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Nucleus Review 2024 – So Popular, but Is It Any Good?

Gwen Rodgers Written by: Gwen Rodgers

Nucleus is a Belgium-based website hosting provider offering a choice of Windows and Linux operating systems. The plans are expensive, but the team includes industry experts.

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Overview

Screen Shot 2019 03 15 at 2.29.41 PM1
Founded in 2000, Nucleus is a Belgium-based company offering a unique “uptime-as-a-service” package. The website’s available in English and Dutch.

Features and Ease of Use

Nucleus offers a range of hosting services including cloud hosting and managed hosting. To give you an idea, its plans come with the following core features:

  • Domain registration available
  • Choice of Linux or Windows operating system
  • Free SSL certificates
  • Up to 10000MB disk space
  • Unlimited data traffic per month

Nucleus has its servers co-located in multiple Tier III Belgian data centers. That should mean you get less than 1.6 hours of downtime per year. The company is ISO 27001:2013 certificated for data security and has clear corporate social responsibility guidelines.

It’s quite interesting; the company is clearly extremely passionate about its uptime (there’s even a dedicated service called “uptime-as-a-service”), however I wasn’t able to access the SLA page on the website. I followed up with support, who sent me its uptime SLA document. Unfortunately, the uptime guarantee for shared hosting is “best effort”.

When you are choosing a shared hosting plan, you have the option to choose between Windows or Linux as your operating system. The plans support ASP .NET (versions 1.1, 2, 3.5, 4) and PHP (versions 5 through 7) respectively, along with all the regular databases e.g., MySQL and Microsoft SQL.

If you’re a beginner, the situation may seem less clear. While the plans do support standard CMS programs like Drupal, Joomla!, and WordPress, the website doesn’t clearly advertise a one-click installer or a website building tool.

Pricing and Support

Given the level of value-added features is not particularly high and the resource quotas are low, the prices do seem expensive. Having said that, this is a Belgian company, so the local prices are higher than similar companies around the world.

When you checkout, it becomes apparent that you need to purchase an annual plan. There’s no option to buy a month-to-month plan at all, which is pretty restrictive. There also isn’t a money-back guarantee, so you really are making a big investment when you start.

If you want to contact the team, you are limited to an online contact form from what is easily accessible. The site also states that there is support via phone and email, but that information seems harder to locate. There’s a large knowledge base with tons of useful documents, however, ideally, I’d like to see more ways to get in touch.

I contacted the team mid-afternoon on a weekday via the online contact form. I wanted to get more information about the uptime SLA. I was pleased to receive a detailed response within one business day.

Screen Shot 2019 03 15 at 2.15.39 PM

Comparison

How does Nucleus match up to the competition?

1HostingerCompareOur Score4.9Compare
1IONOSCompareOur Score4.8Compare
1NucleusCompareOur Score4.1Compare
1Go4HostingCompareOur Score2.4Compare

Nucleus REVIEW: BOTTOM LINE

Nucleus provides a wide range of services, which span regular shared hosting all the way to consulting and advisory services. The plans are expensive and it’s hard to understand the uptime proposition, but this company takes social responsibility seriously and it’s clearly run by industry experts.

Pros

  • Choice of Windows and Linux operating system
  • Servers are co-located in Tier III Belgian data centers
  • ISO 27001:2013 certified for data security
  • Plans are compatible with CMS programs

Cons

  • I could not open the uptime SLA
  • Customer service options are not readily available

Buy Belgian hosting now at Nucleus!
Gwen Rodgers Gwen Rodgers
Gwen is a web developer and software engineer who loves to get lost in JavaScript (and a good book). She spends her free time teaching girls how to be coders, and doing yoga on her balcony in the sunshine.
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