Canada-based CastHost started out relatively recently in 2014 as provider of mainly inernet radio streaming services. However, it also offers a small range of cPanel hosting, SEO, and domain registration services.
CastHost’s servers sit in two U.S. data centers, and its easy-to-browse English-language website displays prices in U.S. dollars.
Features and Ease of Use
Despite CastHost’s bias towards streaming hosting services, in this review I focus on its four cPanel hosting plans — Starter, Medium, Large, and XL — which include these features:
- 99% network uptime
- cPanel control panel
- Softaculous installer
- Unlimited subdomains and FTP accounts
- PHP and phpMyAdmin
- Cron jobs
Although CastHost covers the hosting essentials, I would have liked to have seen some more features such as SSD storage, a CDN, offsite backups, SSL certificates, and a website builder.
I am happy to see the industry-standard cPanel control panel and Softaculous installer combo. cPanel allows you to manage all aspects of your hosting, and Softaculous helps you install popular content management and other apps, including WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and phpBB.
Our smallest hosting plan offers ample resources for light hosting needs: 1,000 MB disk space, 10 GB monthly bandwidth, 4 MySQL databases, and 10 email accounts. On the opposite end of the spectrum, our largest hosting plan provides 10 GB disk space, 50 GB bandwidth, unlimited MySQL databases, and unlimited email accounts, catering to the requirements of more demanding webmasters.
Pricing and Support
Compared with international competitors, CastHost’s prices are pretty low for basic cPanel hosting. You can pay by credit card or PayPal, but unfortunately — and unlike the streaming services that have a 15-day free trial — there is no free trial and there are no refunds for cPanel hosting. However, a live chat agent suggested that a free trial could be discussed.
Besides live chat, you can contact CastHost by submitting a support ticket (24/7) or sending a Facebook Messenger message; also, remote assistance is available via TeamViewer.
I found that the support staff were very responsive and helpful via the live chat channel:
For self-support, there is an adequate (but not extensive) knowledge base.
