Interserver Review: Cheap Hosting Rated By Real Users

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by Natalie Mootz

Last updated: August 7, 2020

Our Verdict: Outstanding Choice for Value

Interserver’s shared hosting and WordPress plans provide great value. All of their plans, including VPS and dedicated server hosting, come with a free SSL certificate, excellent customer support, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Pay only $.01 cent for your first month of InterServer hosting with our special discount link.

Don’t take our word for it – read what over 200 InterServer users have to say. They’ve rated this host highly on quality and value.

Is InterServer the Perfect Host For You?

• Expert Review — Read our thorough analysis by hosting expert Natalie Mootz.
• Customer Reviews — See what over 40 WP Engine customers have to say.
• Hosting Plans — Compare the best InterServer hosting plans and their prices.
• FAQs — Find the answers to the most asked questions about InterServer!

If you’re looking for bargain web hosting but don’t want to sacrifice quality, InterServer is worth considering.

This New Jersey-based company offers both Windows and Linux plans along with the user-friendly cPanel dashboard.

In this review, we’ll take a closer look at their hosting packages, including WordPress plans, their customer support, and their price-lock guarantee.

Who is InterServer a good fit for? Who should look elsewhere? Let’s find out.

Built for Speed: InterServer’s Infrastructure

The first thing that impressed me about InterServer is its network.

The company uses three Tier 1 IP backbone providers:

• Zayo, most heavily networked on the US East Coast;
• NTT Communications, a global provider with good Asia coverage; and
• Cogent, which favors European nodes.

It also boasts high-end routing and switching equipment from Cisco, Extreme Networks, and Riverstone, as well as an intelligent BGPv4 routing protocol.

Continued below user reviews.

Interserver Reviews by Our Community

Overall Rating from 213 Reviews by Interserver Customers

Support
Quality
Features
Value

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Most Helpful Reviews

Shobhit Prabhakar iwatchindia.com

Oct 09, 2015

I have been using interserver for over a year. I would give them 8/10. They have good support, value for money plans.

There was a bit of performance issue on some occasions on my VPS, but that may be because I have lower end box. If you are on a shared hosting and want to make sure that Your Site wont go slow because other sites sharing the same server are taking too much resources, you can switch to a VPS. interserver provides quality hosting for very economical price.

You can start with lower end box and then upgrade when your site gets more hits and revenues. Overall worth a switch if you want good economical VPS and want good support.

Visit Host Now →

Kashif Hameed dollerexchange.com

Dec 07, 2015

I am a Blogger and wanted to launch a website that offers online courses comprised of my own video lectures. As I was just starting and got a Hosting. I had a usual complaint of Down-time that was terrible for my limited viewers and members.

I once used VPS service from InterServer and had Excellent customer service and overall Services experience. I decided to go with InterServer. I just got and account with a price that is almost One Third of what I was paying to my previous host, but the services that are far better that them.

I love the team of InterServer that shows a family picture and they consider their clients as family memeber and here their complaints with utmost priority. I am now with InterServer and will be with them. InterServer Rocks…. Great Job Keep up the excellent work.

Visit Host Now →

Michaela Stubbs divineangelnews.com

Nov 07, 2015

Interserver is a great hosting company that provides me with everything to run my website/ websites. Interserver is great for small business and or Entrepreneurs. What I like most so far is you get quality product, and customer service for a price others cannot beat.

I needed cron jobs for my site to make sure my site runs smoothly, well my previous web hosting company did not support it. With Interserver I don’t have to get in a contract like with other hosting companies. I like the speed of their servers, my site comes up just like that.

Awesome. The customer service is good, I had to get some info and someone got back to me within 15 minutes via email. Their response time is very fast. I could see Interserver in the Top Rankings in great offering great hosting products and customer service at an affordable price range.

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Cloud VPS and Dedicated Hosting for Businesses

InterServer offers a full suite of hosting packages — everything from shared hosting to virtual private servers (VPS) and dedicated hosting.

Features Overview

Before going into more detail, let’s compare these options which InterServer offers:

Virtuozzo 7

They recently installed a new virtualization platform called Virtuozzo 7.

Performance Boost and Additional Options

This brought a 60% performance boost on their virtual machines for VPS plans on Linux servers.

• It also allows you to run several flavors of Linux.
• You can connect to your Linux CLI (command line interface) or Windows Desktop thanks to VNC (virtual network computing).
• You can also choose to run SSDs (solid-state drives) which currently cost $3 per slice.

Aside from the awesome features, take a look at the custom hosting package generator:

Windows and Linux VPS

Cloud VPS hosting comes in both Linux and Windows flavors. You are in total control of selected resources.

InterServer uses a VPS control panel called Bread Basket that appears to be proprietary, which in turn allows you to select ‘slices.’

The panel also comes with hundreds of 1-click install apps.

InterServer’s Array of Linux Distributions

InterServer’s dedicated hosting plans are pretty beefy, featuring Intel Atom and Xeon CPUs.

Linux Distributions

They offer more operating systems than most web hosts.

You can choose from:

• Cloud Linux
• Centos
• Ubuntu
• Gentoo
• Red Hat Fedora.

Windows Servers With ASP.NET MVC

Some businesses prefer Windows hosting and InterServer features an ASP.NET Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework that comes with all the bells and whistles, including over 100 1-click installs.

How ASP.NET MVC Helps Development

You might need ASP.NET MVC to help you manage complexity when working on apps that are test-driven or require large development teams.

It also gives you full design and behavior control over your application.

Five Reasons to Try InterServer’s Unlimited Shared Hosting

On its shared web hosting plans, InterServer offers unlimited storage, transfer, websites, and email, as well as free SSL certificates. That’s kind of a big deal.

Unlimited storage and bandwidth are common but not standard. So why is it still such a bargain?

Special Shared Features

1. Free SSL Certificates
2. Unlimited Storage
3. Unlimited Bandwidth
4. Cloudflare CDN
5. Pricing and Value.

Free SSL Certificates

Some hosts offer free SSL certificates. But they are usually only on their higher-end plans

Otherwise, these certificates will usually cost you extra cash.

Unlimited Storage and Bandwidth

With some other hosting providers, “unlimited bandwidth” isn’t really unlimited.

Although these other web host providers say their plans don’t have usage caps, if they find you using all the shared server’s resources, they’ll slow you down or suggest a sneaky upgrade.

Is It Actually Unlimited?

On the other hand, with InterServer shared plans, unlimited actually means unlimited. How can they offer this promise?

Behind the scenes, they limit all their servers to run at 50% of the hardware’s capacity.

You’ll never max it out because when capacity starts creeping over the halfway mark, they beef up the server with more resources.

Cloudflare CDN (For Free)

If your site will have visitors from all over the world, you will want a Content Delivery Network (CDN). It allows browsers from anywhere to connect to a server that is close to them.

InterServer’s shared hosting is boosted by Cloudflare’s content delivery network (CDN) for free. Cloudflare CDN uses caching and delivery optimization to make your website load faster.

It also protects your site from security threats.

You’ll need to sign up for a Cloudflare account to activate its benefits.

Pricing and Value

Even if InterServer didn’t include all of these great features, it would be hard to beat at just $5 per month.

But given all the extras it provides, InterServer offers some of the best value on the internet.

SitePad Site Builder

I tried out the shared hosting plan and purchased a domain name for it.

InterServer is a Drupal hosting partner but they also offer WordPress installs.

I opted to use their free site builder – called SitePad – to create my website.

A Confusing Dashboard

The InterServer dashboard is a layer above the cPanel dashboard. The domains dashboard was also on a separate page.

At first, it was confusing finding my way around this maze.

It was befuddling enough that I didn’t realize that I hadn’t actually paid for my domain. I thought I had already purchased it with my hosting plan.

What Can You Do With The Dashboard?

From the SitePad site builder dashboard you can:

• Add pages to your site
• Change themes
• Upload media
• Write blog posts

Site Builder Themes

With almost 300 themes to choose from, SitePad can help you create a professional-looking site in minutes.

It only took me about 15 minutes to create mine.

Site Builder Content

Adding content is as easy as double-clicking to add text or dragging widgets to where you want them.

Site Builder Finished Site

Here’s what my site looked like after 15 minutes. Pretty slick!

Of course, you’ll need additional time to personalize the copy and images, as well as adding your own offers or products.

SitePad Is a Good Site Builder

SitePad doesn’t get much splashy coverage, but actually quite good at what it does.

There are almost 300 themes to choose from — and most of them look pretty slick.

Adding text, pages, and even a blog are a snap, just as you’d expect from a professional site builder.

Is InterServer Good for E-Commerce?

InterServer does offer e-commerce functionality through its 1-click add-ons and Softaculous.

They also give you a free SSL certificate, but you’ll need to call support to get it turned on.

E-commerce functionality isn’t available in the SitePad site builder so you’ll have to do it from scratch.

Necessary E-Commerce Features

When selecting a host for e-commerce purposes, these are the key features and functionalities you should look for:

• E-commerce Plug-In Support
• Easy-Install Payment Systems
• PCI Compliance
• Bandwidth
• Storage

E-commerce Plug-In Support

This feature eliminates a lot of hassle when setting up your shop by allowing functionalities to be added by a few clicks of your mouse.

Easy-Install Payment Systems

You do not want to set up payment systems manually. It can be expensive and time-consuming.

So unless you are an expert, use the easy-install.

PCI Compliance

PCI compliance is short for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

If you are going to be taking credit cards, you need to make sure your site is PCI compliant from the very beginning.

Note that PCI compliance isn’t part of InterServer’s shared hosting plans. You’ll need to get compliance from whichever add-on you use (eg, OpenCart) or from the WordPress e-commerce plug-in you choose.

Bandwidth

Everyone knows that people online are impatient. But whereas a slow blog might lose you a few readers, a slow online store could cost you thousands of dollars via valuable customers.

For this reason, you want your e-commerce website to be as fast and reliable as possible.

Storage

Customer and user data can take up tons of space. So you don’t want to have to worry about storage capacity on your store. Be ready with Interserver’s reliable SSD storage!

InterServer for E-Commerce?

Considering all these things, I’d say that InterServer wouldn’t be my first choice for hosting an e-commerce site.

But you might be different. Setting up an e-commerce site is always a big decision that requires making a lot of choices.

Uptime Guarantee

You can get up to 50% credit off the month’s cost of your hosting plan if they don’t deliver on their guarantee.

Interserver doesn’t offer a way to monitor uptime so you are reliant on your own ability to check up and downtimes.

You can use a service like Uptime Robot’s free service to keep tabs on your site’s availability.

It’s actually very transparent of InterServer to allow you to monitor your own uptime since some web hosting providers use their own tools (which their customers aren’t privy to) in measuring uptime.

As soon as you experience an interruption in uptime, you need to do is fill out a customer support ticket documenting the outage.

Affiliate Program and Reseller Hosting

InterServer offers two ways to make money with time: affiliate programs and reseller hosting.

Affiliate Program

InterServer’s affiliate program is pretty sweet.

You get $100 for every paying customer you refer from your affiliate link. They’ll also create a free landing page for your referrals.

If your site is popular, you can even negotiate a higher commission.

Reseller Program

If you like digging into the grunty side of web hosting, you might be a good candidate for InterServer’s reseller hosting plan.

Unlike the affiliate program, you need to know your geeky stuff well and put effort into running your own hosting service.

InterServer Marketing Materials

If you decide to partner up with either of their programs, InterServer gives you access to marketing materials and your own InterServer personal assistant.

Security

Let’s take a look at how Interserver’s security and reliability fares against industry standards.

Available Datacenters

InterServer owns and operates three datacenters: two centers are located in Secaucus, NJ and one is in Los Angeles, CA. You can choose any of these centers to host your sites.

Interested in InterServer?
Sign up now and you can get your first month for just a penny. Use our special discount link to get the deal.

Backup Policy

InterServer uses OpenStack to create redundancy on its systems, so every shared hosting plan comes with free weekly backups. They keep three copies of each backup for 60 days.

Restores

Restores are free and can be done from your control panel.

You can also initiate a manual backup or restore from cPanel (Linux servers) or Plesk (Windows servers).

WordPress

For WordPress hosting, you can add additional backups with a free plugin like BackWPUp.

VPS and Dedicated Servers

For VPS and Dedicated servers, you must take care of your own backups, but there are good support articles to help you – check out our review of the self-help section further down the page.

Power and Uptime Guarantees

InterServer offers customers an uptime guarantee to a level of 99.9% and uninterrupted power 100% of the time. Their SLA defines downtime as being “unable to send data to or receive from a server.”

Behind the Scenes

InterServer makes it really easy to control the part of your website that the public doesn’t see.

Hosting Dashboard

When you log into the InterServer dashboard, you can see all your plans and servers in one place — including shared, cloud, VPS, and dedicated servers.

Domains List

On the domains dashboard, you can see all the domains you’ve purchased from InterServer.

Unfortunately, that’s about all it shows; there’s no indication of which web hosting plan is associated with the domains, even if they’re hosted by InterServer.

cPanel Control Panel

InterServer provides different control panels depending upon the kind of hosting you use

• cPanel for shared and Linux hosting
• Plesk for Windows hosting
• Bread Basket proprietary panel for VPS hosting.

For cloud hosting, as well as VPS and dedicated server plans, you get cPanel when you choose a Linux server. (All shared hosting is on Linux, but you get a choice of OS with VPS and dedicated plans.)

You can also launch SitePad, InterServer’s website builder from this panel or instigate Softaculous 1-click installs.

Cloudflare CDN Integration

You can log into your Cloudflare account via your hosting panel. (In my case, it was cPanel.)

You’ll need to create an account with Cloudflare and then sign in from the web host panel.

Softaculous 1-Click Installs

You can add apps from Softaculous right from the cPanel dashboard, including e-commerce apps like OpenCart.

Customer Support

One of Interserver’s standout features as a web host is providing 24/7 support service for its customers.

Even better, the level of support you get has nothing to do with which plan you choose. Everyone gets the same access to phone, ticket or chat support, regardless of plan.

Live Chat and Site Migrations

Live chat support via InterServer’s website was answered quickly when I tested it.

InterServer will also migrate your site to their servers for free.

I found the support material on the website to be outstanding. Search is well-indexed and speedy. Instructions and tutorials were clear and illustrated with screenshots.

Self-Help Articles

In particular, I appreciated that each support article is dated, giving me an idea of how up-to-date the information is. In most cases, the articles I retrieved had been updated within the last six months. Their blog is helpful, too.

Note that support is only provided in English on the website documentation as well as from support personnel.

Interested in InterServer?
Sign up now and you can get your first month for just a penny. Use this discount link to get the deal.

Pros and Cons of InterServer

Let’s take a final look at the key advantages and disadvantages of InterServer as a host.

Overall, InterServer boasts some brilliant features, however breaking down some of the below can act as an important reminder before committing to a package.

InterServer Pros

1. Price Lock Guarantee: fair, transparent pricing which is guaranteed not to increase
2. Legitimate unlimited storage and bandwidth with no caveats, as well as free migration
3. Excellent online support articles.

InterServer Cons

1. Flow for buying domains and hosting is somewhat crude and difficult to follow, as I learned firsthand
2. One-click add-ons can get pricey ($5/month)
3. Although some of the pages on InterServer’s website look sharp, there are a good number of other pages that have some formatting and typo issues, including low-res images and out-of-date comparisons to other hosts, that make it seem less professional than some of its competitors.

Is InterServer Right for You?

Here are some considerations if you’re considering InterServer as your next web host provider.

Are You Tech Savvy?

InterServer is best suited for businesses that are a bit of tech-savvy and want to lock in a great price for their yearly budgets.

Bona fide unlimited bandwidth and storage sweetens the deal on some of InterServer’s plans.

Great for Non-Profits

InterServer’s web hosting is also great for nonprofits and students, both of whom can get free services.

Steep Learning Curve

InterServer probably isn’t ideal for people who are unfamiliar with web technologies since they’ll struggle with a steep learning curve.

I’m not anywhere close to a newbie, but even I had trouble finding areas of the website I needed and figuring out what steps to take next.

Find Out More

• Check out InterServer’s site builder, SitePad
• Browse Softaculous’s library of 1-click installs that InterServer offers its shared hosting customers
• Test drive cPanel’s control panel before you commit to Linux hosting.

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About Natalie Mootz

Natalie writes about consumer tech and enjoys all manner of geeky things. She lives in California with her husband, two cats, and a banjo.

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