Expert Overview
Affordable US Hosting
Jolly Works Hosting is a US based hosting company that is focused on providing good hosting at an affordable price. They have won the HostAdvice Excellent Service award because of their high quality customer experience and overall great technical support. They don’t really excel in any one particular area, but they do have a nice steady service, which is what most people want.
They have been around for many years and have built a good reputation for themselves with their customers. While they are not the biggest hosting company in the US, they have carved themselves a nice niche of customers that seem to be quite loyal. Loyalty is often hard to come by in the web hosting industry, so this seems to say a lot about the level of service that they provide.
A few odd things on their site, however. First, they have a count down timer at the top of their site, prominently displayed. Unfortunately, it is set to zero and doesn’t give any indication of what it is for. If they aren’t using it anymore, they should have taken it down. Next, their site could use a refresh in the design. It looks somewhat outdated. Sadly, this is pretty common with web hosting companies, which should know the importance of keeping their properties looking new.
Uptime & Reliability
Typical 99.9% Uptime Guarantee
You will get the normal 99.9% uptime guarantee with this company. That really seems to be the minimum that companies provide, if they are going to give a guarantee, so it isn’t too impressive. I hadn’t found anyone really complaining about excessive downtime or anything though, so this doesn’t seem to be an issue.
There are a few current or former customers who have complained about occasional slow loading speeds. This may be an indication that the company oversells their services. In many cases, however, it is just that the customer selected a package that is too small for their needs. Either way, however, the hosting company should work to ensure sites always load quickly, even if that means encouraging customers to move up to a higher package.
Features
Very Nice Features for the Price
As you browse through the different features they have available you will likely agree that they are quite generous with with they offer for the price. For example, the lowest level hosting package still has 15 gigs of disk space and 150 gigs of bandwidth. This is more than enough for running a number of blogs or other sites, even if they become somewhat popular.
They also don’t limit you much on the number of sites you can host. Entry level has a limit of 15, and the rest are unlimited. You also get a free domain included with your order with all but their smallest package. Their servers are powered by CloudLinux, which is a popular and powerful option. They don’t seem to have Windows servers, which is unfortunate but not really surprising.
Support
Good quality support
The tech support teams are on site 24/7 and ready to help you. They have a good reputation for responding quickly and being able to solve your problems right away. Their site doesn’t seem to have much by way of self-help guides or other similar services. Overall, however, you will not likely have any issues with their tech support.
Pricing
Very Affordable
Their pricing starts at just $1.25 per month for their entry level service. For a ‘professional’ package it is just $2.50 and their highest level shared hosting is only $4.17. These are all great prices, especially when you look at the nice levels of hardware and other items that you get for the price.
If you move up to the VPS services you will see that the prices remain quite low. Entry level VPS is just $5 per month (or $50 annually) and for a much more powerful VPS you only pay $30 per month ($300 annually). This company has done a great job at balancing low prices with good overall service.
Summary
Overall a Good Host for a Good Price
This hosting company is a nice option for most types of sites. They aren’t looking to host massive sites, but for the average business or blog or any other typical need, they will give you everything you need and do it for a very nice price. If you’re considering them as an option for your hosting, you will likely find that they will do a good job for you.
Pros:
- Very good prices
- Lots of options
- Free domain with most packages
Cons:
- Some concern of overselling
- No dedicated servers
