Heart Internet Home Pro review

Heart’s Home Pro account is the most expensive in this test. That needn’t be a bad thing, as long as you get lots for your money. It may not be called unlimited, but 20GB of server space, 60GB of monthly bandwidth and up to 10,000 email inboxes, is unlimited in all but name for most people.

What’s more, you can install up to 100 MySQL databases, which makes plenty of other hosting providers seem very stingy. Its clear that Heart wants to compete with companies like Dreamhost and Host Clear that offer unlimited databases, bandwidth and server space.

Annoyingly, Heart makes you click through three pages to get from the homepage to the control panel. You think you’re there when you get to the customer area, but on closer inspection the links in the centre of the page are all for ordering extra services – not what existing customers are primarily interested in. Again, not a huge big deal but, while we appreciate that everyone has to make money, it’s nice when it feels like the customer experience is designed around your convenience rather than the service provider’s.

Signing up for an account was also a bit more long-winded than seemed necessary; we had to purchase the domain name separately and then assign it to our hosting package manually. And once the sign up process was finished, it gave us an FTP address that didn’t work – we had to use the server’s IP address instead. We liked the FTP locking function though, which keeps your site more secure.

At least the extra work is worth it. There are 48 apps you can install, including WordPress, WordPress MultiUser, guestbooks, photo galleries, forums and so on. The interface is easy to use and just as good as those of Heart’s competitors. Script support is also very good, with an extensive range of languages supported.

We don’t want to make too much of relatively minor difficulties during the sign-up process and, for the main part, Heart’s hosting package is good and there are some very good features. However, you don’t get a domain name included – something you do with Dreamhost’s cheaper equivalent package.