5 Best InMotion Hosting Alternatives – Web Hosting & Domain Name Registration
InMotion is one of the best in the business, no doubt about it. Not only because they boast a stable and speedy service, along with a complimentary customer support, but they are really a company that does everything for the sake of the client. One thing’s for sure, you’ll definitely get every penny’s worth if you tag along with them. You’ll also get plenty of useful services for free, such as SSD storage, backups, site migration, applications and more.
InMotion is home to more than 300,000 domains and for good reasons. Their servers perform really well, boasting 500 millisecond loading times on average and an average 99.98% uptime throughout an entire year. Which means that any website on their server will be constantly available at high speed. As advertised on their website, InMotion is the leader in customer support and they don’t fall short of that statement. It doesn’t take their representatives more than 2-3 minutes to respond to a query in live chat.
I didn’t find InMotion falling short of anything at the core of its service, which is why it’s reasonable that their basic shared hosting plan costs $3.99 per month. There are many cheaper options out there that offer similar high-quality services, which I’m going to review today. But it’s important to mention that none offer such a high-quality service as consistently as InMotion does. They even let fresh users try their services with a 90 day money back guarantee. This is a testament of their confidence in the fact that you have no reason to leave them.
In case you’re looking for something a few dollars cheaper or you just want to know what other options you have, here are a few alternatives to InMotion that I can definitely recommend. I won’t go through all their services, just the most popular ones, so that it’s easier to wrap your head around what each company has to offer.
Web Host | Promo Price | |
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$3.95 / mo |
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$3.95 / mo |
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$1.99 / mo |
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$3.92 / mo |
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$2.99 / mo |
In the following I will show present you each web hosting company in details.
HostGator
Visit Host »HostGator is the Moby Dick of the web-hosting business. If you’re reading this and visit YouTube too from time to time, you’ll see exactly why. They’re also one of the largest web hosting companies on the planet, hosting over 9 million domain names. HostGator is also partnered with Linux and Cisco. It’s also hard to come across a video that doesn’t make you watch a HostGator advertisement before it starts. HostGator pushes plenty of resources to advertise itself and has been around for more than 10 years by doing so. They don’t just talk about quality web hosting, they deliver it. Since the introduction of their cloud services, this company has been one of my favorites.
My test results on Baby Cloud plan:
- Uptime: 99.99%
- Page Loading Speed: 520 ms
This is an outstanding offer that few other companies can match up to. In fact, I don’t even think that you’ll get such a powerful service for $3.95 a month. What adds to its value is HostGator’s customer support. They don’t make you wait more than 15 minutes to respond and their representatives are quite knowledgeable. So far, they spoke to us in a friendly manner and saw through any problems.
When it comes to free stuff, HostGator doesn’t fall short. They offer great security tools, protect you against DDoS attacks, and provide you with an SSL certificate to process website transactions. Also, if you have an already existing website somewhere else, they’ll migrate it for free. To top it all off, HostGator’s cPanel is very user friendly, that even your 5 year old nephew would know how to use after a little while. If you can’t decide which plan to choose, in my detailed guide I explain each HostGator plan in particular.
The only problems with HostGator are the industry standard pricing tricks, which require you to do a 2 year subscription in order to have their advertised prices. You’re also allowed to make backups of your data manually, but you’ll have to pay a yearly extra $15.95, if you want to have ‘true’ backups.
BlueHost
Visit Host »BlueHost is a great star among beginners, bloggers and WordPress users in general. It has major popularity, thanks to its low prices and outstanding support for WordPress. This provides a solid reason for WordPress.org to have them among their 3 hosting recommendations. They also do pretty well in the core aspects of a hosting service, offering rock solid uptimes and fast page loads. Their customer support however leaves a lot to be desired, because they take about 40 minutes on average to give their users a response.
BlueHost has already established itself pretty well in the web hosting business and they know that they’re a prime destination for plenty of beginners out there. The first reason for that is the fact that just about any WordPress user knows about them and their strong support for the system. The second reason is the fact that their first shared hosting plan comes at $2.95 / month. Here are the fundamentals of their most popular service:
My test results on the BlueHost’s Basic Plan:
- Uptime: 99.98%
- Page Loading Speed: 530 milliseconds
Free stuff: a domain name, app integrations, drag and drop site builder, good security options.
When it comes to WordPress, few companies have their systems optimized so well for it. Which is why BlueHost offers Managed WordPress Hosting. Although it isn’t the most inexpensive type of hosting you can have, with a price tag between $19.99 / month and $49.99 / month, it takes a lot of weight off your shoulders. You can rest assured that a group of experts are looking after your WordPress site. They make sure that it’s constantly up to date, secure and can handle any issue that might arise. The company takes full responsibility for your site and its performance and all you have to do is use it.
Taking everything into account, BlueHost is incredibly inexpensive and offers a solid service, with an easy to use control panel, making it perfect for beginners. They also have plenty of online resources that you can learn from, but you’ll have to wait a little if you want to contact their customer support. They also don’t offer any free site migrations and require a 3 year subscription in order to let you have the low introductory pricing. It isn’t made of candy and rainbows, but BlueHost is a good choice if you’re looking to run a WordPress site as cost effectively as possible.
iPage
Visit Host »iPage offers one of the most inexpensive hosting services. By that, I mean they’re freakishly cheap, offering hosting plans from $1.99 a month. The company is owned by Endurance International Group that has brought us many other hosting companies such as BlueHost, FatCow, VPSLink, JustHost, HostMonster and so on. They’re a massive company that evokes mixed feelings in their clients all around the world. But is iPage providing anything good besides a really cheap service? Let’s see.
Here are my test results on the shared Essential Plan:
- Uptime: 99.96%
- Page Loading Speed: 884 ms
This isn’t the best out there but it is indeed freakishly cheap. I didn’t expect them to have a good customer service, but iPage proved me wrong. They provide decent support through email, live chat and phone, taking about 20 minutes to respond to our questions. But they have mixed reviews in this regard, so it’s best to double check them before you buy into their service. iPage sparked a bit of positivity within me when I saw that they didn’t use the pricing tricks other companies use. Even though they’re ridiculously cheap, they’ll give you the low introductory price with an only 12 month subscription. Nothing better than an upfront price tag to make you trust a brand.
Along with this decent service for a decent price, you’ll also get enhanced security options. iPage is partnered with SiteLock, a cyber-security company. Their software helps prevent security breaches and will regularly scan your site for malware. It will also remove malicious software, depending on which iPage plan you use. But the greatest security measure is creating regular backups of your site, which will iPage do for you every day. Most companies charge extra for this service, but iPage will provide it for free.
iPage also integrates and plays well with third party apps such as PayPal, Google Apps and various eCommerce platforms. They also provide bonus credits for advertisements within Google AdWords, Yahoo! and Bing.
Even though all this sounds pretty good, iPage is filled with negative surprises too, with the first one being that there is no cPanel. Every hosting provider has cPanel, but iPage would rather work with a lesser known software called vDeck. It works, but cPanel is still more user friendly than vDeck. Also, where iPage lets you spare plenty of cash, they’ll take more from you eventually. You’ll be able to subscribe for a very cheap service, but once your period ends, it will cost you about $8 per month to renew your plan- That’s an insane 350% price jump! So, it turns out that iPage is pretty tricky and you would be better off using another alternative.
A2Hosting
Visit Host »A2Hosting might not be as popular as BlueHost or HostGator, but they do offer really good hosting service. They offer a wide range of hosting plans such as shared hosting on Linux and Windows platforms, managed and unmanaged VPS plans, dedicated servers, reseller hosting plans, domain registration and other online solutions. Their cheapest hosting plan is the Lite Linux shared plan, which starts at $3.92 per month. This only allows you hosting a single website, so I recommend going for the Swift plan right from the start.
I did some research on A2Hosting and found mostly positive reviews, but I wanted to to ensure myself. So I performed some tests.
My test results on shared Swift Plan (Linux):
- Uptime: 99.97%
- Page Load Speed: 509ms
Both uptime and page loading time are excellent. They also have a decent support through email and live chat. Phone support is a waiter game. I wouldn’t bother trying to call them to get help. It just not worth staying on the phone for 20-25 minutes and wait to someone to answer. For more complex inquires, just write an email.
Their shared plans are peaty good in terms of features. As mentioned before, I would not choose the Lite plan, because of website number limitation. Each shared plan includes unlimited RAID-10 storage and unlimited transfer. Free SSL certificate via Let’s Encrypt is also a port of every hosting plan. CloudFlare free CDN is also included with all plans.
If you want to transfer your website from InMotion to A2Hosting, they will migrate your website and cPanel account for free.
The Anytime money back guarantee is also something unique at this company. Keep in mind, that full refund will be given only within 30-days after signup.
A2Hosting is a good hosting provider and a great alternative to InMotion.
GoDaddy
Visit Host »GoDaddy is one of the world’s most famous domain registrars that offers Managed WordPress hosting services. They provide fast, secure and fully managed WordPress hosting solutions that spare you a lot of work and sweat. You can get your hands on their first plan for $1.00 per month. They will also give you a free domain if you sign up for their annual plan. So it’s worth at least checking them out, though I’ve read some ugly reviews, stating that the company was much better a couple of years ago. But I still wanted to see it for myself.
Here are my test results on shared hosting Economy Plan:
- Uptime: 99.04 %
- Page Loading Speed: 500 ms
The uptime seems dependable enough but keep in mind that 99.04% uptime means that your website will be down for at least two hours throughout the entire year. Your website will be stored on Linux or Windows based shared servers, depending on what you choose. Because just as with any other hosting company, Windows based servers are more expensive.
They also provide VPS hosting for $29.99 per month and an even better plan for $129. They’ll also go the extra mile and provide managed WordPress hosting. You’ll also have a free website builder that you can use to build a website from drag and drop elements. Their customer service seems dependable enough, taking about 10 minutes to respond to a query.
Overall, GoDaddy seems to go the extra mile to satisfy their customers and to bring them the best possible web hosting service.
Conclusion
Though in my opinion, it really isn’t worth it to switch from an already existing InMotion account to any other, but every company is different. If you must go with something else, HostGator would be your first and BlueHost would be your second best option to work with. Maybe GoDaddy is worth a try as well.
I hope you have enjoyed reading through our article and that we have helped you learn something new today!