FastComet Review – Still my first recommended WordPress Hosting in 2024
If you run an online business, you must invest in a reliable hosting service that guarantees maximum online presence and outstanding performance. The type of hosting you use has a significant impact on the success of your online business.
Today, I’ll be reviewing FastComet, another popular web hosting provider. FastComet is a popular web hosting company, with over 750,000 small business and personal website owners using its services.
FastComet’s site lists six reasons why its web hosting services are superior than those of its competitors:
- Up to 70% faster websites with optimized hosting
- Service uptime
- Website security
- User-friendly control panel
- 24/7/365 technical support
- 11 data centers worldwide
I’ve been using this hosting for the past 3 years. So, after extensive testing and research, I am finally here with my honest options about it.
In this FastComet Review, we’ll share all we’ve discovered about this web hosting and help you decide if it delivers on its promises.
Finally, we’ll discuss some important pros and cons of FastComet, some alternatives, and find out if FastComet is worth buying. Taking no more of your time, let us begin!
Contents
An Overview of FastComet
SPEED: | 634 ms (January 2022 to November 2022) |
---|---|
UPTIME: | 99.88% (January 2022 to November 2022) |
SUPPORT: | 24/7 Live Chat, Phone (Sales), Ticketing, Email (Sales, Billing, & Abuse), and Knowledge Base |
APPS: | Softaculous installer for 300+ popular apps, including WordPress |
FEATURES: | 15 GB SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, free domain transfer, free website transfer, free content delivery network (CDN) servers, 45-day money-back guarantee, daily backups, cPanel, free SSL, unlimited email accounts, and more. |
HOSTING PLANS: | Shared hosting, Cloud VPS hosting, Dedicated hosting, WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting, Magento (Adobe Commerce) hosting, and OpenCart hosting plans |
SITE TRANSFER: | Free (up to three websites depending on the plan) |
PRICING: | Starting at $1.79/month* (renews at $9.95/month) *Price as of Dec 2023 |
Advantages of Using FastComet Hosting
Choosing FastComet as your web hosting provider has many advantages. Let’s see what convinced those 750,000+ website owners to choose FastComet over other service providers.
1. Reliable 24/7/365 Support
One of FastComet’s most attractive features is its 24/7/365 customer support. According to its customer support page, 83% of support requests have been resolved within 15 minutes.
FastComet support is fast and reliable.
FastComet provides three escalation levels to ensure that customers get the right person to support them as quickly as possible. Furthermore, FastComet’s website provides a clear and detailed list of what is covered in its customer service.
2. 11 Data Centers Worldwide
FastComet has 11 data centers strategically placed around the world. These data centers are located in:
- North America — Dallas, Newark, Toronto, and Fremont
- Europe — Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and London
- Asia — Singapore, Tokyo, and Mumbai
- Australia — Sydney
With data centers spread across the globe, FastComet lets you choose a server close to your main target audience, to improve website speed and performance.
In comparison, Hostinger only offers eight server locations, while HostGator has just two main data centers. If you want a hosting solution with more data centers, you can consider Cloudways. It has data centers in 65+ locations around the globe!
3. Great Money-Back
FastComet offers a generous refund policy of 45 days on all its hosting plans, 15 days longer than those offered by web hosting services like Bluehost, HostGator, and GoDaddy. So, you can test out their services for this time and get all your money back if you don’t like them!
4. Advanced Security Features
- Master Password – Unlike other hosting providers, FastComet lets you set a master password for your account. Services like cPanel, website setup, backup, restoration, staging, etc, work only after verifying your master password. However, this extra security might also slow down your workflow at times!
- ModSecurity – FastComet uses ModSecurity, a web application firewall (WAF), to monitor the traffic between the internet and your web applications. ModSecurity helps prevent application-level exploits from malicious plugins and extensions.
- 2FA – For Two-Factor Authentication, you can use authenticator apps like Google Authenticator or Authy to generate OTP codes for your logins.
- SSL Certificate – FastComet offers a free SSL certificate with every plan.
- BitNinja Security – It’s a 7-layered network firewall that stops DDoS attacks, script injections, etc, and is enabled on all FastComet plans.
- Imunify360 – FastComet offers Imunify360 with all its shared hosting plans. Imunify360 is an artificial intelligence-based security solution to protect Linux web servers, which learns from each attack and filters out malicious IPs, malware bots, and threats.
- Virus Scanner – It scans your entire home directory, or mail, public FTP space, and public web space separately for viruses.
- IP Blocker – It blocks certain IP addresses from accessing your website.
- Hotlink Protection – It restricts other users from directly linking to files on your website so they cannot steal your bandwidth.
- Isolated Hosting Environment – FastComet’s shared hosting plans come with account isolation. Even if one of the neighboring websites in the shared hosting service is under attack, your website remains secure.
- SSH Access – It lets you directly make changes to your server using the Terminal app under cPanel.
- FastComet guarantees a highly secure web hosting experience.
5. Affordable Pricing
The Shared Hosting plans of FastComet start from $1.79/month, which is quite affordable considering the features they offer with even the Basic plan.
6. Free Domain
Each of FastComet’s shared hosting plans comes with a free domain name. While the choices aren’t exhaustive (only .store, .online, .tech, and .site are included), they certainly work for anyone who just wants to design a personal website or blog.
Already own a domain name? Not a problem. FastComet makes it easy to transfer domain names to its platform for no additional charge. It’ll even renew the domain name for you for one year for free.
8. FastComet Migrations
Talking about FastComet shared hosting plans, the FastCloud plan allows one free site migration, whereas the FastCloud Plus and FastCloud Extra plans let you migrate up to 3 websites for free! All you need to do is submit a ticket, and the support team handles the rest.
If you want more migrations, check out ChemiCloud which offers up to 200 free cPanel migrations!
9. FastComet Backups and Restoration
FastComet offers automated daily backups on all its hosting plans for free. These are off-site backups, meaning they are stored on a different server than where your website is. So, in case something happens to your site, the backup will remain protected!
Your files and databases are backed up separately. So you can create separate backups for your databases, emails, cronjobs, files, DNS zones, etc.
FastComet creates incremental backups, which means it only copies the changes made since the previous backup!
The FastCloud and FastCloud Plus Shared hosting plans store automatic backups for 7 days. Whereas, the FastCloud Extra plan stores your backups for a duration of 30 days.
The restoration process can be easily implemented through their 1-click Restore Manager. However, there is no option to restore both databases and files together.
Disadvantages of Using FastComet Hosting
1. Poor Uptime
Here’s the uptime status report for the FastComet hosting for the last 365 days.
Dec 2023 | 82.69% |
Nov 2023 | 99.95% |
Oct 2023 | 99.94% |
Sep 2023 | 99.82% |
Aug 2023 | 100% |
Jul 2023 | 99.98% |
Jun 2023 | 99.99% |
May 2023 | 100% |
Apr 2023 | 99.99% |
Mar 2023 | 99.55% |
Feb 2023 | 99.99% |
Jan 2023 | 99.98% |
The issue with FastComet’s uptime is its variability. In some months, it’s perfect (or nearly perfect), while in other months, it’s well below par.
Also, the downtime during those low months is concerning. In March 2022, there was a single downtime incident that lasted over three hours and another that lasted 42 minutes. This isn’t the kind of thing you want to hear if your website is your primary source of income.
2. High Renewal Rates
As of writing, FastComet’s basic shared hosting plan starts at a special price of $1.79/month. This price is valid no matter the hosting period you choose: 1 month, 12 months, 24 months, or 36 months.
However, once the initial trial period ends, the price rockets up to $11.95/month for the basic plan, FastCloud. That’s a renewal price increase of 660% without any changes to the plan’s features. The higher tier shared plans, FastCloud Plus and FastCloud Extra, renew at $17.95 and $24.95, respectively.
Quick Facts
- Free domain? Yes, but only for .store, .online, .tech, or .site.
- Free Trial? No free trial.
- Ease of Signup: Easy signup process.
- Payment Methods: All major credit cards and PayPal.
- Hidden Fees and Clauses:
- FastComet will automatically renew paid domains. You will be charged for the renewal unless you submit a cancellation request 48 hours before the renewal date.
- The 45-day money-back guarantee is only applicable for shared web hosting. There’s only a 7-day money-back guarantee for VPS and Dedicated hosting plans.
- Account Activation: Fast account activation.
- Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: cPanel.
- Installation of Apps and CMSs (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): Access to over 300 popular apps.
Do We Recommend FastComet?
Yes, we recommend FastComet to new website owners looking for a featureful web hosting service that makes it easy for them to get started.
In addition to offering 11 data centers and a solid customer service experience, FastComet provides its customers with feature-rich hosting plans at an affordable price. While there is some variability in its uptime and speed, it’s worth trying FastComet out.
And while FastComet doesn’t have a free trial, it often runs sales. As of writing, a new year sale is ongoing, offering the web service at a price of $1.79/month. So, keep your eyes peeled for ongoing discounts at FastComet.