BigRock Review 2023: Complete breakdown of its services

bigrock logo

Not Recommended!

Average

  • Bad customer reviews
  • Comparatively less value for money
  • Below-par customer support
  • 99.89% uptime | Below-average uptime

Visit Hostinger Hosting, Officially recommended by Wordpress and Forsst.me.

BigRock is among the most popular domain name registrars in India, second only to GoDaddy. And just like GoDaddy, it also offers web hosting solutions.


But is BigRock’s hosting game better than the super-mediocre GoDaddy hosting? If better, how better ⁠— is it worthy of joining our favorite web hosting list? That’s what we aim to reveal with this comprehensive review.


We’ll answer how fast sites hosted on BigRock load, how responsive & knowledgeable their customer support is, what kind of features they offer, and most importantly, is it the ultimate value for money web hosting in India? Let’s dive in!


If you are in a hurry, here’s our verdict: BigRock is undoubtedly better than GoDaddy, but Hostinger remains the king of affordable web hosts.

BigRock Overview

Here’s everything about BigRock in brief:

Our ratings

B+ | 3.5/5

Average response time

~180 ms

Avg. response times in top-targeted countries

US: ~ 250 ms | India: 33 ms

Uptime

99.89%

Support

Phone, chat, and email

Site transfer

DIY

Introductory Pricing

Starts at INR 139/mo

Top features

Free SSL,30-day money-back guarantee, free emails, Free domain

Company Information

BigRock is an ICANN accredited web solutions provider and a sister company to some other big names like Bluehost, HostGator, and iPage. By it, we mean, BigRock is also owned by Endurance International Group.


It currently powers over 6 million domains on the Internet. And the primary reason behind this success, apart from mega marketing campaigns, is its low-cost offerings ⁠— a priority for most beginners and small businesses in India. Does “low-cost” bring the results, though? Well, let’s find out.

bigrock overview

4 Things Good about BigRock

1. Servers in India

Server Response Time (or SRT) is the total time taken between when a web browser sends a request and the server responds to that request. In general, the nearer the server, the better the server response time.

  

We’ve tested many web hosts suitable for people looking to serve the Indian demographic. Most hosting options have servers in the US or far from India, i.e., comparatively worse SRT. And the simple fact that BigRock[1] has data center(s) in India enters it in a rare category of top hosting providers.

Things Good about BigRock

In our test using Bitcatcha, a server response time measuring tool, we found that sites hosted on the Indian BigRock server responded in a mere 33 ms when tested from Bangalore. This is especially extraordinary when you know that Google recommends keeping SRT < 200 ms.


In short, we love the fact that BigRock[1] has servers in India.

2. Three starting-up freebies

It’s apparent that BigRock’s primary target is beginners and small businesses who would rather not spend on expensive web hosts. So, they have built their package such that it’d attract the primary audience. How? They include these three beginner-friendly features:

  • Free domain: You can register a .COM domain for free. T&C: It’s free for the first year if you choose a hosting plan for 6 months or above.
  • Free emails: You can create professional email addresses (like name@domainname.com) for free. Such emails are used to maintain a professional impression, increase credibility, and clear the purpose of the email address.
  • Free SSL certificate: BigRock has partnered with Let’s Encrypt to include free SSL with its Linux shared hosting users. This means you get all the trust, security & privacy, and SEO benefits that come with HTTPS.

In short, BigRock takes care of beginners’ needs.

3. Pretty decent performance

BigRock’s performance isn’t the best ⁠— in fact, comparatively affordable options like Hostinger perform better. However, it isn’t worse either.


In our experiment, BigRock’s uptime measured 99.89%, which is 0.01% less than their guaranteed 99.9%. It’s mediocre at best and pretty bad if compared to Hostinger’s 99.99%.


We also ran loading time tests, and BigRock hosted sample page loaded in ~780 ms, which is excellent considering the recommended limit is 1 second. However, compared to Hostinger’s 500-ish ms loading time, it’s ordinary. 


Overall, the only reason why this section is in the “Plus” segment is that there are way worse web hosts in the market. Plus, the SRT of BigRock is extraordinary.

Long story short, these freebies make iPage’s offering an outstanding value for money.

4. Softaculous with 300+ apps

You can install your favorite CMS like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc., in one click using the Softaculous from the BigRock cPanel. Plus, you have access to the SitePad website builder if you want to create a static website. 


Moreover, you can install other 300 scripts, including but not limited to ones meant to create blogs, micro-blogs, forums, wikis, galleries, e-commerce, etc.

2 Things that can be improved

1. Mediocre customer support

In our opinion, customer support is as essential as any other factor like loading speed or uptime. Sure, the latter mentioned elements must be at peak all the time, but the customer support should also be at best if & when needed.

BigRock offers 24/7 support tickets to resolve all customer queries. Plus, you can live chat or call their support agents between 9 am and 8 pm.

For our experiment, we tried their support tickets and the live chat option. They took more time to respond than many other alternatives. Also, the replies weren’t satisfactory as per our standards.

Overall, BigRock’s customer support is very mediocre. It definitely can be improved ⁠— they most likely need to add more professionals to the team.

2. Below average customer reviews

Besides what we think & find from our experiments, we also like to check what their previous and current customers feel about the web host’s services. We scroll through reviews on sites like Trustpilot & MouthShut for this.

Things that can be improved for bigrock

When we did the same for BigRock, we found that many BigRock customers were unhappy with BigRock.


Overall, the ratio of satisfied to dissatisfied customers was about 50:50. Of course, people with bad experiences are more likely to rate the services, but when we see providers like Hostinger regularly average 4.5+/5, BigRock’s 2s & 3s/5 become a concern worth sharing.

BigRock Plans and Features

BigRock is big; big enough to run TV commercials in India. So, it doesn’t come as a surprise that BigRock has all the types of hosting plans to offer- shared, VPS, dedicated, reseller, WordPress, and Cloud. 


Let us simply list out what you get with which plan and at what cost.

1. Shared Hosting

These plans include a free SSL certificate, free email addresses, and free domain registration for the first year.


Linux shared

Name

Price (per month)

No. of sites

Storage (GB)

Bandwidth

Starter

INR 139

1

20

100

Advanced

INR 199

1

Unmetered

Unmetered

Pro

INR 389

Unlimited

Unmetered

Unmetered

Cloud Hosting

INR 579

Unlimited

Unmetered

Unmetered

WordPress Shared

Name

Price (per month)

No. of sites

Storage (GB)

Bandwidth

Essential

INR 99

1

20

100

Premium

INR 399

1

Unmetered

Unmetered

Business

INR 549

5

Unmetered

Unmetered

Pro

INR 699

10

Unmetered

Unmetered

2. Optimized WordPress

For WordPress users, BigRock offers optimized basic plans and advanced plans.


WordPress Basic

Name

Price (per month)

CPU

RAM

Storage (SSD)

Starter Lite

INR 199

2 core

2 GB

5 GB

Performance Lite

INR 299

4 core

4 GB

20 GB

Business Lite

INR 399

6 core

6 GB

40 GB

Professional Lite

INR 499

6 core

6 GB

40 GB

WordPress Suite

These plans include two extra features, Sitelock & Codeguard, for security & backups. Otherwise, they are the same as the basic ones with pricing & server density difference, of course. 

Name

Price (per month)

CPU

RAM

Storage (SSD)

Starter

INR 599

2 core

2 GB

5 GB

Performance

INR 899

4 core

4 GB

20 GB

Business

INR 1,199

6 core

6 GB

40 GB

Professional

INR 2,199

6 core

6 GB

40 GB

Remember, you can’t upgrade your plan once you buy it, so choose for the future.

3. VPS hosting

With these plans, you get divided ⁠— not shared ⁠— server resources and root access to do whatever you like. Moreover, if your site needs more storage than mentioned, you can add more for INR 15/GB.month.

Name

Price (per month)

CPU

RAM

Storage (SSD)

Bandwidth

Starter

INR 829

2 core

2 GB

20 GB

1 TB

Enhanced 

INR 1,729

2 core

4 GB

40 GB

1 TB

Premium 

INR 2,899

3 core

6 GB

80 GB

2 TB

Ultimate 

INR 3,799

4 core

8 GB

120 GB

2 TB

4. Dedicated Servers

For rock-solid performance for high-traffic sites and web apps, these dedicated server plans are ideal:

Name

Price (per month)

CPU

RAM

Storage (SSD)

Bandwidth

Mach-1

INR 6,999

Intel E3-1220LV2, 2.30 GHz Dual Core w/HT

4 GB

1000 GB

5 TB

Mach-2

INR 8,199

Intel E3-1265LV2

2.50 GHz, Quad Core w/HT

4 GB

1000 GB

5 TB

Mach-3

INR 2,899

Intel E3-1265LV2.

2.50 GHz Quad Core w/HT

8 GB

1000 GB

10 TB

Conclusion | Do we recommend BigRock?

Most probably not

BigRock is a decent web hosting provider. However, we found that its only USP is having operations in India. Apart from that, Hostinger ⁠— our favorite cheap web hosting ⁠— is way better:

  • Hostinger’s base plan costs INR 79/month compared to BigRock’s INR 139/month. It costs more than double, but we don’t see any significant offering apart from the free domain registration.
  • BigRock’s performance & customer support ⁠— the two priority elements of any web hosting ⁠— were mediocre. Comparatively, Hostinger excels at both aspects.
  • Finally, Hostinger’s overall market reputation is excellent vs. BigRock’s terrible reviews.

Long story short, BigRock is decent if your primary audience is India-based, but Hostinger is simply a better value for money.

  • Uptime 99.99%
  • Average response time - 180 ms
  • Free Site transfer
  • 24/7 live chat

starts at ₹79 per month

Hostinger small logo

Starts From
₹79*
monthly

• Best uptime (99.99%)

• Fast, 0.4ms load time as average

• Good & quick customer support