One of the oldest names in the industry, Network Solutions, started as a consulting firm in 1979, and in 1993 became the very first domain registrar. In 2005, they began offering other products, including web hosting. However, they still derive 45% of their profits from the domain registration business. In 2011, Network Solutions was acquired by Web.com, but continues to operate under the Network Solutions name.
OverviewNetwork Solutions offers shared hosting, managed WordPress, and VPS plans. Linux and Windows options are available for the shared hosting; VPS is Linux-only. There are three shared plans, Essential, Professional, and Premium, for Linux and three similar plans for Windows. Each plan package from Network Solutions comes with access to an advisor who will help in setting up security and transferring files for your site. The Essential package is for the individual or small business. Most users will most likely opt for the Professional Hosting package due to its features and mid-range pricing. Premium with its unlimited bandwidth, storage, and email accounts, would be the choice for larger businesses or those with a lot of traffic.
There are two VPS packages – one suited for small or starter websites, and one costing twice as much, but designed for high traffic sites. There are no dedicated server options, so if you require your own server, Network Solutions is not for you.
Network Solutions has one managed WordPress plan that is Linux-based. Managed WordPress usually costs more than shared hosting with most web hosting companies, and Network Solutions is no exception. However, with the higher price comes extra security, automatic daily backups, set-up assistance, WordPress expert support, and optimized servers for faster load and response times. They will do all the necessary updates for WordPress and allowed plug-ins, freeing you to focus on your content. Network Solutions also provides a free SSL certificate for the first term of service.
Network Solutions offers many more products in addition to web hosting. They offer email-only hosting, an Ecommerce online store option, SSL certificates, marketing and SEO services, website design, premium support, and more, for monthly fees Network Solutions was at the center of controversy over its domain practices in 2008 and 2009. While it is common practice for domain registrars to use domains registered with them as parked pages until the owner points them to an active website, in 2008, Network Solutions began putting ads on inactive subdomains, turning them into ad-filled parked pages – without permission from the domain owner. In late 2009, they began publishing daily lists of the searches done for domains in their website domain search box. They also began putting holds on domains searched for on their site, effectively preventing someone from registering the domain elsewhere after finding it available in the search. As soon as Network Solutions deregistered the names after four days, “domain tasters” who had subscriptions with Network Solutions for the service, would be immediately notified so they could buy up the domains and offer them for sale at a higher price. While these practices seem to have stopped, there are still many complaints about how Network Solutions handles domain transfer requests.
Network Solutions comes with a guarantee of 99.99% uptime for Linux and 99.9% for Windows plans, and an industry standard 30-day money-back guarantee. As with most competitors, the refund doesn’t include any domain or third-party fees.
With its range of plans and product offerings, Network Solution has a package suitable for the everyone from the individual personal blogger to small-to- mid-sized businesses. Larger businesses or very high traffic sites will need to look elsewhere as there is no dedicated server plan.
Key Features
Reliability & UptimeNetwork Solutions guarantees 99.99% uptime for its Linux servers, and 99.9% uptime for Windows – though the Terms of Service don’t indicate what, if any, compensation there would be if that uptime isn’t met. It is unclear where their data centers are located, other than there are some in North America. Their servers are made of HP and IBM blades, and the data centers have power and cooling redundancy, plus diesel backups. They are also monitored onsite to ensure reliability and security. Testing a site hosted on Network Solutions yielded average times – 3.21s for a small site, only faster than 52% of all sites tested.
Features & Tools Note: Network Solutions has some “unlimited” features in several of its packages. You need to realize that “unlimited” is not what you might think it is. In reality it means whatever the hosting company feels is “reasonable use.” They reserve the right to suspend, charge overage fees, or automatically update your plan to the next tier.
| Feature | Overview |
| Control Panel | Network Solutions uses a proprietary control panel. It is less powerful than the industry standard cPanel, but it will do the job once you’ve gotten accustomed to how it operates. They provide tutorials on their website to walk you through the features. Navigation can be frustrating since it takes many more clicks to get the same results cPanel provides in one- click. |
| Multiple Domains | The shared plans allow up to 100 domains. |
| Free Domain | Network Solutions is a domain registrar. They will provide free domain registration for the first year with an annual plan. However, the renewal price for a .com domain at Network Solutions is $34.99 – nearly three times that charged by the vast majority of domain registrars. You could lower that to $9.99 if you purchased the domain for 100 years – though it isnon-refundable if canceled before then. They also require a $9.99 domain expiration protection plan with every domain registered through them. |
| Free Domain | Site5 is an unusual domain registrar, in that you need to have a hosting account with them to purchase domains. They cover most of the major TLDs, and you can search for and purchase a domain from Site5 at checkout. Site5 offers a free year of domain registration for shared plans, and they will migrate your website from another host free of charge. |
| Database Support | Network Solutions supports from 25 to an unlimited number of MySQL databases for the Linux plans, depending on the tier. The Windows plans have from 2 to 5 MS SQL databases. Database management is done through phpMyAdmin, which is provided in theplans. |
| Disk Space | Disk space on Network Solutions will vary with the plan and tier chosen. For theshared hosting there are limits: Essential has 300 GB, Professional allows 500 GB, and Premium’sis unlimited. The WordPress plan has unlimited storage, and the two VPS plans have 10 GB and50 GB each. |
| Bandwidth | Bandwidth, again, depends on the plan and tier. The VPS plans allow 500 GB and 2TB of bandwidth per month, the managed WordPress has unlimited bandwidth, and the three shared plans all are unlimited as well. |
| Data Backups | The managed WordPress accounts are backed up by Network Solutions daily.Shared hosting sites are backed up daily and kept for 7 days. You can access the backups through the Account Manager, and you can manually create backups there as well. |
| One-Click App Installer | Network Solutions has a one-click installer for about thirty applications called “Open Source” that allows you to install apps like WordPress, blogs, forums, and wikis. However, it can take seven or eight clicks through the Account Manager to get to the one-click installer. |
| Email Accounts | Network Solutions places limits of 1,000 email accounts on the Essential shared plan, and 2,500 on the Professional. The Premium plan can have an unlimited number of email accounts, although email storage is limited to 1 GB for all three tiers. All three have unlimited email forwarding. |
| Hosting Security | SSL certificates may be purchased for Network Solutions for the shared plans.The managed WordPress site includes one SSL certificate for the first term of service. The managed WordPress plan has extra security in place to prevent DDoS attacks, and it provides scans for malware and removes it automatically. |
| Website Builder | Networks Solutions provides a limited template-based, drag-and- drop interfaced website builder free with its shared plans. For an additional fee, a version with morefeatures and templates is available. |
| Malware and Spam Protection | All plans have Spam and anti-virus protection provided by Symantec Brightmail Anti-Spam. For additional protection, SiteLock is available for a monthly fee. |
| Shopping Carts | Network Solutions offers an Ecommerce plan that has a customizable storefront, inventory control, product catalog, payment processing and more, for a monthly fee. They also provide a service they call “Jumpstart,” in which, for a one-time fee, support personnel will get your site set up and running, configure payment options, and establish shipping and taxes for every state. It is limited to 25 products, however, you can add more yourself after the site is up. There is one-click installation for Magento and WordPress. |
| Programming Languages Support | Network Solutions supports most programming languages that run on Linux, including CGI, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Perl, Python, and SSI. The Windows servers support ASP. |
| Site Statistics | Site statistics are available through the Account Manager with AWStats. WordPress sites can also use statistics plug-ins. |
| Additional Features and Tools | SpaceManager is a 2 GB online storage and file sharing feature that comes with each hosting plan. A $50 credit is provided for Network Solutions’ marketing services, and there is a free 60-day trial of the email marketing program. For a negotiated fee, Network Solutions does custom designing that goes from planning to online. For an extra monthly fee, goMobi is available for you to create mobile websites – though there is a one- month free trial. |
| Affiliate and Reseller Program | In addition to a reseller program, Network Solutions offers an affiliate program to customers. The affiliate program covers most of the products available onNetwork Solutions. |
Plans & Pricing Pricing is a moving target since hosting companies are constantly changing prices and pitching promotions due to heavy competition in the industry. Network Solutions doesn’t help with its confusing website that seemingly provides different pricing depending on the page you are on. The prices listed here are current to the time of this review, and unless stated otherwise, are for monthly plans. Better rates can generally be obtained with longer terms of service. In fact, when ordering a plan, the Network Solutions shopping cart will default to a one-year term of service and the subsequent pricing.
The three shared plans are promo priced with Essential Hosting at $9.96 per month, Professional
Hosting at $13.29, and the Professional Hosting tier at $29.13 per month. Renewal after the promo pricing are at the regular pricing, which currently is $15.95, $23.95, and $41.95, respectively. The Premium tier is best suited for larger sites since it has unlimited bandwidth, storage, databases, and email and FTP accounts. Essential is suited for small sites or personal blogs. Professional, with 500 GB of storage, 50 FTP accounts, 2,500 email accounts, and unlimited bandwidth, is well suited for small-to- mid-size businesses. All three come free omain registration for one year. All three plans also support streaming, and automatic database backups.
The two VPS plans are offered at the promotional price of $40 and $80 per month. Again, after the promo, current pricing is $55 and $95. The smaller VPS Essential tier allows 10 GB of storage, 10 domains, 50 email boxes, and 500 GB of bandwidth. VPS Professional allows 50 GB of storage, 100 domains, 200 email accounts, and 2 TB of bandwidth. Both VPS plans come with a dedicated IP, the Plesk control panel, the one-year free domain registration, and are Linux-based.
While Network Solutions offers even lower promotion prices at times, the regular pricing is closer to premium host pricing than budget host pricing. Like other multi-product hosting companies, Network Solutions will try to push add-ons and upsells at every chance it gets.
Network Solutions has two fee policies in particular that receive numerous complaints. They will auto- renew hosting or your domain registration by default, and will take the payment as early as three months in advance. However, if you don’t auto-renew your domain and it expires, Network Solutions may charge a $299 redemption fee to renew the domain for you. The other fee concerns the money- back guarantee. In 2015, the FTC alleged that Network Solutions misled customers by withholding as much as 30% of any refund as cancellation fees – without stating anywhere that would be done. Network Solutions settled with the FTC and agreed to make that information known prior to obtaining customer billing information. There are cancellation fees in place at the time of this review.
Customer Support Reviews shouldn’t be used as the main deciding factor in choosing a host, but the sheer number of comments on this particular topic for Network Solutions does raise concerns. It is difficult to find a web host that has more negative reviews concerning customer support than Network Solutions. Wait times and slow responses to requests are common complaints. Many customers say the support staff are friendly and sympathetic, but they are just too limited in the service they can provide. Customers wind up being transferred from person to person to get issues resolved. Many of the customer complaints about customer service and support began around the time of the web.com buyout, and are possibly related to the large number of layoffs and significant downsizing web.com put into place. Network Solutions does offer a premium support option for an additional $15.99 per month. It offers sixty minute 1-on- 1 appointments, access to expert level staff, remote login, and troubleshooting, consultation, and account set up.
Network Solutions has phone numbers listed for most of the services and products they provide, and most are available 24/7. Network Solutions’ blog directs to the parent company, web.com. There is a FAQ, or knowledge base, that also directs to web.com. There is a page on their website called “Labs” that provides some general web tools and widgets that are free of charge. Unfortunately, there is no live chat on Network Solutions.
Ease of Use Network Solutions’ website has all the information on its website you need to make your choice, but it can be confusing to navigate. Plan pricing is difficult to decipher. Surprisingly, the website will also time out – even though there has not been a login of any kind. That could make someone wonder whether Network Solutions has issues with bandwidth. Network Solutions has its own custom control panel, Account Manager. It can do the job it needs to do, it’s just not as convenient or as easy to navigate as the industry standard cPanel. Not being based on cPanel could also make your site more difficult to transfer should you decide to change hosts later.
Conclusion Network Solutions is best described as an average web hosting company. It’s definitely not the highest priced, nor does it have anywhere near budget hosting prices. Similar to the reputation of another major domain registrar, a general feeling is that Network Solutions concentrates more on domain registration than hosting. Response and load times for tested sites are just slightly above average. It has had some questionable practices in its past, and it gets a majority of negative reviews for customer support. Despite that, because it offers a number of products in addition to hosting, and because Network Solutions has custom design and site building services, it might be a site a beginner or a small-to- mid- sized business might check out. If you require ASP for your site, Network Solutions is also one of the few hosting companies that offer Windows plans on shared hosting.
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