From Russia with love comes Timeweb, one of the main players in the web hosting industry of his homeland. The company was founded in 2006 and since then has hosted more than 400.000 websites and registered more than 800.000 domain names, mainly in Russia and other former Soviet republics. They claim to have the ability to provide a suite of services and solutions for any hosting project, regardless of its complexity. Timeweb's head office is located in Saint Petersburg, Russia with two of its "modern" data centers, which are powered by a set of standby diesel generators with an autostart system and run on redundant uninterruptible power supplies. They are monitored and maintained 24 hours a day by on-site specialists and all recordings (such as surveillance video and data warehouses) are kept for a minimum of 30 days. Timeweb's official site is fairly plain, both in appearance and functionality, but it offers a decent amount of information about their hosting infrastructure and all available services. However, if you are not familiar with the Russian language, you will need to translate the site into your own language yourself (or use Google Chrome, as we did). In any case, the fact that Timeweb's official site is not available in English suggests that its target audience rarely crosses Russia's borders. The same goes for the official Timeweb blog, where you'll find many engaging, interesting, and interrelated posts that seem to be updated with almost palpable enthusiasm. Timeweb is also present on Viber, Facebook, VK, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube platforms.
Timeweb offers a variety of web hosting plans, as well as a website builder (Image credit: Timeweb)
Packages and prices
With Timeweb, you can choose from various shared hosting, VPS/VDS and dedicated server solutions. All prices are displayed exclusively in Russian Rubles (₽) and range from extremely affordable to extremely expensive, while offering great value in every respect. There are four shared hosting plans right now and the smallest one is very cheap at just 169 (€2.40) per month (if you go for a year) and will allow you to build a website. Use up to 10 GB of storage. (NVMe) and a database, but with unlimited bandwidth and unlimited addon domains. You will also get a free SSL certificate and (if you subscribe for at least a year) a free domain name in the .ru, .рф zone. Timeweb offers a 10-day free trial with their shared hosting and website builder packages. The billing cycle with Timeweb is quite flexible and you can choose between a monthly, annual or biennial option. Supported payment methods include Credit/Debit Card (Visa), Bank Slip (Sberbank only), Webmoney, YuMoney, QIWI, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
Ease of use
There is a reward for anyone who decides to transfer their website and domain to the Timeweb platform for a period of at least six months. It includes three months of free hosting and the transfer itself is free and carried out by the best technicians from the Timeweb team. To get started with Timeweb, you will need to sign up via VK, GitHub, Google, or provide your name and email address. Before submitting, you'll probably want to read the terms of use carefully. In an instant and without verification (even if you receive a welcome email from the team), you will be redirected to Timeweb's personalized control panel.
This is Timeweb's custom control panel user interface (Image credit: Timeweb) It works as a comprehensive solution for monitoring and managing all aspects of your account hosting with Timeweb. It also looks modern (although it looks a bit dated), easy to understand and use, and (or so they say) has been designed and redesigned based on customer feedback Timeweb has received over the years. From there, you can manage domains and subdomains, create websites, select CMS from the catalog, manage files, backups, contact customer support, monitor visitor analytics, scale up or down your hosting plan. and much more. CMS can be installed automatically, but not all of them are free. For example, you can install WordPress, Drupal 7 and 8 and Joomla for free, but opting for UMI.CMS, 1C-Bitrix and HostCMS will cost you a few thousand rubles, which seems like a lot, but is actually quite reasonable. the price. For those who prefer to build a site without coding, there's Timeweb's own website builder that offers a wide variety of professional-looking templates, ready-to-use blocks, and the opportunity to build it all at home. . It costs 197 (€2.80) or 169 (€2.40) per month (if you sign up for a year) and although there is a 10-day free trial, you will need to buy a hosting plan to try it out.
We tried using GTmetrix to measure the uptime and response time of the main Timeweb site, but were unsuccessful (Image credit: GTmetrix)
Speed and experience
Timeweb answers the question "why choose us" by listing several of its outlets without going into details. When it comes to reliability, they insist on the “modernity and reliability” of their data centers, their “most productive” servers, “best network availability” and 24-hour monitoring. we were forced to try it ourselves. Since GTmetrix (a tool we normally use) came to our rescue, we enlisted the help of another popular speed test tool by the name of Pingdom and checked the speed on Timeweb official site. The results were downright disappointing and headed D (68%), with a whole list of suggestions on how to improve site performance. On the plus side, the loading time was 1.8 seconds, which is pretty fast. Timeweb offers a 99,9% uptime guarantee, which is pretty standard in the web hosting industry. However, after monitoring their main site (via UptimeRobot) over a period of a month, we got some pretty disturbing results. There have been (not kidding) over thirty instances of downtime, although (in their defense) most of them lasted between five and ten minutes. In the end, and as a result of this modest performance, the uptime results for the last 30 days were 99,74%, which is nothing to brag about.
Support
You can reach Timeweb support staff via free Russian phone number, live chat, email, and Skype, but you can also reach us via social media. Unfortunately for non-Russian speakers, since their support (like the company itself) is primarily focused on the Russian market, the availability of these services in English (or any other language) is up to the staff members themselves. Nonetheless, support is available 24/7 and seems ready and willing to help you every step of the way in creating a website.
You can find answers to common questions about hosting in the FAQ section of the Timeweb site (Image credit: Timeweb) There are several self-service options with Timeweb and they include a FAQ section, "Questions and Answers" (which is the forum from your community) and "Useful Articles" which will take you to your blog. Some of the most common problems have step-by-step video guides on Timeweb's YouTube channel, so be sure to check them out. The Timeweb community forum seems quite active and most of the questions have been answered or at least received advice from other users.
Competition
Anyone looking for a cheap and cheerful host from Russia will find a great alternative to Timeweb in a host known as Beget. The two hosts are quite similar in terms of hosting services, options, and features, and both offer free trials. That being said, Beget's free trial period lasts for 30 days, while with Timeweb you'll have to settle for 10 days. Also, if you are not familiar with the Russian language, you will surely find Beget's site more accessible, since it is also available in English (although the translation itself is imperfect). Another popular Russian (and Russia-oriented) host with a similar collection of hosting-related services is SpaceWeb, a web hosting veteran from Moscow. However, if you're looking to save a buck or two, Timeweb might be a better option of the two. Both Timeweb and Bluehost offer attractively priced services, a selection of great features, and excellent customer support. The only major difference between the two is that Timeweb is definitely aimed at Russian customers, while Bluehost offers all of its services in English, making them more appealing to an international audience. Like Bluehost, HostGator is one of the most popular options for people looking for a web host outside of Russia. While HostGator and Timeweb have a lot going for them, since neither provide a global data center network, location is still a key factor when choosing between two fairly similar providers.
Final verdict
If you are from one of the Russian-speaking countries and are looking for a well-structured yet inexpensive solution from a competent and successful web hosting company, Timeweb is one of your safest options. Since all of their data centers are located in St. Petersburg, if you're not from one of Russia's neighboring countries (or if you're not in Europe), you'll need to compromise on speed performance in order to use your benefits. For those who can't look past it all, HostGator, Hostinger, and Bluehost may represent more favorable options.