WebHostingBuzz Introduction
WebHostingBuzz is a privately-owned hosting company that serve customers around the US and Europe. The company was founded in 2002 in the US and initially began life as a reseller for another large web hosting company. Since then, WebHostingBuzz has been able to grow its business beyond the reseller model and into its own independent hosting business, going on to launch its European brand in 2009.
WebHostingBuzz offers a wide range of hosting services, from shared hosting to dedicated servers. Windows and cloud hosting is not yet available through the company.
It’s worth noting that there are two WebHostingBuzz sites, webhostingbuzz.com and webhostingbuzz.co.uk. I will focus on the .co.uk site for the purposes of this review.
WebHostingBuzz Hosting Plans
WebHostingBuzz only offers hosting on Linux operating systems. There are a range of plans, including simple shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated servers.
As previously mentioned, WebHostingBuzz was originally a reseller. Its focus is definitely on reseller plans, but it does have a very comprehensive range of hosting services across the board.
There are three plans available for people looking for shared web hosting. Each plan allows for unlimited email accounts, FTP accounts and MySQL databases, and can be purchased for 1 or 2 years.
● The low cost Hosting Mini plan allows the customer to host up to 2 websites with 400 GB disk space and 5,000 GB bandwidth.
● The Hosting Standard plan increases the available disk space to 750 GB and the bandwidth to 10,000 GB. This plan comes with a free domain name and lifts the limits on the number of websites that can be hosted.
● The top end shared hosting plan offered by WebHostingBuzz is the Hosting Supersize plan. This plan takes a step up from the hosting standard plan and allows for unlimited disk space and bandwidth. On top of that, the customer gets a free SSL certificate and a free 2Checkout.com merchant account.
There are four reseller plans to choose from, each coming with free Blesta client billing software, anonymous nameservers, CloudFlare CDN and CodeGuard.com backups. The company’s experience in this area could be enough to tempt new resellers to sign up.
● The Reseller Mini plan comes with 100 GB disk space, 1,000 GB bandwidth and allows for up to 50 client control panels (in other words, cPanel installs).
● The Reseller Standard plan allows for 200 GB disk space, 2,000 GB bandwidth and unlimited client control panels.
● The Reseller Professional plan offers 300 GB disk space and 4,000 GB bandwidth. This plan also provides customers with a free domain name and a free 2Checkout.com merchant account.
● The Reseller Premium offers a step up from the professional plan. This provides customers with 400 GB disk space and 10,000 GB bandwidth. In addition to the professional plan freebies, customers also get a free WHMCS licence.
There are 4 VPS hosting plans available through WebHostingBuzz. The virtual servers are all managed by WebHostingBuzz and clients get a free Blesta licence as part of the deal.
● The VPS Bronze plan provides 1 dedicated IP address, 20 GB disk space, 2500 GB bandwidth, a 1 GHz processor and 1024 MB RAM (burstable up to 1.33 GB).
● The next step up is the VPS Silver plan. This provides a second free dedicated IP address, 40 GB disk space, 5,000 GB bandwidth, 1.5 GHz processor power and 1536 MB RAM (burstable up to 2 GB).
● The VPS Gold plan increases the disk space to 60 GB and bandwidth to 7,500 GB. Customers get 2GHz processor power and 2048 MB RAM (burstable up to 2.6 GB).
● The VPS Platinum plan provides 4 dedicated IP addresses, 80 GB disk space, 10,000 GB bandwidth, 2.5 GHz processor power and 2560 MB burstable RAM.
WebHostingBuzz have 3 dedicated server options available. Each come with 5,000 GB bandwidth, 100 Mbps network port, 4 dedicated IP addresses and free Blesta client billing software.
● The entry level server is based on the Intel G6950 2 X 2.28 GHz processor. The server comes with 4 GB RAM and 2 X 1 TB SATA hard drives.
● The mid range server comes with an Intel Xeon X3430 2.4 GHz processor, 16 GB RAM and 2 X 1 TB SATA hard drives.
● The high end server has 2 Intel Xeon E5504 2 GHz processor chips, 32 GB RAM and 4 300 GB SAS hard drives with RAID10 hardware.
Beyond its hosting plans, WebHostingBuzz also provides an affiliate program for customers who wish to make money through customer referrals.
WebHostingBuzz Uptime/Downtime
Shared and reseller hosting through WebHostingBuzz comes with a 99.9% uptime guarantee. WebHostingBuzz promise to credit the customers account should it fail to meet the guarantee.
Dedicated servers are also advertised with a 99.9% network uptime guarantee.
WebHostingBuzz regularly posts its servers uptime statistics on its blog. Whilst the vast majority of servers appear to hit 100% uptime, some do occasionally drop below 99.9%. It’s still refreshing to see this information publicly presented in an easily accessible spot.
WebHostingBuzz utilises servers in 3 Tier 4 data centres located in Atlanta and Phoenix in the USA, and in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. These facilities all feature redundant power systems, backup power, climate control and onsite security. All are fully staffed at all times.
WebHostingBuzz Support
WebHostingBuzz customers are supported through a range of channels. Self-help comes in the form of a wiki, guides, company blog, FAQs and tutorials.
The client help area provides access to a knowledgebase and company news articles. Here customers can also raise support tickets to the 24/7 technical support teams (there is also an email address available). There is a phone line and a live chat facility, but these are not available 24/7.
WebHostingBuzz maintains active Facebook and Twitter accounts. More importantly, the company takes the time to interact with its customers through these channels; it’s not just a one-way feed.
WebHostingBuzz in the News
WebHostingBuzz has made little impact in the technology media sites, despite being in operation for over a decade.
WebHostingBuzz Control Panel
All of WebHostingBuzz’s web hosting plans come with cPanel as standard. This is widely used in the hosting industry and should be familiar to most users. Resellers get WHM as well and VPS hosting customers can purchase cPanel for an additional cost.
WebHostingBuzz Extras
Many plans come with free domain names and merchant accounts. The merchant account is a particularly good deal, providing you’re happy with the fees.
WebHostingBuzz also offers assistance in migrating websites from other hosts, and it provides free Google Adwords credits to help customers kick start their new project. Customers are provided with the Fantastico ‘one-click’ installer which provides clients with a wide range of applications, including ZenCart and WordPress.
Plans also come with an unusual ‘price freeze guarantee’; WebHostingBuzz will not raise its prices when a customer renews their account.
WebHostingBuzz is proud of its green credentials. The company strives to use the most efficient servers and cooling technology, and employs green office policies such as recycling and energy efficient lighting. Furthermore, rather than purchasing carbon credits, WebHostingBuzz is also a direct sponsor to the International Tree Foundation.
WebHostingBuzz Money Back Guarantee / Cancellation Policy
There are two money-back guarantees available to WebHostingBuzz customers. The first is a 45-day money-back guarantee for web hosting customers and resellers, which is longer than average.
VPS customers also get a 30-day money back guarantee.
These guarantees do not include dedicated IP addresses, domain name registration fees and other associated costs. This is a standard clause in the hosting industry.
WebHostingBuzz Summary
WebHostingBuzz appears to run a tight ship. Whilst its services are not unique, the range is very comprehensive and backed up by well-structured plans which offer good value. There’s plenty of technical information on offer for those who like to know exactly what they’re paying for.
Publishing server statistics for all of its servers is also admirable - this alone inspires confidence in the services it provides. The uptime guarantees and the ‘price freeze guarantee’ are other big plus points, and the company’s past experience as a reseller may appeal to new customers looking to become resellers in their own right.
The lack of a 24-hour support line may put some customers off. But if you’re happy to rely on email, ticketing and social media channels for support, this should not cause too much concern.
My experience with WebHostingBuzz has been awesome so far, and here is why. First let me back up a bit - I have been a web designer and developer for quite some time now - and I have dealt with (personally or via a client of mine) almost every web host out there. I've had good experiences and I've had bad experiences, as with anything - but I can honestly say that my experience with WebHostingBuzz has been one of the best ones I have ever had. I have hosted with GoDaddy (HAHAHA), HostGator, 1&1, BlueHost, MediaTemple, & inmotion just to name a few (very few, there are a lot out there, but these are a few of the larger ones) and I always had some little or big problem with each of them. I have been with WebHostingBuzz for almost a year now and I have had hardly any issues, and whatever issue arose they quickly and swiftly made it go away. An example would be when I first moved my site there, my site was hacked (not their fault) - but they quickly restored everything and made sure it didn't happen again and worked with me on security enhancements. That showed me that they really cared, and that was refreshing - most hosts are like "Yeah well we can't really help you". I do have to say that I am a server admin as well, so I haven't had to use support THAT much, but when I have they were really helpful and quick to respond. Another thing that I noticed was different about WebHostingBuzz is that my uptime, for the first time - has actually been 100% most months - that is insane. Most of the time on other hosts, I had probably around a 97% uptime - with maybe an hour or so of downtime each month - while that is good, 100% is great, and thats what I am averaging with WebHostingBuzz. Another first, is that people actually complemented me on my sites loading speed - while some of that can be credited to my coding - most of it is really them, their servers are kicking butt. My site started out small of course years ago, but over the years it grew (which lead me to moving host to host to find one that could support its growth) and now that i've got a pretty nice traffic stream - WebHostingBuzz does a great job at keeping me on track to keep growing (and stay up!). So I just wanted to say thanks to the team at WebHostingBuzz for creating a good product, and caring about it enough to care about what they are giving their customers. Really great hosting company - 10/10 would recommend again. Another thing I would like to mention to those out there looking for a new host is that while no one can really tell you who the perfect web host will be for your needs - give it a try, I can tell you that I have tried a lot of them, and for what you pay for and what you get, I believe WebHostingBuzz is one of the best!