AIToolVerdict
中文
Hosting / VPS

Hostwinds

Unmanaged Linux VPS from $4.99/month (1 CPU / 1 GB / 30 GB / 1 TB), managed at checkout for $2.15/month more — four VPS lines of ten tiers each, shared hosting from $6.99/month, and an SLA promising 99.9999% network and power uptime.

Rating
4.1 4.1 out of 5
Starting price $4.99 per month (unmanaged Linux VPS entry tier; managed Linux $10.99/month, Windows from $16.99/month, shared hosting $6.99/month)
Free trial No
View deal · Hostwinds Read review

Last updated:

Pros

  • The cheapest entry point among the VPS providers reviewed here: unmanaged Linux at 1 CPU / 1 GB / 30 GB SSD / 1 TB for $4.99/month, with full root, a dedicated IPv4, snapshots, nightly backups, an enterprise firewall, Volumes and load balancers on every tier — nothing was cut to reach the price
  • Managed can be added at checkout for $2.15/month: the price list puts managed Linux $6 above unmanaged ($10.99 vs $4.99), but the order form prices the Managed option at $2.15/month, which is the cheapest upgrade path to support on the site
  • One brand, four VPS shapes: Linux and Windows each come managed and unmanaged, ten tiers per line from 1 CPU / 1 GB up to 16 CPU / 96 GB, so a growing budget never forces a change of vendor
  • The Windows line is the cheapest in this site's catalogue: unmanaged Windows from $16.99/month and managed from $22.99/month, with Windows Server 2012/2016/2019/2022 selectable — a real option for remote desktop or SQL Server work
  • Features are not paywalled, but they are optional: nightly backups, snapshots, firewall, Volumes and load balancers are standard, while backups, monitoring, Softaculous and the cPanel licence are priced separately so you only pay for what you use
  • Shared hosting from $6.99/month includes cPanel, free SSL, a free dedicated IP, free migration and managed support, with unmetered disk and bandwidth — this is the line where cheap and managed arrive together
  • The SLA has a claim process rather than a slogan: 99.9999% network uptime and 99.9999% power uptime (no more than 31.6 seconds a year), a one-hour hardware replacement guarantee, and account credit on request for affected days
  • Three audited SAS Type II, Tier 3+ data centres in Seattle, Dallas and Amsterdam, with Zayo, Cogent, NTT and GTT upstreams and automatic failover — European visitors can be served from Amsterdam
  • Automatic renewal is genuinely convenient: invoices settle against the stored credit card, PayPal or Alipay on the anniversary billing date, so nobody has to watch a renewal date — the cost is in the cancellation obligations below

Cons

  • The refund window is 72 hours and is not a money-back guarantee: you must cancel the service in the client portal first, then request the refund within 72 hours of the payment transaction, and domains, SSL certificates, IP addresses, software licences, hourly services and cryptocurrency purchases are excluded
  • Backups are an add-on, and the terms state that Hostwinds does not take backups of any kind of customer data: cloud backups cost $1/month plus $0.03/GB, and cancelling a service deletes its content immediately, so offsite copies are on you
  • Cancellation is immediate and deletes the service's content: without it the service auto-renews on the anniversary billing date at whatever rate the client portal shows, so the unsubscribe date is your responsibility
  • Shared hosting's unmetered disk and bandwidth are bounded by a fair-use policy: not for storage or backup devices, not for download mirrors, and sustained interruptions bring an upgrade request or suspension
  • The SLA is narrower than its name: it covers reaching the network and power only, excluding maintenance, upstream ISPs, your own configuration and DDoS handling, and unmanaged VPS support is explicitly out of managed scope
  • Bandwidth overages cost money and throttle the port: traffic beyond the plan is billed at $0.01/GB and the port is held to 3 Mbps while over, so usage is yours to monitor
  • The independent review record is poor and drags on trust: Trustpilot sits at 2.2/5 across 729 reviews with 18% one-star, and the platform notes only 17 reviews arrived in the last 12 months
  • HostPapa acquired the company on 29 April 2026: the footer now reads Hostwinds, a HostPapa Inc. company, community reaction was wary, and no pricing or terms change has been announced

Score breakdown

Features 4.5
Ease of use 4.5
Value for money 4.5
Support 3.0

Pricing

Unmanaged Linux VPS 1

$4.99 per month, or $4.41/month effective on the annual cycle

  • 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 30 GB SSD, 1 TB/month bandwidth, 1 Gbps port
  • Full root, dedicated IPv4, snapshots, nightly backups, enterprise firewall, Volumes and load balancers included on every tier
  • The cheapest entry point among the VPS providers reviewed on this site; managed can be added at checkout for $2.15/month

Unmanaged Linux VPS 2

$9.99 per month

  • 1 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD, 2 TB/month bandwidth
  • The tier the community keeps recommending: 2 GB is enough for a LEMP site
  • Same cloud feature set as the tier below, with double the resources — the rational pick for most self-managed buyers

Managed Linux VPS 1

$10.99 per month

  • Identical hardware to the unmanaged tier (1 CPU / 1 GB / 30 GB / 1 TB), plus 24/7/365 technical support
  • Support covers OS updates and reinstalls, virus scans, boot failures, hardware faults, DNS and firewall setup, and package installs via yum/apt
  • Note this buys management, not a control panel: a cPanel licence is a separate $20/month at checkout

Managed Linux VPS 10

$526.99 per month

  • 16 CPU, 96 GB RAM, 750 GB SSD, 9 TB/month bandwidth
  • The top of the managed line — $198/month above the same hardware unmanaged at $328.99, which is the price of that support

Unmanaged Windows VPS 1

$16.99 per month

  • 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 30 GB SSD, 1 TB/month bandwidth
  • The cheapest Windows Server option reviewed on this site, with Windows Server 2012 / 2016 / 2019 / 2022
  • Managed Windows on the same hardware is $22.99/month — a $6/month step

Managed Windows VPS 1

$22.99 per month

  • 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 30 GB SSD, 1 TB/month, backed by a Windows specialist team 24/7/365
  • Only $6/month above unmanaged Windows — a smaller gap than either Linux line
  • The tier for SQL Server, .NET or remote-desktop workloads that genuinely need someone on the other end

Shared hosting Basic

$6.99 per month (Advanced $8.99, Ultimate $10.99)

  • 1 domain, unlimited disk and bandwidth, free SSL, current cPanel with Softaculous one-click installs
  • Managed support, free site migration and a free dedicated IP are all inside the price — unusual at this tier
  • Unlimited is bounded by a fair-use policy: no storage or backup use, no download mirrors, and sustained interruptions mean an upgrade request

Dedicated servers

Not published quote only

  • Listed alongside Colocation on the vendor's site with no public price list
  • Reach for this only when a VPS cannot do the job — PCI cards, dedicated hardware, custom kernels
  • No claim is made here about a price that could not be read; ask sales before ordering

cPanel cloud licence (add-on)

$20.00 per month

  • A separate software licence ticked on the cloud server order form, alongside a VPS Softaculous licence at $1.50/month
  • cPanel licences are non-refundable and do not earn affiliate commission
  • Shared hosting already includes cPanel, and a free panel can be self-hosted on a VPS

Cloud backups (add-on)

$1.00 per month plus $0.03/GB of storage

  • Pre-ticked on the order form — that extra $1 on the invoice is a default, not a requirement
  • Backups live in the vendor's own object storage and single-file restores are supported
  • The terms simultaneously state the vendor does not back up customer data, so an offsite copy is still your job

Who it is for

  • People who manage their own servers and want the cheapest possible machine with root in hand — unmanaged Linux at $4.99/month is the lowest entry point reviewed on this site
  • Buyers who want managed support at the lowest possible premium: the checkout upgrade costs $2.15/month, far less than the price list implies
  • Anyone needing a Windows cloud server without enterprise pricing — unmanaged Windows from $16.99/month, managed from $22.99/month
  • Projects whose budget will grow: four VPS shapes with ten tiers each, from 1 CPU / 1 GB to 16 CPU / 96 GB, inside one portal and one invoice
  • Audiences in Europe that want a local footprint: Amsterdam is one of three selectable data centres
  • Anyone wanting cPanel, free SSL, a free dedicated IP and managed support on a single-digit monthly budget

Alternatives

InterServer

Top pick

The cheapest sustainable renewal rate in shared hosting — $7/month after a $2.50 first month, billed month to month with no multi-year prepay, and unlimited storage, transfer, email and FTP included.

4.2 4.2 out of 5
Starting price: $2.50 first month, then $7/month

Best for: Anyone who has been burned by a renewal invoice and now compares the post-discount rate first: $7/month against SiteGround's $17.99, about $220 saved over three years

Read review View deal · InterServer

VPS.org

Root-access cloud VPS from $2.50/month, billed hourly with a monthly cap — 11 plans from 512 MB to 96 GB, and upgrades keep your data and IP.

3.8 3.8 out of 5
Starting price: $2.50 per month, billed hourly and capped at 672 hours

Best for: Developers who want root access and are willing to run their own server

Read review View deal · VPS.org

Vultr

Hourly cloud compute and per-GPU hourly GPU rental — from $2.50/month for 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB of RAM, with the first tier that has usable memory at $6, up to 192 vCPU and an NVIDIA A16 at $0.471 per GPU per hour.

4.2 4.2 out of 5
Starting price: $2.50 per month; each plan is listed with both an hourly and a monthly price

Best for: Work that needs GPU compute for a few hours rather than a permanent GPU server — per-GPU hourly billing keeps an experiment at a few dollars

Read review View deal · Vultr