Company Overview
Founded in 2001 in Los Angeles, California, InMotion Hosting has grown into one of the most respected independent web hosting providers in the industry over the course of the past two decades. They offer an impressive suite of web hosting services and addons, including Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting, VPS Hosting, Managed and Unmanaged Dedicated Servers, domains, web design, and more.
InMotion Hosting currently employs over 300 people across the United States and has eco-friendly data centers on both the West Coast (Los Angeles) and the East Coast (Virginia Beach) and they remain one of the few big, independent hosting companies in the industry.
InMotion is also recommended by BoldGrid as a top WordPress Hosting provider!
Usability, Value and Performance
InMotion Hosting utilizes industry-standard cPanel as a control panel, and has quick accessibility access for both cPanel and one-click installer Softaculous from directly within their customer portal. This makes installation, configuration and optimization that much easier, and there is plenty of material on these open-source software if you run into any technical issues.
InMotion offers some of the faster performance on the market according to benchmark tests, and uses all SSD drives for their Shared Hosting servers, providing value for the smaller customer. They also do not overload their servers beyond capacity like some web hosts, meaning your site will be able to handle traffic spikes and not be affected by other customers on the same server. Their higher-end server options are competitively priced, and they offer migration services to help you move up their product line if your website outgrows your hosting solution.
Overall, InMotion provides value for its customers at a competitive price. It’s often true “you get what you pay for,” and in this case, you’re getting good value for excellent products. They also offer a generous 90-day money-back guarantee, so if you can’t figure it out in the first three months, they will give you a full refund.
Customer Support
InMotion Hosting provides some of the best customer support out there, boasting 24/7/365 support that is entirely US-based out of offices in Los Angeles, Denver and Virginia Beach. This crucial element to a good web host is one key delineator that sets them apart from other hosts.
Their mission statement reflects one of the reasons they have such a good reputation – “an honest desire to help their customers’ businesses succeed and grow.”
A number of the web hosts we reviewed are owned by one parent entity, Endurance International Group (EIG). While that conglomerate provides the web hosts under its umbrella with additional resources, we have found InMotion Hosting’s customer support to be both timely and helpful, all while remaining close to the customer, independent and 100% US-based.
In addition to quality support via phone, chat, or email, InMotion Hosting also has one of the most robust Support Centers in all of web hosting, with thousands of helpful articles for novices all the way up to experts, including helpful threads from support agents troubleshooting specific issues from customers.
Shared Hosting
InMotion Hosting offers three tiers of base-level Shared Hosting. This is typically the entry-level product for most web hosts, and offers substantial resources for newer websites and web users who are just getting started.
All of their Shared Hosting plans run on solid-state drives (SSDs), which perform much better than their counterpart, the more traditional hard disk drives (HDD) in terms of speed and reliability. Their Shared plans also come with a free domain, SSL and cPanel license with access to Softaculous, a one-click installer for more than 400+ applications.
Depending on how many websites you plan on running on one account, or the size of the website(s) you are creating, you may want to start here with one of InMotion Hosting’s Shared Hosting plans.
The Launch plan should prove plenty for new-to-the-web users, and InMotion has top-notch customer service that can help move you up to a higher capacity plan as your website grows.
InMotion Hosting also sometimes runs promotional campaigns, like the one listed above, where you can get a Power Plan for the price of a Launch Plan for your first term.
WordPress Hosting
InMotion offers some of the best optimized WordPress Hosting on the market, boasting an impressive combination of optimizations, security and performance. WordPress comes pre-installed on all of their packages, and they offer free website migration if you are moving an existing website over to their servers.
They also use server-side caching and a “WordPress Optimized Stack” with WP-CLI integration which makes their WordPress plans more than just a Shared Hosting plan with a WordPress installation.
In addition to the speed and optimizations, their higher-tier plans offer Jetpack licenses and function perfectly as online marketplaces if you are looking to set up an eCommerce site.
If your WordPress site or business starts booming, they also have an impressive line of WordPress optimized VPS plans, which are perfect for bigger, larger trafficked WordPress sites.
Much like their Shared Hosting plans, they occasionally run promotional rates, like the above WP-2000 for the price of the WP-1000 for the first term.
VPS Hosting
InMotion Hosting offers Managed VPS Hosting on SSD servers that are very competitive with the rest of the market. As a managed, Linux-based VPS provider, their products include a layer of professional management and optimizations that are covered by their experts. While a bit more pricey than its unmanaged counterpart, their plans also include a cPanel and WHM license (a $25/year value on its own).
Unlike Shared and WordPress Hosting, VPS servers allot their users with dedicated resources, which guarantees an improved performance for bigger, higher trafficked sites. If you have a well-established site or online store, and a budget to make sure it performs at its best, VPS Hosting is likely the option for you.
One thing that sets InMotion Hosting’s VPS Hosting apart is their server snapshots, which essentially allow customers to take a “picture” at a particular moment in time of their container. Should anything happen to their website during updates or maintenance, they can revert their server back to that snapshot in time, reverting the issues caused and saving time and money on troubleshooting.
InMotion Hosting’s VPS servers are placed in redundant clusters, meaning the resources are never pooled and are constantly monitored. If you are a more experienced user, they also offer root access to your server by request.
Dedicated Servers
InMotion is one of a few hosts who offer not only traditional lines of Shared and VPS Hosting, they also offer both Managed and Unmanaged Dedicated Servers, with hundreds of customization options on everything including memory, hard drive and backup drive space, firewall, software RAID, bandwidth, Remote KVM, and more.
Their configuration options are one of the features that set them apart, allowing you to create exactly the server you want at a competitive price point. They also include “Commercial Class” servers for enterprise-level clients that include large configurations and limits.
Another feature that sets them apart is their ability to serve both managed and unmanaged customers. Are you a large company with a team of dedicated developers who don’t need a control panel? their unmanaged options can save you money and deliver exactly what you need. Prefer that extra level of support? Their managed servers include Server Management support and a cPanel/WHM license for easy server management.
Web Design
If you don’t have the time or experience to create your own website, but need to get started with creating your online footprint, InMotion Hosting also has a dedicated web design team of WordPress experts to help you get your site up and running.
They have a number of different offerings for eCommerce sites and WordPress sites as well as their QuickStarter offering, which gives small businesses a simple splash page that your customers can interact with you on.
They have an impressive portfolio across a variety of different industries and offer a free consultation to see if it is the right fit for you.