InMotion Hosting Review 2019 - Quality, Speed, Price and Comparison
Since 2001, InMotion has grown a customer base of over 300,000 domains with two data centers in Los Angeles and Virginia Beach.
As one of the older and more established names in the industry, they also boast grandiose claims of being numero uno in transfers, support, and industry guarantee.
But here’s the thing:
Many times, the largest companies are the worst offenders. Coasting by on their brand recognition or flashy ad campaigns while neglecting the things that made them successful in the first place.
Is InMotion an established company who’s keeping the quality which made them successful? Or are they just another large enterprise getting by on reputation alone?
To find out and provide an unbiased review, we purchased an InMotion “Launch Plan” back in June 2015 and set up a basic WordPress test website. Stats like uptime & speed can be seen here (click “History” to dig deeper).
This review relies strongly on data, such as uptime, load time (speed) and customer support experience.
InMotion performs well on three big areas of uptime, speed, and support. They also provide a few additional features which can make your experience more enjoyable.
Let’s take a look:
1. Average Uptime of 99.95%
Right out of the gate, InMotion’s uptime clocked in at 99.947% (0.007% better than the industry average of 99.94%) based on our careful tracking and monitoring over the last 16-months. But these days that’s not good enough to even put them in our top 20.
What I personally like about their uptime is that they’re consistently getting more reliable.
Last 16-month average uptime:
- March 2019 average uptime: 99.98%
- February 2019 average uptime: 99.98%
- January 2019 average uptime: 99.98%
- December 2018 average uptime: 99.97%
- November 2018 average uptime: 99.95%
- October 2018 average uptime: 99.91%
- September 2018 average uptime: 99.99%
- August 2018 average uptime: 99.98%
- July 2018 average uptime: 99.98%
- June 2018 average uptime: 99.93%
- May 2018 average uptime: 99.97%
- April 2018 average uptime: 99.99%
- March 2018 average uptime: 99.96%
- February 2018 average uptime: 99.91%
- January 2018 average uptime: 99.68%
- December 2017 average uptime: 99.99%
2. Fast Server Speed
Fast loading times aren’t just great for user experience. Speed is also factored into Google’s algorithm for dictating where in the rankings you’ll show up (you know – the whole SEO thing). How fast your page loads has one of the biggest impacts on your bottom line, forcing half your traffic to bounce if it doesn’t load within two seconds.
InMotion followed their strong uptime performance with an average page loading times of 855ms. In other words, 4% faster than the competition’s average of 890ms.
One poor company, Web Hosting Pad even had an average page load time of ~1281ms. So yeah – InMotion is pretty quick in comparison!
Last 16-month average load time:
3. Customer Support – 10 out of 10
InMotion Hosting claims that they’re a leader in web hosting customer support.
Frankly, this isn’t a particularly bold assertion to make. Web hosting customer service has been historically unreliable and ineffective, and the industry is notorious for turning even the simplest issues into a multi-week fiasco.
As such, I don’t exactly have high hopes when any particular hosting company claims to be a “Leader in Customer Support”.
Reviewing InMotion Hosting, I was pleasantly surprised. During the course of this review, I personally investigated the quality of their support team and conducted a thorough “Background Check” with actual customers to ensure that my interaction was not anomalous.
I’m proud to report that the entire ‘investigation’ yielded nothing but positive results. I presented the customer service representative with 3 simple but telling queries designed to gauge their product knowledge and general efficacy.
As you’ll see below, the results were outstanding!
Within 2 minutes of submitting my ticket, I was connected with a live agent who quickly and professionally answered all of my questions. While I’m compelled to mention that their account activation is not instant when you are using InMotion outside the U.S., my overall experience with their customer support team was surprisingly and delightfully pleasant.
A quick chat with InMotion hosting customer support
4. 90-Days Money Back Guarantee
Standard industry practice for money back guarantees typically falls around the 30-day mark. But not InMotion. They’re so confident in their service, that they provide up to 90 days business, VPS and reseller hosting plans.
(For shared hosting options, they only offer a 30-day money back guarantee.)
5. Integrations & Apps (WordPress, too)
Another claim InMotion makes on their website is that they’re a leader in supporting Open Source projects.
Again, those boasts are backed up with a portfolio of over 310 applications (!). You can find everything from popular content management systems like WordPress and Drupal to shopping carts or eCommerce systems like Prestashop and Magento.
6. Premium Sucuri Plugin for WordPress Users
InMotion’s WordPress hosting comes with the Sucuri security plugin that regularly scans your sites for exploits and security risks, in addition to ongoing remote backups, anti-spam, and anti-virus protection.
7. Free Site Transfer
The good news is that, like other web hosts, InMotion Hosting offers to transfer your site for free from your current host.
The bad news is that they DO NOT promise zero downtime during the migration process (which other hosts regularly guarantee).
8. Great for E-commerce Support
InMotion is one of the few web hosts with active partnerships between Prestashop and other leading eCommerce services (SiteGround being the other).
They make your eCommerce experience even better by providing easy integrations with payment processors, helping you side-step an otherwise huge pain in the… neck.
9. Free Data Backups
Many web hosts charge for backups. Or they include ridiculous Terms of Service clauses that make their backup service useless for most customers.
InMotion hosting is different. They will regularly create a backup of your account up to 10GB, and also provide an easy-to-use tool to manually backup your site.
10. Google Apps Integration
Last but not least, InMotion also provides a handy little three-step wizard for connecting with Google Apps.
Some web hosts (GoDaddy comes to mind) force you to pay for their subpar email clients. While setting up a Google App integration to use your new domain with Gmail, Google Docs, Drive, and more isn’t exactly brain surgery, it can be a frustrating process if you’ve never edited MX records before.
11. Super Secure Smartwall Threat Defense System (TDS)
The recent Equifax security breaches illustrate just how clear and present the danger of cyber terrorism really is, and with the continual rise of brute force, Dos, and DDoS attacks, it has become more important than ever before that every website owner has a clear understanding of the security protocols being used by their web hosting provider.
Luckily, InMotion Hosting spares no expense to ensure the security of their user’s private information.
Partnering with Corero Network Security, InMotion security now offers a unique security measure called the Smartwall Threat Defense System or TDS.
Corero’s TDS is a family of DDoS protection appliances that detect, mitigate, and eliminate DDoS attacks in real time.
Boasting an impressive array of technical specs, Corero’s TDS delivers the following to all of their customers:
- The SmartWall is a slimline DDoS protection appliance that delivers 10Gbps full-duplex or 20Gbps unidirectional performance in a ¼ wide, 1 RU form factor.
- 1 RU delivers up to 80Gbps, and 4 RU delivers up to 320Gbps.
For those of you who aren’t well versed in technical jargon, it’s suffice to say that the Threat Defense System employed by InMotion Hosting and their partner, Corero Network Security, is among the most impressive in existence.
With InMotion Hosting, you can sleep soundly at night knowing that you and your website are protected from even the most aggressive brute force and DDoS attacks
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