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HostSG Review 2024 – Looks Good, but What’s the Catch?

Mark Holden Mark Holden Web Hosting Expert

Singapore-based HostSG is one of the leading names in Singapore’s managed hosting market. The company delivers business and enterprise hosting services along with a range of web solutions to its global clients.

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Overview

hostsg

HostSG is an ISO 9001:2008 certified company that was established in 1997. It is the first hosting company in Singapore with a Tier 1 network to Starhub, Singtel, Deutsche Telekom, Hurricane Electric, NTT Communication, and PCCW. In 2006, it was also the first company to support commercial server clustering for shared hosting.

This company owns its own IP address and is a member of Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for the Asia-Pacific region. It supports 280,000 users that include multinational and Fortune 500 companies, Web 2.0 startups, SMEs, and advertising networks.

HostSG’s core competency lies in providing fast international bandwidth, 100% network uptime, and outstanding customer support. Its website is in English.

Features and Ease of Use

HostSG offers four starter hosting plans – named Starter 5, Starter20, Starter40, and Starter60 – with the names indicating the amounts of disk space (in GB) on offer. The company also offers Business Hosting plans (Linux, VPS, and cloud) and Enterprise Hosting plans (Linux, VPS, dedicated, and colocation).

HostSG’s starter plans (with single server shared hosting) come with:

  • No setup fees
  • Linux with cPanel 11
  • Unmetered data transfer
  • Bandwidth burstable up to 100 Mbps
  • Unlimited IMAP/POP3 email accounts
  • Virus- and spam-blocker
  • Daily data backup

HostSG offers 99.5% server uptime, which is lower than the industry average, but the company makes every effort to provide 100% network uptime.

Some of the other features of HostSG’s hosting are:

  • HDD with RAID 10 (for Linux VPS)
  • 2 x 1TB SATA HDD with SoftRAID 1 Mirror
  • Root access
  • Cluster server technology
  • Search engine URL submission
  • Support for multiple mobile platforms

HostSG offers a variety of web solutions that complement its hosting plans, such as domain registration and transfer, email archiving and marketing, SSL certificates, and cloud email.

Pricing and Support

HostSG’s shared hosting plans can’t be called the cheapest, but they are affordably priced, and customers outside of Singapore can save the 7% GST (Goods and Services Tax). There are two billing cycles, annual and biennial, and you can pay for plans via cash/money order, local bank funds transfer, check, and credit cards (through PayPal).

You get a 30-day money-back guarantee that should get you out if anything goes wrong within the first month, and you can upgrade your plan at any time just by paying the new plan’s pro-rated usage until the end of the month. However, to downgrade your plan, you have to pay a penalty (well, a “one-time administrative fee”) of S$20.00.

HostSG offers support via telephone and a ticket system, but with limitations:

  • Customers on discontinued budget hosting plans don’t get phone/callback support
  • Customers on VPS hosting, on-demand, and business plans have limited phone support only for emergency issues during office hours on weekdays

When I tried the ticket system as a non-customer, I received a reply after twelve hours (see below), but current customers can log in to raise tickets that receive priority replies.

hostsg

For a company that caters to global clients, the lack of a real-time chat system and true 24/7 support were really disappointing for me. However, this is may be made up for by the self-help utilities that include FAQs (called “Pre Sales Questions”) and video tutorials (called “User Guides”). There is also a minimal knowledge base.

4.2

Pricing

Comparison

How does HostSG match up to the competition?

KamateraCompareOur Score4.8Compare
Liquid WebCompareOur Score4.8Compare
HostSGCompareOur Score4.2Compare
Tailor Made ServersCompareOur Score2.9Compare

HostSG REVIEW: BOTTOM LINE

HostSG’s hosting plans will be most suitable for you if your website’s target audience is in Singapore or somewhere else in Asia.

HostSG might offer a good service at a reasonable price, but does it match up with the top web hosting companies? We find it hard to say “yes.”

Pros

  • Member of the RIR for the Asia-Pacific region
  • No setup fees
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
  • Cluster server technology

Cons

  • Low 99.5% server uptime
  • Limited support channels

For Asian hosting, sign up with Singapore’s HostSG
Mark Holden Mark Holden
Mark is a full stack web developer specializing in HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, MySQL, and PHP. When he’s not busy building websites or geeking out over the latest addition to his ever-growing gadget collection, he enjoys playing drums for his progressive rock band. He can also make a mean Spanish omelet.
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