HostMonster Plan Review

HostMonster has one of the best web hosting plans on the web for those who are looking for a new hosting account with lots of disk space and features.

The basic web hosting account at HostMonster includes:

* 1,500 GB of hosting space that includes unlimited domains on one account. You can develop all of your domains on one hosting account and still have plenty of disk space remaining to expand the sites over time.
* Unlimited email accounts for your domains. If you have many employees, or would like allow your user community to be able to create POP email accounts on the web sites, HostMonster is an excellent choice for this.
* SSH access as a basic part of their web hosting plans. This allows users to enter their own command lines directly to the servers.
* 15,000 GB of data transfer, along with the 1,500 GB of disc space and other features, for $6.95 per month.

The HostMonster account for web hosting is free to set up and does not include any hidden charges when you sign up. This is good compared to sites that usually charge $20, $30, or $40 as a basic set up fee for a web hosting account.

The HostMonster servers are based on the Linux operating system, and are configured for:

* CGI
* Ruby on Rails
* Perl
* PHP
* mySQL

For Web 2.0 development , you can easily install and design new web sites using Open Source software and Fantastico. Fantastico is a 3 rd party software that will automatically set up your mySQL databases and install popular open source software such as content management systems, blogs, forums, and other scripts.

Fantastico includes the popular software such as:

* Joomla
* Mambo
* PHP-Nuke
* Post-Nuke
* Drupal
* Xoops
* Nucleus
* Simple Machines Forum
* Gallery
* Many other top Open Source PHP scripts

With Fantastico , it is only just a few clicks and you can begin to develop your own Web 2.0 web site.

In addition to Fantastico and the 40+ scripts offered through it, users who sign up for an account at HostMonster also receive a free site building software to create simple web sites on a template basis with all the functions of a professional site. Even inexperienced users will have no trouble setting up a site within a few hours with this publishing tool kit. There are also front page extensions for .Net developers included standard on every HostMonster account.

One of the best reasons to sign up with HostMonster, is the free domain offered with every account. This and HostMonster’s top customer support make the company a great choice for web hosting.

HostMonster Now Offering Unlimited Plan

HostMonster has just made a major change to their web hosting plans. They are now offering Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Diskspace and Unlimited Domains for the same price of $6.95/month. Making these changes makes HostMonster the first major host to offer an unlimited plan. This signals a big step in the web hosting industry, there has been much talk that offering unlimited plans will become the standard as bandwidth and storage becomes more affordable. So HostMonster is certainly leading the way.

However the fact of the matter is that although hostMonster is offering unlimited plans, a very very very small proportion of users would even use the bandwidth and diskspace they had advertised previously. However, at least you dont have to worry about your bandwidth or diskspace being restricted.

HostMonster eCommerce

As Hostmonster uses CPanel as the hosting platform, it comes with a range of e-commerce features. Hostmonster customers have access to one click installation of a range of shopping carts such as Agora, Os Commerce and Xen Cart. Hostmonster also has a range of other features.

HostMonster Servers

No matter which host your site is with, you must always know what type of servers your site will be hosted. Obviously the better the server, the faster and more reliable your site will be. HostMonster Servers are quad processor Xeon Servers, rack mounted units with four Intel Xeon processing chips per server.

HostMonster Bandwidth

When looking for a host, it is very important to find information about the hosts bandwidth providers and connectivity. After all there is no point in a host having the best servers if the bandwidth is not reliable or cannot handle the load. I have done a bit of research on HostMonster's bandwidth. Hostmonster uses an OC-48 Backbone Connection which is 48 times faster than a basic DS-3 or TS-3 network data connection.