ASPHosPortal’s primary hosting provides ASP.NET Core web hosting capable of supporting WordPress, e-commerce, message boards, or general website-related projects at a budget-friendly price point.
But is this too good to be true? Are they really good choice to host your ASP.NET Core website?
Read on to find out.
Introduction
Founded in 2008, ASPHostPortal is a leading provider of affordable ASP.NET web hosting solutions backed by top-notch customer service.
The company offers a variety of web hosting options and it serves a variety of customers — from individual entrepreneurs and small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, around the world.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- More than 12 data centers around the world
- High security system
- 24/7 Support Guarantee
- Price-lock guarantees
ASPHostPortal appears to target a more tech-savvy audience than typical budget hosts. Its website focuses on the company’s custom security solutions (offered to all customers, regardless of hosting plan), robust infrastructure, and assistance with time-consuming solutions like fixing an account after it has been hacked, compromised, or exploited.
ASPHostPortal also offers a Price Lock Guarantee, which means that the price you pay when you sign up is what you’ll pay for the lifespan of the account. At no point will ASPHostPortal suddenly change the terms of your payments on you.
Cons
- Not the cheapest hosting
While ASPHostPortal isn’t the most expensive host when it comes to shared hosting, the company isn’t the cheapest option around.
(We do want to note, however, that the price tag isn’t necessarily without justification — ASPHostPortal bundles a lot of professional services with its hosting plans, even at the shared hosting level.)
Furthermore, if you’re new to the world of web hosting, ASPHostPortal’s website and web hosting options might be hard to navigate. Many plans are quite similar, but ASPHostPortal chose to list the options individually. If you’re not familiar with the terms used, you might assume that the plans are very different, when that is not the case.
Basic Web Hosting
Although there are specialized versions (eg, non-profit hosting), ASPHostPortal offers a single, low-cost shared hosting plan with high amount resources.
ASPHostPortal’s standard ASP.NET Core hosting plans offer good resources that the company claims is capable of supporting a variety of website-related projects.
Shared Hosting
ASPHostPortal’s shared hosting plans are probably the ones most appropriate for you if you are looking to get your site up and running with a minimum of economic investment.
However, inexpensive doesn’t necessarily mean useless — ASPHostPortal’s shared plans all come with an unlimited allocation of storage and bandwidth, as well as support for as many websites as you would like to build.
You will also get as many email inboxes as necessary. Additionally, the plan offers free SSL certificate to help you keep your (and your visitors’ data) out of the hands of unauthorized users.
ASPHostPortal’s shared hosting plans are just $1.00 per month.
Extended contracts are available in lengths of 6, 12, 36, and 60 months, and if you opt for one of these, you will receive a discount on your monthly hosting fees. The longer your contract, the larger your discount, so those with 60-month-long contracts pay the least.
Features
If you have an existing site, ASPHostPortal will help you migrate it over for use with your new ASPHostPortal plan free of charge.
Plesk Control Panel
Yes, they use Plesk Control panel for their ASP.NET Core hosting plan. Once you have signed up with them, you will be given access to their Plesk control panel so you can manage your website.
To extend the functionality and feature set of your website, you can access the one-click installer via your control panel and add things like message boards, event calendars, content forms, and more.
You can even set up your content management system (such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla) if that is what you are using to power your website.
Speed and Security
To protect and optimize the performance of your website, your plan comes with automatic backups, usage of the Cloudflare content delivery network (CDNs), and spam filters.
If you are a WordPress user, ASPHostPortal will automatically update your core on your behalf, which is important for WordPress security.
Hardware
ASPHostPortal offers quality hardware, even at the shared hosting level.
In addition to offering solid-state drives for storage, your site is hosted on a server that is no more than 50% full. This server setup means there is a lower likelihood that another site hosted on the same server as yours cannibalizes the resources you need, resulting in slow page load speeds.
Scaling
If you start with a shared hosting plan, later you can easily scale up to a VPS hosting plan, or even a dedicated server, with ASPHostPortal’s No Downtime Migration Process.
This means that you do not have to seek out another web host if you grow, and you will not see any periods of time where your website is unavailable during the moving process.
Domain Name Discounts
If you purchase a shared hosting plan from ASPHostPortal and you do not already have a custom domain name, you can purchase one inexpensively as a thank you gift for purchasing a hosting plan.
Advanced ASP.NETCore Hosting Options
In addition to shared hosting, ASPHostPortal has a full range of advanced plans for cloud hosting, VPS, and also dedicated server.
While you are most likely going to purchase a shared ASP.NET Core hosting plan when you are just getting started, ASPHostPortal does offer other hosting options:
- Reseller Hosting
- VPS and Cloud Hosting
- Dedicated Servers
In some cases, you might choose to skip the shared plan and go straight to a VPS hosting plan (or even a dedicated server), especially if you are expecting fast growth in the near future. While you will have excess server capacity in the short run, you eliminate the need for upgrading and data migration in the longer run.
Reseller Hosting
ASP.NET Reseller web hosting is a unique type of plan that is aimed at those looking to sell parts of their package to multiple individuals (for example, you could purchase a reseller hosting package and open up your own web hosting business).
ASPHostPortal’s reseller plans come with instant account setup (many other providers ask for hours or days to provision your account), easy, web-based management, automatic backups, and use of premium hardware.
There are four different reseller hosting plans from which you can choose, each differing based on the plan’s resource allocation. Regardless of which plan you purchase, you can host an unlimited number of accounts/websites.
VPS and Cloud Hosting
ASPHostPortal’s VPS and cloud-based hosting options are typically what you would look to once you outgrow your shared plan, not reseller hosting. The VPS and cloud plans are very similar, but the latter hosts your website space in a cloud-based environment.
When purchasing a hosting plan, you’ll need to decide on the number of CPU cores, amount of memory, amount of storage, and data transfer cap that best fits the needs of your website. The resources range as follows:
Minimum
- 1 CPU core
- 1 GB RAM
- 30 GB storage
- 1 TB data transfer
- $12.99/month
Maximum
- 8 CPU cores
- 32 GB RAM
- 400 GB storage
- 8 TB data transfer
- $159.99/month
VPS and cloud hosting plans are billed on a month-to-month basis, so there are no refunds and no money-back guarantees. You can, however, opt to pay upfront for a one-year contract to receive a 10% discount on the price of your hosting package.
Dedicated Servers
As its most powerful, most customizable, and most expensive option, ASPHostPortal’s dedicated servers are great for those who run resource-heavy websites that serve a high level of traffic.
In addition to the traditional dedicated server options, ASPHostPortal offers a product it calls Rapid Deploy Servers. They are essentially dedicated servers, which is why we have grouped the two options together in this review.
Rapid Deploy Servers are dedicated servers that can be provisioned for use in less than twenty minutes. ASPHostPortal offers a few configurations from which you can choose, and the options available tend to be much more powerful than the base servers that you can choose to customize.
The dedicated servers, however, are configurable options that can be provisioned and ready for use within four hours of your order. While there are standard dedicated hosting plans from which you can choose, you can add additional resources to your server if desired. Servers range as follows:
Minimum
- Intel Processor E3-1270 v3
- 8 GB RAM
- 1 TB storage
- 5 TB data transfer
- $149.99/month
Maximum
- Processor E3-1271 v3
- 32 GB RAM
- 2×500 GB SSD Storage
- 10 TB data transfer
- SQL 2017 Standard Edition or SQL 2019 Standard Edition
- Plesk Control Panel
- Antivirus
- 4 Static IP
- $349.99/month
Cost-wise, it is difficult to say whether a Rapid Deploy Server or a dedicated server that you customize is a better value since Rapid Deploy Server options do not correspond 100% to something you can customize.
Datacenters
ASPHostPortal’s primary datacenter complex is located just outside of Washington & Seattle. The company boasts that their facilities can offer a 100% power uptime and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
They have other data centers across the world that you can choose, for example Amsterdam, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Chennai, Toronto, and also São Paulo.
ASPHostPortal staffs its datacenters 24/7, offers enterprise-grade climate control and redundancy, and around-the-clock security.
Performance
ASPHostPortal makes a lot of claims about how well their web hosting performs, but let’s take a look at the company’s proffered resource limits, uptime, and average response times.
Resource Limits
ASPHostPortal boasts that its shared hosting plans come with unlimited storage and bandwidth, and generally speaking, if you comply with the terms of service, you should not run into any problems.
While the terms are somewhat vague, you’re not allowed to host sites that would be a better fit for VPS hosting/dedicated servers — like using your hosting for storage, reselling your hosting, hosting chat rooms or large message boards, and so on.
Those who have questions about whether their website would be in violation of ASPHostPortal’s Terms of Service should contact the company for clarification.
Performance
Our monitoring of ASPHostPortal uptime shows that the company generally has not met the industry-standard 99.9% uptime guarantee (though we see that the company did so during four different months in the time period beginning November 2019 and ending May 2022). However, the lowest uptime we ever saw was 99.55%
Because of its poor uptime history, you’d do well to monitor your ASPHostPortal website’s uptime and ask for compensation if it falls below its guarantee.
Speed
In terms of speed, we generally seem an average response time in the range of 300 milliseconds. There are several problematic months with average response times reaching toward 400-500 milliseconds. It is quite fast if you compare with other ASP.NET Core hosting solution like DiscountASP, Arvixe, or SmarterASP
Customer Service
ASPHostPortal offers 24/7 technical support that can be reached anytime you like. Its customer service team has won awards for the quality of service provided.
But if you’re looking for self-help resources (such as documentation or a knowledge base), know that ASPHostPortal is not too strong in this area.
User Reviews
There are over 200 reviews of ASPHostPortal written by actual customers. The company fairs very well, garnering a rating of 4.7 out of 5 — higher than the vast majority of ASP.NET Core hosts.
Summary
ASPHostPortal is a solid provider of ASP.NET Core hosting services that are capable of powering websites both large and small. With its robust web hosting options, powerful infrastructure, and emphasis on website security, all backed by top-notch customer service, ASPHostPortal is a great option for those looking to get started with their websites.
Want to get started with cost-effective ASP.NET Core hosting without breaking the bank? Visit ASPHostPortal now.
