The Best Web Hosting for WordPress

Choosing the right web hosting is the foundation for any successful online business. From Amazon to your barber next door, entire businesses have lived or faltered because of poor website choices.

Especially as crafting good websites is no longer considered to be a job only HTML aficionados do. Web hosting is now solidly mainstream and we’re here to help you find your perfect fit.

Are you a neophyte yearning to produce your first website for a budding audience? Or maybe a seasoned veteran researching the world’s best web hosting providers to use as the ideal platform for the next big thing? Either way, you’ve come to the best resource on the web for choosing the perfect web hosting service.

So whether you are in the market for cheap hosting, shared hosting, website builders or WordPress hosting providers, we have got you covered with impartial recommendations and expert advice.

We reviewed (and re-reviewed) more than 120 web hosting providers as of June 2019. If you want to buy web hosting from a service provider, these are the five most important things to remember:

Web hosting: 5 must-know tips before you get started

1. You almost always get what you paid for: If your website is primarily a hobby on the side then that shouldn’t matter. However, as an essential business tool, it is often false economy to go for the cheapest deal (or a free one) on offer especially as…

2. Beware of pricing tricks: …. the overwhelming majority of web hosting vendors offer low prices at the beginning of their contracts but then jack up the pricing after the introductory period ends. That can be 24, 36 or even 60 months after signing up. Always look for the total cost of ownership.

3. Just how trustworthy is the provider: Just about anyone can pretend to be a real web host and just be reselling someone else’s products. So, look to see how long they’ve been around, do they have a contact address, who owns them, are they making realistic promises on the website etc. Google is your friend.

4. Know your limits: How comfortable are you with creating your own website? Do you need external help to understand the numerous ramifications (including legal and commercial ones) that publishing one entails?

5. Consider website builders: You don’t need web hosting to get online and website builders offer an interesting and compelling alternative. However you cannot migrate your content easily if you want to leave because of their proprietary nature.

The best web hosting companies right now:

• The best web hosting provider right now overall is InMotion hosting. It’s the best all-rounder in the market and is able to service individuals and businesses of all sizes looking for WordPress or ecommerce hosting.
• Bluehost is another web hosting provider worth looking at. Part of one of the world’s largest website hosting companies and with a solid set of features, it is regularly ranked amongst the top web hosts. Read more about these web hosting services and more below!

1. InMotion Web Hosting – 4.6/5

WordPress hosting: Yes | Business hosting: Yes | Web design services: Yes | 24×7-US-based support: Yes

Get 60% off the Power plan from TechRadar’s #1 rated web hosting provider

This popular web host is a respected and professional operation which has been in business for over 15 years, with an impressive array of plans on offer including shared hosting which starts from just a few dollars per month.

What’s also good to see is that InMotion Hostingbundles some pretty neat extras into its plans – services that other providers often charge extra for – including the likes of malware and DDoS protection, ‘spam-safe’ email and a system of basic backups.

InMotion provides both cPanel and Softaculous panels with its hosting, and another strong suit is some top-notch technical support should you get stuck with anything. In our testing, we found that this firm’s overall performance levels were well above average, which is good news for those who want to see fast-loading websites.

In short, there’s a great deal to like here and some tempting pricing, with the icing on the cake being a 90-day money-back guarantee should you fail to be satisfied with the service.

2. Bluehost web hosting – 4/5

Unmetered bandwidth: Yes | WooCommerce hosting: Yes | Free domain: Yes | 24×7-US-based support: Yes

Bluehost is a hosting company based in Utah which is owned by web giant Endurance International Group (EIG). It offers basic shared hosting from $2.99 monthly (on a three-year contract), with WordPress plans starting at $20 per month (although that’s also a discounted introductory rate).

For the money, you get automated setup for WordPress, not to mention other popular apps via a Mojo Marketplace-powered system. There’s also a cPanel-based area to allow expert users to tweak things.

Furthermore, Bluehost provides a Weebly-based website builder. This is a basic browser-based affair that lets you create a website of up to six pages, and there are no extras like site templates included. But still, it’s better than nothing, and more functionality is in the pipeline – plus you get this builder with the basic account.

There’s also good customer support on offer, and the end result is a mix of user-friendly aspects alongside a good amount of power and potential tweaking for more advanced users.

3. HostGator web hosting – 4/5

Unmetered bandwidth: Yes | Unmetered disk space: Yes | Search credit: $150 | Money-back guarantee: 45 days

If you’re hunting for budget web hosting, then look no further than HostGator’s Hatchling plan. The beauty of this provider is that even this basic plan is unrestricted in many respects. There are no limits on bandwidth or disk space, subdomains, MySQL databases, FTP and email accounts.

You also get cPanel-based management of your website, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Other laudable benefits include 24/7 customer support, and $200 worth of Google and Bing Ads credits.

There are some limitations, though, including the fact that this is one provider which doesn’t give you a free domain name for a year, and you can only operate one website on the Hatchling plan (although the latter isn’t an uncommon restriction with the cheapest hosting plans).

Further benefits include a 45-day money-back guarantee, not to mention free transfers for new accounts within the first month after you’ve signed up. There’s lots to like here considering the minimal impact on your wallet, with pricing as low as $2.64 (£1.95) per month on a three-year contract.

• Hostgator Business Plan – $5.68/month
• Hostgator Baby Plan – $3.78/month
• Hostgator Hatchling Plan – $2.64/month

4. Hostinger – 4/5

Unlimited bandwidth: Yes | Free SSL certificate: Yes | DDoS protection: Yes | Disk Storage: 100GB

Hostinger hails from Lithuania and is one of the biggest providers of free web hosting via its 000webhosting brand, They have well over 30 million users and some of the lowest prices thanks to low running costs and overheads. They prefer to use their own technology (for example they have their own customised control panel instead of the ubiquitous Cpanel) in order to have a tighter control on performance and features.

Its cheapest offer at the moment is an $0.80 (per month) web hosting package if you take a four year contract, great if you want to kickstart a small online venture but still limited because there’s no SSL or domain name bundled.

Our preference goes to their business package which offers unlimited bandwidth, MySQL databases, GIT integrations, SSH, CloudFlare DDoS protection and email accounts plus daily backups (something others charge), 100GB SSD-based disk space – exclusively for TechRadar readers – and SSL, all for only $3.45 per month when you take out a four-year contract (that’s just under $166 and a saving of $600 or 78%).

You get a colossal number of features as well, too many to list here. The Business web hosting plan also delivers 4X processing power and memory, handy if you need a boost during peak trading season.

5. GoDaddy web hosting – 4/5

The US-based web hosting company is one of the largest in the game and probably the best known one as well. It is also the biggest domain name registrar in the world with tens of millions of domain names in its portfolio. GoDaddy’s cheapest web hosting package (Economy) is decently kitted out at $2.49 per month when you sign for a year.

This provider offers free backup and restore, free Microsoft Office 365 Business Email for one year, an uptime guarantee (99.9%), unlimited storage (although there’s only 100GB for the Economy package), as well as unlimited bandwidth and a free domain with the annual plan.

A pretty nifty feature provided by GoDaddy on all its packages is the ability to increase hosting capacity on demand (e.g. when you experience a sudden surge in traffic) from within your hosting account.

• Check out the web hosting packages from GoDaddy

6. Tsohost web hosting – 4/5

Daily backups: Yes | Free SSL: Yes | Custom web console: Yes

This UK-based provider plays the value card, with an entry-level plan which starts at £1.61 ($2.15) per month (providing you sign up for two years – it’s £1.79 per month if you commit for just one year). That plan limits you to 500MB storage, admittedly, but you do get unlimited bandwidth, Let’s Encrypt SSL and 10 mailboxes.

There’s flexibility here, as well, because you can opt for cPanel hosting, or ‘cloud web hosting’ via Tsohost’s own cloud architecture and custom web management console, which might appeal more to some.

Tsohost’s technical support may not be the fastest out there in terms of response times, at least in our experience, but that said, it did provide clear and accurate answers to our queries. Performance levels are also solid, and the company offers a 60-day money-back guarantee, which is more than you’ll see with most providers.

• Check out the web hosting packages from Tsohost here

7. Wix web hosting – 4/5

Online store: Optional | Free domain: Yes | Search credits: $75 | Professional site review: Optional

Wix is a website building service that offers an attractive range of plans and boasts some truly impressive depth when it comes to tailoring your site to best match your needs. The service has a user-friendly editor that bristles with content and functionality, and allows you to fine-tune your site in a huge amount of different ways.

And there’s depth across the board, so for example, when it comes to templates, you don’t just get a scattering of predefined sites, but more than 500 of them. You’ll often find that you’re spoilt for choice with Wix.

Other powerful features include an integrated image editor with tons of Instagram-style filters, and a raft of ecommerce templates to boot (note that Wix doesn’t levy transactions fees on your sales, either, unlike some rivals).

Wix even has a free plan, although that limits bandwidth and storage space (to 500MB) and puts branding on your site. Step up to the Unlimited plan, which is the most popular subscription, and you get 10GB of storage plus a free domain, unlimited bandwidth (as the name suggests) alongside $75 worth of Google Ad vouchers.

• Most popular Wix Unlimited plan (unlimited bandwidth, 10GB storage)
• Wix VIP plan (Professional site review, Email campaigns)
• Wix eCommerce plan (online store, 20GB storage)
• Wix Connect Domain (Wix banner ads, 1GB bandwidth, 0.5GB storage)

8. SiteGround

Many hosting reseller plans are focused on the most basic and underpowered products. That may keep the price low, but the lack of features will also make it more difficult to sell the plans later.

SiteGround’s reseller plan is a little more ambitious. Every user gets 10GB of disk space and cPanel site management, and there’s unlimited bandwidth, email addresses, databases, and FTP accounts. Highlights include Spam Experts-based spam filtering, free Let’s Encrypt SSL, daily backups and an integrated CloudflareCDN.

These accounts cost more than the very low-end competition, but they’re hardly expensive, with prices starting at $3.50 a month over a year.

There’s more good news in SiteGround’s pricing structure. Other companies often ask you to pay upfront for the resources to support perhaps hundreds of clients, whether you need those resources right at the outset of your venture, or not.

SiteGround allows purchasing plans in much smaller numbers – five to get started, 11 or more to get the best price – and these are only activated when you sell them. If you buy 20 plans now, for instance, they’ll never expire. Whether you sell them in days, weeks or months, each one will still get you a full year of hosting from the date the account is launched or renewed.

How you manage and run the business is up to you, but SiteGround offers a simple control panel to review your accounts (there’s a tutorial here), and a white label option and private DNS upgrade ensures you can use your own branding everywhere.

9. Weebly web hosting – 4/5

SSL Security: Yes | Drag and drop builder: Yes | Search credits: $75 | Free SEO tools: Yes

Like Wix, Weebly is another giant in the website building arena, and it also gives you the option of a free plan – albeit one that’s similarly limited to 500MB of storage. You’ll also get adverts on your site, so if you want to be free of Weebly-imposed ads, you’ll need to move up to the entry-level paid plan which costs $6.80 per month.

The Starter package has no ads or storage limits, and you also get a free domain. Furthermore, what’s quite nifty for those thinking of selling stuff online is that there’s also support for a web store (albeit a basic one containing a maximum of 10 products).

The chunkier plans give you a ton of features allowing you to build a high-end web store with support for coupons, customer reviews, inventory management – the top-of-the-range Performance plan also caters for gift cards, abandoned carts and email campaigns (it cost $35 per month).

Weebly’s range of stylish website templates are a real boon, but there are a few niggles here with the editor interface, such as the lack of a general undo function. Still, the slight downsides don’t detract from this well-featured website building service.

• Check out the website builder packages from Weebly

Web Hosting : What is it?

Web hosting is the generic name given to the business of, well, hosting a website for organisations or individuals. But that’s just the beginning: selecting a truly reliable, affordable, scalable web hosting provider is a daunting and overwhelming task as there’s so many choices around.

Many packages include a wealth of features that you may or may not place value upon, including a mailing list, a control panel, the ability to create online stores easily, simple website builder tools and varying levels of support (either on the phone or live chat).

Whether you’re looking to build a website for yourself, a website for your small business now or for the future, a simple online store or just want to save money, moving to a cheaper web hosting provider, we’ve got you covered.

Hosting is very much a horses for courses thing – it’s a question of getting the best and most appropriate solution that you can afford. There’s no need to hamstring yourself financially, though. If you’re just starting out or you’re a relatively small business and you know your way around a server, you might like to consider a Virtual Private Server (VPS), for example – they provide the flexibility of a dedicated server but at a reduced cost.

Web Hosting : Shared, VPS and Dedicated

In a Shared hosting service, one user shares a server with other sites and web hosting accounts. While they are cheaper, shared hosting is good for smaller websites, those that don’t use a lot of bandwidth resources.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) or Cloud Servers enable you to scale resources as and when you need them, rather than being restricted by the limitations of a physical server. They draw from a pool of processing power, memory and storage depending on your requirements.

With a dedicated server, you have the entire web server for your own use with significantly faster performance at the core of the offering. You will have to pay extra though and you will be in charge of maintenance.

Web hosting companies usually offer three main paid-for tiers of hosting packages. Other than the aforementioned tiers, we will also be considering WordPress hosting, as well as more powerful website building services.

Web Hosting : Paid or Free

Everyone loves a bit of free and it comes as no surprise that free web hosting services are wildly popular but unless you are planning to use them to learn coding or run a personal website, we wouldn’t advise using a free web hosting service.

Don’t get us wrong, we love them, we’ve even produced a best free web hostingguide, however, using them for businesses purposes are fraught with potential issues that make it hard to recommend them.

Unlike free software, services (web hosting or VPN for example) cost money to run which is why most web hosting companies use a freemium business model and will try to convince you to move to a cheap, paid service.

Expect a number of limitations on disk space and bandwidth. You won’t get any SSL certificate which is a sine qua non condition to run a proper business website. You won’t have regular backups and some will even shut down your website for one hour a day!

Instead, we’d recommend checking out our best cheap web hosting sites guide which we regularly update to include the hottest deals around.

Who to trust? What features to look for? What price to pay? How do you transfer an existing website? Do you actually need a website builder? Should you go for a managed web hosting provider?

Web Hosting : How to choose the best one?

The hosting services your business can choose from will usually mean making a decision whether a shared, dedicated or cloud based server is right for your business.

Very small businesses will usually opt for a shared or managed service as these are sometimes called. Costs are low, but your business will be sharing its server with several other enterprises. You can always move up to a virtual private network (or VPS) if needed.

A dedicated server as its name suggests is just one server reserved for your business. Dedicated servers are not as expensive as they once were and can make economic sense if you want your business to have its own server platform and not have to worry about other businesses on a shared server impacting your online business if they have problems.

It is important to look closely at the service level (SLA) that will be attached to your dedicated server. Look for any additional costs such as maintenance, or other ‘extras’ that are not covered in the rental cost.

And lastly, try and buy server space that you can expand into. You don’t want to find after a few months that you have outgrown your server and need to move to a new one.

Lastly as the cloud has made a major impact right across the business environment, business web hosting has also been touched by the cloud and now offers an alternative to the traditional hosting methods. The power of cloud hosting is the flexibility it offers. In effect your business can buy just the space and hosting services it needs now and expand at anytime with no disruption to business.