As an experienced hosting expert, I’ve worked with a lot of hosting providers, but Hostens is a name that has been popping up a lot lately. In this article, I review Hostens and give you my honest thoughts on the performance, pricing, features, customer support, and value for money offered by them.
Hostens, a prominent figure in the European hosting landscape, delivers top-tier hosting solutions to a clientele spanning over 100,000. Established in 2003, it quickly rose to prominence and by 2005, claimed the title of the largest web hosting provider in Lithuania. As a key division of ‘Interneto vizija’, Hostens continues its legacy, owing its success to dedicated customers and their unwavering trust.
The company offers shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, and a standalone website builder that lets you design your website or eShop in minutes (drag-and-drop functionality included). They also offer VPN and spam filters as standalone security services. With each plan, you get a free domain, daily/weekly backups, and a modern cPanel, amongst others.
Hostens has an impressive 4.4-star rating from 247 reviews on Hostadvice and an even better 4.8-star rating from 674 reviews on Trustpilot. These ratings not only say a lot about how reliable they are, but they also show that their customers believe them and are happy with them. Even though they don’t have a BBB rating (reserved for U.S. companies), they’ve done well in foreign markets.
In my view, Hostens emerges as a top-tier hosting provider I wholeheartedly endorse. With its strong European footprint, an array of hosting solutions, and committed customer service, it’s an exceptional choice for web enthusiasts both new and seasoned.
For a host to be considered excellent, it has to perform well across multiple areas. There are a number of factors that you can use to rate a host. So what are they?
Our experts at HostAdvice have created a hosting provider rating methodology that makes it easy to rate hosting providers. In this strategy, we pick important parameters, assign a score to the host based on how it performs in relation to other hosts, and give our reason for assigning it the score.
Here’s my rating of Hostens using this methodology:
| Parameter | Score | Why we gave this score |
| PRICES | 9.5 | Hosten’s plans are super cheap. Presently, VPS and shared hosting starts at $1.20 and $1.20 respectively, while reseller hosting starts at $1.20. These prices are among the cheapest you’ll find in the market. For this reason, I rate them 9.5 in this category. |
| FEATURES | 8.5 | Hosten’s gives you all the features you need plus extra. You get free domains and SSL, daily backups, 1-click app installs, SSD storage, and a modern cPanel. The reason I score them as high as 9/10 is the ability to purchase domains too! |
| PERFORMANCE | 9.0 | With a response time of 256 ms, 99.9% uptime, SSD servers and storage, and great load times, Hostens is ahead of many other hosts. I’d give them a 9.0 because they utilize cloud infrastructure, which brings about reliability. |
| USER FRIENDLINESS | 9.0 | Hostens is very user-friendly with an intuitive UI, modern cPanel, and 1-click popular app installs. Their clutter-free dashboard alone is enough to score them as high as 9/10. |
| SUPPORT | 7.5 | They offer 24/7 support via ticketing, email, and social networks. I couldn’t find their live chat feature on the home or product pages. So I rated them 7.5 despite having an impressive set of support options. |
Hostens offers shared hosting, reseller hosting, and VPS hosting to customers. Each of these hosting categories has three hosting plans that are all relatively affordable and feature-rich.
They charge value-added tax (VAT) from customers, except non-EU customers or EU companies with a provided VAT number. They offer a 30 days money-back guarantee for Container VPS, Storage VPS, Linux VPS, Windows VPS, VPN, Spam Filter, SEO Tool, Shared Hosting, and Reseller hosting plans.
Payments can be made via PayPal, Stripe (via credit cards) and direct bank transfer (for certain locations)
Note that all of the following prices apply if you’re buying a 3-year plan.
The recommended plan, s20, provides you with 2GB disk space, 2TB bandwidth, 20 databases, and website spaces, 200 email accounts and daily/weekly backups – all that $2.40/month.
Hostens particularly recommends the r20 plan, which offers 40GB disk space, 4TB of bandwidth, 20 accounts, 200 databases, and website spaces, 2000 email accounts and cPanel/WHM.
| Plan Name | Space | CPU | RAM | OS | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Container Small | 20 GB | 1 x 2.4GHz | 2 GB | NZ$4.26 | Details | |
| Storage Small | 256 GB | 1 x 1.7GHz | 512 MB | NZ$4.26 | Details | |
| Small | 20 GB | 1 x 2.6GHz | 2 GB | NZ$6.40 | Details | |
| Container Medium | 40 GB | 1 x 2.4GHz | 4 GB | NZ$8.53 | Details | |
| Storage Medium | 512 GB | 1 x 1.7GHz | 1 GB | NZ$8.53 | Details | |
| Medium | 40 GB | 1 x 2.6GHz | 4 GB | NZ$12.79 | Details | |
| Windows Small | 40 GB | 1 x 2.6GHz | 2 GB | NZ$16.00 | Details | |
| Container Large | 80 GB | 2 x 2.4GHz | 8 GB | NZ$17.06 | Details | |
| Storage Large | 1 TB | 1 x 1.7GHz | 2 GB | NZ$17.06 | Details | |
| Large | 80 GB | 2 x 2.6GHz | 8 GB | NZ$25.58 | Details | |
| Windows Medium | 60 GB | 1 x 2.6GHz | 4 GB | NZ$31.98 | Details | |
| Windows Large | 80 GB | 2 x 2.6GHz | 8 GB | NZ$63.96 | Details |
Under the VPS category, Hostens offers Linux VPS, Windows VPS, container VPS, and storage VPS hosting plans. These plans are all similar to each other, with the only differences being the disk space, bandwidth, and pricing. They also recommend the Medium plan across the board.
All of Hosten’s plans are feature-packed. In addition to the features listed above, you also get multiple PHP versions, Apache web service, 4Gbps dedicated uplink, 10-300 databases, dozens of email accounts and so much more.
Performance is arguably the most important metric to judge a host by. You don’t want to host your site on a host with slow servers and constant downtime. For this reason, when considering a host, it’s crucial that you always examine three metrics namely speed, uptime, and average fully loaded time.
The speed of a host is typically measured using its first byte (TTFB), which is the time it takes before the host’s servers deliver the first byte of data to the site user.
Uptime is simply the host server’s “online time”, which is how consistently the host stays active within a given time period. The industry is around 99% percent uptime guarantee
Using GTMetrix, I ran a test on a website hosted on Hostens to get the overall performance, and the result was excellent.
The website had an excellent 180 ms and a fully loaded time of 1.2s. As for the overall performance, the website scored 89%:
Remember that, while the TTFB and uptime are related to the host’s server health, the fully loaded time is dependent on other factors like the website design and website structure.
You can reach Hosten’s support team via live chat, email, social media, and a live ticket. Other support channels are knowledgebase and a blog.
Live Chat
The company claims to have a live chat feature, but I couldn’t find the option anywhere on the website, even as a customer. I also saw the option to use the live chat feature beside the contact form, but the button was disabled.
Contact form
You can reach Hosten’s support team by filling out and submitting their contact form. They typically respond within an hour after receiving the image, but please allow up to 1 day.
If you have any inquiries regarding the purchase of a new plan, send an email message containing your questions and issues to sales@hostens.com
Blog
If you’re more of a self-learner, then you’re in luck. Hostens offers a blog where you can find information on a wide variety of topics including industry news, tips, and tricks, know-how, Hosten’s life and knowledgebase.
The registration process for Koddos is quite simple. Just submit your personal information and an account will be created for you.
Navigate to the sign up page to access the account registration form.
Fill in your personal information as required, then click submit.
On the following page, log in with your email and password to access your account dashboard/client area.
Now you can get started by ordering a new hosting service from Hostens and registering a new domain for your website.
The thing I like the most about Hostens is their client dashboard – it’s clutter-free and easy to navigate. It allows you to install tools and packages, and manage your hosting account from one location with ease. It’s also mobile-friendly:
Hostens also gives you a cPanel if you go for the shared web hosting plan. For VPS hosting, you get two additional panels namely Plesk and DirectAdmin.
Hostens’ servers come pre-installed with PHP, the programming language required to run WordPress.
You can install PHP the same way you’d install it on any other host:
And voila! WordPress is now set.
Hostens offers at least 10 email accounts on all of its hosting plans. You can create your email in cPanel. All you need to do is log in to your cPanel, click Email Accounts under the Email section, fill in the required information and click Create Account button.
Hostens is a fast and secure hosting provider for small and medium-sized websites. They offer super affordable hosting solutions and a ton of features right off the bat.
I recommend Hostens as an excellent host overall with good value for money. Their plans are cheap and they offer even better discounts for multi-year plans. I also love their intuitive UI design, clutter-free dashboard, and knowledge-packed blog.
My only issue with them is the lack of a live chat feature. Notwithstanding, I recommend Hostens if you’re looking for a fast, secure, and affordable host for your website.
| Plan Name | Space | CPU | RAM | OS | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free trial | Unlimited | - | NZ$0.00 | Details | ||
| Container Small | 20 GB | 1 x 2.4GHz | 2 GB | NZ$4.26 | Details | |
| Storage Small | 256 GB | 1 x 1.7GHz | 512 MB | NZ$4.26 | Details | |
| Small | 20 GB | 1 x 2.6GHz | 2 GB | NZ$6.40 | Details | |
| Container Medium | 40 GB | 1 x 2.4GHz | 4 GB | NZ$8.53 | Details | |
| Storage Medium | 512 GB | 1 x 1.7GHz | 1 GB | NZ$8.53 | Details | |
| Medium | 40 GB | 1 x 2.6GHz | 4 GB | NZ$12.79 | Details | |
| Windows Small | 40 GB | 1 x 2.6GHz | 2 GB | NZ$16.00 | Details | |
| Container Large | 80 GB | 2 x 2.4GHz | 8 GB | NZ$17.06 | Details | |
| Storage Large | 1 TB | 1 x 1.7GHz | 2 GB | NZ$17.06 | Details | |
| Large | 80 GB | 2 x 2.6GHz | 8 GB | NZ$25.58 | Details | |
| Windows Medium | 60 GB | 1 x 2.6GHz | 4 GB | NZ$31.98 | Details | |
| Windows Large | 80 GB | 2 x 2.6GHz | 8 GB | NZ$63.96 | Details |
| Plan Name | Space | CPU | RAM | Bandwidth | OS | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Trial | Unlimited | - | Unlimited | NZ$0.00 | Details |
| Plan Name | Warranty | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Positive SSL | NZ$17,055.95 | NZ$25.57 | Details |
| GeoTrust True BusinessID | NZ$2,131,993.75 | NZ$255.82 | Details |
| GeoTrust True BusinessID with EV | NZ$2,558,392.50 | NZ$341.10 | Details |
Hostens maintains a tier-three data center and has a multilingual website.
Hostens provides excellent customer service 24 hours a day, seven days a week via live chat, email, ticket assistance, and access to its knowledge base.
Backups are made daily and weekly by Hostens. Backup solutions are offered for Shared Hosting and Reseller Hosting. However, they do not assist with website migrations.
If you are unhappy with their service, you can get your money back. It is feasible within 30 days, depending on the goods you choose. However, you must pay for the plan via PayPal or a credit card to claim a refund.
Yes, Hostens is very easy to use. After registering as a user, you’ll be provided with a simple client area from where you’ll manage your hosting account. You can also install the traditional cPanel, Plesk panel or DirectAdmin.
Hostens takes security very seriously. All hosting plans come with a free LetsEncrypt certificate, DDoS protection, CloudFlare, anti-malware scanners and many more security features to secure your website.
Some good Hostens alternatives are Hostinger, Bluehost, HostGator, and GoDaddy.
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