One.com £2 package review
The low price makes One.com very attractive for those wanting to get a good-looking site online with the minimum of hassle.
One.com costs only £2 per month, for which you get a domain name, 3GB of server space, unlimited monthly bandwidth, an unlimited number of email accounts and some widgets such as a photo gallery and a blog. That’s a good bundle of features that will be more than enough for many users.
The control panel is easy to use and well-laid out. There’s no clutter, only fifteen simple icons each of which takes you to a category of admin tools: much easier to navigate than some of the messy, crowded control panels we’ve seen. Setting up the site is easy, as is creating your mailboxes. We were online with both site and email in no more than five minutes; neither requiring any more expertise than the ability to use an FTP client and a simple webmail service.
Support is provided by live chat rather than over the phone, but the chat applet is easy to use and generally someone comes online within a minute or two. We’re not too fussed by the absence of phone support, but it’s something to bear in mind. The important thing is that help is there when you need it.
The site builder, called WebCreator, is more versatile than the typical wizard-driven app. You choose a template from one of the many on offer which the app then opens in an online environment that feels and works just like a word processor. It’s a far more natural way to work, you can see exactly what you’re changing as you work. The templates are still fairly restrictive, but they’re fine for undemanding users and the results aren’t bad for this kind of online application.
You can’t really argue with the price: £2 per month isn’t going to break anyone’s bank. All the features you get are more than enough for most users. If you have greater ambitions, and you think that one MySQL database isn’t enough, opt for iPage’s Essential Plan. For the same price (at the current discounted rate) it provides unlimited server space, as many MySQL databases as you want to install and a versatile collection of one-click installs, which you don’t get here.
