Features and Ease of Use
GoolHost’s focus is on providing low-cost, reliable, and high-performance shared and reseller hosting. Their shared hosting plans are hosted on Linux servers and include features such as:
- Fully redundant networks
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
- One-click installations of popular apps such as WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal
- Ample storage and number of email accounts corresponding to the level of the plan selected
The Starter and Professional shared hosting plans are limited to only one connected domain per account, so they’re best suited for personal websites or basic web fronts for professionals and small businesses. If you anticipate creating multiple domains, I’d recommend their Popular shared hosting plan or above. This comes with:
- 10GB of SSD storage
- 100GB bandwidth
- Unlimited email accounts
- 10 hosted domains
- Unlimited MySQL databases.
If you’re anticipating more traffic to your website and require a high-performance server, you can go for their VPS hosting plans – which, incidentally, are hosted on data centers located in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. This gives you more flexibility in optimizing your website for your target audience based on their geographical locations.
GoolHost offers a cPanel installation with all of their shared hosting plans, which makes managing your account straightforward. Also, their VPS hosting plans are fully managed, but this management extends only to what they install – meaning if you order a VPS with no control panel, they will only manage the underlying operating system. A separate control panel license can be purchased for the VPS.
Pricing and Support
GoolHost’sshared hosting plans are extremely low-priced, which is indicative of their primarily Indian customer base. However, with that affordability comes a trade-off: while most hosting providers would offer at least a few gigs of storage with their entry-level plans, GoolHost provides only 200 MB. Then again, all websites are hosted on super-fast SSDs, and 200 MB is enough for a basic, static website with mainly text and pictures.
Their shared hosting packages are more affordable compared to their VPS plans, which are priced slightly higher. While their VPS prices remain competitive compared to other providers, they do fall on the higher side. It’s worth noting that their reseller hosting packages offer better features and are more cost-effective than their VPS hosting plans. This is likely because GoolHost positions itself as a shared and reseller hosting provider.
There’s no free plan available, but they do have a 15-day money back guarantee for shared hosting plans and 10-day money back guarantee for reseller hosting plans. In order toreceive this refund, they do require you to submit a valid, detailed reason for canceling their service. Also, if at any time you wish to upgrade or downgrade your hosting plan, you’ll have to contact their customer support team to do so.
GoolHost offers 24/7 support mainly via a support ticket system. They also have a telephone hotline and email channels open, but their phone hotline doesn’t seem to be open 24/7. They have a live chat accessible via their main website, but it doesn’t appear to be available around the clock, and they claim to have a knowledge base but it does not contain any articles.