UltaHost Review: Poor Performance and Support in 2025

UltaHost at a Glance

UltaHost Pros, Cons, and Things That Could Be Better

UltaHost provides affordable web hosting solutions for personal websites and small-to-medium-sized businesses. It offers shared, WordPress, VPS, and dedicated server hosting, as well as more specialized hosting for Windows, Mac, and games.

I had high hopes for UltaHost. Its website makes some pretty bold promises, like access to 24/7 expert help and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. When I checked the plans before signing up, I was immediately hooked by a pretty good discount and claims of “fast” loading speeds thanks to NVMe SSD.

Unfortunately, UltaHost lived up to that old adage: if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The first few days of my testing went very well, and it seemed like I might finally have found an easy-to-use hosting provider. But then, everything fell apart – which only added to my later despair. The experience went from promising to disastrous, like watching a freeway accident you can’t look away from.

There’s a chance that my issues were an isolated case. It’s always a risk when you use shared hosting that can cause server and performance issues. Even if that were the case, however, the problems I encountered with support are inexcusable. I reviewed Hostinger earlier this year, and my experience was like night and day. Hostinger was vastly better for usability and support.

Read on to see just what went wrong, and why any of our top hosts in 2025 would be a much wiser decision for your next website.

UltaHost Looks Good on Paper… and That’s About It

I have to admit that UltaHost does offer some impressive features. There’s a lot to like: free domain and website transfers, DDoS protection, free SSLs, and RAID 10 NVMe SSD storage. For the tech newbie, UltaHost offers my all-time favorite: managed hosting services. These features are undoubtedly great – as are the ones detailed below – but actually using them proved challenging during my experience.

Easy-To-Use cPanel

When it comes to control panels, there are some proprietary panels out there, such as Hostinger’s hPanel, which makes managing your hosting straightforward. To UltaHost’s credit, it does offer the OG cPanel. You can easily set up your domains, install a CMS and other apps, or create email accounts without much stress or hassle. I’d like to add that UltaHost’s own dashboard is also fairly intuitive and gets the job done.

Free Daily Backups

One thing that UltaHost does right is throwing in free daily data backups with all its hosting plans. I’m used to dealing with hosting services that only offer daily backups on their higher-priced plans. Typically, an inexpensive entry-level shared plan like UltaHost’s would include free weekly backups at best. So, having the advantage of daily backups is a definite bonus.

Unlimited Bandwidth

Another thing that makes UltaHost appear to shine is the offer of unlimited bandwidth with all its plans. While the entry-level plan does only offer one website, there’s no cap on the amount of traffic it can handle. There are several hosts out there that offer unlimited resources, so UltaHost is not alone in this regard – but I’ll admit, it was still a pleasant surprise.

UltaHost Features at a Glance

My Hosting Experience With UltaHost

One thing I like about a host is simplicity. Some hosts tend to overcomplicate things with their unique lingo. I don’t want to struggle with confusing terminology or excessive jargon just to figure out what’s for sale or how it works. To its credit, UltaHost avoids this pitfall and keeps things relatively straightforward.

The website is fairly straightforward and easy to use. The hosting plan descriptions could use a bit more detail, but if you have a good idea of what you need, it’s not difficult to find the right plan for your project. That said, beginners who have never purchased hosting before might want to do a bit of research to determine just what they need and what to look for in a hosting package, as UltaHost isn’t very helpful in that respect.

UltaHost makes setting up an account, payment, and WordPress installation simple and easy. It even makes pointing your domain (assuming you don’t buy one from UltaHost) pretty painless.

Creating a New Account With UltaHost

UltaHost surprised me during checkout by offering multitudes of ways to pay for my hosting. Credit, debit, PayPal, 10 different cryptocurrencies, bank transfers – and some other payment methods that I’d never heard of, such as Qiwi, a Russian financial service. Another pleasant surprise was that I could choose my billing cycle during checkout: monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, annually, biennially, or triennially. I also had a choice of six data center locations.

On the other hand, an unpleasant surprise was being led to believe that I had to buy an SSL. My plan includes a free SSL – in fact, they all do. During checkout, however, you’re given a list of paid SSL options, with “None” selected. I had to double-check to make sure that I didn’t need to buy one.

You’re also presented with paid add-ons for email anti-spam, SEO tools, SiteLock security, and CodeGuard data backup services. (Ultahost does include free daily backups using another tool.)

Another thing to be aware of is the preselected period for billing. The default period on the plans page is set for a two-year commitment. A simple mouse click toggles between monthly, one-year, two-year, and three-year plans and their prices.

Connecting a Domain and Installing WordPress

Ultahost provides you with your DNS information while signing up, but in case you didn’t screengrab it or write it down, you can find it in your dashboard. With this DNS information, I was able to point my third-party domain to my UltaHost account in a matter of minutes. My SSL was also automatically configured and ready to go.

If all you’re doing with your shared hosting is setting up a WordPress site as I was, you don’t actually need to access cPanel from UltaHost’s dashboard. That’s because there’s access to a WordPress Manager right on the dashboard. To install WordPress, click on New Installation, fill in your site details, and then it’s done faster than you can say, “It’s done!”. You’ll have to access your WordPress site via your wp-admin URL to set it up and edit it.

And that’s where I ran into my first issue. My browser security program flagged my UltaHost WordPress as unsafe. I had to bypass it and run it in quarantine in order to set up my site. That should’ve been my first clue that this was not going to be smooth sailing. It wasn’t my last.

Other Ease of Use Features

Security Monitoring

Ultahost offers automatic WordPress updates for core installations and plugins. This helps to keep your site updated against any exploited vulnerabilities due to old patches.

There’s also 24/7 monitoring of your server. Ultahost claims that you may not even be aware of an issue because the support team will “fix an issue” proactively. In my very specific experience, this is one of those things that only sounds good in theory, as my issues weren’t dealt with for over two weeks.

WordPress Manager

The WordPress Manager simplifies management of all your WordPress installations from one user-friendly platform. There are daily tasks you can access, like setting up backups and auto updates, and more advanced features like caching options, staging and cloning tools, and configuring your databases.

You can even browse and download themes and plugins here instead of logging in to your WordPress dashboard.

UltaHost Website Builder

If you aren’t thrilled with the idea of using WordPress themes or your own web design skills to create your site, UltaHost offers a drag-and-drop builder with over 900 templates, many geared for specific industry niches.

The fact that UltaHost bundles your shared hosting with its builder is a nice feature. The Shared Starter Builder plan even includes the website builder for free.

My Site Worked Great, Until It Didn’t

UltaHost appears to be a decent host on paper. After all, UltaHost has 25 data center locations in the US (Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, and NYC), Canada, Mexico, Brazil, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Istanbul, Poland, Germany, Norway, Türkiye, UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, India, Singapore, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. It boasts NVMe SSD storage. It claims that its shared hosting is where “Performance meets affordability.”

But as they say, appearances can be deceiving.

Affordability? I can agree with that. Performance? No, not really. My site’s loading speed tests were good. Nice and respectable for a budget host. But then the wheels came off and the whole thing came crashing to the ground. (If you’d like to read up on how we conduct our review testing, this is our process.)

GTmetrix Performance Test

Normally, I would run tests as soon as my website was live. I ran those startup tests, but something felt “off.” I had chosen UltaHost’s Los Angeles data center. The test results for the Cheyenne, Wyoming GTmetrix server were consistently inconsistent. Sometimes the site would score a C, sometimes a D, and sometimes not at all.

Meanwhile, GTmetrix servers as far away as Europe and Asia were steady and solid. So, I kept checking every day for 2 full weeks, until things in Wyoming became clearer and more consistent.

My little site scored an A every day for the second week. The typical loading speed was 1.1 second, well within the 3-second window most visitors will tolerate. However, my weekly loading speeds report showed some concerning peaks, including one that was over 2.5 seconds. Still, for a budget host, UltaHost had some respectable performance scores.

GTmetrix Global Performance

My GTmetrix international scores were better than expected, to be honest, with France and Singapore being outliers. Without a CDN or cloud-based hosting, I didn’t really think UltaHost would score as well as it did. I didn’t repeat the international server tests, however, so the two servers that did score lower than the rest may have had the same consistency issues I experienced with the performance tests.

UptimeRobot

Fast loading speeds don’t do you or my site much good if the server doesn’t stay up and running. And that’s where UltaHost let me down in a big, big way. I had an uptime of 43.78% and my site was down for 17 days. It miraculously revived itself on the very last day of the testing period – right before I took it down and ended my tests.

All in all, I can’t give UltaHost a good performance score. Losing the server for 17 straight days with no word from support as to when it would be back (or even why it went down) negates all the good opinions I had based on those initial performance scores. All the fast loading speeds in the world can’t wipe out poor server reliability.

Polite and Professional, But Not Functional

Just as with its performance, UltaHost’s customer support looks good on the surface. There’s online chat, phone, and email/ticket system support available. I received prompt, professional responses both times when contacting support. So far, so good. However, neither of my issues were ever resolved. I never even received updates after the initial contact. It’s as if contacting UltaHost support is a guarantee to never hear from them again until it’s time to remind you of your upcoming invoice.

My first issue was not being able to access cPanel. I called the support line as one does when they can’t access their site and don’t want to wait for a ticket or live chat response. Within a matter of minutes, the agent walked me through several possible “fixes” that, unfortunately, didn’t work. Very polite. Very professional. He promised me an email with further info and ended the call.

I received his promised email within minutes. (And no, I’m not worried about revealing the credentials on a defunct account.) Note the “escalated this for further check” part? I’m not sure where the issue was sent, but it was never resolved. The day I closed the account, I still couldn’t access my site via cPanel.

My next contact with support was via the online chat, and this was to find an answer as to why my server was offline. The agent was online in less than a minute. He was polite and professional, but again, couldn’t help me. The issue had to be “escalated” to a higher power that took 17 days to get around to doing whatever it was they had to do.

It’s almost as if UltaHost has removed the “curt, unfriendly” customer service that’s so often stereotypical of the tech world and replaced it with a “polite but inept” support team. Just as UltaHost can’t live up to its performance promises, it seems its support underdelivers as well.

Be Careful or You’ll Get What You Pay For

UltaHost offers four shared hosting plans: Starter, Basic, Business, and Pro. I purchased the entry-level Shared Starter plan, as it offered enough resources for my WordPress site. The prices at UltaHost are very budget-friendly – and with the discount offered at the time of my signup, even easier on my wallet.

In the long run, the best plan for my e-commerce site would probably be UltaHost’s managed WordPress hosting. It’s cheaper than shared hosting, and has somewhat better features, including WordPress optimizations. You’ll still get unlimited bandwidth, free SSL, free daily backups, and all of the same “extras” you get with the shared hosting.

With the lousy performance and support experience I had, though, I can’t help but wonder if the low prices correlate to the low quality of the hosting I received. You sometimes get exactly what you pay for, and in my case with UltaHost, not paying a lot meant I didn’t get a lot, either.