TMDHosting review

TMDHosting is a US-based web hosting provider which entered the market in 2007. At first they were focused on open source hosting but they have subsequently expanded their offer to include a full range of platforms, technologies and additional features. Therefore, no matter what hosting type and plan you might be looking for, they will undoubtedly have something to meet your needs.

TMDHosting’s main office is located in Orlando, Florida and they currently have offices all over the world together with seven data centers. These are located in Phoenix and Chicago (US), London (UK), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Tokyo (Japan), Sydney (Australia) and Singapore (Singapore). Placements of all data centers are marked on the map given on TMDHosting’s main website together with recommended locations for potential users. 

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Even though TMDHosting isn’t as famous as other web hosting providers such as Bluehost or DreamHost, they have built a strong customer base and have been getting some media attention in the last few years. It surely had something to do with the complete remodeling of their business structure. That led to an upgrade of their dedicated server network and the addition of more powerful VPS and cloud hosting plans (but at a lower than usual cost) to their standard offer. 

Their main website seems appealing and well organized enough, but the live chat window has been constantly popping out and startling us with an irritating sound. Even if it isn’t a major issue, by all means, users could perfectly get by without it. 

Although TMDHosting has an official blog, it appears to contain mostly self-promoting material and doesn’t seem to be updated since the July of 2018. Therefore, if they are still looking for things to improve about their business presentation, the blog might be a good place to start. 

Plans and pricing

The promotional offer, together with its main traits and details about discounts, will be presented prominently on the landing page. If that doesn’t fit your needs, you can select a hosting type (shared, cloud, WordPress, VPS, reseller or dedicated hosting) that works for you and for each of them you’ll be offered a few plans. The most popular one will be highlighted together with the one that is considered to be of best value in relation to its price and features on offer.

The least expensive shared hosting plan, Starter,  will start at $4.95 (currently on sale for $2.95) per month and will get you a free domain, Let's Encrypt SSL, cPanel and unmetered bandwidth as well as unlimited SSD space. 

Even though TMDHosting doesn’t offer a free trial, there is a generous 60-days money-back guarantee for most plans, which will give you plenty of time to decide if this provider is the right choice for you. 

As for the payment methods, TMDHosting accepts credit cards, PayPal or direct bank transfer, which is more than we are accustomed to.

Ease of use

Once you select a desired hosting plan, you’ll be able to choose a new domain or use an existing one. There is a large variety of both country-specific and generic domain names, which is always a welcome sight.

After that, you can start creating your TMDHosting account. The process will require you to supply quite standard personal information, generate a password and select a paying method. Additionally, you can choose a hosting server location among the six listed ones, and the nearest one will be pointed out. You will be able to see the charge for monthly, annual, biennial or triennial plans and choose the one you desire. Not surprisingly, if you choose a triennial plan, as an example, it would cost you about three times less for every month, instead of choosing one monthly plan after another. If you need any extra services TMDHosting provides, such as those related to search engines or security, you’ll have to part with additional dollars for it.

Finally, you can review the details of your order and purchase your plan. Considering that every plan comes with the cPanel i.e. the industry standard one, users that are already familiar with its layout won’t have any problems finding their way around this one. Even if you are a first-timer, the administration of your newly created website will be easy enough. WordPress is only one click away and in addition to that you can get Weebly website builder, a very user-friendly solution that comes free of charge. Magento, Softaculous, Joomla, Open Cart and more than 300 other apps can be yours after a one-click installation, and toll-free daily backups are the most welcome bonus. 

Speed and experience

After putting TMDHosting’s main website to the GTmetrix test, we got a mixed bag of results when it comes to their speed. The time it took to fully load the page was 4.4 seconds, which is superb in comparison to the average result of 8.1. In addition, total page size is mere 1.93MB, which certainly helped the page to load faster. However, the number of requests it took was 108, which is well above the average of 89. 

TMDHosting promises 99.99% uptime guarantee and keeps that promise, at least according to our uptime test. During our month-long testing period of TMDHosting’s main website, the results showed no evidence of downtime and only a few variations in response time. Taking all of these into account, we can conclude that most users should be content at least with the performance of their website. 

Support

TMDHosting describes their customer support team as the most dedicated one, and rightly so, since they are in fact available 24/7/365, at least through tickets. They guarantee that all questions asked will be answered within 15 minutes, and based on our experience, they have delivered on that promise.

Additionally, you are able to reach out to their team via live chat or at toll-free UK and US telephone numbers, but only when sales are concerned. Their routine services include free application installation, upgrade and integration handled by the specialists, and the same can be said for installation of templates, plugins and more.

When it comes to self-help services, they provide a knowledgebase, which can be described as such only by its title, since it looks and functions as a forum in all aspects. However, this is not a key issue here, but rather the fact that the knowledgebase doesn’t seem to be used since 2018. There are several lists, one of them titled Hot Questions, but all the questions found there are at least two or three years old. Some of them were answered in a detailed manner resembling a tutorial with suitable pictures, yet others got rather brief and generic responses. Searching through different categories or the most used tags will get you answers (since not a single question was left without a reply), but this might take a while and all links to video tutorials seem to lead nowhere. For these reasons, you are probably better off contacting the customer support team directly. 

The competition

Both TMDHosting and HostDime are US-based web hosting providers with a great deal of experience, fairly good reputation and data centers all over the globe. However, HostDime is more geared towards larger businesses, while TMDHosting is able to provide simpler and less pricey hosting plans for beginners or those running less demanding business. 

TMDHosting has a serious competitor in a fellow US-based provider that goes by the name Hostgator. Both of them offer a wide variety of hosting options, add-ons and features for budget-friendly prices. Having said that, Hostgator offers various self-help options including a well-organized and useful knowledgebase, while with TMDHosting you’ll be forced to get in touch with the support team. 

Bluehost is another tough competitor based in the same country as TMDHosting. Both providers have a lot to offer to businesses of different sizes and affordable prices. Still, much like Hostgator, Bluehost has much more developed self-help options and one of the best knowledgebases we have encountered so far. 

TMDHosting and 123 Reg are pretty similar, although the latter one is UK-based and more oriented towards the UK market while TMDHosting has the international market in mind. Besides that, 123 Reg prices can add up and jump after a year, which is not the case with TMDHosting. While 123 Reg does offer a 14-day money-back guarantee, TMDHosting’s guarantee for most plans covers as much as 60 days, meaning that the users will have quite enough time to decide if the service fits their needs. 

Final verdict

After we have witnessed everything TMDHosting can offer and at what prices, we can say it is a diamond in the rough worth keeping in mind when searching for an ideal host. Yet, to stand out among well-known hosting giants such as Bluehost and Hostgator, TMDHosting will need to take their services to the next level.

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