StableHost Review and Test Results

Review

If nothing else, StableHost should be lauded for having the most consumer-friendly hosting provider website we’ve ever seen. A hosting site without the need to utilize asterisks and the accompanying explanatory fine print is a rare thing in an industry known for less-than-consumer-friendly practices. But there is more to like about StableHost.

HOSTING PLANS

StableHost offers three shared web hosting plans, Basic, Stable, and Plus. Otherwise identical in every way, they differ only in price and the amount of disk space provided.

The cheapest plan, Basic, is available at only $3.62 per month for a 1-year term renewal, and provides 3GB of disk space. The next-cheapest plan, Stable, costs $5.45 per month for a 1-year term renewal, and includes 7GB of disk space. The costliest plan, Plus, is priced at $9.12 per month for a 1-year term renewal, and includes a 20GB of disk space.

StableHost cPanel control panel. Click to enlarge.

Features common to all three shared plans include: high-speed solid state drives, LiteSpeed PHP caching, cPanel control panel (screenshot right), Softaculous applications installer (screenshot below right), free daily backups, and a drag-and-drop site builder.

Unlimited features include: bandwidth, domains hosted, subdomains, parked domains, MySQL databases, FTP accounts, e-mail accounts, e-mail forwarders, autoresponders, and mailing lists.

Additional common features include: Webalizer, Analog and Awstats stats; e-mail virus and spam filtering; webmail access, choice of Chicago, Phoenix, or Amsterdam datacenters; PHP 5.2.x, 5.3.x, and 5.4.x support; Percona/MySQL 5.5; Perl 5.8.8; server side includes; and free Perl module installation.

All StableHost shared plans are backed by a 99.9% uptime guarantee; 24/7 e-mail support; and a 45-day money-back guarantee.

PURCHASE PROCESS

As is our practice, we selected the cheapest available shared plan — Basic — for purposes of testing and review. StableHost utilizes a consumer-friendly, 4-step checkout process.

Step 1 requires the entry of a domain name to be associated with the account. We entered our domain and clicked the “Continue” button.

Step 2 provides for the selection of billing cycle, and a choice of datacenters. As we required hosting for testing and reviewing purposes, we selected the shortest available term, 6 months at $3.95 per month. We selected the default datacenter location (Chicago, IL) and clicked the “Add to Cart” button.

Step 3 provides the opportunity to review the order and the amount to be billed, as well as the opportunity to enter and validate a StableHost coupon code. We clicked the “Checkout” button.

StableHost Softaculous applications installer. Click to enlarge.

StableHost pricing page. The prices you see are the prices paid when first ordering and for renewals. There are no asterisks. There is no fine print. Click to enlarge.

Step 4 requires the entry of billing information, the selection of a password, as well as the selection of security question and answer. Available payment options include Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, and PayPal. Step 4 also provides an option to prevent StableHost from saving your credit card information for future billing. A very-consumer-friendly practice, this was the first time we had encountered this option on a hosting provider’s website.

We selected our preferred payment method, PayPal, agreed to the Terms of Service, and clicked the “Complete Order” button.

SETUP

Three minutes after placing our order, we received the StableHost “Your web hosting account is now set up” e-mail. We were pleased to see that it provided all of the information required to set up our test site quickly and easily. The e-mail included billing cycle information, control panel login, nameserver information, FTP login, and e-mail settings.

We then proceeded to upload our test site to the StableHost server via FTP. We then set up our Dotcom Monitor page-load speed and reliability testing and waited for the test data to accumulate.

USABILITY

StableHost provides the industry’s leading control panel —cPanel — with shared hosting plans (screenshot above right). Capable and easy to use, cPanel provides quick access to numerous newbie-friendly interfaces that perform nearly every webmaster function imaginable.

Included with StableHost’s’ cPanel is the industry’s leading applications installer — Softaculous (screenshot above right). It provides for quick the installation of more than 100 scripts including WordPress, PrestaShop, AbanteCart, Drupal, Joomla, phpBB, SMF, WHMCS, Magento, MyBB, Dolphin, Moodle, PHP Fusion, ClipBucket, Gallery and many more.

Owing to these features, as well as others previously mentioned, we found StableHost to be one of the easiest-to-use web hosting services we have ever reviewed.

StableHost 10-day Uptime Test Results Chart. Click to enlarge.

StableHost 10-day Speed Test Results Chart. Click to enlarge.

TESTING

All web hosting services reviewed by NCM Online are purchased and subjected to our 10-day test for uptime and speed. Utilizing third-party testing service, Dotcom Monitor, identical NCM Test Sites undergo approximately 2000 separate checks performed by 13 worldwide test locations.

Page-load speed and uptime testing for our simple 1-page test site began on 2/22/15 and concluded on 3/4/15. We are pleased to report that StableHost proved to be reliable, recording a 100% uptime rating throughout the 10-day testing period — which included 1055 separate server reliability checks (see Uptime Test Results Chart above right).

StableHost scored an above-average page-load speed rating. The Basic plan averaged 1.5431 seconds to load our test page from 13 worldwide locations over the course of 10 days and 1057 separate checks (see Speed Test Results Chart right). StableHost averaged 1.3598 seconds to load our test page from 7 U.S. locations over the course of 10 days and 571 separate tests.

Pros

• Cheap pricing
• 5-star ease-of-use rating
• 3GB disk space
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited domains hosted
• Unlimited subdomains
• Unlimited MySQL databases
• Unlimited FTP Accounts
• Unlimited e-mail accounts
• SSD server drives
• cPanel control panel
• Softaculous applications installer
• LiteSpeed PHP caching
• Free backups
• Free drag-and-drop site builder
• Choice of Chicago, Phoenix, or Amsterdam datacenters
• 100% uptime test result
• PayPal payment option
• 45-day money-back guarantee
• Exclusive 40% off first invoice NCMONLINE40OFF promo code

Cons

• No phone or chat support
• Not listed by the Better Business Bureau

Conclusion

One of the cheapest shared hosts reviewed to date, StableHost provides a lot of bang for the buck. Worthy of your consideration, StableHost has earned 4 stars and is recommended with reservations by NCM Online.

Pricing and Features

Cheap website hosting company price comparisons based on 1-year term list price before coupon/promo codes or limited time/introductory offer discounts. These are the renewal rates for the second year of hosting. To ensure that you receive the most affordable StableHost Web Hosting pricing possible, please visit our Web Hosting Coupon Codes page for current discounts and special offers before making any purchases.

Plan	Basic	Stable	Plus
Disk Space	3GB	7GB	20GB
Bandwidth Allowance	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Hosted Domains	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
E-Mail Accounts	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
SSD Hard Drives	Included	Included	Included
Real 24/7 Technical Support	Included	Included	Included
Control Panel Features
Unlimited Add-On Domains
Unlimited Sub Domains
Unlimited Parked Domains
Unlimited MySQL Databases
Unlimited FTP Accounts
Webalizer, Analog and Awstats
RVSiteBuilder Pro
Softaculous
R1Soft Daily Backups
Email Features
Unlimited E-Mail Accounts
Unlimited Forwards
Unlimited Auto Responders
Unlimited Mailing Lists
Virus/Spam Filtering
IMAP and POP3
Port 25/26 SMTP
Online WebMail
SSL POP3, IMAP and SMTP
Server Features
SSH Access	Additional fee	Additional fee	Additional fee
24/7 Server Monitoring
Starting at 24GB of RAM
Anycast Clustered DNS
SSD Drives
Litespeed Web Server
Phoenix and Amsterdam Datacenters
Developer
PHP 5.2.x, 5.3.x and 5.4.x
Percona / MySQL 5.5
Perl 5.8.8
Server Side Includes
Free Perl Module Installation
Price per Month*	$3.62	$5.45	$9.12

*Prices based on 1-year term before the application of coupon/promo codes and introductory/limited-time offer discounts. While you may pay less for the first year of hosting, the prices displayed on this page are the 1-year term renewal rates.

Company Information

StableHost believes it has quality behind its name. The company provides its customers with dependable hardware, user-friendly software and experienced support staff. Its hosting plans come with free website transfer and a free website builder. Both its shared and enterprise webhosting plans include unlimited bandwidth allowance, domains, and email accounts. It also offers reseller hosting plans and VPS hosting that comes complete with a SolusVM control panel.

The company offers guarantees that new customers may reassuring. Clients receive a guarantee of 99.9% uptime, a money-back guarantee that lasts 45 days, rather than the thirty days that most hosting companies offer, and a guarantee of rapid and friendly customer support 24/7/365.

The company provides easy to use control panels and simple to install software that includes social networks, chat rooms, and blogs. StableHost’s web packages come with Softaculous, a program that allows clients to install web applications with one click. Softaculous helps customers upload the top 150 internet web applications, including Drupal, PHPBB, and WordPress. Clients no longer need to read installation files and manually configure databases. Instead, they can install and set up a blog in under five minutes.

StableHost uses cPanel, which is the leading control panel software in the hosting industry. Potential clients can try out this control panel prior to purchasing a hosting package. CPanel allows even inexperienced customers to manage a web hosting platform. The company also utilizes Litespeed, a commercial website server that is six times quicker than the Apache server that most hosting companies use. Litespeed allows websites to upload almost instantaneously.

The company uses CloudLinux, a commercial program that helps prevent server overload. If someone hacks a website and attempts to overload the server, CloudLinux automatically contains that client’s site. The remainder of the server is not affected by the hacker and the other websites sharing the server stay unharmed.

StableHost subscribers receive customer service from the beginning. Most clients are sent their login information within minutes after purchasing a plan. Service personnel are available to assist clients and provide rapid resolutions to technical issues.

StableHost 4904 South Power Rd Suite 103-202 Mesa, AZ 85212 866-945-6952 602-734-0197 Fax 480-779-1340 StableHost Website StableHost on Twitter StableHost on Facebook

How to Install WordPress

This video tutorial will show you exactly how to install WordPress on your StableHost shared hosting account using the cPanel control panel and the Softaculous applications installer.