HostwindsReviews 675

I like hostwinds service. They have given us support for every problem in less than an hour and have gone so far our of their way to ensure we are satisfied with their services. We have been with many other web hosting companies in the past and their services don't even compare to these guys!

Although Hostwinds makes claims of a 60 day money back guarantee, there are a few select products that do not carry this guarantee, in fact, they have no money back guarantee, at all. Even if you buy one or more years of this service. Why? How would you know if the service is right for your business, without at least trying it, first? Oh, but, they state this product is not covered in the terms of service. Second question... why? Seeing that a person might be making a large financial investment, when they offer multiple year subscription at a discount (baiting the trap). Why not at least mention (on the sales page) that the product is not guaranteed, at all? Why hide such an important fact in the terms of service? This kind of business practice is purely unethical, and only serves one purpose, to entrap the customer. I would not do business with such an unethical company. Long story short - I wanted to upgrade from my Hostwinds shared hosting to VPS. After half a day of confusion trying to get my account up and running, I asked for a refund, and I just wanted to stick with my old shared account. That's when they told me about the terms of service that I agreed to. I had bought a one year subscription for $366, and they would not give me a refund, although I had it for less than 8 hours. I then went to PayPal and opened a dispute. They (Hostwinds) instantly, suspended all my accounts (all my sites disappeared and were replaced with an embarrassing "account suspended" notice), even my old shared account which was in good standing (WTF?). This is their "strong arm" tactic to get you to remove the dispute, they obviously have a lot of experience with customers opening disputes with PayPal, otherwise they wouldn't have this "strong arm system" in place. After fighting with them to get a "partial" refund. They charged me for a month, even though I didn't want it, and told me I had 24 hrs to accept that deal, or I get nothing back. Nice way to treat your customers. I closed all my accounts with Hostwinds, and I found a much better hosting company at a fraction of the price, with full disclosure about their refund policies. Thank god there are still some companies that adhere to ethical/honest business practices. As far as their (Hostwinds) actual hosting service, it's mediocre at best, and actually not worth the price. I guess that's why they have to entrap people with their shady guarantee policy. They need the money. I agree with a few of these other reviews, Hostwinds was a much better company a few years ago... not anymore. They should change the name of the company to Hostile Winds.

I've been really really happy with their service rendered. I must say that the server is definitely perfect for me! Though they rarely have downtime servers (that happens only once in a blue moon) due to their monthly/quarterly maintenance to keep everything working as good as possible. I also love how accommodating they are. They respond within 24 hours and you can easily reach them. Last year my blog got hacked and without any sweat they were able to revive EVERYTHING in less than an hour! Weew! Then just this year I transferred to a new domain and I am so happy because they extended their service by assisting me with my request. I am so thankful to be hosted under them. I couldn't imagine my blog being hosted under other hosting sites out there. :)

Two things are featured on the Hostwinds home page, and throughout the web site. First prominently shouted is 60 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE; also loudly proclaimed is 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE. In my experience neither is true. The boldness of Hostwinds makes me wonder from which orifice the wind breaks.

I was lured into signing up with Hostwinds, and within a few hours, it was clear that the plan I subscribed to could not provide the PHP version I craved. So I requested that Hostwinds cancel and refund.

Here is where Hostwinds gets weird. The response I received was that unless I spake the words "I confirm the cancellation of: Product: Basic Reseller and more descriptive information. Hostwinds would not cancel or refund. Mind you, the words please and cancel have not meaning or significance. One must chant the mantra of cancelation verbatim according to the dogma of Hostwinds, or the great host of wind will not smile upon you. How silly. My reply was then and remains I accept and adopt the dialog provided, without reservation or omission.

Not good enough the great Hostwind spake! Be cast out of our presence. Well thats effectively what they said after I disputed the charge upon the basis of Hostwinds offer of refund and satisfaction. Sad one must go to extremes when a business prefers to hold a pittance hostage instead of exercising the promise they held out.

1. Hosting prices are below average it is good for me.
2. Domains are very expensive. I used godaddy.
3. Support of Wordpress - yes. It is good option.

When I started with Hostwinds I had an intention to grab smallest VPS, but started with shared hosting account, because I was told I would be able to upgrade my account to VPS with no problem. And after some time I do understand that it was correct to not to start with VPS.
Signing up process - nothing special, but my new order was put "on hold", so I had to reach hostwinds and just confirm my identity. Do not feel really comfortable on this, but it seems to be normal to most services I used.
Now I have everything I expected (nothing extra) - site up and running, assistance always in pace (I always have the chat assistance when I'm in my client area).
Price I pay is fair enough.

I've been with Hostwinds for 3 years and have had a decent experience, nothing outstanding. Recently however, they have changed something forcing you to upgrade to a "Cloud" VPS if you wish to add additional IP addresses, etc. to your package. Interestingly enough, the same package that cost $55 now costs $75 if you "migrate" as they they put it. We all know datacenter costs have gone down and will continue to, so why the $20 per month jump in price?

But the issue I've found most over the past few months is that the Tech Support don't know what they are doing anymore. They used to be skilled and knowledgeable when you made a ticket, now they either don't read the ticket and take time to understand it, or are just plain "I can push the reset button and now have been promoted to answering tickets" type people. A simple request to have additional IPV6 addresses assigned took a back and forth with 4 different support people before it was resolved. A downed website took over 2 days and over 7 different employees.

To further that, when I created a new cloud VPS server on Windows 2016, they did not install the Windows source files onto the HD so you could add roles and features or Windows components. I had a 3 day back and forth with them, 50% of the time them not understanding something very simple like that and 50% of the time they reffering to my new package as "Unmanaged" and they won't help - which is fine, except that their own TOS says they will help for 2 certain things: Infrastructure and a properly configured VPS, which this fell under - and they still did not fix the problem. I had to end up downloading a CD of Server to get the Source files so I could install IIS.

Better to look elsewhere if you need support that knows what they are doing.