Gobat has been around since 2001 and provides their services to over 100,000 websites, which makes them a mid-sized hosting company. Their main focus in on providing simple hosting for smaller sites, which is a massive niche. To that end, they only offer shared hosting, and only two package options at that.
If you’re looking to grow your site quickly, this may not be ideal since you can’t migrate to a more advanced hosting option without switching companies. That being said, however, there are millions of people who need personal or small business sites that will never require a VPS or other higher end hosting solution.
This company is also part of the ENdurance International Group, which owns dozens of other hosting companies. This is typical seen as a good thing, since they have the financial and technical backing of such a large and well established company.
Uptime & Reliability
Some reported reliability issues from customers
Globat does not offer any type of SLA or uptime guarantee, which is not really unusual for companies that only offer shared hosting. Their servers are housed in a nice data center with power and circuit redundancy.
When looking through what their customers have said about their hosting, there were some reports of unexpected downtime for their sites. Based on what was said, it seems that the shared servers may have too many customers on them.
Features
Simplicity takes priority over feature list
Both of the hosting packages include just about everything the entry level webmaster will need. There are not, however, very many extra features that you can add on. This is clearly done intentionally, since they are trying to make sure that they are providing the simplest user experience possible.
The hosting packages also have some limitations on things like the number of MySQL databases, domains and other things. These limitations won’t be an issue for most customers, but it is important to be aware of them before signing up.
Support
Good 24/7 support available
Globat offers customer service and technical support 24 hours per day. You can call them using the provided toll-free number, or use their live chat features. The tech support team is clearly used to working with people who aren’t tech professionals, which is nice for their target audience.
In addition to the direct support, they also offer several self-help articles and other opportunities for their customers to learn more about web hosting so that they can run their sites better.
Pricing
Standard pricing
The pricing for each hosting package is about average for what you get. When considering this company for hosting, price likely won’t be much of a factor since you aren’t getting a great deal, but you also aren’t getting ripped off.
Summary
Reasonable hosting for entry level sites
If you are only looking for basic, easy to use web hosting, this is a good company to consider. They provide a nice service overall, and cater to those who aren’t professional webmasters. For example, non-technical business owners and people who want to run their own blog would do well to look into Globat.
Pros:
- Extremely simple hosting options
- 24/7 support
- Only two hosting packages to choose from
- Well established company
Cons:
- Only shared hosting options available – Limited growth opportunities
- Some history of downtime