Best web hosting 2024: Tested by leading industry experts
There is a best web hosting provider for each type of website and application. Picking the right one can make a big difference when it comes to value for money and performance. I’ve built and hosted websites for large and small businesses over the years and my team of web dev testers have decades of experience over hundreds of web hosts. Now, I’ve handpicked the best web hosts for the most popular use cases with help from our expert reviewers.
The key features we test are control panels, tools, site builders, customer support, and uptime and speed tests. We work closely with hosts helping to shape the products and services that you use based on feedback we get from you and our testers. These reviews are completely independent and they’re updated regularly to ensure that you always have the most informed and accurate information.
Overall our top pick is Hostinger due to their AI tools, ease of use, and customer support. Hostinger offer a wide range of plans for most use cases but are particularly best for beginners. Still, it’s worth checking out the other hosts we’ve recommended to make sure you get the right host for what you need.
If you’re looking for the best website builder, keep in mind that using a host like Hostinger can be just as easy to set up but cost considerably less.
My best web hosting providers in short
Best web hosting services of 2024
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The web hosting services we’ve selected are the best in their respective categories. While each web hosting provider offers several different types of hosting, I’ve highlighted each one based the service it excels in the most.
The best web hosting service for beginners
Buy if:
✔️ You’ve not used a web host before: Hostinger make setting up web hosting super easy
✔️ You want a website builder: Hostinger’s website builder has great reviews (but the WordPress installer is still the better option)
What others say:
Hostinger has been unfairly criticized for not offering dedicated hosting. To me, this doesn’t really seem like fair. Dedicated hosting is for enterprise or large business users. Hostinger is aimed at beginners and smaller businesses. It’s like criticizing a car manufacture that makes great family cars for not having an F1 team.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Hostinger can host fast loading reliable websites and provide AI tools that make hosting and making a site easy.
Over the years, Hostinger has grown into a giant hosting company which offers everything from shared hosting, Minecraft hosting and an easy-to-use ecommerce-friendly website builder, to WordPress hosting, powerful VPS products, and business-oriented email hosting.
Features
Value for money is a big Hostinger plus. Even the cheapest shared hosting plans come with a free domain, free SSL, email, backups, unlimited bandwidth, malware scanning and more.
Upgrading gets you professional extras such as fast NVMe storage, dedicated IPs, a free CDN, and speed-boosting WordPress object caching, amongst others.
There are surprise bonus features everywhere. Some providers can only host your website in North America, reducing speeds if your target audience is elsewhere. Hostinger has data centers in North America, Europe and Asia, and you can choose the site you need when you sign up.
And once you’ve got your plan, Hostinger doesn’t just make it easy to install WordPress and create your first site: it now even has custom AI tools to generate text content (AI-generated images should arrive soon).
My experience
Getting started with Hostinger is easy. There’s support for paying by card, PayPal, crypto and others, and the well-designed web dashboard quickly pointed us in the right direction.
Hostinger doesn’t offer the industry-standard cPanel control panel, but its own hPanel (and a simple 1-click installer for WordPress, WooCommerce and other top apps) helps even hosting newbies get their sites up and running.
Testing
My tests found Hostinger offered a capable 99.96% uptime over six months; not perfect, but better than its 99.9% uptime guarantee, and very acceptable for many sites. Hostinger also scored a speedy LCP of 0.607 seconds.
There’s no phone support, but Hostinger has 24/7 live chat, and its ticket system gave us helpful replies with some of the fastest response times I’ve seen (under two minutes in some cases).
What else you need to know
Hostinger doesn’t provide high-end dedicated hosting plans, so it’s not an ideal candidate for very demanding websites (that’s sites with hundreds of thousands of visitors a month). But overall, we found Hostinger to be a top quality web hosting provider which offers an array of capable features for a very fair price.
Hostinger’s own AI website builder is well rated but I’d recommend not using it because you don’t have complete ownership of your site. If you use the website builder you won’t be able to migrate your site to another host. This could happen if you decide you want to go to managed VPS hosting or dedicated hosting in the future because Hostinger don’t offer those plans. Instead, I recommend that you use Hostinger and install WordPress or another opensource website builder so you’re free to migrate your site to any host you please.
If you do decide to go with the AI website builder and you want to use a different host at a later date, it’s not that much of a big deal. You’ll just need to create the site from scratch and if you’re moving to upgrade your hosting then that financial or time investment wont seem like much.
Why it’s best for beginners
Packed with easy to use features, the service is great for novice users – so long as you don’t run demanding, high-traffic sites. If you’re unsure which service to choose, or if you’re new to web hosting in general, I’d recommend choosing Hostinger – it’s easy to use and understand, and it’s also really fairly priced considering what you get.
Read our full Hostinger review
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | Hostinger has some of the most competitive prices on the market | ★★★★★ |
| Ease of use | From signing up to navigating through, Hostinger is straightforward to use | ★★★★★ |
| Features | It has plenty of features in all departments, from security to technical details and more | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | It’s not significantly ahead of the competition when it comes to speed but it’s pretty fast | ★★★★☆ |
The best web hosting for WordPress
Buy if:
✔️ You want the best WordPress support: SiteGround have been supporting WordPress almost since the beginning so they have loads of experience in helping people with WordPress hosting
✔️ You are conscious of the environment: SiteGround provide a 100% renewable energy match on their hosting
What others say:
It’s been said that SiteGround’s storage is a little low compared to others but I don’t think it’s an issue. For starters, the storage you get is completely under your control. You might get more storage with other hosts but they dictate that you must reserve an amount for backups. SiteGround don’t do this. Plus, no one at SiteGround is complaining about not having enough storage. What you get is ample. If you really have a storage heavy site then try GreekGeeks as they have unlimited storage.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
SiteGround have been contributing to the WordPress community with code and community events since almost the start of WordPress. With their support and history with WordPress it’s easy to recommend them as best for WordPress.
I think SiteGround are the best WordPress hosting provider because SiteGround has been working closely with the WordPress community for 20 years. Giving them loads of experience with how to optimize WordPress configurations for security, speed, and reliability. Plus, it means SiteGround and their users have acquired a lot of experience in customer support for WordPress. If you search SiteGround into WordPress’s search bar you get more than 10,000 results in the forums. This level of expertise and experience is why we think SiteGround is the top recommendation for WordPress and worth the little extra you pay each month compared to some of the other WordPress hosting solutions.
Features
If you already have a WordPress site, you can take advantage of the free WordPress migration tool and email migrator. Some providers charge you for this but with SiteGround, migration is free. If this is your first WordPress site, there a one-click WordPress installer.
For security, your site is protected by a custom firewall that monitors your site for malicious code and attacks. SiteGround are constantly adding new rules and also have an AI anti-bot system that stops millions of threats every day. You also get daily backups with up to 30 copies of your account. This is another one of the reasons we think SiteGround are worth the money and it also makes having less storage space not much of an issue. Other providers like Hostinger are cheaper but only offer weekly backups on their lower spec plans.
For speed you get a CDN as part of the package which isn’t standard with plans from other providers, and out-of-the-box caching based on SuperCacher technology that’s enabled automatically for NGINX-based static and dynamic caching.
Managed WordPress gives you an easy WP starter wizard for site-building auto updates for the core software and plugins, and expert support. There’s also a 30 day money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied but that’s unlikely as SiteGround’s customer reviews are some of the best in the industry.
Testing
We tested SiteGround with Uptime.com which takes logs every five minutes for 14 days to record any possible failure. SiteGround scored a perfect 100% uptime with an average response of 0.207 seconds with other hosts getting between 0.3 and 0.8 seconds on average.
We also used GTmetrix, which measures how long it takes to load a web page. In these results SiteGround was slightly below average with 0.7 seconds compared to other top hosts but well above average in general.
What else you need to know
If you’re a complete beginner and are worried about using WordPress Bluehost might be a better option for you because of their WordPress academy and AI website builder tools that’ll help you build WordPress sites. If you’re not starting from the beginning then SiteGround’s features will give you good value for money but if you only need a very basic site then I would recommend Namecheap instead.
What makes them best for WordPress
Years of experience, vast amount of help articles, incredible customer reviews considering the size of the company, and they’ve actually contributed to WordPress code.
Read our full SiteGround review
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | SiteGround’s features make the price worth it | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | One click installers and great support make SiteGround easy to use | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | SiteGround’s daily backups and CDN are essential features and come standard | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | Higer than average | ★★★★☆ |
Best for small business
Buy if:
✔️ You’re on a budget: these plans offer good value for money
What others say:
Some review sites put not offering Windows servers as a con for DreamHost. While not offering Windows Servers might be an issue a very small amount of users, it won’t be for DreamHost customers.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Great value for small businesses with an AI business advisor tool. There are some features missing like a CDN so if you have customers all over the world you’ll need to spend extra money and time setting one up. Small businesses could consider SiteGround if customers are located in more than just the US.
We recommend DreamHost as best for small businesses because of their good value and their innovative AI Business Advisor tool that gives you advice and actionable ideas tailored to you.
For small businesses that don’t have large differences between normal and peak traffic the shared plan which starts at $2.59/mo ($4.95/mo after renewal) is good value and provides a free domain name for one year, unlimited traffic, and an SSL certificate. You can also opt for the shared unlimited plan which gives you unlimited websites for $3.95/mo ($8.95/mo after renewal).
Shared hosting can suffer from being unstable if other people on the server are using more than the usual resources. This is generally fine if your business is not sensitive to fluctuations in available resources. For example, if search terms for your business are very unique and you’re using your site to promote the location of a physical store. If customers are browsing and purchasing items on your site this can have a negative impact. For these types of businesses we recommend VPS plans.
The VPS plans at DreamHost start from $24.99/mo after renewal for 2 GB RAM and 60 GB SSD and go up to $114.99/mo after renewal for 12 GB RAM and 360 GB storage. If you need help determining which plan you should use their support is very helpful and can guide you on selecting the right plan for you.
As mentioned in our best VPS guide, these plans are not strictly VPS plans so if you need root access you’ll need to either choose a cloud plan for your business or select another host from possibly the best ecommerce web hosting or best small business web hosting providers.
Features
In addition to the AI Business Advisor tool, you get expandable RAM and storage with the VPS plans to meet changes in business demands and keeping customers happy. You get automatic software updates to free up your time as you don’t need to handle security patches, Ubuntu OS updates, PHP releases, and the latest WordPress versions.
Testing
We put DreamHost to the test over a week, and the results were good. Our site had 100% uptime, and an average response time of 0.342 seconds.
We also used GTmetrix to access a page from our test site and calculate how much time it takes to display the main content. Most good hosts get results between 0.55 and 0.90 seconds. DreamHost scored a perfectly acceptable 0.732 seconds.
What else you need to know
While there is no phone support, that doesn’t mean you cannot get help when you need it. The chat support had good response times and the user reviews of support are good.
Why it’s best for small businesses
As mentioned before, the value for money is a good argument for why small businesses should use DreamHost and the AI Business Advisor tool can offer valuable insights that you may miss.
Read our DreamHost review
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | Plans are good value with low starting prices | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | We didn’t find anything difficult to use in our testing | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | Lacks some feature that other hosts provide | ★★★☆☆ |
| Speed test | Speed was average in our tests | ★★★☆☆ |
Best cheap web hosting
Buy if:
✔️ You want easy management: You can get your hosting and domain name services all through Namecheap
What others say:
In the past, Namecheap have suspended accounts for political reasons. Some think it was justified while others think it was a bit of an overstep. This was a couple of years ago now but it’s still a point that some people feel strongly about as they think web hosting should be free from political influence.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
If you want to keep things simple and have your domain name service and hosting under one provider then Namecheap is the best option. However, if you’re tech savvy and need to manage multiple sites there are better options such as using your own VPS if you have the time.
Namecheap began life more than 20 years ago as a domain registrar and over the years has expanded to offer a vast range of hosting, business, and other services. If you like the convenience of getting all the web-related products you need from a single provider, then Namecheap could be your perfect partner.
If you’re looking to host a WordPress site as a beginner, you have two main options: shared hosting and WordPress hosting. For shared hosting, you get a free domain name and the first year is $1.98/mo (renews at $4.48/mo). This is the most cost effective option but you’ll have to manage the site yourself. Meaning, you’ll have to keep on top of updates and security. The other option is WordPress hosting which is $2.91 for the first year (renews at $6.88). You’ll also have to pay for your own domain name which will add to the cost. Although WordPress hosting is more expensive, Namecheap say that their managed WordPress hosting is 3x faster than traditional hosting and your site will be managed by them. Leaving you to focus on your website rather than the hosting.
Features
Namecheap offers a full range of hosting plans, from budget shared products and a website builder, to managed WordPress, VPS and dedicated hosting for demanding sites, even reseller products if you’d like to set up as a hosting provider.
Prices are temptingly low, and the specs are impressive. All shared plans come with a free domain name, at least 3 websites, 30 email accounts, 1-click WordPress installs, and more. Something to note is that SSL is free only in year one for shared hosting plans.
Namecheap is a one of the most well known domain registrars, with lots of domains to choose from and some of the most trusted SSL certificates. You can also sign up for business email hosting, speed up your site with premium DNS or Namecheap’s own CDN, image creation tools, marketing services, and a VPN.
Testing
Namecheap’s account control panel confused me at first. The UI is a bit cluttered with lists, sidebars, menus, and icons. After I’d spent a few moments exploring and mastering the basics, the dashboard felt more intuitive giving me quick and easy access to all the most important site management areas.
Although Namecheap deserves credit for its wide range of hosting products, the high-end plans in particular don’t give you the same choice compared with other hosts. There are only three VPS plans, for instance, and no Windows hosting.
My tests found Namecheap achieved 100% uptime over the testing period. Speeds weren’t quite as impressive, with my site (on a shared hosting plan) managing slightly below average load times. They were still very acceptable for a budget host, though, and overall Namecheap offers good value for what you get.
What else you need to know
There’s no phone support, but we had helpful and reasonably quick responses via both live chat and ticket, and there’s a huge web knowledgebase if you’re happy to search for solutions yourself.
Why it’s the best cheap hosting
While plenty of other web hosting services offer unlimited recourses, I found Namecheap’s prices to be fair value for money considering what’s on offer.
Read our full Namecheap review
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | Plans are good value with low starting prices | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | Namecheap’s account control panel is a little cluttered | ★★★☆☆ |
| Features | Its features are sufficient but doesn’t cover every need | ★★★☆☆ |
| Speed test | Our site speed was average in our speed test | ★★★☆☆ |
Best VPS
Buy if:
✔️ You have an established business: InMotion Hosting have experience hosting a range of medium-sized businesses
✔️ You want dedicated or managed plans: InMotion Hosting have a strong reputation in this area too
What others say:
User reviews from the last three months have had a negative balance. This doesn’t line up with our experience of InMotion Hosting’s services but it’s something we’re monitoring and we’ll update our review if we find anything different with their services.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
InMotion Hosting have well balanced plans and plenty of security features to make their VPS offerings some of the best on the market.
Since 2001 InMotion Hosting has grown to host over 170,000 customers across a range of hosting services including shared, WordPress hosting, VPS, reseller, and dedicated for everything from hosting basic websites. Their selection of VPS plans is impressive and starts with a package featuring 4 vCPU cores, 4GB of RAM, 90GB of storage, and 2TB of bandwidth. The plan costs $14.99 per month for a three-year term which is very reasonable.
Building on the base plan, InMotion Hosting provide six other plans. At the top end of the spectrum, you get unlimited bandwidth, 32 cores, 32GB of RAM, and a generous 540GB NVMe SSD storage, costing $74.99 per month.
Features
One of the best features from InMotion Hosting is their Launch Assist. If you get stuck, InMotion Hosting provide you with up to two hours of assistance free of charge. They help can be with adjusting domain settings, migrating WordPress, configuring cPanel, or managing database files.
InMotion Hosting provide DDoS protection and VPS servers come with redundancy in place. If one server has a serious issue, traffic will automatically get routed to an identical server. This makes InMotion Hosting also one of the most reliable hosts along with having great support.
InMotion Hosting’s data centers are in locked vaults protected by hand scanners and armed guards. They don’t only protect your servers though. They also do their bit for protecting the environment. InMotion Hosting has invested heavily in green cooling technology to not only make servers more efficient but also reduce costs and save the planet.
Testing
We measured the test server’s uptime by using Uptime.com to check the site every five minutes over two weeks. InMotion Hosting scored a perfect 100% uptime and a very fast server response time of 0.340 seconds.
We also tested speed with GTMetrix to calculate how long it takes to load the main content (a figure known as LCP.) The lower the LCP, the better a website loads for users. InMotion Hosting scored 0.610 seconds which was the fourth fastest in our recent tests.
InMotion hosting beat Digital Ocean when it comes to value for money on their plans but prices can still add up a bit. cPanel is an extra $20/mo and the most cost effective option, CWP panel ($5/mo), doesn’t seem good enough to be a viable alternative. InMotion Hosting offer a lot of unlimited features in their shared plans which can be a put off for some so these VPS plans are a good alternative.
For more information about dedicated hosting see our full best dedicated hosting guide
What else you need to know
While most hosts offer only a 30-day money-back guarantee, InMotion Hosting gives you an amazing 90 days for most plans (including reseller): a very major plus.
Why it’s the best for VPS
The VPS plans come with top security features and also redundancy so in the unlikely event that the worst was to happen, you can rest assured that your hosting will not be impacted.
Read our full InMotion Hosting review
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | Most of InMotion Hosting’s plans are good value for money | ★★★☆☆ |
| Ease of use | It was easy to use but the layout of the dashboard could be more simplistic | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | Lots of important and vital features including in each plan | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | InMotion Hosting was the fourth fastest in our recent speed tests | ★★★★☆ |
The best green web host
Buy if:
✔️ You want to host a WordPress site: Optimised WordPress plans from $2.95/mo
✔️ You expect your business to grow: Simple scaling to meet increasing demands
What other’s say:
GreenGeeks doesn’t really get recommended that often around the web but their services get good reviews and they have some great features like unlimited storage.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Loads of hosting providers are green these days. GreenGeeks are definitely the most green but they’re not far in front of InMotion Hosting and SiteGround.
GreenGeeks has an excellent range of shared and VPS hosting services that are good for the environment. Plans start at just $2.95 a month (rising to $11.95 a month after the second year). The entry level plan comes with 50GB web space, a free domain name for one year, unlimited databases and free nightly backups.
GreenGeeks are particularly good for those wanting a green hosting solution for a WordPress site as they offer managed WordPress hosting plans which can take a lot of the hassle out of running a website. All servers provided by the company respectable in terms of performance with even the lowest plans providing free caching and CDN, and unmetered bandwidth.
Features
GreenGeeks use SSD hard drives configured in a RAID-10 storage array giving you super fast speeds and reliability. Lightspeed and MariaDB servers provide optimised databases that also contribute fast read/write times which can serve up pages 50 times faster than other configurations.
There is also LScache and a CDN powered by Cloudflare that helps pages load quickly for your customers no matter where they are in the world. HTTP3 and Quic is also enabled along with PHP 8 for the fastest PHP execution times
GreenGeeks don’t provide dedicated servers or any cloud options so for more powerful plans I recommend that you check out SiteGround or InMotion Hosting which also have really impressive green credentials. If you try GreenGeeks but find out they’re not powerful enough GreenGeeks offers free website migration and a 30 day money back guarantee so there is nothing to lose.
Testing
We used Uptime.com to log how long our server waited to respond to a request. GreenGeeks scored 0.302 seconds and response times were pretty consistent. That’s brilliant, as it suggests GreenGeeks servers are not overloaded despite offering some unlimited resources.
GreenGeeks’ LCP score was 0.691 seconds, which is similar to the other hosts and what you’d expect. They also scored 100% uptime on the tests too.
What else you need to know
GreenGeeks might not have the top end plans demanded by the most energy and resource consuming sites but what they do provide performs really well at that level. If you genuinely care about the environment and don’t have such a demanding website then you’d be hard pressed to find another hosting provider that aligns with your goals
Why it’s best green web hosting
They care about the environment, they care about their customers, and they care about their products.
Read the full GreenGeeks review
For more information about the best green hosting see our full best green hosting guide
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | Plans are good value with low starting prices | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | Not difficult to use and if you do have problems there’s support | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | Plenty of in-house features for security, speed, and management | ★★★★☆ |
The best reseller hosting
Buy if:
✔️ You’re new to reseller hosting: There is a wide range of plans so you can start small and grow as your business develops.
What others say
A2 hosting generally have good user reviews. There a couple of forums in which a disgruntled customer has an axe to grind but overall A2 have a really good reputation in the web hosting industry.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A2 hosting appear top of our list and many others when it comes to reseller hosting. It’s not a surprise as the features for reselling are genuinely really good.
A2 Hosting look after the hardware so you can sell hosting services packaged as your own. With there being no need to worry about managing servers, you can really focus on the customer support and marketing for your web hosting brand. It also gives the opportunity for web developers to provide their own hosting for their clients.
Features
A2 provide Turbo plans for clients that need that extra oomph. This comes with improved performance, up to 250 GB NVMe SSD storage, and LightSpeed cache plugins. For sites where ranking and conversion rates are important the extra performance can be worth it.
If you already have a reseller hosting provider but you’re not getting along with their services you can migrate your accounts to A2 Hosting free of charge. A team of experts will be able to take care of everything for you without any inconvenience.
One of the best things about A2 Hosting as a reseller is that they own their own hardware. This means the communication chain is shorter and they have more control about what is on each server. This leads to resources that are not overloaded and faster speeds.
Lastly, you get billing software for invoicing, provisioning, suspension, payment processing, and reminders included. These features all make for a host that can really be recommended for reseller hosting.
Testing
We used Uptime.com to check a WordPress site every five minutes for 14 days, GTmetrix to load the test site and calculate how long it takes, and k6 to see how a site performs when it has a large number of visitors loading pages.
A2 Hosting scored 100% uptime. It’s to be expected with a short measurement period like that, but it doesn’t always happen. In our last 15 hosting reviews, four providers had some amount of downtime during our tests. The server response times were not impressive at 1.53 seconds, and a very wide range of 1.1 to 3.36. The average response times are around 0.06, making them much faster and more consistent. The LCP was higher than average too at 1.1s. This didn’t really match our expectations so we’re going to retest and if we continue to see these speeds we will contact support.
The K6 score was also not impressive. The average we get from most providers is between 14-16 requests per second but A2 only managed an average of server averaged 11 requests.
What else you need to know
We recommend A2 Hosting for reseller hosting but they’re also pretty good for other top-level and business related hosting services like VPS and dedicated hosting.
Why it’s the best for reseller hosting
For companies like web design and marketing agencies, and even freelancers, the ability to sell domains and plans to clients is a must – and in my experience, the reselling packages are where A2 Hosting really excels.
Read our full A2 Hosting review
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | WP Engine is expensive and although it comes with lots of features, some could be included as part of the overall price | ★★★☆☆ |
| Ease of use | Not the easiest to use for beginners but still straightforward enough | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | Lots of great features but a lot comes at an extra cost | ★★★★☆ |
| Speed test | WP Engine performed exceptionally well in our speed test | ★★★★★ |
The best shared web hosting provider
Buy if:
✔️ You’re looking for speed: HostGator had some great speeds in my test
✔️ You’re running a small business: HostGator’s tools make running a business easier
What others say:
It’s not just us that recommend Hostgator for shared hosting. You usually find them as a top recommendation for shared for the same reasons we give.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Great host with great reviews and features
HostGator is a hugely popular Texas-based web host that has been helping people get online for over 20 years. The company has a very full range of hosting products (shared, website builder, WordPress, VPS, dedicated, reseller), and there are appealing business-friendly extras everywhere we looked but we think they’re shared hosting plans are the best services from them.
Features
HostGator offers a decent set of features on all its products. The cheapest Hatchling plan includes unmetered bandwidth, a free domain for the first year, free SSL. HostGator gives you easy integration with some of the biggest names around, including CodeGuard for backups, SiteLock Security for malware scanning, and Google WorkSpace for team collaboration.
Testing
HostGator’s web dashboard isn’t the best designed I’ve seen, and I found it spent a little too much time trying to persuade us to buy more products.
Fortunately, the company makes up for all of that with its use of the industry-standard cPanel and its powerful site management tools. I think that’s particularly good news for businesses, because there’s no custom control panel to learn: if you’ve any previous web hosting experience, chances are you’ll feel at home right away.
HostGator offer a 99% uptime guarantee and I monitored a test HostGator site for 18 months and found even the cheapest shared account gave us a respectable 99.9% uptime.
The real HostGator highlight was its speed, though: benchmarking tool GTmetrix found my test site delivered the fastest load times out of 15 top contenders.
What else you need to know
Although HostGator doesn’t have a specialist WooCommerce product, its Website Builder has some powerful ecommerce plans which support unlimited products, selling on Facebook and Instagram, secure payments, advanced shipping and more. If you run into trouble, HostGator’s 24/7 phone and live chat support is on hand, and in my experience, the support team resolves most issues within minutes.
Why it’s best for shared web hosting
If you’re running multiple websites and need them stored on the same web server, I recommend checking out HostGator as it offers a specific shared hosting product. Jump to our web hosting FAQs to find out more about how shared hosting works.
Read our full HostGator review
For more information about shared hosting see our full best shared hosting guide
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | HostGator is affordable but the add-ons could get pricey if you pick a cheaper plan | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | We found it easy to get started and navigate through the dashboard | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | HostGator has just about ever feature you’ll need from a web host | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | HostGator performed the best in our speed test compared to the other hosts | ★★★★★ |
The best managed WordPress hosting
Buy if:
✔️ You have very large sites build on WordPress: WP Engine are the choice for that higher level of hosting required by the most demanding of websites
✔️ You want someone to manage your server: If you don’t have the time or knowledge to manage your server it’s all done for you
What others say:
Recently there has been a big uproar over alleged infringement of WordPress trademarks and not contributing enough to the WordPress community from Matthew Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress. It resulted in WordPress being temporarily banned from accessing WordPress.org resources but it seems for now there is not disruption to WP Engine’s services so they continue to be recommended by me for managed WordPress hosting
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
One of the best hosts for WordPress and support
WP Engine is a professional web host which focuses entirely on delivering the best managed WordPress hosting around (although it does have some great WooCommerce plans, too). It’s not cheap, but if you’re more interested in power than price, then WP Engine is well worth a very close look. If you’re looking at the lower end plans I recommend SiteGround because they offer better value for money over WP Engine but if you have a monster site and you want to squeeze every last millisecond and request from your WordPress site, I’d suggest WP Engine.
Features
Unlike some web hosts, WP Engine’s plans aren’t just the regular shared range with WordPress preinstalled. They’re build for WordPress from the bottom up, with customized server and caching setups, extra security features, easier setup and genuinely valuable extras.
The difference is obvious. Lesser providers may give you free themes, but they’re often basic offerings you’ll never want to use. WP Engine throws in 10 gorgeous StudioPress themes, premium products with real value.
Staging is another WP Engine benefit. Whether I changed themes, adding site features or just making a few updates, the Staging area allowed us to safely test these on a copy of my site, before we put them live.
I found valuable extras everywhere we looked. WordPress has a vast library of free plugins, for instance, and most hosts allow you to install whatever you like. But WP Engine maintains a list of dubious plugins which bring performance or security problems, and warns you about anything dodgy, potentially saving you a lot of pain later.
Testing
The WP Engine dashboard isn’t for beginners, and regular use of terms like Git, CNAME and redirect rules might confuse the not-so-technical. But it only took me a few minutes to begin to find my way around, and if you need more help, there’s a truly outstanding support site. (Some of WP Engine’s guides deliver more than I’d expect from a paid WordPress training course).
My performance tests saw WP Engine trample all over the conventional shared hosting competition, with only Liquid Web’s own managed WordPress plan delivering better. Yes, WP Engine is more expensive than many, but it spends that cash wisely on quality servers, a fast network and its pile of premium features.
Support is vital when you’re running a business-critical site. WP Engine only provides chat support with its cheapest plan, but the agents delivered speedy and expert responses to my test questions, and upgrading to a higher product gets you phone support, too.
What else you need to know
WP Engine may look expensive, but it’s also very confident you’ll be happy with the service: sign up and you’re protected by a very generous 60-day money-back guarantee.
Why it’s best
With its laser-focus on WordPress, and its useful list of plugins that may cause issues with your site, I recommend checking out WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting.
Read our full WP Engine review
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | WP Engine is expensive and although it comes with lots of features, some could be included as part of the overall price | ★★★☆☆ |
| Ease of use | Not the easiest to use for beginners but still straightforward enough | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | Lots of great features but a lot comes at an extra cost | ★★★★☆ |
| Speed test | WP Engine performed exceptionally well in our speed test | ★★★★★ |
The best cloud web hosting
Buy if:
✔️ You have an ecommerce site: ScalaHosting’s architecture make the provisioning of resources speedy and easy for flash sales and other promotional activities
✔️ You have a growing site: New businesses often don’t know how many resources are needed. This is where cloud hosting shines
What others say:
ScalaHosting have some of the best user reviews in the web hosting business. If not the best.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Too many hosts use the word cloud without having any cloud benefits. ScalaHosting are cloud through-and-through
ScalaHosting is an experienced Dallas-based provider with 15 years experience in the web hosting business.
The company has plenty of budget hosting plans for simple sites and projects, but it’s made my list for its strong VPS range, which is still very affordable but has the power to handle very demanding business and other websites.
Features
ScalaHosting has eye-catching features right across its range. Signing up for shared hosting gets you unlimited emails and daily offsite backups, often premium extras elsewhere. Even the cheapest plan uses fast NVMe storage, while many competitors only use slower standard SSD.
The VPS range stands out for its extreme configurability. Other hosts might force you to choose from 3 or 4 basic products, but ScalaHosting allows you to build your own plan, using anything from 2 to 24 cores, 4 to 64GB RAM, and 50 to 2000GB storage (vastly more powerful than I’ve seen elsewhere).
Then there are the free site migrations. Some providers promise this, then give you a plugin to do it yourself; ScalaHosting carefully migrates all your sites for you, and will even migrate them elsewhere if you’re not happy and cancel your account.
Once you’re up and running, your site benefits from free SSL, speed-boosting CDN integration, real-time malware protection, and experts can choose their preferred web server (Apache, Apache with NGINX, OpenLiteSpeed and more).
Testing
ScalaHosting allows customers to manage their web space via its own custom control panel, SPanel. I usually prefer the industry-standard cPanel, but SPanel is a powerful, easy-to-use alternative, and a great web home for newbies and experts alike.
I tested ScalaHosting performance by using top benchmarking tool GTmetrix to measure download speeds. The results were below average, but far ahead of the budget competition, and well within reach of big names such as GoDaddy,
I went on to monitor my test site availability for a year, and ScalaHosting scored a very reasonable 99.94% (and that’s with the cheapest shared plan: VPS hosting should be even better).
What else you need to know
Sign up with ScalaHosting and (with most products) you’re protected by its generous Anytime Money-Back Guarantee. Not only does this give you 100% of your money back if you cancel within 30 days, but you can also get prorated refunds after that (pay for a year, you can cancel after 6 months and still be refunded for the 50% you haven’t used).
Why it’s the best cloud hosting provider
Cloud hosting is a service where a website or application is hosted on a network of interconnected servers, rather than a single physical server. I’ve looked in depth at this in our guide What is cloud hosting and how do you use it? As resources are allocated to a virtual server, you only pay for what you need as you need them. if you’re looking for a cloud hosting service that scales with your business, ScalaHosting should be on your list.
Read our full Scala Hosting review
For more information about the best cloud hosting see our full best cloud hosting guide
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | It’s affordable and has full featured shared hosting plans | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | Its dashboard is intuitive and the signing up process is straightforward | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | You’ll find features that cover all aspects of what you need to run a functioning site | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | ScalaHosting wasn’t the fastest but our site performed well enough | ★★★☆☆ |
The best managed web hosting
Buy if:
✔️ You want experts managing your servers: Liquid web have a reputation for fast and reliable servers that come with an SLA
What others say
I’ve seen Liquid Web criticized for not providing shared plans but just like the criticism for Hostinger not providing dedicated plans this is the same, just opposite. You should pick Liquid Web for the powerful managed plans that are great for businesses. If you’re a larger business you shouldn’t be looking at shared hosting anyway.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Liquid Web have highly configurable managed plans that can be hard to find from other hosting providers
Founded in 1997, Liquid Web is an expert provider of top-quality managed hosting solutions for everything from email to WordPress, WooCommerce, VPS, dedicated and assorted other cloud products.
The service isn’t aimed at consumers – it doesn’t even have a shared hosting range – but if your priority is less on price, more on speed, reliability and features, then Liquid Web has a lot to offer.
Features
Liquid Web’s VPS range looks expensive, with prices starting at $20 a month, but check the features and it’s a different story.
Some budget hosts might start their VPS range with a tiny $1 or $2 a month plan, but look at the small print and it’ll be underpowered and almost unusable. Liquid Web starts a capable 2 CPU, 2GB RAM setup which will handle most tasks at a decent speed.
Liquid Web offers access to an amazing 10Gbps network connection, 10-30x the speed I see with most hosts.
There’s no messing around by promising ‘unmetered’ bandwidth, which typically means ‘there’s a limit but I won’t tell you what it is.’ Instead, even the cheapest VPS plans include a massive 10TB bandwidth allowance.
Your host promises 99.9% uptime? Liquid Web not only offers 99.999% uptime, it has a strict Service Level Guarantee explaining how you’ll get credits if that doesn’t happen.
So, yes, Liquid Web prices may seem high, but it’s a top quality service, and I think it offers decent value for what you get.
Testing
If you haven’t got the resources or knowledge to undertake key maintenance tasks, then a managed hosting service is essential. These can be carried out by your web hosting provider – and in my experience, Liquid Web made it really easy to monitor and manage my test website. Head to our FAQs section for more information on what managed hosting is and why it matters.
Liquid Web’s dashboard design is clean and straightforward, and I found it easy to locate everything necessary to monitor and manage my website.
After installing my standard test WordPress website, in-depth monitoring throughout the review found excellent load times and 100% uptime.
What you need to know
If you run into trouble, Liquid Web has a vast knowledgebase covering everything from detailed text manuals to more user-friendly YouTube explainer videos.
Why it’s the best managed web hosting
Liquid Web’s highlight is its customer support team, though, who you can reach 24/7 via telephone, live chat or email. Whatever route I tried, responses were fast (the company actually guarantees a first reply within 59 minutes via email, 59 seconds via live chat or phone), and I’ve always found the agents to be friendly, expert, and happy to go the extra mile to resolve my issues.
Read our full Liquid Web review
For more information about managed hosting see our full best managed hosting guide
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | Liquid Web is a bit more on the pricey side and offers most of the features as the other web hosts on the list | ★★★☆☆ |
| Ease of use | Liquid Web’s dashboard is straightforward and easy to use | ★★★★★ |
| Features | Liquid Web has sufficient features but doesn’t offer shared hosting | ★★★☆☆ |
| Speed test | Our site was fast while hosted on Liquid Web | ★★★★☆ |
Best Web hosting for Minecraft
Buy if:
✔️ You want a host dedicated to gaming: You can get your own server and set it up for Minecraft but why bother when it’s done for you.
What others say:
Forum posts, some new and some out of date, contain some negative comments about Shockbyte but when looking at the reviews as a whole the balance is still largely positive. It is often the case that those that feel most annoyed by something have the most motivation to comment which makes online discussion unbalanced. When I am reviewing a host I take these comments into account and match them with my experience which has been largely positive so far.
Bottom line: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Minecraft hosting doesn’t get easier or better
Shockbyte provides specialist servers and support for popular games like Minecraft, Ark: Survival Evolved, Rust, Arma 3, and others. As a hosting provider dedicated to gaming, it’s no surprise that they’re one of the most popular hosts for Minecraft enthusiasts.
Features
You name it, Shockbyte provide it: BungeeCord support, MCPC & MCPE compatibility, Java version switchover, 100% uptime, full FTP access, all modpacks, custom jar support, instant setup, simple server customisation, free subdomain, zero server lag, free MySQL databases, DDoS protection, automatic backups, unlimited slots, 1Ggbps port, Unlimited SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, MC snapshot support, and the list goes on…
This top Minecraft server host seems to deliver across the board on these features too as they have an Excellent rating on Trustpilot.
Testing
We used the Dirt plan which provides 1GB of RAM and 8+ player slots. We found the server to be easy to use and we maintained a ping of 30-35ms when adding more players to the server. Adding and removing mods was easy and in general provided a very smooth gaming experience.
What else you need to know
There are some pretty scathing comments about Shockbyte’s customer support but to their credit they address one-star reviews head-on in Trustpilot and the vast majority of reviews are highly positive.
Why it’s best for Minecraft hosting
Australia-based Shockbyte is one of the biggest names in Minecraft hosting and have a presence in Europe (the UK, Germany, France, and Poland), Asia (Singapore), and North America (the USA and Canada). As a dedicated gaming server provider with great reviews and a global network, they don’t come much better than this.
Read our full Best Minecraft server hosting providers buying guide
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | Generally, Shockbyte’s game hosting plans are good value for money because of the quality of features it comes with | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | Lots of out-of-the-box features | ★★★★★ |
| Features | Important and vital features indluding DDoS protection supported | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | This score is based on the last review and will be updated shortly | ★★★★☆ |
What is web hosting?
Hosting a website basically means making it accessible to the world. You can host a website from your own home but it will be a pretty bad idea. First of all, you’ll be inviting the entire world into your home router, which doesn’t seem very safe. You’ll also need to keep your PC on all the time, which won’t be energy efficient. Then, if your website gets busy its unlikely your hardware will be able to cope.
The most sensible thing to do is outsource the task of hosting a site. This is where web hosts come in. They store your website on server and it’s secure, always on, and has the most up to date hardware to ensure site performance when its busy.
You can share a server, rent your own resources, or even rent a space and put your own hardware in it. There are options for everything and based on your business requirements the right type of hosting will make a big difference to cost and performance.
If you have a small site, shared hosting is fine. Anything else will be a waste of money. If you have a larger eCommerce store then a virtual private server is a better option. If your business is ultra sensitive to any downtime then cloud hosting is perfect as multiple copies of your site are stored in different locations so if a disaster occurs your site will always be online.
Then, there are more specific options like the best WordPress hosting, or best Minecraft server. These hosting options have optimizations for these specific uses to give you the best performance and value for money.
Test results
| Host | Uptime | LCP | Requests/sec |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger | 99.96% | 0.607 | 15 |
| SiteGround | 100% | 0.735 | 14 |
| DreamHost | 100% | 0.732 | 16 |
| Namecheap | 100% | 0.789 | 12 |
| InMotion Hosting | 100% | 0.610 | 15 |
| GreenGeeks | 100% | 0.691 | 15 |
| A2 Hosting | 100% | 1.1 | 11 |
| Hostgator | 99.9% | 0.551 | 15 |
| ScalaHosting | 100% | 0.730 | No data |
| Row 9 – Cell 0 | Row 9 – Cell 1 | Row 9 – Cell 2 | Row 9 – Cell 3 |
FAQs
How we test the best web hosting services
Our reviewers test each web hosting service by signing up and purchasing a plan to check out what each web hosting provider offers new users, as well as how easy it is to navigate around each brand’s dashboard. We pay a great deal of attention to the support that is offered to you.
We weigh up the details of what you get, (as well as what you don’t) and rank each web hosting provider based on the quality of its features that many customers will use, and how clear the web hosting company is on what the customer is getting in every product.
Because we know it’s important to pick a web hosting company you can trust, we focus on whether each web hosting provider presents its products in an honest, clear and transparent way. In our tests, this is easy to pick up on as we compare the list of features each company claims it offers, to what we actually have access to once we begin using their service.
Lastly, our web host speed tests are generally based on the cheapest shared hosting plan available from a provider.
We then upload a basic static site to our web space, including HTML and CSS files and some images, and configure Uptime.com to check the availability and server response time of our site at five-minute intervals. This gives us a general indication of the speed and uptime you are likely going to experience when you finally make a decision on the best web hosting provider for you.
Each web hosting provider has been selected based on it being at the top of its game for one aspect of web hosting service or another. From shared hosting to reseller hosting, we have put together the best of the best for you to find a web hosting company that suits your individual needs.
Should you need more tips on buying a web hosting service, what the different types of hosting services are, or how to choose the best web hosting service for you, scroll down to the bottom of this page for all this and more.
How to choose a web host
Everyone has their own individual hosting priorities, and we can’t tell you exactly what you’ll need and what you won’t. But based on my experience from hosting a range of websites I can give you some general rules that will point you in the right direction.
Unlimited resources: Actually good value for money?
Unlimited (or unmetered) disk space and bandwidth sounds great, but all that really matters is you’ve enough for your site, and that may be much less than you think. Web host Kinsta reported that its clients’ WordPress sites averaged only around 1GB in size, for instance. If that’s you, paying for ‘unlimited’ space won’t bring any benefits at all. Plus, unlimited can have it’s drawbacks. Unlimited resources often bring in the wrong crowds and you don’t want someone acting maliciously on the same server as you.
SSL certificates
Your website almost certainly needs an SSL certificate to enable secure encrypted connections with visitors, and avoid the worrying ‘insecure’ warnings they’ll get if you’re SSL-free. Most plans offer free SSL, but check the small print: occasionally SSL comes free for the first year only, and you’ll have to pay after that.
Domains
Many web hosting plans include a free domain name, a tempting sweetener if you don’t have one already. But beware, it’s typically only free for a year, and then you’ll pay the provider’s standard renewal fees. Dot com domain renewals don’t vary much (an average $10-$20 a year), but it’s a different story with others. If you need a domain, check renewal prices to find out the real long-term cost.
Thinking about managed hosting? Can you keep up with updates and backups?
Websites can break for all kinds of reasons, and if you want to keep downtime to a minimum, backups are an absolute must. Look for a plan that includes a backup service, and pay attention to frequency: weekly backups might be just about acceptable for sites that never change, but daily backups are much better.
Support
No matter how experienced you are in the web hosting world, you’re sure to need support occasionally. Check out your prospective hosts’ support site: does it have content on the topics you’d expect, and is this helpful and easy to read? A host should at least have 24/7 live chat support, but telephone, ticket, and email helps, too: there can’t be too many ways to get in touch.
What types of web hosting are there?
What is shared hosting?
Shared hosting is a simple scheme where multiple websites are stored on the same web server (a type of computer).
One benefit of shared hosting is its simplicity. You don’t have to spend any time maintaining the server, because your provider does that. All you need to do is work on your own site.
Sharing a web server means sharing the costs, too, and with sometimes hundreds of websites on the same server, that usually means rock-bottom prices.
The big problem with shared hosting is you’re also sharing your server’s system resources: CPU time, RAM, storage and network connection. There’s only so much to go around, and the more sites on your server, the slower and less dependable your own website is likely to be.
Shared hosting is still the best choice in many situations. If you’re creating a simple blog, a site for family, a local club, anything with very light traffic where no-one will care much if the site is a little slow occasionally, the shared option is ideal. It’s very easy to use, and you can get decent plans from many providers for around $2 to $4 a month.
But if this is something more important, a web store, maybe a business site, then a slow or unreliable website will drive visitors away. It’s well worth upgrading to something more powerful.
What is VPS hosting?
VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is a clever technology which divides a single physical server into multiple server environments.
Log onto a VPS and you’ll have access to what looks like the full server. This is far more complex than shared hosting, but it also gives you much more control. You can install any apps, tweak any server settings, even replace the entire operating system if you like.
There will be other VPS environments on the same physical server (though not as many other accounts as with shared hosting), reducing your performance a little. But you’ll have your own allocation of network bandwidth, RAM, storage and CPU time. These won’t be shared with other customers, which means your site should see higher and more consistent speeds than you’ll get with shared hosting.
Upgrading is often very easy, too. If website traffic grows and you need additional resources – more CPU time, extra RAM, a higher bandwidth allowance – then you can typically add them to your plan in a click or two, and they’ll be available almost immediately.
This extra power comes at a price, but it might be much less than you think. Hostinger’s cheapest shared hosting plan is $1.99 a month on the four-year plan; its cheapest VPS plan is just $2.99, again over four years. It’s a very basic plan, but at $8.99 for a one-off month, it’s not expensive to see if a VPS could work for you.
What is dedicated hosting?
As the name suggests, dedicated hosting is a plan where a physical server is dedicated to a single client. That means no more speed issues because you’re sharing bandwidth, RAM or CPU time with other accounts: the entire system is yours alone.
As you’re renting the entire physical server, most providers allow you to build it with whatever hardware you need. You can typically choose your CPU, storage drives and type (cheap and high capacity HDDs, smaller but faster SSDs), operating system, bandwidth allowance and more.
This can be expensive. Even budget providers like Namecheap charge a monthly $50-$60 for their most basic dedicated servers, and Liquid Web’s top-of-the-range enterprise models might cost $500 or more (although they’re aimed at huge sites which might have a million page views a month).
There’s more work involved in managing a dedicated server, too. With shared hosting, if your server crashes, the provider support team should notice and fix or reboot it. But if you’re running the server, all that is up to you, unless you pay even more to the provider to handle it for you.
If you absolutely need top performance and complete control of your server, though, a dedicated plan is probably the way to go.
What is WordPress hosting?
WordPress is a website builder and content management system. It’s free and you can install it manually on a VPS or higher spec hosting type or you can rent a VPS server or shared server with WordPress pre-installed.
Over 40% of websites are built on top of WordPress so most shared hosting plans are pre-configured to be optimised to make the WordPress software run as fast and securely as possible. You should be able to make a VPS plan run WordPress as fast and securely too but you will need to know what you’re doing to get the most out of it.
The two main types of WordPress hosting are managed and unmanaged. With unmanaged hosting you’re responsible for updates and security but with managed a lot of those responsibilities are passed to the hosting provider. It does cost more money but it can save you a lot of time.
Does server location matter?
Yes. You can host your website anywhere and still get fast loading times on the other side of the world by using a CDN but it’s still best to host the actual site as close to your customers as possible. A CDN can speed up website access on pages that are frequently accessed but if your site is not in constant use in a region, you will see less benefit. Plus, a CDN is often an added cost. If you simply purchased a server close to your customers, you wouldn’t need a CDN. If you have an audience in a specific region it’s worth searching for the best web hosting services in that area. For example, the best UK web hosting.
What is managed hosting?
Shared hosting accounts are generally very simple to operate, but higher end products – WordPress, VPS hosting, dedicated servers – often require running all kinds of maintenance tasks. You might need to test and update WordPress plugins, install operating system patches, spot and troubleshoot server errors, maybe reboot a server if it locks up or crashes.
Buy a managed web hosting plan and some or all of these tasks will be carried out by your hosting provider’s regular support team. You’ll potentially save real time and hassle, and if problems do crop up, they’ll be speedily addressed by the people best qualified to fix them.
Sounds great– so why would anyone do anything else? Cost, mostly. Hostwinds’ 4-core 8GB RAM VPS costs $59.99 fully managed, for instance, but only $38.99 for the unmanaged DIY version, a big drop in price.
One key message here is to keep this in mind when comparing WordPress, VPS or dedicated plans between hosting providers. Host A may look seriously cheap, but are you comparing a managed with an unmanaged plan? Be sure to check the small print.
There’s no precise definition of ‘managed’, either, so don’t simply assume a managed plan means you’ll have absolutely no maintenance to do. Every provider has its own definition of what’s covered and what isn’t, so check it out, make sure you understand exactly what’s covered before you buy.
What is email hosting?
One of the big advantages of registering a domain is you can have your own custom email address ([email protected] is far more impressive and business-like than [email protected]).
You probably won’t get email when you register a domain, for instance. Most hosting plans include some email support, but it may not be as powerful as you need, especially for business use. You’ll often see strict limits on Inbox size, the number of accounts you can create, even the number of emails you can send a day.
Email hosting is a service which allows you to send and receive emails via a custom domain. You don’t have to buy email hosting from the same provider as your web hosting, and in fact you don’t need web hosting at all: just register a domain, buy an email hosting plan and you’re ready to start creating and using all those [email protected] email accounts.
Signing up for email hosting may get you a better service. The top providers give you plenty of Inbox space, support large attachments, don’t hold you back with annoying usage limits and provide built-in spam, phishing and malware filters to keep you safe.
This could be a feature well worth adding to your hosting line-up, and it’s generally inexpensive; many email hosting plans cost around $1-$2.50 a month. But if you currently have a budget shared hosting plan, keep in mind that upgrading might get you better email features and a bunch of other goodies, too. Check your provider’s hosting feature lists to find out exactly what you get.
What’s the website hosting TLDR?
For WordPress, Shared/WordPress hosting is easy but slightly more expensive. Managed is slightly more on top of that but even easier. Using a VPS and a file transfer service to upload and install WordPress is the cheapest but more complex option.
If you’ve got time and your website idea is not very complex (like a blog/ portfolio site) I’d but the effort into using a VPS and setting everything up yourself. If you don’t get on with it you can always use a money-back guarantee and transfer to a managed WordPress option.
For eCommerce, you want something flexible so you can scale your website for peak trading and promotional activities. You also want something with daily backups and redundancy so you never have any downtime. You’ll also want something that focuses on website loading speed because the payoff for faster loading pages is worth it.
What else should I consider when picking a web host?
Three or four-year hosting plans can have appealingly low prices, but they don’t always work out. If you’re unhappy with a host, or your site grows and the old plan can’t handle the increased traffic, you may have to buy something else early. It’s safer to sign up for a year (or even less), at least initially, and perhaps choose a VPS or similar plan where it’s easy to add more resources as required.
Uptime (the percentage of the day that your website is available) is a key stat for any serious website. If a potential customer can’t find or use your website, at best they’ll think you’re unprofessional, at worst they’ll give up on you entirely and go elsewhere.
Web hosting providers often quote uptime figures such as ‘99.9%’, but these don’t always cover the issues you might expect. Check the small print carefully for any hidden catches.
Look for a Service Level Agreement (SLA), too, especially for dedicated and other high-end hosting plans. These go beyond vague website promises to guarantee uptime, support response times and other elements of the service, and describe the compensation you’ll get if the target is missed.
Web hosting features explained
If you’re new to web hosting, some of the terms and features may sound confusing. To help you understand them, we’ve come up with a quick explainer for the most common elements in web hosting services:
Domain name. It’s the address people type in their browsers to visit your website, like techradar.com. Many hosting plans include one domain name for free for the first year of registration. Choose a .com domain to establish your credibility or .online for an affordable alternative.
SSL certificate. This feature encrypts the connection between your website and your visitors’ browsers, preventing hackers from accessing it. Hosting providers usually provide one for free from Let’s Encrypt. Some also offer a premium version as an add-on, which can provide a better warranty and level of verification.
Unmetered bandwidth. This means the hosting provider won’t monitor or cap the amount of data transferred, so there’s no need to worry about extra bandwidth usage fees once the website’s traffic grows. Each company has a different policy on unmetered resources, so make sure to read their terms and conditions beforehand.
SSD disk space. Compared to HDDs, SSDs are a much more reliable storage solution. They’re less prone to disk failures and can serve data twenty times faster, speeding up your website’s performance.
cPanel. With this control panel, new users can manage their hosting via an intuitive interface – no technical skills required. You can access different features, check out your resource usage, and configure the domain’s settings within a few clicks.
WordPress auto-installer. This feature lets you set up WordPress in a few clicks from the hosting’s control panel. That way, there’s no need to download and upload the CMS files yourself.
Website migration. Most hosting providers allow transferring an existing site from another host to their servers. Typically, you have to insert some information about the website, submit a ticket to their customer support team, and wait a few hours for the migration to initiate.
Custom HTML and CSS. The control panel should provide access to your website’s files, including HTML and CSS, via the file manager or an FTP client. Feel free to edit them to customize the site’s front end to your liking.
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