InterServer vs. InMotion (2024)

By: PJ Fancher

Editor: Lillian Castro

2/6/2024

PJ Fancher Hosting Expert

“We tested InMotion & InterServer — The winner is InMotion!”

Side by side in the alphabet, InterServer and InMotion Hosting are also neck and neck in terms of web hosting quality, performance, and affordability. They both provide top-level SSD storage and a full spectrum of hosting, from shared to dedicated servers. But the two hosts do have their differences in affordability and user experience. Price-conscious users may want to save on hosting costs than pay for additional features. Which host will have the edge?

Overall Rating

4.9/5.0 ★★★★★

Core Plan: $2.29/month »
Launch Plan: $4.99/month »
Pro Plan: $11.91/month »

Visit InMotion »

Overall Rating

4.6/5.0 ★★★★★

Standard Web Hosting: $2.50/month »
Cloud VPS Hosting: $6.00/month »
Managed WordPress Hosting: $6.00/month »

Visit InterServer »

Disclosure: When you sign up through links on our site, we often earn referral fees from partners. For more information, see our ad disclosure and review policy.

Overall Hosting Comparison

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

Offering a wider range of services than most — including shared, dedicated, VPS, and even WordPress-specific plans — InMotion Hosting features a great combination of industry-leading hardware, always-there support, and mass scalability for all hosting needs.

InMotion Hosting has ultra-modern SSD drives on its shared plans, which give an added speed boost to your site. If a little extra speed is worth a few dollars more a month, then InMotion is a good choice for you.

The company's customer service and reputation are excellent in the shared space, though InMotion tends to be a bit higher priced than some competitors.

In testing InMotion servers and account backends ourselves, there are a few things InMotion does that we especially appreciate.

First and foremost, we like to see free and automated backups included with each plan, as data security is vitally important.

The company also offers zero-downtime site transfers, which makes switching to InMotion or between its hosting plans a breeze.

Finally, multiple datacenters and the ability to choose which will house your site appeals to speed freaks like us.

Regardless of your hosting needs, InMotion seems to have your bases covered. If you value great hardware and support, all at a reasonable price, we highly recommend InMotion as your next host.

FREE SSD drives included with all hosting plans
Zero-downtime website transfers and migrations
FREE backups, SSL, and DDoS protection
Choice of East Coast or West Coast datacenter
Multi-language support for PHP, Ruby, and Perl
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

100 GB SSD - Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

As tech-savvy teenagers in the days of dial-up internet, Mike Lavrik and John Quaglieri started InterServer to show their former hosting providers how it should be done. Fed up with their hosting options, Mike and John created InterServer on a strong foundation of technical expertise and customer support.

Now, InterServer is a refreshing, independent hosting option built on modern infrastructure that is assembled, deployed, and supported at the datacenter housed in company headquarters in New Jersey.

InterServer's robust shared plans come with the features you'd expect from higher-tier providers: unlimited storage, bandwidth, email, and SSL certificates, along with power-packed SSDs, free migrations, and affordable domains.

Rookie site owners might be intimidated by InterServer's long list of features, but each will help customers large and small succeed in their hosting ventures.

InterServer can't match the low prices of some of the mass-market competitors out there when it comes to shared hosting, but they become exponentially more affordable as your website or application grows to VPS or dedicated plans — especially when you consider the perks of 24/7 on-site support and IT-minded Co-Founders who still manage the datacenter and respond to support tickets.

No matter which level of hosting you need, InterServer offers a price-lock guarantee. Whatever price you sign up for, that's what you'll pay as long as you have the account (unless you add or upgrade services).

You'll never be surprised with a rate increase or be locked into lengthy contracts. We're struggling to come up with another hosting provider who can make that promise.

Independently owned datacenter and NO contracts
24/7 on-site support through chat, phone, and tickets
Same price guaranteed for life
Unlimited storage, sites, and email
FREE website migration, caching, and security tools
Get started on InterServer now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

Unlimited SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

Cheap Hosting Comparison

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0

#6 out of 10 in Cheap Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting offers an excellent business-class shared hosting plan — with a price tag lower than several other budget hosts.

For the IT crowd in the audience, you’ll appreciate SSH access, as well as support for PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python, WP-CLI, and other popular languages.

You’ll also appreciate the 20-times faster speed, which comes from all-SSD storage and your choice of datacenter locations.

You needn’t worry about data security, as InMotion plans include automatic data backups.

For the rest of us, we can appreciate the convenience of the free website transfers and 24/7 US-based support.

A free domain registration and WordPress website builder with eCommerce support are also appealing.

The overall package and business-class hardware make InMotion’s shared hosting a great choice for businesses or those looking for a little higher-end hardware.

And, as one of the few remaining independently owned hosting providers left on the market, InMotion has taken every effort to remain cost-competitive.

FREE BoldGrid site builder and templates
FREE website, domain, and cPanel migrations
SSD storage makes your site load up to 20x faster
Security suite includes SSL and hack protection
Unlimited bandwidth and email accounts
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

It's hard to argue with a shared hosting plan that includes unlimited storage, bandwidth, websites, and email — but shared hosting is a crowded industry that turns on name recognition, reputation, and bargain-basement prices.

InterServer outperforms some of our higher-rated hosts, but we understand that many first-time site owners are laser-focused on finding the lowest costs.

InterServer's shared options are best for the more experienced user who will appreciate SSD caching servers and RAID-10 storage, along with included perks such as Cloudflare CDN and free SSL certificates. Free migrations and automatic weekly backups add to the list of advantages included under InterServer's premium price.

On the flip side, however, novice customers will enjoy a free website builder when designing and launching their site. Although InterServer's 400-plus installation scripts cover a number of content management systems and eCommerce tools, other hosts take a more hands-on approach to empowering these customers to start an online store.

InterServer may make up for its somewhat higher rates with a price-lock guarantee — the price when you sign up is what you can expect to pay for the life of your account. What's more, InterServer won't lock you up with lengthy contracts.

Customers can get discounted rates by paying up front for services; otherwise, your hosting plan runs month-to-month. Users will appreciate knowing what bills to expect and not having to deal with annual rate hikes.

$0.01 first month (coupon code HOSTINGADV)
$2.50/month after. No contracts or increases
Unlimited storage space, data transfers, and email
Register or transfer domains for less than $10
99.9% uptime and price-lock guarantee
Get started on InterServer now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

Unlimited SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

Dedicated Hosting Comparison

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

#1 out of 8 in Dedicated Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting offers amazingly fast and reliable dedicated hosting on market-leading hardware — making it an easy choice for anyone seeking a premium dedicated server host.

From free SSDs to a fanatical support team, InMotion has all the bases covered for both small-scale and large-scale operations.

Unlike some hosts, InMotion gives SSH and root access to its servers. Each plan comes in bare metal or fully managed flavors. The latter includes two to four hours of dedicated time with a system administrator, which is an excellent help in getting your site configured to meet your needs.

Managed servers also come set up with free cPanel and WHM for easy management, while unmanaged server operators can choose among CentOS, Debian, or Ubuntu operating systems.

Plenty of CPU power, RAM, and storage come with each plan, as well as lots of dedicated IP addresses.

Perhaps our favorite feature of InMotion is the company's zero-downtime, rebootless kernel updates, which are partially the reason for InMotion's superb 99.999% uptime.

InMotion has a 30-day money-back guarantee on their dedicated plans, which is fairly rare and just another reason you can’t go wrong selecting the company as your dedicated host.

Bare-metal or managed servers available
1-on-1 time with a server administrator
99.99% uptime via Smart Routing™ technology
Tier 1 network with redundant bandwidth
SSH root access and DDoS protection on all servers
Upgrade for cPanel, migration, and auto backups
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

1 TB SSD - 3.2 TB SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

#6 out of 8 in Dedicated Hosting reviews

You know a hosting company means business when it owns and operates its own datacenters.

Because InterServer employees build and manage servers in the same building as company headquarters, dedicated hosting customers get the utmost in flexibility, support, and around-the-clock monitoring.

Co-Founders Mike Lavrik and John Quaglieri started InterServer in 1999 out of frustration with their own personal hosting providers and insist the company remain independent and customers are supported 24/7 through phone, chat, or tickets with InterServer's US-based team.

In fact, chances are a Co-Founder will answer your ticket in fewer than 20 minutes.

Servers are up and running within four hours and come with at least 1GB of RAM, 250GB of storage, 10TB of bandwidth, and five IP addresses. With the company's base Intel Dual-Core Atom configuration costing roughly $50 per month, InterServer brings surprising affordability to the high-end dedicated hosting products.

At the other end of InterServer's spectrum of server setups, we were utterly blown away by the amount of storage you can configure — users can max out their servers with not one, but two, 6TB SATA hard drives. If you need SSD, you can install up to 2TB of the performant drives.

Users can also configure up to 13 IP addresses and choose among several different flavors of Linux or Windows operating systems.

24/7 uptime monitoring and private datacenter
Up to 24 cores and 100TB bandwidth
12 operating systems and 3 control panels
Custom configs built and maintained in-house
Price-lock guarantee without contracts
Get started on InterServer now.

Money Back Guarantee

N/A

Disk Space

250 GB SSD - 80 TB HDD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

VPS Hosting Comparison

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

#7 out of 9 in VPS Hosting reviews

Boasting market-leading VPS hardware, slick management software, and free SSD drives and backups, InMotion Hosting competes to win when it comes to managed VPS hosting packages.

The host initiates its VPS customer relationship with free website migrations and up to two hours of launch assistance from an experienced sysadmin.

Customers then enjoy highly available servers, seamless scalability options, and premium support — at a fair price.

Enjoy SSD storage arranged in a RAID-6 array, DDoS attack prevention powered by Corero, and routine server snapshots and rollback options.

Performance and security are clearly priorities for this hosting company. When it comes to bandwidth, disk space, and other usage allowances, we found these VPS packages to be competitive with other industry leaders.

All plans run on the CentOS Linux operating system and feature a license for cPanel and WHM, making it super easy to resell some unused server resources, too.

Ultimately, InMotion Hosting's reputation for uptime is second to none.

With a solid track record as a large-scale host, the company's sweet spot is found in its virtual, cloud, and dedicated server offerings. Should you get stuck, the support team is available 24/7.

Based on our experience, we'd highly recommend InMotion to those seeking flexible/easily configurable and cost-competitive virtual private servers backed by equally available support.

HostingAdvice readers get 67% off the first term
FREE site migrations and 2 hours of Launch Assist
2 - 3 dedicated IP address options
FREE cPanel/WHM licenses included
Highly available servers with real-time redundancy
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

90 GB SSD - 360 GB SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0

#6 out of 9 in VPS Hosting reviews

InterServer's on-site datacenter and hands-on involvement with configuring and provisioning virtual private servers give customers a level of flexibility not seen with many other hosting providers.

InterServer rations VPS and cloud resources through slices. Users can select just one CPU core or more than a dozen, with disk space ranging from sane to absurd amounts of high-powered SSDs.

In addition to that speedy standard feature, we love that virtual servers are provisioned instantly and come with the latest versions of PHP, MySQL, Perl, Python, and Ruby pre-installed. Users can take further control through full root access and InterServer's web-based control panel.

InterServer brings incredibly affordable options to the VPS and cloud space, with plans starting at $10 or less per month and a free migration service from shared hosting accounts.

We're not wild about the rest of InterServer's managed VPS services but understand that many customers at this level are plenty capable of handling their virtual servers.

The company will support issues related to the operating system or control panel if the account has at least four slices (four cores, 8GB memory, 120GB of storage). InterServer isn't being unreasonable by any stretch, but other hosts make management a simpler, smoother process.

InterServer guarantees hardware, network, and infrastructure uptime of 99.9%, which has become pretty standard for the web hosting industry. We expected to see the in-house expertise bump that guaranteed rate a little higher, but we trust InterServer will overdeliver on their SLA promise.

$0.01 for the first month using code HOSTINGADV
Then $6 monthly with no contracts, no changes
Latest of PHP, MySQL, Perl, Python, and Ruby
7 operating system options for Linux or Windows
Full root access and choice of datacenter
Get started on InterServer now.

Money Back Guarantee

N/A

Disk Space

30 GB SSD - 480 GB SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

WordPress Hosting Comparison

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

#5 out of 8 in WordPress Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting, long known for affordable and high-performance shared hosting options, entered the WordPress space with a solid option built upon the company's reputation for great support and reliability.

Build on an all-SSD infrastructure, InMotion's inherently quick speeds make the infrastructure a perfect fit for delivering rapid WordPress page loads.

Options like integrated staging help take full advantage of the nice, modern hardware, and ample server caching tools are a good perk.

The choice of datacenters (East or West) is nice, as well, as it allows you to target your local audience with better load times.

InMotion offers four levels to its WordPress hosting offerings, which allows you to tailor the hosting to your needs or budget.

For those needing ecommerce support, the company's middle or top offerings have you covered, while all three include InMotion's drag-and-drop BoldGrid page editor.

Each hosting package InMotion offers comes with a free domain, unlimited disk space, unlimited emails, and free data backups for data security.

If you need it, each plan also has support for PHP, Ruby, Perl, and Python, and includes SSH access.

InMotion Hosting has made a name for itself on support and reliability. While not the cheapest of the budget WordPress hosts, the packages offered are solid in performance and feature sets.

Up to 12x faster WordPress hosting
FREE SSL certificate and SSD storage
Automatic WordPress plugin, theme, and core updates
Features a FREE drag-and-drop WP page editor
Premium themes and plugin subscriptions
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

100 GB - Unlimited SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

With managed WordPress hosting plans being all the rage lately, we occasionally get peeved at hosting providers that capitalize on the frenzy without optimizing its platform for the specific strengths and weaknesses of the world's most popular content management system.

That being said, InterServer's standard shared and VPS infrastructure provides more than enough resources to run your WordPress site at peak performance.

Perhaps most importantly, InterServer promises to clean up customers' compromised websites and get them back online if you get hacked — especially important for WordPress users, as the platform's popularity unfortunately makes it a prime target for attacks.

Even the most experienced WordPress users can fall victim to an exploit, and InterServer's support team is available 24/7 to fix any issue when it arises.

The company's proprietary InterShield security suite, however, does an impressive job at keeping attackers at bay. The company's in-house malware database drives a firewall powered by machine learning and collecting data from InterServer's thousands of servers.

When it comes to speed, InterServer has you covered with five levels of content caching solutions, covering SSL certificates, packets, software, hardware, and RAID configurations. A partnership with Cloudflare garners users extra protections and global content delivery.

Enjoy single-click installs for the WordPress software, easy-to-use cPanel control panel, and solid-state drives (SSDs) to get your site performance extra oomph.

To the value-minded shoppers in the crowd, note that all InterServer customers are assured a price-lock guarantee and will never be asked to sign a control. That's a longer-term value in the shared hosting market that's tough to beat.

FREE website migration and privately owned datacenter
The price you pay now is guaranteed for the life of your account
24/7 support teams will fix and restore hacked websites
Plans optimized for speed with SSD storage and caching
NO long-term contract required
Get started on InterServer now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

Unlimited SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

Site Builder Hosting Comparison

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

If you're aiming to build a dynamic, user-oriented website — an active blog, a photo gallery, an ecommerce store — check out InMotion Hosting.

The InMotion team is extremely knowledgeable in the hosting industry, and they're attuned to the ever-evolving needs of the end-user — from the ultra-novice to the über-experienced.

Evidence of the team's attention to user needs can be found in BoldGrid. The proprietary website builder platform was received so well by the market that InMotion decided to spin the web builder off into its own company.

BoldGrid functions on top of WordPress, bringing intuitiveness and ease of use to a content management environment notorious for bringing beginners frustration.

With hundreds of templates and a nice WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, getting started with a new site is a fairly quick and easy process. You can play around with the plethora of site templates, preview the site that could soon be yours, and get a feel for which look most closely matches your intended design or brand.

BoldGrid comes free on all of InMotion's shared hosting packages, which come with all the essential hosting goodies and some of the best support money can buy.

Each plan offers powerful hardware, a free domain name, and free data backups — that last one being an extremely valuable feature.

InMotion does have lengthy signup periods for their best deals, but they offer a 90-day money-back guarantee to help you feel confident that they are the right host for you.

FREE site builder comes with all WordPress plans
FREE domain with tons of options to customize and scale
200+ easy-to-edit blog, gallery, and ecommerce themes
Customizable templates come with industry-specific starter content
Easy SEO tools and mobile-friendly designs
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

Although InterServer's unrivaled tech expertise and flexible VPS plans foster a brand reputation that serves experienced developers, the company's focus on affordability and customer satisfaction at the shared hosting level show that InterServer is highly tuned to serving everyone's needs.

A partnership with the drag-and-drop SitePad website builder is proof that InterServer doesn't require users to code their sites into creation.

Website design is simplified and consolidated into a matter of minutes with the what-you-see-is-what-you-get features found within SitePad. InterServer customers can install the website builder through cPanel or DirectAdmin integrations, and the builder comes with more than 300 professional themes, organized into categories such as business, travel, photography, real estate, health, and others.

Site owners will be sure to find a template that works for their specific niche, and each design is already prepped and ready for mobile devices. We especially appreciate that SitePad and InterServer enable customers to establish multiple sites on one account, given the unlimited hosting resources and site builder flexibility.

To further distinguish your online brands, SitePad provides more than 40 widgets to further customize themes with photo galleries, text boxes, buttons, videos, and other interactive elements.

Coupled with unlimited SSD storage and hundreds of cloud-based applications (think WordPress, MediaWiki, phpBB, and others), InterServer is poised to provide all the tools site owners need to be successful.

Add in the company's incredible first-month rate and guaranteed long-term pricing, and we're confident you'll find a hosting partner capable of ushering you through growth.

$0.01 for the first month, then $5 monthly after
FREE SitePad builder comes with 300+ themes
Drag-and-drop interface with 1-click pubishing
40+ widgets for galleries, videos, maps, and more
Unlimited storage, transfer, websites, and email
Get started on InterServer now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

Unlimited SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

InMotion vs. InterServer - Our Conclusion

PJ Fancher Hosting Expert

“We tested InMotion & InterServer — The winner is InMotion!”

The winner takes all! Which host was your favorite? Both hosts fare well in our books. InterServer might hold the edge regarding affordability and flexibility with its month-to-month billing plans. Still, InMotion makes its mark in the world of WordPress with the company’s one-of-a-kind BoldGrid site builder. No matter which one you choose, make sure the provider perfectly aligns — to the letter — with your particular requirements.

Overall Rating

4.9/5.0 ★★★★★

Visit InMotion »

Overall Rating

4.6/5.0 ★★★★★

Visit InterServer »

About The Author

PJ Fancher is a professional web developer with more than 20 years of experience. His background began with writing small web applications using Perl, PHP, and MySQL in 1998. He has well-rounded experience with all aspects of web development, from server and database configuration to scripting, styling, design, and SEO. Today he brings his passion for web development to the team at Digital Brands Inc., helping to develop unique, high-quality, highly-optimized websites. He is ready to share his extensive knowledge and experience with the world of web hosting.