The web hosting business is part of an incredibly large industry worth well into the billions. A number of large and well established web hosting companies that we’ve known to trust for their reliability, service and support are being bought out by even larger web hosting conglomerates. Some of the largest and most successful web hosting companies in the industry, including HostGator, BlueHost, HostMonster, A Small Orange and HostNine have been bought out by Endurance International Group (EIG).
Who is Endurance International Group (EIG)?
For those who are unaware, Endurance International Group is one of the world’s largest web hosting companies managing over sixty different hosting brands.
** In 2021 EIG was acquired by Clearlake Capital Group. Soon after EIG was rebranded and is now known as Newfold Digital. **
Here’s a list of all EIG web hosting brands and other companies owned by EIG:
2slick.com AccountSupport A Small Orange ApolloHosting AptHost Arvixe Berry Information Systems BigRock BizLand BlueDomino Bluehost BlueFur BuyDomains Cloud by IX Constant Contact Directi Dollar2Host Domain.com DomainHost Dot5Hosting Dotster easyCGI eHost Escalate Internet EntryHost | FastDomain FatCow FreeYellow Glob@t Homestead HostCentric HostClear HostExcellence HostGator HostMonster HostNine HostYourSite.com HyperMart IdeaHost IMOutdoors Intuit Websites iPage IPOWER/iPowerWeb IX Web Hosting JustCloud JustHost LogicBoxes MojoMarketplace MyDomain MyResellerHome | NetFirms Networks Web Hosting Nexx PowWeb PureHost ReadyHosting ResellerClub SEO Hosting Site5 Southeast Web Spry StartLogic SuperGreen Hosting TypePad USANetHosting vDeck Verio VirtualAvenue VPSLink WebHost4Life WebHosting.info Webstrike Solutions Webzai Xeran YourWebHosting |
EIG Hosting List Last Updated on 02/19/2016 – Added IX Web Hosting, HostExcellence, and Cloud by IX.
NOTE: EIG has purchased other brand names that are not listed in the above chart that have either dissolved or have merged with other EIG companies that are already on the list.
Want to use a web host that is not owned by EIG? There are several EIG hosting alternatives listed at the end of this post (jump ahead to see them now).
EIG initially began as BizLand, but began buying smaller web hosting businesses to grow their customer-base. Today, they own some of the most well known hosting companies such as BlueHost and HostGator.
Among their top purchases was the purchase of HostGator for $225 million dollars, one of the fastest growing businesses in the United States. Endurance International Group is valued at nearly a billion dollars for all their brands, equipment, datacenters and goodwill. Most people are unaware of EIG, because they tend to hide when they buyout smaller hosting companies. For over a decade, EIG has been focused primarily on acquiring customers through the purchase of different hosting businesses. On October 25, 2013 EIG became a publicly traded company, listed on the NASDAQ as EIGI.
Recent Hosting Outage by HostGator, BlueHost and HostMonster
As some may be aware, several EIG web hosts experienced an unexpected downtime on August 2, 2013. Servers and phone services were affected for HostGator, BlueHost, JustHost and HostMonster. All these web hosts experienced server downtimes because they were all on the EIG network. The EIG datacenter based out of Utah experienced some technical issues and caused a downtime that lasted nearly a full day affecting millions of customers worldwide. Web hosting outages can happen to any web hosting company, but it is rare to happen on such a large scale. Hopefully, nothing close to what happened on Auguest 2, 2013 will ever occur again for the millions of EIG customers.
Update… 12/31/2013 Another EIG Outage: BlueHost and HostGator Crash After EIG Outage – read more at http://americanlivewire.com/2013-12-31-bluehost-and-hostgator-crash/
Update… 04/16/2014 Another EIG Outage: Major HostGator and BlueHost downtime all day today due to router issues at the Provo data center:
HostGator’s Director of Customer Service, Joshua Martin’s Response on 04/17/14 – http://forums.hostgator.com/network-outage-provo-t316804.html
“While most all services have been restored as of this time, I’d like to first note that we’re still working towards tying up the final lose ends. These remaining issues are absolutely a priority for us currently. In the meantime we do want to provide some more information and answer everyone’s questions with what details we do have available currently.
Q: What happened?
A: We experienced a degradation of network service in one of our data centers due to a firmware bug in one of our vendor’s hardware solutions. This was an undocumented bug and we worked with our partner to diagnose the issue and deployed a firmware update to the systems to remediate the problem. Only websites that were being served by this hardware were affected.Q: Was this related to any previous outage?
A: No, this is unrelated to any previous outages.Q. Have you identified the problem?
A. Yes, we have isolated the problem to this firmware failure and the downstream effects that resulted from it. We have reviewed our entire network to make sure this problem will not occur elsewhere.Q. Why did it take so long to address the problem?
A. We started to address the problem immediately when we began to see performance issues. The root cause of the problem was complicated to diagnose because it was an undocumented bug in software of a vendor’s hardware solution. Full service for some customers was restored immediately, but some servers were not visible on our network. We apologize for any downtime that you experienced. The servers continued to operate during this entire period, which means, that at no point in time was your data at risk. The problem was access to the servers because of the firmware issue.Q. What happened to any email that was sent to me while this firmware issue was affecting the network?
A. There is good and bad news. Unfortunately, any message that was sent to you while we were experiencing this issue would not have been delivered, however the sender should receive a notice that their mail wasn’t delivered and most mail servers will continue to try to re-send that email at periodic intervals, anywhere from 2 days to up to 7 days. While we cannot guarantee that any emails sent to you will be delivered, there is a very good chance that it will arrive…slightly delayed.Q: How has Endurance’s involvement with HostGator affected the situation?
A. Actually, this was not a result of Endurance. In fact, the team at our corporate headquarters was tremendously helpful in our recovery effort. They stayed with us throughout the entire incident. By committing the resources of the entire company, including technicians, customer service reps, and engineers, we were able to swarm the problem and address it as quickly as possible.Q. Why did you leave SoftLayer?
A. We moved out of SoftLayer to be able to more fully control our server environment to provide a better customer experience. We work really hard to prevent issues like this from happening. We recognize that this transition has not been as smooth as either you or we would like and we take the issues that have occurred very seriously. We believe in the long run this is the best environment to deliver service to you.
Q. Do I have to worry about this happening again?
A. We would like to say that we will never have a network service outage again, but realistically that isn’t something we can promise. What we can assure you is that we are continually taking steps to audit and improve the performance of our infrastructure, and investing a large amount of capital and people to do this.Last and certainly not least, I want to thank everyone for your extreme patience throughout this. We realize the situation is hugely frustrating, but we look forward to getting this resolved for you all and hopefully moving forward stronger.” – [Source]
Twitter Customer Responses to the 04/16/2014 Outage
Sarah Witford’s Twitter response to the Provo data center problems below:
From Mindy Joy Media’s Twitter – “@lindseymurray It sucks but there’s a human being behind the twitter account who is having a very bad day, and I appreciate their updates.”
Very true indeed Mindy, there are real people that work very hard for EIG to resolve these issues when things go wrong.
Update… 05/19/2014 Another EIG Outage: EIG clients hosted on servers at their Provo, UT data center experienced up to 8 hours of downtime.
I’m done also! My business website and e-mail has now been down SEVEN HOURS!
Does anyone know which hosting service providers are at the Softlayer facility in Texas where HG used to have its servers before the move to Provo?
[SOURCE]
What’s Next for the New EIG Acquisitions?
If the past is any indication of the future, we can safely assume that EIG will continue to expand it’s operations and acquire more and more web hosting properties. As soon as EIG buys a hosting company, it typically makes several changes to the company such as changing the control panels, equipment, data center locations, operational changes to existing staff and starts moving customers to their own network. Some customers have noticed a significant reduction in the level of customer/technical support following the purchase of a hosting company by EIG.
Since the purchase of HostGator, some customers have become frustrated with their quality of service. Some have noticed a delay in response time when submitting tickets. Also with accounts being moved from SoftLayer to the EIG data center in Provo, UT there has been an increase in customer complaints. On the outside, HostGator among most of EIG’s other acquisitions have remained the same, while all the changes took place on the administration and technical side of things. It is possible that HostGator is not the same company we once knew to be reliable and performance-based.
The Sad Truth – With EIG owning a number of the top web hosting companies in the industry; even if you are dissatisfied with one host and choose to switch to another; there’s a good chance that you might still end up with a company owned by EIG (see full list of EIG brands above). A really good business model to have for EIG.
Arvixe is Owned by EIG
Update… On 10/31/2014 EIG purchased Arvixe.
Update… 06/24/2015 Arvixe moving to EIG Datacenter?
Arvixe sent out notifications about server migrations to customers and also setup a migration schedule list.
Update… 08/11/2015 Huge problems on Arvixe we need explanations. The servers that have already been migrated are experiencing downtime and other issues. The migrations are still going on (76 completed and 15 in-progress – screenshot from today).
Update… 08/12/2015 Arvixe manager acknowledges migration problems and that Arvixe system administrators have been working around the clock on the Arvixe discussion board.
“unacceptable disruption of your services”
“We expect to have all of our systems stabilized within the next few days as we work diligently to resolve these issues.”
Twitter Activity From Arvixe Customers During/Post Server Migrations (08/05/15 – 08/11/15)
#Arvixe hosting have been terrible for us, far too much downtime, just letting every1 know to stay well clear of them #webhosting #wordpress
— Outsprung (@outsprung) August 11, 2015
This is getting ridiculous @arvixe – My site has been down for the better part of a week. If it’s a server issue, MOVE the affected sites
— J. Cebron Cook (Joe) (@cebronix) August 10, 2015
So @arvixe what the hell is going on with Echidna? I appreciate the updates, but that doesn’t solve the 59% uptime issue
— Marty Gleason (@officergleason) August 9, 2015
@Arvixe Providing your able to do so, you might want to update your home page and remove the 99.9% uptime part. It’s no longer accurate.
— JamieMK (@JamieMK) August 8, 2015
The amount of time my website has been down over the last 6 weeks is making me reconsider my choice in web host. Very disappointed @arvixe
— Lilith Le Guin (@LilithLeGuin) August 8, 2015
Hi @arvixe, my sites are down from last 5 days and support team is saying it will take more time, please look into it.
— oscitasthemes (@oscitasthemes) August 7, 2015
@arvixe Seems to think its no big deal to have customers down for 3-5 days and counting. Apologies are no substitute for working services.
— JamieMK (@JamieMK) August 7, 2015
@arvixe have you guys just given up? Support calls go to voicemail, chat is down. Good timing too, it’s a day ending in “y” so we’re down.
— Ten Ten Studios, LLC (@TenTenStudios) August 6, 2015
Makes sense now. @arvixe is now owned by EIG, helps explain the slow load times and 20+ outages I’ve had over the last three days.
— Albert Ciuksza Jr. (@AlbertCiuksza) August 5, 2015
Update… 09/25/2015 Dallas111 server outage/data loss. The Arvixe shared server Dallas111 suffered several days of downtime and customer data was lost.
Twitter Chatter From Arvixe Customers
Worlds worst web hosting @arvixe @ArvixeSupport still down 10 days later! Anyone want class action law suit? pic.twitter.com/F885cGGRyc
— Fred Karger (@fredkarger) September 26, 2015
Hey @LorettaLynch @arvixe worst web hosting in USA Our site down 7 days! False advertising @FCC @ArvixeSupport
— Fred Karger (@fredkarger) September 24, 2015
I’m feeling bad for @arvixesupport. 5 days and no fix for their Dallas111 server. Must not be fun in the server room right now. @arvixe — Mike Enders (@EndersDesign) September 23, 2015
Website down for almost 5 days. This has to be a record. ?@arvixe @ArvixeSupport #webdesign #webdevelopment pic.twitter.com/ku8n3ERg5e — Ronell Cross (@RonellCross) September 23, 2015
Update… 10/01/2015 Hundreds of Arvixe staff members were let go yesterday.
The final part of EIG’s acquisition of the Arvixe was to have A Small Orange (ASO) take over managing it. ASO is another EIG brand.
Site5 is Owned by EIG
Update… 08/07/2015 EIG owns Site5 and Verio. Endurance International Group 2nd quarter 2015 earnings report reveals that EIG acquired Verio in late May 2015 and Site5 in late June 2015. The CEO of Site5.com answers some questions on WebHostingTalk Site5/EIG Discussion.
Update… 09/02/2016 The old Site5 support team is longer working there and it’s all EIG running things now. Since the change over to all EIG at the end of August there has been an increase of complaints and talk about Site5 on Twitter, mostly regarding slower support response times. Here are some tweets from the past week or so…
Day 7 of the @site5 support debacle. New support team can’t figure out how to properly install a SSL certificate. I miss the old Site5!
— derek allard (@derekallard) September 2, 2016
Been trying to give @site5 benefit of the doubt since they had great support, but after a week of almost nada I’m wondering what happened.
— zurcherart (@zurcherart) September 2, 2016
@site5 Your support used to be A LOT better before EIG acquired you 🙁 Now it’s long wait times and a changed support system.
— artifakt Digital Inc (@artifaktCom) September 1, 2016
.@site5 @site5supersam Hey guys, I have been really patient. But I have a ticket which has been unanswered for 8 days. XMU-587-92580
— Paul Smith (@Viva_Digital) August 30, 2016
@site5 used to have excellent customer service and instant chat replies… Now lots of waiting. What a shame.
— White Belt BJJ (@WhiteBeltBJJ) August 29, 2016
PSA: I’d discourage anyone from ever using @Site5 for hosting. Several clients of mine use their services. #verydisappointed
— Kenneth Ortiz (@KennethOrtiz) August 29, 2016
*sigh* @site5 not responding to emails or tweets after letting #custserv staff go, now even their bots are busy.. 🙁 pic.twitter.com/pJIN0eiwQu
— Antti K. Koskela (@koskila) August 29, 2016
.@projecthalo @Viva_Digital Site5 went from the absolute best to the absolute worst. I wish all of you luck and thank you for the time.
— Mr. HAW ✪ (@hawproductions) August 29, 2016
@HostReviewHell @ngwoosh yes, I’m a current Site5 customer & support is already going south fast! Moving ALL my sites to new host this week!
— Pete Gregory (@Pete6591) August 29, 2016
@site5 What happened to your support team? Waiting for days for a response: CIH-346-42928
— Robert Medlitsch (@edvhygiene) August 29, 2016
I guess @site5 support is NOT what it used to be. Time to go? Yep! pic.twitter.com/2iAhjJXTnL
— Pete Gregory (@Pete6591) August 28, 2016
@site5 the level of svc has plummeted since the migration to EIG. I will definitely be switching hosting providers soon.
— HeGonne (@HeGonne) August 27, 2016
@AlSpaulding @site5 @site5supersam Looks like the old Site5 support team just got binned and replaced by EIG. Not looking good.
— Paul Smith (@Viva_Digital) August 26, 2016
@site5 @site5supersam Seriously? I see I’m not the only one you guys are ignoring. Wtf is going on? #TheRunaround pic.twitter.com/CQ8nHzwPqm
— AL Spaulding (@AlSpaulding) August 25, 2016
@site5 I submitted a ticket yesterday and haven’t received any support yet. Usually you guys are quite quick with support.
— Rui Melo (@HeyRui) August 25, 2016
IX Web Hosting is Owned by EIG
Update… 02/19/2016 Endurance International Group acquired IX Web Hosting in the 4th quarter of 2015 for $28 million – EIG 4Q 2015 earnings conference call transcript. This deal also includes the two lesser known IX hosting companies called HostExcellence and Cloud by IX.
Non EIG Hosting – The Benefits of Choosing a Hosting Company Not Owned by EIG
The fortunate fact is that there are several other highly reputable hosting companies in the industry that still have not been taken over by the Endurance International Group. Slowly but surely, many hosting companies are finding out about EIG and will refrain from a deal if it means a reduction in service, support and reliability for their customers.
There are options available for those who are looking for non Endurance International Group hosting. The following independently owned and operated web hosting companies are some of the best options for reliability, price, customer service and performance;
A2 Hosting: Based in Ann Arbor, MI and offers shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated server hosting. Starting at $2.99/month
InMotion Hosting: Based in Los Angeles, CA and offers shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated server hosting. Starting at $2.99/month
GreenGreeks: Based in Agoura Hills, CA and offers shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated server hosting. Starting at $2.95/month
SiteGround: Based in Sofia, Bulgaria and offers shared, reseller, cloud, and dedicated server hosting. Starting at $3.99/month
HawkHost: Based in Ontario, Canada and offers shared, reseller, semi-dedicated, and VPS hosting. Starting at $2.99/month
All of these web hosts will transfer your websites over for free, have fast SSD drives, multiple server locations to choose from, 24/7 knowledgeable and friendly support, and at least a 30 day money back guarantee period.
Moving forward from the datacenter-wide outage that occurred in August of 2013, one can only hope that EIG will do everything that they can to improve the quality of service they provide on every level. Otherwise webmasters will increasingly be on the lookout for EIG hosting alternatives. In a year from now lets hope to be hearing about all of the great improvements the folks at EIG have made. But just to be safe for the time being be aware of this company’s past and choose your web hosting wisely.
April 16th at about 2pm EST. Yet another major outage from HostGator, owned by EIG. It is currently 7:11 EST, and our server is still offline. This has got to stop. A company worth over a billion $$$ can’t keep it’s customers online. RIDICULOUS!!!
Anybody who does business with EIG has to be very stupid. This company knows growth because of one word “acquisitions”, but they have not earned that growth. This company exists for one reason and that is to s**t on the little guy, whose numbers are manipulated to make Endurance International Group’s look good on paper.
We were with Netfirms and they turned to a pile of s**t when EIG bought them, and then we moved to Hostgator, and then EIG bought them out..
Everything EIG touches turns to s**t and make no mistake about it.
EIG conned Goldman Sachs by making everybody think they were interested in building registrars for their brands. There is only one problem, their registrars, such as LAUNCHPAD do not function. We have emails from V.P. Brian Unruh with EIG from last fall promising us that our domains would be moved into our c-panel so we could manage them. It was all a lie, all designed to make Wall Street think that EIG is good at growth..
EIG is a pile of s**t and you can take that from a customer that has been with two of their companies for the past four years. They are pure s**t. and liars.
The people of the world ought to be glad that EIG is not a nuclear submarine.
RUN FROM EVERY COMPANY ATTACHED TO EIG, THEY ARE ALL GARBAGE.. PURE GARBAGE.
I am more than a little annoyed with Bluehost right now. All of my Bluehost sites are down yet again. So I go hunting for new hosting company, and a coworker says, give ASmallOrange a go.
So I go a looking, and turns out EIG bought ASmallOrange also. No Freaking Way.
After this last outage we are moving all of your web properties to liquidweb.com
Yeah, EIG pretty much sucks!
I was a HostGator client for years before EIG acquired the company and after a few months I had to leave HostGator due to outages, and I’m very surprised to here they are still happening. I move to Godaddy to get better quality services, but now I’m hearing rumors that Godaddy to is going to be acquired by EIG. Dose anyone know if this is true? If it is I’m just going to have to host my own sites to keep away from EIG’s horrible services.
Hi Robert, I have not heard anything about Endurance International Group (EIG) acquiring Godaddy. That would be something though…
I really hope not, Godaddy has been really good for may company’s, with fast shared servers, and good support. Unlike EIG, without good servers and, support a hosting company is just blowing in the wind in my opinion.
EIG sucks monkey balls, they don’t even care as its a complete monopoly of internet web hosting… this guy was asked for his PASSPORT by Hostgator:
http://www.collegetimes.tv/hostgator-sucks/
they are freaking insane these EIG peoeple, who is CEO??
While looking for a hosting company last night (2014-08-27) I saw that BlueHost was offline. Not a good sign. I had read favorable things about them, however those articles appear to have been written before EIG bought them. I will keep on looking.
Just a quick note to point out that EIG have recently bought Arvixe, one of the companies you listed as an alternative.
http://onlinedomain.com/2014/11/04/news/endurance-international-group-acquires-buydomains-webzai-arvixe-for-77-million/
Great post; I came across it looking for a non-EIG company to switch to.
Thank you Harry! I’ve updated the post to include Arvixe on the list of EIG brands.
First of all, thanks for this article. It’s a good piece that throws a truthful light in a lying marketing world that serves hosting lucrative niche.
EIG is typical kind of corporation that is aimed at making money without taking much care of its clients.
Such humanless nature of EIG together with their very aggressive and their untruthful marketing practices, as well as my negative experince with them as a client, made me preach against EIG.
I know that EIG prefers to acquire companies quitely so to pretend that they comptete against each other whereas they may use the same infrastructure.
This artile contains some well-known EIG brands, but it’s not the full list as the author mentioned.
So, I’ve made a research and put together as full as possible list of brands and companies that belong to EIG – http://researchasahobby.com/full-list-eig-hosting-companies-brands/.
Hope, this information will be a good addition to linux-depot article.
Thanks for your addition Michael. I’ve added a note below the list saying that EIG has purchased other brand names not listed that have either merged with other EIG companies or dissolved.
Thank you Michael – Been with Bluehost for over 8-years and as of late their outgoing mail servers are horrible forcing me to switch. Your information will save me from merely moving a problem to another location
I have several websites hosted by Arvixe and they have been up and down for the past 2 months. I just found out about the change in ownership but that seems to be when things really got bad for all of my websites. I am trying to move them all but need to escalate the moves. I have had many problems with Arvixe over recent years but this summer it is totally unacceptable. Their service is terriblel!!!
Well that confirms it. I had no knowledge that they had been purchased by EIG. I have instructed that any site hosted by either Arvixe or their new owners is to be moved. They are bunch of amateur’s operating in a professional world. In the UK it would be classed as theft taking money without supplying the service. “GOODBYE ARVIXE”
I was a Arvixe client starting June 2010 and I closed my VPS hosting account Nov 6, 2015 after migrating all of my client accounts to another provider. They were a great provider until Sept 2015 when support dried up and web sites went down. EIG… are the worst…bean counters. I felt like I was hung up and left out to dry in the wind.
I lost about 20 hours of my time trying to get Arvixe support, EIG does not care what it costs their clients in time and reputation.
It was hard to find a replacement host, I checked out 4 non EIG companies and finally landed on ethernetservers.com. They are based in the UK but have servers in Miami, Florida and Los Angeles, California. Prices are very competitive and the support is hands on fast.
For now, look for small agile hosting companies, ones EIG would not be interested in yet.
Another EIG outage is going on. This time it is ASO.
See the frustration in the Twitter. https://twitter.com/search?q=asmallorange&src=tyah
It’s been more than 3 days since the sites went down.
Thank you for an excellent review, research and insight in this industry. With your help I will choose the smaller independant hosting companies
Thank you sir for this excellent article.
It was really helpful. For me choosing my web host.
Host Gator and Bluehost are now down. 12/9/16
EIG / bizland’ formemail has been down for over 4 weeks now. Multiple service tickets have not generated even one response. I have heard they’re not paying their bills and they might be going out of business. It’s time to leave the sinking ship; I’m pulling all my accounts from there!
No wonder Endurance are plummeting in the Stock Market – lots of bad decisions, outdated products and aggressive buyout strategy. Yet they do hold a strong position in the hosting space, and imo wil continue in the same path.
All of the above comments are right on. I’ve been a player since 2002. Kept my business spread around to avoid such problems. But they began buying up everything. And I found myself if their web of doom. EIG also understand the leverage of such acquisitions. It’s actually very smart on their part. But its horrible for the consumer. The ONLY way to deal with such a company is through profits. We must do our homework before moving our businesses. Maker sure that EIG is not in play, and evaluate the likely of EIG taking it over in the future. And have a backup plan just in case they do. We need to stay way from anything it touches. Unfortunately, this may mean paying a little more. Also, public scrutiny is important. If they began seeing bad press online through our blogs and websites, it will get their attention. Many of us control multiple websites. We have a considerable amount of power. We should not be afraid to make our concerns known.
EIG / iPower and iPower web
Having Hosted Exchange email problems for 3 weeks now. Over a hundred of our own clients are without email at this time. Getting same run around. Basically, they have a 3rd party that they are hosting with. This was never disclosed.
Add Verio. They screwed them up too. A 1 1/2 year transition period, DNS that didn’t work, migrations that didn’t work, shutting down nameservers without telling anyone, locking customers out of domain name management for 6 months, transferring domain data manually and misspelling domain names, losing domain names, and hold times of up to 5 hours–if they answered at all. And they’re still doing it. For resellers, if you want to move all domain names at once, the cost is prohibitive, so we’re stuck jumping through hoops and talking to canned responses. ICANN needs to seriously take some action and give DNR control back to companies that can handle them properly. What is it going to take?