What Happened to Lunarpages? Status and Where to Move in 2026
Short answer: Lunarpages no longer runs as its own web host. HostPapa, a Canadian hosting company, bought the brand from Add2Net, Inc. in September 2019 and took over its customers. As of October 2026, lunarpages.com and the old Lunarpages account login both redirect to the HostPapa homepage. If you still have a site on a former Lunarpages account, it is a HostPapa account now. If you are happy with the price and support, you can stay. If your renewal bill went up or you want a different host, back up your site and move to Hostinger, FastComet or a managed cloud host such as Cloudways.
By late 2020, lunarpages.com was already selling HostPapa plans under the Lunarpages name. Below we separate what was Lunarpages from what is HostPapa today, and we walk through a real backup and restore on a test site so you can move your WordPress site yourself.
Lunarpages Quick Facts
Status details were checked against HostPapa’s own pages, the live redirect, and Wayback Machine snapshots in October 2026.
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1997, as part of Add2Net, Inc. (according to HostPapa’s acquisition announcement) |
| Last independent base | Orange, California (per the 2019 site footer) |
| Acquired by | HostPapa, Inc., announced September 11, 2019 |
| Current owner | HostPapa, Inc. (Burlington, Ontario, Canada) |
| Where lunarpages.com goes now | A permanent (301) redirect to the HostPapa homepage, as of October 2026 |
| Old account login | account.lunarpages.com also redirects to the HostPapa homepage |
| Old customer accounts | Moved to HostPapa and managed from the HostPapa dashboard |
| Our recommended alternatives | Hostinger, FastComet, or a managed cloud host like Cloudways |
Is Lunarpages Still in Business?
No, not under its own name. The Lunarpages brand was retired after the HostPapa sale. Today, typing lunarpages.com into a browser lands you on the HostPapa homepage. The page does not mention Lunarpages at all, which can confuse former customers trying to log in or pay a bill.
Where lunarpages.com takes you today: the HostPapa homepage, captured in October 2026.
The redirect covers every address we checked, including inner pages and the old customer login at account.lunarpages.com.
A Short History of Lunarpages
Lunarpages was a US host that sold cheap cPanel shared hosting, reseller plans, cloud VPS and dedicated servers, mostly to small businesses.
An archived snapshot of the Lunarpages homepage from August 3, 2019, shortly before the sale (Wayback Machine).
Key dates, from primary sources:
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1997 | Lunarpages is founded as part of the Add2Net, Inc. portfolio, according to HostPapa’s announcement |
| August 2019 | lunarpages.com still sells its own Personal, Business, Developer reseller, Cloud VPS and dedicated plans, with a page title boasting “20 Years of Awesome Web Hosting” |
| September 11, 2019 | HostPapa announces it has acquired Lunarpages from Add2Net, along with PacificHost, TheVine.net, Santa Barbara Web Hosting and eSolutions.net |
| By October 1, 2019 | The lunarpages.com homepage is retitled “Lunarpages is now HostPapa” and starts selling HostPapa plans, with an FAQ for existing customers |
| Between September 29 and October 5, 2020 | lunarpages.com stops showing its own page and starts redirecting to hostpapa.com |
| October 2026 | All Lunarpages addresses we checked still redirect to the HostPapa homepage |
The 2019 and 2020 dates come from Wayback Machine captures, so the real change may be a few days either side.
In its announcement, HostPapa said it would prioritize upgrading the acquired customers’ infrastructure and support. HostPapa itself was founded in 2006, says more than 500,000 website owners use it, and announced another purchase, Hostwinds, in April 2026.
What Happened to Lunarpages Customer Accounts
An archived snapshot of lunarpages.com from September 29, 2020, during the transition. The page had separate buttons for new customers and existing Lunarpages customers (Wayback Machine).
Here is what HostPapa told customers at the time, based on its blog post about the deal and the FAQ it ran on lunarpages.com during the transition:
- Accounts moved to HostPapa. HostPapa’s blog said former Lunarpages customers would get upgraded infrastructure “once migrated to HostPapa,” and could manage their sites through cPanel at no extra charge.
- Websites were meant to keep working. The FAQ said sites, SSL certificates and email would keep running normally, and that files and content would stay accessible.
- Email mostly stayed the same. Customers who connected their mail apps using a server IP address were told to switch to their domain name instead.
- Sites stayed in the US. The FAQ said websites would remain hosted in the United States, on upgraded servers.
- Support moved to HostPapa. Support from then on came from HostPapa’s team (it calls them the PapaSquad) by phone, chat and email.
What we could not find: a public date for when each account was moved, or a published list of how old Lunarpages plans mapped to HostPapa plans. HostPapa does keep a help page called “HostPapa service renewal prices (LP),” last updated March 24, 2026. It lists older plan names such as Basic Hosting, Windows Hosting, Business Premium and Managed Shared Hosting, several of which match plans Lunarpages sold. For example, it shows the Basic Hosting Plan renewing at $195.81 for one year. HostPapa does not say on that page what “LP” stands for, so treat the link to Lunarpages as likely rather than confirmed. Your own renewal price is in your HostPapa dashboard.
Some former customers have said in public forums that their prices rose after the move. We could not verify individual cases, so check your next renewal amount before it charges.
How to log in to an old Lunarpages account
The old login page no longer works. Go to HostPapa’s site and use Sign In at the top right, or the HostPapa dashboard login. Use the email address on your old Lunarpages account. If you cannot get in, HostPapa support can look up the account.
What Lunarpages Offered (Historical)
For anyone researching the old service, here is what the two versions of lunarpages.com sold. These prices are historical and no longer available.
Lunarpages before the sale (August 2019 snapshot): Personal hosting from $3.95/month, Business hosting from $22.95/month, Developer reseller hosting from $19.95/month, Scalable Cloud VPS from $44.95/month and dedicated servers from $99/month, all with cPanel.
HostPapa plans on lunarpages.com (September 2020 snapshot):
| Plan (2020) | Intro price | Regular price | Main limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $3.95/month | $8.99/month | 2 websites, 100 GB SSD |
| Business | $3.95/month | $13.99/month | Unlimited websites and SSD storage |
| Business Pro | $12.95/month | $21.99/month | Adds performance and security extras, including automated backups |
All three included cPanel, a free domain, free SSL, Cloudflare CDN and a 30-day money-back guarantee: HostPapa’s features under the Lunarpages logo.
HostPapa Today, in Brief
If you have a former Lunarpages account, this is the host you are on now. We have not reviewed HostPapa hands-on, so the figures below come from HostPapa’s own pricing and renewal pages, as of October 2026.
| HostPapa Web Hosting plan | Intro price (3-year term) | Renews at (3-year term) | Renews at (monthly) | Websites |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $2.95/month | $8.99/month | $12.99/month | 1 (25 GB NVMe) |
| Growth | $5.95/month | $13.99/month | $17.99/month | 5 (100 GB NVMe) |
| Premium | $6.95/month | $19.99/month | $24.99/month | Unlimited (200 GB NVMe) |
| Elite | $9.95/month | $27.99/month | $30.99/month | Unlimited (unmetered NVMe) |
HostPapa says all plans come with cPanel, a free SSL certificate, Imunify360 malware scanning, staging, free website migration and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Automated backups are included free for the first year only, on every Web Hosting plan. The money-back guarantee applies to the first 30 days after signup, so a long-standing former Lunarpages account will not qualify for a refund on its next renewal.
How to Move Your WordPress Site Off Lunarpages (HostPapa)
You do not have to move. But if you decide to, this is the order that avoids downtime. We ran the backup and restore steps for real on a test install: a small WordPress 7.1.2 site with 9 posts, 6 pages and 6 images, using the free UpdraftPlus plugin, version 1.26.8 (WordPress.org lists 4+ million active installs as of October 2026). To act as the “new host,” we wiped the test site’s database, installed a fresh copy of WordPress, and restored the backup onto it.
Step 1: Check what you have
Log in to your HostPapa dashboard and write down three things: your renewal date, where your domain is registered, and whether you use HostPapa for email. A domain bought through Lunarpages is likely now registered with HostPapa. You can leave it there and just point it at the new host, or transfer it later.
Email matters because a WordPress backup does not include your mailboxes. If your email runs on the old account, plan its move separately, or switch to a separate email service first.
Step 2: Back up the site with UpdraftPlus
Install UpdraftPlus from Plugins > Add New and open Settings > UpdraftPlus Backups. On our test install, a six-step setup wizard opened first: backup schedule, remote storage, a newsletter sign-up, three recommended plugins (All-In-One Security, Burst Statistics and WP-Optimize), a Premium upgrade pitch, and a done screen. You can skip every step, and the newsletter box was unticked by default. Skipping through it took about 15 seconds.
The UpdraftPlus “Take a new backup” dialog on a test install, UpdraftPlus 1.26.8, October 2026. Database and files are both ticked by default.
Click Backup Now. In the dialog, keep both “Include your database” and “Include your files” ticked and click Backup Now again. Our test backup finished in about 5 seconds and produced five files: the database (195 KB), plugins (7.4 MB), themes (12.8 MB), uploads (912 KB) and “others” (346 KB). A real site with years of images will be much bigger and slower.
A finished backup in UpdraftPlus 1.26.8 on a test install, October 2026. Each button downloads one part of the backup.
Click each of the five buttons under Existing backups and download every file to your computer. By default the free version stores backups on the same server as your site, which does not help if you are leaving that server. In Settings you can send backups to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, FTP and a few other places for free. OneDrive, Backblaze, SFTP and some others need Premium.
Expect some upsells. Our test install showed a “Secure your backups” Premium banner at the top of the page, and the Migrate / Clone tab says direct site-to-site migration is a Premium feature. You do not need that for this move, because you upload the files yourself.
If you’d rather move a site with a single file, our All-in-One WP Migration walkthrough shows how. That route is also simpler if you are changing your domain name at the same time. For a deeper look at backup tools, see our WordPress backup plugin roundup and our hands-on UpdraftPlus review.
Step 3: Pick a new host and install WordPress
Sign up with the new host (see the alternatives below). Many hosts offer free migration; if yours does, you can let them do steps 4 and 5. Otherwise, install a fresh copy of WordPress, using the host’s temporary address so you can work before switching DNS.
Step 4: Restore the backup on the new host
On the new WordPress install, install UpdraftPlus again, open its settings page, and click Upload backup files under Existing backups. Drop in all five files.
Uploading the five backup files to a fresh WordPress install with UpdraftPlus 1.26.8, October 2026. The backup set appears in the list as soon as the upload completes.
On our test machine, the upload took about 3 seconds because everything ran locally. Over a real internet connection it will take longer.
Click Restore next to the backup, tick all five components (Plugins, Themes, Uploads, Others, Database) and click Next. UpdraftPlus checks the files, then asks you to click Restore once more.
The end of a restore on a test install, UpdraftPlus 1.26.8, October 2026. The activity log on the right lists each part as it is unpacked.
Our restore finished in about 3 seconds and reported “Restore successful!” Afterward, the fresh install had the old site’s title, all 9 posts, 6 pages and 6 images back. One thing to know: the database restore also brings back the old site’s user accounts, so you log in with your old WordPress username and password from then on.
We restored onto the same web address, which is what happens when you keep your domain and switch DNS. If you move to a different domain, UpdraftPlus’s own Migrate tab points you to Premium, so use All-in-One WP Migration instead.
Step 5: Switch DNS
When the site looks right on the temporary address, point your domain at the new host. Either change the nameservers at your domain registrar to the ones your new host gives you, or update the A record to the new server’s IP address. The change can take a few hours to reach everyone, and sometimes up to two days. Leave the old account running during that time.
Step 6: Test everything
Once your domain loads from the new host, check pages, images, forms, any checkout, and the WordPress login. Make sure the site loads over https, and send a test email to and from your domain.
Step 7: Cancel the old account
Cancel only after the site and email have run from the new host for a few days, and before your renewal date. Download one last backup first.
Where to Move: 3 Alternatives
Pick based on what you need. Our full reviews have the details and current prices. Browse all our hosting reviews for more options.
- Hostinger: a low year-one price for small WordPress sites, an easy dashboard and LiteSpeed servers. The headline price needs a long prepay, and it renews much higher.
- FastComet: cPanel shared hosting, so the control panel will feel familiar if you are used to Lunarpages or HostPapa. Note that it also changed owners, joining World Host Group in 2025.
- Cloudways: managed cloud hosting priced by the month and charged by the hour, with no long prepay. A good fit for business sites that have outgrown shared hosting. Our Cloudways review explains how it works and what it costs, and our Cloudways vs SiteGround comparison compares it with a shared host.
Staying with HostPapa is also a fair choice if your site runs well and the renewal price suits you. Moving takes an afternoon; there is no reason to move a site that is working just because the logo changed.
FAQ
Is Lunarpages still in business?
Not as a separate company. HostPapa bought the Lunarpages brand and its customers in September 2019, and lunarpages.com has redirected to HostPapa since around October 2020. As of October 2026, there is no standalone Lunarpages hosting service.
Who owns Lunarpages now?
HostPapa, Inc., a hosting company based in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. It announced the purchase from Add2Net, Inc. on September 11, 2019, along with PacificHost, TheVine.net, Santa Barbara Web Hosting and eSolutions.net.
What happened to my Lunarpages account?
It became a HostPapa account. HostPapa said former Lunarpages customers would be migrated to its infrastructure, with websites, files and email continuing to work. Log in through the HostPapa dashboard, not the old Lunarpages login, which now redirects to the HostPapa homepage.
Is HostPapa the same as Lunarpages?
No. They were separate companies until HostPapa bought Lunarpages. The plans sold on lunarpages.com from late 2019 onward were HostPapa plans, and your account, servers, billing and support are now HostPapa’s.
What is the best alternative to Lunarpages?
For a small WordPress site on a budget, Hostinger is a strong pick with a low first-term price. If you want cPanel like Lunarpages had, look at FastComet. For a busy business site, a managed cloud host like Cloudways is worth the higher monthly price.