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Brad Smith

Hosting Reviewer

Arvixe was founded by Arvand Sabetian in 2003 and was later acquired by EIG (who owns a ton of other hosting companies including Bluehost) in 2014. They have been hosting thousands of small business, personal, and enterprise websites worldwide. They also claim to be one of the fastest-growing hosting companies in the world.

arvixe hosting review

Arvixe prides itself on providing web hosting with extreme reliability, affordability, and quality.

However, does Arvixe stand up by its promises?

We purchased Arvixe’s ‘Personal Class Plan’ and tested their service thoroughly – checking their uptime, speed, features, and even customer service quality.

Here’s an unbiased overview of what we found.

General Info & Hosting Overview

Our Verdict: 2.0

SPEED: 1120 ms (January 2024 to June 2024)
UPTIME: 99.98% (January 2024 to June 2024)
SUPPORT:24/7 Live Chat, Emails, and Ticketing, Knowledge Base
APPS:WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal, Prestashop, Moodle, WooCommerce, and more
FEATURES:Unmetered Bandwidth and Storage, Email Accounts, Site Builder, Softaculous Installer, Backups, DDoS Attack Response, and more
HOSTING PLANS:Shared, VPS, Dedicated, Reseller, and Business Hosting
SITE TRANSFER:Free migration for all of your websites
PRICING: Starting at $9.32/mo (2-year commitment)

Pros of Using Arvixe Hosting

Arvixe has quite many pros going on for them. For starters, they have solid loading times, offer plenty of unlimited features, and include a 45-day money-back guarantee to try out their services risk-free.

Let’s have a more detailed look at what Arvixe has to offer.

1. Great Uptime – 99.98%

Arvixe was known for its poor uptime in previous years. For example, their average uptime from February 2019 to January 2020 was 92.95%. So we were eager to see if they can improve their data in the future.

During the 6-month test period, our test site on Arvixe delivered a great uptime of 99.98% with less than an hour of downtime.

Arvixe last 6-month uptime and speed statistics
Arvixe average last 6-month uptime (monitoring since 2015) | See stats

Last 6-month average uptime:

  • June 2024: 99.99%
  • May 2024: 99.99%
  • April 2024: 99.97%
  • March 2024: 99.96%
  • February 2024: 99.99%
  • January 2024: 99.99%

2. Advanced Plan Features

Arvixe included many advanced features on all of their basic plans that you’d normally have to pay much more with other hosts.

Their cheapest shared hosting plan has unlimited storage and bandwidth standard. And they allow you to use up to six domain names.

They will also include free Google, Yahoo, and Bing ad credits (worth $100), which is a nice added bonus if you’re already thinking about using online ads to grow your business or readership.

Moreover, you get unlimited email accounts with all of their plans.

3. Numerous Proactive Security Options

Arvixe also includes a variety of proactive security measures to help you to protect your site. For example, their plans come with:

  • SpamAssassin
  • Spamhaus&SpamCop Checks
  • Domain Keys
  • SPF for email security

In addition, they also offer daily backups, brute force detection, nightly security updates, a firewall, SSL support, and SSH access, too.

4. Free cPanel Site Migrations and Free Domain Name

Arvixe treats new customers right. Instead of trying to make a few extra bucks, they’ll happily manage site migrations for you— as long as your current host provides cPanel access.

There’s no cost for multiple sites, either. So you can save hours (and potentially hundreds of dollars) by leaning on Arvixe to help you out.

Arvixe also includes a free domain name for the first year with all of their hosting plans.

5. No Renewal Price Increases

Another perk that should definitely be mentioned is that Arvixe doesn’t nickel-and-dime new customers after their initial plan expires.

Imagine this:

You go through all the trouble to find a new web host. You move your site, domain, and everything else over. You prepay for a few years to get the best deal.

Now, how likely are you to want to switch hosts again when your plan expires? Chances are, not very likely.

The problem is that many other hosts will take this opportunity to double the price right under your nose. Basically, you’re getting the same exact service, but paying way more, because they know you won’t want to change hosts at the end of the day.

Arvixe doesn’t do this, though. Your renewal pricing will be the exact same as the initial cost you signed up for.

6. 45-Day Money-Back Guarantee

Arvixe doesn’t offer a free trial, but they do feature a no-questions-asked refund policy. This means you can prepay for a few years to get the best bang for your buck. And you can try out their service for 45 days with relatively little risk.

If you’re unhappy with the page loading speed or uptime or anything else, just say the word and you’ll get your money back.

However, please keep in mind that these refunds are only available for shared, reseller, and VPS hosting plans. Dedicated servers are not covered under this clause. Neither are administrative fees or extra purchases, like domain names (no other host includes these, either, for what it’s worth).

Also, it’s worth mentioning that the 45-day money-back guarantee applies only for first-time shared hosting accounts.

7. Easy-to-Use cPanel and Dashboard

Arvixe’s dashboard is simple to navigate around. There you can manage your billings, and domains, see your active services, and also contact support. You will also have an overview of usage statistics and quick shortcuts. On the left side under “Actions” you can find login to cPanel.

arvixe dashboard

cPanel is the most popular control panel in the hosting industry and for a reason – it’s easy to use. From the control panel, you can do all the necessary actions needed for website hosting (manage your files, databases, access email accounts, and more).

arvixe cpanel

Overall, Arvixe’s backend is simple and straightforward to use.

Cons of Using Arvixe Hosting

Although Arvixe’s features seem pretty good at first sight, there are also quite many downsides that need to be covered.

For instance, Arvixe’s slow speed and customer support are something you cannot ignore. Also, they are a bit too pricey compared to many other cheap hosts on the market.

But let’s check out each con in more detail.

1. Over 1 Second Load Times

Sadly, Arvixe’s load times are nothing to brag about.

Over the past 6 months, their average page load time was 1120 ms. This places them in the bottom tier of our tested hosts.

Arvixe last 6 months average speed data
Arvixe average last 6-month speed (monitoring since 2015) | See stats

This is bad, mainly considering how crucially important (yet neglected) page speeds are for the success of your website.

For example, according to Google, there’s a 90% increase in bounce probability when page load speed drops from 1 to 5 seconds.

That’s how critical site speed is. It affects usability to the point that it actually costs you lost conversions.

But on the bright side, they’re much faster than during our last testing period when their loading time was over 6 seconds!

2. Weak Customer Support Response

Arvixe offers customer support by phone, knowledge base, and live chat. We tested out the latter.

We were connected to the customer support rep quickly and we continued by asking a question about whether they offer a free SSL Certificate with their shared hosting plan. Even though the question was very simple, the customer support rep seemed a little bit unknowledgeable and couldn’t give us a prompt answer.

arvixe live chat

Overall it took us about 10 minutes to get a simple yes or no reply.

3. Expensive Plans & Pricing

Arvixe’s lowest $9.32 per month plan doesn’t sound too bad on the face of it, until you realize that’s for two years, paid in full upfront.

Want a shorter time period? Month-to-month even? You’ll have to pay even more starting at $10.65 (annual term) and $13.31 (monthly).

It’s nice that they throw in a few helpful extras, like unlimited bandwidth, to offset this cost. However, it’s still steep, especially considering the performance issues we discussed above.

4. SSL Certificate Costs Extra ($25/year)

Websites today are practically required to use SSL certificates. Google Chrome, the most popular browser online today, actively warns people from using certain sites that don’t have them.

Overall, that’s a good thing for everybody. It helps keep your information safe and sound while you browse around.

That’s why lots of web hosts will include free SSL certificates in all of their plans now. Anyone can get a free one through Let’s Encrypt, too.

But unfortunately, you can’t get a free one through Arvixe. They’re charging another $25/year for each one.

Want a Wildcard SSL Certificate?

In this case, be ready to pay $149/year

Arvixe SSL Security pricing

Arvixe Pricing, Hosting Plans & Quick Facts

Arvixe offers two shared hosting options: Linux and Windows.

We’ll be breaking down their hosting plans for you.

Linux Shared Hosting:

Personal Class PlanPersonal Class Pro Plan
Pricing$9.32/month$13.31/month
Websites6Unlimited
BandwidthUnmeteredUnmetered
StorageUnmeteredUnmetered
Email AccountsUnlimitedUnlimited

Windows Shared Hosting:

Personal Class PlanPersonal Class Pro Plan
Pricing$11.62/month$15.97/month
Websites15
BandwidthUnmeteredUnmetered
StorageUnmeteredUnmetered
Email AccountsUnlimitedUnlimited

Quick Facts

  • Free domain? Yes.
  • Ease of Signup: Single-page sign-up. Easy sign-up.
  • Money-Back: 45-day money-back guarantee.
  • Payment Methods: Credit Card, PayPal.
  • Hidden Fees and Clauses: No hidden fees. A money-back guarantee applies for first-time shared hosting accounts only.
  • Upsells: No upsells.
  • Account Activation: Instant Activation.
  • Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: cPanel for Linux hosting and WebSitePanel for Windows Hosting.
  • Installation of Apps and CMSs (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): Softaculous for one-click installation of apps and CMSs.
  • Other Features: DDoS attack response, unmetered MySQL Databases, HTML editor, Daily Backups, Site builder.

Do We Recommend Arvixe Hosting?

No, we don’t.

We like the security options and daily backups. The unlimited bandwidth and storage are helpful, typically only seen on more expensive plans elsewhere. A free domain name for the first year is a very nice touch.

Another good news is that they have hugely improved their uptime.

However, we just couldn’t get past their poor loading times – taking an average of over 1 second to load a website is way too slow nowadays.

Also, their customer service was just not good enough and Arvixe’s pricing is a bit too crispy.

While they may have been a great host years ago, they are no longer that.

You’d be better off checking our top-performing hosts here to find more reliable and cheaper hosts.

Best alternatives for Arvixe:

Any experience with Arvixe? Please leave a comment below. We welcome all – good or bad reviews – as long as they’re honest and transparent.

54 user reviews for Arvixe

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    Phil

    1 — December 13, 2021

    Horrible support

    Database randomly went offline. Been 3 days and no responses to either my email message or my support ticket. They removed their live chat and their phone number. After years with them, they seem to do that when they are having issues so that they don’t deal with angry customers.

    I’ve been with them since they offered the $60 for 2 years .net plan with unlimited space. But I’m looking to switch this year as it has affected my business.

    Harris K

    1 — February 26, 2021

    Sites Down

    All our customer’s sites are down and there is no support available at all. ZERO

    There is only chat available and their dealings are very sketchy. They needed our ID, Bank Statements, Credit card statements and that too after being their customer for 6 years.
    We paid this company for 6 years upfront and after sixth year they suspended our account because our manager has changed. After providing all the documents it’s taken 3 day and still counting we have 700 of our sites down, no emails, no cpanel access. No one cares about customers and it seems like they are based overseas and management is non-existent.
    We don’t even have access to our own data, emails so if we want to move to another vendor we can’t because we are held hostage.

    Donna

    1 — February 17, 2021

    Unannounced price hike

    I was an Arvixe customer from 2015-2018. Prices were ok but then suddenly I noticed an increase in price on my bill. While this is not uncommon they never warned me in advance. I contacted customer support and they claimed they sent an email regarding the price change. No email. I saw other customers at the time say they had the same issue. I contacted customer support and they said yes, we sent an email. I asked them to resend it but they seemed a bit evasive. Needless to say, I never received the recent email. I finally cancelled and decided to go with Interserver, which, so far, has been a good host.

    Ed T

    1 — February 8, 2021

    Absolutely Horrid!

    Like so many others, I started with Arvixe way back when Arvand was one of the people that provided tech support. It was a great company back then! Since the company was bought by EIG things have steadily gone downhill.

    With many technical issues over the years that I usually ended up solving, myself, the “straw that broke the camel’s back” occurred today. I had been using a free SSL certificate that I had to renew every 90 days. Growing tired of the process (and it was about to expire), I purchased an SSL certificate from them Arvixe night, paid while the agent was still in chat, and asked if they could install the certificate. The agent stated he would submit a ticket. I also asked about upgrading my plan as I saw a larger plan included an SSL, but never made any confirmation that I intended to do so.

    This morning, I woke up to a broken website. I’m done.

    DS O

    1 — November 18, 2020

    The absolute pits

    Their helpdesk is outsourced to a telemarketing company in India, with extremely limited technical expertise. That’s unfortunately not unusual.

    But these guys really take the cake for how much time of yours they will waste. Any savings you might make on their cheap fees will be more than offset by the downtime, cost to your business, loss of customers, and especially the cost of your time. And it’s not even close. You could multiply their hosting fees over 100x, and you’d still be losing out. They’re that bad.

    My latest issue has been recurring for over 6 months now. The fix takes a few minutes for someone who knows what they’re doing.

    Nevertheless, it took 6 weeks to fix. Starting with the obligatory outright denial, slow responses, having to run my own tests to prove the problem existed – until finally they sent the issue to an actual technician. Who fixed it immediately.

    That pissed me off. But it gets worse.

    I’m now on the 4th recurrence of the exact same issue. And each time, I have to go through the whole rigmarole again.

    No matter how much I tell them that it’s the same issue that they’ve fixed before. We go back to the start – outright denials, slow responses, etc etc for another 6 weeks until it finally gets the 2-minute fix.

    Believe what everyone else on here is saying. They’re a complete nightmare and you should avoid them at all costs.

    Dave

    1 — July 13, 2020

    Worse than Terrible

    I can echo the experiences others have told us about. I switched to Arvixe several years ago when my former host’s email delivery quality went to zero. Over the years, though, the same thing has happened at Arvixe. Pretty much any message sent to an email address serviced by Yahoo! (yahoo.com, y.com, aol.com, frontier.net) results in a 4.4.2 “delivery temporarily suspended: lost connection…” error. I don’t know who’s defining “temporarily”, but not a single one ever gets through. I’d estimate this happens on about 95% of emails we send to these addresses from our office.

    Support has also gone down the toilet. To start, you can’t even open a ticket on the Support site anymore; you have to go to your account page and submit from there (and include a customer code that can be found only on that page). Regardless of how much detail you might provide you’re likely to get a patronizing response that treats you like a complete idiot. Follow-up messages will come from someone completely different (or at least using a different fake name — people in the US don’t use language like that in the emails, so you know the support centers are somewhere else). It’s been too long since I’ve had a decent response from them.

    I’m moving my office in about 3 weeks, so my attention is elsewhere at the moment, but as soon as we’re settled in I’m definitely switching to another email host (might see what my website provider — also to be set up immediately after the move — can do; they have an email service but not much information available about it on their own site). I’ve completely had it with Arvixe and I actively steer people away from them on the rare occasion I get asked for a recommendation.

    Curtis

    1 — August 24, 2019

    Arvixe support is horrible

    For months now arvixe email servers cannot send emails to yahoo and aol accounts. This is an admitted issue with arvixe servers, yet they have not resolved the problem. The only way I communicate with my subscribers is through email, and for at least 5 months I’ve been unable to email them using my arvixe account ( I set up a gmail account as a work around) Their support is by chat only, and I constantly get an email stating that since they haven’t heard from me in 96 hours, they are closing the ticket. I respond back stating if the problem isn’t resolved, don’t close the ticket. I have repeatedly asked to escalate my issue with no luck. Every time I start a new chat to try to follow up, they want to walk me through all the same steps I’ve been through 20 times before. Their support is a joke. DO NOT USE ARVIXE for a web hosting service. It will kill your ability to run your website effectively.

    Connor

    1 — July 5, 2019

    One of the worst hosts I’ve used

    Arvixe service became such a poor service since we signed on originally. We signed on with a great offer for our needs in 2015, but ended up with endless heachaches over the poor user interface of the Arvixe site (their user pages and login forms are broken half the time), numerous problems with our SSL certificate not being installed as active when it should have been, and finally – the worst – discovering security is so awful with Arvixe that our entire site was able to be compromised by malware and malicious links. Is this the kind of service provided by a professional hosting company? Doesn’t seem like it. We’re a nonprofit and use of Arvixe put us in danger and made us vulnerable time and time again. It was time to say goodbye.

    Abdul

    1 — June 2, 2019

    Bad and bluffing services

    Since I registered my domain with Arvixe, I never have a reasonable response about the errors that appears when I logged in! They always said its from your application! So they kept me in drama and nervous with the developers! Lately, one developer suggested to host the application in another host that not using Plesk! and finally this works fine without any error and even very fast! The worst thing also, is that when I told them what happened with me and I want a refund and compensate me for keeping me worthless with their hosting service, they ignored me and even cancelled the credit that appears in my account! I would not recommend anyone even to try them, they are robbers.

    Stephen G

    1 — March 1, 2019

    Need to update software

    We have been using Arvixe for several years and started because it was getting great reviews. More recently we have to consider moving our sites for several reasons.

    1) The first is their email server is repeatedly getting blacklisted which is stopping emails being sent to domains such as Comcast.net and Outlook.com. It can take several weeks to get their email server unlisted and hosted domain outgoing emails flowing again.

    2) Next is their customer support “chat” system. You can no longer simply enter a ticket after going through the multi-step questions about using the FAQs and other features. Once you get to the point of knowing you need help then you have to try and start a chat session with support. About 50% of the time this fails or you get dropped as the support person you are dealing with does something to have you switch to a new customer support person. Plus they do not have any way to have you get past their basic troubleshooting sessions. After 100% of these chats I am always escalated to the ticketing system.

    3) The ticketing system, for whatever reason uses different login credentials than the CPanel credentials. Yet it is the CPanel credentials you need to start a support chat session.

    4) The biggest current issue is out of date software support. They have main PHP based tools which are all updated such as WordPress and Joomla. They state they provide PHP5 yet the CPanel offers up to PHP7.0.29. Both of these were unsupported since the end of 2018. All our PHP based system warn we are running on an unsupported version of PHP. When we asked about getting an upgrade to a current PHP version we are told it is not possible due to a technical issue. If we need the latest PHP offering as requested by WordPress or Joomla then we must move to their VPS plan at over $40 a month.

    Jourdan

    1 — February 26, 2019

    I’d Give Negative Stars If Possible

    Arvixe use to be great. They gave free domain privacy, had a local call center, and were fine bending policy if it was the right thing to do. Customer care mattered. Now, they’ve outsourced to some foul corner of India to a group of people who are so caught up in making sure they’re right that they offend customers and assume guilt until proven innocent. They’re petty beyond belief and take 10+ minutes just to look up something basic. That’s laziness, and it’s obvious.

    Marco

    1 — January 14, 2019

    Dont do it

    They lost 2 months of our data with not even saying ‘sorry’ . Our SSL certificate has been down for 8 months and they can’t seem to fix it. If your running a site you don’t really care much about, you shouldn’t even choose these guys. I’ve just been too lazy to switch (since I am not the one paying the bill). Even their administration consoles keep expiring and I can’t log in. These guys are a complete mess.

    Chris

    1 — December 28, 2018

    It was a good hosting, but…

    I ever using Arvixe during 2014 or so. It was a great and reliable hosting in the early months as a customer. They offer less than 3 minutes response in chat support though the answer does not always seem appeal to the issue (the ticket support is highly preferable).

    After 3-4 months, I saw frequent downtime that can last for hours or even day. They usually give me free service for one month or two. But then I realize the compensation did not worth for my losing visitor. Finally, in less than six months I decided to leave Arvixe for my good.

    With unreliable load time, stressful downtime, overpriced plan, and terrible service, Arvixe is going to its graveyard.

    Nour S

    1 — September 28, 2018

    Worst Hosting Service Provider

    I have been hosting my websites with Arvixe since 2013. They used to provide a reliable and good service up till the last couple of years !!!

    Their uptime is a joke, my websites can go down for like 5 consecutive days and their technical support is useless in every possible way. It takes forever for them to reply to your tickets and their chat service is awfully slow and their Indian employees are very incompetent and never help to fix the issues!!

    They only have one answer, and that’s “It will be fixed soon with no ETA for your server”… Is that a joke?? And they’ll almost always blame you for the terrible loading time that can typically reach 20 seconds. I literally hosted an empty page to prove to them that it’s not my code that is causing the issues and they still recommend me to seek the help of a professional coder!

    I’d recommend anyone to avoid them like the plague and to save your money by using another hosting provider!

    Randy S

    1 — August 29, 2018

    Do not use Arvixe for hosting

    Whoever you choose as a hosting company, just make sure it is NOT Arvixe VPS. The horror stories I can tell you about their poor customer service, their very untalented support personnel, the long wait times to try to reach someone. They even recently disabled the ability to turn in a trouble ticket, for Pete’s sake! Lack of reimbursement or remuneration for problems they caused, and on and on.

    I have been in the computer industry since 1978 and have had a number of different web hosting companies for my business since 1996. I have a ton of experience in this arena, and I can say that by far, hands down, without a question, Arvixe is the WORST choice I have ever made. Go with Databank or CF Web hosting – anyone but Arvixe!

    Worst. Hosting. Service. Ever.

    Sita

    2 — August 28, 2018

    Terrible support, unstable, scummy

    Transferred to Arvixe based on good reviews. Had issues with my website being attacked constantly after I moved over, and their support was unable to unlock one of the core files needed to reset and restore my website. Resolved this issue a few times, increasing security each time, and the website still got taken down constantly with no help from support.

    Moved to HostGator and have been happy and issue free since.

    Their billing system is garbage with no way to remove a payment method once it has been submitted. They hide the cancellation function for auto-renews under many pages and small buttons with laggy pages. They essentially stole $110 from me with this tactic, keeping a domain and website up for a site I haven’t used in over a year.

    Support often replies quickly but is of almost no help what so ever.

    Pretty sure they’re just designed to steal your money.

    Daniel

    1 — May 24, 2018

    GDPR put the nail in the coffin

    Uptime and speed had already been very bad for quite some time. Response time of support was between 1-3 days, but usually the issue could be solved after some back and forth. What put the nail in the coffin was the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) of the EU. Arvixe did nothing to become compliant with GDPR and did not answer a single one of my support tickets concerning that urgent topic for weeks. I already quit the service and complained about the unresponsive support, but they didn’t even reply to my complaint, just confirmed the cancellation with a standard reply.

    Arvixe used to be quite featureful and delivered comparably good value for money (I have been their customer for more than four years), but after this disaster I am more than disappointed and can just say: Stay away!

    Tadeo P

    1 — April 4, 2018

    Arvixe = Waste of … everything

    At first glance, early 2012 everything looked good, the support too! Suddenly, late 2014 things changed. I’ve upgraded my classic plan to the pro one, but the support has changed in the meantime. I don’t know if they’re analphabet, incompetent or both?! But even a basic “password reset” they need to escalate the ticket! Awesome! They take forever to answer simples enquiries. But of course the survey shitty stuff they send right after the support ticket creation arrives quickly in the mailbox. But the must of the must remains the chat. It’s a comedy club. They even don’t know what’s a database!!! Yes you’re reading well, no glasses needed! A database is an unknown word in their so-called brain? They’re patheticly dumb and unrespectful towards customers.

    matt

    1 — March 15, 2018

    Awful Support

    I can’t even begin to state how awful of a company Arvixe is. They are very expensive and charge fees for even small add-ons. Support is the absolute worst I have ever worked with. They do not respond in a timely manner and when they do it is usually incomplete or not what you asked for. I would give them a 0 if possible.

    Paul S

    1 — March 14, 2018

    Arvixe is even worse than ever

    Absolute rubbish service. My latest ticket is around their recent migration to new servers. It was working after migration, however a change has been made such that I no longer have a dedicated app pool and unfortunately, this particular site does not work in integrated mode. I am paying for a hosting service that includes dedicated app pools, so where are they. As a result, this site has now been down for over a week with not much more than empty promises from help desk staff that know absolutely nothing useful.

    In addition to the issues, not only have a number of email options been removed, but mailboxes were migrated with a set maximum limit of 10Mb whereas a number of my accounts is well above this limit and as a result would not accept any more mail.

    MSSQL has been upgraded and databases migrated to 2016 which is not only a dangerous thing to do without proper analysis on the DB, but it now means that none of the tools I use to manage, program and deploy the DB’s will now not work.

    I would not recommend this company to my enemies!! They used to be good and responsive, however once sold, went to crap!