# Hostwinds review (2026): is it worth $4.99 a month? > Shared, business, VPS and cloud hosting with managed support Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA. Hostwinds sells shared and business web hosting on cPanel, reseller hosting, managed and unmanaged Linux and Windows VPS, hourly-billed cloud servers and dedicated servers. Shared plans list unlimited bandwidth and disk space, free SSL, a dedicated IP and free migration by the support team. The company is a subsidiary of HostPapa. - **Category:** Web Hosting - **Made by:** Hostwinds - **Website:** https://www.hostwinds.com - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Skip it if you want a trial, as none is listed. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, Hostwinds is a paid product, starting at $4.99 per month (unmanaged Linux VPS); shared from $6.99 per month, annual. - **Pricing model:** Paid - **Free plan:** None. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Unmanaged Linux VPS (entry) | $4.99 per month for 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, billed monthly | 30 GB storage and 1 TB bandwidth; you run the server yourself. Larger sizes go up to $38.99 a month for 4 CPUs, 8 GB RAM and 150 GB storage, and beyond. | | Shared Basic | $6.99 per month for 1 domain, billed annually ($83.88 a year) | Unlimited bandwidth and disk space, free SSL, cPanel, Softaculous installer, a dedicated IP and the Weebly site builder. | | Shared Advanced | $8.99 per month for 4 domains, billed annually ($107.88 a year) | The Basic features with room for 4 domains. | | Shared Ultimate | $10.99 per month for unlimited domains, billed annually | The Basic features with no limit on the number of domains. | | Business Basic | $11.99 per month for 1 domain, billed annually ($143.88 a year) | Hosted on servers with fewer sites per server than shared hosting. Advanced is $13.99 for 4 domains and Ultimate is $16.99 for unlimited domains. | | Managed Linux VPS (entry) | $10.99 per month for 1 CPU | The page shows $7.14 a month beside it as the current price; Hostwinds staff manage the server. Larger sizes run to $79.99 a month and beyond. | Read from https://www.hostwinds.com/hosting/shared on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Hostwinds before buying. ## Key features - **Shared and business hosting on cPanel:** Plans come with cPanel, the Softaculous app installer, unlimited subdomains, FTP accounts, databases and email accounts, and free SSL certificates. - **Free migration:** The support team moves an existing site to Hostwinds and sends a preview link so it can be checked before the switch. - **Weebly site builder:** Shared plans include Weebly's drag-and-drop builder for people who do not want to install WordPress or code a site. - **VPS and cloud servers:** Linux and Windows VPS come managed or unmanaged. Cloud servers are billed by the hour and can be paired with load balancers, block storage and object storage. - **Cloud portal and API:** The cloud portal manages IP addresses, load balancers and object storage containers, and Hostwinds describes an API for cloud servers. - **Nightly backups and monitoring:** Shared hosting pages describe nightly backups and 24/7 website monitoring that opens a support ticket if the site has a problem. ## Good for - Small sites that want cPanel and the support team to handle a migration - People who want an unmanaged VPS at a low monthly price - Teams that want cloud servers billed hourly ## Worth knowing - The shared-hosting page shows the annual plan price; the page's own meta description still says plans start from $3.29 a month, which is not shown on the page. - Shared and business plans are listed only with annual billing on the pages read. - Shared plans are capped by number of domains: 1 on Basic, 4 on Advanced. - Cloud servers are billed per hour, starting at $0.006931 an hour for 1 CPU and 1 GB RAM. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 1.8 out of 4**, graded Nov 13, 2026. Hostwinds sells cPanel shared hosting with unlimited bandwidth and disk space, plus VPS, cloud and dedicated servers. Shared starts at $6.99 a month billed yearly for one domain, and the page's own description still says $3.29. - **Value for money: C.** Shared Basic is $6.99 a month billed yearly, above the $5.28 cheaper-quarter line for web hosts. - **Free plan and trial: F.** No free plan or trial is listed on the pages read. - **Features: B.** Shared, business, VPS, cloud servers and dedicated, with free migration, nightly backups, monitoring and a cloud API. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. cPanel and server setup are yours, and VPS plans are unmanaged at the entry level. - **Platforms and integrations: C.** Web only, with cPanel, Softaculous and WordPress installs. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Hostwinds's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among web hosts - Hostwinds's GPA of 1.8 is higher than 9 of the 54 other web hosts we grade, and level with 10. - It stands best on features (B, above 29 of 54) and worst on free plan and trial (F, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $4.99 a month, against a middle price of $9 for the category: 18 of the 52 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 1 tool scores higher and costs less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/web-hosting ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Hostwinds you would be making a builder that other people can use without writing code. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 35 of the 54 other web hosts grade higher. It costs $59.88 a year. - You could not: A builder that other people can use without writing code. - You could not: It plugs into other products, cPanel, Softaculous and Weebly among them, and has an API. - You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with cPanel, Softaculous, Weebly, WordPress, Joomla **Tags:** Public API, No-code ## Alternatives - [HostGator](https://toolgpa.com/tools/hostgator): Shared and WordPress hosting with malware scanning and a free domain. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/hostgator-vs-hostwinds) - [hosting.com](https://toolgpa.com/tools/a2-hosting): Shared hosting from the former A2 Hosting, with an API and MCP server. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/a2-hosting-vs-hostwinds) - [Liquid Web](https://toolgpa.com/tools/liquid-web): Managed WordPress, VPS and dedicated server hosting for businesses. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/hostwinds-vs-liquid-web) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://www.hostwinds.com/hosting/shared - https://www.hostwinds.com/hosting/business - https://www.hostwinds.com/vps/linux - https://www.hostwinds.com/vps/unmanaged-linux - https://www.hostwinds.com/cloud/cloud-servers - https://www.hostwinds.com/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/hostwinds Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).