Hostwinds specializes in web hosting and cloud services. Since 2010, our commitment has provided great hosting options at an affordable price around the globe. Additionally unmatched by our fantastic 24/7 support team and 99.9999% uptime guarantee. We consider our customer's family and provide them with all the excellent hosting services they deserve.
Hostwinds (hostwinds.com) has 720 customer reviews on Five Star Index, with an average rating of 3.9 out of 5.
Also known as
hostwinds.com
Website
hostwinds.com
Category
Internet & Software
Location
Seattle, Washington
Listed on Five Star Index
2026
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The company replied to 22% of reviews.
Latest
Most recent review: October 2026.
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Have used Hostwinds for various services since 2012 while the services were good when up their support was never brilliant and when I cancelled in 2020 they billed me anyway and refused to accept my cancellation ticket because they secretly email you requesting email cancellation as well then they billed me anyway and closed my services down.
Unfortunately my business suffered in 2019 and I cancelled the services I used through their website but they proceeded to charge me through paypal anyway, deleted my accounts and insisted I "log in" to raise a ticket to discuss the issue. Obviously this is not possible if they have deleted my account. Had to raise a dispute through paypal.
Watch out for these people. Money grabbers and I will never use them again. For the sake of $200 when I have spent thousands over nearly a decade they are truly sad sad people.
TM
Toni M.
i paid but i still cant use cpanel
i paid but i still cant use cpanel
TR
Tech R.
worste hosting services ever
worste hosting services ever! they have now cancelled my package and ket all my money hostage more than $1000 CAD is what i paid them and now no one is helping and I want my full refund asap or i will talk to my lawyer as I already have legal Aid and I don't need to spend a single cent on a lawyer! I will get my money back and even sue these guys very soon. my server was down for a whole week, websites kept going down! You still have time safe yourself from all the troublke and give me my money back asap!
BA
BARON
BUYER BEWARE
This company is deliberately trying to scam people. But I know my rights.
Digital goods have a 14 day refund period WITHOUT any justification needed. It doesn't matter what you write in your Policy page.
Im glad I didn't pay the whole year upfront.
Service is awful, and they deny same day refunds. So basically this company is a dead end for any developer out there. Please consider using a decent host, instead of gambling your money with scammers.
CM
Cyril M.
Hostwinds - When incompetence meets unreliability
"We have terminated your account with us in accordance with our zero tolerance abuse policy. This decision is final and will not be reversed."
That was the content of the shocking email that was waiting for me in my mailbox early morning, 08/23/2020
We've had some problems with Hostwinds very early on (but too late to ask for a refund).
First, for their "business plan", for "unlimited domains" you have 512 MB RAM to use. These get quickly overloaded so one or two domains with some plugins should do it. More than that, and all of your blogs go down.
The few times we needed support, the technicians didn't seem very competent. It took us several mails to make them understand that some mails sent to us by customers were delayed from 30-40 minutes to several hours. They couldn't understand what we said before a while and when they finally understood it, they just said it was because of the "sender's server". It had nothing to do with Hostwinds.
With the exception that it did: Hostwinds activate a gray list when you make a new e-mail account and the gray list checks unknown or unsure e-mail-addresses, which can cause a delay in mail reception. You can turn it off yourself beside each e-mail-address... But support didn't know that, it seems.
Then, most of our mails didn't reach our customers. We understood it a while later when we've got some of them back: Our IP was blacklisted as a spam IP. Hostwinds doesn't take care of that. If you've got a bad IP... Too bad!
We asked if we could get another, but the answer was that they could help us BUY another, but they couldn't guarantee that the new one wouldn't be blacklisted. Buy another? They give us a blacklisted IP and we have to "buy" another because they don't do their job? And without guarantee, even!
But the story doesn't stop there.
Early morning, the 20th, I receive some mail from the "abuse department" of Hostwinds. They are forwarding a mail from "Netcraft" (never heard of those) where it said that on one of our domains, there is a scamming site, mimicking a cryptocurrency. And then a link to one of our domain: ourdomain[.]icu/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi
That was a link to a "suspended page" code used by Hostwinds when they terminate or suspend a domain.
We didn't understand a word of it. Why did "abuse" from Hostwinds send that to us? Couldn't they see that there was no scamming site, but that it was one of their own standard-pages?
I checked all of our domains for the case we had been hacked or something. Nothing.
I wrote with support and they scanned our account and told us: Everything is clean. No scamming site on your account.
Fine. Everything was fine, then.
The morning after, bing! The exact same mail from "abuse" from Hostwinds forwarding the exact same mail from "Netcraft".
What the... I answered and asked them if I had to receive this mail each day or if there was a point with this.
No answer.
The morning after, I got a mail telling me: "We have terminated your account with us in accordance with our zero tolerance abuse policy. This decision is final and will not be reversed." and a link to their TOS.
Now, when Hostwinds cut you off, not only are your sites not visible to your customers, but they block your access to your files, so you have no possibility to access your files, download them or nothing. You are totally excluded from your own files.
We were pretty annoyed, to say the least. Our account terminated because... what? Because "Netcraft" sent a mail about an old account (I guess that results from this spammy IP we got) with a link to a standard "suspended page"?
We asked for access to our files to download them, a refund for the time we wouldn't be able to use and that we paid up front (too bad it was too late for a PayPal dispute!) and then an apology.
Two days later, we got the laconic message: "Hello, Our management has lifted the suspension on your account. I am running a malware scan on your account just to make sure there are no infected files. Please standby for further updates and we thank you for your patience."
After a scan, the "technician" found 3 "infected" files on three of our archived domains: "wp-pass.php" files, which are totally legit files from older versions of Wordpress.
I explained it to him and he answered, "I have checked the files wp-pass.php. It looks like legit WordPress files."
Of course it is!
One more time, support and "technicians" don't use the inside of their head. It goes from not knowing their products and server, to not knowing the first thing about viruses, whitelisting an IP and it can go as far so they just terminate your account because of their incompetence.
Needless to say that we didn't even get as much as an apology for their handling of the situation and their incompetence. I don't expect us to receive a refund or any kind of compensation.
Do not use Hostwinds.
CS
Cyber S.
Scamming thieves
I bought their 2-year plan for shared hosting, day after that I realized my website isn't connecting to my domain name, after talking to them they told me that I have to REQUEST my free domain name (which is included in the package), (that's the same as if you walked in the grocery store, saw 2+1 deal on a product, but the cashier charges you for all 3, because you have to TELL them that you want the third item for free.) *logic*, needless to say I was pissed and i canceled my 2 year plan with them, and that is where the even bigger problems began. First i waited 2 days for their support to respond to me about my refund ( they probably stalled as they dont have to give you refund if 2 days pass), (oh yeah, you have to ASK them about the refund as well!! the same with domain name *cough* scamming thieves *cough*) then they realized that i have a 2 year plan with them, which means i can get my refund for a few weeks after my hosting is cancelled. after 2 days of waiting for them to reply to me, while routinely checking my bank account i saw that they CHARGED me 2 x 50 USD!! bear in mind that my account was deleted and that my hosting was cancelled days prior to that!, they literally stole 100 USD from my banking account! after i confronted them about it, they said i tried to top up on some sort of credit on their site?! After i told them that it's impossible as they stole the money AFTER my account was deleted, so i had no access to my account, let alone to purchase that "credit" , they simply stopped responding to my ticket. PEOPLE, LISTEN TO ME! there are other REPUTABLE hosting sites, go to them, don't be drawn to this thieving site only because you'll pay a few bucks less. I got burned, but you don't have to.
Oh did i mention that you have to wait 24 hours for their support to respond? imagine talking to someone who only answers once a day.
Response from HostwindsAug 21, 2020
Hello, We are so sorry to hear that your hosting experience with us was less than amazing. This is absolutely not normal. Please reach out to us directly at [email protected] so we can make sure you are taken care of.
BM
Business M.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS! SCAM!
ALL my websites were down for 8 days and now I have changed my hosting and when i asked for a refund they are not giving back more $1000 CAD and they are saying that these are services etc and cant be refund ed back to my card.
I was very polite with them at first and since ther last server crash as everyone is calling. their servers are messed up. No one could fix my issue and now I am in a loss for more than $2000 and countless customers from my website are going because the websites were offline and the online back again for 8 days!
These guys just want your money and they don't care about anything else, I might contact my lawyer regarding this as we have all the proof which shows how irresponsive these guys actually are!
Response from HostwindsAug 13, 2020
Hello, We are sorry to hear that your hosting experience with us was less than amazing. Please reach out to us directly via email ([email protected]) so we can make sure you are taken care of.
PA
Patrick
Use at your own risk !
Had hosting with them for a while. Similar offering to other hosting companies, nothing special.
BEWARE when signing up, they will (I find this very shady !) automatically input Contact details of someone in their company as Admin, Tech, etc. and if you want to leave, it will take FOREVER to do so because your domain name will be locked if you change the details yourself. Nowhere is this obviously stated. Online Chat is slow, frustrating and as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
DYOR thoroughly before using one of these larger providers. IMHO they are quick to take your money and make it very difficult for you to leave.
Finally, don't rely on PC Mag reviews.
Response from HostwindsAug 11, 2020
Hey Patrick, We are so sorry to hear that your hosting experience with us was less than fantastic. This is absolutely not normal. Please reach out to us directly via email ([email protected]) so we can make sure you are taken care of.