THE BEST DEALS OF THE DAY
Heart Internet was founded by Tim and Jonathan Brealey in 2004 in Nottingham. Since 2011, they have been part of Host Europe Group (HEG), a UK domain registration and hosting company, which was in turn acquired by US hosting company GoDaddy in 2017. Over the years, they received several awards for their work. including the PC Pro Award for Best Web Hosting in 2013, 2014 and 2015, MicroMart's Editor's Pick for Best Web Hosting in 2014, and the ISPA Award for Best Shared Hosting in 2015.
The company's main data center is located in Leeds, UK, and hosts all of its web hosting packages, all premium hosting packages, its virtual private servers, all its customer and reseller details, as well as other data. . They have a secondary data center in the EU at an undisclosed location, but this only houses some of their hybrid servers and most of the dedicated servers purchased after 2016.
Host Internet offers a decent range of features, but their SSL certificates are only available on more expensive plans, and most discounts are only applicable if you pay annually.
Award
Heart Internet web hosting prices start at € 2.99 per month (+ VAT) when invoiced annually and using a promo code, and that's already reduced from € 3.99 / month.
If you want to pay monthly, you will need to donate € 4.99 for the most basic plan that includes a website, free domain name, basic migration, 100 GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth (this is the case for all schemes).
The most expensive plans include unlimited storage, while the two most expensive plans also include a free simple SSL certificate, but only for the first year. Heart Internet only accepts cards and does not offer refunds or free trials.
Ease of use
When opening your account with Heart Internet, you will need to provide your name, date of birth, address, and phone number. Heart Internet only offers service in 23 countries, mainly North America and Western Europe, as well as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, not in other African countries or in North America, South or Asia. For security reasons, you will also need to set up a security question.
Your Customer Area immediately offers you new things to buy. For example, if you haven't completed your purchase, you will still have the advertised cPanel hosting, but this time for € 3.99 / month billed annually without the promo code.
While their website is fairly clean and modern in appearance, the client area evokes the feeling of being ten years old, as it looks like it hasn't been visually updated in a long time. But cPanel is just a few clicks away, and we're already greeted with a much more familiar layout. You can use a file manager or even FTP to upload your manually created website. There is also a SiteDesigner available at an additional price (a basic plan will cost you € 5.99 per month, while the unlimited plan costs € 9.99 per month, and both are 16% off if you pay annually).
Heart Internet also offers WordPress, Joomla, Magneto, OpenCart, and other applications with the one-click install feature. Although WordPress hosting appears separately on your website, it doesn't seem to offer anything different than regular web hosting, and it even comes with the same discount code, so it's probably just a title change.
Speed and experience
In terms of speed, Heart Internet performed well in our GTmetrix test, which showed that it took 6.5 seconds to fully load its main website (vs. 8 seconds on average) and only 40 requests (while the average is 88).
All Heart Internet web hosting plans have a 99,9% uptime guarantee. However, that doesn't show if your data centers are Tier III or IV by Uptime Institute standards, but at the very least, they shouldn't exceed around nine hours of downtime per year. During our long two-week trial period, the main Heart Internet website had absolutely no downtime. Although the period is short, it is certainly a great sign for the future.
Support
Heart Internet offers a support database, separated into eight different categories, but it seems very dated and not really comprehensive. For example, the Accounts and Billing section covers questions like "How can I get help from the Heart Internet Customer Service team?" "Y" How do I change my Heart Internet account password? But not if they offer trials or refunds.
If you need more help than this database, you'll be prompted to "contact customer service", but this link takes you to the same "How can I get help?" article. Which walks you through the exact same steps again before telling you that you can call them, use live chat, or submit a ticket. If you call, you will need to find your PIN code in your customer area so they can verify your identity. There is no forum for users.
Competition
Unlike Heart Internet, Bluehost is a US-based hosting provider - it's significantly cheaper, but comes with a price increase afterward. It offers high-quality customer support, while both providers are WordPress compatible.
In terms of price and functionality, Heart Internet and 123 Reg seem identical (it is true that they are both subsidiaries of the Host Europe group, so you can expect similarities). However, 123 Reg offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, as well as an excellent support section.
If you're a beginner who relies on guides and how-tos, Hostgator is a significantly better option than Heart Internet, offering them in both written and video form. In terms of price, Hostgator is also a bit cheaper.
Catalyst2 is much cheaper than Heart Internet, but it is also much more limited (for example, the cheapest plan only offers 5GB of data transfer per month, while Heart Internet has no such restrictions). They also have a 30 day money back guarantee.
Final verdict
While Heart Internet has a decent range of products, their pricing and lack of extensive support make them a less attractive option alongside Hostgator and Bluehost, which offer many more user-friendly features, ongoing support, and lower prices.
THE BEST DEALS OF THE DAY