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Fasthosts Review
Fasthosts Review
August 16, 2023 / Daniel Blechynden
Fasthosts Review
August 16, 2023 / Daniel Blechynden
Feature-packed web hosting for your site
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At a Glance

Fasthosts offers a variety of web hosting solutions, including everything from basic shared hosting to powerful dedicated and cloud servers. It’s easy to use, competitively priced, and boasts great performance and security. Overall, it’s a decent option if you’re looking for a user-friendly host that offers a good balance of features and value for money.

Bandwidth : Unmetered

Free marketing offer: Free domain name, free professional email, free SSL certificate

Uptime: 99.99% guarantee

Website builder: Yes

Money-back guarantee: 30 days

Price per month: From 50p

Pros

  • User-friendly management dashboard
  • Competitive prices
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
  • 99.99% uptime guarantee
  • Decent customer service

Cons

  • Confusing price structure
  • Limited storage with shared plans

Overview

Fasthosts is a United Kingdom-based web hosting provider that has been working in the industry for almost 25 years. During this time, it has developed a reputation as a powerful, reliable hosting option with something for everyone—and excellent customer service.

Due to the location of its data centres, Fasthosts is ideal for websites targeted at UK-based audiences. It’s also affordable, user-friendly, and boasts a 99.99% uptime guarantee.

Best Suited For

Fasthosts offers hosting options for everyone from first-time personal users to large companies who require powerful dedicated servers.

Its shared hosting is great for creating small sites, and the more expensive shared plans are best suited to those who want to create multiple small client sites. For example, agencies that work with multiple small business websites could benefit from the high-end shared packages.

Hosting Types

Fasthosts offers various hosting options, including everything from low-end shared hosting to powerful dedicated servers.

For starters, there are 4 shared hosting packages. With these, you’ll be sharing a server and its resources with other customers, which can affect the performance of your site.

There’s also a selection of managed WordPress packages. These are a little pricier, but they include fully managed security, updates, and more. The VPS packages offer a similar level of power, but you can customise them with your own software and operating system.

You’ll also find cloud, dedicated, and bare metal servers, which are designed for projects requiring a large number of server resources and processing power. Last but not least, Fasthosts has reseller hosting that enables you to sell your own hosting to your clients and others.

Hosting Features

If you use Fasthosts, you’ll get access to a suite of excellent features. Shared hosting packages, for example, offer professional email, free SSL certificates, and free domain names. The higher-end packages include the Marketing Radar tool, which is very useful for driving more traffic to your site.

All shared packages come with unmetered bandwidth, but you’ll have limits on storage and the number of sites you can create. The 1-click app installer will enable you to install various scripts, including WordPress and other popular content management systems. You’ll also have access to Fasthosts’ native control panel, which is one of the more user-friendly options I’ve seen.

Note that the more powerful hosting options, including VPS and dedicated servers, come with different features. For example, some of them include root access so that you can install your own operating system and software, while others include unlimited free IP addresses. Be sure that you understand exactly what you’re getting before committing to a subscription.

Plans and Pricing

Fasthosts has 4 shared hosting plans that range from 50p to £4 per month for the first 6 months (with a 12-month commitment). All plans include unmetered bandwidth, a 1-click app installer, and the choice of a Windows or Linux operating system.

The cheapest Start package (£5 per month after the introductory period) supports 1 website and includes 100GB of storage. Upgrading to the Grow plan (£7 per month after the introductory period) enables you to create up to 3 websites and includes 2 free domain names and 250GB of storage.

The Scale package (£12 per month after the introductory period) adds support for up to 10 sites, with 3 free domain names, 350GB of storage, and a subscription to Fasthosts’ Marketing Radar tool.

Last, but certainly not least, is the Pro package. This comes in at £18 per month after the introductory period. It supports 100 websites with 5 free domain names, 500GB of storage, and 8 professional email addresses.

Be aware that Fasthosts’ pricing structure can be a little confusing. Once you select a plan and proceed to the checkout, Fasthosts will offer you different prices for different subscription terms.

Start

Grow

Scale

Pro

Introductory price per month

£50

£1

£2

£4

Standard price per month

£5

£7

£12

£18

Websites supported

1

3

10

100

Storage

100GB

250GB

350GB

500GB

Free domain names

1

2

3

5

Professional email addresses

1

2

4

8

Marketing radar subscription

No

No

Yes

Yes

Fasthosts also offers a selection of more powerful hosting options, including the following:

  • VPS hosting from £1 per month
  • WordPress hosting from £5 per month
  • Dedicated servers from £50 per month
  • Cloud hosting from £5 per month
  • Reseller hosting from £14.99 per month (Renews at £49.99 per month after the first 12 months)

Fasthosts offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with its service.

Uptime and Performance

Fasthosts’ shared hosting has an excellent 99.99% uptime guarantee—almost as good as you can get. This means that your site will be offline for a maximum of 4.4 minutes per month. Some packages, including the dedicated servers, come with a truly impressive 99.999% guarantee.

What’s more, Fasthosts has a solid reputation for good performance. Its UK-based data centres enable it to deliver excellent page-load speeds for UK visitors.

Fasthosts’ decent security practices will also reduce the risk of your site being negatively impacted by malicious third parties. These include free SSL certificates, advanced software and firewalls, and ISO 27001-certified data centres.

Technology

Fasthosts is a modern host that’s backed by cutting-edge technology. It uses fully certified data centres, fast SSD storage, and various performance-enhancing tools. You can choose between Windows and Linux operating systems, and there’s a powerful 1-click app installer.

Ease of Use

Fasthosts performs well on the ease-of-use front. The main dashboard enables you to manage your subscriptions and packages, and the menu on the left of the screen includes various tools and configuration options.

Things are even better for WordPress users, who can access a feature-rich WordPress hosting management panel. This enables you to configure various options and view technical information about your server.

Overall, Fasthosts caters well to newbies and advanced users alike, and you shouldn’t have any issues navigating its interface.

Support Services

Fasthosts offers 24/7 live chat, phone, and email support. We used the live chat a few times and received a response in just minutes each time. The support agents were friendly and knowledgeable, and they answered our questions promptly.

There’s also a searchable knowledge base containing numerous helpful resources. These include informational articles, step-by-step guides, and other tutorials which cover everything from getting started to advanced server configuration.

In Conclusion

Fasthosts is a feature-rich, reliable web hosting provider. What’s more, Fasthosts offers great customer service, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and an excellent 99.99% uptime guarantee.

The main downside is the confusing price structure. But even with this, it remains a competitively-priced option. It’s also very intuitive and user-friendly, and the native management panel is impressive.

Overall, Fasthosts is a great option for anyone who needs a fast, efficient way to create basic websites for a UK audience.

Get started now, visit FastHosts
By Daniel Blechynden
Contributing to the likes of TechRadar and Tom’s Guide, Daniel’s writing focuses on technology, science, and dependable reviews. He has been a regular critic of software and products from various industries for several years, leaning on his academic background in the sciences for rigour in research and writing.