tsoHost vs Fasthosts is a pretty tough matchup since these two UK-based hosting services are quite similar. To make a fair comparison between tsoHost and Fasthosts, I tested them in terms of features, performance, security, pricing, and support.
I found that unlike tsoHost, Fasthosts charges high package renewal fees and doesn’t offer free website migration. tsoHost also offers better performance than Fasthosts, making it the winner of this comparison.
Click here to see tsoHost’s best deals, or keep on reading to learn more about the differences between these two hosts.
1. Plans and Pricing
tsoHost Is Cheaper for Shared Hosting, Fasthosts Is Cheaper for VPS and Dedicated Servers
tsoHost and Fasthosts each offer a diverse range of hosting plans, including shared hosting, WordPress hosting, reseller, VPS, and dedicated server hosting. When it comes to pricing, it actually depends on your needs.
With shared hosting, tsoHost offers more plans and resource allocations than Fasthosts. Fasthosts offers better discounted rates, but has high package renewal rates, making it more expensive in the long run.
tsoHost also offers more WordPress hosting packages compared to Fasthosts’s single plan. However, the more WordPress websites you host, the less you pay with Fasthosts.
As for VPS and dedicated servers, Fasthosts offers cheaper plans than tsoHost. Both services offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, SSL certificate (free with higher-tier plans and tsoHost also offers them half-priced for a year with lower plans), and a free domain name for one year with annual web hosting subscriptions. tsoHost offers website migration, but Fasthosts doesn’t.
It’s almost a tie between tsoHost and Fasthosts. Nevertheless, tsoHost wins by a hair for offering more free extras with its web hosting plans.
2. Features
tsoHost Offers More Plans and Resources, but Fasthosts Offers SSD Storage
tsoHost offers four cloud shared hosting packages which offer you 100 GB to unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, 100 to unlimited mailboxes, and 1 to 200 websites. All packages also come with cPanel, and one-click application installer for over 25 apps including WordPress.
On the other hand, Fasthosts offers three shared hosting packages with 10 GB to 120 GB SSD storage, 1 to 100 websites, unlimited email accounts, and unlimited bandwidth. In addition, all plans include SEO tools (basis or advanced according to the plan), single-click application installer, and Fasthosts’ custom control panel.
Check out more differences between tsoHost and Fasthosts in this detailed comparison table:
| tsoHost | Fasthosts | |
| Hosting Types | Shared, reseller, VPS (Linux & Windows), WordPress hosting, dedicated servers (Linux & Windows) | Shared (Linux & Windows), reseller (Linux & Windows), VPS (Linux & Windows), WordPress hosting, dedicated servers (Linux & Windows) |
| Free Domain | ✔ | ✔ |
| Free SSL Certificate | Only with higher-value plans | Only with higher-value plans |
| Disk Space | 20 GB – Unlimited (depending on the plan) | 10 GB – 4 TB (depending on the plan) |
| Bandwidth | 400 GB – Unlimited (depending on the plan) | Unlimited |
| Automatic Backups | Daily (for VPS and dedicated servers only) | ✘ |
| Control Panel | cPanel | Custom, cPanel, Plesk |
| Email Accounts | 100 – Unlimited (depending on the plan) | 5 – 1090 (depending on the plan) |
| Free CDN | ✘ | ✘ |
| Free Site Migration | ✔ | ✘ |
| Money-Back Guarantee | 30 days | 30 days |
Another win for tsoHost for offering more web hosting packages, more resource allocations, and daily backups with its VPS and dedicated server hosting.
3. Performance
Fasthosts Doesn’t Live Up to Its Name
Both tsoHost and Fasthosts have servers in the UK. Neither one offers a CDN (a performance-boosting tool to make your website more accessible without compromising its loading speed).
tsoHost has a 99.9% uptime guarantee. When tested using Uptime Robot over a period of 30 days, it showed an overall uptime of 99.94%. This means that it exceeded its own promise by having less downtime than expected.
I also tested tsoHost’s overall performance using GTmetrix and it scored a D at 68%, which is pretty disappointing.
My final test was for the website page loading speeds from different locations using Sucuri. tsoHost scored a wobbling B. It isn’t impressive, but not so bad either.
I performed the same tests with Fasthosts, starting with the uptime. Even though Fasthosts doesn’t have an uptime guarantee, when I monitored it with Uptime Robot, it showed an average uptime of 99.7%. This isn’t just lower than tsoHost, but it’s even lower than the industry standard (99.9%). So, you can expect more downtime with Fasthosts than with tsoHost.
Moving on to testing the performance using GTmetrix, Fasthosts scored a surprising B at 89%.
Last, but not least, I tested the average loading speeds from different locations around the world using Sucuri. To my disappointment, Fasthosts scored an F, which means that the page loading speeds of the websites hosted on its servers are terribly slow from most locations around the world.
Fasthosts showed more downtime and slower loading speeds than tsoHost, making tsoHost the winner in this round.
4. Security
Fasthosts Takes Your Website’s Security a Bit More Seriously
Both tsoHost and Fasthosts secure their servers with DDoS protection. However, Fasthosts takes it a step further with server pooling technology, which not only protects your website from DDoS and other attacks, but also isolates any targeted website from all other websites on the same server to control the threat.
Both hosts include free virus and spam protection with their plans to secure all incoming and outgoing emails. In addition, tsoHost offers a decent range of optional security features that you can purchase separately to secure your website.
While the security features offered by these two hosts aren’t very impressive, Fasthosts makes a little more effort to secure your website without making you pay additional fees. That’s why Fasthosts wins this round.
5. Support
Fasthosts’ Customer Support Is More Responsive
Before seeking support from either tsoHost or FastHosts, check out their comprehensive knowledge base sections. They’re packed with articles and tutorials covering most major topics.
tsoHost’s support team is available through live chat, phone, and support ticket. While the ticket support is available 24/7, the phone and chat channels are available from 7 am until midnight (GMT). The support ticket team took a while to respond, but was quite helpful when I contacted them.
Like tsoHost, Fasthosts also offers customer support through live chat, phone, and support tickets. The live chat and phone are only available Monday to Friday, from 9 am – 6 pm (GMT), but the ticket support is available 24/7.
Unlike tsoHost, when I submitted a ticket to Fasthosts, I received a reply within 20 minutes. Not only that, but they also included screenshots with their response.
Fasthosts is a clear winner in this challenge, thanks to the availability and the quick responses of its support teams.
Why Fasthosts Loses Out to tsoHost
It was a close match between tsoHost and Fasthosts. Both offer a wide range of hosting options (except for Fasthosts’ single WordPress hosting plan) and similar features.
That said, tsoHost wins this competition for offering better web hosting prices, better performance, and more resource allocations.
If you’re not sure if either of these hosts are right for you, check our list of the best web hosting services available right now.
FAQ
Does Fasthosts offer a free domain?Yes, but not with all packages and only with annual subscription periods. Fasthosts offers a free domain name for one year when you sign up for shared hosting or WordPress hosting. You can choose from these domain extensions: .com, .co.uk, .uk, or .london.Does tsoHost use SSD?tsoHost doesn’t offer SSD storage with all its hosting packages. You can get SSD storage with any of tsoHost’s Linux VPS plans and only some of its Linux-based dedicated server packages. With tsoHost’s Linux VPS plans you get 20 GB to 160 GB SSD storage. Want more SSD options? Check out this list of cheap and fast SSD hosting services.Does Fasthosts offer dedicated server hosting?Yes. Fasthosts offers six dedicated server packages (UK servers) with unlimited bandwidth and no setup fees. Fasthosts dedicated server plans come with HDD, SSD, and NVMe storage from 480 GB to 4 TB depending on the plan. You can also get from 16 GB to 192 GB RAM.Does tsoHost offer WordPress hosting?Yes. tsoHost offers four fully managed WordPress hosting packages (Economy, Deluxe, Ultimate, and Maximum). You can host from 1 to 200 websites (depending on the plan), get from 100 GB to unlimited storage, free domain (with annual subscriptions), free SSL (with higher-value plans), and unlimited bandwidth. tsoHost isn’t right for you? See our expert list of the best managed WordPress hosting services.
