Unit 12A, Barrowside Business Park
Sleaty Road, Graiguecullen, Carlow
Ireland
1.213.233.1612
One of Ireland's leading hosting companies, Blacknight Internet Solutions is an Irish-owned business offering Windows and Linux shared hosting, Hosted Exchange, Hosted SharePoint, cloud hosting, dedicated servers, colocation and mobile-friendly hosting. Blacknight owns and operates an environmentally-friendly data center, and is ICANN accredited.
Review
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Sales
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Blacknight answers sales questions by telephone, live chat and ticket system. Live chat support was hit or miss. Much of the time, live chat picked up within seconds, easily answering my many questions. However, there were a handful of occasions where live chat calls simply disconnect when an operator could not be reached. Trouble tickets to the sales team took an hour to be addressed, and answers were thorough, helpful and polite.
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Setup
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I ordered a shared hosting package from Blacknight. I received an invoice immediately after payment was made, and my account was ready to use a few moments later. Blacknight links new clients to on-site and YouTube tutorials, a huge plus for those new to hosting or those wanting quick answers. Smooth!
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Billing
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Blacknight accepts Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, checks and electronic transfers. I was never billed improperly, and had no issues in canceling my account.
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Pricing
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Blacknight’s smallest shared hosting plan, Minimus, includes 10 gigabytes of space, 200 gigabytes of bandwidth, enough room for 30 domains, and runs $6.38/month. Blacknight is generous with the hosting specs and offers competitive pricing. On the downside, some shared hosting plans that are paid for monthly come with a setup fee of $6.38. Conversely, paying for shared hosting yearly waives the setup fee and includes two free months of hosting service.
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Reliability
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A drive needed to be replaced on my hosting server during my fifth month with them. A maintenance announcement was made well in advance of the planned downtime, and the replacement took place quickly and painlessly. Kudos to the tech support team for properly communicating server status and service issues!
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Help & Support
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Blacknight does customer support by telephone, live chat and an online trouble ticket system. Blacknight is customer-focused, often answering telephone calls in less than 10 minutes. Live chat calls are also quick and helpful. The one downside here is that support is only available Monday-Friday from 8am-7pm and weekends from 12pm-4pm.
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Uptime
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My uptime monitor indicated that Blacknight has maintained a 100% uptime rating over the last seven months.
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Guarantee
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30 day money back guarantee.
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Terms of Service
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Hate sites will be terminated.
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Clients responsible for making website/server backups.
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IRC Bots not allowed.
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Spam prohibited.
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Bottom Line
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Advantages
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Excellent communication of status/service calls.
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Good on-site and YouTube tutorials.
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Reliable network.
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Competitive prices.
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Customer-focused company.
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Environmentally-friendly data center.
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Disadvantages
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Support only available during limited hours.
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Setup fees on some month-to-month shared hosting plans ($6.38)
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No uptime guarantee with shared hosting.
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