Brinkster In 2021: What Do Brinkster Client Reviews Say?
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Our overview of Brinkster…
Expert Opinion
Hear from our web hosting expert, Claire Broadley.
Best Reviews
See what 24 Brinkster customers have to say.
Hosting Plans
Compare the best Brinkster hosting plans and their prices.
FAQs
Most asked Questions about Brinkster – answered!
Brinkster Introduction
Brinkster began in New Jersey in 1999 as WebCity, and was founded by Jared and Christine Stauffer. Today the company is still owned by the Stauffers, with Jared as the President and CEO.
Company and Services
In 2000, a year after it was founded, the company’s name was changed from WebCity to Brinkster. In 2004 Brinkster – full name Brinkster Communication Corporation – moved its headquarters to Phoenix, Arizona and in 2008 all its US staff were relocated there. The European headquarters is in Frankfurt, Germany.
Brinkster has customers in more than 175 countries. It has more than two million free and 40,000 paying customers, and hosts more than 60,000 domains. Brinkster offers the usual mix of domain names, web services, email and web hosting (which is available on both Linux and Windows platforms).
Web hosting from Brinkster is offered in shared or dedicated server packages. Within each of these you can opt for a small, medium or large hosting solution with corresponding amounts of storage, bandwidth and features.
All packages come with at least one free domain name – the larger the package the more domains you get free. It also has a 90 day money back guarantee (minus any set-up or domain name fees) if you are not satisfied with their service.
Brinkster boasts “Radical Support”, which is available 24/7 by live chat, email or phone.
Brinkster also offers very basic free web hosting which comes with email and website builder software. There are no ads but the package is limited and only caters to simple and small websites; however, you do get access to customer support.
The company has been voted the Reader’s Choice three times (in 2003, 2004 and 2006) by Visual Studio Magazine, as well as being the Editor’s Choice for web hosting in Webhost Magazine and Buyers Guide in 2003. Brinkster is a chartered member of Global Social Responsibility for Web Hosting Initiative (gsrwhi.org). It is involved with charities the St Vincent de Paul and the Hope Project charities and also offers discounted hosting to non-profit organizations worldwide.
Server Location
Brinkster’s data centers are in Phoenix, Arizona.
Brinkster Reviews by Our Community
Overall Rating from 24 Reviews by Brinkster Customers
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Most Helpful Reviews
Stephen Perkins ybmortgages.co.uk
Apr 11, 2018
Been with brinkster for web hosting for over 10 years, and it used to be good, cost effective web-host with decent enough features. recently I started a business, so used my longstanding account to host this website, and that part is OK. but when we paid to sign up for their business email services, awful!
as they are on shared servers the reality is that every day the sending server is on block lists of hotmail, googlemail and other main servers, so your buesinesses emails go into junk files or get rejected. every day brinkster admins request to be removed from the block lists, and change the IP address of the sending server. then it happens again as their internal controls are non-existant.
i asked about SSL, but you have to upgrade to high cost hosting to get an SSL and even then have to pay extra for it. they quote 365/24/7 support but thats a lie, for 8 hours a day they have tech support there, the rest of the 16 hours a day its unqualified people who can only reset passwords, anything more needed you have to wait for the skilled people to arrive during normal working hours in MST, as I live in the UK that is very poor. And today for 24 hours they online tech chat help applet wasnt working all day, with no other contact options our company emails have been down all day and no-one i can contact about it.
the only reason still using them for hosting is i use classic ASP and not many hosts offer this still. but emails are moving to exchange servers elsewhere providing of course i can ever again get hold of someone there to support me in changing the necessary records.
Shanaka Kulasinghe serq.biz
Dec 25, 2017
I have been a customer with brinkster for 10 years. As everybody say in the beginning it was good. But it kept getting worse.
one time the whole email system gone down for more than 2 days. We got lots of blames from our customers. The things than you can do online is too limited and for everything you have to contact support.
Luckily I managed to shift all my products to godaddy and emails to Zoho. I have two more domain names left in brinkster. But right now brinkster website is down. it’s too funny
Abayomi Adebayo trifectang.com
Dec 14, 2017
Ive been a client for about 7 years now, at the beginning they were superd, not they are just plain crap
1) Customer Support is the worst, it seems like they are purposely trying to get you to switch hosting companies
2) Billings can only be contacted for a short period of the day, which is a nightmare for international clients with different time zones
3) I can view or manage my dns records, have to contact support every single time.
4) For some strange reason i cant pay with my card for some domain, so it has to be paypal.
5) They are just plain rude
Most Popular Brinkster Hosting Plans
| Windows Shared Hosting-Rookie | Linux Shared Hosting-Rookie | Windows Shared Hosting-Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disk Space | 200GB | 200GB | 350GB |
| Bandwidth | 2000GB | 2000GB | 3500GB |
| Price | $6 / mo (Billed as $6 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate. Usual price: – Get % off! | $6 / mo (Billed as $6 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate. Usual price: – Get % off! | $12 / mo (Billed as $6 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate. Usual price: – Get % off! |
| Visit Brinkster Now | Visit Brinkster Now | Visit Brinkster Now |
| Plan | Disk Space | Bandwidth | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux Shared Hosting-Pro Shared | 350GB | 3500GB | $12 / mo Visit Host Now |
| Windows Shared Hosting-Advanced Shared | 500GB | 6000GB | $30 / mo Visit Host Now |
| Linux Shared Hosting-Advanced Shared | 500GB | 6000GB | $30 / mo Visit Host Now |
| Dedicated Server Base1 Shared | 160GB | 1000GB | $69 / mo Visit Host Now |
| Dedicated Server Base2 Shared | 160GB | 1000GB | $89 / mo Visit Host Now |
Brinkster Frequently Asked Questions
- What control panel does Brinkster offer?
cPanel and WHM access can be included on their dedicated hosting plans, but at an additional monthly cost. They have their own proprietary control panel for their shared hosting plans.
- What applications can I use with Brinkster?
Brinkster supports WordPress and Joomla! They do not offer an applications package like Softaculous or one-click installs for other programs.
- Where are Brinkster’s datacenters located?
Their datacenters are in Phoenix, AZ. They’re headquartered there as well.
- What sort of billing cycle does Brinkster operate on?
Their shared plans are all billed annually. Their dedicated and cloud server plans are billed monthly. They accept standard credit card payment only.
- Are there any discounts available?
Yes, you get a discount for signing a longer contract for shared hosting. Dedicated and cloud hosting do not have any discounts in place.
- Will my renewal price be much higher than what I pay today?
Not really. Some plans include a year of free domain registration so you’ll see an increase for your second year of that. But otherwise, they don’t go in for a big increase when you renew.
- Will Brinkster help me migrate my site and domain?
They will help you though the process but do not have domain or migration tool per se. But again, their support will help.
- Can I register a domain with Brinkster? Is it free?
Yes you can. They even have domain-only hosting. Unfortunately, it’s not free (except for the first year with some plans).
- What sort of security options are available?
They have a redundant network firewall and 24/7 network and web server monitoring. For their dedicated and cloud server options, a software firewall is available for an additional cost.
- Does Brinkster offer a CDN?
No, they do not provide any CDN.
- Does Brinkster have any additional web marketing support?
Yes. They offer some marketing credits with their shared plans.
- Does Brinkster offer a website building tool?
Yes. All of their shared plans include a website building tool.
- What programming languages does Brinkster support?
They support PHP, Perl, TCL, Flash, ASP and ASP.NET, and MDAC.
- Does Brinkster offer a money-back guarantee?
Yes. They offer a 90-day money-back guarantee on all plans, save the domain registration fee.
- Does Brinkster provide an uptime guarantee?
Yes. They guarantee a 100% network uptime. If their network is down for more than 5 minutes at a time, then they credit affected customers’ accounts 5% of the monthly fee that the customer is paying.
So if your services with Brinkster is $100 a month and your server goes offline for 6 minutes, you would get $5 worth of free hosting. See SLA for full details.
- Does Brinkster offer unlimited broadband and storage?
No. Each of their plans has limits on them. See website for details.
- Does Brinkster offer any sort of backups?
Yes. All their shared plans are backed-up daily with no additional charge.
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Duane Smith
September 17, 2019
I was actually a customer back when they were ewebcity (1998 – 99). I continued with them until the late 2000s but stopped dealing with websites. Yesterday, I decided to give them a try and purchase a domain name and simple windows hosting plan for a college course. Well, I got nothing but errors and two charges to my credit card. I sent two emails stating I would like them to correct the error and send back one of the charges……crickets chirping. They don’t seem to care about the little guys any more, too bad. I will get my money and go elsewhere, I guess.