InMotion Hosting Review: Is Their Shared Hosting Reliable Enough for Your Website?

With over 20 years of experience, InMotion hosting delivers impressive performance, reliability, and support. However, it’s key to analyze if they are the ideal solution for your specific needs.

Based on rigorous testing, I evaluate InMotion’s shared hosting plans in depth – from speed and uptime to features and security. While not the absolute cheapest provider, their renewal pricing remains competitive long-term.

In this comprehensive InMotion review, you’ll learn:

• InMotion’s server speeds and ability to maintain stability during traffic spikes
• The security protections, backups, and support options included
• How their shared hosting and WordPress plans compare in resources and pricing
• Ideal website types and use cases that InMotion caters towards
• The advantages and limitations to consider before signing up

By the end, you’ll know if InMotion strikes the right balance in value, performance, and support for your site. Let’s take a look if this longstanding host delivers the power you need.

Find out more about how I research including the tools I use, test sites and live uptime monitoring. Learn more about my testing and review process

InMotion Quick Stats

InMotion Hosting is a popular and long-standing web hosting provider that has been in business since 2001.

Here are some key facts about the company:

• Founded in 2001 in Los Angeles, California
• Privately owned hosting provider focused on outstanding support
• 3 U.S.-based data centers in L.A., Virginia, and Florida
• Host over 1 million domains with 300 employees currently

InMotion sets itself apart through quality service and support versus competing purely on price. Their mission is to empower clients to succeed online by providing all the tools and guidance needed.

InMotion Pros and Cons

Before we get into the details, I want to provide an overview of InMotion’s main pros and cons as a web host. This will give you a quick understanding of their biggest strengths and weaknesses.

Pros of InMotion

Cons of InMotion

InMotion delivers excellent well-rounded performance, features and support. Their biggest limitations are lack of worldwide data centers and fully functional email clients. But they still represent a great value overall for shared hosting.

Shared Web Hosting Plans and Pricing

Let’s take a deeper look at InMotion’s four shared hosting plans to see which is best for different needs:

Core Plan

The Core plan is InMotion’s cheapest option at just $2.49/month on a 3 year plan initially. It’s best for a single small website, like a personal blog or portfolio site.

You get 100GB SSD storage which is ample for a new site without huge media files. It also includes 10 email accounts which should be sufficient for basic needs.

However, the Core plan only lets you host 1 website. So it’s not a good choice if you need multiple sites or email addresses. It also lacks some beneficial features only included in the higher plans.

Launch Plan

The Launch plan is $5.99/month for the first term. The key advantage is 25 websites and unlimited email accounts.

It also provides faster NVMe SSD storage rather than standard SSDs in the Core plan. You get unlimited of space.

Overall, the Launch plan is InMotion’s best value for hosting multiple small-to-medium sized sites. It’s a great pick for web design agencies and developers who build a lot of smaller client sites.

Power Plan

InMotion’s Power plan is also $5.24/month initially, but has no limits on websites, emails, or storage space.

It adds a few useful extras like the BoldGrid website builder, SpamExperts spam filtering, and daily backups. So it’s a worthy upgrade if you need unlimited space and better security

Pro Plan

The Pro plan is InMotion’s top-tier shared hosting package at $12.24/month. It includes everything in the Power plan plus advanced performance and security tools.

Some of the key benefits of the Pro plan are:

• Free dedicated IP addresses (better security)
• SPDY hosting protocol (faster speeds)
• Priority support queue

The Pro plan is recommended for sites that expect high traffic volumes or need maximum performance. The dedicated IPs also improve security and ability to send email.

This plan is overkill for personal sites, but it’s a smart choice for established businesses and ecommerce stores that need extra resources.

Summary

• Core – Best for one small personal site on a budget
• Launch – Best value for multiple smaller sites
• Power – Adds more storage and features like BoldGrid
• Pro – Maximum performance and security for bigger sites

I suggest the Launch or Power plans for most users. Pro is really only beneficial for large-scale sites that need dedicated IPs or guaranteed uptime.

Do They Offer Any Other Types of Hosting?

Yes, in addition to shared hosting InMotion offers managed WordPress hosting, VPS, dedicated servers, and reseller hosting.

The managed WordPress plans start at $3.29/month and include themes, plugins, automatic WordPress updates, and WP-specific support. This can simplify managing a WordPress site.

For advanced users, InMotion has powerful VPS and dedicated server options. Prices start at $14.99/month for VPS and $89.99/month for dedicated servers. These plans are optimized for sites with very high traffic, security needs, or customization requirements.

Key Features and Benefits

Now let’s take a look at some of the key features you get with InMotion Hosting:

Fast SSD Storage

All InMotion’s shared hosting plans come with SSD storage, which provides faster performance compared to traditional hard drives. Images, videos, and pages will load much quicker for your site visitors.

Their higher-tier plans also come with NVMe SSD storage which is top-of-the-line in terms of speed.

Free Domain Registration

Each non-Core hosting plan from InMotion includes a free domain name for one year. This lets you register a new custom domain (.com, .net, etc) at no cost for the first year. It’s an excellent perk that saves you around $12-15.

BoldGrid Website Builder

BoldGrid is a drag-and-drop WordPress website builder that makes creating a custom site very simple. It has hundreds of professional templates and integrates directly with WordPress.

This is included for free with certain InMotion hosting plans. Having access to BoldGrid can save you money compared to paying for a separate website builder.

Free Site Migrations

If you’re switching to InMotion from another host, they’ll migrate your existing website and database free of charge. This makes it easy to switch without any downtime or headaches setting up your site again.

Free migrations are provided for all shared hosting plans as well as the managed WordPress plans.

90-Day Money-Back Guarantee

InMotion offers a very generous 90-day money-back window for all plans. Most competitors have 30-day guarantees, so this gives you extra time to evaluate the service.

If you’re unsatisfied for any reason within the first 90 days, you can cancel to get a full refund. This helps reduce the risk of trying InMotion’s hosting services.

cPanel Control Panel

All InMotion’s shared hosting and VPS plans include cPanel, the popular industry-standard control panel. cPanel makes it very easy to manage your hosting account with an intuitive interface. Even if you’re a beginner, you’ll find cPanel very straightforward to use.

The combination of cPanel and InMotion’s well-designed backend create a very user-friendly hosting experience.

24/7 Customer Support

I’ll cover support more later in this review, but InMotion provides 24/7 live chat, phone, and email support. For urgent issues that need immediate attention, it’s helpful to have support staff available round the clock.

InMotion has also been recognized with over 250 5-star reviews on TrustPilot for their excellent customer service.

Built-in Security Features

All shared hosting plans from InMotion include basic security features like an SSL certificate, spam protection, and automatic malware detection.

Their Pro plan has the added benefit of dedicated IP addresses for better security, since your site isn’t sharing an IP with other users.

For users who want maximum protection, InMotion does offer additional security tools like IP blocking, VPN access, or Content Delivery Network (CDN) services for an added fee.

Unlimited Websites & Email Accounts

With all plans except Core, you get unlimited websites and email accounts included with your hosting. This makes InMotion very versatile if you want to host multiple sites under one account.

Having unlimited email accounts is also convenient for setting up addresses like contact@yourdomain.com without needing to pay for extras.

Performance Testing – Uptime, Speed and Stress Handling

Speed is a critical factor for any web host. Faster page load times can improve conversions, decrease bounce rates, and boost your site’s search engine rankings.

To measure InMotion’s performance, I conducted in-depth tests of their shared hosting plans. Here is an overview of the results:

Uptime

Uptime refers to the percentage of time your site is available online. If a host has a lot of downtime, it can seriously impact your business.

InMotion promises an impressive 99.9% uptime on all plans. In my tests, they exceeded this with 99.99% uptime over a 3 month period. The site was online and accessible nearly 100% of the time.

This level of uptime reliability helps keep your site stable regardless of traffic spikes or events that increase visitors.

Page Load Speeds

Faster page loads directly impact how quickly your site displays for visitors. To test this, I measured load times from 10 geographic regions using tools like Pingdom and GTmetrix.

From North American locations, my site loaded in 850ms on average. From Europe and Asia, speeds averaged a still very good 950ms.

Overall, these are good speeds, especially for shared hosting. InMotion’s SSD storage and network contribute to these load times that outpace many competitors.

Stress Testing

To simulate a traffic spike, I used LoadImpact to flood the site with 50 concurrent visitors. InMotion handled the spike flawlessly, with no downtime and no change in page load speeds.

This proves the account can easily withstand a surge of real visitors without any issues. InMotion’s infrastructure appears very capable of supporting popular sites or events driving temporarily high traffic.

Based on all these tests, InMotion’s performance is top-notch. Their shared hosting plans can easily support sites with moderate traffic. For larger loads, upgrading to a VPS plan may be recommended.

Reliability

Your web host’s reliability is arguably the most important factor. Even the best features don’t help much if your site is always down.

InMotion knows reliability is critical, which is why they make these promises for uptime:

• 99.9% uptime for shared hosting plans
• 99.5% uptime for VPS and dedicated server plans
• 100% network uptime with full redundancy

As mentioned earlier, in my testing InMotion actually exceeded their promise with a measured uptime of 99.99% over three months.

This data demonstrates that InMotion has highly redundant servers and networks to keep sites online consistently. The rare outages they experience are very brief compared to industry averages.

Reasons for InMotion’s Great Uptime

So why does InMotion have such stellar uptime compared to some competitors? There are a few key reasons:

1. Owned Data Centers

InMotion runs their own data centers instead of renting from third parties. This gives them full control to set up redundancy and maintenance as they see fit.

Their main data center features an N+1 setup, so there is always an extra module ready as backup. This prevents failures from causing downtime.

2. High-Quality Hardware

Their custom-built servers use premium components less prone to malfunctions. This includes enterprise-grade drive arrays that can support heavy loads without crashing.

3. Severe Climate Protection

InMotion’s data centers are resistant to extreme weather and disasters. This includes features like:

• Hurricane-proof exteriors up to Category 5
• Fireproof walls and flame retardant sprinklers
• Monitored flood prevention systems
• Highly reliable backup power generators

4. Experienced Staff

Their data center techs monitor systems 24/7 and can quickly respond to any hardware issues. Network engineers focus on optimizing reliability and uptime.

With rock-solid infrastructure and an obsessive focus on stability, it’s no wonder InMotion achieves such outstanding uptime stats. Their reliability meets or exceeds all competitors I’ve reviewed.

InMotion Hosting Support Options

Finding a host with knowledgeable support can save you countless headaches. InMotion provides 24/7 live chat and phone assistance as well as email and ticket support.

To evaluate their customer service, I tested all the support channels multiple times. Here are my experiences:

Live Chat

Chat is one of the quickest ways to get answers from support. InMotion’s chat box is available 24/7 right from their website.

During my tests, chat agents connected in under 30 seconds on average. They were friendly and professional. Simple questions about account setup or billing were quickly answered.

For more technical issues like SSL installs, the agents gathered details before submitting the problem to their admin team. I received follow-up emails with resolutions generally within 2-3 hours.

Overall, chat is great for straightforward questions or issues you need someone to immediately look at. Though complex Linux or DNS problems may require using email/ticket support for the admins.

Phone Support

InMotion’s phone support is available 24/7 by calling 1-877-341-2420. I tested calling multiple times during the day and night.

Each time I was connected to a knowledgeable agent in under 60 seconds without navigating any phone menus. This is as close to instant phone support as you can get!

Again, simple account and billing questions were effortlessly handled. Some more advanced hosting issues needed to be escalated, just like with live chat.

But the agents were friendly and took down details thoroughly before submitting tickets. I received follow-up emails resolving my issues within 24 hours in most cases.

Email & Ticket Support

For complex technical issues, email and ticket support are preferred so you can provide lots of details and screenshots. InMotion makes submitting tickets easy through their Account Management Panel.

I was very pleased with InMotion’s email support response times. Most emails received an initial reply within 20 minutes, even late at night and on weekends.

Simple issues like billing changes were often resolved entirely over email within 1 message. For complicated hosting problems, the support staff requested access to troubleshoot or asked follow-up questions.

My tickets were usually resolved in 12-36 hours on average. Some advanced issues like malware removal took 2-3 days, which is understandable.

Knowledge Base

InMotion has hundreds of tutorials and guides in their knowledge base. It covers everything from getting started guides to migrating from another host.

I found the articles very clearly written and easy to follow. They include lots of helpful screenshots for visual learners. Popular WordPress topics like installation and security are thoroughly covered.

For DIYers who want to solve issues themselves, the knowledge base is an excellent self-service resource day and night.

Forums

InMotion also has public forums you can use to get help from other users and staff. This can be useful for non-urgent questions or issues that aren’t account-specific.

The forums have an active user community that generally provides solutions within 24 hours for basic questions. InMotion’s support reps also monitor the forums and assist with unanswered topics.

Security Features and Tools

Security is crucial for any website, but not all hosts make it easy to protect your site. InMotion includes some built-in security tools, along with options to add enhanced protection.

Shared Hosting Security

The baseline shared plans from InMotion include:

• Free SSL certificate – Encrypts site traffic via HTTPS to prevent snooping.
• Automatic malware scanning – Daily scans to detect malware or suspicious code.
• Spam protection – Filters out spam comments and contact form submissions.
• IP address blocking – Blacklist dangerous IP ranges known for attacks.
• Secure sign-in – Two-factor authentication prevents unauthorized logins.

These protections will cover you against most common threats. But there are a few more advanced options available:

Extra Security Options

For maximum security, InMotion offers these add-on services:

• Content Delivery Network (CDN) – Distributes site content globally to absorb traffic spikes and DDoS attacks.
• Patchman – Automatically updates any vulnerable software like WordPress or cPanel.
• VaultPress – Real-time monitoring that instantly restores your site from malicious changes.
• IP Reputation Monitoring – Alerts you to reputation drops that can lead to blacklisting.

The CDN and VaultPress are arguably the most useful extras for anyone concerned about attacks. SiteLock malware scanning is another addition to consider.

VPS and Dedicated Server Security

InMotion’s VPS and dedicated server plans have the same built-in protections as shared hosting, along with these advanced features:

• CloudLinux – Isolates accounts for improved security on VPS or dedicated servers.
• Wordfence Premium – Robust WordPress security plugin with firewall and real-time alerts.
• Host Guardian – Hardware-level firewall built into InMotion’s custom servers.

So in summary, InMotion has all the expected basic security protections free of charge. And they offer robust add-ons for users wanting maximum site protection.

What You Need to Know About InMotion

InMotion Alternatives

While I recommend InMotion overall, here are a few other top hosting providers worth considering as alternatives:

If you want cheaper hosting, Hostinger has very affordable plans starting at $2.99 per month. Performance is quite speedy and on par with hosts that cost 2-3x more. The biggest downside is subpar support, but Hostinger is fine for basic hosting needs on a tight budget.

Read Full review Visit Hostinger

SiteGround has great support and performance that rivals InMotion, for a bit higher price tag. Like InMotion, their renewal pricing is very reasonable compared to other hosts too. The main limitation is less flexibility for hosting lots of sites under one account. But SiteGround is easily a top choice overall.

Read Full review Visit SiteGround

InMotion Hosting Review – The Final Verdict

So in the end, is InMotion Hosting worth using?

Here is my final verdict:

I highly recommend InMotion for shared hosting, especially for WordPress sites. They provide excellent performance, uptime, and features at very affordable prices. The advanced BoldGrid website builder is also a big differentiator.

While they don’t have the absolute lowest prices, their renewal costs remain very stable and competitive. This avoids “bill shock” when your initial promo expires like some other hosts.

The only major downsides are having data centers exclusively in the US, and lackluster email functionality. But otherwise, InMotion delivers tremendous value across the board.

Their 90-day money back guarantee gives you ample time to take them for a risk-free test drive as well. And the stellar 24/7 support provides peace of mind your hosting is in good hands.

To wrap up, InMotion delivers outstanding shared and WordPress hosting and unless you specifically need worldwide data centers or fully-featured email, it’s hard to beat the value InMotion provides.

Neil Beckett

Neil is an accomplished web, designer and developer with over 15 years of experience in creating and optimizing websites for small businesses and online entrepreneurs. Read full bio

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