Though popular web hosts may be ideal for beginners, a range of providers can meet different site requirements. Hostinger stands out as a provider that offers affordable shared hosting plans with an abundance of features at an easy-to-use interface requiring little technical know-how – not to mention its dedication to open source via free website builder software and over 400 applications that can be installed quickly with one click!
How to Find the Best Web Hosting Services
Finding an effective web host is essential to running an online business successfully. Your host provides storage space that must remain accessible 24/7 to users – any misstep can lead to downtime and lost sales – so it is vitally important that you compile a list of features most important to you before considering each potential hosting provider.
Traffic to your site will determine which kind of hosting and level of security is appropriate, along with other key considerations like bandwidth/storage capacity/availability and scalability – can you easily upgrade as your website grows?
At its core, an effective hosting provider should make it simple and painless to launch and expand operations. This includes an intuitive management interface that makes setting up domain names and accounts easy; additionally, the best providers often provide tutorials and glossary entries so users can solve technical issues themselves; Hostinger offers such an interface called cPanel which makes configuring and developing your website effortless.
To take your web hosting experience one step further, check if your host offers additional services, such as SSL certificates for enhanced security. Many companies charge extra for such features so it’s wise to compare options and prices before selecting one.
Consider other services as well, including email and phone support. When choosing a provider that provides multiple communication methods – like live chat and phone calls – live chat is particularly beneficial in quickly solving an issue; most hosting companies also provide transcripts of your conversations for your own records.
Web Hosting List
DreamHost
DreamHost Web Hosting is a reliable and popular web host offering affordable pricing with uptime guarantees. However, DreamHost doesn’t include extra features such as unlimited bandwidth or free domains so if those features are necessary additional payments may be required.
Datacenters operated by this company use renewable energy sources and feature high-efficiency cooling infrastructure, while recycling plans and eco-friendly initiatives help minimize their environmental footprint. Furthermore, their uptime promises are among the most impressive in the industry – you’ll receive one day of credit for every hour of downtime that occurs with any plan they offer.
DreamHost offers an assortment of hosting plans for both shared and WordPress platforms, each featuring different specifications in terms of disk space and bandwidth usage, plus some premium features like site builders and web store support. While other hosts provide simple website builders, DreamHost’s more robust plan enables you to set up a three-product online store supported by WooCommerce.
DreamHost differs from most hosting companies by not offering phone support; however, live chat and an extensive community forum are both available. Their support team can be reached from 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM PST via email and live chat; response times to email queries may take some time however. DreamHost’s support does not come equipped with callback functionality by default, however you may purchase three callbacks monthly at an additional fee or buy one-time calls backs at a reduced price.
DreamHost’s control panel is attractive and user-friendly, with key features displayed on a left-hand sidebar. An opening ‘Guided Setup Wizard’ walks you through the process of getting started – from migrating an existing site onto DreamHost to changing DNS records and building your site from scratch. Unfortunately, however, its steps-by-step instructions could use more detail without links back to support articles which might explain these steps further.
DreamHost stands out from its competition by offering flexible monthly billing options with monthly, yearly or three year payment terms available when selecting plans. This flexibility means you can find one that best meets your budget and long-term goals instead of being forced into signing longer contract terms to secure the best monthly rate.
Bluehost
Before selecting a hosting plan, there are various elements you should take into account before selecting one. Some of these factors include pricing, performance and features. Bluehost excels at all three areas with its wide range of plans and tiers to choose from and decent storage caps across their plans as well as offering 24/7 customer support and belonging to Endurance International Group which also owns HostGator, iPage and FatCow hosting companies.
Bluehost may not be the cheapest host, but their plans come packed with features worth considering if you need reliable yet cost-effective hosting solutions.
Starting your account with Bluehost is an easy and straightforward process. Once you choose your plan, you’ll be asked either to register a domain with them (if needed) or use one already owned. Next up will be adding extras such as Yoast SEO plugin, SiteLock protection or CodeGuard (available with Basic plan only) before being taken to your user dashboard where you can manage accounts and websites.
After signing in to your Bluehost account, you’ll be able to view website stats as well as log into WordPress directly through Bluehost’s interface. Here, you can create new websites with just a single click and move existing sites between accounts easily if required.
Bluehost stands out in our eyes by its user-friendliness in setting up websites. Their one-click site creation process and clever organisation of helpful features into sub-sections on the left side of their interface is especially helpful to beginners looking for their first website experience.
If your website requires more power or storage than what the Basic plan offers, simply upgrade from within your dashboard. Our Choice Plus and Online Store plans allow for unlimited websites; while Pro plans provide high-performance servers that utilize dual quad-core processors for optimal loading speeds.
Bluehost prices are fairly standard: promotional rates for your first term of your contract – typically 36 months – will typically advertise promotional rates that can help save you money; once that term ends, regular rates apply; to help keep track of this, Bluehost displays a crossed-off price right below their main price that shows what will happen once your first term has concluded and avoid surprises down the line. We suggest taking time to read their Terms of Service carefully as there may be details such as their auto renewal of plans and how much it’ll cost before making your final decision.
HostGator
HostGator Web Hosting is one of the premier hosting providers for businesses of all sizes, featuring affordable pricing and easily customizable plans that allow users to select an option that best meets their projects. In addition, they provide a 45-day money back guarantee as well as 24/7 customer support – making HostGator an exceptional web host provider!
With its user-friendly cPanel and WordPress tools, DreamHost makes itself accessible for both novices and experts, while its value-added services and scalability appeal to small and mid-sized businesses looking for all their email, SEO tools and other business needs in one convenient package. However, support may take days for some customers.
Signing up with HostGator is simple, requiring just your personal information and preferred payment method, along with selecting your hosting plan. Plus, they offer a complimentary domain name and SSL certificate – perfect if switching from another host is time or cost prohibitive! They even offer free migration when switching over from another host – perfect for those without time or resources to migrate their website themselves!
HostGator does an exceptional job of keeping its servers operational. It guarantees 99.9% uptime, meaning if your website goes offline for too long it could cost visitors and harm its search engine rankings. HostGator offers weekly backups for shared, reseller, VPS accounts with 20GB or less inodes that contain less than 20GB inodes but does not offer such protection with dedicated server accounts.
Knowledge base and tutorials provided by this company are extensive, providing answers to most frequently asked questions. If you still can’t find what you need, support is available via live chat, telephone support, forums and ticketing systems – they also boast an impressive video library which makes learning how to set up an SSL certificate or move databases easy for anyone!
Hostgator plans are extremely affordable and scalable, especially with their discount on first invoice (for yearly or longer contracts). However, renewal costs may increase, so make sure to review both costs before signing on with Hostgator.
HostGator lacks cloud hosting, which would benefit business owners with large amounts of data. Competitors are beginning to offer it and HostGator should look into providing it too. HostGator shares your information with third-party marketers which could compromise privacy; other hosts only share it internally without selling it onward. It is wise for those concerned with their privacy to shop around before signing on with HostGator or any web host company – there may be better privacy protection available elsewhere!
InMotion
InMotion Web Hosting is an award-winning website hosting provider with robust plans, solid performance and top-rated help and support services. Their money-back guarantees are among the best on the market and technical support is accessible via chat as well as U.S. phone support to bridge any language barrier issues. InMotion also features a community forum to quickly address common problems while tutorials teach how to use your site effectively.
What sets InMotion apart from other providers is its superior security measures. Its data centers are among the safest in existence, boasting armed guards, hand scanners and locked vaults – not to mention that all sites connected via four different service providers in case one goes down or one fails entirely. Furthermore, all shared plans come equipped with free SSL certificates – these bind an identifier on a webpage to its identity, providing users with a more secure browsing experience.
At InMotion, there are three Shared Hosting tiers to choose from: Launch, Power and Pro. Launch is intended for people starting out and provides two websites and 10 email addresses with 50GB SSD storage; Power provides one-click shopping cart installations for WordPress WooCommerce PrestaShop Magento while Pro offers DDoS mitigation to protect all websites on its servers from being attacked simultaneously.
For those in search of additional power, InMotion also provides VPS and dedicated plans, in addition to cloud hosting. VPS plans feature virtual machines with your choice of operating system (Linux or Windows), while dedicated servers offer you an opportunity to add anything.
All InMotion plans offer free SSD storage, which offers significantly faster site loading speeds and is an integral component of search engine rankings. InMotion also provides unlimited bandwidth – an invaluable feature for online stores.
InMotion Hosting’s account management panel may not be as intuitive as that offered by other providers, but their user-friendly knowledge base, video tutorials, and community forum more than make up for any shortcomings in user friendliness. Furthermore, InMotion promises a response time within 15 minutes for support requests – and has generally met this promise in my experience.
InMotion servers are located in Ashburn, Virginia and Los Angeles, California – this means speed tests reveal some slowing to highly-populated regions like Europe and Asia; however, this should not be a problem for most users as their business primarily revolves around U.S. customers as stated in InMotion’s Terms & Conditions. Unfortunately for some, however, InMotion doesn’t offer Windows servers. They do however provide a 90-day money-back guarantee which sets an industry-leading timeframe!
MochaHost
MochaHost was established in 2002 as a web hosting provider that caters to both individual users and businesses by offering an array of cost-effective hosting plans, domain registration services and website-building tools.
MochaHost provides shared hosting plans as well as cloud and reseller hosting packages, with most packages featuring unlimited storage, traffic/bandwidth and high-grade SSL encryption as well as website builders. Unlike many other web hosts, its prices don’t increase when customers renew a plan – which saves money over time!
MochaHost servers utilize both Linux and Windows operating systems, with each plan including various scripting languages. Their shared hosting plans offer one-click installations of popular CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal – while eCommerce site builders will find MochaHost provides various shopping cart integrations and payment processors.
All of the company’s hosting plans offer unlimited disk space and bandwidth – which is ideal for large websites that receive heavy traffic. Plus, their plans come backed by a 180-day risk free guarantee!
Security-wise, the company employs both hardware technologies and software solutions to ensure its servers remain protected. This includes measures such as firewalls, antivirus/malware protection for servers and backup power and generators.
Dedicated Hosting takes pride in their 100% uptime guarantee for each plan they offer, should there be any downtime the company will offer credits back for lost business time due to downtime.
MochaHost provides a range of support options, from 24/7 live chat and phone callbacks to ticketing. Their technical support team is located in Bulgaria while their website features an expansive knowledgebase.
HostPapa
HostPapa is an eco-friendly web host offering shared and VPS hosting plans, along with various add-ons that make their products even more valuable to their clients. Depending on which plan is chosen, free domain registration, SSL certificates, CDN services and other features may also be included to help your site run quickly and seamlessly.
Hostpapa provides several competitively priced plans with unlimited disk space and data transfer in all their plans. Furthermore, Hostpapa uses Intel Server products on a Cisco-powered network which ensures their servers run fast and reliably.
HostPapa has been operating independently since 2006, offering 24/7 phone, email and live chat support for their customer base. In addition, their website builder templates make creating unique professional sites easy; just drag-and-drop to build one or customize with just a few clicks!
HostPapa servers were extremely fast in our tests, employing solid-state drives for enhanced performance. Furthermore, this company offers built-in caching as well as the option to compress specific MIME file types further to optimize website load times – I managed to have my test site load in less than one second when this feature was enabled.
HostPapa boasts an excellent set of security features, with a dedicated security team monitoring the company infrastructure and an optional server firewall to protect websites against DDoS attacks and DDoS flood attacks, along with offering optional SSL certificates to provide additional protection. They make an ideal hosting choice for small businesses in search of eco-friendly, fast, and secure hosting; however they may not meet the needs of larger and more established brands.
HostPapa provides a 30-day money-back guarantee on their shared hosting plans, which allows newcomers to test out how well the services perform before committing. However, renewal prices can be high and cause sticker shock among customers; additionally they have limited international data centers which may slow sites for users located outside of North America and Canada. Other green web hosts may offer better pricing and performance so make sure to compare different providers before making your choice.
Hostinger
Hostinger is one of the world’s leading web hosts, boasting more than one million websites on its servers. As such, it makes for an excellent option when looking to host WordPress or another CMS website; using latest versions of PHP, HTTP/2/Quic support as well as IPv6 enablement ensure that any website hosted there will perform optimally; additionally they offer customers free SSL certificates!
Step-by-step wizards guide users through the process of quickly and effortlessly setting up fully functional websites quickly and effortlessly. The flexible process enables them to sign up using email, Facebook or Google accounts as well as create temporary domain names in order to test service before making their commitment permanent. It is refreshingly fast compared to some competitors that require more work upfront for setup of fully functioning sites.
Users have access to shared, premium and business-level plans with different features and prices for easy comparison. A quick glance will display plan differences and renewal pricing in an intuitive chart; upgrading accounts easily by clicks should you require additional bandwidth or disk space is also a possibility.
hPanel may seem disorganized at first, lacking the same feel as other cPanel-based control panels, yet it remains easy to navigate and understand. All the standard features you would expect, such as file management and email administration are present here as well as storefronts allowing for effortless addition of new functionality; additionally there’s also the opportunity to install various free plugins to increase performance further.
Another great feature is being able to select a specific location for your website, making delivery faster by decreasing distance data must travel. With nine data centers located around four continents – such as Brazil, India, Lithuania Netherlands and Singapore – choosing one can speed up delivery.
Customer support services provided by this company are accessible 24/7/365 via live chat, ticketing and email systems. Their expert staff of specialists is committed to helping solve any complex or simple problems you encounter; I found my query was answered within two minutes!
Although this company doesn’t provide dedicated servers, this doesn’t stop many from considering it a viable solution. With their cloud hosting options enabling scalability on demand without negatively affecting other websites or experiencing traffic surges on shared servers that bog down performance, VPS plans allow you to upgrade easily and manage performance independently via the hPanel dashboard with migrations handled seamlessly behind-the-scenes.
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting of the US isn’t quite as large as some major web hosts, yet has an impressive environmental track record over two decades. Their data centers use less energy, servers are designed for maximum efficiency and recycled after retirement, staff work from home instead of having to commute, plus much more can be found behind the scenes.
A2 Hosting stands out for its commitment to speed performance even at its introductory shared hosting plans. A free site builder is provided for one-page websites hosted on its Startup plan; however, advanced sites will require purchasing additional premium themes and plugins at additional cost.
From the beginning, A2 has made clear its goal is to ensure the signup process is as seamless and hassle-free as possible. Instead of forcing users to select a domain name during signup, they instead get given an address so they can begin right away.
After signing up, you can choose between shared or VPS plans from this company. There are various special offers on both types, such as free cPanel license for a limited period as well as an anytime pro-rata refund on unused service.
All the plans offer SSD storage with 99.9% uptime guaranteed; lower-tier plans powered by LiteSpeed might not be quite as speedy but still offer an economical foundation for websites or online businesses alike.
One of the best aspects of A2 Hosting Solutions is their wide variety of software and hosting solutions that you can mix and match to suit your unique website’s needs. Features like Server Rewind backups and admin level root access enable you to craft an optimal solution tailored specifically to you and your site.
All plans feature cPanel and Linux operating system options as well as unlimited data transfer, storage space and RAM usage. For extra speed and performance the top-tier Turbo option provides twenty times faster service compared to typical shared hosting plans; all servers of this company are optimized to maximize performance.
A2 Hosting’s 24/7 support team has earned high customer ratings, boasting its Guru Crew who specialize in quickly solving problems as well as an expansive knowledge base with helpful guides to get things moving again quickly.
A2 offers several payment options, such as credit cards and PayPal. There are also extra features you can add onto your plan with A2, such as SSL certificates, free domain registration or transfer and site building tools. Unlike some providers, A2 does not charge to transfer an existing domain – an extra thoughtful gesture which shows their willingness to go the extra mile for their customers.
Namecheap
Namecheap is an ICANN-accredited domain registrar, web hosting provider and domain name marketplace that also provides SSL certificates, website builders and security tools to help create and manage online presences. They offer shared, VPS and dedicated hosting plans with unlimited storage and bandwidth – and each plan comes complete with one free domain for its first year! All Namecheap plans also feature basic website builder tools for easy website management.
Namecheap plans make signing up effortless and stress-free, offering a user-friendly checkout page and no unwanted upsells or extra tools pre-added to your cart. Once a customer, take advantage of Namecheap’s cPanel-based control panel for easy accessing accounts, domains, websites and resources as well as numerous free apps available that add functionality and increase productivity.
Namecheap’s performance across the board is outstanding. Their shared servers stand out, boasting speed times that consistently outstrip industry benchmarks of 2.5s. Moreover, Namecheap guarantees 99.9 percent uptime guarantees with most plans and will offer service credits equivalent to one day’s worth if any downtime exceeds that threshold (this policy only applies to reseller and VPS plans).
Namecheap offers an expansive knowledge base with articles broken into categories according to your type of query, often featuring tutorials, clarifications and troubleshooting guides. While Phone support may not be an option at Namecheap, its extensive self-help resources make this an attractive solution for people who do not require or wish to pay more premium services.
Namecheap stands out from its competition by having fewer data centers compared to some of their competition, with three located in Nottingham, United Kingdom; Phoenix, Arizona and Amsterdam in Netherlands. As such, sites hosted with Namecheap may experience slower load speeds as data must travel longer distances before reaching its destinations.
Namecheap’s prices are quite comparable with other providers’ despite having only limited data center locations available for hosting, with Hostinger providing similar plans at half the cost – plus they boast superior uptime and more robust features compared to Namecheap – plus flexible billing options such as 1, 3, 6 or 12 month payments or even monthly options available. Other similar providers such as IONOS and Liquid Web offer low-cost managed/unmanaged server plans with higher power levels and uptime guarantees as well as flexible billing options with monthly payments available and more options provided through cloudways which has 65+ datacenter locations worldwide that ensure swift speeds no matter where your servers reside compared with Namecheap.
Cloudways
When choosing a web hosting provider, it’s essential that they offer an intuitive dashboard and advanced features for site development. Cloudways’ user-friendly dashboard is ideal for website creation with its drag-and-drop website builder, one-click backups, unlimited staging sites and free SSL certificate – not to mention its impressive security features, affordability and powerful technology stack.
Cloudways simplifies server management for its users by offering managed hosting. Their 24/7/365 live chat support team is always happy to deploy apps or update existing ones, manage settings/app settings as needed and assist when issues arise. This frees them up from having to focus on managing cloud services themselves instead of their goals for their website or app.
Cloudways provides numerous options for server configuration in its Control Panel, such as PHP Version, Execution Limit, Upload Size Limit and Memory Limit settings as well as display of errors and memory usage information in Server Monitoring. You can also view CPU and Disk Usage metrics of each of your servers here.
Their cPanel-free control panel is intuitive and simple to navigate. I especially appreciate its two core sections – Applications and Servers. Specifically, Servers is great as you can view information like RAM usage, CPU load and Disk Usage at a glance – plus edit packages, perform disk cleanup or schedule maintenance of the server!
As far as applications go, this platform supports over 25 of them – such as Drupal, Joomla and WordPress. Other key features include an SSH terminal built-in SSH terminal unlimited databases bot protection plus various SSL certificates to choose from.
Cloudways allows you to scale your server size based on traffic spikes or other factors. In addition, it enables you to select your preferred datacenter location – perfect if you need to host high traffic sites in an area with lower latency or faster connectivity.
Finally, this platform provides automated and daily backups at server level that are stored on the cloud and can be restored quickly within minutes – an essential feature for any web designer or business owner.
An advantage of using a staging site is being able to test changes without impacting your live site – something not all managed hosting companies offer. Furthermore, I love that changes from your staging site can easily be transferred over to live site with just a single click!
Cloudways stands out as an indispensable platform by offering an in-depth report of your site’s performance. The platform provides an overall overview, along with metrics for memory usage, CPU utilization, disk space consumption and bandwidth consumption for each individual component of an application such as memory usage, CPU consumption and bandwidth useage. You can even use its Graphs and Charts tab to compare its performance against that of similar websites.
