Many web hosts have a clear target in mind for business. Some are great for ecommerce stores, and others create a helpful environment for startups. Still, others provide high-end servers for growing businesses. But sometimes, you need something in the middle. A one-size-fits-all service for a pretty standard website.
EasyCGI gets it just right, with a service that caters to no one specific, yet suits almost everyone. It’s not super simplified, but not code heavy, which is a difficult balance to strike. While it leans more towards independent customers, with its unmanaged servers and variety of coding language support, it’s not overly difficult to use.
This certainly isn’t a perfect service, or one with tons of variety, the starkest examples being a lack of cPanel, Windows-only shared hosting, and Linux-only unmanaged VPS. But beyond these complaints, it provides a service that ends up a great fit for a majority of small businesses.
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Who Would Most Benefit?
What demographic is EasyCGI best for? Everyone from first-time website owners to expansive business veterans are looking for the best host, so it’s important to know who this particular service suits.
E-commerce features and compatibility are never specifically mentioned on the plan pages. You can probably import your own store software, but there are no guarantees of support listed. So if e-commerce is the main focus of your website, there might be better providers. All you get here is a promise of “e-commerce-ready” with no explanation of what makes it so in the plan descriptions.
However, if you’re looking for Windows shared hosting specifically, and dislike it when hosts give the Linux version more attention, this is the place to go. For Windows VPS hosting, though, you’ll need to look elsewhere. It offers only Linux.
Finally, this service seems most suited for small businesses that are already established. There’s nothing in particular that makes it stand out as great for new users, and plenty of other hosts give more freebies (but less freedom).
There are a lot of advanced features, scripting and coding languages, and databases to make use of, and this may be overwhelming for people launching their first website and who have no programming experience. The price is also just decent — not cheap — but the server specs are powerful, and come with bandwidth restrictions. This is typical of mid-range shared hosting.
While some features would be great for customers who are beginning their first projects, such as the CM4all website builder and the cheap promotional price, some things are missing. A free domain and a one-click installer are some examples of features a host made for unseasoned users often has, which EasyCGI does not.
In short, small-ish and decent-sized websites will fit in quite nicely here. But if you’re newer, a service more tailored to inexperienced customers would be a better fit.
EasyCGI offers 7 different hosting plans.
Interestingly, EasyCGI’s major hosting types come in two separate operating systems. Shared hosting is run on a Windows platform, and you can pick between Windows Server 2003 or 2008. There are three plans, though the differences between them are minimal, except for the usual scaling up of resources.
Unlike many other shared hosts, this is a mid-range provider that perhaps doesn’t cater to startups, which means that a lot of features are not unlimited. What’s given is pretty generous, but you may find yourself ascending in plans just to get more of that precious bandwidth. The unlimited assets that are provided include domains, FTP accounts, and Microsoft Access databases.
Unfortunately, it runs with its own “EasyCGI Control Panel” so people accustomed to cPanel or even vDeck will have a learning curve here. But there’s no setup fee at least, and it comes with a pretty hefty list of useful features. They include email hosting, a shared SSL certificate, WordPress and forum software, and a lot of advanced technical functions.
One thing that’s missing is any mention of ecommerce storeping support. It claims to be e-commerce ready, but in the feature list, there’s no mention of any specific shopping cart. However, this host seems to give a lot of technical freedom, so it may be as simple as picking up your favorite e-commerce platform. There just aren’t any freebies or direct support.
Overall, the shared hosting will work out pretty decently for most small to medium-sized businesses. The fact that you can’t use Linux operating systems, though, means you may want to look at the VPS solutions instead, or if that’s out of budget, a different provider.
Linux VPS Hosting
EasyCGI’s managed VPS server plans are appealing. The quality range runs from decent to rivaling that of a low-end dedicated server, so hardware power isn’t much of a problem. There are even a few features many other providers don’t have. Unlimited websites, no setup fee, and a 30-day money back guarantee are all things that can often seem a bit rare to find on VPS hosts.
Except for the hardware itself, these plans are unmanaged and give the customer full administrator access, so it’s up to you to get everything running. But you get that with helpful 24/7 support, unlimited email hosting, and unlimited MySQL databases.
Plus, you can pick any Linux OS you’d like. It’s not clear if there are limits to this. Even so, just the claim is interesting, considering most hosts lock you into a single OS or a choice between just a few.
It doesn’t come cheap in any way, but even so, this is some pretty solid VPS hosting if you’re looking for a slightly more self-reliant program. It’s not stuffed with bundles of unnecessary features, but everything included is a great help, and there’s little you’ll want for (except maybe cPanel).
Cheap Add-ons
At checkout, there are a few paid enhancements you may want to pick up, a majority of them under $2 a month. For a shared server, you can choose an SSL certificate — necessary if you run an e-commerce site — a security plan to protect against malware, G Suite for larger businesses, backup and restore, and some basic SEO tools.
All of these are optional but some, like backup and security, are lucrative if you’re willing to pay the extra little bit. And it comes cheaper than many other host’s similar paid solutions.
VPS servers get only SSL, G Suite, and SEO tools. The two major add-ons are missing, which is a bit concerning, especially the lack of backup assistance. It looks like, if you purchase a VPS host with EasyCGI, that’s entirely up to you.
Other Tools and Services
Along with the add-ons mentioned above, there are a number of extra management services available for purchase. There’s no price tag on most of them, so it can’t really be said how expensive they are, but these features may be helpful for websites looking to get off the ground.
If the CM4all builder isn’t to your taste, there’s the “Website Builder” to try out instead. A free plan comes with all hosting, but there are two other plans to choose from if you’re fond of it and want access to an e-commerce shopping cart, more pages, and some other features.
For smaller or even one-man teams, professional and marketing services could be a real help. You can get an online store set up, perform maintenance, create advertisements, and enhance an existing website across these two plans.
Finally, there are some assorted extras. A goMobi subscription to help build a responsive mobile website, SiteLock for protection from malware, and WordPress optimization are all on the list. These cheap extras may be of interest to some, and they all seem fairly useful.
Powerful Hosting for Many Websites
There are brand new startups and established businesses, but right in the middle there lies the majority of websites: simple, medium-sized ones looking for a new host to call home. This is exactly the kind of site suited for EasyCGI. Without too many freebies or guidance, and without large-scale dedicated servers, the average website will make its home quite comfortably here.
While it isn’t too flashy, EasyCGI has a lot of power hidden under the surface. It does its job and it does it well, giving customers freedom without becoming too overwhelming. Every single feature is straightforward and easy to get the hang of.
It’s a host designed to work for nearly everyone, without adhering too strongly to any niche. This may mean some features, especially e-commerce-related ones, are excluded. But it also means that, in a general sense, it outperforms. In this role — one of a host that strives to make everyone happy — it does so exceptionally.
Now that you have a good idea of what EasyCGI has to offer, it might be a good idea to click over to our sister site, WhoIsHostingThis.com. Not only does it have a collection of answers to frequently asked questions, it has reviews from actual EasyCGI customers. These reviews are often the best way to learn what a host is really like.