AccuWebHosting Review

The Swiss Army knife of shared hosting providers, AccuWebHosting showcases diversity and flexibility at the basic level of hosting. The provider offers three flavors each of Windows and Linux hosting services, plus additional configurations for applications such as WordPress, Node.JS, Joomla, Magento, OScommerce, and ASP.NET, among several others. Regardless of the operating system, most customers will want to opt for plans powered by high-performing solid-state drives. Coupled with CloudLinux and the blazing-fast LiteSpeed web server, we were impressed with AccuWebHosting performance. Even better, the company keeps the prices for SSD hosting just slightly below those of competitors. Unlike nearly all competitors in the market, however, the company limits storage space to 50GB at the highest tier — nearly everyone else offers so-called unlimited storage (which isn't, technically, but that's a discussion for another day). For customers looking for more of a boost, AccuWebHosting has concocted an interesting shared cloud solution that promises 100% hardware uptimes. The fixed-cost public cloud is an intriguing option for small businesses that require always-on infrastructure and readily scalable architecture, but the plans come with the same storage restrictions. For beginners, one key distinction among the bevy of AccuWebHosting shared plans is that Linux plans include the popular cPanel management platform and RVsitebuilder, which offers more than 400 templates and a drag-and-drop interface to help users quickly get professional designs online. The familiar website builder offers intuitive control and automatically responsive designs.

Dedicated servers with AccuWebHosting are completely configurable and scalable, ensuring customers don't need to purchase unneeded resources until traffic on their website or application warrants the expansion. Storage ranges from 250 GB to 16TB, drastically outpacing every competitor. Additionally, customers can arrange for between 8GB and 512GB of memory, while the company allocates bandwidth from 500GB to 20TB per month. Configurations and availability somewhat depend on which of AccuWebHosting's 11 datacenters you select: U.S. (east or west), U.K., Canada, France, Australia, Singapore, India, Germany, Poland, or the Netherlands. We wish customers deploying dedicated servers in AccuWebHosting's US datacenter could have a dedicated IP address, but we don't consider an IP address block a dealbreaker. Important note: not all datacenters are equipped with the company's multi-layer DDoS protection infrastructure, either. AccuWebHosting's network is powered with redundant Juniper routers and Cisco switches, operating internally at 2Gbps. All critical network infrastructure is monitored every 60 seconds, with potential issues immediately escalated to company management. All the precautions enable AccuWebHosting to offer nearly 100% uptime, network, and power service-level agreements — a rare mark that literally cannot be topped. The company's bare-metal servers are priced fairly competitively with other hosts, but the service's biggest detriment is an upcharge for managed services. Several competitors include more support at similar price points, but AccuWebHosting charges an additional $90 per month for 24/7 monitoring, proactive server management, operating system and control panel management, along with automated and unmetered backups and two hours of dedicated SysAdmin time each month — fantastic services, but the cost doubles the price of the company's cheapest dedicated server.

The signature service of AccuWebHosting, the company's VPS plans come in all shapes, sizes, and operating systems. Blending quality and affordability, AccuWebHosting plans start at less than $10 per month — roughly half of what you'll find elsewhere. The company's highly trained experts will consult with potential customers to craft a plan that delivers exactly the computing resources needed for your site to succeed at a cost-effective rate. AccuWebHosting offers licenses for nine different operating systems, six control panels, and two database servers. Additional Linux configurations are available for Node.JS or MEAN.JS stacks, and Windows aficionados will appreciate infrastructure shaped for foreign currency exchanges. Regardless of the configuration, all AccuWebHosting VPS plans come with scalable memory, storage space, and bandwidth. Customers can reallocate resources with just a few clicks in the company's intuitive management platform. In addition to unlimited databases, users can enjoy full root or admin access and complimentary backups. Holding AccuWebHosting back from the highest echelon of hosting providers, however, is the lack of automatically included managed services. Admittedly, we are impressed by the options included in the upgrade (24/7 monitoring, proactive server management, operating system and control panel management, along with two hours of SysAdmin time each month) — but the roughly $13 monthly fee negates any price advantages AccuWebHosting deservedly earned. DDoS and antivirus protections are another added cost, as well. Even so, we still highly recommend AccuWebHosting, particularly for Windows VPS customers. The majority of mainstream hosts either ignore Windows hosting completely or hike the rates on what should be standard services. AccuWebHosting, however, offers supercharged plans for exactly the same rate as Linux packages. Clients can choose from among Windows 2008, 2012, or 2016 licenses, and run included SmartTools applications — an $800 value.

Boasting what the company calls a "zero-click installation," AccuWebHosting pre-installs the WordPress content management system on new hosting accounts, in addition to plugins for SEO and caching at all but the lowest service tier. Managed WordPress hosts that limit customers' ability to install certain plugins is one of our biggest pet peeves. We know the hosts mean well, but why pay for something that tells you what you can't do? Thankfully, AccuWebHosting has no such plugin restrictions. In addition to 24/7 security monitoring, we appreciate that AccuWebHosting includes multi-layer DDoS protection and mitigation, and autoupdates to WordPress core files. To us, a mark of promising WordPress hosting plans is the inclusion of a staging environment, and AccuWebHosting includes one, plus Git, WP-CLI and SSH access for VPS WordPress customers. AccuWebHosting also offers a limited number of free WordPress hosting accounts each day for customers who already own a domain name. Free for life, the plan doesn't require a credit card number — but the company would like a link to a social network profile and copy of a government-issued ID. Preference is given to those who share their AccuWebHosting experience somewhere online. AccuWebHosting will never publish ads on your free-hosted WordPress site and will provide a basic level of support and complimentary backups — however, there is no service-level agreement.

AccuWebHosting partnered with the RVsitebuilder platform to give beginners a simple and streamlined path to creating their first website. Built in the elegant and open-source Laravel web framework, RVsitebuilder lets users launch beautifully designed sites with absolutely no coding knowledge. Upon signup, hundreds of templates greet site owners. We appreciate the platform's organization of themes into specific industries and topics, along with including mobile-friendly and responsive themes that display perfectly on desktops, tablets, and mobile devices. We wish users didn't have to create and style their blog separately from the rest of the site, but it at least gives users another chance at streamlined customizations. The RVsitebuilder is extremely easy to use, offering drag-and-drop simplicity with the right mix of guidance and freeform creativity. We found the ample banner controls to be a bit overkill, with options for hero images, image slider, text, and page-by-page options — but again, it's hard to fault a website builder for giving its users options. All in all, we found AccuWebHosting and its affordable plans' included RVsitebuilder to offer the perfect mix of features for first-time site owners and those with a bit more experience under their belts: ample SSD storage and unlimited creativity, coupled with simple design tools and what-you-see-is-what-you-get