We’ve gone the extra mile here by purchasing and personally testing various hosting setups to bring you a list of the very best web hosting services available. Our hands-on approach focuses on measuring load times and uptimes to ensure these services can truly deliver a hassle-free website experience.
This guide is your ticket to finding the perfect web hosting service for your next website project. We’ll cover everything from what to look for in a host, how much you should expect to spend, to which provider best aligns with your needs based on our direct testing results. Let’s explore these top web hosting options that promise reliability and ease of use, making website maintenance the least of your worries.
🦜 If you’re in a hurry, check out this summary table for a bird’s eye view of each host and its parameters:
| Host | Uptime | Standout | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bluehost | $2.75 | ✅ | 99.98% | 0.97s (US) • 1.3s (EU) | Best overall pick ⭐ |
| SiteGround | $2.99 | ❌ | 99.97% | 1.26s (US) • 0.44s (EU) | Best for new WordPress sites 🚀 |
| WP Engine | $20.00 | ❌ | 100% | 0.69s (US) • 1.65s (EU) | Best managed WordPress host 🎛️ |
| DreamHost | $2.59 | ✅ | 99.78% | 1.87s (US) • 1.8s (EU) | |
| Kinsta | $30.00 | ❌ | 100% | 0.85s (US) • 1.25s (EU) | |
| Rocket.net | $25.00 | ❌ | 100% | 0.79s (US) • 0.37s (EU) | |
| Namecheap | $1.58 | ✅ | 99.99% | 0.65s (US) • 1.54s (EU) | Cheapest host on the list 💸 |
| InMotion | $2.29 | ❌ | 100% | 1.08s (US) • 1.32s (EU) | |
| Flywheel | $13.00 | ❌ | 100% | 1.36s (US) • 0.3s (EU) | Best cheap managed WordPress host 💸 |
| Cloudways | $11.00 | ❌ | 100% | 1.22s (US) • 0.34s (EU) | Best cloud hosting ☁️ |
| Hostinger | $2.69 | ✅ | 100% | 1.51s (US) • 0.43s (EU) | |
| A2 Hosting | $2.99 | ❌ | 99.98% | 0.93s (US) • 1.18s (EU) | |
| IONOS | $1.00 | ✅ | 100% | 0.5s (US) • 0.8s (EU) | |
| HostGator | $3.75 | ✅ | 99.95% | 0.67s (US) • 1.84s (EU) | |
| GreenGeeks | $2.95 | ✅ | 100% | 1.68s (US) • 0.62s (EU) |
Best OVERALL Hosting:
Bluehost offers a great mix of affordable pricing and top-notch features, making it a hit with both beginners and experts alike. With its excellent uptime, handy WordPress-boosting tools, useful ecommerce extras, and lots of flexibility, Bluehost stands as a reliable choice for making your website shine. All that starting at $2.75 per month.
CHEAPEST Web Hosting:
True to its name, Namecheap offers one of the most budget-friendly web hosting services out there. Right now, you can get your site up and running for just $1.58 per month (for the initial year). This bargain price doesn’t just cover one website – it allows for hosting up to three websites. As an added bonus, they even throw in a domain name for free.
Best MANAGED WordPress Hosting:
In terms of features, WP Engine really packs a punch for your WordPress site. Beyond standard hosting features, it comes with 30+ complimentary StudioPress themes, different environment setups (dev/stage/prod), advanced caching solutions, and a user-friendly dashboard for quick site adjustments. WP Engine may be pricier, starting at $20.00 per month, but its robust offerings justify the cost.
Best CLOUD Hosting:
Cloudways presents a distinct proposition in the world of web hosting. Rather than leasing server space directly, Cloudways serves as your portal to top-tier cloud hosts boasting high capabilities. Essentially, when you opt for Cloudways, you’re granted a choice of cloud hosting configurations provided by noteworthy providers like DigitalOcean (our preferred choice), Linode, Vultr, Amazon AWS, and Google Cloud. Great choice starting from the price of $11.00 per month.
Our testing method for web hosting involves setting up a standard website on each service, filling it with example data, and then conducting a series of tests to evaluate performance. We buy those hosting setups with our own money. The tests include measuring load times from different global locations and monitoring uptime/downtime over a set period. We also assess each web host based on price and the features offered.
Learn more about: 👉 how to pick a web hosting service that matches your needs, 👉 FAQs about web hosting.
Best web hosting services compared (updated monthly)
After searching the market wide and deep, we’ve decided to feature the following companies. While there are many more web hosting companies out there, these 15 have proven to provide good user experience, performance, and they work well with WordPress and other website software.
1. Bluehost
- From: $2.75 / month
- Traffic allowed: unmetered
- Disk Space: 50 GB
- Free Domain: ✅
- Uptime: 99.98% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 0.97s
- Load time EU: 1.3s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 2.25s
- Best for: our best overall pick ⭐
Bluehost stands tall as one of the leading web hosting companies on the market, known for tailoring their services to accommodate different users with different websites and goals.
If you’re just starting out and a bit strapped for cash, Bluehost has got your back. You can grab a basic hosting setup starting from $2.75 / month. This plan will be more than enough to handle most websites with moderate traffic.
Now, for the heavy hitters with lots of traffic or tech-savvy users, Bluehost steps up its game with VPS hosting, WooCommerce hosting and dedicated servers. The overall scalability of Bluehost’s services means you can always upgrade to a more extensive plan whenever required.
One more thing, if you’re new to this or have plans to build a WordPress site, Bluehost makes it super easy. They have tools that make WordPress installs a breeze (with one click) and a user panel that’s equally easy to navigate. There’s also a very interesting web builder tool available, which makes it possible for everyone to craft a nice-looking website on their own. No web server geek-speak needed.
⚡ Pro tip. If you get a web hosting plan from Bluehost and pay for at least one year upfront, you’ll get a free domain name for the first year included.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 99.98% |
| East Coast USA: 1.08s | West Coast USA: 0.96s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 0.88s ⭐ | London, UK: 1.35s |
| Paris, France: 1.24s | Mumbai, India: 2.25s |
2. SiteGround
- From: $2.99 / month
- Traffic allowed: 10,000 visits/month
- Disk Space: 10 GB
- Free Domain: ❌
- Uptime: 99.97% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 1.26s
- Load time EU: 0.44s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 1.9s
SiteGround has made a name for itself as a quality WordPress hosting platform, but it’s grown to offer other types of web hosting as well.
These days, SiteGround allows you to host a site built on Weebly (popular builder), Joomla, Drupal, and other popular CMS platforms. SiteGround is also perfectly capable of hosting your eCommerce store.
Oh, and about that WordPress hosting thing, SiteGround is still one of the top companies you can choose for that. In fact, it’s one of the few web hosting companies openly endorsed by the WordPress.org crew.
Feature-wise, SiteGround delivers everything you might expect from a quality host. There’s an easy-to-use panel, you can take advantage of a handful of one-click website software installers (including for WordPress), and SiteGround will offer you good support and more than capable servers.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 99.97% |
| East Coast USA: 0.95s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 1.47s |
| Central USA: 1.35s | London, UK: 0.40s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.48s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.90s |
3. WP Engine
- From: $20.00 / month
- Traffic allowed: 25,000 visits/month
- Disk Space: 10 GB
- Free Domain: ❌
- Uptime: 100% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 0.69s
- Load time EU: 1.65s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 2.08s
- Best for: best managed WordPress host 🎛️
WP Engine is the first for-WordPress-only web hosting service on our list. It is also one of the more expensive solutions out there, starting at $20.00 / month.
Feature-wise, however, WP Engine offers you pretty much everything you might need for your WordPress site to thrive. Except for just the hosting-related features, there are also additional perks such as 30+ free StudioPress themes, dev/stage/prod environments, advanced caching solutions, and a user dashboard that lets you get to every setting of your site quickly.
That said, this is more of a solution for the savvy user who wants to get the most out of their WordPress site. If you’re just a beginner with a new WordPress site, or you’re not planning on using WordPress at all, you’re going to choose a different company.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 100% |
| East Coast USA: 0.99s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 0.46s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 0.62s ⭐ | London, UK: 1.36s |
| Paris, France: 1.93s | Mumbai, India: 2.08s |
4. DreamHost
- From: $2.59 / month
- Traffic allowed: unmetered
- Disk Space: 50 GB
- Free Domain: ✅
- Uptime: 99.78% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 1.87s
- Load time EU: 1.8s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 3.21s
DreamHost is one of the most affordable of the best web hosting services on the market, especially for new website owners who don’t have experience with web servers and the like.
Their entry-level hosting plan, for instance, offers a free domain name included, a free SSL certificate, and WordPress pre-installed if that’s the platform that you want to use.
Besides shared hosting, DreamHost also offers VPS hosting options, managed hosting, dedicated servers, and affordable email hosting if you need a new home for your inbox.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 99.78% |
| East Coast USA: 3.53s | West Coast USA: 0.97s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 1.11s | London, UK: 1.72s |
| Paris, France: 1.88s | Mumbai, India: 3.21s |
5. Kinsta
- From: $30.00 / month
- Traffic allowed: 25,000 visits/month
- Disk Space: 10 GB
- Free Domain: ❌
- Uptime: 100% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 0.85s
- Load time EU: 1.25s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 2.35s
Kinsta is another WordPress-only host on our list. The overall offering is quite similar to WP Engine’s, but it comes in a bit different package.
Under the hood, Kinsta runs their servers on Google Cloud Platform, and everything is fully managed for you – with daily backups and other useful features.
Kinsta also lets you choose from 24 global data center locations, there’s automatic database optimization, WordPress multisite support, malware removal, support for PHP 8.0, staging area, and more.
Price-wise, Kinsta isn’t the cheapest – starting at $30.00 / month – but it does deliver good value if you’re expecting your site to receive a lot of traffic each month. Still, just like WP Engine, not a solution for new sites with zero traffic or sites not built on WordPress.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 100% |
| East Coast USA: 0.69s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 1.23s |
| Central USA: 0.62s ⭐ | London, UK: 1.23s |
| Paris, France: 1.26s | Mumbai, India: 2.35s |
6. Rocket.net
- From: $25 / month (first month for $1)
- Traffic allowed: 250,000 visits/month
- Disk Space: 10 GB
- Free Domain: ❌
- Uptime: 100% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 0.79s
- Load time EU: 0.37s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 0.55s
Just stepping onto the scene in the hosting market, Rocket.net is making waves with its fast, secure, and user-friendly WordPress hosting services.
It comes pre-configured for optimal speed in relation to what WordPress sites need, in a way that helps you bolster SEO scores and conversions. The company also assures security with free SSL, CDN, WAF, and malware protection, keeping your websites online and safe.
With Rocket.net, managing websites is a breeze thanks to their intuitive dashboard. They back their services with 24/7 expert support, free unlimited migrations, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. The cherry on top? An introductory offer of just $1. Amid the crowd, Rocket.net stands out, offering peace of mind for all website owners.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 100% |
| East Coast USA: 1.46s | West Coast USA: 0.40s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 0.50s ⭐ | London, UK: 0.37s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.36s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 0.55s ⭐ |
7. Hostinger
- From: $2.69 / month
- Traffic allowed: 10,000 visits/month
- Disk Space: 50 GB
- Free Domain: ✅
- Uptime: 100% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 1.51s
- Load time EU: 0.43s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 1.71s
Hostinger has made a name for itself by being the budget-friendly option among the best web hosting services, and it’s hard to argue against that. The entry-level plan at Hostinger is the cheapest on this list, and the server parameters aren’t too shabby either.
Apart from that, Hostinger offers many different hosting types, starting from shared options, to cloud hosting, VPS (running on Linux), WordPress hosting, and even other unique types of hosting such as Minecraft server hosting.
But that’s not all. Hostinger is also a good place to check out if you’re unsure of how you want to build your site and need guidance in general. For instance, they do have a website builder which is free with all hosting plans. It allows you to create your site from scratch without ever leaving Hostinger.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 100% |
| East Coast USA: 1.16s | West Coast USA: 1.76s |
| Central USA: 1.61s | London, UK: 0.35s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.51s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.71s |
8. Namecheap
- From: $1.58 / month
- Traffic allowed: unmetered
- Disk Space: 20 GB
- Free Domain: ✅
- Uptime: 99.99% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 0.65s
- Load time EU: 1.54s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 2.54s
- Best for: cheapest host on the list 💸
Namecheap, as the name would suggest, is one of the cheapest web hosting services on the market. Currently, you can get started for only $1.58 / month (for the first year), and for that price you get to host not one but three websites. Plus, there’s a free domain name included as well.
And it’s not like anything crucial is missing from Namecheap’s offer. You do get a free SSL certificate, there’s enough disk space available, you get the AutoBackup feature, and there’s even email hosting included for free.
Overall, Namecheap is the best web hosting service for users who want to test out a website concept and would like to spend as little money on it as possible.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 99.99% |
| East Coast USA: 0.85s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 0.49s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 0.61s ⭐ | London, UK: 1.51s |
| Paris, France: 1.57s | Mumbai, India: 2.54s |
9. InMotion Hosting
- From: $2.29 / month
- Traffic allowed: unmetered
- Disk Space: 10 GB
- Free Domain: ❌
- Uptime: 100% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 1.08s
- Load time EU: 1.32s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 3.22s
InMotion Hosting is one more very affordable web hosting service that’s not missing out on any of the important features.
Even on the entry-level plan, you still get a free SSL, free email address, hack and malware protection, DDoS protection, automatic backups, custom server optimizations to improve speed, and even a website builder tool to make it easier for beginners to craft their own websites.
Apart from shared hosting, InMotion Hosting also offers WordPress-optimized hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, plus additional solutions for freelancers, resellers, and agencies building websites for their clients.
Overall, InMotion Hosting is a good hosting platform that can match your business needs not only today but also in the future as you grow.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 100% |
| East Coast USA: 1.15s | West Coast USA: 1.02s |
| Central USA: 1.06s | London, UK: 1.24s |
| Paris, France: 1.40s | Mumbai, India: 3.22s |
10. Flywheel
- From: $13.00 / month
- Traffic allowed: 5,000 visits/month
- Disk Space: 5 GB
- Free Domain: ❌
- Uptime: 100% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 1.36s
- Load time EU: 0.3s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 0.38s
Flywheel is yet another firm among the best web hosting services that supports WordPress websites only. Don’t worry, though, it’s the last such host here.
Still, we felt that we had to highlight it due to its more than affordable pricing among the other “WordPress hosting” firms. This makes Flywheel a great entry-level platform for new WordPress projects.
Flywheel is actually owned by WP Engine, which means that moving to its bigger brother should be easier if you ever need it.
In terms of building your site with Flywheel, you can take advantage of one unique tool of theirs called Flywheel Local. You can install it on your local computer, build your site, and then export it to Flywheel servers.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 100% |
| East Coast USA: 1.32s | West Coast USA: 2.39s |
| Central USA: 0.36s ⭐ | London, UK: 0.31s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.29s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 0.38s ⭐ |
11. Cloudways
- From: $11.00 / month
- Traffic allowed: 1 TB bandwidth
- Disk Space: 25 GB
- Free Domain: ❌
- Uptime: 100% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 1.22s
- Load time EU: 0.34s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 1.48s
- Best for: best cloud hosting ☁️
Cloudways is a unique offering on the web hosting landscape. Instead of renting space on servers owned by the company, Cloudways is your gateway to popular cloud hosts with high capacity.
Basically, when you sign up for Cloudways, you get to choose from cloud hosting setups offered by DigitalOcean (our choice), Linode, Vultr, Amazon AWS, and Google Cloud.
The main problem with those cloud hosts is that they’re not the easiest to use, especially for someone who has no experience with server work. Cloudways solves that by acting as your gateway to cloud hosting and also handling all the heavy lifting on their end. At the end of the day, you interact with the user-friendly dashboard at Cloudways rather than with the cloud hosts directly.
This is a really cool solution for web projects that need good scalability or host something other than a classic website (like a mobile app or a web tool).
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 100% |
| East Coast USA: 1.05s | West Coast USA: 1.52s |
| Central USA: 1.10s | London, UK: 0.31s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.37s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.48s |
12. A2 Hosting
- From: $2.99 / month
- Traffic allowed: unmetered
- Disk Space: 100 GB
- Free Domain: ❌
- Uptime: 99.98% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 0.93s
- Load time EU: 1.18s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 2.16s
What we like about A2 Hosting in particular is that they have a big portfolio of different types of web hosting types, plans, and offers.
For instance, apart from classic shared hosting, there are also plans for unmanaged and managed WordPress hosting, VPS hosting (unmanaged and managed), offers for resellers, and dedicated servers.
Then, if you’re interested in running a specific CMS – like Drupal, Joomla, or Magento – A2 Hosting has plans optimized for that as well.
Last but not least, A2 Hosting is among the best web hosting services for doing quick tests of new projects. The main reason is because they allow month-to-month payments instead of forcing you to buy hosting for a year up front.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 99.98% |
| East Coast USA: 0.70s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 0.94s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 1.16s | London, UK: 1.17s |
| Paris, France: 1.19s | Mumbai, India: 2.16s |
13. IONOS
- From: $1.00 / month
- Traffic allowed: unmetered
- Disk Space: unmetered
- Free Domain: ✅
- Uptime: 100% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 0.5s
- Load time EU: 0.8s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 1.69s
IONOS is a web host most known for its focus on the European market. They’ve been offering web hosting since 1988, which gives them a unique 30+ year experience that’s not too common in the web hosting industry.
They offer a wide range of different hosting options, including shared hosting, WordPress hosting, ASP.NET hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, web hosting plans for agencies, and more.
IONOS is also equipped to help you with other aspects of your website creation process. They’ll get you a domain name and SSL, plus there are website builders available for standard websites as well as eCommerce stores. Lastly, if you require a more personalized experience, there’s also their web design service (where they create the website for you).
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 100% |
| East Coast USA: 0.37s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 0.56s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 0.56s ⭐ | London, UK: 0.78s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.81s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.69s |
14. HostGator
- From: $3.75 / month
- Traffic allowed: unmetered
- Disk Space: unmetered
- Free Domain: ✅
- Uptime: 99.95% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 0.67s
- Load time EU: 1.84s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 2.79s
HostGator is one of the best-known web hosting companies out there. I guess those Super Bowl ads helped with that a bit. 🤷♂️
They’ve revamped their offering lately and now offer several interesting hosting plans and tiers (based on your needs). You’ll find classic shared web hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers.
HostGator also has a website builder tool that’s integrated with their hosting platform. As in, you can sign up with HostGator and have everything involved with having your website built handled in one place.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 99.95% |
| East Coast USA: 1.08s | West Coast USA: 0.55s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 0.39s ⭐ | London, UK: 1.84s |
| Paris, France: 1.84s | Mumbai, India: 2.79s |
15. GreenGeeks
- From: $2.95 / month
- Traffic allowed: unmetered
- Disk Space: unmetered
- Free Domain: ✅
- Uptime: 100% (last 3 months)
- Load time US: 1.68s
- Load time EU: 0.62s (EU)
- Load time Asia: 1.5s
GreenGeeks is one of the first web hosting companies on the market that position themselves as eco-friendly web hosting. 🍀
What this means in practice is that GreenGeeks claims to be “putting back three times the power they consume into the grid in the form of renewable energy”.
Offer-wise, GreenGeeks doesn’t lag behind the other players out there. There’s standard shared hosting, WordPress hosting, specially optimized WooCommerce hosting, VPS hosting, and also plans for resellers.
Overall, a great choice if you want to be part of the solution and not the problem for global warming.
| January 2024 - March 2024 |
|---|
| 100% |
| East Coast USA: 2.12s | West Coast USA: 1.47s |
| Central USA: 1.46s | London, UK: 0.57s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.66s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.50s |
How to pick your best web hosting services?
As a general rule-of-thumb set of guidelines for choosing the ideal web hosting service for any website, here are the factors and features that we look for and that we recommend you look for also:
💰 Price:
Quite naturally, there are more and less expensive web hosting services out there; and the more expensive doesn’t always mean better. Though, often it does – at least to an extent.
To start with, prepare your budget and decide how much you can spend on a hosting plan.
In general, you can get a web server for anything between $3-$100 a month.
- On the cheap end of the scale, you will have to do with shared hosting spaces and server parameters that don’t allow for many concurrent visits.
- On the high end, you get highly-optimized servers, often dedicated spaces, concierge maintenance services, and the ability to handle hundreds of thousands of visitors each month. As awesome as it sounds, it can actually be overkill for new websites.
If you’d prefer a cheap host, check out our other resource where we compare the best cheap hosting options on the market.
🚦 Traffic allowed:
Some hosting plans limit the number of visitors that your website can handle. For new sites, this might not be a problem, but if you’re expecting higher volumes of traffic from day one, you can quickly run into a wall.
Having the ability to get at least 5,000 visitors a month is a good start.
Of course, the higher the number, the higher the price.
🗃️ Disk space available:
Your website files will take space on the server’s disk. Though websites are not the most disk-heavy resources in general, the images that you want to display on the site will consume the bulk of that disk space.
Having at least 3GB of disk space is a good start. Most hosts will give you that on their entry level plans.
(You can also use a service like Optimole to get more mileage out of your server’s disk space).
📄 # of websites:
If you want to launch just one website then you really don’t need to worry about this part. If you want to host more than one site, make sure your host will allow you to do that.
📛 Domain name:
Some hosts will throw in a free domain name when you sign up for a hosting plan.
But not all do.
Buying your hosting from a company that has this offer is a great way to save money (a domain name is normally $15 a year or so).
⚙️ WordPress compatibility:
Some web hosts are purpose-built to work with WordPress websites. This is great since you’re probably going to be using WordPress anyway – like everyone else does.
Check if your host pre-installs WordPress on your server and if they give you any additional features.
🆘 Customer support:
The best web hosting services out there offer good customer support. What you want is 24/7 live chat support and also phone support, ideally.
Good customer support is always willing to help you figure stuff out regarding your hosting setup and website.
🌎 Server locations:
You always want to pick a server location that’s the closest to your target market. If you cater to people in Europe, for example, then you want a server in Europe, not in New York, and so on.
Some hosts will allow you to pick a location during sign up. The more locations available, the better.
🏎️ Speed:
Some hosts are extra-fast while others are rather slow. This has impact on your website load times, which will translate into your rankings on Google as well as your audience’s overall satisfaction and experience browsing your website.
We test the performance of all of the hosting companies we feature across our articles every single month and update them via a shortcode mechanism.
If you’ve read through all that, then you should have a very thorough understanding of how to chose the best web hosting service for your needs, and also how we narrowed down the options that ended up on this list.
Final recommendations for best web hosting service
As you can see, there’s a lot to choose from if you’re looking for a reliable web hosting firm. There are offers available on the whole spectrum of prices, server parameters, and even the software that you’ll then use to build your site.
Overall, you generally can’t go wrong here. The reason all these companies have such good ratings is that we’ve only selected the very best of the web hosting market to include in this comparison.
However, if you want a quick set of final recommendations based on user types and use cases:
- 🌱 If you’re completely new to website building but you still want to handle everything on your own, get Bluehost or SiteGround. They have good entry-level plans that are very affordable. You also get a free domain name for the first year.
- ⚙️ If you’re looking for a reliable WordPress host specifically, go for WP Engine or Flywheel (budget-friendly choice). Both platforms deliver great performance for WordPress sites and are easy to use.
- 💪 If you’re moving from another sub-par host that haven’t delivered the results you wanted, go for Cloudways. The platform gives you access to the most powerful cloud hosting setups in the industry at an affordable price.
FAQ: all your questions about web hosting answered
Web hosting is where websites are stored. Web hosting is a service that allows individuals and organizations to have a website on the internet.
Web hosting works by storing your website files on a server. When someone types in your web address, their computer connects to your host’s server, which then serves (sends) the files to their computer or mobile device, allowing them to access and view your website.
The main types of web hosting are shared hosting (several websites share one server), VPS hosting (you share a server but have your own dedicated portion), dedicated hosting (you have an entire server to yourself), and cloud hosting (resources are spread across multiple servers). The choice depends on your website’s needs.
Look for excellent uptime, robust security features, scalability, solid customer support, and features like one-click WordPress installation, email hosting, and domain registration. Pricing and the availability of a user-friendly control panel also matter.
Not necessarily. While some expensive hosts offer extensive features, cheaper options like Namecheap can be equally robust and efficient. Always compare features, user reviews, and specific needs before deciding. For example, our top recommended host, Bluehost, is also one of the cheapest ones (at $2.75 / mo).
Uptime is crucial as it determines the time your website is accessible to visitors. Choose a host that guarantees at least 99.95% uptime to ensure your site’s availability. Keep in mind, though, that even a 99.95% uptime still results in around 21 minutes of downtime every month.
A WordPress-specific host offers features tailored for WordPress sites, such as one-click installations, WordPress-optimized speed and security, and other dedicated WordPress tools, which can significantly enhance your site’s performance. WP Engine in particular also gives you access to premium WordPress themes and plugins for no additional charge.
Yes, a free domain can save you some money in the first year. However, renewals might be pricey, so make sure to check the costs for subsequent years. Usually, you can expect to pay in the range of $15 / year for each consecutive year.
Cloud hosting involves using resources from multiple servers. It offers high reliability, scalability, and performance. If your site expects fluctuating traffic or is growing rapidly, cloud hosting is ideal – like that offered by Cloudways.
Yes, many hosting providers offer the ability to host multiple websites under one package. This can be a cost-effective solution if you plan to operate more than one site. Here are some of the companies that let you do that on their cheapest plans: Namecheap, InMotion, Cloudways, Hostinger.
What’s it going to be, have you made your pick as to who will be your next web host?
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