you can also choose to go right to a human. In more than 10 years (with about 6 chats per year)”
A customer quit Hostinger because they could never get past its AI chatbot to a human; even email was answered by the bot.
“just had to quit Hostinger because I can't get past their damn chatbot no matter how much I ask. Even EMAIL was answered by the thing.”
A SiteGround customer says you can reach a real person at support fairly quickly.
“Siteground. You can reach a real person, fairly quickly too.”
A Hostinger customer says it works well for them.
“Hostinger works good for me”
A freelancer runs 17 sites on SiteGround; like other hosts it hikes the price after the intro year, but overall it's pretty solid.
“I have 17 site on Siteground. Like all hosting they have a good year intro then hike it up. But overall, pretty solid.”
Company emails on Bluehost are constantly blocked by Spamhaus and Gmail/Yahoo mail goes to spam; emails sometimes stop entirely.
“We are constantly blocked by Spamhaus it can be a nightmare. My boss doesn't wanna change from them. Not to mention all of our emails to yahoo and gmail go to spam.”
Found SiteGround overrides wp-config auto-update settings and pushes updates; the delay option lives in the hosting panel.
“Turns out SiteGround can override your wp-config.php settings and still push updates.”
A Hosting.com (formerly A2) customer of over a decade says downtime is nil, though support is infrequently frustrating.
“We use hosting.com, which used to be a2hosting.com until last year. I’ve used them for over a decade. They aren’t perfect, but downtime is nil.”
A Bluehost customer's site was down 8+ hours with 429 errors; support told them to pay an extra $200 a month for bot protection.
“It says 429 error too many requests. Its been like this for 8 hours and Bluehost customer service says its nothing or that there are some bots that have had”