This guide explains the best types of web hosting for
different situations. Use these reviews to find the best web host without
breaking.
Go with the wrong web host and you’ll end up paying for more
than bad service. You have to get this right because a reputable web host keeps
your site online and helps you avoid unnecessary downtime.
Highly
rated and thoroughly tested, these 10 web hosting services offer the power,
features, and reliability you need to build attractive and dependable websites
for business or personal use.
Web
hosting isn't an option for business owners and digital creators; it’s a requirement.
People turn to the internet when searching for products or services, so your
business must have a reliable and easily accessible website for potential
clients to find. It's invaluable to have even a basic webpage that lists your
business location, contact information, and hours of operation, and it gives
your venture the air of legitimacy it needs in this cyber-connected world.
Gone
are the days when businesses were listed in yellow pages. In contemporary
times, your pretty much business doesn’t exist if it can't be found in a search
engine. Businesses need a sharable website to build an online presence. Without
one, your business lacks discoverability, which greatly hinders your earning
potential. Granted, web hosting isn’t exclusively a business investment; if
you’re aiming to host a personal site, blog, or project, hosting services are
also highly valuable. Regardless of your website target, the services listed
here have you covered.
Top 10 Best Web Hosting Providers: -
The best web host for the majority of our readers is Hostinger because it includes everything your website needs at a
great price.
. Hostinger - Best
overall
. HostGator - Best for simple websites
. GreenGeeks - Best eco-friendly hosting
. GoDaddy - for Economy Plan
. Bluehost - for Shared Hosting
. Nexcess - for ecommerce hosting
. WPEngine - Best managed WordPress hosting
. A2 Hosting -Fast & reliable shared hosting
. SiteGround - Best WordPress-certified host for speed and security
1. Hostinger - Best Overall
The most popular option is the Premium Shared Hosting plan which costs $2.99 per month. This lets you create up to 100 websites and host 25,000 visitors. You’ll also get a free domain for one year and a free let’s Encrypt SSL certificate to secure your website.
The Premium Shared Hosting plan provides 100 GB SSD storage, which is enough for various website content. Should you need more space, upgrade to one of their VPS or cloud hosting plans.
This European web host is ideal for needs
Although,
unlike Blue host, Hostinger doesn't offer dedicated hosting plans, which is
perhaps an issue for business users who need the fastest possible speeds. But
its cloud hosting plans give you dedicated system resources, which the company
claims can deliver 4x times’ great speeds. Also, SSH access, CDN and daily
backups are only available as an addon in pricier packages.
LiteSpeed
Cache for WordPress (LSCWP) is automatically installed when you set up
WordPress. Its server-level cache and other optimization features help you
accelerate the website for a better user experience.
2. HostGator - Best for simple websites
. HostGator does offer Windows hosting in addition to Linux, as well as a variety of options to upgrade, including cloud hosting, VPS hosting, managed WordPress, and a dedicated server.
HostGator offers an
extensive list of how-to guides for technical support. If you don’t find the
answers you need, you can turn to phone, live chat, and email support.
Overall, this is a
great web host for simple deployment and uses like a company website that
doesn’t necessarily see a ton of traffic each month. However, with VPS options,
it’ll allow you to scale if you need.
+ Terrific value
+ High-end
features in even the cheapest plans
+ Free automated
Word Press migration
+ 100% uptime
during testing
+ Payment
accepted via card, Google Pay, PayPal, Ali pay and crypto currency
More demanding users can choose from three VPS and three dedicated hosting plans, and if you’re the ambitious type, you could even start your own hosting business via HostGator's reseller plans.
3. GreenGeeks - Best eco-friendly hosting
GreenGeeks is an eco-friendly
alternative to other web hosting providers.
·
WordPress Hosting
·
WooCommerce Hosting
·
Reseller Web Hosting
·
Virtual Private Servers
· Shared Hosting
What’s that mean? It means the company uses renewable energy to power its web hosting services. So you can feel good about creating your website while showing your support for environmental sustainability.
+ 300% energy offset scheme
+ Powerful shared hosting
+ Low starting prices
GreenGeeks' VPS and dedicated server plans are available for high traffic sites. These look a little more expensive than most providers, but that's largely because they don't have any '70% off for the first year'-type introductory offer. But they're well specified - even the baseline $39.95 a month 2GB plan includes 10TB of monthly traffic - and deliver far better performance than the shared offerings. Similar to GoDaddy, we also experienced delayed responses when testing GreenGeeks.
This doesn't
just involve designing its platform to be as energy-efficient as possible;
GreenGeeks also promises that for every amperage it uses, it invests three
times that in renewable energy, helping to reduce future carbon emissions.
Founded in California back in 2008, proudly claims to be the ‘world's #1 green energy web hosting provider and this isn't just marketing speak: the company takes real action to back it up.
4. GoDaddy - for Economy Plan
US-based GoDaddy(opens in new tab) is a web hosting giant with an absolutely huge range of products. There's shared, VPS and dedicated hosting; WordPress support covering everything from simple personal blogs to full-featured WooCommerce-powered web stores; an easy-to-use website builder, email and Microsoft 365 hosting, digital marketing tools, domain registration, payment processing, point-of-sale systems, and the list goes on (and on, and on.)
We found GoDaddy delivers a high quality service for
your money, too. The well-designed web dashboard is easy to use; an automated
installer sets up WordPress and 150+ other top web apps in a click or two; and
the industry-standard cPanel has every tool you'll need to manage your web
space.
+ Huge range of products
+ Linux and Windows hosting
+ Multilingual support
GoDaddy has a decent range of four shared hosting plans. All
include a choice of data centers in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific;
daily backups, and unusual extras such as free Microsoft 365 mailboxes for the
first year. But they look a little underpowered in other areas: the lower two
plans have no free SSL
5. Domain.com - for Basic Plan
Domain.Com may be best known as a domain
registrar, but it also offers surprisingly capable shared hosting, and one or
two more powerful services than you might expect.
Its easy-to-use website builder is ideal for web design newbies, in our opinion. Drag and drop pre-built sections and page layouts to construct your site, and add a blog, contact form, social media sharing tools and more. Every site gets free SSL for the lifetime of the account.
+ Responsive and expert support
+ Fast and reliable servers
+ Service level agreement guarantees uptime,
support response times for some products
Even if you only sign up for a one-off month, getting professional advice on your initial website design could be a huge plus.
Every business needs a website, from the smallest local shops in your hometown to the largest conglomerates on the Forbes lists. Having a website provides plenty of benefits, beyond simply reaching a broader audience. A website can provide:
Credibility Without
a website, potential customers may question your authenticity or legitimacy.
Having a website with a 'contact us' page and testimonials will make a great
impression with your audience and builds credibility.
Branding is much more than just the name of
your business. Everything, from the colors you use, your logo, or even the
feelings associated with your business is your branding. Ensure you are
representing your brand with a proper website. With the right design, you'll be
starting off on the right foot with any prospective customer. Whether you are
setting yourself apart from the competition or simply establishing yourself,
you are limiting yourself without a website.
Organic Traffic Once your website is
complete and you are online you can start to show up in Google's search
results, also called organic or natural search results. With the right
optimizations, organic keywords can bring you thousands of visitors- all for
free. Since organic positions aren't on the market to purchase, this gives
smaller shops and businesses an opportunity to compete with larger competitors.
6. BlueHost - for Shared Hosting
A massive portion of the internet is powered by WordPress (more than 40 percent!), so there's a good chance that you may go that route, too. Fortunately, Bluehost excels at WordPress hosting, offering plans that let you build nearly any website you wish. Plus, Bluehost has custom tools that make building a WordPress site.
Bluehost strikes a balance
between pricing and features, offering services that appeal to hobbyists and
business professionals. Great uptime, WordPress-enhancing tools, e-commerce
add-ons, and overall flexibility make Bluehost a web host you can count on for
a rock-solid website. Its website builder delivers drag-and-drop simplicity as
well, making it all the more appealing.
+ Feature-rich plans
+ Expert live chat support
+ Low prices in year one
BlueHost is a top quality choice when it comes to web hosting providers
because of its vast range of feature-packed plans, easy setup, reliable network
and great live chat support to help keep your site running smoothly.
BlueHost is a top quality choice when it comes to web hosting providers because of its vast range of feature-packed plans, easy setup, reliable network and great live chat support to help keep your site running smoothly.
Bluehost's starter WordPress plans are priced the same, but with important feature tweaks. WordPress comes preinstalled, so you can start right away. We used the Bluehost Marketplace to find gorgeous themes, feature-packed plugins and more. We were able to manage multiple WordPress sites from an easy-to-use web dashboard, although the expert live chat support agents were not the fastest to respond, we got the help we needed once they were active. Another downside to note is that Bluehost has no monthly billing options and you can only commit to a minimum of one year for its hosting plans.
Founded in 1996, Bluehost has built a HUGE trust base
among bloggers and it is now powering over 2 million sites worldwide. In 2010,
Bluehost became part of the EIG (Endurance International Group) brand family,
but it continues to operate under its own name.
7. Nexcess - for ecommerce hosting
Nexcess is a Level 1 PCI compliant hosting provider and assists with monitoring. Your store is up and running 24/7 for fast, uninterrupted sales. Traffic surges are worry-free with our optimized servers and auto scaling. In-house engineers are available 24/7/365 to support your site.
So it’s no real shock that Nexcess makes my list of
best web hosts. Where it really shines is managed ecommerce hosting. This is
ideal for people who need a speedy site, but don’t want to be the one
configuring the backend.
Nexcess really specializes in these managed hosting
arrangements, and offers a great selection of ecommerce platforms to build on:
· Magento
Need more speed? Not a problem. The Nexcess Cloud
Accelerator—a feature that adds a layer to the cloud stack–increases the speed
of your website’s loading time. That’s a huge boon because speed is everything
when it comes to keeping your customers on your website and browsing.
Pricing starts at $15.83 per month with an annual contract for WordPress. There are many more plans and rates available for each type of hosting, it just depends on the resources you need.
This makes Nexcess perfect for any growing business
looking to scale. No matter where you are with your business, there’s likely a
plan for you with Nexcess.
On top of that, it has a dedicated support team available 24/7 to help you address any technical issues as they occur.
If you’re running an ecommerce website or if you have a startup that you know will grow quickly, Nexcess should definitely be in consideration.
8. WPEngine – Best managed WordPress hosting
WPEngine is one of the best (if not the best) WordPress hosts out there.
They provide a truly excellent product, that’s
highly optimized for WordPress websites. If you want all the storage and speed
you can get for your WP blog or online store, this is the host for you.
It does come at a price though. A fully managed
WordPress host is noticeably more expensive than shared hosting provider Customer support is also
laser-focused on WordPress, which makes for highly competent knowledgeable
support staff available through tracked tickets and on live chat 24/7.
As a managed WordPress host, WP Engine only provides service to WordPress users, which means its entire infrastructure can be optimized for WordPress. Your site will be wicked fast, there’s virtually no downtime, and lots of maintenance tasks get taken care of automatically.
Think of a managed WordPress host
as a dedicated technical assistant that powers your website. This includes
threat detection and blocking, daily backups, regular WordPress updates,
caching to boost page speeds, and more. WP Engine additionally equips you with
premium tools to design, build, and launch your website
Our infrastructure, tooling, and entire business is built for WordPress. Run your site with the peace of mind that it's completely secure and backed by free SSL, managed WordPress and plugin updates, and platform-level protection. Our security solutions block 71M+ attacks each day.
Maintain the website of your
dreams all from a simple-to-use custom management portal—it’s never been
easier.
WP Engine has high-quality; managed hosting that offers excellent uptime, WordPress-oriented security, cloud platform flexibility, daily backups, and other terrific features. It has a few minor downsides, as well;
WPEngine is one of the best managed WordPress hosting
services out there for website owners wanting to take a hands-off approach to
website management. With excellent uptime, a high-performance hosting
environment, real-time threat detection, and numerous premium hosting features,
WP Engine is the best WordPress hosting service for managed hosting.
9. A2 Hosting - Fast & reliable shared hosting
A2 Hosting stands out for its great speed and low prices. It’s what the
company is known for.
With
their Turbo Boost and Turbo Max plans, you’ll get access to their Turbo
Servers. They boast that it’s 20x faster than their other servers and includes:
·
40% faster AMD EPYC CPU
performance
A2 Hosting
also has a 99.9% uptime commitment on all plans so you know you’ll have a
reliable host that won’t be down often.
One trick to save money with A2 Hosting: the promotional prices end on renewal. To lock in the 63% discount for as long as possible, go for the tri-annual billing which will bill for three years at once. You’ll get 2 years of hosting for free.
They offer free site migration with each plan too. If you’ve set your site up on a bad host and want to migrate, this is a fantastic deal. It’ll save you dozens of hours trying to get your site rebuilt. The A2 Hosting team takes care of it for you.
Like many of the other web hosts, there are 1-click installs for all the popular CMS tools like WordPress, Magento, and Drupal.
You've likely come across a
socially conscious host. You've probably found a reliable host. You
might have even found a high-performance host with superb around
the clock support. At A2 Hosting, you've found a host that prides themselves on
all of these features. Not only are we focused on excellent customer
service and amazing products, but we also do our part to protect our
environment! Through the green initiatives listed below, A2 Hosting is
committed to doing the work to be a more green and sustainable company in order to
protect our environment for future generations!
Recycling Older Servers Instead
of tossing our older equipment into a landfill, we re-use it! Our retired
hardware is used as internal servers, dedicated servers for clients with lower
resource requirements, or is resold to the public after being wiped of its
information, of course.
Solid State Disk Drives (SSD)
and NVMe SSDs and NVMe use less energy than traditional HDDs. A2 Hosting was
one of the first providers to offer SSD Hosting! We’re proud to be one of the
leaders in offering more energy efficient options for our customers.
Just like WordPress, our servers are designed for ease-of-use
and performance. At A2 Hosting, WordPress comes pre-installed on your
hosting account. That means you don't have to worry about downloading
WordPress, uploading it to your server and configuring it.
10. SiteGround - Best WordPress-certified host for speed and security
SiteGround is built to deliver top-class speed and
rock-solid security for WordPress hosting. Currently it’s running a huge
promotion. You can get 80% off all annual hosting plans and a free website transfer.
It makes a good deal even better.
Of course, you’re not on the hook for any of this–you just have to sign up for SiteGround and launch your WordPress site–they’ll take care of the heavy lifting on the backend.
Keep in mind that each plan will renew at a higher rate after one year. SiteGround also gives you options at checkout to pay for a 24-month or 36-month term instead– and gives nice discounts on renewals longer than one year. Two-year renewals get a 20% discount on the base renewal rate and three-year renewals get 30% off.
So, in terms of long-term value, you’re still
getting the best deal by capitalizing on their great intro rate for one year up
front.
This combination of speed and security can work for most sites. But as one of WordPress’ recommended web hosts, SiteGround is particularly skilled at delivering this performance for WordPress sites and includes an extra layer of security just for those sites.
Plus, all SiteGround plans—not just the WordPress hosting options—include one-click WordPress installation, the WP Starter site builder, and auto-updates for both the WordPress platform and its plugins.
A good WordPress hosting provider can help you here, as smart hosts will make your life much easier. And you are probably wondering
But, of course, you should not use SiteGround as your host just because a bunch of large companies (or us) endorse it.
So
let me tell you what to expect from SiteGround when you host a WordPress site
with them, and when to use it.