One of the first steps on the path to a successful website is choosing the company to host your site. There are plenty of plans and features from which to choose, so how do you decide which is best for you? This head-to-head comparison between Arvixe and iPage can help you narrow your choices.
While Arvixe is not as well-known as many hosting companies, it is, however, rapidly establishing a reputation as one of the fastest growing web hosting companies. iPage is a long-time player, having been founded in 1998 – although it was relaunched in 2009 – and it hosts over 1 million sites on its servers.
Arvixe and iPage both provide shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting, and VPS and dedicated server plans. Arvixe has both Linux and Windows options, while iPage is Linux only.
Named PCMag Editor’s Choice in 2015 and one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. by Inc.com, Arvixe has won numerous awards. iPage has also won many awards in its long history, including “Best Budget Host,” “Best Choice for Affordable Hosting,” and “Best Value Host.”
Arvixe was purchased by Endurance International Group (EIG) in 2014, while EIG acquired iPage in 2009. While EIG companies are not clones of each other, they are similar. If you have had issues with one, you may have the same problems with another.
Uptime and Reliability
Uptime. Arvixe has a 99.9% guarantee, with a free month’s refund if a monthly average falls below that percentage. iPage doesn’t have an uptime guarantee, but statistics kept since 2005 indicate an excellent 99.85% uptime record.
Performance. Arvixe places much of the website related data on SSDs, including databases and email servers, for speedy performance. iPage uses Intel Xeon Quad Core Processors for their shared hosting servers.
Testing comparable sites for load and response times can give an idea of relative performance. An Arvixe hosted website yielded a load time of 1.05s, faster than 89% of the sites tested. A test of a comparable iPage site 3.31s – which is middle of the pack – for sites tested on Pingdom.
Reliability. Arvixe has data centers across the globe – in North America (Dallas, Texas), Europe (Amsterdam), and (Hong Kong). All the data centers are fully redundant, with multiple power and cooling options. The data centers are monitored onsite for security and reliability.
iPage has data centers in the Boston, MA, area. Using pooled server technology, with no pool being contained entirely in one rack, means if a rack loses power, your site still stays up. iPage’s data centers are also powered and cooled with redundancy and diesel backups. For data reliability, mirrored backups are done daily.
Opinion on Arvixe and iPage Performance
Reliability is important in a hosting company, because if the site isn’t up, your site won’t be found by customers. The fact that iPage doesn’t have an uptime guarantee could be a concern. Performance is important because web surfers are impatient. If a site doesn’t load quickly, they will go elsewhere. Arvixe has impressive load and response times, while iPage is slower than 50% of the tested sites.
Compare Key Features
Note: Every web hosting company uses “unlimited” or “unmetered” when describing features, however, it is somewhat misleading. The terms refer to what hosting companies “deem reasonable usage,” and they will penalize sites they feel go beyond that, sometimes without warning – though most users will never go beyond fair usage.
Domain Registration. Both hosts are domain registrars. Arvixe differs from the industry standard – it offers a free domain for as long as you have the plan. Arvixe also offers a free transfer if you already have a domain elsewhere. iPage offers one free year of domain registration.
Website Builder. Arvixe provides RvSiteBuilder, which has a WYSIWYG editor and comes with over 600 web templates. iPage offers Weebly Basic free – though it is limited in the number of pages you can create. Less limited versions are available for additional monthly fees.
Databases. Arvixe offers unlimited MySQL databases, and supports PostgreSQL databases, as well. iPage allows unlimited MySQL databases.
Email Accounts. Arvixe and iPage both provide unlimited email accounts and email forwarding. Unlimited accounts are an advantage if you are a company with many employees since it allows separate accounts to be set up for each one. You can also have separate accounts for different departments, such as sales or support.
WordPress Hosting. Both Arvixe and iPage offer managed WordPress plans. Managed WordPress plans will typically cost more than a standard shared plan. Part of the extra cost is because managed WordPress plans are often placed on optimized servers with caching and extra security to enhance performance and stability.
Another benefit of managed WordPress hosting is that automatic backups and updates of your WordPress sites are done for you. This allows you to focus on what’s important – your website content. Arvixe differs from many hosting companies in that it doesn’t charge extra for managed WordPress.
eCommerce Solution. Arvixe supports some free and commercial e-commerce options, many with 24/7 support and automatic installation. iPage supports ShopSite, which is commercial store software, for a monthly fee (a free version that is limited to 5 pages is offered in their plans). ShopSite is accessible from the control panel, however, a potential drawback is that the store is not easily transferred elsewhere should you decide to change hosts.
Backups. Arvixe does daily snapshot backups of its servers using R1Soft. Backups are hosted on a separate server for redundancy. iPage makes daily backups using NetApp Snapshot. iPage also offers an optional Site Backup and Restore that schedules automatic backups and restoration at the file level, for an additional monthly fee. iPage makes mirrored backups of its servers.
Hosting Security. Arvixe scans and proactively acts against DDoS threats, as well as providing protection against brute force attacks. Arvixe plans come with SpamAssassin and Spamhaus filtering for email. iPage provides an enhanced security suite with its plans which scans for malware and network attacks. It also provides virus scanning for email.
Arvixe used to provide shared SSL for its Linux shared plans, but they are no longer available for Linux or Windows PersonalClass plans. However, the BusinessClass plans have free SSL as long as you have a plan with Arvixe, and private SSLs are available for purchase. Shared SSL is available with iPage plans through the control panel, and Private SSL certificates may be purchased.
Control Panel. Arvixe uses the industry standard cPanel. iPage uses the newer vDeck. Affiliate and Reseller Programs. Arvixe’s affiliate program pays from $70 to $135 per referral, depending on the number of referrals you have per month. Arvixe also has a reseller program for both Linux and Windows. With iPage, you can make up to $150 per referral, and its reseller program provides branding.
Extras. Both Arvixe and iPage come with a total of $200 in ad credits to Google and Yahoo. Arvixe offers “Priority Support” for an additional monthly fee. iPage provides 1 GB of cloud storage with its plans, and a free YP.com listing for your site.
Opinion on Arvixe and iPage Key Features
Both are full-featured web hosting companies. However, Arvixe’s supports PostgreSQL, has a better than standard “free domain for as long as you have a plan,” uses the industry standard cPanel, and has both Linux and Windows options. This gives Arvixe a slight edge over iPage in features.
Hosting Plans & Pricing
Note: Since web hosting is such a competitive industry, constant changes in pricing are common, as is promotional pricing. Since promotion pricing is usually limited to the first term of service, signing up for a longer term means greater savings. With most hosts, with or without promo pricing, longer terms of service usually result in price breaks. The prices below are current for the time of this comparison.
Arvixe. Arvixe offers four shared plans – two in PersonalClass and two in BusinessClass. All the PersonalClass and BusinessClass tiers offer unlimited space, bandwidth, emails, and databases. PersonalClass is $4 per month, and BusinessClass is $22 per month. PersonalClassPro is $7 per month, and BusinessClassPro is $35 per month.
The Pro tiers allow an unlimited number of sites, while the regular tiers only allow six. BusinessClass and BusinessClassPro have fewer users on the server, making it basically shared hosting with VPS features.
The ASP (Windows) option runs a few dollars more for each plan and tier. Arvixe’s shared plans offer unlimited MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. Also, BusinessClass plans have a free SSL certificate for as long as the site is hosted with Arvixe. You have the option of choosing the U.S., European, or Asian data centers at checkout.
Arvixe offers two managed WordPress plans, at $4 and $7 per month, the same as the PersonalClass shared hosting. Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, and an unlimited number of databases comes with all the plans. The $4 plan is limited to 6 websites, while the $7 plan allows an unlimited number. The WordPress sites are easily scaled from shared to VPS and dedicated hosting. However, pricing goes up for the VPS or dedicated server options.
iPage. iPage makes it as easy as it gets to choose a shared plan. There is only one plan, with all the features of the top tier plans of other hosts. Priced at $3.25 per month for the first term, it comes with unlimited domains, email, databases, disk space, and bandwidth. Plus, it comes with a store and the SiteLock Basic service free of charge. iPage shared plans also come with free domain registration for one year.
iPage’s two managed WordPress plans are competitively priced. WP Starter, at $3.75, basically differs little from their regular shared hosting with unlimited domains, email, disk space, and bandwidth. WP Essential, at $6.95, is SSD-based for faster performance. The plan provides WordPerfect expert support, and it has the same unlimited bandwidth and storage as WP Starter. They both come with a free domain registration for one year.
VPS and Dedicated Plans: Arvixe offers four VPS tiers – two in Linux and two in Windows. Arvixe plans are $40 and $70 per month for the Linux option. The two Windows VPS tiers are $60 and $100 per month.
All four Arvixe plans have unlimited bandwidth, and they come with a free SSL certificate for as long as you have the plan. iPage has three VPS plans, priced at $19.99, $47.99, and $79.99. They allow unlimited domains and unlimited databases, and offer 1 GB, 3 GB, and 4 GB of bandwidth, respectively.
Depending on the configuration, the six single processor dedicated server tiers from Arvixe are priced from $128.70 per month to $227.50 per month. For those needing more performance, Arvixe has two multi-processor tiers priced at $357.30 per month. Arvixe also offers cloud options, starting at $108 per month.
All of the Arvixe dedicated plans are managed for you. iPage also has three plans, starting from $119.99 per month. iPage allows an unlimited number of domains and databases on all three dedicated tiers.
Money-Back Guarantee: Arvixe’s 60-day money-back guarantee is better than the industry standard. iPage has the industry standard 30-day guarantee. If you have the free domain registration on Arvixe or iPage, they will withhold a domain registration fee from any refund, and you will keep the domain name.
Opinion on Hosting Plans Pricing
WordPress users will find either hosts’ pricing and feature very attractive. If you require Windows, Arvixe is your only choice between these two, as iPage does not have any Windows plans. iPage’s “unlimited everything,” one-price shared hosting would be appealing to beginning webmasters. Arvixe’s pricing and features are better than iPage’s offerings in VPS. While Arvixe’s dedicated plans are robust, iPage’s pricing and features are slightly more appealing.
Ease of Use
Control Panel. Arvixe uses the user-friendly, icon-based interface of cPanel. iPage uses vDeck, which would require some getting used to for those coming from cPanel. Earlier versions of vDeck were not competitive with cPanel, but the latest (version 4) is powerful enough to be a suitable alternative.
One-click Installer. Arvixe uses Softaculous as the one-click installer for hundreds of applications. iPage uses SimpleScripts, which is also a one-click installer, though it has fewer integrated applications than Softaculous.
Website Navigation. The websites for Arvixe and iPage are well laid out, and present the information clearly. Both have useful comparison charts for comparing tiers in their plans.
Opinion on Ease of Use
These two hosting companies are similar in ease of use, but Arvixe gets the nod for using the industry standard cPanel and a more robust one-click installer.
Technical and Customer Support
Arvixe had an outstandingly stellar reputation for customer support, until recently. Since the EIG buyout, customer complaints about service and support have risen. However, it still rates above average in customer support. iPage is well rated for service and support with friendly and knowledgeable personnel.
Arvixe and iPage have a phone, email, and live chat 24/7. Both have an extensive knowledge base with tutorials and videos, and Arvixe has an active blog. iPage has a Community Directory, which lists all the websites hosted on iPage by genre.
iPage also has an app called Tapp, which gives a mobile resource for the web hosting information.
Opinion on User Support
Up until 2014, either one of these companies would have been equally impressive for support and service. Today, iPage, with its slightly higher user satisfaction and innovations like Tapp, probably gets an edge here.
User Reviews
Note: Because reviews are posted by those who feel very strongly, either pro or con, they should not be used as the sole factor in deciding which company to choose. However, if something is constantly mentioned, it may need looking into.
Negative Reviews for Arvixe and iPage
Arvixe. Until recently, there were few negative reviews of Arvixe. Lately, however, reviews are complaining about poor customer service and long wait times.
iPage. iPage, too, has most of its negative reviews relating to support. Some have left negative reviews concerning the effectiveness of SiteLock.
Positive Reviews for Arvixe and iPage
Arvixe. Arvixe gets high praise from its customers for all the features available at budget pricing. Windows users are pleased to find hosting at an affordable price.
iPage. The simplicity of the one-price, “unlimited” shared hosting gets lots of positive comments. Reviewers also note that it is easy to get up and running on iPage servers.
Opinion on User Reviews
Overall, both of these hosting companies are well received by customers. However, due to recent support complaints about Arvixe, iPage gets more positive reviews.
Which hosting is best for you?
Arvixe and iPage each have features that set them apart from each other.
Reasons to choose iPage over Arvixe:
- One shared plan with “unlimited” everything
- Lower pricing for the first term of service
- Lower-priced managed WordPress plans
- Free store with shared plan
Reasons to choose Arvixe over iPage:
- Free domain registration as long as plan is hosted
- Pre-installed WordPress
- Windows server options for all plans
- Much faster load and response times
- Uses standard cPanel
- Better website builder
Arvixe’s full-featured managed WordPress plans priced the same as shared hosting is a plus for WordPress users, though iPage’s prices and features are equally appealing. Arvixe’s pricing also makes it a better choice for larger sites or those that have a large number of visitors.
If you are just starting out, or have a smaller site, the iPage shared plan would be suitable. However, if performance is an issue, Arvixe has much faster load and response times.
Both of these hosting companies offer excellent pricing for the number of features they provide.
These are just two of the many web hosting options you have available. Another host that would appeal to WordPress users is InMotion Hosting, due to its excellent managed WordPress plans.
SiteGround plans are slightly higher priced, but offer premium features and very fast load and response times, so it would be worth your time to check them out as well.
Do you have any questions about Arvixe or iPage? What have been your experiences with web hosting in general? Leave your comments and let us know.
Mark is a serial entrepreneur and editor of www.aawebmasters.com. He loves web design, online marketing, social media, and e-commerce. He enjoys working with a variety of web professionals on many projects.
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