Best Web Hosting Companies for 2023, Now that we’re at the beginning of a new year, perhaps it’s time for you to put your dreams into motion- start that blog or online business you’ve been putting off. As you think about the look and feel of your website, also take time to consider who you will engage for web hosting services.
There are many providers out there, each promising almost 100 percent uptime and super-fast loading speeds. But not all of them live up to their hype. That’s why we will take the time to look at 14 of the most popular names in the hosting landscape.
We will see how they stack up in the attributes that matter to you as a potential website owner- speed, reliability, pricing, etc so you can have a simple idea of what you’ll be signing up for when you pick a hosting provider.
Best Web Hosting Companies – Quick Look
| Hosting Companies | Average Uptime | Average Speed (US) | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| HostGator | 99.98% | 1,191ms | |
| Bluehost | 99.95% | 200ms – 600ms | |
| Ipage | 99.66% | 1,100 -1,600ms | |
| Dreamhost | 99.94% | 648ms | |
| Namecheap | 99.92% | 625ms | |
| GreenGreek | 99.98% | 445ms | |
| Siteground | 99.99% | 673ms | |
| Hostwind | 99.99% | 1,151ms | |
| A2 Hosting | 99.95% | 150ms | |
| WP Engine | 99.99% | 700ms | |
| Kinsta | 99.9% | 696ms | |
| Liquidweb | 99.98% | 348ms | |
| Pressidium | 99.99% | 200ms |
HostGator
HostGator has been around for almost 20 years and is one of the more popular hosting companies today because of its inviting beginner pricing.
They have also gained a reputation for substantial support. From its humble beginnings in a dorm room in Florida, HostGator has become a global force with offices in Canada and Brazil.
They currently host upwards of two million websites and offer a variety of hosting options- shared hosting, WordPress-specific hosting, VPS and dedicated hosting. Besides hosting, you can purchase a domain with them or become a hosting reseller with them and earn an extra coin.
Performance and reliability
Response time tests conducted from different locations in the US and outside the country show impressive speeds- just 37ms from US locations and 413ms from Australia.
Pricing
On the face of it, HostGator’s pricing appears to be very pocket-friendly, starting at just $2.75 per month. But this is introductory pricing for the base shared hosting package, which renews at $6.95 per month.
Like other service providers, you stand to spend less on hosting if you opt for a longer-term commitment over monthly payments.
What catches the eye with HostGator’s plans, however, is the money-back guarantee. Unlike most service providers, who offer a 30-day refund period, HostGator entices potential customers with a 45-day money-back guarantee.
Having said that, there is fine print in the guarantee terms that you need to understand before making a claim.
Customer service
One of the areas HostGator has been praised for is the quality of support it offers customers. You can reach out to their support agents at any time in the day or night by phone or their website’s live chat and you’re guaranteed to get timely help.
If you would rather figure things out yourself, there is a robust knowledge base of articles and tutorials you can refer to.
Security
Whichever HostGator plan you opt for, you will get a free SSL certificate. Besides being important in securing communication between your site and visitors’ browsers, SSL is critical to good SEO. Other hosting providers offer SSL as an added feature that you have to pay for separately.
HostGator also provides customers with protection against DDoS attacks that can render their websites inaccessible. If you need additional security, you can check the Site Lock add-on before checking out your plan. This tool will continually scan your site for malware and detect any vulnerabilities hackers may exploit.
Scalability
Your ideal hosting provider should be able to scale their offerings to match your growth. This should be seamless- you shouldn’t have to interrupt service to your customers so that your site is connected to more storage space or more bandwidth.
HostGator promises that you will never have to uproot your website and go elsewhere because they’re unable to accommodate your needs. They have a magnificent bouquet of plans to match the needs of businesses at different levels.
Pros
- Offer free migration.
- Known for substantial support.
- Fairly priced feature-rich plans.
- 45-day money-back guarantee.
Cons
- Many critical features, such as SiteLock security, are add-ons you have to pay extra for.
Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the older players in the hosting industry, having set up shop in 2003. From its humble beginnings in Utah, the company has grown to become a global powerhouse powering over two million websites.
Bluehost has long been known for WordPress hosting, and this can be traced down to their decade-long partnership with the popular CMS.
Besides their support for WordPress. Another reason for Bluehost’s popularity is its fair pricing. Many have taken a liking to this hosting provider because of how easy it is to sign up and get your hosting plan. Let’s see how Bluehost fares in the attributes that potential customers will look out for.
Pricing
From a bird’s-eye view, Bluehost’s pricing seems like it’s really hard to beat.
How many hosting companies out there offer shared hosting starting at just $2.95 per month? And for that, you get hosting for a single website with 50 GB of storage along with several freebies, including a free domain and free SSL. With that, be able to get a useful website or personal blog going.
But there is some fine print you need to be aware of before you sign up for the plan. First, you need to note that the free domain will only last for a year.
And then, the fairytale rate only applies if you commit yourself to Bluehost for no less than three years. The shorter the time span you’re willing to commit, the higher your monthly fees will be. In fact, monthly fees are a misnomer, as Bluehost doesn’t have a monthly plan- you have to commit for at least a year.
Performance and reliability
Response times within the US were as low as 35ms, and even locations in the Far East responded in less than a second.
The CDN Bluehost provides at no extra charge could be the reason response times from far-flung locations remain decent. Unlike many of its competitors, Bluehost does not offer an uptime guarantee on its website. However, actual tests have shown that Bluehost’s servers are very reliable and suffer negligible downtime.
They provide free SSL with any plan you sign up for.
Customer service
Bluehost support is reachable in the day or night via live chat or phone. There is a knowledge base with a robust search engine for those who would rather try to sort out their issues on their own.
Scalability
Bluehost offers a range of shared hosting plans you can scale through as your business grows. If the need arises, you can upgrade to VPS or dedicated hosting.
Added extras
Bluehost provides an easy-to-follow wizard to guide you through setting up your website on WordPress. The wizard is intuitive and takes you from account setup to setting up your email and making your web pages SEO-ready.
When you spend your first $25 on Bluehost, you qualify for $100 worth of Google Ads credit. This can help you get the word out about your products and brand.
Pros
- Reasonable pricing if you can commit for more than a year.
- The setup is straightforward using their wizard.
- Support is readily available for phone or live chat.
- The knowledge base comes with an easy-to-use search feature.
Cons
- Commit to Bluehost for at least 12 months.
- No Windows-based VPS hosting.
iPage
Founded in 1998, iPage is one of the more seasoned providers in the hosting landscape. FYI, it is part of Endurance International Group (EIG), the entity which also owns Bluehost and HostGator. iPage hosts over one million websites, most of the individuals and small businesses.
Individualized attention to customers and data centers that house innovative server technology is iPage’s key selling point. Another is a user-friendly dashboard that makes it easy for non-technical users to set up and administer their websites.
With this and the support of knowledgeable agents, reachable 24/7, be able to run your site on iPage. But considering the many providers who make the same claims as iPage, how can you tell if they are the right fit for your project?
Performance and reliability
iPage offers customers the assurance that the data centers where their data and applications are hosted are monitored by IT professionals night and day. With redundancy enforced by frequent backups, you can have the assurance that you will restore service to your customers even after a catastrophic event.
Their upload and download speeds are nothing to write home about. Test results vary from reviewer to reviewer, but one noted iPage produced an average load time of 3.57s when tested on different platforms.
This is significantly slower than SiteGround, which averaged 2.10s on the same tests. With server locations solely in the US, don’t expect great speeds in overseas locations with iPage.
Pricing
And this offer will not last into the fourth year of your plan.
From, then henceforth you will be charged $7.99 per month. At least you will still have the comfort of knowing that your plan comes with hosting for an unlimited number of websites, free SSL, and unlimited storage.
To give you the comfort that you’re getting value for money when you sign up with iPage, the company offers a 30-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.
Customer service
You can get help via the iPage website’s live chat, but you have to be a registered customer to use it. Customers can also reach support agents by phone or email or look through a knowledge base with a fairly good search engine.
Ease of use
iPage provides several wizards to make setting up your website a breeze. They also offer a sleek panel that is easy to use. And if you’re looking to set up an online store, you will be happy to note that iPage offers several tools to ease setup and facilitate your operations.
For one, you can easily integrate PayPal to ease payment processing. You can also link your store to their email marketing platform.
Scalability
To facilitate the expansion of your operations, iPage offers users unmetered bandwidth.
This means they don’t cap off bandwidth. Though whatever additional bandwidth they offer, you will be limited to what is not being used by other users.
There are also no storage limits imposed by iPage. However, when you reach the point where you feel you’re ripe for a dedicated server, migrate your data elsewhere as iPage doesn’t offer this service.
Pros
- Great pricing for individuals and startups.
- Variety of support options.
- Plans are simply laid out and easy to understand.
Cons
- No uptime guarantee.
- Speeds are not impressive.
- No server locations outside the U.S.
- No dedicated server plans.
- Support is not very responsive.
DreamHost
This California-based hosting provider offers an array of hosting plans to meet the needs and budgets of almost aspiring website owners. Here you will find a selection of shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and cloud hosting plans to choose from.
The depth of their offerings mirrors DreamHost’s longevity in the hosting space- they began about 20 years ago. During this time more than a million individuals and enterprises have entrusted them with their websites, blogs, and web apps.
Besides offering potential customers a healthy selection of products, DreamHost prides itself on feature-rich plans, fast, reliable connectivity, and ever-present support. They also affirm their commitment to security and privacy.
Performance and reliability
To optimize speeds, DreamHost offers fast SSD storage on all its plans. All plans come with unmetered bandwidth to ensure performance is not affected by sudden spikes in traffic.
But when downtime happens other than is caused by these exceptions, you won’t get a refund. They will only reduce the amount from your next renewal payment. If you would like to know if DreamHost really lives up to its guarantee, the answer is no.
Tests have found the provider to offer an average of 99.94 percent uptime. This is not shabby but is below what other providers guarantee.
Pricing
The most affordable plan available to would-be bloggers and small business owners is the Shared Starter which has introductory pricing of $2.59 monthly.
You will need to commit to a three-year plan to access this pricing. That DreamHost’s plans come with a 97-day money-back guarantee will get the attention of those shopping around for a hosting provider.
But if you read the fine print, you will discover that the guarantee only applies to shared hosting plans that are paid for by credit or debit cards.
Customer service
Like most other providers, DreamHost assures customers that help is at hand in the day or night. You can reach their support agents by email or via live chat (available 14 hours a day). DreamHost promises WordPress users a dedicated support team specially trained to handle queries on this platform.
Security
The base shared hosting plan comes with a free SSL certificate. You also won’t need to have the privacy protection that keeps your personal information from being visible when a WHOIS lookup is done. They also provide automated backups for free to help you recover from failures or attacks.
Added extras
While other providers sweeten the pot with free email, DreamHost will require you to pay a little extra for it if you take the starter plan.
Ease of use
With many website owners opting to build their websites on WordPress, what this provider offers pre-installed is an attractive selling point.
Scalability
You can easily scale up your hosting with DreamHost’s comprehensive range of hosting plans.
Pros
- Offer free migration for WordPress sites.
- Easy setup for WP sites.
- 97-day money-back guarantee.
- Plans come with many free features including SSL and a domain.
- A wide array of hosting offerings is available.
Cons
- The money-back-guarantee is only available under certain conditions.
Namecheap
As the company’s name suggests, Namecheap was primarily focused on providing would-be website owners with affordable domain names. And with over ten million names registered under them, they’re pretty good at their core business.
But are they as good at hosting as we know them to be at names? Looking at the variety of their hosting offerings, it’s fair to say that Namecheap is serious about hosting. They offer everything from basic shared hosting to managed WordPress hosting to dedicated servers.
And they seem to apply their pricing ethos to hosting as well. Let us inspect just how friendly Namecheap’s pricing is. And whether they offer value for money or if they compromise quality for pricing.
Performance and reliability
The servers that host Namecheap websites are housed in a state-of-the-art data center. But tests have shown that the speeds they offer are less than mind-blowing, averaging 637ms over a two-year period. Uptime tests conducted by independent reviewers have found Namecheap’s uptime average to be 99.87 percent.
The industry standard is 99.90 percent.
Pricing
For that modest fee, you will have to host up to three websites, 20 GB of reputably fast SSD storage, and the usual free year of domain registration.
You will also enjoy unmetered bandwidth and free SSL. Yes, there is a catch to that ridiculously low pricing. Pay for a year in advance and when that year lapses, the price will more than double.
Customer service
You’re guaranteed availability of support 24/7 with Namecheap. And you can dig up a lot of useful information from their vast knowledge base of articles using a user-friendly search engine.
However, accounts from independent reviewers of their experience with Namecheap’s support agents are not very encouraging. They complain about being tossed from agent to agent on the live chat without eventually getting the solution they needed.
All Namecheap plans include free SSL installation.
Added extras
There are several enticing extras Namecheap throws into its plans. They include a free domain and free migration if you already had a site.
If you sign up for a premium shared hosting plan, Namecheap will throw in the Auto backup.
This robust backup management tool takes automatic backups of your website and email. It also allows you to easily schedule backups and restore data via its cPanel interface.
Scalability
You can scale up your website or applications through Namecheap’s bouquet of plans starting from shared hosting to VPS to dedicated servers. And you can rely on their ever-present support team to help you through the process.
Pros
- Plans are well priced.
- Even the base plan has many useful features.
- Has received many positive reviews.
- Offers free backups with all plans.
- Offers free migration of existing websites.
- Have a firm commitment to privacy- you can pay for hosting using Bitcoin.
Cons
- Uptime can be better.
- Customer support can be better.
GreenGeeks
If you need web hosting and would like the assurance that your website is not affecting the planet adversely, think GreenGeeks.
Besides saving the planet by using renewable energy, GreenGeeks offers you feature-rich hosting at very reasonable pricing. Another of the hosting provider’s key selling points is personalized customer support.
GreenGeeks has been in the business for 13 years and over this period has curated a robust bouquet of products to adequately cater to your organization’s growth.
They offer specialized support for WordPress websites and VPS hosting. Over 600,000 website owners have entrusted their hosting to GreenGeeks. Let’s look at some attributes that have drawn them there.
Performance and reliability
SSD storage means faster access to data stored on GreenGeeks servers. Content Delivery Networks are included at no additional cost with every plan.
Pricing
Would-be bloggers and startups looking for affordable hosting will be attracted by GreenGeeks’ base shared hosting plan, which starts at $2.95 per month.
Yes, there are providers who offer cheaper introductory plans, but will they come with unlimited storage space, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited e-mail accounts, free daily backups, and free CDN? I didn’t think so.
But there is a catch: you have to pay for three years’ worth of hosting upfront. And after that promotional period lapses, the price jumps to $10.95 per month. This might be a little painful for website owners who won’t yet have established solid revenue streams.
All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you’re sure you’re getting value for money before you make that long-term commitment.
Customer service
Part of welcoming you as a new GreenGeek customer, if you have an existing website, is to migrate your site to their servers for free. From the easily visible chat feature and contact phone number on the site, you get the idea that this provider is pretty serious about support.
The chatbot actually prompts you, asking if you have questions. There is also a vast knowledge base of articles with an easy-to-use search feature at your disposal.
Security
With GreenGeeks, you have the peace of mind of knowing that even if intruders breach your site and unleash malicious files, you can quickly recover to a very recent version of your site and continue as before.
This is because they offer daily backups as part of all their plans at no additional cost. In addition to this, GreenGeeks assures its customers of advanced security protocols and proactive fixing of vulnerabilities.
Scalability
Whether you’re signed up for general shared web hosting or WordPress hosting, there are plans you can upgrade to after outgrowing the base plan. You can jump to VPS hosting if you need dedicated resources.
Pros
- Hosts sites on fast serve with SSD storage and PHP7
- Free backups with every plan.
- Free CDN improves performance.
- An unlimited e-mail with every plan.
- Replace the energy your site consumes with wind power credits.
Cons
- The cost of plans triples after the promotional period.
- Phone support is not available 24/7.
SiteGround
Is SiteGround worthy of our recommendation as an excellent web hosting provider? Absolutely! It is a fantastic choice for your web hosting needs, irrespective of the size and purpose of your website.
SiteGround is one of the more popular web hosts currently available, for excellent reasons, as we will get into in this article.
They provide web hosting choices and plans that can be used by numerous types of businesses and websites. These may range from personal websites, commercial websites to huge e-commerce businesses.
If you are in the market for a web hosting provider or are looking to switch from your current web host, SiteGround is one of the first choices of web hosting partner you should consider.
SiteGround offers many benefits to its customers. Let us look at the largest ones.
Performance and reliability
Uptime is one of the most important metrics when considering the services of a web host. Some would argue it is the most important. In any case, uptime refers to the length of time a website server remains up and working.
Now that your website is up, time to ensure it remains fast. SiteGround features speedy loading times, meaning visitors to your site will not be bogged down by slow page loads.
Pricing
Once the promotional period has elapsed, you may be surprised to learn of the spike in renewal rates, which effectively go up by triple the amount.
Customer service
Customer assistance can be received in several ways, such as 24/7 live chat and phone support. For those that opt for the GoGeek plan, SiteGround technicians with the most experience will prioritize you.
Added extras
Some website hosting vendors nickel-and-dime their clients through add-on upcharges. This is not the case with SiteGround, as several crucial features that cost extra with other hosting companies are free with SiteGround.
Once a member, a free migration for one site is offered, which can be achieved using the SiteGround Migrator plug-in. in addition, a free SSL certificate and a free CDN are also bundled with SiteGround hosting plans.
With SiteGround, you will have the added satisfaction of knowing your website is not taking away from the planet. SiteGround offers a 100 percent renewable energy match.
Flexibility
Site Ground can host almost any type of website. This translates into a hosting service that can cater to both experienced and novice users alike. You do not have to possess highly technical expertise to use SiteGround effectively.
Conversely, those that are more tech-savvy, offer plans that can allow you to advantageously use certain features and be more involved on the server side of your hosting. Additionally, SiteGround offers several options that can provide various hosting requirements, from shared hosting to cloud hosting.
Pros
- All SiteGround’s plans include managed WordPress hosting.
- Servers are loaded with speed-enhancing technologies including Nginx, SSD storage, and PHP 7, and deliver solid performance.
- Server locations in multiple locations across the globe improve the experience for your international customers.
- Free daily backups with all plans.
- Free migration of your first website.
Cons
- Pricing is on the higher side and they only get steeper on your first renewal.
HostWinds
Created in 2010, Hostwinds provides a variety of web hosting services besides hosting itself. They offer domain registration and a website builder. For hosting, they have a variety of options to suit all kinds of business needs.
They have basic shared hosting, tailored WordPress hosting, VPS, cloud hosting, and dedicated hosting.
Performance and reliability
SSD drives are used by HostWinds to increase the proficiency and speed of the sites it hosts. In addition, they also employ a Route Optimized Network to make connections even faster.
Pricing
The three shared hosting plans offered by HostWinds are quite affordable, with even more savings being realized if you commit to a longer service period, such as 24 months or 36 months.
Customer service
HostWinds claim to provide one of the best customer support experiences in the industry and the awards they have won for the provision of excellent customer support bear testament to this.
When tested by independent reviewers, the HostWinds live chat function scores very highly in customer satisfaction surveys. They report that the live chat customer support is both helpful and responsive to existing and prospective users’ requirements quickly, effectively, and efficiently.
In addition, to live chat, other HostWinds customer support channels include a system of tickets, a knowledge base, and a phone support option.
Security
To this end, HostWinds provides free SSL certificates bundled with every one of the shared website hosting plans they offer. An SSL certificate carries with it significant benefits, one of which is making your URL not from regular HTTP but from superior HTTPS.
The reason for this matter is HTTP websites are marked as insecure by Google, potentially driving customers away from what they perceive as an untrustworthy operation.
Added extras
For those with existing websites, you can migrate them over to HostWinds from your current web host, for free, an offer lasting 60 days, after which the offer will be rescinded. The site migration can begin once you have purchased the hosting plan that best fits the purposes of your site.
This process is fully taken care of by the technicians at HostWinds. Among the most attractive features, HostWinds offers include an unlimited number of email accounts, unlimited disk space, and SSL certificates. All these come with any plan you opt for at no extra cost.
While they offer monitoring and cloud backups, they cost an extra fee. These add-ons are free with many other web hosts.
Pros
- Servers are optimized for fast response times with technologies like fast SSD drives.
- Offer free migration to customers with existing websites.
- Offer highly responsive customer support, available through multiple channels.
- A good number of attractive freebies with every plan.
- Easily administer your site from their intuitive control panel.
- 60-day money-back guarantee is more generous than the 30-day guarantees most providers offer.
Cons
- Make a long-term commitment to benefit from good pricing.
- Cloud backups come at an additional fee.
- Few server locations mean that your international customers may experience slow speeds.
- Money-back guarantee comes with hidden conditions.
A2 Hosting
If you’re in the market for a provider who has well-priced, high-performance hosting,
A2 Hosting is a web host that offers exceptional customer service and security.
If these are your top 2 considerations when shopping for a home for your website, this is the one. This provider can provide you with up to 6 differing hosting types: Reseller, Dedicated, Cloud, VPS, WordPress, and shared. A2 Hosting is a very good web host, with very particular strengths–security, customer support, and speed.
Their only glaring weakness is less-than-ideal uptime. With their any-time money-back guarantee, you owe it to yourself to at least give them a try.
For more on A2 Hosting’s other attributes, please read on.
Performance and reliability
On a basic level, the uptime shown over time is slightly lower than the average displayed by other hosts on their level but is sufficient. In this day and age, 99.9 percent uptime is not really anything to write home about. But this level of availability will suffice for most personal and small business websites.
Page loading times are enhanced through the use of Cloudflare CDN, which can be accessed via cPanel, with both free and paid versions available depending on your requirements.
Pricing
Basic shared hosting starts at $2.99, which can be considered very fair, even as an introductory price. But you must be locked in for three years to benefit from this pricing. If you can only do a year, the price jumps to $6.99.
Security
All plans come with basic SSL to secure communication with your website. Google also favors sites with this technology in the rankings of its results. If you need additional security, you can always opt for premium SSL.
Added extras
All A2 Hosting web hosting plans come with access to the easy-to-use cPanel control panel. Also free is site migration, which is a paid service with some rival vendors. In addition, non-profits attract a discount, and those who are eco-conscious are offered ‘green hosting’ plans.
All A2 Hosting WordPress and shared hosting plans contain unlimited transfer and SSD storage, along with a cPanel control panel. As you scale up the pricing levels, automatic website backups and unmetered email addresses are offered.
They provide 4 dedicated server plans and 3 VPS hosting plans with a mix of complete HostGuard management, cPanel control panel, and root access.
Pros
- Money-Back Guarantee Valid at Any Time: you will be due, within the initial 30 days, a full refund, and thereafter, a refund on a prorated basis.
- Customer Service is described by their customers as responsive. Their ‘Guru Crew’ customer support technicians are among the best in the business.
- Extra attention is paid to your website security, both physically and digitally.
- Free site migration regardless of the plan.
- Free access to cPanel.
Cons
- Slightly cumbersome sign-up procedure.
- At least a three-year commitment is required to benefit from low pricing.
- Lower than expected uptime: lower uptime levels compared to equally matched rivals.
WP Engine
WP Engine specializes in hosting WordPress websites, providing managed plans entirely catering to the popular platform. While not the cheapest WordPress host in absolute terms, they offer a value-based product that may be worth your consideration.
Be warned that WP Engine’s services don’t come cheap- pricing on basic plans starts at $30.
But what you are paying for is a high-quality, managed, WordPress hosting service. With many features that are tailor-made for WordPress, decent performance, and helpful support, WP Engine is not for everyone, but it may be for you.
Performance and reliability
While support and features are crucial, a web host’s performance matters most. WP Engine offers many features that enhance their performance, like:
- The GeoTarget add-on, which enhances your website’s reach in certain locations,
- A solution for Page Performance, which appraises your site periodically for ways to improve its performance,
- A (CDN) or Content Delivery Network, which is included in every plan.
WP Engine provides its customers with many server locations, including data centers spread throughout Australia, Asia, Europe, and North America.
Pricing
With a single product on offer–managed WordPress web hosting–WP Engine divides this one product into several tiers. The plans are differentiated by resource allocation and the number of websites you can host, making for a service that is very scalable.
However, with the entry-level plan going for $30 per month, WP Engine may turn off potential website owners on a tight budget.
And for this, you get a mere 10 GB of storage and traffic capped at 50 GB per month. There are several providers who offer unmetered bandwidth and unlimited storage at a fraction of this price.
But while they’re not cheap, WP Engine’s plans offer outstanding value through the extension of many features, making it easier for your business to expand. For those with serious aspirations for their WordPress site, WP Engine is worth your consideration.
Customer service
Dedicated help is accessible around the clock, through live chat, email, and phone. Agents are knowledgeable, helpful, and responsive, with additional support resources being a thorough knowledge base and resource center.
Security
All WP Engine’s plans come with automated SSL certificates and if you subscribe to the more pricey plans, you get the option of imported SSL certificates. A security add-on labeled Global Edge Security is available if you’re willing to pay a little more for extra peace of mind.
WordPress Specific Features
Managed hosting may be considered if you would like a fast-loading, secure, and optimized website with most of the work being undertaken by experienced technicians. When looking at managed WordPress web hosting particularly, WP Engine is among the leaders in the niche.
Features specific to WordPress offered by WP Engine include:
- Numerous diagnostic and performance-tracking options.
- Staging sites set up support.
- Easy and fast migration from the current host.
Pros
- Adequate levels of expert and dedicated support.
- Consistent, solid performance.
- Managed hosting simplifies website management.
- For WordPress users, highly optimized
Cons
- Limited offerings–managed web hosting on either dedicated or shared servers.
- No option for basic shared hosting.
- Pricey.
Kinsta
Kinsta offers would-be bloggers and website owners managed WordPress hosting. Founded in 2013, it is one of the new kids on the hosting block, priding itself in being one of the fastest-growing independent companies in its field.
They also tout their attention to the needs of their customers with a 97 percent customer satisfaction rating brandished on their website.
Part of the reason they’re able to achieve such ratings is localized support covering different time zones, available in seven languages. Another is the speed and reliability they can guarantee customer websites hosted on their 24 data centers in different locations.
So how does Kinsta fare on the different criteria that would interest potential customers?
Performance and reliability
And all this shows in Kinsta’s performance stats. Monitored over four months, the hosting provider was found to provide 100 percent uptime (they offer a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee). Response times from different locations across the globe averaged 696ms, which is quite impressive.
Pricing
Kinsta offers managed WordPress hosting with pricing starting at $30 per month. But once you’ve paid for this, you won’t have to worry about setting up, migrating, or administering your website.
Plus, you also get free CDN and 10 GB of SSD storage available from 24 Google Cloud locations around the globe to ensure your site loads quickly wherever requests are made from.
You will also have free daily backups with your data being kept for two weeks. Kinsta offers you the peace of mind that comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. However, $30 per month is pretty steep for the average blogger, and if you want to enjoy hosting for over one site, stump up twice the amount.
Customer service
Kinsta has a team of WordPress developers at hand to assist with any issues 24 hours a day. If you have over one site, their multi-site support will help you deal with any raising complexities.
Security
Among the security features available to even entry-level customers are the aforementioned backups, protection against hacking, and malware removal.
Added extras
Whichever plan you subscribe to, you will get access to a staging area in which you can test additional features on a copy of your website before going live. This is just one of many tools Kinsta provides to make developers’ lives easier. Others include SSH access and the ability to switch between multiple PHP 7 versions.
To make it even easier to manage your WordPress site, Kinsta provides a customized platform suited to this purpose.
Scalability
Pros
- Dedicated WordPress support.
- Automated daily backups with every plan.
- Free migrations from other hosts.
- Great speeds locally and globally.
Cons
- Pricing is a little exorbitant.
- Plans are limited to managed WordPress hosting only.
Liquid Web
They focus this hosting service provider on the big guns- those with high-traffic websites that need dedicated resources.
Though they do offer managed WordPress hosting, Liquid Web’s products mainly comprise VPS and dedicated servers.
They target their offerings at large corporates with the need for high availability hosting, though they claim to also cater to small and medium-sized enterprises and freelancers.
That they have been around since 1997 and host over 500,000 websites means they know a thing or two about hosting. They pride themselves on offering quick responses to their customers whenever they need help.
Do they live up to their promises? And what more do they have in store for potential customers? Read on to find out.
Performance and reliability
Liquid Web claims to have over 25,000 servers that are being monitored continually by a team of experts to ensure they consistently provide optimal speeds.
The servers are in three locations- two in the U.S. and one in Europe and are ISO9001-certified. They have been performance-tuned with features like SSD drives, CloudFlare CDN, PHP 7, and image compression.
That the servers are fully owned by Liquid Web, which means they have more control over their performance and security.
With a client base that includes globally recognized brands such as Home Depot, Eddie Bauer, and Symantec, you can expect above-average performance from this hosting provider. Small wonder they can comfortably publish a 100 percent uptime guarantee on their website.
Pricing
Consequently, with such big shots on Liquid Web’s books, you can expect above-normal pricing. They manage their cheapest product by WordPress hosting, which starts at $19 per month.
Competitors such as Bluehost and Hostinger will start you off with as little as $2 per month. So if you’re on a tight budget, the likes of Liquid Web probably won’t figure in your provider shortlist.
Customer service
Even if you’re not yet signed up for any of Liquid Web’s products, you can talk to their support agents via the phone number or live chat provided on their website. If you already have a site or web application hosted by another provider, you can rely on Liquid Web’s dedicated migration team to move your email, databases, etc.
Security
The hosting provider ensures customers of on-site security besides a team of dedicated techies monitoring their networks and servers for any potential threats. They take automatic backups of your site daily and store it for 30 days, just in case it requires restoration.
With Liquid Web, you have the additional comfort of redundancy to further ensure your site won’t be affected by hardware or software failure. They back these up with UPS systems and generators that are maintained zealously.
Besides this, Liquid Web provides features like SSL, DDoS protection, malware scanning, and firewalls that you expect every hosting company to provide.
Added extras
Do you want to be sure your plug-ins are working as expected before you go live with them? Take advantage of the staging site Liquid Web provides to test all kinds of scenarios so you’re double-sure.
Pros
- It takes automatic backups daily for all plans.
- 100 percent uptime guarantee.
- Servers tuned for high performance.
Cons
- Plans are very pricey.
- No shared hosting plans.
Pressidium
This provider is a fairly new, but fast-growing entrant in the WordPress hosting space. They launched just in 2014 but have already amassed a client base that includes several 500 companies, learning institutions, and prominent media houses.
Pressidium won’t appeal to you if you’re looking for a cheap place to offer your online services from. But if you’re keen on the quality of service, you won’t mind paying to have a team of WordPress specialists at your beck and call.
They also claim to build their infrastructure on groundbreaking technology that maximizes speed and availability. So does Pressidium really offer value for money? Let’s find out.
Performance and reliability
Load-balanced server clusters offer you outstanding performance while eliminating the probability of downtime. They also offer high-availability hosting to ensure that your site remains available even when your primary site is attacked or suffers downtime.
And these features are available on all Pressidium plans. You also get CDN and image optimization among other features to boost speeds.
Pricing
The last price of Pressidium’s offerings is its Micro plan, for which you will pay $21 per month if you agree to a year-long commitment. For this, you will get hosting for one WordPress site that can handle 10,000 visitors a month. You will also get unlimited bandwidth, free enterprise SSL management,
Customer service
All Pressidium customers get 24/7 support from expert DevOps engineers. As a subscriber to Pressidium’s Enterprise plan, you get a dedicated account manager to ensure you’re getting the most out of their services.
If you’re migrating from a host who provided by phone or live chat, it will disappoint you to learn that these options are unavailable with Pressidium.
However, you can raise a ticket using their intuitive system and they assure you of a response within five or 30 minutes depending on whether you’re on the Enterprise plan.
If you would rather sort yourself out, you can search for helpful info in the Pressidium knowledge base using a handy search tool.
Security
Free SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt, Enterprise SSL management is provided with all plans, as automated daily backups. You also get protection from a managed web application firewall and constant scans for malware. Bad bot filtering is another important security feature Pressidium provides.
Added extras
You get a staging environment where you can test additional features and plug-ins. The presidium team of WordPress will also safely apply any updates introduced by the platform.
To help manage your website, Pressidium avails a dashboard that will help you keep tabs on your domains, view backups or manage them manually, manage your databases, and view activity logs.
Using the Pressidium plug-in, you can perform some simple functions that will improve the speed of your site.
Pros
- Advanced features are put in place to boost performance.
- Offers a robust, easy-to-use dashboard.
Cons
- Pricing may be out of reach of startups and beginner bloggers.
- Pay extra for CDN in the base plan.
- Support unreachable in real-time.
FAQs
What do you mean by web hosting?
Web hosting is the place on the Internet where your website will store. It is the place all the files, databases, and applications relating to your site will store.
How does web hosting work?
Like renting your apartment or space in a warehouse. You pay a specified amount every month, and the web hosting company allows you to store data relating to one or more websites.
What are the web hosting available?
There are three basic types of hosting: shared, VPS, and dedicated server hosting.
Is web hosting free?
Most hosting companies will offer attractive introductory pricing and have a period within which you can get your money back if you’re not satisfied with their services. However, there is no web hosting provider that offers their services free.
Is Google a Web Host?
No. Though some hosting companies store customer websites on Google’s cloud.
Which type of hosting is best?
There is no blanket answer for this; your needs and budget will determine the best hosting for you.
What is the purpose of hosting?
To have a place from which to avail information on the Internet to users. While you can host files on your computer and make them available to Internet users, this is neither advisable nor practical.
What is the difference between hosting and domain?
Hosting refers to storage while a domain is about reference. If you think of hosting as the home of your website, its domain is its address.
How many does web hosting cost?
There is no flat fee for hosting. What you pay will determine by the plan you choose with your chosen hosting provider.
Can I host my website?
As we mentioned earlier, this is possible, but not very practical. Consider the fact, for instance, that you will have to keep the computer you’re hosting the site on running 24/7/365.
Can I buy a domain name without hosting?
Yes. But you will not have a place to store your website files or make them available to potential visitors.
How many does GoDaddy web hosting cost?
This will depend on the features you would like to have on your website. GoDaddy has several hosting products to choose from.
Who legally owns a domain name?
The person who signed up for and purchase a domain name.
Is domain.com better than GoDaddy?
This will depend on what you’re looking for in your hosting or domain name provider.
