Fasthosts Review for Businesses

Fasthosts is based in Gloucestershire where it provides two data centres and is a popular choice with many UK businesses setting up their websites. Whether you just want to run a blog or have an ecommerce site you need to develop, Fasthosts has the capacity to take care of it all. The hosting company offers a number of standard packages and backs this up with a healthy and responsive UK help desk available 24/7, something that makes up for the fact that they don’t run a decent forum for users as other host suppliers do.

Fasthosts have been around for a while, created in 1999 and like to see themselves as innovators within the industry. They are part of the United Internet Group which has access to over 70,000 servers worldwide.

Packages from Fasthosts

As you would expect from a longstanding hosting service, Fasthosts provide a wide range of packages to suit all pockets, from their Cluster Web Hosting platform that starts as low as £1.99 for the basic offering to their Dedicated Web Hosting that can set you back as much as £299 a month. Hosting can operate with both Linux and Windows and ecommerce sites are backed up with dedicated SSL certificates that provide a high level of security.

Fasthosts Web Site Builder

The company provides everything that a business needs to set up their website including domain registration and a dedicated web site builder. Like most packages on the market it’s easy to use with plenty of drag and drop features and templates to choose from if you don’t have a web designer in your back pocket.

Unlimited Bandwidth

As with practically every other web hosting service nowadays, all packages come with unlimited bandwidth which means that you shouldn’t have to worry about spikes in customer usage whilst your business grows. Having said that, the question of offering unlimited bandwidth is more of a marketing ploy and the proof is generally in the pudding.

Resources

The Fasthosts website has a large number of helpful articles and tutorials that make it reasonably easy to find the information you are looking for. They also have a 24/7 help team that are actually based in the UK and you can live chat on their site if you need to. The only thing they don’t have is a forum where other users of their service can contact each other and exchange views or ideas.

Ease of Use

Fasthosts can be a little more difficult to navigate compared to other sites currently operating in the UK including Wix and GoDaddy but provide a full range of packages to suit most needs. Perhaps if you are a complete beginner, it may not be the host for you but if you have a modicum of knowledge about websites and know what you are looking for it ticks all the boxes.

Downside

There have been some complaints in the past about Fasthosts handling of accounts with people finding cancellation difficult and debits being made from credit cards. It is a peculiarly English thing that many companies hold customers to extended 12 or even 18 month contracts. As with anything, you need to check the small print on any contract you sign digitally and that means reading it properly, asking questions if you are unsure what something means.

Summary

Overall, Fasthosts provide a full hosting service for individuals and businesses and match this with all the tools you need to create your website. With the number of packages available you need to think hard about which suits your business. Scalability isn’t a problem and you have access to a full help desk if you have problems.