Delaware-based GPLHost was initially launched in the United States in 2003, then in Singapore in 2005 and the U.K. in 2006. Although its U.S. (.com) website looks more modern, it’s pretty dysfunctional, so you have to turn to the much older Singapore (.sg) or U.K. (.co.uk) sites to see what this host has to offer.
Features and Ease of Use
Based on the information provided by the Singapore site (and the U.K. site is similar), it looks like GPLHost offers three shared hosting plans with very little storage space (of 160 MB to 640 MB) and bandwidth (of 1 GB to 15 GB per month). For higher specifications, you have to turn to the four SSL hosting plans that provide a private IP address plus more significant storage space (of up to 1.5 GB per month) and bandwidth (of up to 30 GB per month).
Aside from the resource allocations, you can expect to find these features in the shared hosting plans:
- Unlimited hosted domains
- Unlimited emails and FTP accounts
- Free domain
- DTC custom control panel
- Unlimited subdomains
- Application installer
GPLHost developed its own custom control panel called DTC, although the last “headline” about this software was posted on the U.K. site in 2009, so it’s hard to say if it’s still current. However, it looks like it should serve the same needs as the popular cPanel control panel; i.e., letting you manage backup intervals, website files, FTP accounts, email accounts, and more.
It also includes an application installer which, like the more popular Softaculous, helps you install CMS and other software such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, PrestaShop, and Magento.
Pricing and Support
For the limited resources on offer, GPLHost’s prices are high, but — judging from the copyright notices on the Singapore and U.K. websites — I do wonder whether they’ve not been updated in the past ten years to reflect more modern competition. There is no money-back guarantee as far as I can see, and all plans are payable via PayPal on an annual basis. This is very much how web hosts did business a decade or more ago.
According to the information provided, you can contact customer support by telephone or email. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, my exploratory email received no response.
