5CloudHost Review – Budget Web Hosting for 2022

When I learned about 5CloudHost I thought it seemed a bit too good to be true. After all, they sell 5 years of web hosting for the cost of one year! That’s why I decided to write a 5CloudHost review after testing their web hosting for myself.

5 CloudHost provided a pleasant surprise. Their hosting impressed me in all the most important ways. Although there are a couple weaknesses which I’m sure they will remedy in given time, for the most part this is a solid and insanely high-value web hosting solution.

What is 5CloudHost?

5CloudHost is a web hosting company that specializes in long term shared accounts. Unlike most current hosting companies that strive to meet a variety of customer needs, their powerful servers are specifically in the game of hosting small and medium sized sites. Their hosting runs on cPanel, the most popular control panel in the world because of its power and stability. If you use CloudFlare or another CDN (content delivery network), it will be easy to connect with your 5CloudHost web hosting.

5CloudHost has servers in Dallas, Texas, and Miami, Florida in the USA. They also maintain servers in Manchester, UK, Frankfurt, DE, The Hague, NL, and Bucharest, RO. This makes them a solid option for anyone in North America or Europe. Their cPanel environments are easy to use and well provisioned for WordPress and WooCommerce, or Magento, PhPBB, Joomla, or a number of other web apps.

Who is 5CloudHost Right For?

5CloudHost is quite up front about the fact that their hosting service is not really suitable for larger websites. Large ecommerce stores or blogs that get millions of daily views should be on their own VPS (virtual private server) or cloud hosting or even in some cases a dedicated server. 

Because this company specializes in shared hosting they don’t offer those services. If you’re in need of managed WordPress hosting or cloud hosting/a VPS or dedicated server, I recommend checking out WPX Hosting (for managed WP) or A2Hosting (for servers). These are also good options to look towards when your website outgrows its shared hosting plan. After all, if your website needs 40 cores, shared server space probably isn’t the right option!

But who is this service best for? In my opinion it’s pretty much perfect for beginning affiliate blogs and small ecommerce stores. For example, an online store that only sells a couple products would be right at home on 5 CloudHost. So would an affiliate blog that gets a small-medium amount of traffic. If you’re not happy with your current hosting, you may want to consider switching, especially if you’re located close their data centers in the United States.

Other types of websites such as robust ecommerce stores and large, dynamic blogs may outgrow the smaller hosting plans in 3-5 years, but that’s alright; even if you only use it for 3 years you’ll still have saved quite a bit of money.

Why You Should Trust My 5CloudHost Review

I’ve been using cPanel for over a year now, and I’ve interacted with cPanel in a variety of different servers. I even work with a great Canadian host company and create tutorials for their YouTube channel. In other words, it’s part of my work to understand how cPanel, cloud hosting, and WordPress work… and I’m good at what I do!

I also have absolutely no need to lie to you. If this service wasn’t any good, I would be honest about it. I’d tell you the full truth, and then I’d recommend you go with a different web host I’m also affiliated with.

But the truth is… I think this is is an ideal hosting company for a lot of businesses, stores, and blogs, especially those in the United States or Europe. They do a great job of maintaining a premium service while providing almost unheard of value to their customers. If you need a low-cost web host, I think you should get the 5 Cloud Host deal before they increase their prices!

My Experience

When I learned about this company I really wanted to determine for myself whether or not such cost-effective hosting could also be, you know, good. I got my answer pretty quickly. It is good.

Not phenomenal, but neither is any other cost-effective shared hosting on the market. Ask any web host – shared hosting is intended for beginner websites and small business use ONLY.

But 5 Cloud Host has their hosting accounts and support team really well set up to handle whatever you throw at them.

As soon as I got my domain’s DNS pointed at their nameservers, I went through my normal pre-Wordpress-installation checklist.

The first thing I checked is the PHP version. At the time I’m writing this, the latest fully supported version of PHP is 7.3, and that’s the version my hosting account was set to. 

The next thing I checked was whether or not SSL was being forced on my domain. It wasn’t, which is normal for a new cPanel account, and turning on the force SSL is a simple matter of moving a toggle switch. One click.

The last thing I checked was whether or not my website’s root folder (the location where I would install WordPress) contained the correct files. It had most of what I needed, but lacked a .htaccess file, so I created one. A .htaccess file is important for installations of WordPress that run on Apache webserver, which is what 5 CloudHost uses.

At that point everything looked good, so I opened up Softaculous and installed WordPress on my domain. Everything went perfectly! I even tested Softaculous’ native staging function just for fun, and was able to push changes to the live site successfully.

Website Speed

One of the first things I did after installing WordPress was test its speed. The speed on mobile and desktop with WordPress’ native 2020 theme was extremely fast – so far so great! But I like to really test the products I review. 

Next I installed my favorite theme, Divi by Elegant Themes. Divi is a large, heavy theme. Some web hosts need to adjust certain variables before Divi can even be installed on their hosting, let alone run smoothly. But with 5 Cloud Host there were no issues. I installed Divi and a normal plugin stack, and then tested the site’s speed again.

The load time on desktop was still acceptable, but the mobile time went through the roof, as often happens with fresh Divi installs. No worries! I installed WP Fastest Cache, one of my favorite performance plugins, and tested the speed again.

Not bad! But I knew I could do better. I installed Smush by WPMUdev and compressed the images, then tested with and without Smush’s lazyload setting.

Now that’s impressive. Even with a giant Divi-designed landing page to load, I was able to get the site optimized to under 2.5 seconds on desktop and under 5 seconds on mobile using only free plugins. Imagine how fast the site would have been if I’d used pre-optimized images, made the page a bit smaller, and installed a premium plugin like WP Rocket!

Pros and Cons

As with most of the products I take the time to review, there are definitely more pros than cons, but here are a few things to consider.

Pros

• Incredibly cost effective
• Popular cPanel control panel makes it easy to use
• Includes free backups, security, and everything else a hosting company needs
• Fast, responsive support
• Easy to navigate client area
• cPanel accounts include Softaculous script installer, making it take only a few clicks to install/uninstall/stage your website

Cons

• Runs on Apache webserver (slower than LiteSpeed or NginX)
• Not as scalable as other similar service providers
• Not appropriate for large websites
• No servers in Asia
• Currently no articles in the knowledge base

Keep in mind that none of the cons I’ve listed are bad enough to lead you away from this service. Even the fact that their knowledge base is currently empty is not a big deal – you can find as many cPanel tutorials as you want using YouTube and Google.

FAQ

Here’s some frequently asked questions about host companies along with their answers!

Q – Where is the company based?

A – The company is based out of Bucharest, Romania.

Q – What kind of support do they have?

A – They currently only have ticket support, but it is very fast and helpful.

Q – Can I install WordPress?

A – Yes, you can install WordPress or any other app from Softaculous with a couple of clicks.

Q – How much technical knowledge do I need?

A – You don’t need a lot of technical knowledge, but you should understand the basics of operating a cPanel account. If you don’t already have that knowledge, you just need to be patient and willing to learn as you go using the many tutorials available online.

Q – Does they offer free website migrations/transfers?

A – Yes! Under the right circumstances, they will migrate your website for you.

Q – Is 5 years too long?

A – 5 years of service may seem like a lot, but a website or blog is a long term investment. If you plan on making money online, you’re going to need at least 5 years of hosting with a good control panel and daily backups.

Q – Can I use Cloudflare?

A – Yes! All accounts are configured for connecting to Cloudflare CDN.

Q – Is email included?

A – Yes, email addresses are included in all plans.

5CloudHost Pricing and Features

At the time I’m writing this there are three shared hosting plans available to customers. Please note that at this time the prices listed here are accurate, but they may be subject to change.

ALL plans include the following features:

• Daily backups
• Free (and auto-generated) Let’s Encrypt SSL
• Firewall and WAF (Web Application Firewall)
• Virus and Malware Protection

Plus the Following Unlimited Features:

• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited emails
• Unlimited subdomains
• Unlimited MySQL databases

PLUS Softaculous and multiple PHP versions.

Now let’s take a closer look at the details of each plan.

Cloud Starter Plan Pricing and Features

Price: $47 USD for 5 years of hosting

• Allows 1 hosted domain
• 5GB SSD storage space

Dedicated Resources:

• 1.4Ghz CPU
• 512 MB Ram
• 20 Entry Processes

Cloud Business Plan Pricing and Features

Price: $97 USD for 5 years of hosting

• Allows 10 hosted domains
• 15 GB SSD storage space

Dedicated Resources:

• 2.8Ghz CPU
• 1 GB Ram
• 50 Entry Processes

Cloud Enterprise Plan Pricing and Features

Price: $147 USD for 5 years of hosting

• Allows unlimited hosted domains
• 50 GB SSD storage space

Dedicated Resources:

• 5.6Ghz CPU
• 2 GB Ram
• 100 Entry Processes

As you can see, the hosting plans are fairly flexible but none of them are really suitable for massive, heavy websites.

5CloudHost Bonuses

What would a review be without a great bonus? If you grab a 5CloudHost hosting plan through my affiliate link, I’ll send you my guide to cPanel AND my guide to getting started with WordPress. Both of these guides were actually made using my 5CloudHost account, so they’ll be extra valuable for taking care of the technical side of things.

My cPanel Hosting Guide

This guide demonstrates how to make sure your hosting account is properly provisioned, as well as how to use Softaculous to install, remove, backup, and stage WordPress websites. By the time you get through this guide, you’ll be comfortable with PhPmyAdmin, Softaculous, and a number of other standard cPanel features.

My Getting Started With WordPress Guide

My WordPress guide picks up where the cPanel guide leaves off; after you’ve installed WordPress, what then? It shows you exactly what to do to make sure you have a properly secured and optimized installation of WordPress, including recommended themes and plugins and a list of best practices to set you up for success.

How to Claim Your Bonuses

Just email me with a screenshot of your receipt as proof of purchase, and I’ll set you up right away.

Alternatives

If you’re looking for best possible pricing/value, I’m not sure that there are any alternatives to 5CloudHost. While there are thousands of companies out there so there are probably a few that are as cost effective, I have yet to find any.

But, I won’t pretend that this is the only host worth your money. Big dogs such as A2Hosting and Siteground are great for when you require a more robust plan such as a VPS or Dedicated Server, or a reseller account. If you need a fully managed solution, I recommend checking out WPX Hosting.

Related Offers

While it’s possible to get started using only free themes and plugins, using premium options will save you a ton of time and hassle. As I mentioned earlier, my favorite theme is Divi by Elegant Themes. Divi is a heavyweight pagebuilder-based theme, but the Business Plan handled it just fine. Also, don’t miss out on the great Divi-specific products produced by the team at Divi Life. 

Wrapping up My Review – A Powerful Option For Small to Mid-Sized Sites

This team is doing a lot of things right in my opinion, and I spend a lot of time thinking about and evaluating internet technology companies. Many companies will make you pay extra for things like security and daily backups, or even Let’s Encrypt SSL or a good control panel. Despite being a highly discounted service, 5 CloudHost bundles all of those features together to make life easier for their customers.

Another surprisingly impressive factor is the support. The support team know what they’re doing and respond very quickly and attentively. Sometimes on shared hosting if you ask a question that relates to your website, they won’t even try to help you because it’s not included in their support. Every time I asked a question of the support staff at 5 Cloud Host they went above and beyond to get me the best possible answer.

I think good support is one of the most important things for people who are new to web hosting, but ultimately the most important thing is usually performance. The servers performed admirably under all of my tests, despite the fact that I intentionally tested a big page made with a heavy theme.

If you have one or more small websites or you’re looking to start your first site(s), I think 5CloudHost is a great option for you. Click on the button below to check out their website and learn more!