WiredTree Hosting Review

Outdated. No longer recommended.

WIREDTREE has been acquired by Liquidweb.

This review was about my experience using WiredTree hosting. It is no longer valid since WiredTree has been bought out by Liquidweb. I have no experience with Liquidweb so cannot comment on their services. I’ll update this post after my account has been transferred to Liquidweb.

After hosting all of my websites with WiredTree since June 2007, I thought it was about time I wrote a review of their service! And, using the same hosting company for six+ years should give you a pretty good clue what I think about them.

I actually started out using two other hosting providers before choosing WiredTree.

The first one had a pretty odd user interface that, for me, was rather difficult to understand and navigate. I got no where fast using them. So, I started asking for some new hosting recommendations from users on a couple of forums which led me to the second hosting company I tried.

Company number two was actually pretty good at first and reasonably priced for their hosting packages. I was with them for about two or three months when I ran into a problem with a script I wanted to run one of my sites.

That script needed “write” access to some folders so I submitted a support ticket and was told to have the programmer rewrite the script so it wouldn’t do that! They refused to give me the proper access to my hosting account in order to run the script.

That led me to search for a new hosting company.

After asking for more recommendations and reading reviews on some more web hosting forums I decided to give WiredTree a try. Now, six years later, I haven’t had any reason to look for a different hosting company.

So let’s take a look at what WiredTree offers and why I think they’re one of the best hosting providers around.

WiredTree is not the lowest-priced hosting provider because they do not offer the cheap, “shared”, hosting accounts that pack hundreds or thousands of sites onto one server. Many of you are just fine with shared hosting but if you’ve grown to where you have greater server demands you probably should be looking into a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a dedicated server solution.

My current needs are adequately covered with a WiredTree VPS account. And, their pricing is extremely competitive when compared to similar plans from other hosting providers.

Discounts are available if you want to prepay. Currently the discounts are 2.5% if paid quarterly, 5% if paid Semi-Annually and 10% if paid annually.

WiredTree also guarantees 100% network uptime with their SLA indicating a 5% refund on your monthly service for each 30 minutes of downtime. They also guarantee a 1 hour hardware replacement with a 5% credit for each hour past the guarantee. For VPS and Hybrid, they guarantee 100% uptime with a prorated credit equal to 10x the amount of downtime unless downtime is related to customer error or scheduled maintenance.

Here are some of the key reasons why I like WiredTree and have been a customer for the past 6 years:

PROACTIVE:
They stay on top of security issues and upgrade equipment when needed. And, they take action on my behalf to keep my server secure and operating reliably. In fact, you’ll receive emails well in advance for any planned hardware upgrades, maintenance or other service interruptions.

FAST & RELIABLE:
Servers, connections, and websites run fast. WiredTree’s servers allow pages to load quickly, leading to a better experience for your website visitors. Additionally, they are highly reliable with very little downtime.

FULLY MANAGED:
What does that mean?

They provide full 24/7/365 phone and help desk support for all software that comes installed on your managed server, including the OS and control panel, as well as providing proactive security updates to ensure your server is always secure.

They provide full support for the hardware in your server. In the rare event of a component failure, they guarantee to replace it within 1 hour. They also provide a suite of tools in the client portal to give you complete control over the hardware in your server.

You get a secure and reliable networking environment. Network reliability is guaranteed by a 100% uptime SLA. Each client is isolated to their own private VLAN for security and our entire network is constantly monitored for performance.

Their ServerShield package is a comprehensive set of services and tools to enhance the security, performance and reliability of your server. It includes an advanced firewall, e-mail anti-virus and anti-spam systems, HTTP DOS and intrusion protection, kernel and filesystem hardening and more.

Basically, they take care of all the hardware and software so you can concentrate on your websites!

TECH SUPPORT:
This was a key issue for me after what I had gone through with two previous hosting companies. It didn’t take long to find out this wouldn’t be an issue. Responses to support tickets are answered quickly and thoroughly.

I’m responsible for technical side of all my websites. But, I don’t have the technical knowledge or ability to handle many aspects of that. WiredTree’s technicians try to get a feel for your knowledge and experience and have not only helped me along the way, but actually gone out of their way to answer any questions I have.

Being a techno-dunce, there have several times when I asked them how to do something on my server and I’d receive a reply from support saying it was taken care of! Often it was faster for them to just take care of an issue, update some software, or change a server setting than it was for them to write the instructions on how to do it.

CONFIGURATION:
Once my account was set up everything worked right from the start. nameservers, mail, cPanel, databases, etc. were properly configured from the start with all the administrative tools needed.

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT:
WireTree has an easy to use back office for managing support tickets, requesting services, handling billing and monitoring hardware. There’s also a knowledgebase available with answers many of the more common questions you might have about using your hosting account.

ROOM to GROW:
Because WiredTree specializes in VPS and dedicated servers, there is plenty of room to grow with them. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever get to the point where you need to change hosts because they can’t offer what you need.

WHM & cPanel:
Unlike some other hosting providers, you have full “root” access to your servers. With Webhost Manager (WHM), you have a complete admin portal to manage your websites. Rather than creating add-on domains in one cPanel, I create a new cPanel account through WHM for each site I build.

Even with a shared hosting account, chances are you’re already familiar with cPanel. so there’s no new learning curve for you here.

Additionally, Fantastico is available to quickly and easily install all of your favorite scripts and content management systems like WordPress.

BOTTOM LINE:
WiredTree so far has been a great company for hosting my websites. Therefore, I have no hesitation at all recommending WiredTree to anyone needing an upgrade to VPS or managed server hosting. Their team of professionals provide some of the best support in the business.