MDDHosting Review

Company: MDDHosting

Background: MDDHosting isn't a brand that most would recognize. The company was formed in Indiana in 2007 and doesn't go as far back as some industry giants. Yet over a decade in web hosting means it has some tricks up its sleeves. This relatively quiet host offers products that are 100% Cloud-based. While that drives costs up significantly, it's also an opportunity to get low-cost Cloud hosting in the form of its shared hosting plans.

Starting Price: $6.99/mo

Currency: USD

Visit Online: https://www.mddhosting.com/

Review Summary & Ratings

4

Although small, MDDHosting is an independent web hosting provider that has gained recognizable traction since its launch. They claim to use a minimum of Intel Xeon 48 Cores processors and 256 GB of RAM with a Highly Available, Distributed, and Self-Healing StorPool powered storage platform in their private N+1 data center in Denver, Colorado.

MDDHosting seems unique in the web hosting space, especially with a pure Cloud infrastructure as the basis for their hosting plans. While most are aware of shared hosting, VPS, and maybe even Cloud, many are unfamiliar with MDDHosting's shared Cloud hosting services and Cloud-based VPS.

Pros

• 100% SLA uptime guarantee
• Affordable Cloud-based offerings
• Transparency and straightforward hosting
• Good support system
• Daily and hourly offsite backups
• cPanel included in all shared plans
• Decent security features
• Free site migration
• 25% resource cap is now removed
• Free WordPress Hosting with shared plans

Cons

• Essentials at additional costs
• No DDoS protection

Pros: What I Like About MDDHosting

1. 100% Uptime Guarantee

MDDHosting offers a 100% uptime guarantee for its web hosting services. This feature ties in with their Cloud hosting platform and is safe for them since Cloud rarely goes down. However, you should note a pretty big caveat in their Terms of Service (ToS).

MDDHosting issues a 100% uptime guarantee in its SLA based on the reliability of its Highly Available, Distributed, and Self-Healing StorPool-powered servers and multiple Solid State Drives (SSDs). If you ever face a physical downtime of over an hour, you qualify for a credit for ten times (1000%) the actual downtime. 

However, it is rare for web hosting plans to crash for that long unless something goes seriously wrong. Still, a successful claim will net you a 10x credit for the downtime. E.g., if your server has an hour of downtime, you receive 10 hours of credit.

Although the 100% uptime guarantee SLA speaks volumes of MDDHosting's confidence in their infrastructure's resilience, the 1-hour downtime is rarely seen. While not ideal, it does give MDDHosting lots of incentive to fix problems as rapidly as possible.

2. MDDHosting Makes the Cloud Affordable

Whether you need shared hosting or a VPS plan, MDDHosting has you covered. The advantage of hosting here has to be the extra reliability that Cloud-based hosting offers customers. Due to high redundancy, these platforms are generally ultra-stable.

It's rare for many web hosts to provide shared hosting plans based on Cloud, as it drives prices up beyond what most beginners are willing to pay. However, MDDHosting manages reasonable rates on their shared Cloud hosting plans.

Shared Cloud plans start at just $7.50/mo at the lowest end of the spectrum. That includes some impressive specifications that cheap shared hosting plans don't match. For example, you have 25 GB SSD Storage, 2 CPU Cores, 2 GB RAM, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains, unlimited email accounts, and unlimited free SSL; other shared hosting plans do not even come close.

3. Transparency and Straightforward Hosting

I like that MDDHosting has clearly explained and detailed all three hosting plans on their website. Tiny ‘question mark' icons where you hover your mouse on them for more explanation help. MDDHosting is upfront about pricing with the relevant features covered by the respective plans. 

Also, you can get a detailed summary of the discounts for each plan depending on the committed duration. Fine prints are at the bottom. All plans come with a solid 30-day money-back guarantee. They don't hide from you. What you see is what you get.

4. Good Support Via Multiple Channels

Fantastic service seems to be one of the hallmarks of MDDHosting, which is reflected in their support channels. They offer 24/7/365 help via a ticket system, which they highly promote for faster response. MDDHosting claims the average support ticket response time is less than 10 minutes. Clients also receive an email address they can email the support ticket, bypassing the support system. 

The live chat support is available Monday to Friday, 8.00 am to 12.30 am Eastern Time, a plus point for MDDHosting since others usually reserve live chat for sales support only. Telephone assistance is only available for sales and billing matters. There is a comprehensive enough knowledge base covering various topics, from billing and account to technical areas.

The community forum isn't a hotbed of activity, but there is some movement. You won't hear crickets chirping there. MDDHosting has a community discord in which you can join and participate (256 members to date).

5. Most Plans Get Daily Hourly Backups

Aside from the lowest shared Cloud plan with automated daily backups and storing them at an offsite location for at least 21 days, the other two offer hourly offsite backups. Plaid and Plaid Plus plans back up your data at least once every four hours, making them available for at least seven days. Also, weekly backups are done and kept for at least 12 weeks.

Having a backup is a must. Automated backups reduce the burden on website owners. MDDHosting goes the extra mile and keeps backups offsite. Although the backup cycles are for seven days, MDDHosting claims to keep as far back as three months.

6. All Plans Come With cPanel

MDDHosting has included cPanel in all its price-friendly shared Cloud plans. Pretty nifty, isn’t it? You use the traditional WHM and cPanel for all website management tasks. Access your cPanel via MDDHosting’s Support and Billing System or click ‘View Details’ on the plan, then click ‘Actions’. 

Also, access the control panel via appending “/cpanel” onto your domain (http://www.yourdomain.com/cpanel). cPanel is known for being notably pricey. As such, getting cPanel with these price-friendly shared Cloud plans certainly entices. 

7. Decent Security Features

With MDD Hosting, you get free unlimited SSL certificates by Let's Encrypt and cPanel AutoSSL. Paid SSL certificates with SSL Site Seals are on the table too. MDDHosting's Imunify360 Server Security and Malware Scanner is an automated security solution powered by AI and Proactive Defense. Leveraging cloud heuristics, Imunify360 includes a malware scanner to scan for malware and other nasties and automatically clean them.

MDDHosting offers SpamExperts Spam Filtration to filter your incoming emails and protect you from spam and viruses from reaching your network. From $2.99/mo/domain, this optional email security feature is valuable for their Cloud VPS plans.

With frequent automated backups, I’d say that MDDHosting is serious about your security. However, it is most unfortunate that they do not offer DDoS protection. 

8. Free Site Migration

Some web hosts charge you for every website transfer, not MDDHosting. MDDHosting provides free website migration. However, certain caveats apply. You have 60 days to apply for the transfer to enjoy this free courtesy service, after which a fee starting at $10 per cPanel account or site to be moved may apply.

If your previous provider is not cPanel powered or does not allow access to cPanel backups, you may be charged a transfer fee of $25/account or site. For reseller transfers, you get up to 25 cPanel accounts per reseller account for free within the first 60 days of service. 

Anything beyond 60 days or exceeding 25 cPanel accounts may incur a $10 fee/ cPanel account. All custom control panel transfers begin at $25 per site to be transferred.

That seems like a mouth full of words. However, to be fair to MDDHosting, these policies are fairly common. 

9. MDDHosting Removed its 25% Resource Cap

While it is normal to place a limit on unlimited plans, the terms and conditions limitations by MDDHosting were seriously overdone in the past. MDDHosting placed a cap of 25% on provided resources as the limit for users (even if it's for longer periods than 120 seconds); this translates to bad for a web host.

However, this 25% limitation is a thing of the past. MDDHosting has revamped its infrastructure and invested in upgrading all server connectivity to 20 GBPS (20,000 MB/s). Leveraging a highly available storage platform powered by StorPool, MDDHosting can now offer ‘unlimited’ for your resources, which is a plus point.

The term unlimited means no arbitrary limit. As long as your website operates ‘normally’, you won’t have to worry about running out of resources. After all, MDDHosting’s unlimited policy aims to be fair across the board to all customers.

10. Free WordPress Hosting with All Shared Cloud Hosting Plans

While other web hosts have WordPress hosting plans separately for optimized WordPress features and others, MDDHosting imposes no extra charges if you wish to host a WordPress website. MDDHosting assists you with installing, updating, optimizing, maintaining, migrating, staging, and more for free for each purchased shared Cloud plan.

Cons: What I Don't Like About MDDHosting

We have so far been bathing in all the savory sweetness of what MDDHosting has to offer. However, there are always two sides to a coin.

1. Additional Costs for Essentials

Although all shared Cloud plans have pretty good values, anything more requires you to top up with additional costs. There’s no free domain for the first year, although they allow unlimited domains. You can purchase a domain name from MDDHosting, but that costs you at least $10 unless there are some on sale, in which you can get them for cheaper than $10.

Also, if you need email security, you have to pay $2.99/month for incoming email filtering features. MDDHosting’s drag-and-drop DIY Site Builder will cost you $4.99 for unlimited pages when you’re ready to publish your website. It’s nice to have these options available. However, I’ll feel the painful pinch once I add everything up. You may be better off elsewhere. 

2. No DDoS Protection

Having super tight DDoS protection (to me) is one of the essentials for any web host. Imagine hosting your website with MDDHosting, worried about its vulnerability to DDoS attacks anytime. That would be too nerve-wracking to even think about. Not having DDoS protection to me is a huge ‘No No'.

MDDHosting Plans and Pricing

Unlike traditional web hosts, MDDHosting offers its plans based on the Cloud at pretty reasonable costs:

• Shared Cloud hosting – a robust platform to get beginners started on a small business website
• Reseller hosting – suited for developers/designers with a business in selling website design and deployment
• VPS hosting – business websites with rapid growth prospects (including eCommerce websites)

Aside from catering to large and critical services websites (MDDHosting has no dedicated hosting), MDDHosting has the right hosting solution for everyone, irrespective of industry.

MDDHosting Cloud Shared Plans 

MDD Hosting's Shared Cloud plans are somewhat pricier than the regular shared hosting plans. However, the fact that MDDHosting's shared plans are Cloud-based remains the focal point and justifies the price hike. Once you compare each plan's details, you'll start to weigh things better in favor of MDDHosting.

MDDHosting Cloud VPS Plans

Cloud VPS plans at MDD Hosting are quite impressive when pitting against other Cloud providers. Regular VPS services will be more competitive in the market. You'll notice many hosting essentials are not included in the plans but are available at additional costs. Simply put, I find many standard VPS features missing, despite the high prices.

MDDHosting allows you to make monthly, annual, biennial, and triennial payments. The longer you commit, the lower the fee becomes. However, I find the difference to be insignificant. You can opt for either managed or unmanaged VPS. Managed VPS requires an additional cost, starting from $40.00/mo. 

If you need cPanel and WHM, add from $20.00/mo, and Softaculous App INstaller is available at $2.00/mo. Also, additional IP addresses are at $5.00/mo.

Alternatives to MDDHosting Services

Compare MDDHosting vs A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting doesn't offer Cloud architecture on their VPS plans. However, the service is known for performance and stability, making Cloud somewhat moot. Although A2 Hosting seems pricier at first glance, you'll notice A2 Hosting gives you higher specifications overall with both cPanel/WHM and Softaculous included.

Also, A2 Hosting's pricing is a managed VPS plan. If you consider adding the managed plan to MDDHosting's plan, the figure you pay surpasses A2 Hosting. And that is also before adding other additional costs such as cPanel/WHM and Softaculous. Hence, the comparison with MDD Hosting makes prices and features contrast more.

For more MDD Hosting alternatives and similar hosting choices – check out our best web hosting picks.

Wrapping Up

Although in the web hosting space for over a decade, MDDHosting is still not as popular as others. That said, they are notable as one of the cloud hosting providers for small to medium-sized businesses. Take advantage of all the ‘unlimited’ options that even their cheapest Turbo plan comes with for a reasonable price.

Also, leverage the Cloud through MDDHosting's shared plans. The pricing is somewhat higher, but this is shared cloud hosting. Hence, if stability is your game, MDDHosting cloud-based offerings become very appealing. 

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