U.S.-based BizLand's tagline is "Helping small businesses succeed. One dream at a time." It sounds cheesy, but it's pretty much what this host does via its feature-packed affordable hosting plans.
If you are in a hurry, and just want the bottom line: for the same price as BizLand you can get much better servers with 24/7 support with Hostinger, so why even bother?!
U.S.-based BizLand has two data centers (Waltham and Boston) and more than ten years’ experience in the web hosting industry. It targets mainly individuals, startups, small businesses, and e-commerce websites.
BizLand’s website and customer support are available in English.
Features and Ease of Use
BizLand offers Linux and Windows web hosting packages which it calls “Memberships”. The key hosting features include:
200 GB to 300 GB disk space
Free domain
Custom vDeck control panel
Free SSL certificate
Software auto-installer
SiteLock CDN
Free site builder
The Linux shared hosting packages come with lots of useful features and freebies, and they’re backed by a 99.9% uptime guarantee. The “Charter Membership” basic package provides 200 GB web space, a 2000 GB bandwidth limit, FTP access, unlimited mailboxes, and site management tools; plus Perl, Python, PHP, SSI, Webalizer web statistics, and more. For a few dollars more, you can get a free domain and more storage space with higher packages.
Rather than providing the popular and easy-to-use cPanel control panel, BizLand provides a custom vDeck control panel that requires you to be a bit more tech-savvy.
On a brighter note, I like the freebies thrown in with BizLand’s plans. You get marketing tools, a site builder, SSL certificates, SiteLock CDN, and MOJO Marketplace (which helps you to install WordPress easily). You also get Google Adwords and Bing advertising credits to help kickstart your web presence.
In terms of the technicals, BizLand provides MySQL databases with its Linux hosting plans and Microsoft SQL databases with its Windows hosting accounts, but you don’t get remote MySQL connections. While you do get Cron jobs, you don’t get SSH access.
BizLand keeps website backups for 14 days and database backups for three days, and your databases are stored on SSD.
Pricing and Support
BizLand offers feature-packed plans at relatively low prices. For example, the cheapest “Charter” plan (or membership) provides lots of benefits and generous disk space. The higher plans include extras such as a free domain (with an annual subscription) plus more web space and a higher bandwidth limit. Note, however, that BizLand charges setup fees for its membership packages.
Since some customers have complained about BizLand’s security measures and billing policy, I strongly suggest that you take heed of the 30-day money-back guarantee that should get you out if anything goes wrong within the first few weeks. You can pay for your preferred package via PayPal or credit card.
I enjoyed a superior experience with BizLand’s customer support. A very polite, friendly and knowledgeable representative answered all my questions when I tested the live chat channel.
You can also summon support via telephone, or take advantage of the self-support knowledge base.
Paid for a service that never was activated - No Refund
I paid for a yearly renewal of a web hosting service. Then 5 months later, the account could not be activated. I cancelled the account and never got a refund. They said at Bizland that in order to get a refund I had to do it within the first month. The moral "Don't be so patient with Bizland and if they fail to reactivate your account in the first week cancel your account ASAP.
BizLand provides feature-rich hosting packages at competitive prices for both Linux and Windows. It also provides excellent live chat support and lots of freebies. However, I would have preferred the cPanel control panel rather than the vDeck alternative.
Gwen is a web developer and software engineer who loves to get lost in JavaScript (and a good book). She spends her free time teaching girls how to be coders, and doing yoga on her balcony in the sunshine.
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