A Dark Horse for WordPress Sites?

In this review, we’re taking a close look at InMotion Hosting, a popular choice for web hosting. InMotion is known for its quick website loading times and a setup process that’s friendly for beginners. We’ll test its actual performance in terms of speed, reliability, and customer support.

Our evaluation will help you understand how InMotion Hosting performs, particularly in shared hosting plans. We’ll assess aspects like website speed, the likelihood of experiencing downtime, and the ease of use of the platform overall. This review aims to provide a comprehensive view of InMotion Hosting, helping you determine if it’s the right fit for your web hosting needs, and especially if you’re using WordPress. Let’s delve into it!

An overview of InMotion Hosting

InMotion Hosting vs main competitors

An introduction to InMotion shared hosting

With over 20 years of experience, InMotion Hosting is considered a veteran of the web hosting industry. It’s a privately held company, so it’s not part of one of the big hosting conglomerates like some other providers out there.

In terms of hosting options, InMotion Hosting offers a variety of different hosting types, including shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting plans.

As we mentioned above, our review is specifically focused on the InMotion Hosting shared plans, as these are the plans in which most people will be interested. However, the basic experience of InMotion Hosting can also apply to those other hosting types.

InMotion Hosting review: main factors considered

Now that you know a bit more about InMotion Hosting, let’s consider five important factors to help you determine whether its shared hosting plans are right for your website.

1. Features ⚙️

First up in our InMotion Hosting review is the number and variety of features on offer. All shared hosting plans come with a free SSL certificate which is important for keeping you and your users’ data secure:

Plus, you’ll get unlimited bandwidth, WordPress installations, emails, and you can choose the location of your data center. But, all plans also come with a security suite, which includes:

However, it’s important to note that automatic backups have an extra charge of $24 a year. But, DDoS protection and malware protection are enabled by default. Two-factor authentication is also available in cPanel, which adds an extra layer of security to the login procedure.

What’s more, all InMotion Hosting servers use SSD drives (instead of old hard drives), which are much faster. On top of that, you can access UltraStack servers and advanced caching (with the higher-priced plans).

👨‍💻 Meanwhile, all plans give you access to the following marketing tools:

• Website builder
• Free advertising credits
• Customer management tools
• Email on any device

The website builder (BoldGrid) is a set of plugins that enable you to design your website visually:

Plus, you’ll get access to a variety of responsive templates. This way, even beginners can achieve a beautiful professional website.

It’s easy to import your demo content and pages. Then, all you have to do is customize the layout to build something totally unique. The best news is that you’ll do this using an intuitive drag-and-drop builder.

2. Ease of use 👐

InMotion Hosting provides a simple user experience (UX) that’s suitable for complete beginners. It combines the native account management panel (AMP) and cPanel, both of which are intuitive and easy to use.

Better yet, InMotion Hosting has placed a custom skin on the cPanel dashboard which blends in seamlessly with the AMP interface. Plus, you can access useful features from here like SSL management tools and email.

What’s more, it’s simple to install WordPress in the AMP or cPanel using the Softaculous app installer. You’ll then be redirected to the Softaculous interface where you can install all the apps you need (this only takes a couple of minutes).

Setting up an email account is also straightforward since it’s on the same server as your website. From the cPanel dashboard, you’re able to create a mailbox name, password, and configure other settings.

3. Performance 🚀

Performance is normally the top concern for website owners since you want to provide fast loading times for your visitors and search engines. Plus, it’s important to make sure that your web performance is stable and reliable to prevent instances of downtime.

To start with, InMotion Hosting lets you choose your preferred data center. This way, you can pick a server that’s physically close to your visitors to reduce latency and improve content delivery times.

Although, since data centers are only located in the U.S. and EU, InMotion Hosting may not be the best choice if your audience reside outside these areas.

To actually test InMotion Hosting performance, we constantly run our own performance tests from six different locations around the world.

Here are the results from our most recent tests:

Overall, these results are quite good and InMotion Hosting offers solid performance for the money.

In terms of Uptime, InMotion Hosting promises 99.99% uptime. Here’s what our own testing setups say about that:

4. Support 🖱️

Next up in this InMotion Hosting review is customer support. The good news is that InMotion Hosting provides quite a few options. With every plan, you’ll get access to 24/7 live chat support.

But, Power and Pro customers can also use Live Phone support. Plus, you can always contact the company via email (or even Skype).

On top of that, you can utilize the InMotion Hosting knowledge base and blog where you’ll find a wide selection of useful articles. And, there’s also an active community forum with moderators that guide the conversation:

Better yet, the efficiency of the support is excellent. If you have a browse of the Trustpilot comments, users describe the service as “wonderful” and “dedicated” while determining the technical support to be “prompt and effective.”

However, it has been noted that if you contact the sales team via email, you can wind up receiving tons of emails which can be frustrating. But with regard to technical support, wait times are minimal and agents provide quality up-to-date information.

5. Pricing 💳

To conclude this review, let’s take a look at the cost of the hosting plans. While there are many types of hosting available, shared hosting is a good starting point for most websites.

Currently, there are four shared hosting plans to choose from:

⚡ All plans come with unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, security features, marketing tools, and Live Chat support. But, here are some differences between them:

• The Core plan costs $3.29 a month and supports two websites with 100 SSD storage and 10 email addresses.
• The Launch plan, at $6.99 a month, includes hosting for up to 25 websites with unlimited emails, unlimited storage, and a free domain.
• The Power plan has all the features of the Launch plan but facilitates unlimited websites, phone support, and advanced caching. It costs $5.25 when you sign up, but renews at a higher price than the Launch plan.
• The Pro plan costs $11.25 and has all the features of the Power plan but includes a dedicated IP.

As is common in the shared hosting space, all of these solutions renew at a higher rate (the crossed-out number in the screenshot above). As such, you’ll want to factor both prices into your decision.

Plus, it’s important to note that the prices quoted above are for a yearly contract. The monthly price will be lower if you sign up for a two-year or three-year contract.

You also have the option to purchase a monthly contract if you choose the Pro plan. However, there’s no monthly billing available for the other three plans.

Additionally, InMotion Hosting offers a 90-day money-back guarantee which is pretty long compared to other hosting companies. But, be aware that the domain is not compensated unless you cancel within 60 hours.

Is InMotion Hosting worth it?

InMotion Hosting offers a range of shared hosting plans. Therefore, you’re sure to find an option that meets your needs.

👍 But to recap, here are some of the advantages of choosing InMotion Hosting:

• Fast global performance in our hands-on testing
• A free SSL certificate
• Unlimited bandwidth
• SSD servers (and UltraStack technology with higher-priced plans)
• 99.99% uptime guarantee
• An intuitive website builder
• 90-day money-back guarantee
• Choose your own data center
• Excellent customer support

👎 As is the case with any hosting provider, it’s important to be aware of the disadvantages. Here are some of the most important ones to consider:

• Not the cheapest shared hosting available
• No monthly billing for starter plans
• Servers are only located in the U.S. and EU
• Automatic backups come at extra cost

All factors considered, InMotion Hosting is an excellent option for small business sites, small blogs, and startups. If you’re looking for a fast, reliable web host, it certainly makes a great option. However, it’s not the best choice for websites with an audience located outside the EU or U.S..

Conclusion 🧐

Every hosting plan with InMotion Hosting includes key features like a free SSL certificate, unlimited bandwidth, complimentary email accounts, and SSD drives for enhanced performance. The user interface is straightforward, making it easy for beginners to navigate. Additionally, the 24/7 customer support is helpful, plus InMotion ensures smooth and fast performance. In the end, the range of services and reliability make InMotion a worthy consideration for various website needs – and especially for WordPress.

Do you have any questions about our InMotion Hosting review? Let us know in the comments below!