HostwindsReviews of hostwinds.com

Platform reliability and price are very, very good. Customer service and technical support are very, very bad, not because they don't try but due to incompetence.

"We have terminated your account with us in accordance with our zero tolerance abuse policy. This decision is final and will not be reversed." That was the content of the shocking email that was waiting for me in my mailbox early morning, 08/23/2020 We've had some problems with Hostwinds very early on (but too late to ask for a refund). First, for their "business plan", for "unlimited domains" you have 512 MB RAM to use. These get quickly overloaded so one or two domains with some plugins should do it. More than that, and all of your blogs go down. The few times we needed support, the technicians didn't seem very competent. It took us several mails to make them understand that some mails sent to us by customers were delayed from 30-40 minutes to several hours. They couldn't understand what we said before a while and when they finally understood it, they just said it was because of the "sender's server". It had nothing to do with Hostwinds. With the exception that it did: Hostwinds activate a gray list when you make a new e-mail account and the gray list checks unknown or unsure e-mail-addresses, which can cause a delay in mail reception. You can turn it off yourself beside each e-mail-address... But support didn't know that, it seems. Then, most of our mails didn't reach our customers. We understood it a while later when we've got some of them back: Our IP was blacklisted as a spam IP. Hostwinds doesn't take care of that. If you've got a bad IP... Too bad! We asked if we could get another, but the answer was that they could help us BUY another, but they couldn't guarantee that the new one wouldn't be blacklisted. Buy another? They give us a blacklisted IP and we have to "buy" another because they don't do their job? And without guarantee, even! But the story doesn't stop there. Early morning, the 20th, I receive some mail from the "abuse department" of Hostwinds. They are forwarding a mail from "Netcraft" (never heard of those) where it said that on one of our domains, there is a scamming site, mimicking a cryptocurrency. And then a link to one of our domain: ourdomain[.]icu/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi That was a link to a "suspended page" code used by Hostwinds when they terminate or suspend a domain. We didn't understand a word of it. Why did "abuse" from Hostwinds send that to us? Couldn't they see that there was no scamming site, but that it was one of their own standard-pages? I checked all of our domains for the case we had been hacked or something. Nothing. I wrote with support and they scanned our account and told us: Everything is clean. No scamming site on your account. Fine. Everything was fine, then. The morning after, bing! The exact same mail from "abuse" from Hostwinds forwarding the exact same mail from "Netcraft". What the... I answered and asked them if I had to receive this mail each day or if there was a point with this. No answer. The morning after, I got a mail telling me: "We have terminated your account with us in accordance with our zero tolerance abuse policy. This decision is final and will not be reversed." and a link to their TOS. Now, when Hostwinds cut you off, not only are your sites not visible to your customers, but they block your access to your files, so you have no possibility to access your files, download them or nothing. You are totally excluded from your own files. We were pretty annoyed, to say the least. Our account terminated because... what? Because "Netcraft" sent a mail about an old account (I guess that results from this spammy IP we got) with a link to a standard "suspended page"? We asked for access to our files to download them, a refund for the time we wouldn't be able to use and that we paid up front (too bad it was too late for a PayPal dispute!) and then an apology. Two days later, we got the laconic message: "Hello, Our management has lifted the suspension on your account. I am running a malware scan on your account just to make sure there are no infected files. Please standby for further updates and we thank you for your patience." After a scan, the "technician" found 3 "infected" files on three of our archived domains: "wp-pass.php" files, which are totally legit files from older versions of Wordpress. I explained it to him and he answered, "I have checked the files wp-pass.php. It looks like legit WordPress files." Of course it is! One more time, support and "technicians" don't use the inside of their head. It goes from not knowing their products and server, to not knowing the first thing about viruses, whitelisting an IP and it can go as far so they just terminate your account because of their incompetence. Needless to say that we didn't even get as much as an apology for their handling of the situation and their incompetence. I don't expect us to receive a refund or any kind of compensation. Do not use Hostwinds.

until now, everything sounds great

Is Good to be Here.

i want the refund

I bought their 2-year plan for shared hosting, day after that I realized my website isn't connecting to my domain name, after talking to them they told me that I have to REQUEST my free domain name (which is included in the package), (that's the same as if you walked in the grocery store, saw 2+1 deal on a product, but the cashier charges you for all 3, because you have to TELL them that you want the third item for free.) *logic*, needless to say I was pissed and i canceled my 2 year plan with them, and that is where the even bigger problems began. First i waited 2 days for their support to respond to me about my refund ( they probably stalled as they dont have to give you refund if 2 days pass), (oh yeah, you have to ASK them about the refund as well!! the same with domain name *cough* scamming thieves *cough*) then they realized that i have a 2 year plan with them, which means i can get my refund for a few weeks after my hosting is cancelled. after 2 days of waiting for them to reply to me, while routinely checking my bank account i saw that they CHARGED me 2 x 50 USD!! bear in mind that my account was deleted and that my hosting was cancelled days prior to that!, they literally stole 100 USD from my banking account! after i confronted them about it, they said i tried to top up on some sort of credit on their site?! After i told them that it's impossible as they stole the money AFTER my account was deleted, so i had no access to my account, let alone to purchase that "credit" , they simply stopped responding to my ticket. PEOPLE, LISTEN TO ME! there are other REPUTABLE hosting sites, go to them, don't be drawn to this thieving site only because you'll pay a few bucks less. I got burned, but you don't have to. Oh did i mention that you have to wait 24 hours for their support to respond? imagine talking to someone who only answers once a day.

HostWinds website was easy to navigate. The hosting services were carefully differentiated so it’s easier to pick the level of service desired. The customer service was excellent. I got quick feedback through chats whenever I have questions.

good time to setup the server thks