HostPro review

Launched in 2001, HostPro was the first web hosting company from Ukraine to offer cloud hosting solutions with HTTP/2 enabled, which played a significant role in their growing popularity across Europe. “Powered by excellence and strong work ethic”, HostPro made it its mission statement to take its future customer on a “care-free hosting journey”. They also want to do everything to avoid losing pace with the top-of-the-line web hosting companies while keeping up with cutting-edge technologies and servers.

HostPro’s head office is located in Kiev (Ukraine) while their data centers can be found in Ukraine, Poland, the Netherlands and the USA.

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HostPro’s international site is available in light and dark mode (to the delight of us who enjoy straining our eyes for the sake of having dark and gloomy themes). As for the languages, the international site is available in English only, while HostPro’s original site is available in Ukrainian and Russian as well. And when it comes to currency, on the international site you can find EUR and USD, while the original site offers a choice between USD and UAH.

Although both sites are similarly simplistic in style and far from being text-heavy, they provide all the necessary information regarding their services. HostPro’s official blog is, however, aimed at users from Ukraine and Russia and, thus, available in two corresponding languages. Even though the blog appears updated on a regular basis, we can’t talk much about its content since we’re not familiar with its languages (when translated everything seems pretty standard).

The same is true for most of their social media accounts (Twitter, YouTube and Instagram) with an exception of Facebook, which is at least halfway translated to English.

Plans and pricing

HostPro provides a decent number of hosting options including shared hosting, managed WordPress, cloud and VPS hosting. However, if you visit their original website, you’ll notice a few additional options as well: reseller and dedicated server hosting.  

In either case, opting for a proper plan should be a piece of cake, since all of them are carefully presented and easily comparable with each other. If you want something to work well with a personal blog or a simple site, the cheapest choice is a Linux-based shared hosting plan aptly named “Simple”. Its price ranges from $2.95 per month (if you subscribe for three years) to $4.95 per month (if you want to try it for one month only).

Whatever you decide, the plan will include the same: support for up to two sites, 10GB SSD drive, 512 MB memory for PHP and an ability to pick out a data center location. If you commit for a year or more, you’ll also get a free domain registration and a free SSL certificate.

HostPro’s original site offers 5-day free trials for all shared and reseller hosting packages and a 7-day trial for Linux-based VPS ones. In addition to this, if you decide to cancel your subscription at any point, you’ll be refunded for the unused time.

However, the international site provides no free trials, but a standard 30-day money-back guarantee.

HostPro accepts bank transfers, credit cards (Visa and MasterCard) and the following payment systems: PayPal, IBOX, City24, EasyPay, Paycell, Liqpay, Apple Pay and mobile money from Kyivstar.

Ease of use

No matter what kind of hosting services you wish to use, HostPro will make your life easier with a precise presentation of its services and all added features, including clear and flexible pricing. Most of their hosting plans come with a rather flexible billing period and you can decide between a month, three months, six months, a year, two years and three years. As expected, going for a longer period will save you some bucks in the long run.

After you make your choice about the plan, you’ll have to make another one regarding the domain name, with an option to register a new one, use your old one and update your nameservers or transfer it to HostPro. It is worth mentioning that, if you are using HostPro’s original site, this is when you’ll experience a sudden switch from English language to Ukrainian, and this is not the last time you’ll experience this annoyance. You can switch between languages on the appropriate bar or (if you don’t need some of the services that are found solely on this site) spare yourself the trouble and just use the international one.

Depending on which site you use, you’ll get cPanel or DirectAdmin as your control panel without additional charge, so that might be a turning point for some users. MultiAdmin is also available as a one-stop-solution for those running several websites, but it will cost you $72. Here, depending on the plan, you may be able to choose between multiple data center locations (although the city won’t be specified) and think about some add-ons. 

To conclude the process, you’ll be asked to create your account with HostPro by providing a number of personal information (but nothing out of the ordinary).

HostPro’s UI is a run-of-the-mill specimen of its kind in every aspect, except for the occasional trouble with the language preference and a lack of full translation. However, since you’ll be getting one of the user-friendly control panels, monitoring and managing your website should be no hassle at all. All useful open source applications (like WordPress) will be yours in an instant thanks to Softaculous one-click installer. As an alternative, you can make use of their novice-friendly website builder. 

Speed and experience

Given that HostPro provides two official websites, we tested speed performance of both of them (via GTmetrix) and came up with strikingly similar results. This should come as no surprise since they probably utilize the same data center, most likely the one in their country of origin. All the same, the results painted a picture of an utterly unremarkable performance marked with the identical GTmetrix’s grade of D (58%). Bearing in mind that HostPro points out high speed as one of their key features, this isn’t looking too good for them.

On the bright note, both websites fully loaded in the range between 2.3 and 2.9 seconds which is significantly better than the average result of 8.1, as well as the recommended one, which should be less than 3 seconds.

Since finding out anything about HostPro’s promises regarding the uptime feels like a never-ending task, we decided to test it for ourselves (of course, in alliance with UptimeRobot). After monitoring their international website over a one month period we finally got our report, and it was not exactly the best one we’ve seen. During the recorded period there were only two instances of downtime, but the longer one lasted for 3 hours and 13 minutes straight (the shorter one endured for 48 minutes) bringing down the total uptime to 99.43%, which is below industry standard.

Support

HostPro’s customer support should be available 24/7, but how it can be reached depends which of their websites you are using.  The official site features a live chat option, yet, no matter how many times we switched from one language to another, it remained presented in Ukrainian/Russian. This is likely (and for a good reason) to discourage users from other regions and feels geared towards users from Ukrainian and Russian.

Besides, you can get in touch with HostPro’s technical team by opening a support ticket, writing them an email or giving them a ring (where several numbers are available).

As for self-support options, there is a very limited FAQ section and a knowledgebase, which is (depending on what site you’re using) quite limited (consisting of 48 articles in total) or extensive but available exclusively in Ukrainian. If you come from the Ukrainian-speaking area, this will not present a problem. If not, having to translate every single text guide is most likely more trouble than it's worth.

The competition

Just like Ukrainian-based HostPro, Russia-based Beget offers pretty good and reasonably priced web hosting packages for those that value performance over aesthetics. However, although their services are placed on the international market, both providers feel geared towards users from their own countries.

Like HostPro, ZOMRO.NET is a web hosting company from Ukraine and one of the most popular ones there. If we compare them in terms of pricing, ZOMRO.NET is a clear winner, while, when it comes to features, HostPro comes out on top. However, both are somewhat oriented towards CIS countries, therefore if you don’t reside in them, you’d do well to look at other providers as well.

Evidence shows that HostGator enjoys considerable popularity with people looking for a hosting provider outside Ukraine, and quite justifiably. However, since both of its data centers are located in the USA, HostPro might be a more convenient choice for customers from Europe.

Like HostGator, Bluehost is a US-based host with a little of something for everyone. Both Bluehost and HostPro provide a wide spectrum of hosting options, some great features and 24/7 customer support. However, since Bluehost offers all its services in English it is more attractive to the international customer base.

Final verdict

In comparison with web hosting providers of a similar scope, HostPro’s entry-level plans are slightly pricier, and they contain most of the features (not all) one would expect to get at the start of a web hosting endeavor. However, although support staff is available in English as well (and round-the-clock), that is not the case with tutorials, tips and tricks, which would be very helpful, especially to less-experienced users. Another point of concern could be a lack of SLA uptime guarantee and an uninspiring performance in general.

As for packages geared towards more proficient users or those with higher demands (VPS, reseller or dedicated server hosting), there is enough to choose from and all solutions provide great value for the price.

On a last note, whether you are a nervous novice, a veteran webmaster or something in between, we highly recommend you to check out a few famous alternatives to HostPro such as Hostinger, HostGator or Bluehost before making a final decision.

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