Knownhost Review – Expert and User Insights by Paid Customers (2023)

Rating Breakdown

How do you ascertain if a web host is credible? Often, I get similar questions from readers interested in finding the right web host for their website. Although there are several ways to achieve this, the best way is to compare the host’s features with industry-accepted standards.

At HostAdvice, our technical specialists compiled a SI rating guide based on relevant industry metrics. This evaluates each web host and scores them accordingly based on their performance. This way, you can rest easy knowing what you’re in for before investing your money.

KnownHost Hosting Prices & Plans – 2023

KnownHost offers almost all hosting services – shared, dedicated, VPS, reseller, and cloud hosting. They also have niche-specific hosting services such as WordPress, cPanel, Application, WHMCS, and DirectAdmin.

Each KnownHost hosting plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Also, they offer customers three payment options – automated clearing house (ACH), credit card, and PayPal.

Shared Hosting

KnownHost Hosting recommends their professional web hosting services and it’s not so hard to see why. For $9.97/mo, you get unlimited cloud storage to host domains, unlimited databases, bandwidth, email access, Cloudflare CDN, and other irresistible features.

Reseller Hosting

KnownHost Hosting recommends the professional reseller hosting plan that covers up to 100GB storage space, AMD EPYC CPUs, white labeling, WHM, Immunify 360, DNS management and many more.

VPS Hosting

Unmanaged

I love that unmanaged doesn’t mean limited for KnownHost Hosting. Despite the ridiculously affordable fees, they offer users a plethora of rich VPS features – full root access, SSH access, RAID-1O SSD storage, and a fully customizable server host environment. KnownHost Hosting recommends their professional VPS hosting plan for the best results.

Managed

KnownHost Hosting recommends a professional VPS-managed plan that covers 2 IP addresses, LiteSpeed servers, CloudFlare, SSL certificates, and many more. The main difference I noticed from the unmanaged VPS plan is that this offers more space options with 24/7/365 managed support.

Managed NVME-based Hosting

KnownHost Hosting recommends the premium managed NVMe VPS plan with enterprise-grade NVMe servers for even better performance. However, the managed and unmanaged NVMe plans are only available in the Alabama data center.

Unmanaged NVME-based Hosting

The unmanaged NVMe hosting is slightly different from the managed plans with a few features. This doesn’t come with full personalized technical support, and it has lesser storage space and bandwidth too.

WordPress

KnownHost Hosting recommends the business WordPress plan starting at $9.98/mo and renews at $19.95/mo. All the programs here are fully managed, perfect for newbies and business owners who want to focus on other pressing needs.

Dedicated Hosting

High Performance Dedi

Unmanaged Dedicated Hosting

Managed Dedicated Hosting

All KnownHost Hosting dedicated packages come with full root access, premium bandwidth options, network hardware SLA, free migrations and other alluring features straight out of the box. Although the plans look overwhelming, ensure you thoroughly review each package before making a purchase.

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KnownHost Features

• Softaculous 300+ one-click script install
• WHM, DirectAdmin, and cPanel
• Free Cloudflare CDN
• Raid-10 SSD cloud storage
• KVM enterprise-grade servers
• Root access and SSH access

After accessing this host’s features, I was really attracted to the cloud hosting package. On this plan, they offer managed and unmanaged options which are fully customizable and scalable. The cloud-based KVM enterprise-grade servers are faster than the SSD storage drives, including VPS servers! Intriguing!

What’s more is that the unmanaged plans are incredibly affordable, starting at $8/mo. You get almost all the features included in the managed hosting plan, except the personalized technical support. I also love that the prices are fixed, and you don’t have to pay higher renewal fees.

Performance

Before choosing a web host for your website, there are three vital performance metrics to look out for – uptime, speed, and page loading time.

I tested KnowHost server speed using GTMetrix and the server response time  was a decent 352 ms:

And for the website I tested, the fully loaded time was an excellent 1.8s:

Overall, the performance is mind-blowing, showing 99%:

Level of support

KnownHost provides five levels of customer support – phone, email, live chat, mailing address, and knowledge base:

Phone

KnownHost permits local (US, Canada) and international customers to reach them via these helplines:

You will get billed for call charges if you’re outside the US and Canada.

Email

Depending on the issue you’re facing, they provide departmental email addresses to get even more personalized support:

I sent the sales team an email and received a response almost three hours later because they didn’t see my email on time. The customer support tendered an apology for this:

Live Chat

As a website owner, live chat is always my favorite customer support channel (and that’s because it’s the fastest!). While testing this option, I discovered that it’s not responsive. But they ask visitors to leave a message which I did:

I got this email immediately:

Mailing Address

I commend KnownHost for going the extra mile to provide a physical mailing address:

Knowledgebase

Do you want a faster DIY route? Then you’ll find the KnownHost knowledge base helpful. They provide users with detailed how-to guides, courses, and mini-articles. I love that you can easily streamline your search using the search box:

Support Ticket

Lastly, KnownHost Hosting allows customers to submit queries via the online support ticket. Although unpaid customers have restricted access:

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User Friendliness – ease of use

Registration

Creating an account with KnownHost is easy. Click on “Hosting” at the top right corner of the page to choose a plan. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be redirected to the checkout page:

Fill in all your details and click the “Create account” button at the bottom right corner of the page:

Once you receive a confirmation message, you’ll have access to the KnownHost dashboard:

Here, you can easily access the cPanel and other functionalities needed to manage your website. I love that the dashboard has a modest design with well-spaced icons. This is an excellent feature, especially for customers without hosting experience.

KnownHost Control Panel

KnownHost Hosting uses the traditional cPanel, one of the widely used control panels for web hosting. It is intuitive enough for beginners and advanced enough to meet the technical needs of experts.

Personally, I love that it’s highly customizable. You can access various pre-installed options, such as Softaculous, for a 1-click  app install. In the WHM, you can access all things to manage your hosting account:

KnownHost also provides the DirectAdmin control panel to VPS and Dedicated plan users:

Installing WordPress in KnownHost Hosting

KnownHost Hosting allows users to install WordPress via WHM and cPanel. For usability, I’ll show in detail how to install WordPress via the cPanel.

First, log into the WHM and follow the prompts: WHM >> Account Function >> create a new account.

Then, enter your domain details and fill in other requirements on the form. Once done, click create an account.

Log into the cPanel and locate the “Softaculous app installer.” In the script subsection, click the “WordPress” icon:

Then, click the “Install Now” button:

The next step is to fill out your account information. You’ll be required to create a username and password. Add other relevant details needed:

Once done, click the “Install” button. You should get a confirmation message like this:

You’re all set! You can now add themes, articles, or other customizations you want from the dashboard:

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Adding Email Address on KnownHost

Creating an email address on KnownHost is almost instant. All you need to do is log into your cPanel using your username and password:

Next, locate and click the “Email’ Icon:

Then, you’ll be directed to a fill-up form. Add the required details – domain name, username, and password:

Proceed to choose your preferred storage space:

Lastly, click the “Create” button:

Conclusion: Do we Recommend KnownHost?

I’ve reviewed several web hosts, and only a few come close to KnownHost Hosting regarding quality customer support. Moreso, their performance is top-notch. They have excellent security features straight out of the box, ease of use, and much more. The pricing plans are attractive and scalable, with website management tools to match. What more could one ask for?

The only downside here is the user interface. Compared to other web hosts, I firmly believe it can be improved. The renewal fees are also quite high. But overall, KnownHost Hosting offers excellent value for your investment.