#3 Web Hosting - PowWeb Review

Update:
18 October 2007 - $5.77/month offer is back! (normal price $7.77)

$5.77/month (FREE Setup) + FREE Domain Name
(Upgraded!) 1,500 GB 300 GB disk space,
15,000 GB 3,000 GB Bandwidth

Overview

Don't confuse PowWeb with iPowerWeb as they are two different hosting providers. PowWeb is also one of the first hosts who offered large bandwidth with their plans to attract customers. They have been around since 1999 and have built up a good reputation in the cheap web hosting market. They offer one single hosting plan and is hosting over 90,000 domains.

Sample Site

In May 2005, we finally decided to move our sample site hosted by Globat to PowWeb. From 2 years of close monitoring, we believe PowWeb is a better choice today. You can visit the sample site here, which is a picture site. We noticed a significant change in upload and download speed after we switch to PowWeb! PowWeb servers are incredibly fast. Check out the site to see how fast the pictures load!

Plan Size and Features

PowWeb increase their disk space and bandwidth again! It is now 1,500 GB disk space and 15,000 GB bandwidth.

They have included 75 MySQL databases free in their hosting package. They also offer a free domain name for 1 and 2 year orders.

And now you can actually host unlimited domains with this hosting account. If you are new to multiple domain hosting, you can learn more by reading our BlueHost review.

Control Panel

PowWeb has developed their own custom control panel software, called the Member Operations Center or "OPS". Most web hosts use commercial control panel software such as CPanel or Plesk. The demo will show you the features inside OPS. It is actually quite powerful and easy to use. It handles most of the basic tasks, from billing to setting up email accounts and registering new domain names.

Customer Support

Their email support is considered very good and effective. They were able to answer all our questions and every email sent was answered promptly. They've also added a toll-free line to their office, which is 1-877-4POWWEB (1877-476-9932). The toll-free line is available Monday to Friday 6am-8pm PDT and Saturday to Sunday 11am-4pm PDT. The line is available to US and Canadian customers only. Live chat support is also available now!

They are also doing a great job of preparing a lot of frequently asked questions (FAQ) in their web site. You can find a lot of solutions to your common problems and also a lot of tips and tricks, such as how to create custom error message, how to do HTTP streaming for real audio and many more.

They also provide an online community forum as a place for their customers to meet (Just like LunarPages). It is a good place to meet some other PowWeb customers who are willing to help each other out. Web host with an open forum usually means they are quite confident of their services because they allow open discussion about them. An active forum with lots of customers also means that they have a successful and established business. Their forum has more than 13,000 members!

PowWeb staffs will also be actively participating in the forum and even PowWeb founder and CEO, Andrew Te will be actively posting in the forum! Most company founder hide themselves from their customers but for PowWeb, you can actually message Andrew directly via the forum!

No More Limitations

They seem to be addressing most of the limitations we have posted here ever since we posted our review 2 years ago. For example in January 2004, they installed AWStats to allow their customers to view the traffic statistics of their websites. Before that, they provide no web stats.

The also provide toll-free support and live-chat support later. You are now able to create password protected directories directly via the control panel. You are also able to setup email autoresponders now. We can see that they are constantly improving their hosting package.

PowWeb has also removed their maximum number of files limit. They used to have this "funny" limitation where each user cannot have more than 50,000 files in an account. It is funny because it looks like they are the only host in the whole industry that imposed this limitation. But now it has been removed.

They have increased their MySQL databases to 75 in February 2007 after we highlight it in our review. There are lots of free scripts available to us today (such as forum, blog, etc.) and all of them require a MySQL database. Having more databases means you can install more free scripts. It is good that our review does have a great impact on them. :)

Free Domain Name

If you are registering a new domain name for your hosting account, PowWeb will register it for you for free. This offer is only apply to 1-year or 2-years order. If you are transferring your domain/website to PowWeb, you will not get another free domain name.

Conclusion

Large disk space and bandwidth, unlimited domain hosting, good customer support (email support, toll-free & live chat), large useful FAQ and community forum to seek for help. Get a free domain name when you purchase for 1 year or 2 years of hosting!

Our Advice

Read other reviews to learn more about PowWeb competitors such as our  LunarPages Review and BlueHost Review. You will definitely learn a lot just by reading our reviews. If you want to go with PowWeb, make sure you order for at least 1 year to get a free domain name.

About The Editor (That's Me!)
My name is James Yap and I am a computer nerd. I like computer so much that I sit in front of the computer 14 hours a day. I am a power web designer and programmer and is currently maintaining more than 30 websites. This gives me the opportunity to try out a lot of different web hosting companies for the last 5 years. I do get screw up by some lousy web hosts before and I know how frustrated it is. That's why I wrote these reviews to help you. If you do not want to screw up your website or your business, make sure you pick the right web host!

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