KnownHost Review

KnownHost is a privately-owned hosting company based in the United States. The primary focus of KnownHost’s hosting services is managed VPS hosting, but they also offer WordPress hosting and dedicated hosting options to meet a variety of hosting needs. Our Knownhost review will evaluate the hosting features and currently available hosting plans of Knownhost.

KnownHost Overview

Established in 2005, KnownHost owns four datacenters, three of which are based in the US, covering the East Coast, West Coast and Central US (Texas), while one datacenter is located in Amsterdam. Knownhost offers a range of managed hosting solutions and enterprise-grade hardware based on Dual Hex-Core Xeons using RAID 10 storage arrays, with everything backed by superior uptime SLA, guaranteeing service reliability.

KnownHost Plans & Pricing

Although KnownHost offers dedicated and WordPress optimized hosting plans as well, we’ll start with the analysis of managed VPS plans, which are really the bread and butter of KnownHost.

Virtual Private Servers

KnownHost’s managed virtual private servers come with 24/7 fully managed support, 99.9% SLA, free backups and free migrations, as well as complementary DDoS protection.

There are 7 VPS packages in this category starting at $25 monthly for 1280 MB RAM, 30 GB RAID-10 disk space, 3000 GB premium bandwidth. Quarterly and yearly billing is also available and customers who opt for these billing options can enjoy discounted prices.

The most expensive VPS plans in this category costs $120 per month, and includes 8.25 GB RAM, 190 GB RAID-10 disk space, 17,000 GB bandwidth.

2 IP addresses, full root access, unlimited domain hosting, and free backups are included with every server.

SSD Virtual Private Servers

Knownhost has 6 different SSD-powered VPS hosting packages starting from $25/month. Plans feature equal share 8+ CPU cores to 24+ CPU cores, 1.25 GB guaranteed RAM to 7.25 GB guaranteed RAM, 20 GB to 115 GB RAID-10 SSD storage, and 4,000 GB to 13,000 GB premium bandwidth.

All SSD-powered VPS plans include unlimited domain hosting, free backups, full root access, 99.9% SLA, 2 IP addresses for free, and complementary DDoS protection.

Dedicated Servers

Dedicated servers at KnownHost are Linux-based and bundled with cPanel control panel. All servers are custom-built and secured out of the box.

Prices for fully managed dedicated servers start at $179/month for a package with the following configuration: i7-4770 (4×3.4GHz 8MB) CPU, 16GB DDR3 RAM (32GB DDR3 max RAM), 11,000 GB bandwidth, 750 GB SATA-II HDD-1, 750 GB SATA-II HDD-2, 100 Mbps port speed, cPanel & Softaculous control panel. A $49 set-up fee is also charged for this plan.

KnownHost offers 4 dedicated server configurations, the most expensive one costing $379/month + $129 set-up fee. This plan boasts a Dual Xeon E5-2620v3 CPU, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 26,000 GB bandwidth, 120 GB SSD, 1 TB SATA-II HDD 2, cPanel and Softaculous.

Full root access, unlimited domain hosting, 1-click installer and 24/7 support are available with all plans.

WordPress optimized hosting packages are offered on powerful managed VPS servers to accommodate both large and high traffic WordPress sites.

KnownHost Hosting Features

Whether you’re looking for VPS or dedicated servers, KnownHost hosting packages have the following hosting features:

• Unlimited domain hosting;
• SSD-powered VPS hosting packages;
• Free full image backups and DDoS protection;
• Root access/SSH;
• CentOS operating system;
• Fully managed 24/7 support;
• Option to choose datacenter (Texas, California and New Jersey);
• Choice of cPanel/WHM or DirectAdmin (for extra $5/month);
• Resource upgrades (extra RAM, storage, bandwidth, and IP addresses) and Software upgrades (sitebuilder, billing software);
• White labeled VPS standard to brand your own VPS package;
• Free migration service;
• 30-day money-back guarantee;
• 9% uptime SLA;
• 1-click installers;
• Equal share CPU;
• Seamless VPS to VPS upgrades;
• 2 dedicated IP addresses;
• Private nameservers, etc.

Managed VPS packages sit at the core of KnownHost’s services. VPS servers are instantly provisioned and are available in plenty of powerful configurations. Those looking for shared hosting options will not find any, since KnownHost is specialized in offering only VPS and dedicated hosting.

KnownHost Customer Support

Customer support options at KnownHost include 24/7 email and helpdesk support. The live chat feature is only available for sales purposes. A US toll-free number also features on KnownHost’s contact page, but this too is limited to handling sales issues.

The Community Forum maintained by KnownHost is another possible avenue for those seeking support. Apart from these, KnownHost has a Public Wiki page and blog with information of hosting, eCommerce, online marketing and other news of the industry.

Pros & Cons of KnownHost

Opinions on KnownHost are overwhelmingly positive, with only few negative reviews on limited customer support options. Performance wise and reliability wise, Knownhost ranks high in most user reviews and on independent hosting review sites. Because no hosting review is complete without listing the pros on cons of the hosting provider in question, here’s the good and the bad of Knownhost:

Pros

• Affordably priced managed VPS and SSD-powered VPS packages;
• WordPress optimized plans on VPS servers;
• Useful freebies (backups and DDoS protection);
• Good uptime SLA;
• 30-day money-back guarantee.

Cons

• No shared hosting options;
• Set-up fee for dedicated servers;
• Charges extra for cPanel or DirectAdmin with VPS plans.

Shared hosting plans used to feature among Knownhost’s services, however, at the time of this writing they are no longer available. While shared hosting is a good way to attract customers, Knownhost has taken another route to attract customers and focused on tapping into a different customer base. Even without shared hosting, Knownhost offers plenty of VPS options to meet most budgets and needs.

KnownHost Review Conclusion

If you’re in the market for fully managed virtual private servers or dedicated servers, Knownhost may be right up your alley. This privately-owned hosting provider offers hosting in 4 world-class datacenters with premium hardware technologies, 24/7 support, and reliable hosting infrastructure. Through its services Knownhost does not target beginners or those looking for a simple shared hosting option, therefore, it’s designed to meet the needs of websites with more robust resource requirements.