Bogus Excessive Usage Claims

Be very wary of HostMonster. They recently started a "Terms of Service Compliance Department" and have shut my Web site down three times in the last two months because of what they call excessive database size. The problem is that they have two measurements of database size: CPanel and phpMyAdmin. CPanel routinely reports massively larger database size than phpMyAdmin, often on the order of 2Gb larger. HostMonster has told me to use phpMyAdmin as the more accurate indicator of size, but they use the CPanel figure to shut down the database. I've kept a daily record of the differences and sent those records to them on a daily basis asking for them to help me understand what's going on and how to remedy it. They have never responded. When I call them, they talk nebulously about page cache sizes in CPanel and delays in updating, but never give any real explanantion. Ultimately, every time they have shut my Web site down, they have reopened it -- even though I have done nothing to change the size of my database. Somehow it miraculously gets smaller in CPanel just as the result of my calling them. If you don't want to get repeated, threatening emails about your database size and have your Web site repeatedly shut down, look elsewhere for hosting.

Biggest Pro: All pro's outweighed by the cons
Biggest Con: Constantly deactivating the site with no real explanation

Spamming the hell out of me.

My hosting account is nearing the end of the subscription period. I wound up not using the account because I decided to go with another concept. Now that the account is nearly expired I am getting spam email from host monster at least once per day, usually more to renew the account. I have written them and told them I don't want to renew the account, stop spamming me. They refuse to stop spamming me, sending me emails in response to my demand that make no sense. One of their reps even stated that they'd resolved the issue when they talked to me on the phone.... I've not talked to them on the phone.

This company is terrible. Often the MySQL servers are slow or down, the sites are slow to load, and customer service appears to be both on drugs and incompetent. Avoid Host Monster at all costs.

Biggest Pro: Cheap
Biggest Con: Poor hosting, horrible customer service, incoherent email replies from customer service.

The Worst Web Hosting you can ever get!

I have had a very bad experience with Hostmonster! In the beginning, they were very friendly and responsive. But after one year, and with the first problem I faced, they were totally non-reliable!

I accuse them by running some dirty business, in which they create a security problem for you and then deactivate your account. And when you ask their support to solve it, they refer you to hire a "specific" web security guy (His name is Thomas Raef, from wewatchyourwebsite.com). This guy is going to waste your time pretending that he is doing a scanning job and after 2 or 3 days, he will tell you that your site is CLEAN! But, you will end up with non-functional website and then, he will disappear. After that, you will go through a non-ending cycle of fighting with Support & Terms of Services Department to transfer or migrate your site to another reliable host.

This was my experience, and I am ready to prove what I said!

I will never recommend them at all!

Biggest Pro: Email Features and cPanel
Biggest Con: Worst Customer support, Aggressive Terms of Services Department

Can no longer trust them

I have generally been happy with Hostmonster over the past 4 years, but they just removed an option on CPanel that I use frequently.

From today, I can no longer download backups of individual mySQL databases.

Seems to me that they are getting greedy - selling services, then removing features which they want you to pay for separately.

This is a troubling sign. No explanation, and treating customers poorly.

I accept all the limitations of shared hosting, but arbitrarily removing features that were part of the service I have already paid for is unacceptable. Not that they seem to care.

Biggest Pro: Cheap & easy, good value for money
Biggest Con: Treating their customers poorly

Bad for business - Good for personal use ONLY

My name is Tim Rice with True Call International. We use hostmonster for disaster recovery purposes in the event that our datacenter has problems due to a disaster. Hostmonster servers are OVER SUBSCRIBED and over utilized. The Linux Load is very high (around 16.0 – 24.0). Typically you want to see a Linux load under 2.0. The CPU idle is about 2 – 5% most of the time meaning about 95 – 98% utilized. If you have a personal website and don't mind that it takes a few seconds to load, then hostmonster is a good solution. Don't dare host a business website (especially an ecommerce site) at hostmonster as it will fail PCI DSS scans and cause customers to leave due to load times. For business sites, pay a little extra $ and go to a provider that has a lower customer to server ratio count. Always remember, you get what you pay for (Most the time) Thanks Tim Rice True Call International – Voip Service provider

Biggest Pro: Cheap
Biggest Con: Slow as snails

STAY FAR FAR FAR AWAY FROM HOSTMONSTER!!

This is one of those companies that seem to great at first.. You sign-up, everything seems as expected, you spend months and money developing out your sites/pages and then one day they put a message on all of your pages that your site is down for some sort of bogus excessive usage.

If you have a site that gets any traffic at all they will break their agreement with you, they will NOT be able to justify their reasoning or answer your questions appropriately and then they tell you that in fine print in your terms of service it says "Hostmonster.com has the right to take your website down for any reason at any time without warning."

THE PLANS ARE NOT UNLIMITED... ITS FALSE ADVERTISING WITH A CLAUSE THAT SAYS "WE CAN TAKE YOUR SITE DOWN AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON WE CHOOSE"

If that's not bad enough, they will NOT let you back into your sites to correct their requests for downsizing files. They told me I couldn't get into my administration pages to determine which SQL databases I could afford to remove but instead should hire a web master to consult me on an alternative way to delete files while the sites are not accessible. They employ kids with terribly rude attitudes and no idea what customer service means.

They are a real piece of work and could care less if you're a loyal customer for more than 3 years. They think they are too big to fail and laugh at your frustration when they cause their customer's time and money.

.......Give them one dollar of your money and you will gravely regret it!!

Biggest Con: THEY ARE A SCAM - WILL COST YOU TONS OF TIME AND MONEY - STAY AWAY!

No security always hacked dont go here

No security always hacked dont go here,
buylowmakebig.com from los angeles, ca usa
my site is always hacked and always told to update my password. im running out of password, almost every month. have to delete everything including my data base, nothing to salvage they have no help in cleaning. now moving to ipage.

Biggest Pro: none
Biggest Con: no security always hacked

Down one a week

I am with hostmonster for 2 years now and I am think I change it. All my sites are down at least one time every week during the day when the traffic is good. They always have problems with servers or the network. Avoid them and pay a little bit more and get a good hoster.

Terrible support

I am using hostmonter for 6 months.
Everything was OK.
Now I installed wiki and got cpu throttling 5-30 second per hour.
As I was going to install forum in addition, I applied to hostmonster team.
They proposed me high cpu server for $19.
After moving I had cpu throttling 500-1500 second per hour.
Even after removing wiki and DB I had cpu throttling 30 second per hour.
I asked support for help, but nobody even tried to fix something.
So $19 server is much more worse than $6 server.
Resume:
If your project is small, hostmonster is good for you.
Otherwise, you should search something else.
And advice, do not buy $19 server at hostmonster.
It is cheating, move instead to dedicated server.

Used to love host monster, recently left them

Host monster started out great. I used them for about 5 years and had absolutely no problems. If any tech issues came up they were by far the best company I have worked with for tech support. Their staff is always available and always willing to walk you through the most mundane and rookie problems to get you back running. All of this stopped about 6-8 months ago. It seems the passion has left that company (layoffs? New leadership? who konws..).

I also started having some real problems with security and spam in my email accounts. I have tried numerous times to rectify the problem with them but don't have a solution. Then my ip was blacklisted and I couldn't get help fixing that. Another host walked me through the process of fixing everything and I have since switched over to them.

If you need a simple host to handle your small site or blog, these guys are the choice. If you're running anything business related, go elsewhere. You get what you pay for with Hostmonster.

Biggest Pro: price, support system, form, reliability
Biggest Con: confusion in cpanel, security, security, security