| Hosting Plan | Features | Disk Space | Bandwidth | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze Shared |
|
10GB
|
100GB
|
$9.95/month
Usual price:
|
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Always Web Hosting
Always Web Hosting is relatively small hosting company that has been in operation since the early 2000s. It is based in Plainfield, Indiana, and is currently owned by Sozo Technologies, LLC, which was founded in 2012.
Sozo Technologies owns several other hosting companies and domain registrars. In general, they seem to place a high focus on customer service and the user experience, over a specific focus on high-end technology and specs.
Services & Specializations
Always Web Hosting offers a somewhat standard array of shared and reseller hosting. As they do not operate their own datacenter (more on that below) they are unable to provide dedicated server hosting.
They offer several tiers of shared server hosting, with each tier providing more bandwidth, storage space, and memory. They do not offer any “unlimited” plans, and their pricing is a little above average for shared hosting — though not at all unreasonable.
Shared hosting packages come with the following features and specifications:
Virtual Private Server hosting is not yet available. However, Always Web Hosting plans to make it available in multiple tiers depending on bandwidth and storage needs. Pricing here (at the time of this writing) is expected to be well within industry averages.
As applicable, most of the specific features listed above for shared hosting packages are included in VPS hosting, except where they are improved.
Data Centers and Technology
It seems that Always Web Hosting does not operate its own data centers, but is a consumer of cloud infrastructure provided by Enzu.
The data centers that run Always Web Hosting are located in:
AWH uses high performance machines:
Their network connection boasts speeds up to 10 GB/s.
Support and Customer Service
This hosting company primarily provides support through email and online trouble tickets. There is a support phone number (not toll-free) available, but there are no specific guarantees made about when this phone number will be answered or who will be answering it.
No specific claims are made about customer service, not does it seem as if AWH places a high degree of emphasis on support.
Security, Backups, and Monitoring
Always Web Hosting claims to offer “offsite backups” as a standard feature in their shared hosting plans, but they provide no specific information about how often these backups are conducted, how many backups are stored concurrently, or what the process for restoring a previous state may be.
AWH touts their data center security:
They also constantly monitor the network for faults and failures.
Uptime Guarantee
Always Web Hosting advertises a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
However, this guarantee is subject to some exclusions that render it nearly meaningless:
Any outage that is not specifically the fault of Always Web Hosting is not covered. This includes problems with their infrastructure providers and network service, as well as problems created by the customer. Since AWH does not operate their own datacenters, its hard to imagine how any network fault or downtime could be traceable back to them specifically.
The “timer” on an outage begins when the customer calls and files a complaint about the outage. This means that multiple short term outages which go unreported at the time there is a problem do not count against the 99.9% uptime.
In the unlikely event that the uptime guarantee is triggered, the compensation is a credit to the account for the month in which the outage occurred. Excessive downtime does not qualify the customer for a full refund, much less damages or lost business incurred because of any outage.
Costs and Payment Policies
Always Web Hosting takes payment via any major credit card or Paypal. They do not accept Bitcoin or other alternative payment methods.
Hosting Contracts are month-to-month. You can purchase 3, 6, or 12-month contracts, but there are no discounts available for doing so. All monthly renewals take place at the first of the month, and purchases made mid-month are prorated for the first month.
New domain name registration is nearly twice the cost of other providers. They also charge additional fees for “DNS Management” (it is unclear what that entails) and “ID Protection” (which is, presumably, WHOIS Privacy).
Summary / Conclusions
Overall, this seems to be a low-quality, over-priced hosting company.
As of this writing, their website and blog have not been updated in over a year, even though there are several features labeled as “Coming Soon.”
This hosting company is not recommended at this time.