HostUpon Review

HostUpon is a Canada-based web hosting service provider that’s been in the business for more than a decade now. It touts itself as being a web host for all kinds of websites, from personal to business of all sizes. It’s wide product range certainly adds weight to this.

On the surface, HostUpon starts off well with standard shared hosting paired with a WordPress-specific option. The decision to focus on these two areas here does help reduce potential user information overload and keeps the product offering more streamlined.

The bright side of their shared hosting and WordPress plans is that you get access to a rich host of developer tools. There’s almost everything you could need here from Perl and Python to Ruby on Rails.

What is a major letdown is that HostUpon seems to be doing what GoDaddy has done with its SSL. Since they want to sell their own SSL certificates to users, they do not offer support for free third-party SSL like Let’s Encrypt.

Not only do you need to install them manually, but renewal is manual as well. That is a major headache to be putting on users of shared hosting just for SSL. In contrast, most other web hosting providers today happily offer free SSL integration.

Moving up the scale, HostUpon also seems to have kept its Virtual Private Server (VPS) and Cloud plans separate and distinct. This seems in contrast to the now-common practice of web hosts offering Cloud-based VPS. While this is technically correct, I’m not sure if it’s really worth maintaining separate SKUs for.

On a more strategic level, HostUpon seems to be very traditional in its pricing structure. Prices scale-up in very notable increments as you move between the various types of hosting available. In honesty, I find this preferable to those that try to muddy the waters to boost sales in specific categories.

Shared hosting starts off at a relatively low price of $2.95/mo for the entry level plan, while VPS starts at a more significant $49.95/mo. Yet entry-level VPS plans here offer the same (even if dedicated) memory allowance as the cheapest shared hosting they have – a mere 512MB for a cost that’s over 16 times higher.

As a whole I feel that users should approach HostUpon plans with caution. Certainly, there are some highlights such as an extensive developer tool library and low cost of entry. However, basic issues such as manual free SSL installation might serve as a deterrent for those really new to web hosting.