MDDHosting is a small hosting company you probably haven’t heard of. They focus on service and support and not as much on the marketing/sales.
I came to know of them through forums (ReviewHell) at a time when I was looking to switch hosting providers.
I’ve been dabbling with web design for over 12 years and I have jumped around with various hosting providers.
Bluehost
Used their hosting for 2+ years and their service was decent but the website was generally slow to load. The price gouge after the 1st year was horrendous.
1&1
I have never used a hosting service that required 1/2 hour to create a mySQL db. Hopefully, they have improved since then.
HostGator
Came as a recommendation from WP Beginner. They served me well, but the performance wasn’t there and even after upgrading to a higher-tier package, it didn’t make a difference.
GoDaddy
While they are one of the largest hosting providers, quality of service can be hit or miss.
A2 Hosting
They were fairly good, but I had an incident which made me rethink the service with them. My site was hacked, and when I inquired, they simply dismissed it and put the blame on me (didn’t upgrade themes or plugins) without any investigation.
Keep in mind my experience with the following services are more than 7+ years old and may not be reflective of their current service.
After jumping through so many hosting services, MDDHosting was the last stop. And having used their service for over 7 years, I couldn’t be happier!
‘Meat & Potatoes’ of Hosting
When it comes to hosting, there are two key factors that matter to me:
Performance
I want to create content for my site, not worry about the slow loading times or overall performance of my site.
Customer Service
If I did have any issues or questions, I wanted to be able to reach support quickly and have it resolved.
MDDHosting focuses on exactly this!
On July 2015, I signed up for their very basic package Cloud package for $4.60 and $7.50 afterwards for every month. While they do offer yearly packages, I opted for a monthly package since I didn’t want any commitments.
Well, I ended up paying monthly for nearly 6 years and only started a yearly commitment after switching to their premium tier – Plaid package.
Response Time
According to their website, these are the expected response times for email support tickets.
26 Minutes – Average Technical Support response time
The response time changes from week to week based on their performance. This information is available on their website.
While they do offer phone and chat support, I did not use those options. All my communication was through email. Now, let’s see how it fairs against the actual response times of my support tickets.
Evaluating The Support Team
For this post, I wanted to do a similar review to the one I did for GeneratePress support team review.
Once again, let’s take an objective approach and try to evaluate the performance.
In the past 7+ years of using the hosting service, I have submitted 48 support tickets. I can evaluate how well the support team performed based on actual data.
Objectives
I will be evaluating the support team based on the following:
Response Time
How long does it take to provide a response?
Number of Exchanges
How many exchanges did it take to solve the problem?
Rules
1. Support Team’s Response Times
Only reviewing the support team’s response times. The time I took to respond back to them will not be considered.
2. Final Message Not Considered
MDDHosting Support Team (almost) always leaves the final message to close out the ticket, which doesn’t require a response. Those response times are not considered since it doesn’t address the actual issue.
3. Multiple Responses
On a few occasions, I provided multiple responses to a single support ticket. The response time was measured from my last message.
Definitions
1. Fastest Response Time
Measuring the fastest response time for a support ticket. Measured in hours and minutes (h:mm).
2. Slowest Response Time
Measuring the slowest response time for a support ticket. Multiple exchanges need to take place to evaluate the slowest time. Measured in hours and minutes (h:mm).
3. Average Response Time
Measuring the average response time for a support ticket. Multiple exchanges need to take place to evaluate the average time. Measured in hours and minutes (h:mm).
4. Number of Exchanges
Number of exchanges that took place to solve the issue. A single exchange includes a question from me and a response back from the support team. For example, 3 exchanges would mean 3 questions from me and 3 responses back from the support team.
Analyzing Data
The following data was collected from the support form. It includes the fastest, slowest, and average response times, along with the number of exchanges required to solve the issue.
| Support Ticket Title | Fastest Response Time (h:mm) | Slowest Response Time (h:mm) | Average Response Time (h:mm) | Number of Exchanges to Solve Issue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creating a folder within root directory | 0:01 | 0:02 | 0:01 | 3 |
| Pointing subdomain | 0:02 | 0:06 | 0:03 | 5 |
| personal domain.com | 0:01 | 0:04 | 0:02 | 2 |
| I sold my primary site | 0:05 | – | – | 1 |
| Primary domain name | 0:01 | 1:01 | 0:21 | 3 |
| Issues receiving emails | 0:02 | – | – | 1 |
| Confirm domain switch over | 0:02 | 0:03 | 0:02 | 2 |
| Site won’t load | 0:01 | – | – | 1 |
| Can’t login | 0:01 | – | – | 1 |
| Automate Payment | 0:03 | – | – | 1 |
| Block login attempts | 0:07 | – | – | 1 |
| Site not loading | 0:02 | – | – | 1 |
| Restoring website | 0:01 | – | – | 1 |
| Was my site hacked? | 0:05 | – | – | 1 |
| Auto SSL | 0:06 | 0:08 | 0:07 | 2 |
| 403 Error | 0:02 | 0:02 | 0:02 | 2 |
| Invalid SSL certificate | 0:01 | 0:35 | 0:18 | 2 |
| Unable to addon domain properly | 0:04 | – | – | 1 |
| Site offline | 0:13 | – | – | 1 |
| CRITICAL ERROR – Failed to group domains | 0:12 | – | – | 1 |
| Changes to htaccess file | 0:04 | – | – | 1 |
| LiteSpeed Plugin Installed? | 0:06 | – | – | 1 |
| Redirecting URL | 0:02 | 0:04 | 0:03 | 2 |
| Automatic Payment | 0:04 | – | – | 1 |
| php My Admin – Unable to see DB | 0:39 | – | – | 1 |
| Your connection is not private | 0:08 | 0:56 | 0:32 | 2 |
| Change contact details | 0:02 | – | – | 1 |
| Subdomain configuration | 0:01 | 0:01 | 0:01 | 2 |
| Hosting Resources Exceeded | 0:03 | 0:10 | 0:06 | 2 |
| SSL Certificate | 0:02 | – | – | 1 |
| Unable to loginto WordPress site – 403 Error | 0:04 | 0:09 | 0:07 | 3 |
| New verification pop-up | 0:30 | – | – | 1 |
| Issues with Site Migration | 1:05 | – | – | 1 |
| Can’t log into my website | 0:04 | 1:22 | 0:43 | 2 |
| Service Package Comparison | 0:01 | 0:13 | 0:03 | 6 |
| Change Maximum File Upload | 0:05 | – | – | 1 |
| Redirect issue | 0:48 | – | – | 1 |
| Unable to make payment | 0:02 | 0:20 | 0:06 | 5 |
| Is the server down? | 0:01 | – | – | 1 |
| Restore from Backup | 0:52 | – | – | 1 |
| Connection Issue After htaccess change | 0:02 | 8:51 | 2:06 | 6 |
| htaccess File Was Modified | 3:20 | – | – | 1 |
| Upgrading Service | 0:08 | 0:11 | 0:09 | 2 |
| Upgrading to Turbo | 0:01 | 0:22 | 0:04 | 9 |
| Contact form not sending | 0:01 | 0:03 | 0:02 | 2 |
| Overall Website Design of MDD | 0:01 | 0:02 | 0:01 | 3 |
| Transfer Domains to Plaid | 0:03 | – | – | 1 |
| Cancel Package + Change Name | 0:01 | 0:02 | 0:01 | 2 |
1
Minute
Overall Fastest Response Time
13
Minutes
Overall Average Response Time
8:51
Hours : Minutes
Overall Slowest Response Time
2.0
Exchanges
Overall Average Exchanges to Solve Issue
Conclusion
MDD’s posted response time was around 26 minutes, but the actual overall average time is around 13 minutes. While the slowest response time (8 hours and 51 minutes) seems to be an outlier compared to all the other response times.
This site is currently hosted with MDD and their quick response time and fast hosting exceeded all of my expectations.
The fact their service only got better over the last 7 years is a testament to their commitment to focusing on the ‘meat of potatoes’ of hosting.
Simple & Straight Forward Hosting
MDD doesn’t offer all the bells and whistles of other hosting companies – e.g. free domains, free CDN, unlimited bandwidth, etc. They do however focus on providing exceptional hosting experience.
If you are looking for a new hosting company, give it a shot as they have a 30-day money-back guarantee. Best of all, you don’t need to make yearly commitments.
