Liquid Web is a company that provides a number of different website hosting solutions. This includes dedicated servers, VPS, cloud hosting, and even CMS solutions like WordPress and WooCommerce.
In this Liquid Web review, we’ll show you the pros and cons of Liquidweb hosting. You can also compare hosting using our free tool.
In this review…
- What is Liquid Web hosting?
- Liquid Web Pros & Cons
- What does Liquid Web do?
- Liquid Web hosting services
- Pricing
- Features
- Reliability
- Security
- Customer service
- Is Liquid Web hosting worth it?
What is Liquid Web hosting?
Liquid Web overall has some excellent hosting products. If you can afford to spend a little more and are not simply looking for a cheap minimalistic hosting solution, they make a great option.
Price is certainly a factor, however, and Liquid Web is not one of the cheaper hosting providers.
Their VPS hosting, dedicated servers, and cloud hosting are all packed with features and are competitively priced compared to other providers. Also, they have great customer support, robust security features, and a reliable hosting uptime.
It is also important to remember that their hosting services are fully managed. This means that you have support from trained technicians, and you can also get help migrating your data from another hosting provider.
Liquid Web Pros & Cons
Pros
- A varied and robust range of hosting solutions.
- Excellent customer service and support.
- Great uptime for hosting services.
- Great server specs for dedicated hosting solutions.
Cons
- No shared hosting plans.
- Lack of shared hosting means more expensive prices.
What does Liquid Web do?
So you get a clear picture of what Liquid Web provides, we have broken this Liquid Web review into several sections.
You can then see what their prices are like, the different hosting they offer, their customer service, and more.
Hosting Services Offered
Before we assess the features and other aspects, let’s take a quick look at the actual services they provide.
Liquid Web has a diverse offering and provides everything from VPS hosting, through to advanced dedicated servers and dedicated cloud hosting:
Dedicated Servers
Liquid Web provides managed dedicated servers starting from $169 per month. The dedicated servers have excellent specifications and are certainly powerful.
For example, the basic server has 16GB of RAM, 3x hard drives, and 4 cores at 3.9GHz each. The dedicated hosting packages also include a 100% uptime guarantee.
We also like that their dedicated servers come with a backup secondary drive which is pre-installed.
Cloud Dedicated
If you want a dedicated server but want to pay a little less, Liquid Web also provides dedicated cloud servers.
These prices start from $149 per month. The server specs are not too dissimilar from their dedicated physical servers.
For example, the basic package has 16GB of RAM, 4 cores, and a 452GB SSD. They also still benefit from the same 100% uptime guarantee, however, there is no backup drive.
VPS Hosting
One of their best services is their VPS hosting.
VPS hosting is an attractive alternative to shared hosting. It works on a similar premise, but usually offers greater specifications and dedicated server resources.
Their packages start from $15 per month. This basic package has 2 virtual processors, a 40GB SSD, 10TB of bandwidth, and 4GB of RAM.
Managed WordPress
If you want to produce a website and have hosting included, Liquid Web has decent WordPress hosting solutions.
Managed WordPress hosting starts from $12.67 per month and this includes 1 website, 15GB of storage, 2TB of bandwidth, and unlimited email accounts.
You also get 30-day backups and a host of other security features. We also like that this includes full server access, a staging site for testing, and access to developer tools.
Managed WooCommerce
Finally, if you want an eCommerce store, Liquid Web also has managed WooCommerce solutions.
Their starter WooCommerce package includes 1 store/website, 30GB of storage, 3TB of bandwidth, and an order capacity of 500 per hour.
You also get access to their store builder.
Pricing
As mentioned, Liquid Web is not one of the cheaper hosting providers available. This is mainly due to their lack of shared hosting.
Shared hosting providers like Bluehost offer incredibly cheap prices because you are often sharing the server capacity with other users. This is not the case with Liquid Web. Check out our review of Bluehost.
However, on the flip side, you get dedicated servers or much more server power than you would with a shared plan.
How much is Liquid Web hosting?
The following are the main starting prices for their different price plans:
- Dedicated hosting plans: from $169 per month.
- VPS hosting plans: from $15.00 per month.
- Cloud dedicated hosting plans: from $149 per month.
- Managed WordPress plans: from $12.67 per month.
- Managed WooCommerce plans: from $12.67 per month.
See how these prices compare! Compare website hosting.
As you can see, the dedicated prices are quite expensive. However, they are nothing more than what you would expect.
Their VPS hosting service offers the most reasonable prices, and this could be a great choice for small businesses.
Their WordPress and WooCommerce solutions are also reasonably priced, considering that you get free site migration included.
Features
In terms of basic features included in their hosting packages, you certainly get a good deal. For example, their VPS hosting packages include SSD storage, multi-level security including DDoS protection, and daily off-server backups.
We really like the off-server backup service and this is available for all their packages. This provides a valuable safeguard and ensures that if something does happen to the server, a copy of your data is available at a different location.
As we understand it, their control panels and management tools are also easy to use and give customers great control and accessibility over their hosting solution.
Reliability
The reliability of a hosting service is highly important. Even if you are a small business, you want a hosting solution that has minimal downtime.
Any time your hosting is down, potential customers cannot access your website and services. Generally, the uptime and reliability of Liquid Web are one of its main selling points.
It is regarded as a reliable hosting provider. As a provider, they aim to give 100% uptime and this is stated as such in their SLA agreement. The SLA states that they guarantee 100% network uptime for all major routing devices in their hosting network.
You can also find information and reports on their uptime. For example, there is a 2020 report that shows they had an effective hosting uptime of 99.998% – not too shabby!
They are also continually upgrading their servers and services to provide a smooth and reliable service to their customers.
Security
When using a web hosting service, you want a secure connection and your files and sensitive data to be secure.
Luckily, Liquid Web has highly-rated security features which is a huge plus. As standard, all packages come with free daily backups. This means that in the event of a server crash or attack, your data will remain available.
Also, they offer a wide range of security features. These include SSL certificates, VPNs, firewalls, and automatic malware detection removal.
Some of these features are optional, but every package comes with a great level of basic cyber security.
Customer Service
When investing in a hosting service, you also want to be able to quickly contact a customer service rep if you have any issues.
There should also ideally be a range of communication channels available. Liquid Web prides itself on offering great customer service.
You can contact them 24/7 either via their live webchat or via one of their phone lines. They have a US service number, and an international number – much like GoDaddy.
From speaking to their customer service representatives, they appear to be highly knowledgeable, pleasant, and helpful. Also, if you look through their Service Level Agreement, you can see that they have various commitments to responsive customer service.
For example, they guarantee an initial help desk response time of 59 seconds, regardless of the service. Also, they guarantee a live chat and phone initial response time of 59 seconds – this is pretty impressive!
Is Liquid Web Hosting Worth it?
So would we recommend Liquid Web? This really depends on the type of service you require and your available budget. It also depends on what you are looking for.
If you simply want a cheap web hosting service for a simple business or personal website, this may not be the top choice. There are other alternatives available that specialize in affordable shared hosting.
However, if you want the best quality, reliability, and power, the variety of Liquid Web hosting services are certainly worth it. Their VPS hosting packages are some of the best available and are also highly affordable.
We also like their managed WordPress and managed WooCommerce packages. These are great if you require more control from your website, or even want to create an online store.
The other aspects of their service are also pretty decent. For example, they are well-known for having an excellent customer service team.
There is also no denying that their response times are fantastic. Liquid Web also has a great uptime percentage and a solid range of security features.
For medium to large-sized businesses who can afford a little more, Liquid Web is certainly one of the top contenders.
You may also want to consider Digital Ocean for more advanced hosting, or 123 reg and GoDaddy for cheaper hosting packages.
