THE BEST DEALS OF THE DAY Founded in San Luis Prelados (California, USA), Arvixe has been hosting personal and professional sites since two thousand and three. Since 5, it is part of EIG (Endurance International Group), a web hosting giant in constant development. Eighty companies, many of which are well-known web hosting companies, such as HostGator, iPage, Bluehost, JustHost, and HostMonster. According to many reviews from old users who were very dissatisfied with Arvixe, everything went downhill after the acquisition. For example, out of 3 reviews on Trustpilot, 2016% are outrageously bad (XNUMX out of XNUMX stars) describing Arvixe as "terrible", "not worth it" and (with a bit of exaggeration, we think) "the worst web hosting company on the planet". However, Arvixe prides itself on providing web hosting services with a "rare combination of unmatched reliability, quality and affordability" and claims to have won "many" awards in the field. Headquartered in Calabasas (California, USA), Arvixe operates XNUMX data centers in the USA, Europe and Hong Kong. The official place of Arvixe has a nostalgic air, although an insolent might describe it as outdated. Anyway, we had no trouble finding our way. The site is only available in English and has a retro-looking (and quite useful) blog. Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since XNUMX. Although Arvixe has accounts on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ (someone should let them know about the shutdown), none of them seem to be very much alive.
The price of Arvixe web hosting plans does not increase with renewal, so what you see is what you get (Image credit: Arvixe)
Packages and prices
Arvixe offers several options for each type of hosting it offers, including Shared Hosting (located in PersonalClass and BusinessClass), Reseller Hosting (in Reseller Class), VPS Hosting (in VPSClass), and Hosting on a Server. dedicated (in DedicatedClass). All hosting plans offer unlimited bandwidth and all shared hosting plans also offer unlimited disk space, databases and email accounts. If you want to receive a free domain name with your shared hosting plan, you will need to subscribe for a minimum of one year. The plans are displayed in great detail, however to compare them with each other you will have to scroll up and down (over and over again), which can be overwhelming. The cheapest shared hosting plan costs €8.47 per month and will allow you (in addition to the above) to host up to six websites, use a US-based server, use easy-to-use cPanel, and a one-click installer . by Softaculous. Something that isn't included (should have been) is an SSL certificate, which can be yours as an add-on costing €25 per year. With its shared, reseller, and VPS hosting packages, Arvixe offers a generous 45-day money-back guarantee, giving you plenty of time to review everything before deciding whether to stay or go. Arvixe accepts payments by credit card, PayPal, check, and money order.
Ease of use
Arvixe's official website might not be too easy on the eyes, but it has a lot of information about their plans (even entry-level ones) that should make decision-making easier than it sounds. At first, you'll have information about the domain aliases, subdomains, and FTP accounts you can create, and (here's another good news) they're all unlimited. You will also find everything about management and development tools, network and data security measures, etc. After selecting a plan, the first thing you'll have to deal with is your domain name, with options to register a new one, transfer an existing one, or leave it in the hands of your current administrator while you update your nameservers. The free domain registration feature only applies to contracts of one year (or more) and with select domain extensions (currently there are fifteen available, including com, .net, .tech, .space and .online). After that, you'll choose a billing cycle (every 1, 3, 6, 12, or 24 months) and consider adding a few extras (like daily CodeGuard backups, SSL certificates, identity protection, and credit. Bing, and Google advertising. ) for extra money, most of the time. Before you pay, you'll want to create an account with Arvixe, and to do so, you'll need to provide a fair share of your personal details and billing information, as well as think of a strong password. Once the transaction is complete, you will receive your "welcome to the team" email and your account should be activated without further delay.
Arvixe gives you access to the industry standard cPanel control panel to manage your site (Image Credit: cPanel) If Arvixe's dashboard looks like many similar hosts, it's because it's powered by WHMCS, a hosting admin panel standard and easy-to-use website. From there, you'll want to log into cPanel, which has access to a popular auto-installer by the name of Softaculous. So over a hundred useful applications like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento should be up and running in minutes with minimal effort. If you prefer to build your website with an easy-to-use website builder, Arvixe offers SiteBuilder, which is not surprising since the two companies are children of the same mother (yes, EIG).
We use GTmetrix to test the availability and response time of the main Arvixe site (Image credit: GTmetrix)
Speed and experience
After testing the main Arvixe site (courtesy of GTmetrix), we got good news and bad news. The good thing is that the page loaded quickly in 3.6 seconds, which is pretty close to the recommended load time. On top of that, most of the vital web metrics were above average, every single one but one. Enter Total Block Time, a statistic that tells us how long scripts are blocked during the page load process, and it showed 531 milliseconds (recommended result is less than 150 milliseconds). This is the main reason why GTmetrix's final rate was a modest C (76%), rather than something to brag about. As for uptime, Arvixe promises that its shared servers will be accessible 99,9% of the time over the course of a month, adding that in the event of a breach of its uptime guarantee, its users are free to request a appropriate amount of credit. Unfortunately, this does not apply to unmanaged VPS or unmanaged dedicated server packages. With the help of UptimeRobot (our tool of choice), we monitored the uptime of Arvixe's main site for two weeks, during which time we couldn't find a single trace of downtime. While this is only a short-term test, it's still pretty encouraging.
Support
While there have been several disturbing reviews that question the quality of Arvixe's customer support, you can at least get it around the clock (cold comfort, we know). You can get in touch with their staff via live chat, email, and support ticket. We decided to try our luck with live chat support and got our response within ten minutes. While the response time was not particularly fast, the response we received was friendly and informative.
The Arvixe knowledge base has hundreds of articles, but not all of them have quality content (Image credit: Arvixe) On the other hand, if you prefer to find solutions on your own, you can take a look at the Arvixe knowledge base (titled “Support Center”), but don't expect to be too impressed. To be fair, there are plenty of how-to guides and FAQs (over 350 at the time of writing), however their quality is consistently inconsistent. Some guides are detailed and easy to follow, others seem somewhat crude and unpolished, and one category ("Downloads") is completely empty. Arvixe's home page features a "Discussion Board" that looks a lot like a community forum, however clicking on it will take you to their status page. This is most likely a holdover from the forum that once was, but no longer exists (and unfortunately).
Competition
One of Arvixe's siblings (and a fierce rival) is HostGator, a similar US-based host that offers everything from budget plans to plans that cost a lot of money. Aside from the fact that Arvixe doesn't offer introductory discounts, the prices are pretty similar, as is their list of features. However, with Arvixe's entry-level plan you can host up to six websites, while with HostGator's plan you are limited to one. While we're at it, let's compare Arvixe to another of his brothers, a blue-eyed boy named Bluehost. While they are pretty similar in terms of hosting plans, when it comes to pricing, Bluehost is a bit cheaper (at least initially), while Arvixe offers better value for money. On top of that, Arvixe offers a 45-day money-back guarantee (whereas Bluehost offers a standard 30-day one), giving you more time to make a decision. FatCow is another GIE-owned company with a distinctive name, a very experienced US company offering hosting services designed for individuals and businesses. While FatCow is far from a bad host, in terms of packages, price, and performance, Arvixe is clearly a winner. Last but not least, Arvixe's competitors is Hawk Host, a Canadian-based host with an animal mascot (much like HostGator and FatCow). In terms of hosting types and features, Arvixe and Hawk Host are quite similar. However, if you want to boost your business with a dedicated server, Hawk Host will have to settle for semi-dedicated hosting, while Arvixe offers fully dedicated servers. On the other hand, you can pay for Hawk Host products with Bitcoin and Ethereum, while none of the hosts mentioned above accept cryptocurrencies.
Final verdict
Although the stories describe Arvixe as a good host gone bad, he comes to us as an average host in his prime. He's not the friendliest host, but he won't get...