Pickaweb In 2021: What Do Pickaweb Client Reviews Say?

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Pickaweb Web Hosting

Pickaweb is a London-based web hosting company. They were founded in 1999, and are one of the UK’s oldest hosting companies. They now host tens of thousands of websites, serving primarily UK-based small and medium sized businesses, as well as personal bloggers.

Services and Specialties

Pickaweb offers several tiers of shared hosting, two different types of VPS plans at multiple service levels, dedicated servers, and reseller hosting plans.

Shared hosting plans are available in several tiers, each with higher limits on usage and performance. They are also larger groups of service offerings. Basic shared hosting packages use conventional hardware, while Premium shared hosting packages run on better machines equipped with Solid State Drives (SSD).

All of Pickaweb’s VPS offerings are “cloud based” (though some of their technical marketing copy is a little confusing on this point). This means that their VPS plans are not running on single machines (“bare metal”), but are deployed on a cloud, or cluster of scalable computing resources. VPS hosting packages, which are available in several usage-defined tiers, are available in conventional and SSD plans.

Pickaweb offers a small pre-configured selection of dedicated server plans, and they also allow for custom rigs.

They also offer reseller hosting packages, for customers who want to set up their own UK-based hosting company.

VPS and Dedicated server plans from Pickaweb have the option of full server management service.

Pickaweb Reviews by Our Community

Overall Rating from 87 Reviews by Pickaweb Customers

Support
Quality
Features
Value

Most Helpful Reviews

Gary Horton avatar
Gary Horton
Mar 10, 2017

The worst customer service ever, More like pick-a-fight! I’ve had ongoing problems with pickaweb and have found their livehelp to be very lacking. Staff seem uninterested in issues and try to get you to jump through all manner of hoops rather than actually sorting problems.

They upgrade things and won’t admit screwing site access up, staff are in total denial. You get differing answers to the same question from different support staff. I can’t recommend pickaweb, they are their own worst enemy when it comes to customer service with argumentative support staff. Get a grip pickaweb, you have the customer service skills of a brick!.

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Geoff Stacey avatar
Geoff Stacey staceycomputerservices.com
Mar 09, 2016

We have been using PickaWeb for a number of years and they are always available for support, there is hardly ever any downtime, and they would be very hard to beat on value for money. The staff are always helpful and polite, and have great patience. I would recommend them highly,.

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Jennifer Johnson avatar
Jennifer Johnson semipermanent-makeup.biz
Jan 15, 2016

I have used Pickaweb for many years and have always received great customer support. Today I have been chatting to Ben A. on live chat and he has been more than helpful, his help has been quick and efficient.

He has dealt with my requirements in a friendly and professional manner. Thank you so much 🙂

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Datacenters and Technology

All of Pickaweb’s servers are in London, putting them close to a major center of world finance and business. This is also ideal for UK-based companies serving content to a primarily local audience.

The physical building features multiple redundancy in protected power, HVAC, fire suppression, network connectivity and on-site armed security. It operates on 100% sustainable energy.

  • 24/7/365 on-site security team
  • Dedicated N+N in line UPS arrangement
  • Centralized N+1 HV diesel standby generators with 72 hours on-site fuel capacity
  • 6 self-contained Data Halls within main facility
  • Diversity of carriers offering fully resilient connectivity
  • Diverse fiber entry points to site
  • 3-meter high perimeter fence
  • Manned vehicle entry gate to site
  • Internal and External IP CCTV complete site coverage
  • Leak detection system
  • Online ‘realtime’ interactive environmental monitoring system
  • Biometric entry system
  • Full authentication & access policy control
  • Security bollards at building perimeter
  • Secure on-site parking bays
  • Centralized N+1 water mist fire suppression system with VESDA detection
  • Free-cooling features in environmental infrastructure
  • Effective metering and monitoring

Pickaweb uses high-end Dell servers, with Intel Xeon E3-1220v3 processors. Some plans come with Solid State Drives (SSD).

Support and Customer Service

Pickaweb’s customers enjoy 24 support via phone, email, and live chat. There is also an extensive knowledgebase and a set of tutorial videos available.

Security and Backups

Pickaweb’s datacenter is physically very secure, and its network is protected by several layers of security and redundancy.

Some web hosting plans include premium daily backup service, with CPanel-based restore, but not all plans include this feature.

Uptime Guarantees

Pickaweb offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, subject to the usual restrictions:

  • Pickaweb is not responsible for downtime caused by user action or user negligence
  • Pickaweb is not responsible for downtime caused by third party apps or upstream providers
  • Regularly scheduled maintenance does not count against downtime

Costs and Payment Policies

Pickaweb is a little more expensive than US-based hosting companies providing similar services, but is fairly inline with other UK and European-based hosting companies. If you are serving content and web apps to that market, it makes sense to pay to have a datacenters closer to your audience.

All major credit cards are accepted, as well as PayPal.

Value Added Tax

US-based customers who are used to zero sales tax on web hosting and other services might be surprised by the VAT (Value Added Tax). This is a form of sales tax used in the UK and most other European countries. It is not a strict percentage on final sale price, but is based on the margins. (That is, two products at the same price to you might have different VATS, and therefore different costs).

Some web hosting companies include the VAT in their advertised pricing, but Pickaweb does not. It is therefore important to get information on final, VAT-included pricing before making a decision about which hosting company to use.

Summary / Conclusions

Pickaweb is a high quality hosting company suitable for a variety of use cases where the primary audience is based in the UK. This is includes British bloggers and publishers, London-based financial industry businesses, and developers of app targeting the UK market.

BudgetStarterPro
Disk Space5GB8GB25GB
Bandwidth30GB50GBUnlimited
Price $3.86 / mo
Usual price:  Get  % off!
$6.19 / mo
Usual price:  Get  % off!
$10.85 / mo
Usual price:  Get  % off!
Visit Pickaweb NowVisit Pickaweb NowVisit Pickaweb Now
PlanDisk SpaceBandwidthPrice
Fast VPS 1
Cloud
2TB25GB $13.38 / mo Visit Host Now
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Pickaweb Frequently Asked Questions

  • What types of hosting plans does Pickaweb offer?

    Pickaweb offers several tiers of shared hosting plans, as well as VPS, cloud-based virtual servers (which is, essentially, VPS), dedicated servers, and reseller hosting.

  • What forms of payment are accepted?

    Pickaweb accepts all major credit cards, and also PayPal.

  • Is there an advantage to paying for a year or more upfront?

    Yes. Annual plans have a lower monthly cost than month-to-month plans. Biennial plans are an even better value.

  • Can I pay for hosting month-to-month?

    Yes, on most plans. The lowest tier of shared hosting does not allow for monthly billing.

  • What other payment terms are available?

    Most shared hosting plans are available for monthly, annually, and biennially billing. The lowest tier of shared hosting can be paid for quarterly, annually, or biennially. VPS and Dedicates hosting plans have billing options of monthly, quarterly, and annually.

  • Does Pickaweb offer any type of money back guarantee?

    Yes. Pickaweb plans come with a 30-day money back guarantee. (This does not apply to Dedicated Servers.)

  • What type of support does Pickaweb offer?

    Pickaweb offers 24/7 technical support via phone, live chat, and email. They also have a comprehensive knowledge base and extensive video tutorials.

  • Will I have to pay for renewal registration on my free domain name?

    Yes. Free domain names are only free during the first year.

  • Do hosting plans come with a free domain name?

    Yes. Almost all of Pickaweb’s retail hosting plans include a free domain name. The lowest tier of shared hosting does not include a domain name, though.

  • Should I get an SSD storage plan? What’s the difference?

    SSD, or solid state drive, is a type of hard drive. Conventional computers have spinning disk drives (most people have these in their desktop and laptop computers). SSD, similar to the type of storage used in USB Flash Drives, is much faster than conventional spinning disks. But it is also much more expensive. If you need faster loading times, and can afford it, SSD hosting plans are usually a better option.

  • What is the difference between Pickaweb’s VPS and Cloud hosting plans?

    VPS and Cloud Hosting are (usually) interchangeable terms. Pickaweb uses “Cloud hosting” to refer to their VPS plans that are built with Solid State Drive (SSD) storage.

  • Which hosting plan should I get?

    That depends on what you need. If you are setting up a personal blog, or a simple website for a small businesses or local non-profit, then one of the shared hosting plans is probably right for you. If you are setting up an enterprise web server (a server for internal use in a large company), a high-traffic site, a SaaS web application, or another type of site that either will generate a lot of traffic or require a lot of custom set up, then a VPS (or cloud-based) plan is usually the right choice. People who need dedicated server equipment usually know they need it. This is often used for the same purposes as VPS, but when there are specific custom requirements about hardware configuration or security.

Adam Michael Wood

About Adam Michael Wood

Adam specializes in developer documentation and tutorials. In addition to his writing here, he has authored engineering guides and other long-form technical manuals. Outside of work, Adam composes and performs liturgical music. He lives with his wife and children in California.

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