Liquid Web provides managed hosting for Linux and Windows operating systems. Founded in 1997 by a 16-year-old high school student named Matthew Hill, Liquid Web has evolved into a web hosting powerhouse.
Companies can pick from a range of hosting packages with Liquid Web. Whether you need cloud, VPS, dedicated, WordPress, or VMWare private cloud servers, Liquid Web has you covered. With its privately owned data centers, Liquid Web offers top-notch security to enterprise brands.
Liquid Web Compared
While Liquid Web didn’t make our top list, one of its subsidiaries, Nexcess, did. But our favorite cloud hosting service of all is the affordable and versatile Kamatera. Try Kamatera with a 30-day free trial today.
- Kamatera – Best for affordable versatility
- Hostinger – Most bang for your buck
- Scala Hosting – Best cloud hosting for custom resource allocation
- Cloudways – Best customizable managed cloud hosting
- HostGator– Best cheap cloud web hosting
- Nexcess – Best cloud hosting for ecommerce sites
- DreamHost – Best cloud hosting for developers
- SiteGround – Best cloud hosting for scaling resources
- A2 Hosting – Fastest cloud web hosting
- InMotion – Best cloud hosting for small businesses
Take a deep dive into each of these favorites in our review of the top cloud hosting software.
About Liquid Web
Liquid Web offers managed hosting on dedicated, VPS, and private cloud hosting servers. Its cloud-dedicated, bare-metal servers can handle a range of needs. The standard plans can host small websites and apps. The high-performance plans easily handle databases, ecommerce storefronts, and companies with multiple websites. You can add managed email and HIPAA compliance to your plan for an extra fee.
All plans come with 24/7/365 customer support from Liquid Web’s renowned customer service team, the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting®. Acronis Cyber Protect backups are available to protect your data.
Liquid Web Health and Stability
Since it’s been around for over 25 years, Liquid Web has a track record for weathering all the changes that come with the passage of time. In 2015, founder Matthew Hill sold the company to Madison Dearborn Partners. A new management team was brought in, with new CEO Jim Geiger at the helm. Geiger and the new CTO and COO, Joe Oesterling and Carrie Wheeler, respectively, also invested in Liquid Web.
This management team continues to lead Liquid Web today. Since the 2015 sale, Liquid Web has added a range of services, including managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting, managed business email, VMWare Private Cloud, and Acronis Cyber Protect backups.
As far as I’m concerned, Liquid Web is a healthy, stable company with dedicated leaders and ever-improving products.
Liquid Web Pricing
Liquid Web provides customers with a range of products and services to choose from, so the pricing varies. You can also work with the sales team to create a custom package that fits your business’s needs.
Liquid Web Pricing Structure
Each of Liquid Web’s 14 core products comes with a unique starting price. The lowest starting price is $13.30 monthly for managed WordPress and WooCommerce sites, and the highest is $1,498 monthly for database hosting.
Remember, these are just starting prices. Each product has several plan options with different prices and features. It’s a little overwhelming if you aren’t sure where to start. We recommend starting at the product overview page and clicking on the service you need.
Liquid Web Pricing Comparison
Let’s take a look at how Liquid Web’s cloud-dedicated plans compare with Kamatera and Hostinger. A standard cloud-dedicated server starts at $149 a month with Liquid Web. With Kamatera, pricing varies based on the type of server, data center location, vCPU processors, RAM, SSD storage, operating system, and add-ons.
This makes it challenging to compare the two. But Hostinger offers highly affordable cloud hosting plans that start at just $9.99 a month. It comes with 3 GB RAM—a lot less than Liquid Web’s base 16 GB—and 2 CPU cores compared to Liquid Web’s 4.
Still, at ten bucks a month, it’s hard to beat the low Hostinger prices. Plus, you get a website builder, a free domain name, daily backups, and unlimited bandwidth with any Hostinger plan. Liquid Web’s bandwidth only goes up to 5 TB on each of its cloud-dedicated plans.
For LiquidWeb’s VMWare Private Cloud, pricing begins at $510 a month. As with Kamatera, you can pick only the resources you know you’ll use and scale up as needed.
Liquid Web Trials and Guarantees
Liquid Web doesn’t offer trials. If you pay for a monthly plan, however, you can get a refund if you’re unhappy with your purchase. Annual plans are not guaranteed.
Liquid Web Cloud Web Hosting Review
Liquid Web provides cloud-dedicated and VMWare-powered private cloud hosting. It also offers managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting through its subsidiary, Nexcess.
If you take a peek at the brands on our list of the top cloud web hosting software, you’ll see that while Liquid Web didn’t earn a spot, Nexcess did. To make things more confusing, Liquid Web includes WordPress and WooCommerce cloud hosting on its list of products. But when you click on these services for more information, you’ll see that Nexcess offers them. Which is technically part of Liquid Web…but also not.
What Makes Liquid Web Cloud Web Hosting Great
Storage Limits: Liquid Web comes with higher storage limits than some of its competitors. And if you approach your storage limits, the Liquid Web team adds more space for an extra fee. It’s essentially a storage expansion add-on. With Liquid Web, you can scale effortlessly as your business grows.
Bandwidth: Even though many of Liquid Web’s products are capped at 5 terabytes of bandwidth, users find it’s more than enough.
Uptime: Liquid Web guarantees 100% uptime. If faulty hardware causes an outage, Liquid Web guarantees that things will be up and running within 30 minutes. If they’re not, users can receive a credit worth 10 times the amount of actual downtime recorded by the Liquid Web system. The company offers similar guarantees for live chat, help desk, and phone calls. See the details in the SLA.
Customer Support: It’s clear to Liquid Web users that the customer service team is dedicated to upholding its title as the Most Helpful Humans In Hosting®. You can reach a live agent 24/7, and the team will do everything it can to get you back on track. If your live chat or phone call isn’t answered within 59 seconds, you’ll get hosting credits for each second and minute your call or chat goes unanswered.
Where Liquid Web Cloud Web Hosting Falls Short
Affordability: Even Liquid Web’s most basic cloud hosting plans cost significantly more than competitors like Hostinger. Its managed WordPress and WooCommerce plans are about what you’d expect to pay, though. But again, these are offered through Nexcess, not Liquid Web–even though Nexcess is Liquid Web.
User-Friendly Interface: Users report that Liquid Web’s interface is clunky and confusing to navigate. Fine-tuning the interface for user-friendliness would be well worth the trouble on Liquid Web’s end.
Shared Hosting: Part of the reason why Liquid Web is pricier than some competitors is that it doesn’t offer shared hosting. This is a drawback for would-be users who want to reap the benefits of Liquid Web’s managed hosting—but can’t afford a private cloud server.
Website Building: Even though Liquid Web offers website building through its managed WordPress and WooCommerce plans, these are technically offered through Nexcess. Liquid Web itself doesn’t come with a proprietary web builder like some of its competitors do.
Liquid Web Cloud Web Hosting Compared
Our favorite Liquid Web alternative is Kamatera, which you can learn more about on our list of the best cloud web hosting platforms.
- Kamatera – Best for affordable versatility
- Hostinger – Most bang for your buck
- Scala Hosting – Best cloud hosting for custom resource allocation
- Cloudways – Best customizable managed cloud hosting
- HostGator– Best cheap cloud web hosting
- Nexcess – Best cloud hosting for ecommerce sites
- DreamHost – Best cloud hosting for developers
- SiteGround – Best cloud hosting for scaling resources
- A2 Hosting – Fastest cloud web hosting
- InMotion – Best cloud hosting for small businesses
Liquid Web Virtual Private Servers Review
Even though Liquid Web didn’t make our list of the best cloud web hosting, it did earn a spot as one of our favorite VPS hosting providers. The VPS plans start at $59 a month, which is more affordable for many than the $159 you’ll pay for a base cloud web hosting plan.
Plus, its memory and storage muscles are just as strong in the VPS plans as they are in the cloud hosting plans. Here’s how it compares to our other favorite VPS services:
- Hostinger — Best value VPS hosting
- Kamatera — Best VPS hosting for instant scaling
- Liquid Web — Best VPS hosting with high memory and storage
- A2 Hosting — Best unmanaged plans for developers
- Scala Hosting — Best for customizing VPS resources
- InMotion — Most reliable uptime
Final Verdict
Liquid Web offers leading-edge cloud web hosting and VPS services. It’s got a responsive customer support team and impressive service-level guarantees. It has enough storage for the biggest companies—and then some. All in all, it’s a great choice for those who can afford it.
Smaller companies will benefit the most from Liquid Web’s VPS plans. The Liquid Web-Nexcess managed WooCommerce and WordPress services are worth the price, too.
Source: quicksprout
Liquid Web Review