TODAY'S BEST DEALS Launched in 1998 in Vancouver, Canada, Dotster began its success story as a domain registrar. A few years later, they would expand their services to include web hosting solutions that primarily cater to bloggers, startups, and small businesses in general. They claim their mission is to provide "powerful and reliable" hosting related services with all the online tools one would need to start or grow a successful business, and all without breaking the bank. As a testament to its success, Dotster now serves over three million customers and the number continues to grow. They also exist as part of Endurance International Group (EIG), an industry giant that also owns a host of other hosting companies like HostGator, Bluehost, HostNine, HostMonster, Arvixe and the list goes on. Dotster currently houses its servers in Burlington, MA, and the data center is equipped with fully redundant HVAC and power systems. To become a green web host, Dotster began purchasing renewable energy credits equal to 150% of the server's power consumption, which not only negates its carbon footprint, but also creates an additional 50%. In this way, each of Dotster's customers is part of a larger effort to make life on Earth a little greener. The official Dotster website is simple in style and therefore quite easy to use, although it does not exactly contain information about the company and its services. As with most similar providers in the US, the site is only available in English and prices are displayed in USD. If you're wondering about her presence on social media sites, you can find Dotster on Facebook and Twitter, though both accounts have been fast asleep since 2020.
Dotster offers three shared hosting packages to choose from (Image credit: Dotster)
Packages and prices
Trying to strike a balance between quality and price (while focusing on low cost), Dotster offers three different sized shared hosting plans. Their knowledge base suggests that VPS packages were also available, but none of them are currently showing. The cheapest of the three shared hosting plans is called "Basic" and costs €3,75 per month. However, this is the introductory price, which means it is only valid for the first service period. After this period, it will automatically renew at the regular rate. Still, this plan will give you the ability to host one website, unlimited disk space, scalable monthly bandwidth, ten MySQL databases, five FTP connections, unlimited subdomains, and an SSL certificate from Let's Encrypt. Free domain registration is also included with every plan, however it applies to a limited number of domain names and is only valid for the initial term. Dotster offers a 30-day money-back guarantee with all of its plans. However, if you received a free domain name, it is non-refundable. Payment methods supported by Dotster include all major credit cards, PayPal, and checks/money orders (which must be denominated in USD).
Ease of use
After choosing a preferred plan, you must select a billing cycle you wish to adhere to (you can choose to be billed every 12, 24, or 36 months) and click "Buy Now." This will take you to a simplistic domain registration screen where you will have to choose a new domain whether you like it or not. To use an existing registry or transfer it from another registry, you will need to contact Dotster support staff and hope they find it helpful. Either way, if you register a new domain, several of them will be available, some for just €2.99 and others, the more premium ones, up to €5,000 per year. Here you have to keep an eye on every little detail of your purchase, as Dotster uses many of the usual upsell tactics like plugins (and pre-verified ones) to make a better sale. Because of this, the registration process can be confusing, so you'd better be alert as it shouldn't take long after all. After confirming your choice, you'll need to enter your personal (and billing) information, read the terms of use, and make a purchase.
You can manage your site using vDeck as cPanel and other control panels aren't offered (Image Credit: Dotster) Unless you've purchased a VPS hosting plan (which you couldn't, as they weren't available recently), you're stuck with vDeck as your admin GUI. While not quite on par with cPanel or Plesk, vDeck is also not the black sheep of the control panel family. Its user interface is quite straightforward and seems quite easy to use, whether it's installing some of the popular apps (like WordPress) or managing your email databases and FTP transfers.
You can also purchase access to just Dotster's website builder (Image credit: Dotster) Dotster also offers three "smart" website building plans, the smallest "Starter" costs $1.99 per month, but is limited to six page websites only. All three plans provide an easy-to-use graphics editor with an SSL certificate, blogging support, social media sharing, contact management, and lead capture forms, and if you go for the higher-tier options, you'll get even more features. attractive.
We use GTmetrix to measure uptime and response time for Dotster's main site (Image credit: GTmetrix)
Speed and experience
Although the official Dotster website is silent on the subject of speed, after checking its performance (via GTmetrix) we were pleasantly surprised by a very promising result. The page fully loaded in 5,3 seconds, which is better than average, but not the most desirable result. However, all the vital web metrics (highest content paint, total block time, and cumulative layout change) were spot on, resulting in an A (95%) final score. When it comes to uptime, Dotster guarantees 99,9% uptime with all of their hosting packages (meaning all three). After monitoring the uptime performance of the official Dotster website (via UptimeRobot) for two weeks, we got a report showing 100% uptime. Although the response time varied from day to day, it was quite fast (267 milliseconds on average) and there were not a single second of downtime. Overall, both in terms of speed and stability, Dotster seems to be off to a good start.
You can find answers to common questions about web hosting in the Dotster Knowledge Base (Image credit: Dotster)
Support
If you insist on staying as independent as possible, there are several options with Dotster, including an FAQ, knowledge base, and video tutorials. The FAQ section is short and straight to the point. The knowledge base includes more than 500 articles divided into 15 categories (Domains, Websites, Files, Database, WebsiteBuilder, etc.). Although the articles themselves seem easy to follow, navigating the knowledge base is not that easy, in part due to the large number of articles featured. So the search box should save you time.
Dotster's knowledge base also has a series of video tutorials to get you started (Image credit: Dotster) Dotster's video tutorials section is visually unappealing, but can be a great help, especially for newcomers. However, if you prefer to contact a Dotster customer service person, you can do so through several channels: a 24/7 phone number, live chat, ticket, and email. If you find it more convenient, you can also communicate with them via Facebook and Twitter, as customer interaction is apparently the only remaining focus of these two accounts. We should also point out that most of the negative feedback (on Trustpilot, Web Hosting Geek, and WHTop) from former (and obviously dissatisfied) Dotster customers concerned the incompetence and ineffectiveness of their customer support, as well as their website. While we don't share the same experience, we find your feedback remarkable, especially if strong customer support is one of your top priorities.
Competition
Like Dotster, GreenGeeks is a green web host, but with data centers in Canada, the United States, and the Netherlands, making them more appealing to a broader audience. By contrast, all of Dotster's servers are based in the United States. In addition to shared hosting, GreenGeeks offers more advanced hosting types, including VPS and reseller hosting. So if you expect your business to grow steadily, with GreenGeeks you have more room to do so. If you're looking for a cheap and cheerful international host with a wide variety of hosting options and features backed by powerful performance and responsive 24/7 support, look no further than Hostinger. In addition to a global network of data centers (which promises fast performance), Hostinger can do everything Dotster can and do better. HostGator is another great US host, and just like Hostinger, it can provide you with everything that Dotster can and more. While Dotster's unlimited resources are a great thing, HostGator's feature set (including free domain registration, free website transfer, free website builder, and 45-day money-back guarantee) can't be beat. Another great US-based Dotster alternative is Bluehost, a fairly popular and well-rounded host that offers full scalability, 24/7 customer support, and affordable pricing. That said, what might surprise you with Dotster and Bluehost (and what's off-putting) are the price spikes after renewal.
Final verdict
In short, Dotster isn't without its flaws, but it's still far from a bad host. He has been in the industry for a considerable number of years and his shared hosting solutions come with most of the industry standard features. However, they do not offer...