Working Toward a Better Web: Funio Offers Fast and Reliable Hosting That Makes Building an Online Presence Easy

TL; DR: Funio’s speedy, dependable, and straightforward web hosting solutions make building a successful online presence easier than ever. The company’s intuitive user interface and website builder make getting started a breeze. At the same time, add-ons like spam filtering, SSL certificates, and email marketing tools take sites to the next level. With 24/7 support and an evolving lineup of products and services, Funio aims to keep its user base of more than 19,000 clients at the front and center of the company.

Many small-business owners — especially those of the brick-and-mortar ilk — regarded an online presence as a bonus before the pandemic: Nice to have, but not necessary for success.

They were mistaken then. But now, as coronavirus-related social distancing blurs the lines between our physical and online worlds, remaining offline is one of the worst mistakes you can make. It doesn’t matter if you’re a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker: If you’re not online, you’re essentially invisible to customers.

“It’s hard to believe, but there are still companies out there that aren’t on the web right now,” said Patrick Lepage, Technical Support Manager at Funio. “But even if you’re not selling anything online, it’s crucial to promote your company and services on the internet.”

Shared hosting packages are the most cost-effective way for those just starting to build an online presence — especially for hobbyist bloggers, entrepreneurs, and small businesses with tight pandemic-era budgets.

Funio is known for its affordable shared hosting packages (and virtual private server solutions), which come backed by 24/7 support designed to mitigate any technical frustrations.

The company’s intuitive user interface and website builder make creating a site even easier. All plans come complete with spam filtering, SSL certificates, and backups. A 30-day money-back guarantee allows customers to try out the service risk-free. And with multiple virtual private network (VPN) packages on the way, users will also be able to guarantee their online privacy and anonymity.

Funio’s roots go back to 1996 when founders Eric Chouinard and Martin Leclair founded the Canadian web company Formatek. The duo consolidated their services into iWeb Technologies in 1998. By 2005, iWeb acquired Funio and later split the company into two. The leadership team allotted Funio’s dedicated server and colocation resources to iWeb and consolidated iWeb and Funio’s shared hosting resources.

“Funio was created as a shared hosting company that belonged to iWeb in 2011 with an official launch in January 2012,” Patrick said. “But we have technically existed since 1996 because iWeb offered shared hosting from the start. So we may have changed names over the years, but we have existed since 1996.”

INAP acquired iWeb Technologies in 2013. Last year, INAP sold Funio to the international web hosting company Miss Group. Today, Funio provides hosting, domains, and security solutions with a focus on providing entrepreneurs and small businesses with shared hosting services. In addition, the company has recently been helping pandemic-affected clients tap into business opportunities via a solid online presence.

Patrick, who worked for iWeb during the Great Recession, said that hosting customers have responded differently to the current crisis.

“From 2008 to 2009, there was a lot of customer churn, and not because customers were going to other hosting providers: They were closing their businesses,” he said. “I thought the pandemic would be similar to that because there were a lot of individuals losing revenue. So while some customers did close their brick-and-mortar businesses, many customers put more emphasis on the web as a new revenue source.”

Patrick predicts that these changes will stick regardless of what happens with the coronavirus.

“People found out that they could easily order stuff online and get it delivered,” he said. “Buying something online and having it delivered to your door two days later is much easier than getting in your car or taking a bus to a store. So I don’t see people going back to that, at least not as frequently.”

Funio places much of its focus on shared hosting, a service where multiple users reside on one server.

Entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to establish an online presence often turn to this type of hosting for convenience, ease of use, and value. Because users share space, bandwidth, and other resources, these packages are by far the most cost-effective.

Another advantage of shared hosting is that it doesn’t require extensive technical knowledge or the assistance of an on-staff administrator. Funio, for example, sets up and maintains its shared servers. Users simply leverage Funio’s intuitive user interface to configure and customize their sites.

“What I like most about us is our shared hosting,” Patrick said. “It’s so reliable, and we barely see any downtime.”

WordPress users, take note: Funio also offers shared hosting optimized for the popular content management system, which currently powers more than 40% of the web.

Funio also provides fully-managed virtual private server (VPS) hosting designed to help larger businesses reap some of the benefits of a dedicated server at a relatively low price point. (This infrastructure type is typically recommended for growing businesses with traffic over 100,000 visitors per month.) Funio’s powerful VPS options boast performance parameters of up to 16 virtual CPUs and 64GB of RAM.

“When we separated from iWeb, we only had shared servers. But we wanted a product that allowed customers to grow with us, rather than go to another hosting company because there’s no other product with us that can satisfy them,” Patrick said. “That’s why we launched the managed VPS.”

Funio handles server setup, administration, maintenance, and support around the clock through its managed services. Patrick said Funio will likely work to enhance its current VPS offerings through the resources of Miss Group, which owns more than 20 hosting companies.

“Since there are so many other hosting companies in the group, we’re looking at what they’re offering and what we can do to change some stuff on our end,” he said.

Downtime — periods when a website is unavailable — can be detrimental to a company’s bottom line.

In 2018, for example, a glitch caused Amazon to lose $72 million to $99 million on Prime Day, the site’s largest annual sales event. The same risks apply to SMBs, albeit on a smaller scale. Sadly, unlike Amazon, most small businesses can’t bounce back as quickly.

As a result, businesses must do everything possible to ensure high availability. To that end, Funio offers a 100% network and power uptime guarantee. In the rare case that Funio’s fully redundant network and advanced hosting infrastructure fails to deliver that level of service, customers receive service level agreement (SLA) credits that go above and beyond standard contracts.

“Uptime is critical to our customers, which makes it important to us,” Patrick said. “And we’re in a good place with our uptime, especially in terms of our shared hosting.”

Customers are reaping the benefits.

“I have been using Funio services for almost 15 years,” said Jason K. of Franchiseblast.com in a customer testimonial. “Easy product management, server sturdiness, and the quality of customer service make for what is undeniably the best web hosting solution on the market.”

Funio recently launched virtual private network (VPN) offerings, which encrypt internet traffic, creating a secure online tunnel that’s practically untraceable.

Funio is on a mission to help customers protect their privacy and security with a VPN solution as affordable and easy to use as it is efficient.

“Every security company that offers firewalls or antivirus software also offers VPN solutions,” Patrick said. “Miss Group decided to get in on that, so each of the group’s companies now offer VPN packages.”