BIGROCK

 

A member of the Endurance International Group (EIG), which also includes Bluehost, Hostgator, and a number of other hosting companies, is the Indian company BigRock(opens in new tab). They are ICANN-accredited, and because they primarily serve people and small enterprises, they assert that they can provide pricing that are up to 80% less than those of other domain registrars(opens in new tab). Their website claims that they currently manage more than 6 million domains. In addition, BigRock has what they refer to as a globally distributed data center, which is a network of redundant servers that houses all of their goods and services. They only state that they are made up of "a complex mesh of worldwide servers that communicate with one another" and that "You are abstracted from worrying about variables such as scalability, uptime, network response, etc." on their website, which omits any specific locations for its data centers.

The hosting company provides a wide variety of inexpensive services to meet the demands of practically everyone. Small to medium-sized enterprises would probably get the best bargain here because the alternatives are generally quite simple. When you want to entirely leave the provider, getting your money back only means having it deposited to your account, which is not very helpful. Additional fees may also apply.

Plans and pricing

Starter (opens in new tab), the least expensive hosting plan offered by BigRock, is Rs. 99 ($1.59/mo), but you may choose the length of the contract in a drop-down menu that also displays the pricing. You will receive 5 emails, 20 GB of storage space, 100 GB of transfer, and a free SSL certificate with this plan. The following plan, dubbed Advanced(opens in new tab), has a monthly price of Rs. 179 ($3.49), has unlimited storage and bandwidth, and includes a free.net name for a year. You may host an unlimited number of websites with the Pro plan (opens in new tab) (Rs. 319, or $5.39/mo), but for the fastest speed, you should consider their Cloud hosting (opens in new tab), which starts at Rs. 549 ($5.69/mo) and gives twice the speed and four times the expandable resources. These prices do not include tax. Cards, PayPal, checks, direct deposits, and even the balance in your BigRock account can all be used to make payments. Also within 30 days, you can get your money back, but only as credit to your account.

Ease of use

You'll need to provide them with your name, billing address, and phone number after selecting the plan you want (and selecting or deselecting the features they automatically add to your basket) before making a purchase using one of their remarkable range of payment choices, which includes checks. Your login information, which includes a special Customer ID and a Help PIN that is required to identify you when requesting support, will be sent to your email address by the provider. Their dashboard, which is rather basic, allows you to manage your accounts, follow all of your transactions, and purchase and manage things. Every package includes cPanel, so you have access to all the features you would anticipate from this site. You are welcome to upload an existing website using the File Manager or even FTP if you prefer it for whatever reason. With Softaculous' one-click installs for web programs like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and more, creating a website is incredibly simple.

Not to mention, every plan comes with the drag-and-drop SitePad website builder, which is extremely user-friendly for newcomers. This strategy is perfect for individuals who want to have their website up and running as soon as possible and can also be enabled through Softaculous. It makes for rapid and easy website construction. However, backups are not included in their package, so you will need to pay extra for CodeGuard. If you'd rather, you may still generate manual copies as usual.

Speed and experience

On our GTmetrix test, BigRock did okay in terms of speed, taking only 7.2 seconds to fully load as opposed to the industry standard of 8.4 seconds. But it also required a staggering 187 requests, more than twice the typical 89. However, this test demonstrates that it is improbable that the majority of clients will be dissatisfied with the hosting company's performance.

On the other hand, although claiming that their "globally spread" data center is unlikely to fail, BigRock does not expressly give any uptime guarantees. Our uptime test, which we did for more than a month, revealed absolutely no downtime, therefore their claim is holding strong.

Support

In their Help Center, BigRock offers a wide range of articles and tutorials, including information on getting started with the provider, temporary problems and how to fix them, and notices for server maintenance. The number of articles in each component of the knowledgebase is indicated in parenthesis, which makes things neater and simpler to read. Additionally, you may just type your query into the search field to see what results are returned.

You can phone their customer service if you'd prefer to speak with a live person, but you must already be a client and logged into your account to file a ticket or use the live chat feature. Additionally, you can email them with your question.

The competition

Another famous local host at a cheap price is Gandi(opens in new tab), this time in France. BigRock is far less expensive than Gandi, however Gandi provides a very substantial free trial without any additional costs. The location, however, is where they differ the most, so potential customers may choose based on that.

Both Aruba (opens in new tab) and BigRock are inexpensive, with the former being marginally less expensive for the first year. However, Aruba does not provide as many informative articles as BigRock, at least not in English. BigRock is a marginally superior option for non-Italian clients. Although Bluehost (opens in new tab) is significantly more expensive than BigRock, it also provides superior service in general. The location still makes the biggest impact, therefore US clients may automatically choose Bluehost because of its domestic data centers.

Many people consider customer service to be crucial, and while BigRock provides excellent lessons and guidance, Hostgator's quality outshines them (opens in new tab). Even while Hostgator is undoubtedly more expensive than BigRock, newbies will feel more at home there because to their video lessons and comprehensive how-to manuals.

Final verdict

Although there are some unstated fees associated with BigRock's programs, they are not excessive. However, anyone wanting for more than what any hosting service offers as a bare minimum would be better off looking elsewhere. Although BigRock is a terrific choice for individuals with less complex needs, Bluehost and Hostgator are also excellent choices.

Servers in India

The amount of time between when a web browser sends a request and the server responds to that request is known as the server response time, or SRT. In general, a server's response time improves with proximity.

We've examined a wide range of web hosts that are appropriate for those wishing to target the Indian market. With most hosting alternatives having servers in the US or anywhere far from India, SRT is often poor. Additionally, the fact that BigRock has a data center or facilities in India places it in an exclusive group of elite hosting companies. Sites housed on the Indian BigRock server answered in just 33 milliseconds when tested from Bangalore, according to our test using Bitcatcha, a server response time monitoring tool. This is especially remarkable in light of Google's advice to maintain SRT under 200 ms.

Three starting-up freebies

It is clear that beginners and small businesses who would rather not spend money on pricey web providers are BigRock's main target audience. They so designed their packaging to draw in the target market. How? These three user-friendly characteristics are included in them:

Free domain

A free.COM domain registration is available. T&C: If you select a hosting package for 6 months or longer, the first year is free.

Free emails

Professional email addresses, such as name@domainname.com, are free to create. These emails are employed to keep a professional appearance, boost credibility, and make the purpose of the email address obvious.

Free SSL certificate

With its Linux shared hosting customers, BigRock now offers free SSL thanks to a partnership with Let's Encrypt. This implies that you receive all the trust, security & privacy, and SEO advantages associated with HTTPS.

Pretty decent performance

BigRock's performance isn't the best; in fact, more cost-effective alternatives like Hostinger offer better results. Even so, it isn't any worse.

 

 

 

BigRock's uptime throughout our trial was 99.89%, which is 0.01% less than their promised 99.9%. When compared to Hostinger's 99.99% uptime, it is at best average and rather terrible.

We also tested page load times, and the BigRock hosted sample page loaded in about 780 ms, which is very good given that the suggested limit is 1 second. However, it's normal compared to Hostinger's loading time of around 500 ms.

There are many worse web hosts on the market, which is ultimately the only reason this area is in the "Plus" segment. Additionally, BigRock's SRT is outstanding.

To cut a long tale short, these bonuses make iPage's offering an exceptional value.

Softaculous with 300+ apps

Using the Softaculous feature of the BigRock cPanel, you may quickly and easily install your preferred CMS, such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. Additionally, if you wish to develop a static website, you can use the SitePad website builder

You can also set up another 300 scripts, such as those for building blogs, micro-blogs, forums, wikis, galleries, e-commerce, etc.

Mediocre customer support

Customer service, in our perspective, is just as important as other variables like loading time or uptime. Yes, the aforementioned components must always be at their finest, but customer service must also be at its best when required.

BigRock provides support tickets for all client inquiries around-the-clock. Additionally, during the hours of 9 am and 8 pm, you can contact or live chat with their customer service representatives.

We used both their live chat feature and support tickets for our trial. Compared to many other options, they took longer to answer. Additionally, the responses fell short of our requirements.

BigRock's customer service is generally quite subpar. It can surely be enhanced; more professionals should probably be added to the team.