This HostBlast review is based on my actual experience when I used their service. Update: In the end, just like HostBlast, PrewebHost did not deliver. Downtimes became awfully frequent and longer, my site goes offline for up to 3 hours each time. I’m now using Hostinger. Hopefully, I don’t need to switch again.
Did you know the acceptable website downtime is only 8 hours and 45 minutes per year? If a hosting service provider promises 99.9% uptime and your site goes offline for several minutes or hours on any day in one year, there’s absolutely no reason to put up with that web host.
No Big Deal, I Guess
I registered my domain name and signed up for web hosting last October 20. I already have a .ME domain but I’m not happy with the upcoming renewal cost so I got a .COM from Porkbun on the same day I signed up with HostBlast. Everything seemed fine until I got notified by Pingdom on October 31, 7:56 PM. My website went offline. I was nowhere near my PC at the time and I assumed HostBlast was merely doing some quick maintenance. I thought it will not stay down for a long time so I shrugged off the downtime alert. Also, I was busy watching Netflix.
The following day, I checked my phone and something didn’t feel right. There’s no email from Pingdom that my website came back on at all. I logged in to my HostBlast account to check the network status, it says my server is online and there are no issues. I thought maybe something in my WordPress installation was causing the issue, like incompatible plugins. When I tried to get access to cPanel from the client page, I couldn’t get in. Whatever caused the issue wasn’t my fault, so I opened a support ticket on November 1, 6:33 AM to see what’s going on. I waited for hours to get a response to my ticket and even kept their chat window open the whole time. No one replied. I created another ticket at 7:07 PM to stop my service and requested a refund following their 30-day money-back guarantee.
HostBlast Review: Don’t Do Me Like This
Never received a response for the downtime ticket, as for the service cancellation request, they replied the next day November 2, 1:18 PM. Not to accuse HostBlast of anything, however, it seems that I only got their attention by opening a PayPal dispute. I read old reviews online that this company is notorious for leaving support tickets unanswered for days and I didn’t believe them at first because HostBlast was answering my tickets promptly during my first week of service. I only had to wait maybe 4 hours tops to get a response. Perhaps the company has a better support team now. After only 12 days of using their service, this happened. As of this writing, I still do not understand why my site went down for over 22 hours. I consider it a blessing that HostBlast showed their true colors within the money-back period.
Thank You, Next
HB ignored me for too long it was enough for me to cancel my service, find another hosting provider and set up my account with PrewebHost. I gave HostBlast plenty of time to look into my support ticket but I got no explanation from them. They say you get what you pay for, and it makes little sense to expect the same level of service from more expensive web hosts. However, not all cheap web hosting services suck. A few minutes of maintenance downtime from any hosting service is fine. Unannounced service downtime which lasted for over 22 hours with no explanation is not acceptable. Even for a cheap hosting provider. How hard is it to send a quick email or even post a single tweet just to let their users know about the situation?
What’s the acceptable website downtime again? 8 hours and 45 minutes in a year. Let’s see how it goes with PrewebHost. So far, I have no complaints. Website uptime and support are awesome, and it doesn’t feel like I’m only on a $1 hosting with them. I would love to stay with PrewebHost if they can keep up the level of service I’m getting now.
I hope you find this HostBlast review helpful.
