Website: www.arvixe.com

Category: Web Hosting

Rating: Strongly Recommended

Price: $4/month

Summary: Arvixe is a hosting provider that offers a suite of services from the personal level (beginning as low as $4 a month) through more advanced business and enterprise services.

I’ve used a number of web hosting providers and Arvixe stands out in my mind for it’s reliability of service and strong customer support, two of the most important factors to consider when choosing a company to work with. Not only that, but the Arvixe web hosting ratings are consistently high across the blogosphere, indicating a strong track record across a diverse user base.

Arvixe.com Hosting Review

In the following review I’ll cover some of the top features of the Arvixe platform, as well as why I think it’s one of the top hosting companies out there.

Low Cost Personal Plans

Arvixe’ personal options start as low as $4 a month, with no restrictions on disk space or data transfers.

That’s a great deal for anyone who runs a small business that gets light to moderate traffic. In this context I’d say anything below a thousand visits a day would be appropriate for the personal plan.

The $4 option does, however, does limit the number of domains you can use to 6, which should be fine for most small businesses. If you do have more than 6 domains you need to host, the Personal Pro option provides all the same features as the personal plan, for only $7.

In addition, even the $4 plan includes some great bonuses, like a free domain and Google and Yahoo ad vouchers. The vouchers alone are worth a total of $175, which means if you’re planning to run any ad campaigns, you’ll quickly make your money back, and the hosting is essentially free.

Excellent Uptime and Speed

Uptime is perhaps the most important consideration whenever you’re considering a hosting provider, and Arvixe consistently maintains a 99.9% uptime.

The server system Arvixe uses is state of the art. They base their platform on 15k RPM SCSI drives in RAID 10, which, coupled with the fact that each server assures minimum 92 GB RAM (and up to 256GB), translates into reliable speed for your site.

The RAID 10 is a cut above most the other hosting providers, and in addition to ensuring consistent uptime and fast speeds, includes a built in redundancy system, so that your data is backed up in the event of any issues that do arise.

Good Customer Support

After uptime and speed, the second most important consideration when choosing a hosting provider is their customer support system. I find I rarely have to deal with customer support, but when I do, there’s nothing worse than having a site issue and not getting a response back for a week.

Every time I’ve emailed Arvixe’ support center, I’ve gotten a response back in fewer than 24 hours, and sometimes even within the same business day. Their responses are prompt and helpful, and, more than that, I’ve always gotten the feeling that they’re eager to work with me to solve my problem, rather than be a bottleneck like many customer support centers.

Easy Setup

After registration, Arvixe automatically sets up your account and establishes your server based on your preferences. In the case of shared servers, the results are immediate, and you can get started building your site right away. The only step you need to take is changing your DNS pointers with your registrar, which is well documented and explained.

Arvixe supports a wide variety of platforms you can work with from out of the box solutions like WordPress to custom built frameworks like Rails or PHP-based sites. Many of these systems are installed in just a few clicks, and I’ve never run into any issues getting a new site up and running as quickly as possible.

Free Domain and Site Transfer

This is an excellent bonus Arvixe provides in addition to their hosting. One of my pet peeves in the hosting world is how many companies claim to provide “low-ticket” prices but then nickel and dime their users at every step of the process. Site transfer fees are fairly common in the hosting world, and the fact that Arvixe provides it for free keeps them a cut above the rest.

That means that if you already have a site up and running, it is free and easy to transfer it over to the Arvixe platform.

If you don’t already have a site, Arvixe offers you a free domain with your purchase. Since high quality .com or .co domains generally run in the $12-16 dollar range, that’s like getting 3-4 months of hosting for free.

Lots of Extras

I’ve already mentioned some of the great bonuses Arvixe provides above, from the Google/Yahoo adwords voucher to the free domain, and if you’re technically minded there are dozens more file managers, development managers, and optimizers included for free as well.

There are also a few paid extras that will let you enhance your site as your business grows. These include options like getting a dedicated IP address, shared or private servlets, or SSL Certificate. For a new business, these items may not be on your mind just yet, but as you expand it’s good to know the options are there.

Conclusion: Arvixe Web Hosting Ratings are Strong and True

Arvixe is a great company that provides an excellent, low cost hosting option for individual users and small businesses. The company has been around for more than a decade and has built a solid reputation among many webmasters for using state of the art server technology that keeps your site online and loading fast, as well as provides strong customer support should the need arise.

In addition to the primary hosting service, there are some great bonuses included with new purchases, including a free domain and $175 worth of Google/Yahoo adwords vouchers, two things that the make the hosting pay for itself in no time.

My favorite thing about Arvixe, however, is that I’ve never felt as if they’re trying to cheat or trick me into buying servers I don’t need or stack on extra fees. That peace of mind alone is worth far more than any extra bells and whistles.

To try it out just click the link below, and you can have your new site setup in no time!