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Adult Hosting · Editorial review

Hostwinds review: hourly cloud and VPS from $4.99

hostwinds.com

Hostwinds, a HostPapa company running since 2010, rents shared hosting, VPS, cloud and dedicated servers from Seattle, Dallas and Amsterdam. Unmanaged Linux VPS plans start at $4.99 a month, and cloud servers bill by the hour.

S3 object storageNightly backupsServers in AmsterdamHourly billing

Our take on Hostwinds

Hostwinds is a sensible pick for an adult webmaster comfortable running a server: cheap VPS plans, hourly cloud for traffic spikes and a choice of US or Amsterdam locations.

Skip the shared plans for a site that stores video or downloads, since the terms ban using them as storage. And the 72-hour refund window means testing has to happen fast.

Hostwinds home page showing its hosting and server plans
Hostwinds

Hostwinds VPS and cloud pricing

Hostwinds' unmanaged Linux VPS starts at $4.99 a month for 1 CPU, 1 GB of RAM, 30 GB of storage and 1 TB of transfer. The range climbs to $9.99 for 2 GB and 2 TB, and up to $328.99 for 16 CPUs, 96 GB, 750 GB and 9 TB.

  • Cloud servers use the same specs billed by the hour, from $0.006931, about $5 for a full month.
  • S3-compatible object storage costs $0.000042386 per GB per hour, roughly 3 cents per GB a month, handy for keeping video off the web server.
  • Dedicated servers are fully managed and priced on request only.

Hostwinds is headquartered just outside Seattle, with data centers in Seattle, Dallas and Amsterdam. Plans include 1 Gbps ports, snapshots and optional nightly backups, and Hostwinds advertises 99.9999% uptime.

Hostwinds shared hosting: advertised vs checkout price

The shared hosting page says "starting at $6.99/mo", but the cart charges $8.99 a month for Basic, $10.99 for Advanced and $12.99 for Ultimate on monthly billing. Disk space and bandwidth are listed as unlimited, yet the terms forbid using a shared account as a backup or storage device beyond one cPanel backup of the same account. Some reviews still recommend Hostwinds shared hosting for storing lots of files, which the terms rule out.

Hostwinds refund policy

Hostwinds refunds only on request within 72 hours of a payment, after the service is cancelled, and on a prorated basis. Licenses, domains, SSL, IP addresses, hourly services, services terminated for violations and anything paid in crypto are never refunded.

Law enforcement requests and spam penalties

Public ratings split sharply: 2.2 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 729 reviews, 4.7 out of 5 on HostAdvice, mixing expert scores and 1,168 reviews.

Hostwinds says it will always notify clients when their information is requested, unless a court order or statute forbids it. At the other end, a spamming account can be terminated without notice and billed $250 an hour for cleanup if Hostwinds' IP space lands on a blacklist.

Hostwinds strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • VPS from $4.99 and hourly cloud.
  • Seattle, Dallas or Amsterdam.
  • Clients told about data requests.

Limitations

  • Shared plans cost more at checkout than advertised.
  • No storage use on shared plans.
  • 72-hour refund window, none for crypto.

Hostwinds vs DreamHost

DreamHost offers unmetered bandwidth, shared hosting at $2.89 then $10.99 a month and a 30-day guarantee. Hostwinds makes more sense for an hourly VPS or cloud server, or for a machine in Amsterdam.

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