Italian hosting provider HOST SpA (HOST.IT) was founded in Turin in 2002, originally as Dnshosting.it. Through a series of acquisitions and investments, including its own Tier III data center, it became the hosting provider it is today.
This company manages 54,000 domains, has 27 employees on staff, and operates three data centers in Italy. The HOST.IT website is in Italian.
Features and Ease of Use
All web hosting plans include a free domain, hosting for one domain and 10 subdomains, ten databases, ten email mailboxes, and the following features:
- Free domain
- Let’s Encrypt SSL
- Website migration
- Daily backups
- Staging and development area
- One-click CMS installation
- SSH
- Cron
HOST.IT’s five regular web hosting plans start with the Host 1.5 entry-level plan that comes with two vCPUs and 30 GB of SSD web space. Next up is the Host 2.0 plan that provides four vCPUs and 30 GB of SSD storage. The HOST 3.0 plan (and higher plans) include up to ten vCPUs plus the Host Business Kit that adds uptime monitoring, a speed test, online reputation control, and on-demand backups.
The Host Business Kit that comes bundled with the higher plans is intended to benefit web agencies and freelancers that deal with customers. The Security and Reputation Manager is an automated tool that does daily checks on blacklist sites and for malware. The Speed Test Manager runs performance tests on different browsers and provides performance suggestions. The Application Manager is a software auto-install and auto-update manager.
Pricing and Support
HOST.IT’s web hosting is priced affordably and averagely. For a little less than the cost of a fast food meal per month, the entry-level plan includes two vCPUs, SSD hosting, daily backups, and a free domain. While the plans remain roughly the same in resource terms as you go up the tiers, the top-tier plan costs about 10x the cost of the entry-level plan, for which you get more vCPUs and the inclusion of the Host Business Kit.
Put simply, the more processing horsepower you need, the more you should shop around with other providers.
HOST.IT provides support by telephone, live chat, and email during office hours on weekdays and at weekends. My live chat request was answered immediately (in Italian).
HOST.IT also provides the “Host Academy,” a collection of video courses available through a subscription. These courses cover various topics related to web hosting. You’ll find 150 lessons on WordPress, 130 lessons on SEO, 190 lessons on e-commerce, and many more. To give it a try, you can access the tutorials platform for free for 24 hours. Afterward, you’ll be billed on a quarterly or annual basis.
