Jimmy ParkerKrystal
Krystal is a reliable and secure UK web hosting company that provides exceptional service, fast speeds, and excellent customer support. With their easy-to-use control panel and dedicated servers, they offer excellent web hosting plans with unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage on most plans, and unlimited emails. Their servers are secure and reliable, and they provide advanced security measures to keep your data safe. Additionally, they offer great value for money and are committed to providing the best customer service possible.
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Pros
- Reliable and secure servers
- Easy-to-use control panel
- Advanced security measures
- Great value for money
- Excellent customer service
Cons
- N/A
Table of Contents
About Krystal
Krystal is a family-owned business established in 2002. It was founded by Simon Blackler (also the company’s CEO) at the age of 17. Well, time flies – today the company is also 17 years old and is hosting around 200,000 websites.
Needless to say, the company has an interesting story and background. It was named Krystal for “crystal” – you know that transparent stone that comes with great value. You can see that their site logo even looks something like a diamond. They changed the letter C for K to distinguish it from crystal (and for SEO purposes). As a 17-year old, its founder sure was creative.
Simon Blackler also came up with their company slogan (Honest, Reliable & Personal) because that’s their mission statement. In short, they want to provide high-quality hosting services that are fair to their customers.
As an independent company based in the UK, the family behind this web hosting business doesn’t have any plan of selling to parent hosting companies (monopolies). Therefore, you can be sure that it will always be under the same management.
Here are just some of Krystal’s awards and charity works, and environment-friendly efforts:
- #1 UK Hosting Company awarded by Trust Pilot.
- The company is supporting over a hundred charities to date (one of which is Comic Relief).
- They have green hosting (they’re using renewal energy).
Should you decide to get your hosting from Krystal, you’ll be a part of their endeavor for a positive change in the world. That’s just nice, isn’t it?
You’ll find their pricing plans below (prices are in GBP). You’ll notice that even their plan names are named after crystals (cute – lol).
Pricing
1. Amethyst
This plan is priced at GBP 4.99 per month or GBP 39.99 per year. You can host 1 website with it and it comes with 10GB storage space and unlimited bandwidth.
2. Ruby
Krystal’s most expensive plan will cost you GBP 9.99 per month or GBP 99.99 per year. You can host an unlimited number of websites with it as it comes with unlimited storage space and unlimited bandwidth as well.
Here are some things to take note of:
- All plans come with 99.99% uptime guarantees.
- Krystal is not offering introductory prices. Their prices are as is – therefore, renewal fees are also the same. To save on your subscription, Krystal encourages you to pay for a year and save 2-month’s cost of hosting (you’ll only be charged for 10 months for a 12-month period).
- All plans come with unlimited bandwidth, unlimited e-mail accounts, unlimited subdomains, and unlimited parked domains.
- All plans get free SSL certificates (via Let’s Encrypt).
- All plans come with off-site backups.
- All plans have access to Krystal’s website builder and you can use it for as many sites and pages as you want.
- All plans get instant activation upon signup.
- The Ruby package gets a free domain name for the duration of the plan’s life.
- The Topaz plan gets a free domain if paid annually (valid for 1 year only).
- Krystal’s Amethyst plan is not qualified for a free domain name. You’ll need to purchase one yourself.
Support
Krystal’s customer support team is based in the UK, which is something all top UK web hosting providers should have. You can call them through the phone from 9 AM to 8 PM Monday to Friday. They also have live chat which is available 24/7.
If you want to send them a ticket, you can also do so via e-mail.
Krystal also has the standard knowledge base on their site. It contains helpful materials for self-study and research. You can troubleshoot simple stuff through their articles and FAQs there. They also have tutorials and guides to help you learn your way on Krystal.
We also like that they have a Service Status page on their official site. All you have to do is go there to check their network status when you experience problems on your website. Sometimes, their current status will explain why you’re having certain issues on your site.
You’ll be glad to know that Krystal has a very good reputation with regards to their customer service. They’re known to be helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable on all matters regarding Krystal hosting.
Pros
1. Uptime guarantee of 99.99%.
An uptime guarantee of 99.99% is quite bold – but Krystal is confident that they can provide this exemplary service to their customers. And yes, they’ve managed to deliver on this through all their years of service.
2. Speed is prioritized
Krystal makes use of Solid State Drives (SSD) instead of the traditional drives. SSDs enhance speed which is a factor in SEO and user experience. Their LiteSpeed caching technology also contributes a lot of power to Krystal’s overall speed.
3. Unlimited bandwidth for all
This is another feature that’s not common among hosting plans. While other companies limit the bandwidth on their cheaper-priced plans, Krystal includes unlimited bandwidth even on their cheapest plan. This will lessen your worries about getting too much site visitors (which is a good thing anyway).
4. Free backup
This feature will allow you to restore your website to a previous version should something go wrong.
5. Free SSL certificates
The https tag is now required on all websites to deem it safe and authoritative. Fortunately, Krystal has got you covered on this as they have a partnership with Let’s Encrypt (they’ll issue your SSL certificates on Krystal). Keep in mind that having SSL certificates is now a ranking signal in SEO (because Google says so). You’ll also gain your customers’ trust when they see that https on your web address (especially when there are credit card transactions on your site).
6. Website builder included for free
You can easily (and quickly) create a website with Krystal using their very own website builder. It’s responsive and user-friendly – and it’s free!
7. Great security features
Krystal employs a whole lot of security features to protect its customers from cybercrimes. They have a built-in tool that scans their systems (and the websites they’re hosting) 24/7. They also have a firewall to keep hackers away from their system. You can also place authentication functions on your websites so that only authorized people can access your content.
8. A lot of apps are supported
Krystal is compatible with a lot of popular apps like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal. OpenCart, PrestaShop, and many more.
9. Environment-friendly hosting
Krystal is super green and they care about the environment a lot. They use 100% renewable energy in powering all the sites that they’re hosting. They’re also encouraging their customers to help Mother Nature by doing every bit that they can to save the planet.
10. Free migrations
If you’re coming from another hosting company, you’ll save some money on site transfers as Krystal is offering free assistance to their customers.
11. Generous refund policy
If you’re not happy with your subscription with Krystal, you can always cancel your plan. Now, they have a 60-day money-back guarantee that you can take advantage of to test their site first. You can cancel anytime within this time frame to get a full refund of your money. Note that the standard money-back guarantees among hosting providers are only 30 days – so, Krystal is being quite generous with their refund policy.
Conclusion
Ok, we’re sure you can already tell by our list of pros and cons that we really REALLY like Krystal. They surely live up to their slogan of honest, reliable, and personal hosting. Their prices are transparent and straightforward, which means you get value for your money.
We also like Krystal’s customer support feature as they have a lot of avenues to be reached. Their customer service team is also known to be well-trained and professional with their dealings.
You’ll also get a lot of freebies when you decide to go for Krystal. They’ll give you free SSL certificates, free migrations, and free backups (among other things). They’re prioritizing security – and it’s the reason why they’re including extra security features in their hosting services.
Also, they’re environment-conscious – and we like that a lot. We actually appreciate the fact that more and more hosting providers are going green these days.
If you’re still on the fence as to whether to signup to Krystal or not – just remember that they’re offering 99.99% uptime guarantees on all their plans and their speed is also exemplary. Uptime and speed are 2 of the most important factors to look for in a hosting provider, you know.
Hey, why don’t you test drive Krystal for 60 days (and maximize their 60-day money-back guarantee)? We’re confident that you’ll love them and won’t cancel your plan even after 60 days.