In business since 2002, Cyber Cast International (CCI) Hosting offers hosting services from its offices in Panama. Its services include web hosting, VPS, Cloud servers, dedicated servers, colocation, Bitcoin hosting, and SSL certificates.
It has a data center in Panama City, Panama and a technical support team that works 24/7 with an English language website.
Features and Ease of Use
CCIHosting offers both Linux and Windows shared hosting plans. Customers enjoy the following:
- 99.9% uptime
- Automatic nightly backups
- 15GB or unmetered disk space
- 50GB or unmetered bandwidth
- Free SSL
Although it lists protection from DDoS among its features, that protection is a paid one. You’ll notice at checkout that it is optional to be added for a fee. Since DDoS affects the servers as well, it would have been better to have it server-wide for everyone. An account without that protection can cause traffic issues for other shared hosting tenants, given that it doesn’t use any CageFS, CloudLinux, or similar technology.
CCIHosting is good at being friendly. Notice I said good, not great. It uses cPanel for Linux and Plesk for Windows hosting as control panels. With the vast amount of information on both on the internet, a quick search on Google can help anyone navigate through the backend.
It also provides a script installer that you can use to activate more than 350 applications including WordPress, SugarCRM, Magento, Joomla, Moodle, Drupal, Prestashop, and X-Cart. I also like that the package comes with a free live chat software as live chat has been proven to increase conversion by about 40%.
Pricing and Support
CCIHosting prices are slightly high, and it’s not only the prices for shared hosting. I noticed that domain name registration is higher than what most domain registration or web hosting companies offer. Given that domains are not free and you might need to buy anti-DDoS, your cost will be higher than what you’ll get from other top web hosts that we have reviewed.
If hosting in Panama is important to you and having features like free live chat software is a priority, then this web host might be worth considering.
There’s no free trial, though you can take a monthly payment plan to test out the service with little commitment, but beware that monthly subscriptions are not eligible for refunds and if you’re willing to pay for a year upfront, you’ll save up to 50%. There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee on subscriptions of three-month prepayment and above.
The CCIHosting technical support team is available 24/7, and you can reach them by sending an email or using live chat. There’s also a phone number that you can call, but it’s only available on Monday-Saturday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM (GMT-5).
I used the live chat and got connected to an agent who seemed eager to answer my questions and also provided links that could help.
There’s a knowledge base as well with videos and text tutorials to get you back up and running if you don’t wish to contact support for every issue.
