WebsiteSource Review

"WebsiteSource All-In-One plan seems to have everything in it and best of all, you can host up to 4 different websites with this plan."

$7.83/month (Free Setup) 1,600 MB disk space, 40 GB Bandwidth.

Overview

WebsiteSource was started in 1998 as a web design company which was then transformed into a web hosting company. They offer a total of 5 different web hosting plans. Only one is below $10/month, which is called the All-In-One Plan. This plan costs $7.83/month for a 1-year contract. They feature this plan as $6.85/month on their web site. This is because they are referring to a 2-year contract. Before June 2004, this plan was priced at $9.56/month. We will discuss the All-In-One plan further below.

Plans Features

This plan comes with 1,600 MB of disk space and 40 GB of bandwidth. The best part of this plan is that you can actually host up to 4 different web sites with a single plan! There is a major difference between hosting 4 web sites on 1 account and hosting them with different accounts. In the first case, the 4 web sites share all the same resources, including disk space and bandwidth. In the second case, each site has its own resources.

For a quick cross-reference, LunarPages allows you to host a second web site for $2.50/month, while iPowerWeb charges a $10 one-time setup fee per site. Both allow a maximum of 3 additional sites.

Customer Support

Email and help desk response are not that fast. We sent a few emails to support@websitesource.com and also submitted a few support tickets via the help desk. It took an average of 2-4 hours to get a response. However, all replies were very detail and gave us all the answers we needed.

However, they do have a live chat support, which gives you immediate attention. This is what we like and prefer to use. You can ask questions directly and expect a response almost immediately. The live chat is meant to be staffed 24/7. But sometimes we just can't get anyone to chat with us.

We have tried their toll-free number too! Again, we love it because we get immediate attention. You can choose to speak to sales, billing or technical support. Every time we call, someone picks up and we have our questions answered. The toll-free number is 1-877-467-8001. It is available 7 days a week, 8.00am - 5.00pm CST.

Highlights

Host up to 4 Websites
As mentioned earlier, you are allowed to host 4 different web sites with one account. Since your main site is already counted as one site, you have the chance to host another 3 sites with the same account. The extra sites can be a new domain (site2.com) or a sub domain (subdomain.site1.com). Do note that 1 sub domain site is counted as 1 extra site.

Ecommerce Ready
Miva Merchant (Homepage) shopping cart is included in this plan. SSL secure server is also available. We have a short introduction on how ecommerce hosting works in our iPowerWeb review under the 'ecommerce ready' section.

SSH/Telnet
Allows advance user to login to the remote server and manage their website using shell commands. Due to security issues, most hosts do not allow SSH/Telnet.

Flash Video Tutorials
They use H-Sphere as their control panel and Site Studio web site builder is included along with H-Sphere. This web site builder can be used to build a simple web site with a few standard pages.

Advice

As the plan name suggest, it is an All-In-One plan. You have almost everything. You can host 4 web sites with this plan and it is ecommerce ready. You can SSH/Telnet to your account, though most hosts have chosen to disable it. The tradeoff is that it is a bit costly as compared to other hosts in the Top 10. Customer support is a bit slow. If you are not an advanced user and you need to seek help from support frequently, other hosts such as LunarPages will be more suitable, as they have more efficient customer support.