Toronto-based Canadian hosting company HostMDS is a subsidiary of Cirrus Hosting Ltd. It offers cost-effective hosting services to businesses of all sizes around the world, and it currently has 14,000 shared hosting subscriptions, 13,000 registered domains, and 800 virtual private server subscriptions.
The HostMDS website is in English, but its support pages can be viewed in 25 other languages thanks to automated translations.
Features and Ease of Use
HostMDS offers three unlimited shared hosting plans, two VPS hosting plans, four dedicated server plans, and three colocation plans.
The Unlimited Shared Hosting plans provide the following features:
- 99.99% uptime
- One-click activation
- Free domain
- Unlimited data transfer
- Unlimited disk space
- Unlimited email accounts
- Unlimited FTP accounts
- Unlimited MySQL databases
- Unlimited add-on domains
- Free SSL certificate
- SpamExperts email filtering
- Free RVsitebuilder
- WordPress optimization
Some of the other unique features include a choice of Linux and Windows versions, content delivery network (CDN), green hosting, and anti-DDoS protection.
The company operates a data center in downtown Toronto, which houses the TorIX (Toronto Internet Exchange). The TorIX is known for hosting over 150 exclusive high-speed networks and providing access to 25 different fiber-optic points of entry.
Pricing and Support
HostMDS’s shared web hosting plans are priced slightly above the industry average, but they may well be worth the cost considering the unlimited resources, free domain, and no setup fees.
Thanks to the 30-day money-back guarantee, you can sign up without worrying about not being able to get out if it all goes wrong within the first month. However, this guarantee only applies to one-year (or longer) commitments. Strangely, the advertised “Monthly” plan can only be purchased on annual and three-year terms at the checkout.
You can pay for plans (priced in U.S. dollars) using PayPal or your credit/debit card.
You can reach out to the HostMDS support staff via phone or online web form during working hours, or submit a support ticket from the client area. While the company claims to offer 24/7 support, my out-of-hours inquiry was met with an automated response promising to get back to me during regular business hours. The subsequent response did arrive as promised.
The lack of live chat is disappointing, as are the self-support options since the knowledge base is not well populated.
