LunarPages was born in 1998, owned and operated by a team of veterans in the IT field. Today, the company has well over 150,000 customers and more than 100 employees in locations throughout the world. Boasting services ranging from dedicated servers to top VPS hosting, LunarPages is a host that seems to be able to please any customer. Let’s have a closer look to see where this provider ranks among the top the web hosting firms.

Packages and Prices

LunarPages offers a wide choice of various services. The Basic Hosting Plan is its most popular offering with the longstanding price of only $ 4.95 per month. Well suited for both personal and business users, this package is loaded with features and incentives. The prices offered by LunarPages are definitely among the most competitive ones on the market.

Feature Set

Features are always sought for since they can provide enormous functionality for any website. LunarPages creates a large base to work on by supplying all the basics and a couple of advanced tools as well. Some of the most noteworthy features on this impressive menu include unlimited email accounts, Dreamweaver and FrontPage support, OpenPGP encryption, and the ability to host as many domains as you want on a single account. The Basic Hosting Plan allows for easy development by means of powerful features such as PHP, Python and Ruby on Rails programming, and unlimited MySQL databases - everything you need to create a dynamic, interactive website. One of the greatest offerings of LunarPages is cPanel, a user-friendly software application loved by all customers. cPanel allows you to manage nearly every aspect of your site, giving you the power to create FTP accounts, add on domains, view traffic statistics and much more. After getting familiar with the simple interface, you will discover why cPanel is the most preferred control panel on the market.

Reliability and Support

LunarPages has survived in the competitive hosting business due to its reliability and high-level support. The company operates three data centers on the West Coast, all optimized to provide the highest degree of availability for your website. You do not have to worry about cheap equipment because this host only utilizes the best breed of server hardware. The company team consists of certified technicians who keep the systems up and running and knowledgeable customer support agents. Its award-winning support system can be reached via email, live chat and toll-free phone. It is nice to run across a firm so devoted to its customers.

The Verdict

LunarPages doesn’t seem to have many disadvantages. These guys can provide just about whatever you need at a reasonable price. Browsing around the web you’ll surely find quite a many happy customers of LunarPanel. Still, since no service is perfect, you’ll do best paying LunarPages a visit to find out if they really can satisfy your personal requirements.

Once you are ready to start your very own internet company there are several questions you may have in mind. For instance there is a lot of information about servers and domain names that are very hard to understand. You obviously want to have the most control when dealing with your website, such as how to modify the website and make sure it is on the top search engines.

Cpanel hosting is the backend website software that runs most linux based hosting services. What cPanel offers clients is a specific way for webhosting clients to be able to manage their domains via an easy to access web interface. This means that you have control and the responsibility of managing your own site. You can manage the emails, files, backup info, FTP, CGI scripts, and even the website statistics.

When you opt for cPanel hosting you are asking for the domain owner control panel to be handed to you. You are still going to have technical support from Cpanel in case there are any questions are problems with the software product, but it offers you the control you need to run a successful business on the internet.

They also offer webhost manager and webmail panel. This means you have server administration and a reseller panel as well as a webmail access panel when you are with this web hosting company.

When you sign up with Cpanel you are getting a license agreement to use their technology. You have to keep up with the agreement, which is an every year charge to keep yourself on this web hosting server. You are able to have support, as well as a new OS versions in case you will ever upgrade to a new OS like Vista for instance. You have to options when you decide to choose Cpanel for you business needs.

You can get the Cpanel and WHM package that offers the webhost manger as well as the hosting control or you can get the Cpanel Server Suite. Your second option is presently beta testing so they have not entirely fixed errors that it may have, but it still offers you knowledge and tools to have a successful online business going. You will find that you have the central management with this program for your servers.

This web hosting software is great for someone who is not a newbie. In other words it works great for someone who has multiple websites and will continue to grow in the website business. The websites don’t have to sell the same products, but can be multiple product websites.

They can also be service websites. The fact is whatever you have the website for doesn’t matter as long as you can make a return out of the software program from the webhosting company. You want the product to work for you and your business, but not pay out for something that doesn’t really fit in your current business venture. You are the sole person who can decide if the program will work well for you by reading it.

Being rather yellow in web hosting, I chose BlueHost mostly for the prices. Because it has  fairly good reviews and reliability they boasted in their website. For a person like me, they seemed really appealing for a newbie. They’ve been on the market since 1996, which also adds to their credibility. Generally speaking, I found their customer ratings and reviews are mostly positve, so I thought they would be a good choice to start with. What mostly attracted me was:

1. All the necessary standard features of a web host: cPanel, multiple database support, FTP, and email, to name just some;

2. Both storage and bandwidth are unlimited, as well as subdomains. (the limitations concern the number of databases - 50 each for MySQL and Postgre - and FTP and email accounts -1,000 and 2500, respectively);

3. I thought it is cheap enough, for a 24 months contract is only.95/month (no setup fee, free domain included);

4. Great support and very professional, what i like the best is their support thorough live chat. When calling I was never put on hold for very long, and all my questions were successfully answered by the incredibly patient staff;

5. Last but not least, I like using cPanel, which is very easy to use, and everything was installed in it.

There are some cons, though:

First of all, the pricing of the short term (3 months) contract  - for those interested $9.95 / m is a bit over charging.

And of course there were some negative reviews and complaints regarding to bluehost service - which I have not experienced since I joined them , the complaints were usually about that their accounts were terminated without any notices, I guess the reasons are that the staff members in bluehost found violation and fraudulent activity on their sites, again, it is only a guess, as my sites have never been terminated.”) I must admit I’ve felt quite anxious having read them. Still, where there are many users, complaints are a natural thing to appear.

All in all, I’d recommend BlueHost for creating personal websites to beginners like me, but if you’re business-oriented, then I suggest gathering more detailed information about their features and service from their home page and other reliable sources before signing up.