Canadians have only a handful of options when it comes to web hosting providers. With some basic research we’ve found that most hosting companies who claim to offer ‘Canadian Hosting’ aren’t even Canadian companies. For me a true Canadian hosting provider has their servers in Canada, staff in Canada and are actually a business with their offices in Canada. That being said, HostUpon Web Hosting fits the bill and I’ll review HostUpon and their Canadian Hosting plans today.
Canadian Web Hosting Review – HostUpon.ca
HostUpon is a privately owned and operated business out of Toronto, Canada. They launched their shared hosting plans in 2006 and currently offer shared hosting, reseller hosting, cloud hosting, VPS and dedicated servers. Their staff all work out of their Toronto office. Being privately owned means that they aren’t owned by any larger investment firms and I think that is one of the main reasons they’ve been so successful.
HostUpon servers are located in their Toronto data center at 151 Front Street which is one of the biggest data centers in Canada. You’ll fine some of the biggest companies including many fortune 500 companies house their servers at that location. I’ve actually visited the data center in Toronto and it’s pretty amazing. It also has redundant power and cooling directly from Lake Ontario, pretty cool.
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HostUpon offers Canadian three shared hosting options, their Starter, Business and Premium web hosting plans.
HostUpon Hosting Plan Review and Features
Shared Hosting plans at HostUpon include the following features:
- Unlimited disk space
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Personalized email accounts (eg: [email protected])
- Free website migration
- WordPress Auto Installer
- cPanel control panel
- Free Website Builder
- Free domain registration or transfer
- One click installer for Over 350 open-source scripts
- 24/7 in-house support team
Starter Plan Features
The Starter Plan is the cheapest hosting plan offered by HostUpon starting at $2.95/month on the 3 year billing cycle. You can also pay monthly, annually or biannually but the free domain registration and transfer is only applicable to the 1, 2 and 3 year terms across all plans. You can host 1 website and create up to 10 email accounts on the Starter plan.
The Starter plan is perfect if you’re just starting out or have an informational website. At the price point and features you can’t go wrong with this plan if you’re new to web hosting or don’t need a lot of performance.
Your website will be hosted in HostUpon’s Canadian Data center and the benefits are better search engine rankings for Canadian businesses. If your target audience is in Canada then going with a Canadian web host is a must.
Business Plan Features
The Business plan is priced at $5.95/month on the 3 year billing cycle and is geared toward small to medium sized businesses. You can host unlimited websites on this plan and it includes search engine submission along with double the performance of the Starter plan. Unlimited email accounts are also one of the key features of this plan which is great for growing businesses that need more than 10 email accounts.
Premium Plan Features
Priced at $12.95/month, the Premium plan at HostUpon includes a free SSL Certificate and 4 times the performance of the Starter plan. One of our favorite features of the Premium plan is the automatic nightly backups. This ensures your website, email and databases are all backed up on a remote server each night so you always have a secure backup if needed. It’s one of those things you might forget about but it will save you in the long run. Backing up your website is such an important task and one that many people neglect so having automated backups is a big plus.
Best Website Hosting in Canada
There really are thousands of hosting companies on the Internet and sifting through the plans and offerings can be quite frustrating. You’ll find some hosts with save you a few dollars here and there but in the end you want a web host that is not only affordable but reliable. You want to make sure you have access to support when you need it most. Unlimited disk space and features alike are great but in the end you need a fast loading website and selecting the right host for your website is critical.
When we decided to review HostUpon we first tested their server speed. Since they have their servers in Canada wanted to see what type of performance we would get. We tested upload speeds, download speeds, page load times and response times. We tested theses things from 6 locations: Toronto, Tokyo, San Francisco, New York, London and Amsterdam. Results were quite interesting as we found their speeds were above average from all locations aside from Tokyo. This was understandable because latency is generally higher when connecting from such a distance but compared to other Canadian hosts we’ve reviewed HostUpon was by far ahead of the pack. Just to clear the air, we don’t get compensated by HostUpon and that is what makes our review of HostUpon accurate and honest. I want our visitors to be confident in choosing their next host and Canadians have so few options that it’s great to see a company like HostUpon tailor their hosting plans to business owners in Canada.
Support When You Need it Most
HostUpon does not outsource their support which you’ll find is quite rare when researching web hosting companies. We’ve tested the big hosts and almost all of them have remote support which just means you won’t get the dedicated support you’d normally get with someone who works directly at the company. HostUpon support, sales and billing team are all located in Toronto at their head office. So whether you call in for support, use live chat or submit a ticket you’re speaking with a representative that works in their offices. I love this and I always recommend choosing a web host with in-house support. It makes a world of a difference.
Is HostUpon Good?
I actually decided to review HostUpon because they received the award for Best Canadian Web Host for 2021 by HostReviewSite. Web hosts are rated based on their plan features, performance, price and support. HostUpon was rated number one for Canadian Web Hosting and Best Industry Support for 3 years in a row. That is pretty amazing considering how many web hosting companies are on the Internet. Keep in mind that HostUpon offers hosting services to everyone and not just Canadians. They have customers in over 120 countries and have some big names under their belt.
If you’re in Canada you’ll also like how HostUpon gives you the choice of either a .com or .ca domain for free with their hosting plans if you signup for a 1 year billing cycle or longer. Of course you can also choose a different domain extension but if your target audience is in Canada then go with a .ca domain name. For example if you have a local business in Canada then you don’t really need a .com. Go with a .ca domain and you’ll benefit from better search engine results and organic traffic.
Overall I’d say HostUpon.ca is the best choice for anyone in Canada looking for reliable and affordable hosting and wants to support a Canadian owned web host. If you decide to use HostUpon I’d love to hear about your experience with them, let me know what you think of HostUpon!