HostArmada review: the next big web host?

HostArmada is a new web hosting provider in the game. But, in just a little less than 2 years, the provider has made waves in the industry by offering excellent performance, easy management, and strong security measures at budget-friendly prices.

Or, at least, that’s what all the HostArmada reviews out there are saying. But, frankly, that sounds a little too good to be true and we all know that the best way to find out is by testing it yourself. If you don't like what you're offered, there are plenty of alternatives to check out.

Best alternative to HostArmada

Bluehost is a strong alternative to HostArmada, offering scalable hosting plans, reliable security, seamless WordPress integration, and generous storage with unmetered bandwidth.

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4.9 /5

• Competitive offerings
• Free domain registration
• Unmetered bandwidth

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To understand if the HostArmada is worth your money, I tested it myself. For this HostArmada review, I’ve researched, compared, and ran extensive tests on the provider – from pricing and performance to security and customer support. And, of course, I come with proofs to back it all up.

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Pros and Cons of HostArmada

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HostArmada pricing & plans

HostArmada’s most popular solution is shared hosting – where prices start from $2.49/month. Its other offerings include VPS and dedicated hosting.

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Typically, shared hosting is the ideal solution for most people and what most of us start with. That’s why in this review, I'll focus on shared hosting services alone.

HostArmada has 3 shared hosting packages. All of them come bearing things like unmetered bandwidth as well as a free domain name, unlimited email accounts, free website transfer, cPanel, and free SSL for all domains.

As you can see, HostArmada’s aren’t exactly the most liberal with its resources. But the plans do come at very affordable prices.

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And HostArmada’s packages remain the same price whether you opt for a 12-month, 24-month, or 36-month billing cycle. That’s always a relief and very much appreciated since it’s pretty rare for this industry. My only gripe here is that HostArmada’s renewal price is a fair bit higher than its initial pricing.

It’s also worth noting that for the shared hosting plans, the provider has a 45-day money-back guarantee. That’s longer than most providers’ standard 30-day guarantee and should be enough to cover any change of heart.

All in all, HostArmada offers competitive and affordable options with its good-value plans. Just be aware that you’ll have to fork out more when it’s time to renew.

Hosting management: is it easy to use?

HostArmada uses a combination of custom dashboard and cPanel for management. The dashboard is neatly organized, intuitive, and houses a number of critical features. Meanwhile, cPanel is where you go for more advanced features.

When you log in, you’ll be met with HostArmada’s dashboard. This is what it looks like:

You should have an easy time navigating the dashboard. Everything is straightforward and HostArmada keeps things uncluttered by only having the necessaries here. You can find things like services, domains, billing, and support – and that's about it.

But, when you need more, you’ll have to hit up cPanel. If you’re well-versed in cPanel, you’ll find a familiar face as HostArmada’s cPanel looks pretty much like every other cPanel out there.

It’s clean, powerful, and packed with all the tools you need to set up and manage your website. This is where you can install WordPress, set up email accounts, add subdomains, access file manager and databases, and tackle SEO amongst other things. There’s something for both newbies and seasoned webmasters.

Easy to use, powerful, and have everything you need for website management, HostArmada’s custom dashboard and cPanel are quite the winning pair.

Performance: is HostArmada fast?

HostArmada showed great results when it comes to speed. The provider is remarkably fast. Plus, it handles traffic extremely well, too. I have no complaints about the uptime either.

HostArmada uptime and response time

Throughout the week of monitoring and tests, HostArmada remained online 100% of the time. That's a perfect result with 0 outages.

The response time was pretty stable as well, averaging at 412ms. It fluctuated in around the 200ms range. This makes HostArmada both reliable and speedy.

Of course, I'll keep my eyes peeled on this one to see if such a trend continues in the long run.

HostArmada speed test

Next up, tested HostArmada’s speed with an empty WordPress site. The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) takes just 491ms. In case you don’t know whether to cheer or to boo, I’d consider anything below 600ms to be incredible. So, that’s definitely a cause to celebrate.

Next, I tested with a built WordPress site. This time, the LCP took 1.4s. For a built site, that’s still a win as Google considers anything up to 2.5s to be great.

Now talking about a fully loaded time, the site took only 1.6s. For best user experience the load time should be under 3 seconds, and HostArmada had no issue falling under this benchmark.

Since I opted for the Speed Reaper plan, it’s safe to assume that much of the faster loading times could be attributed to the LiteSpeed Web Server. The technology allows your site to handle thousands of requests with minimum resources and boosts PHP performance.

Plus, HostArmada has data centers across the world – including Europe, North America, and Asia. Hence, wherever your target audience is based, you should see similarly speedy results by picking the server closest to them.

HostArmada stress test

So far, HostArmada aced all the tests. For its final test, I sent 50 virtual users (VUs) its way to see how it handles traffic. And it passed.

What I’m looking for here is a stable and flat speed line (the blue line) as the number of visitors (the gray line) goes up. It’s also important that failure (the red line) makes itself scarce.

Well, I got exactly what I wanted with HostArmada. The provider handled the surge in traffic effortlessly and flawlessly. I have absolutely no complaints.

As a whole, HostArmada’s performance is impressive. Very good reliability load speed, and great traffic handling capability, that’s all one could ask for.

Security: is HostArmada secure?

HostArmada has the full stack security solutions in place. It has you covered with measures like SSL certificates, daily backups, DDoS protection, malware scanning, and live server monitoring.

Here’s a brief look:

• SSL certificates: there’s free SSL from Sectigo for all the domains hosted on it. This is a pretty standard offering and will help to enable an encrypted connection between your site and your visitors.
• Backups: HostArmada offers between 7 and 21 daily backups – depending on your plan. Although a vital feature, it’s common to only see weekly backups for shared hosting plans – especially budget ones. So, HostArmada is definitely ahead of its competition in this regard.
• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection: DDoS is an attack where traffic from various compromised systems floods your site to disrupt it. This attack can be devastating so it’s great that HostArmada is armed with server-side protection that includes ModSecurity integration, per-IP throttling, SSL renegotiation protection service, and reCaptcha.
• Firewalls: includes web application firewall (WAF) that analyzes, monitors, and blocks HTTP traffic at the application layer to prevent XSS attack or SQL injection. This is always a great security measure to minimize your web server’s vulnerability.
• Malware scanning: HostArmada performs automated security scans for exploits and code-injected malware. You have the option to initiate a security scan via cPanel, too.
• Monitoring: There’s 24/7 live server monitoring to ensure that any threat or incident could be mitigated promptly.

Overall, I’m impressed with HostArmada’s sweeping security measures. The features are comprehensive and considerably more than what’s offered by most of its competitors.

Will HostArmada support help me?

Just like every other modern web host, you can contact HostArmada’s customer support team 24/7 via live chat, ticketing, and phone. Plus, it also has an extensive knowledge base with a huge selection of articles and guides.

My personal favorite support channel is live chat. I’ve contacted HostArmada’s customer service team multiple times to check out how it fares and, so far, my experience has been really pleasant.

Each round, the wait time is close to nil as customer service replied in just mere seconds. During the conversations, the agents were never pushy or in a rush to sell a plan. Instead, they were super helpful and took the time to explain things in detail. Additionally, the agents appeared to be well-versed with web hosting and know their stuff.

On top of that, HostArmada has a huge knowledge base. Sure, it might not be as massive as other providers’ collections but it’s worth bearing in mind that HostArmada is still in its infancy stage. We should see more articles soon.

Even now, its knowledge base is already pretty comprehensive. You’ll find articles covering multiple topics such as cPanel/WHM, domains and DNS, security, and web hosting.

I had read a few articles, too. Each was well-written and packed with tons of information.

Fast, helpful, and efficient, HostArmada’s support team nailed it. Its knowledge base is very handy as well.

HostArmada review: the final verdict

All things considered, this HostArmada review is a reminder that good web hosting isn’t limited to just those offered by the main players.

Here’s a summary of its services:

I’d recommend HostArmada – especially to beginners and those building small to mid-sized sites. It performs well and comes with excellent tools and features.

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Alternatives to HostArmada

HostArmada is a great new addition to the web hosting industry. But, it might not be right for you or your project. In that case, you would want to check out some of the alternatives below.

Bluehost

Bluehost is one of the best alternatives to HostArmada. It's great performance and impressive price of just $1.99/month promise everything a potential user needs to host their website or business. And just like HostArmada, it offers a responsive and helpful customer support.

Overall, if you're into WordPress CMS, there really isn't a provider as good as Bluehost mainly because WordPress itself recommends it. Besides, its customization ensures that anyone will be able to have the website they want.

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Hostinger

Hostinger is also an affordable provider, with cheap plans starting at just $2.54/month. Apart from its affordability, it’s also popular for its easy-to-use control panel and outstanding customer support.

Performance-wise, Hostinger is a great alternative, too. It’s reliable and fast, with data centers in 8 locations across the world.

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