Candid Host Review 2022: Are They Good Web Host for India?
Not Recommended!
Bad!
Visit Hostinger Hosting, Officially recommended by Wordpress and Forrst.me
Let’s start this comprehensive Candid Host review a bit candidly: There’s no way Candid Host makes the top-pile of our recommended web hosts for India. Most web hosting providers look good on the surface yet fail our tests; Candid Host doesn’t even try that — in that sense, it sure is candid.
If you read our other reviews — like this Hostinger one — and then look at Candid Host’s packages, you will find it’s an overpriced web host with really no USP. In case you don’t want to do that, no worries, this review will essentially cover that.
Let’s start!
Candid Host Overview
Here’s everything about Candid Host in brief:
Our ratings | D | 2/5 |
Average response time | ~ 255 ms |
Avg. response times in top-targeted countries | US: ~ 240 ms | India: ~ 50 ms |
Uptime | 99.90% |
Support | Tickets/Email |
Site transfer | DIY |
Introductory Pricing | Starts at INR 100/month |
Top features | One-click installers, free email accounts, 99.9% uptime guarantee |
Company Information
Candid Host is a Delhi-based domain registration and web hosting service provider. It was started by a team of two, i.e., the two original founders, and has grown to over 68 employees since. Correspondingly, the customer base went from a few to 2000+ and servers from one to fifteen.
That’s not a significant user growth, in our opinion. It’s negligible if we compare it with lean companies like Hostinger or Bluehost with millions of customers. Anyway, a lot of it depends on the marketing and branding of the company. In general, though, if the service provided is top-notch, the company grows with word of mouth, and Candid clearly hasn’t; meaning, the service/product isn’t that great, as you will see further.
1 Thing Good about Candid Host
1. Server response time in India
Server response time (or SRT) is the total time it takes for the web browser to receive a response from the server. Google recommends keeping it under 200 ms.
To keep SRT at the minimum, the server (from which the user is receiving the data — so, if you’re using a CDN, it’s the nearest node of the network) should be at the minimum distance. E.g., If the server is in India and someone from India tries to contact it, it most likely will respond in under 200 ms.
Candid Host has an edge in this department. Because it’s based in India, sites hosted on Cand Host’s server respond super-quick. Our tests show an SRT of nearly 50 ms, which is excellent. However, the global average SRT wasn’t that good.
Overall, Candid Host is recommendable for its SRT, if nothing else.
3 Things Bad about CandidHost
1. Performance Issues
As they have mentioned on the About page, Candid Host owns 15 servers and has more than 2000 users. These users can be resellers or multiple site owners. Simple math says the servers are overcrowded...and it reflects in their performance!
We focus on two primary performance metrics: loading time and uptime.
Loading time is the total time it takes to load an entire web page. We do our tests on a simple WordPress page and give a green signal to any host loading under one second. When we tested the Candid Host hosted, it was about 1.1 seconds. Not that bad, honestly; however, a host like Hostinger can be 2x faster.
Uptime is the time that a website or web service is available to users in a given period. Any shared hosting provider with over 99.95% uptime is an instant yes from us. So, how do we feel about Candid in this aspect? Well, our test shows approx. 99.90% uptime, which is not under their 99.9% uptime guarantee but neither above our recommended uptime.
Overall, Candid Host isn’t good performance-wise.
2. Slow customer support
Most hosting providers offer at least one 24/7/365 live-problem-solving support option. E.g., 24/7 live chat or phone call. Candid Host doesn’t.
It has a decent knowledge base for basic questions, but for specific questions, you essentially have only one option: support tickets/emails. And as you might expect, the replies on this medium aren’t instant.
3. Almost no value-added features
As we stated in the beginning, Candid Host doesn’t even look good on the surface. It’s primarily because of the features you get. With the starter plan, you receive:
- 1 GB disk space
- 5 GB bandwidth
- And 5 email accounts
- One-click installer for Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, and PrestaShop.
That’s it. Generally, even value web hosts like Hostinger offer value-added features like free SSL certificates, free CDN, free backups, etc.
Plus, though it’s not bad what Candid Host gives, Hostinger-like hosts give more storage & bandwidth for the price. As for Candid Host, even the most expensive of their Linux shared option only allows up to 25 GB data transfer & 5 GB storage.
In short, Candid Host ends up becoming an overpriced web host with nothing special to offer.
Candid Host Plans & Features
Because it’s still a small company, Candid Host doesn’t sell VPS, Dedicated servers, or such costly hosting types. You can only get shared, reseller, or cloud plans from them.
1. Shared hosting
For small to medium sites, shared hosting is the most cost-effective solution. Candid Host has these shared plans to offer:
Linux Hosting
Name | Price (per month) | Storage (GB) | Bandwidth | Additional features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Starter | INR 100 | 1 | 5 GB | 5 email accounts |
Economy | INR 150 | 2 | 10 GB | 15 email accounts |
Business | INR 200 | 3 | 20 GB | 20 email accounts |
Corporate | INR 350 | 5 | 25 GB | 25 email accounts |
Windows Hosting
These plans come with a Plesk control panel and support for .Net & MS SQL.
Name | Price (per month) | No. of sites | Storage (GB) | Bandwidth | Additional features |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Starter | INR 300 | 1 | 1 | 5 GB | 20 email accounts |
Economy | INR 400 | 1 | 5 | 50 GB | 50 email accounts |
Business | INR 700 | 3 | 10 | 100 GB | 50 email accounts |
2. Reseller Hosting
For resellers planning to sell hosting services or handle multiple clients on the same host, these are your options:
Linux Reseller
Name | Price (per month) | No. of sites | Storage (GB) | Bandwidth | Additional features |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Saver | INR 1500 | 10 | 5 | 200 GB | 300 email accounts |
Mega | INR 2000 | 50 | 10 | 500 GB | 1000 email accounts |
Dynamite | INR 3500 | 100 | 20 | 1000 GB | 4000 email accounts |
Windows Reseller
Name | Price (per month) | No. of sites | Storage (GB) | Bandwidth | Additional features |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Saver | INR 2000 | 50 | 5 | 500 GB | 300 email accounts |
Mega | INR 2800 | 100 | 10 | 500 GB | 500 email accounts |
Dynamite | INR 5000 | 200 | 200 | 4000 GB | 1000 email accounts |
3. Cloud Hosting
The best performance packages by Candid Host[1] are these cloud plans with free SSL certificates & unlimited email accounts:
Name | Price (per month) | No. of sites | Storage (GB) | Bandwidth | Additional features |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Personal | INR 400 | 2 GB | 2 cores | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Business | INR 500 | 4 GB | 4 cores | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Professional | INR 700 | 6 GB | 6 cores | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Conclusion | Do we recommend Candid Host?
NOPE!
Candid Host is an overpriced web hosting provider with no real USP. Its performance is mediocre, it offers almost-zero value-added features, the customer support is slow, and all of it costs more than many other web hosts.
The best alternative, in our opinion, is Hostinger. It costs 30% less, performs top-tier, has a solid support team, and gives many value-added features. Hostinger’s a steal-deal compared to Candid Host, period.
starts at ₹79 per month
Starts From
₹79*
monthly
• Best uptime (99.99%)
• Fast, 0.4ms load time as average
• Good & quick customer support