Looking for a reliable, trustworthy, UK based hosting company? Maybe you want a hosting company that is more than just a provider, but a partner to your business; A partner that gets to know your agency, workflow, and business goals (and helps you to achieve them!)
If so, then you should consider Nimbus Hosting for your hosting provider. Nimbus Hosting built a cloud platform for, but not exclusive to, agencies and freelancers. Nimbus Hosting specialises in fast website builds and rapid websites. And their incredibly user-friendly interface is something that anyone, regardless of development experience, will find easy to navigate.
We especially love their WordPress dashboard, which lets you manage all of your WordPress website(s) on one editing page. And another cool feature, for the environmentally conscious, is that Nimbus Hosting’s servers are powered by 100% renewable energy.
Although we’re a WordPress agency affiliated with Nimbus Hosting, we promise to give you a completely honest review. We’ll give you an unbiased rundown of the main features of Nimbus Hosting, so you can decide for yourself.
Simple User-Interface
One of the main advantages of using Nimbus Hosting as your hosting provider is its user-friendly interface. Nimbus Hosting makes it super easy to manage your websites, with 96% of their customers finding it easy to navigate around their platform. Some of the ways it achieves this:
Multi-Server Dashboard
As an agency, you will probably have multiple websites that you manage on a daily basis.
You might be already using multiple servers for your websites. Or, if not, you may want to consider doing this. Spreading your websites over multiple servers is best practice, as it can reduce single points of failure.
This means that, if you have a problem with your server, it isn’t going to affect every website. You’ll lose fewer leads and conversions for your websites (and, if you’re an agency, this means fewer unhappy clients!)
But, this can be time-consuming to set up. It can also be hard to keep track of your servers: the names of your servers, which websites they run, and their performance.
However, Nimbus Hosting manages to make all this ridiculously simple. The multi-server dashboard allows you to organise and manage your servers all on one page, and with one login.
This multi-server dashboard lets you access loads of data. From the basic data such as nickname/ IP address to the more intricate data such as disk usage and processor usage, here is a rundown of all the server information that you can see in the dashboard:
- The name of your server (Nimbus Hosting allows you to add a ‘nickname’ so that it is easier to organise your servers)
- Hostname
- Sever IP address(‘s)
- Payment package
- Any add-ons you have in your package
- Average processor usage
- Memory usage
- Disk usage
- The website(s) using that server
Next, in the side menu, under the dashboard, are many more settings that you can access.
In Configuration, you can update your server ‘nickname’ and turn on / off automatic OS security updates, and more.
In Metrics, you can visually see processor, disk and memory activity over 1 hour / 24 hours / 2 weeks. We think this table is a really great feature, as it allows you to monitor performance during specific times. The usual numeral metrics can also be overwhelming and hard to read, but this gives you an easy and clear way to view them.
We won’t go through every settings feature, but here are a few other great ones:
- Under Reboot Services, you can instantly reboot your server, or schedule a server reboot.
- Under Security, there are good built-in security features, where you can add admin IP addresses, block nuisance IP addresses, add two-factor authorisation for access to the server, add more.
- In WordPress, you can access all the WordPress settings (which we’ll go into more detail about later).
- In Users, you can add server access to other users. You can create teams access where you can share your server and/or website with colleagues, developers and partners. This makes website collaboration super easy to set up.
- In Power Boost you can request a Nimbus PowerBoost, which increases the memory and processing power of your server for 7 days. This is a great option for peak periods of high traffic.
WordPress Dashboard
Nimbus Hosting has a dedicated WordPress websites dashboard, where you can update and manage certain WordPress features in a few clicks. You can even create new websites in this dashboard by using recipes made up of ‘ingredients’ (themes and plugins). But first, an overview of the WordPress dashboard:
First of all, you have the option of refreshing the data of your websites (on that particular server). You can then view all of the WordPress websites on that specific server. So you’re not going to get confused about which WordPress site is on which server.
You can also view the core version of WordPress for each website, and, if they’re on an old version, you can even update them there and then. For agencies or freelancers with multiple logins, this is going to save you loads of time. Forget logging into each WordPress backend for each individual website; In a few clicks, you can update all of your websites, all in one go.
You can then view the themes and plugins for each website, by clicking on the drop-down menu and selecting the website. Below that you can view your recipes (which are made out of these themes and plugins).
As well as viewing the themes and plugins you have installed, you can also deactivate and activate them. All of these WordPress features are great features, that most hosting companies don’t offer.
Fast WordPress Website Builds
As we previously mentioned, you can create entirely new websites from Nimbus Hosting alone. If you’re an agency or freelancer with multiple websites to build and maintain, this is going to save you a lot of time. You can:
- Choose a domain name
- Create a username and password.
- Build a website from recipes.
- Base a website off of another by using recipes.
- Copy a website entirely in 1 click. Simply go to the website you want to copy, and click the Copy Website button.
All these features mean that you can save a lot of time for yourself / your developer in setting up a new WordPress website. Although you will need to go on WordPress to make further tweaks, and you may still want to hire a developer to maintain your website for you, this makes the basic setup ridiculously simple. It turns a 30-minute task into a 1-minute task. You can even copy an entire website with just 1 click.
And, if you’re still feeling overwhelmed, or you’re not sure where to get started, Nimbus Hosting has two standard recipes with all the essentials for you to base your website on (WordPress & WooCommerce and Agency Essentials). You also have full flexibility in creating further recipes, with any themes and plugins of your choosing.
We think the fact that you can easily create a new website from your hosting platform is a really cool feature. You can skip all the boring setting up of a website, and get onto the fun (and important stuff!) – designing, creating content, SEO, managing your business, etc.
Security/SSL
SSL is another important feature to have for your website. Not only does it mean your website is secure and less likely to have faults, but it also builds trust for your website. If website visitors arrive on a site that doesn’t have SSL, then they are more likely to bounce (leave your website on the first page) from your website, which will lose you leads and conversions.
Although we’ve already touched on the great in-built security features that Nimbus Hosting offers, we haven’t yet told you about one of the best features.
Nimbus Hosting automatically applies free Let’s Encrypt SSLs to all websites created on their platform. Or, if you have moved your website to Nimbus Hosting from another platform, you can use a simple toggle button to activate their free SSL.
Rapid Websites / NimCache
As well as the option of a Power Boost, Nimbus Hosting also has NimCache: An exclusive full-page caching tool that makes website loading lightning fast. It works by saving snapshots of your pages so that your server doesn’t have to re-load them every time you get a new website visitor. This is a really great trick – resulting in faster loading speeds, heightened performance, and a greater website experience for your customers. And, even better, you can have NimCache activated on all of your WordPress websites – 24/7!
More Great Features
Nimbus Hosting offers even more great and intuitive features. Some of these include:
In the Websites menu, in Statistics, you can view more statistics tables. You can visually see each website’s visitor statistics:
- Visitor & Request Volume
- Top Visitors Today per Hour
- Top Visitors/ Requests (by IP addresses)
- Top Requested URLs of the day
- Top Browsers of the day used to access your website
Again, just like with the server metrics, it’s great to be able to visually see these statistics, rather than read them in numbers. It gives you a clear impression of how your website is performing, without having to get too technical.
In Backups, you can completely back up your website multiple times. By adding these restore points, you add further security to your website. So if you have a problem with your website, you can simply go to this section of Nimbus Hosting, and restore to a previous backup.
In Scheduled Tasks, you can add scheduled tasks/cron jobs, which is a great added feature for staying organised. You can schedule all the repetitive, boring jobs to be completed automatically at specific times, saving you time (and, essentially, money).
In Deployment Options are some great third-party integrations for uploading your website to your server. You can use GitHub Wizard, BitBucket Wizard, and Git URL.
And, finally, the last feature we’ll mention (although there are many more) is Cloudflare configuration. Being able to integrate your website to Cloudflare gives you even more heightened security and even better performance power to your WordPress websites.
100% Renewable Energy
If you’re looking for an environmentally friendly hosting company then Nimbus Hosting is the perfect choice. Nimbus hosting runs its servers 100% renewable energy. So, if sustainability is something you care about (which I think most of us do!) then you can rest in knowing that your agency is doing its part.
Their article 10 ways to make your agency more eco-friendly has some further great tips on how you can make your agency greener.
Support
Support is possibly the most important aspect of a hosting company. It’s essential that you are able to get hold of your hosting company with any issues that you may have.
Nimbus Hosting provides exceptional support. On Google, they rate 4.9/5 out of, at the time of writing this article, 191 reviews. This includes 190 5-star reviews.
The support system works similarly to our support system. You submit a support ticket, and Nimbus Hosting gets back to you as soon as they can. And they have some pretty impressive quick response time statistics:
- 97% of support tickets answered within an hour.
- 90% of support tickets resolved in 4 hours
- 8.5/10 Platform NPS (Net Promoter Score)
Nimbus Hosting is also UK based, meaning you’ll be able to get answers to your questions during your working hours. The staff are experts in their field and will be able to answer any queries you may have.
Price
Nimbus Hosting is very reasonably priced. It’s great value for the number of websites you can store on your servers, and all of the added features that you get. They have 3 main plans:
- Helium is a great starting point, for managing a handful of sites: £30 / per month / billed annually.
- Neon is the best value, and most popular for WordPress agencies and freelancers: £50 / per month / billed annually.
- Oxygen is the best for large agencies with multiple complex websites: £100 / per month / billed annually.
There is also an option of creating an even larger custom plan, by getting in touch with Nimbus Hosting directly.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Nimbus Hosting is a great hosting company, offering a vast amount of features. It has everything you could possibly need, and more, for your business.
Nimbus Hosting specify that they built their platform with agencies and freelancers in mind, and we know exactly what they mean. Their user-friendly user interface has everything you need to keep organised and on top of your work. And with 96% of their customers finding it easy to navigate around their platform, a short learning curve is pretty much guaranteed.
Being able to access all of your servers on one page, and the websites they serve, with their Multi Server Dashboard, is perfect for freelancers and agencies with multiple websites to maintain. You’re not going to lose track of your servers and websites with Nimbus Hosting. The names of your servers, which websites they run, and their performance are all intuitively laid out for you.
We also love the option to quickly build new WordPress websites by using ‘recipes’ made up of themes and plugins (or by simply clicking the ‘copy website’ button on any website dashboard!) This faster building is a great feature that turns a 30-minute task into a 1-minute task. You can even update all of the core versions of WordPress for every website, all on one page. As an agency, this is going to cut down your workload exponentially.
They’re essentially experts at saving you time and energy, whilst also providing 5-star support, expert technical and security features, and powerful website performance (such as with their exclusive full-page caching tool NimCache).
And the fact that they include free Let’s Encrypt SSLs (available on all websites) is just the icing on the cake.
Are you sold? Well, I think we are!
And if you click here you can get 50% off your first two months through our unique Square Internet referral link.
