Web hosting service provider Host Center is located in Ness Ziona, Israel, and it started life in 2000. It offers Linux and Windows shared web hosting along with VPS servers, reseller storage, domain services, Outlook 365 email services, and WordPress maintenance services.
Host Center’s website is in Hebrew.
Features and Ease of Use
Host Center offers four Windows shared hosting plans and four Linux shared hosting plans, plus three simple Linux and Windows VPS plans, several advanced custom VPS plans, and tailor-made reseller storage solutions.
Whether Linux or Windows hosting plans, the names are the same (Starter, Standard, Business, and Business Plus), and they come with:
- Free domain
- 2 GB to 10 GB storage space
- 20 GB to unlimited traffic
- Daily backup
- SSL certificate (for Business and Business Plus plans)
- Firewall protection
- MySQL database
- 10 MB to 500 MB MSSQL database (for Windows plans)
Linux packages utilize the Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP (LAMP) stack and allow you to create Joomla, WordPress, Magento, or Drupal sites.
Host Center’s CSF and cPHulk protection systems protect your server against brute force attacks, and the DDoS and web application firewall (WAF) prevent malicious traffic from affecting your site.
Servers use SSD storage for maximum website speeds, and this provider guarantees 99.99% server availability.
Although there’s something for almost everyone at Host Center, there are some downsides too:
The low disk space cap should be sufficient for most websites but might not suffice for larger sites. Although there is also enough processing power for e-commerce merchants, this is undermined by the fact that the only server location is Israel, so webmasters in other parts of the world might be disappointed by the distance to their target markets.
VPS plans grant you access to Host Center’s worldwide server network, and they offer 30 GB to 100 GB of disk space, which is suitable for medium to large e-commerce stores. However, there is a trade-off as no plan offers more than 2 CPU cores or 4 GB of RAM.
Pricing and Support
Host Center’s shared hosting plans seem priced slightly high, but bear mind that you get SSD storage (not HDD) that should be sufficient for most modest websites, plus free SSL on the higher plans.
Somewhat misleadingly, the vendor’s website shows the lowest prices you can get (with 20% off) if you sign up for a three-year term, which you might not want to do. Committing to a two-year term saves you 10%. Again, you could be reluctant to commit to two years since you get just seven days to cancel, and some fees are non-refundable, and only your unused days are refunded.
You can pay for plans via PayPal or credit/debit cards.
The 24/7 technical support team can be contacted by telephone, email, or online support form. My exploratory email received a reply in less than 24 hours:
Those looking for self-help resources will find a few tutorial guides in the Information Center section of the vendor’s website. The website also hints that the company will create a new guide (upon request) for anything not covered by the existing guides, but I don’t know how well this works in practice.
