FastComet and Falcoda Internet provide reliable and affordable web hosting – does it matter?
If you’re starting a website, reliable web hosting is just as important as creating a good domain name. But I guess you know that, which is why you’re reading this FastComet review and Falcoda Internet review!
Web hosting is an important part of running a website. If the website’s not working, then your choice of domain name becomes irrelevant as no one can access your website anyway.
Don’t make the mistake of using a random web host.
Your website could become inaccessible, or you could be hit by increased fees or poor customer service.
Instead, if you’ve planned at the outset to spend time looking for reliable affordable web hosting, then…
Great, this Fastcomet review and Falcoda Internet review is for you!
How easy is it to find reliable and affordable web hosting?
Or rather, how easy is it to find cheap, good value web hosting that’s still reliable, that includes these criteria:
- zero or minimal fees
- ease of use
- a good amount of storage space and bandwidth so that you don’t have to pay upgrade fees too soon
- reliable uptime and web hosting features
- a domain name with domain privacy (ie the web host’s contact details would show in the public WHOIS domain directory instead of yours, even though you’re the registered owner)
TIP: don’t assume that your contact details definitely aren’t visible on the WHOIS directory websites just because you’ve purchased domain privacy with your domain; I’ve noticed that domain privacy activation varies for each web host. For instance, some may activate it for you when registering your domain name, whilst others expect you to go to your website’s control panel and manually select the domain privacy option.
- no forced ads
- one-click installer
- WordPress (as it’s one of the easiest website creators for beginners to use, and has the most support)
- free, quality customer service and technical help
- clear tutorials
- good reviews
If this is your first website and your plan is to “learn along the way”, then these web hosting features should be your minimum requirements – the domain name privacy is according to preference.
It’s not that easy to find a good web host – and then I found two!
FastComet and Falcoda
You can’t assume to have found reliable affordable web hosting just by glancing at the web host’s home page. There’s so much more to consider – not least any hidden charges mentioned in the small-print.
I researched as many web hosts as possible by visiting their websites and noting if they had the required features. If they matched, then I read user reviews. If the majority were positive (which was quite rare!), I asked the web host further questions via LiveChat, noting their speed of response and knowledge of their product.
To be honest, there weren’t many web hosts for which I even reached the stage of LiveChat.
This surprised me, as I hadn’t expected the seemingly basic criteria for reliable affordable web hosting to be so difficult to attain.
The most reliable affordable web hosts reviewed: FastComet and Falcoda Internet
Of the web hosts I researched, FastComet and Falcoda Internet were the best.
FastComet and Falcoda Internet are ideal if you need help setting up your first website, or if you want to seamlessly transfer your current website to more reliable web hosting with better uptime and features. Both score highly for their customer support and reliability, and their user reviews are excellent.
Perfect for smaller websites, and great for those that are fully operational with thousands of daily visitors.
FastComet review
FastComet is based in San Francisco, USA. They have independent data centres in Amsterdam, New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Singapore and London. All hosting packages are payable monthly or yearly with a 45 day money back guarantee. This includes a free domain for life and, at the time of writing, a “buy one account, get one free” offer.
Fastcomet doesn’t tie you into a contract, so you’re free to cancel your service at any time with no extra charges. Even the renewal price remains the same as the low sign-up price and they provide free website transfer, optimization and security services.
The daily and weekly backups include files, databases and emails. You can restore your website, if needed, from a point-in-time recovery snapshot, completely free of charge. However, there is a minimal yearly fee for domain privacy.
FastComet provide free one-click installation of over 150 open source applications, such as Joomla, Magento and WordPress, as well as templates, modules and themes.
What’s it like using FastComet?
FastComet’s free video tutorials are really helpful when setting up your website and their tech support’s always available. If you’re a beginner like me, you’ll soon appreciate and make full use of their free customer service, LiveChat and 24/7 technical support departments.
I couldn’t fault FastComet – they exceeded my expectations in all areas: pricing, web hosting features, customer service and tech support.
FastComet web hosting’s reliable service, helpful support and good value fees
Check out all the reviews recommending FastComet.
Use my << FastComet link >> to easily set up your hosting account and get all these benefits:
- great value pricing on all hosting packages
- free domain for life
- buy one get one free web hosting or a free SEO package (if web hosting paid yearly)
and - free web hosting for three months when you refer one person, or free web hosting forever when you refer five people
When you’re happy with a product, it’s easier to refer it to others!
It’s quick and easy to open your account and/or transfer your existing website, with FastComet’s LiveChat and technical support always close to hand.
Falcoda review
Falcoda Internet’s a UK company specialising in “affordable, fast and reliable web hosting, massive storage space and a large monthly bandwidth allowance [and] feature packed control panels.” [source: http://www.falcoda.co.uk/
aboutus.php/].
Falcoda’s a recommended web host with lots of positive customer reviews.
Its web hosting packages are affordable and renewable at the same low price, which is perfect if you’re on a budget. At the time of writing (March 2015), when buying two years’ web hosting in advance, you get 25% off the price. For three years’ web hosting, you get 33.3% off the price. Apart from the 83p per month plan, the renewal price even includes domain privacy and a forever free .co.uk, .me.uk or .org.uk domain.
What’s it like using Falcoda Internet?
Although I can tell from reviews that Falcoda’s more than capable of handling large websites, what I liked about this web host is that the Customer Service people aren’t in a rush to brush over all my “beginner” questions – they’ll happily offer tips and suggestions via LiveChat and help fix website issues.
Website up-time’s usually excellent – my website’s rarely, if ever, had any downtime. When it has, it’s been for a very short time.
The control panel isn’t as “pretty” as the standard cPanel that FastComet provides, but it’s still full featured and easy to use.
Other Web Hosts
In my opinion, FastComet and Falcoda Internet offer the best reliable and affordable web hosting. But, in case your criteria differs from mine, here’s a web hosting list which mainly compares storage space, bandwidth and fees. These represent some of the companies I researched in March 2015, but which didn’t match all the search criteria.
Do check their websites and user reviews for more information and current pricing.
Free domain
Even if your website isn’t blocked, you may find that your website isn’t getting as many hits from your target audience because search engines assume your content is directed towards your TLD’s Country instead.
Some Countries such as Tokelau (.tk), Mali (.ml), Gabon (.ga), Central African Republic (.cf) and Equitorial Guinea (.gq) have issued permanently free top level domains (“TLDs”) to promote their Countries.
Freenom.com is perhaps the best known provider of these free TLDs, however, before choosing these, be aware of possible pitfalls in their use.
Free Web Hosting
Freehostingnoads.net, Freehostinghero.com, uHostfull.com, Atspace.co.uk – these offer free hosting with limited but sufficient amounts of storage space and bandwidth, no forced ads, but exclude a free domain.
Paid Web Hosting
Provider | Storage Space /Bandwith | Monthly or Yearly Cost | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
GoDaddy SiteGround Hostgator | 100GB/unlimited 10GB/unlimited unlimited | First year minimal fee | These are well-known and popular web hosting providers. Note: initial cheap price and free domain often reverts to full price at renewal. |
One | 15GB/unlimited | £1.38 per month | £10.80 set up fee. Domain privacy not allowed. Package is free for the first year for UK companies/individuals. |
Web Hosting UK | 10GB/100GB | £5.60 per month | Includes free domain name and SpamExperts Spam Filter. 99.95% uptime guarantee, 30 day money back guarantee and 24/7/365 support. |
UK2 | 500MB/1GB | £3.95 per month (or £0.99 per month with 2 year package) | Hosts one website, and includes control panel and file manager. Sells .com domains for £3.49 (renewal price: £10.99). |
webfreehosting | 1GB/5GB Unlimited | Free $1.99 per month | Only the business package at $4.49 includes free domain. |
Hostica | "plenty" "plenty" | $1 per month (renewal $2.49) $5.95 | Hosts one website. Includes $1 domain name registration for one domain per new account in the first year. Hosts 10 websites. Note: Hostica define 'plenty" of disk space as being "enough" for your website's traffic, rather than being unlimited. |
HeartInternet | 5GB/30GB | £2.49 per month | £9.99 set up fee, with additional fees for mobile website builder, security and virus scanning. Hosting excludes database features such as MySQL, subdomains, website builder and many of the one-click install apps such as Wordpress and Joomla. |
Compila | 5GB/unlimited | £18 per year | UK domain with every UK plan, chargeable after the first year. 60 day money back guarantee and a 20% discount on prices. |
EasySpace | 20GB/unlimited | £2 per month | 7 day money back guarantee. Free domain. |
Note: this review is a general resource, not intended to be professional advice.
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