With the right web hosting provider, you can build a strong online presence for your small business or create a personal portfolio.
However, finding the perfect web host isn’t always easy.
You’re probably looking for a web hosting provider that offers WordPress (or even has managed WordPress hosting), but you also want a hosting solution that performs well, experiences virtually no downtime (you might even want an uptime guarantee), and offers 24/7 customer support — all for the right price.
I narrowed down the list of web hosting providers using first-hand experience as a benchmark.
The Top 5 Web Hosting Providers
- Bluehost – Best Web Host for Beginners
- Hostinger – Most Affordable Hosting Plans Overall
- DreamHost – Most Affordable Month-to-Month Plan
- GreenGeeks – Best Eco-Friendly Hosting
- SiteGround – Best for Making Your WordPress Site Speedy & Secure
#1 Bluehost is one of the most popular and best choices for web hosting.
That’s because they offer great shared web hosting solutions at incredibly affordable prices. They’re also tailor-made for those who are new to website building.
Shared hosting starts $8.99 per month, but there are major discounts if you are a new customer. You can sign up for three years and lock in the price of $2.75 per month. That’s a good deal, especially with everything you get.
If you get stuck or have a problem, they have 24/7 support by phone or live chat.
Bluehost also offers fantastic analytics and SEO tools to help you optimize your site’s performance—while attracting more visitors.
Additionally, they offer hosting that will support whatever direction your business takes.
Let’s say you start with a standard shared hosting plan and want to install WordPress. They have an easy 1-click install to make that happen.
If your site keeps growing and you want to upgrade to managed WordPress hosting to speed up your site and improve security, they have that too.
Or, if you want to get more control by upgrading to VPS or dedicated hosting, they have plans for both.
Bluehost covers everything you could possibly need from a host. That’s what makes them the best for beginner website creators.
If you start with them, you may never need to switch to another service.
#2. Hostinger – Most Affordable Hosting Plans Overall
If you want to save money, Hostinger is the way to go.
In fact, their lowest plan is $1.39/month. That’s rock bottom.
And if you dig into what each plan offers, I think you’ll find that virtually everything a new site needs is included.
All of these rates are promotions, so they’ll go up at renewal. But you’re able to lock in these ridiculously low prices on a longer subscription.
They offer four years of hosting for $1.39/month if you pay for the four years upfront. That’s an amazing deal.
Even after the promotional pricing ends, the pricing is still super low. The single-site plan only costs $2.99/month, one of the lowest rates in the industry. In fact, it’s about the same as Bluehost’s promotional pricing.
Hostinger also offers a separate email hosting plan. That starts at just $0.99/month.
The uptime, site speed, and support are all pretty good too. They have a 99.9% uptime guarantee along with 24/7 support whenever you need help.
#3. DreamHost – Most Affordable Month-to-Month Hosting Plan
DreamHost offers stellar month-to-month pricing along with very solid hosting performance.
In fact, their month-to-month plans start at $4.95/month. This plan includes 1 website with unlimited traffic, along with a free SSL Certificate—a great deal.
DreamHost also offers one-year and three-year contracts starting at $2.59/month which allows you to save even more money. Even though it’s not the lowest on this list (check out Hostinger below for the lowest contract hosting plans), it’s still a good deal.
The monthly pricing makes them a perfect choice for those not sure about longer-term commitments.
Along with great prices, DreamHost also stands out for the way they manage their web hosts. They don’t use the standard cPanel that most hosts use. Instead, DreamHost offers a completely custom control panel to manage your website. This is great for developers who want more control over their websites.
There is a catch: It makes things much more difficult to migrate off DreamHost. However, migrating to DreamHost is easier than ever though.
Their free migration plugin lets you migrate in a few steps. You’ll also be able to scale your hosting as your site grows.
DreamHost is another one of WordPress’s three recommended hosts, and includes some managed WordPress hosting in its basic shared plans. It also offers a managed plan with more bells and whistles called DreamPress. It does have an industry-leading free trial period — a full 97-day money-back guarantee.
Customer service is a little less traditional: email support is available 24/7, but live chat is only available during business hours. If you want technical support over the phone, you have to pay an additional $9.95.
However, if you opt for either the DreamPress Plus or Pro managed WordPress plans, phone support is included along with other premium features.
#4. GreenGeeks – Best Eco-Friendly Hosting
Founded in California back in 2008, GreenGeeks proudly claims to be the ‘world’s #1 green energy web hosting provider’, not surprising given that it is dedicated entirely to green causes.
That’s a big statement, but there is some substance behind it. The company doesn’t just say that its platform has been designed for maximum energy efficiency, it also promises that “for every amperage we pull from the grid, we invest three times that in the form of renewable energy via Bonneville Environmental Foundation.” So in theory at least, your hosting isn’t just carbon-neutral, it’s carbon-reducing.
Aside from being good to the planet, their web hosting services are top notch. They offer fast speeds, solid uptime, and great solutions for:
- WordPress Hosting
- WooCommerce Hosting
- Reseller Web Hosting
- Virtual Private Servers
- Shared Hosting
Bottom line: They’re a fantastic option for eco-conscious businesses and websites.
Here’s a look at their prices for shared hosting.
They also provide daily backups and advanced security features in order to help you keep your data safe and secure.
GreenGeeks also stays up to date with the latest technology like PHP7, SSD, CDN, and more. This helps make sure your website always stays fast and secure.
They also offer 24/7 support available by phone, chat, or via their ticket system. They are typically very quick to respond and can assist with a wide range of issues.
#5. SiteGround – Best for Making Your WordPress Site Speedy & Secure
SiteGround is built to deliver top-class speed to its customers, as well as rock-solid security. And particularly for WordPress sites.
Fast loading times are paramount if you want your website to gain traction. Nine out of ten potential page visitors will bail if a site takes five seconds or longer to load.
It starts with the technology their hosting is built upon. SiteGround utilizes Google Cloud to maintain swift and stable connections, and their SSD persistent data storage ensures low latency.
Not only that, but SiteGround’s innovative developers rolled out their own, better PHP solution in late 2020—Ultrafast PHP. Through it, SiteGround delivers site speeds that are 30% faster than standard PHP while also reducing time to first byte by half and memory usage by 15%.
SiteGround will make your site so fast that you’ll be counting page loading times in fractions of a second rather than whole ones.
SiteGround isolates accounts on their servers, so even shared hosting customers never have to worry about one compromised account negatively impacting others.
Beyond that, they are ever-vigilant in keeping their customers’ sites secure and stable. SiteGround runs server health checks every 0.5 seconds and its AI-driven anti-bot system blocks between 500,000 and 2 million brute force attack attempts every hour.
This combination of speed and security can work for most sites. But, as one of WordPress’ recommended web hosts, SiteGround is particularly apt at delivering this performance for WordPress sites.
Keep in mind that each plan will renew at a decently higher rate after one year. SiteGround also gives you options at checkout to pay for a 24-month or 36-month term instead.
However, SiteGround gives nice discounts on renewals longer than one year. Two-year renewals get a 20% discount on the base renewal rate and three-year renewals get 30% off.
So, in terms of long-term value, you’re still getting the best deal by capitalizing on their great intro rate for one year up front.
Conclusion
Out of hundreds of web hosting companies, I have narrowed it down to my top 10 picks for the best web hosts.
If you’re inexperienced or know you’ll need a bit more guidance, look no further than Bluehost.
SiteGround is a top choice for WordPress sites that need reliable speed and security.
Looking to maximize your budget? DreamHost offers the best rates for month-to-month hosting, while Hostinger provides the lowest prices on hosting plans without skimping on resources or features.