StartLogic Review

StartLogic is one of the big names in hosting, despite only being around for a few years. They actually started as a reseller for iPowerweb, but quickly outgrew that and starting running their own servers. They are based in Arizona which has the geographic advantage of being off the beaten path for most natural disasters (i.e. earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and floods). Anyone with service affected by Ivan or Katrina knows what mother nature can do to your web traffic.

Of course, when looking for a web host, you are probably concerned with more than their location, and StartLogic has plenty more. Their plans are solid and follow a simple one-plan-per-hosting-class model. So there is one shared Unix plan, one shared Windows plan, and so on. This is pretty nice, since each plan has to be competitive in its class, but you are not forced into a one-size-fits-all situation.

With their latest plans, StartLogic again shows that they can push the envelope on keeping hosting affordable. Don’t worry, though. Only the price is cheap; the hosting experience remains top notch.

Shared Hosting

Shared unix hosting has been StartLogic’s centerpiece since inception and it is still where they shine. Their ProLogic plan gives you scads of storage and transfer at a price than beats most of their competitors. If you are just getting starting, you’ll find their site builder useful. It includes a wide variety of templates, a logo editor, and some other goodies. For more advanced sites, Agora Cart, OsCommerce, and PHP Nuke are included as well.

StartLogic’s Windows plan, WindowsLogic, is much weaker than their Unix offering. Less storage, less bandwidth, higher price tag. It actually looks like a decent early-2005 plan, suggesting that they just haven’t gotten around to updating it. While all the nice features are there (ASP, .Net, Access, etc.), the plan just isn’t competitive today. Let’s hope they rectify this soon.

In the interest of completeness, I should mention that there is another shared Unix plan called PersonalLogic. It is a very crippled variant of the ProLogic plan for $3.95 per month. I cannot imagine a situation in which it makes sense to sign up for that plan with ProLogic so close in price and so much richer in features. Don’t waste your time on PersonalLogic.

VPS Hosting

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) are a happy medium between a full dedicated server and shared hosting. As such, they are becoming an increasingly popular hosting choice when more control and power is needed. StartLogic offers several levels of VPS, with a simple scaling of storage, memory, transfer, and price as you move up. Their VPS plans are very competitive both in terms of features and price.

Dedicated Servers

In updating this review, as I do from time to time, I was somewhat dreading updating this section because StartLogic has twelve different server packages and building my little tables is tedious. Still, I do not want to fail my loyal readers, so I was prepared to buckle down and do it.

Small problem. Every single one of their server packages is sold out. Now, I understand that this happens. It has happened to both HostGator and midPhase in the last couple of years. But neither of them was flouting a dozen different configurations. I can’t help but wonder how they ran out of all of them before anyone noticed that they were running out of some of them. I’ll drop them some email and see what I can find out, but for the moment, StartLogic is out of the dedicated server business.