Hostmonster Downtime
In this article, we will review Hostmonster downtime and uptime rates, to help those who are considering using Hostmonster as their new web hosting provider. A hosting provider's downtime and uptime is an essential aspect for you to consider when deciding whether you can trust them to host your website.
Hostmonster's website advertises a "99.9% Network Uptime Guarantee". What does a 99.9% uptime guarantee mean? It means that the measured performance of this host's servers does not exceed a 0.1% downtime at any given time (an hour, a day, a month, a year, and so on).
What does Hostmonster themselves say about their uptime? They say that they try to maintain a 99.9% uptime across all of their 200 plus shared servers (they currently accommodate over half a million hosting subscribers that share their 200 plus servers). Does Hostmonster have any proof to show the guarantee that they state on their site? As of yet, they do not have any visual proof to show for this guarantee.
What do their customers say? Their customers say that Hostmonster has truly reliable servers that almost don't experience downtime. Most people say that they experience small downtime (several minutes to a couple of hours) approximately once every few months, which is an extremely high server performance for a host. All in all, Hostmonster's customers state that this web host maintains an uptime close to 99.9%.
We need to note that there are practically no shared hosting companies out there that would offer any type of real guarantees or refunds for downtime (except for the new web hosts who may want to try to increase their small customer base). Therefore, people who require a real server uptime guarantee (that comes with proof and refunds) need to consider using dedicated servers instead of shared servers.
There is no refund from Hostmonster for downtime. The reason could be the minuscule amount of a refund that they would need to send to someone's credit card. In fact, it would be physically impossible to send a refund, since a few hours of downtime would make for a refund of less than $0.01, and a refund for 100 hours of downtime would be as little as $0.70.
If their servers are scheduled to go down, such as if they need to perform some maintenance or upgrades, they send a notice about it in advance. All in all, Hostmonster seems to come as close to perfect in server uptime as a host can. Their near-perfect uptime is combined with unlimited web space and bandwidth transfer, 24/7 customer support (including live chat and a toll-free phone number), unlimited e-mails and sub domains, free domain name, 100 MySQL databases, Fantastico, Simplescript, E-commerce, and CMS systems. They also offer discounts through Hostmonster coupon links (a 12-month package at a $4/month discount, or 24-36 month packages at a $3/month discount). Hostmonster is the host of choice for over half a million domain owners, thousands of whom have tried other web hosts in the past.