Despite not being widely recognized, KnownHost is a hosting provider worth considering if you’re seeking exceptional performance, quality, and value.
With years of experience in the web hosting market, we have tried and tested numerous hosting providers.
In this data-backed KnownHost review, you’ll get all the details of KnownHost’s services including how their pricing and performance stacks up in the global market.
Best of all, you’ll see how KnownHost is leagues above most hosting providers in terms of the quality of services delivered.
You’ll also get the data from the first-hand tests we ran to help you decide whether it’s time for you to switch your website hosting over to KnownHost.
Introducing KnownHost
Founded in 2006, KnownHost is a host that’s made waves over the years with its VPS and managed dedicated server hosting.
Not only does KnownHost back its performance with a guaranteed service level agreement (SLA), but it also prioritizes state-of-the-art technology paired with excellent, expert customer support team when you need it.
If you run the kind of business that relies on a high-performing website, such as an online store, a forum, or a media publication with heavy traffic, you’ll need the best from your hosting provider too.
And that’s what KnownHost delivers, as you’ll soon see!
30-Day money-back guarantee- Tested (and proven) 99.99% uptime
- Free daily backups
- Flexible billing cycles
- Free website migrations
- Round-the-clock 24/7/365 customer support
- Expert customer support agents
- Top-tier, world-class data centers
Some beginners may find it challenging to get started- Choosing a plan can be confusing
- No website builder included
Features
Here are the core features you should consider in any hosting provider you use for your website.
1. Disk Storage Space
Storage is crucial for a high-performing website.
If you have many files and many people visiting your website, you will need more storage than someone with a smaller website.
If you don’t have enough, this can lead to problems like your website crashing or serving up errors to potential visitors.
As far as what KnownHost provides, lower-priced hosting packages include an average amount of space with unlimited storage available on higher-priced tiers.
The amount of storage you need will depend on the nature of your website. However, KnownHost provides very generous VPS and dedicated server packages for reasonable prices.
2. Backups
Backups are an essential feature to look for in your hosting provider.
If anything were to ever happen to your website or the server it’s hosted on, having a backup handy will ensure you suffer minimum losses and can restore your website quickly.
Many low-cost hosting companies do not include backups as part of their service.
However, KnownHost goes above and beyond.
It pays to read the fine print as many hosting providers may offer free backups but then charge you a fee before you can access them.
Here’s KnownHost’s backup policy for each of their most popular hosting services.
For more details about KnownHost’s backup policies, visit their knowledge base[1].
3. Security
Something that KnownHost does exceptionally well is security.
Most hosting options offered are managed by the experts at KnownHost.
They’ve invested in state-of-the-art infrastructure and can pass on additional benefits to all customers, even on the cheapest shared hosting plans.
If you opt for any unmanaged hosting plans, you will receive fewer security benefits but, at the same time, that frees you up to customize your security features exactly as you wish.
In any case, here’s what KnownHost includes on many of its plans:
- Imunify360 (enhanced protection against known threats)
- DDoS protection (keep your website online despite DDoS attacks)
- Brute force protection (prevents manual, brute force login attempts)
- Patchman (ensures protection against known bugs)
- Isolated hosting accounts even on shared servers
- Free website migrations
- Fully redundant network
- Round the clock server monitoring
- In-house, full-time security team
4. Servers & Data Centers
KnownHost has three world-class data centers based in Seattle, Atlanta, and Amsterdam.
It prides itself on the quality of its network and does not settle for anything less than carrier-class facilities.
All data centers are fully redundant and all data centers have high levels of physical security.
This is the secret behind how KnownHost can maintain its average of 99.99% uptime.
You can find out more about each data center and its security protocols on KnownHost’s networks and data centers page[2].
KnownHost Performance
As mentioned earlier in this article, besides investigating the features of each type of hosting account offered by KnownHost, we also ran our own tests.
The data we gathered first-hand lends insight into whether KnownHost lives up to the bold performance claims they make.
Speed
To test the speed of an average KnownHost hosting account, we ran a test website through two tools: GT Metrix and Pingdom.
The same website was used and tested three times on each tool for each location. Yes, that’s a whole lot of tests we ran so that we could be extra sure of the data we gathered.
GT Metrix
Pingdom
Our Verdict: Overall, KnownHost has decent performance in the US and Europe where their data centers are located.
However, when it comes to Australia and Asia, these are KnownHost’s slowest loading regions.
Even so, in all our tests, KnownHost performed exceptionally well when you consider the industry benchmarks for TTFB state that anything lower than 200ms is considered good.
And likewise, when it comes to fully loaded time, anything lower than 2-3 seconds is considered good.
KnownHost is in the clear in all locations with both these metrics.
If you’re interested in using a hosting company that offers better speed performance in more locations, check out our post on the fastest web hosts instead.
Uptime
Given that KnownHost claims to have the “proven best uptime on the planet” we thought we’d take a deeper look into whether there’s any truth to the claim.
KnownHost provides a 99.90% uptime guarantee (backed by a service level agreement) but also experiences uptime performance greater than 99.99% quite consistently.
It’s a classic case of underpromising and overdelivering, which is a breath of fresh air in today’s hosting arena.
This performance is far better than most hosting companies can say about their services!
KnownHost Hosting Plans
KnownHost is a web host that offers reasonable shared plans starting as low as $3.47/month.
What we love the most about KnownHost’s hosting is how feature-rich the plans are.
All plans include:
- Unlimited everything for less than $10/month
- Unlimited Domain
- Unlimited Cloud Storage
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- Unlimited MySQL Databases
- Unlimited Premium Bandwidth
- 99.99% average uptime
- Free website migration
- Free, automated daily backups
- Top-notch security features
- Free domain
- Plus more!
2. WordPress Hosting
KnownHost is a web host that offers two managed WordPress hosting plans: Entry Level and Business Level.
With up to 100GB SSD and up to 200k visitors per month, these managed WP plans offer more resources than the shared plans do.
Additional benefits KnownHost offers on its managed WP plans include:
- One-click staging & backup restores
- Tailored WordPress servers
- Fully managed WP hosting
- WP-specific client utilities (WP-CLI, LiteSpeed LS Cache, and Imunify360)
- 500Gbps+ DDoS protection included
- Free data backups included
- Free & easy migrations included
3. VPS Hosting
KnownHost’s shared hosting services are good, but VPS KnownHost hosting services are where they really shine.
Not only are KnownHost hosting servers resources generous, but KnownHost also offers a wide range of options for users needing high-performance Knownhost Hosting servers for reasonable prices.
KnownHost also offers VPS on the latest high-frequency NVMe VPS KnownHost hosting servers.
If you’re after extreme performance with high-frequency CPUs and fast storage, NVMe VPS is the way to go.
With both managed and unmanaged plans available, you have a wealth of options to find the perfect hosting solution for your website.
No matter which VPS plan you choose, some benefits you’ll receive include:
- 99.99% uptime on average (with an SLA guaranteed 99.9% minimum)
- 24/7 fully monitored servers
- Custom-built high-performing servers for ultimate performance
- 24/7/365 professional customer support team available
- Full root access for ultimate control of your server
- 30-day money-back guarantee
4. Dedicated Hosting
If you’re after the best-of-the-best hosting, KnownHost’s fully customizable servers are pretty close! You can opt-in for complete control with an unmanaged plan or even one of KnownHost’s semi-managed dedicated server hosting plans.
With feature-rich dedicated server options, ranging from managed to unmanaged and budget options to high-end, you’re sure to find the perfect fit for your website.
If budget is not a concern, you could also consider managed servers with any of the following processors:
Intel Xeon (standard, dual, or silver)- AMD Ryzen
- AMD EPYC Rome
You can also select up to 24 CPUs core on your server, allowing your website to run multiple processes at the same time with minimal dips in speed and performance.
With up to 30TB bandwidth and 2x 1TB NVMe storage, KnownHost’s servers are designed for websites that simply cannot afford sub-par quality.
And let’s not forget the average of 99.99% uptime either.
All in all, KnownHost’s hosting plans are among the best in today’s market and offer a decent range of benefits!
Other Plans
In addition to the above, KnownHost offers a wealth of additional hosting plans including:
- Reseller hosting solutions
- Managed & unmanaged cloud services
- Analytics hosting
- Application hosting
- Email hosting
- CMS hosting
- CRM hosting
- ERP hosting and so much more!
No matter what type of hosting you’re after, KnownHost is likely to be able to deliver with its end-to-end hosting options for a wide variety of applications.
Domains
In addition to offering a wide selection of hosting plans, KnownHost also sells domain names.
Although their domains are fairly pricey compared to the cheapest domain name registrars in today’s market.
But, if you prefer having your domains and hosting managed by the same company, KnownHost can provide you with that option.
Support
Something KnownHost takes great pride in is its ability to offer a round-the-clock support team to anyone in the world, at any point in time.
Support staff is a critical factor of any hosting package and with 24/7/365 support, KnownHost won’t leave you hanging during a time of need.
Email, chat, and web ticket support requests are handled around the clock and have a guaranteed response rate of under 5 minutes.
US customers can also receive phone customer support via a toll-free number if needed.
We were impressed when we put KnownHost’s customer support to the test.
In our experience, the responses weren’t canned, and they also weren’t overly sales-y.
We also had very fast response times, even outside of regular business hours (e.g.instant response on a weekend evening).
In combination, these features are the ultimate combo if you’re looking for helpful, timely information to make a sound buying decision.
Is KnownHost Worth It in 2023?
Given that KnownHost mainly offers fully-managed hosting plans, they are a decent option for both beginners and seasoned technical pros once you figure out which plan is best for you.
If handling all the tech stuff that comes with server management isn’t in your wheelhouse, you can trust the expert team at KnownHost to take care of all of that for you.
However, if you’re a small business owner or a beginner, alternative hosting companies offer simpler solutions that you can get started with right away without any overwhelm or confusion.
If you’re after a hosting provider that can guarantee top-notch performance, it’s worth spending a bit of extra on WPX Hosting because they are among the best in the world as far as performance goes!
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