There is a best web hosting provider for each type of website and application. Picking the right one makes a difference when it comes to value for money, performance, and stability. I’ve built and hosted websites for large and small businesses over the years and my team of expert developers have decades of experience using a wide range of web hosts for various applications so we can help point you in the right direction.
We’ve spent 40,000 hours testing 130 web hosting providers on the control panels, tools, site builders, customer support, and speed and stress tests. If you don’t want to host your own site you can opt for using one of the best website builders instead but keep in mind that you get less flexibility and value for money and a host like Hostinger has made it so you don’t need any technical knowledge at all to take hosting into your own hands.
Right now you can find deals for many of these hosts on the Black Friday web hosting deals page
My top five best web hosting providers
Best web hosting services of 2024
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The best web hosting service for beginners
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | The value is great considering the amount of helpful tools you have and how much it would cost getting a professional to build for you. | ★★★★★ |
| Ease of use | From signing up to building any type of site, Hostinger has really made it easy | ★★★★★ |
| Features | Hostinger has everything you need in one place (hosting, website builder, domains, email, security). Plus, everything is easy to use. | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | It’s not significantly ahead of the competition when it comes to speed but it’s pretty fast | ★★★★☆ |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it’s good at |
|---|---|
| Ease of use | Hostinger make making, managing, and hosing a site easy. No learning curve, great support, and nice user interface. |
| Innovation | Hostinger were one of the first to market with a range of AI tools including an AI website builder and AI troubleshooter. |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it could do better at |
|---|---|
| Pricing | I find some of the aggressive sale prices a little misleading. For example, a .com domain name is $4.99 for the first year but you need to buy it in a 2 year subscription with the second year being a higher than average cost compared to other domain registrars. Over the two years it’s cheaper to buy a domain elsewhere even with the discount applied. |
The best shared hosting plan for beginners
The Premium Hosting plan is great for content creators who want to create a visually stunning blog with fast load times to engage their readers and perform well in SEO. The onboarding process is very well streamlined and there is an AI website builder that helps novices make a site with zero technical knowledge. With the Premium Hosting plan, you can create and manage a site, monetize traffic, and retain complete control over the design.
Why it’s good for beginners
There is also a large corpus of case studies on how to create sites and boost traffic plus tutorials on how to handle multimedia and why things like SSL are important for your site. All-in-all it’s very hard to go wrong with this plan and with the starting price being $2.49 a month and a 30-day money back guarantee there is not much to lose if you’re having a go at creating and hosting your first website.
The best webhosting plan for start-up online stores
Hostinger’s Business Hosting plan helps you create a professional looking online store with minimal technical know-how. The plan is very similar to the above mentioned Premium Plan but comes with more and faster storage and allows you to have more files for a larger range of product listings and images. There are also daily instead of weekly backups to ensure you won’t miss sales should a worst case scenario happen and a CDN to help speed up traffic to customers around the world.
Why it’s good for beginners that what to start an online store
If you’re concerned about lacking technical skills and not knowing what the best hosting plan is for your site, there are comparison posts and step-by-step guides on which plan is best for your small business and how to launch your first website in 24 hours.
| Feature | Premium | Business |
|---|---|---|
| Number of sites | 100 | 100 |
| Monthly visits | 25,000 | 100,000 |
| Storage | 100 GB SSD | 200 GB NVMe |
| Free | Free | |
| Backups | Weekly | Daily |
| Domain | Free for one year ($9.99 value) | Free for one year ($9.99 value) |
| Security | Malware scanner + other features | Malware scanner + other features |
For a full list of features see Hostinger’s website
Testing
Our testing shows that Hostinger is more than capable of hosting the average website on a shared hosting plan. Hostinger score slightly lower than average on LCP which has been said to be linked to how well your site ranks in search results but they’re not slow but they do score higher on requests per second which can help a site that has more traffic but is less reliant on search traffic.
Read our full Hostinger review for a more in-depth analysis and full testing scores
The best web hosting for small businesses
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | The value for money is there considering the quality of the hosting and features | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | One click installers and great support make SiteGround easy to use. It’s still aimed more at people who are expected to know a little more than the basics but beginners can use them too. | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | SiteGround’s daily backups and CDN are essential features and come standard | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | Higher than average | ★★★★☆ |
| Datacenter locations | You can host one site in multiple data center locations around the world from one hosting account. (US: Virginia, Iowa, Texas, California) (Europe: UK, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, France) (APAC: Australia, Singapore) | ★★★★★ |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it’s good at |
|---|---|
| Support | SiteGround’s support team go through rigorous training and have received awards for the quality of help. Over 70% of tickets get resolved at first contact. |
| Global commerce | From one control panel you can host one site in multiple data centers around the world under one account. Other hosting providers do not support this feature. |
| Reliability | Backups are stored in a different location as standard across all plans. |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it could do better at |
|---|---|
| No temporary URL | Not having a temporary URL can cause some unexpected headaches during the testing phase. SiteGround are currently working on this feature but there is currently no ETA. |
The best web hosting plan for small businesses
As a small business owner you want to establish a strong online presence for your business, ensure that your site loads quickly, and is secure because you need to maximize sale opportunities at all costs but how do you do this when you have limited technical knowledge regarding web hosting? SiteGround is the answer.
SiteGround’s GrowBig plan is user friendly and has all the tools you need for your businesses such as a reliable email service with free spam protection and webmail. You can also install a shopping cart of your choice and benefit from the speed of Google Cloud’s infrastructure which also brings with it green credentials.
Why it’s good for small businesses
SiteGround has won multiple awards for their customer service and you can receive this support 24/7 along with an instant AI assistant. SiteGround’s client area has all the tools you need in one place including a file manager, site scanner, SuperCacher for speed, and staging environment.
Storage might look a little low compared to other hosts like Hostinger but it’s not really comparable because Hostinger and many others require you to reserve some storage for backups not giving you full use of your resources. SiteGround doen’t do this and gives you the full storage to use at your own leisure. You’ll find this limitation with other hosts too, so be sure to always check the small print.
This will cost you $4.99 a month for the first year and $29.99 a month thereafter. While you get a bigger discount with the 12 month plan, over 24 months you can save more as the whole two years calculates to $299.76 ($12.49) rather than paying for the first year at $4.99 a month and then the second year at the full price.
Key features (GrowBig)
| Feature | Header Cell – Column 1 |
|---|---|
| Number of sites | Unlimited |
| Storage | 20 GB |
| Monthly visits | 100,000 |
| Traffic | Unmetered |
| Domain | Free (one year, value $19.99) |
| Unlimited accounts | |
| CDN | Free |
| Security | WAF |
| Multiple users | Add collaborators |
| Backups | On demand |
| Money-back guarantee | 30-days |
For a full list of features see SiteGround’s GrowBig plan
Test results
These test results are from SiteGround’s StartUp plan which is one level below the GrowBig plan. We did this because we wanted a fair comparison across a range of plans that are equally resourced with a similar cost. We are currently doing further testing with the GrowBig plan but results take time to come in and when they do, these will be updated.
The results showed us that SiteGround is more than capable of providing fast speeds for websites and maintaining uptime which is critical for online stores. This is especially good because SiteGround offers unlimited websites which if not managed properly can cause disruption. This shows that SiteGround is really responsible with how they allocate resources for customers.
For a more in depth review and metric scores for SiteGround see our full SiteGround review
The best web hosting for blogs and portfolios
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | Some of the lowest prices we see for good quality hosting | ★★★★★ |
| Ease of use | We didn’t find anything difficult to use in our testing | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | We cannot give them 5 stars here but this shouldn’t be a mark against them | ★★★☆☆ |
| Speed test | Again we cannot score them highly on speed but in this category it’s not a defining statistic | ★★★☆☆ |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it’s good at |
|---|---|
| Price | The monthly price after renewal for the shared plan is very good compared to other hosts. The performance is not as good but better than you expect for the value. There is also a 97-day money back guarantee |
| WordPress | DreamHost have an intuitive WordPress set up process, provide automatic WordPress updates and 24/7 WordPress support. |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it could do better at |
|---|---|
| Value for money on better resourced plans | In my opinion, when you start to look at DreamHost for anything other than the starter plan there is not as much value there. You really don’t need much for a small blog or portfolio but when you start to require larger database sizes and speeds there are other hosts like SiteGround that could be better for you. |
The best plan for blogs and portfolios
Say you’re a brilliant designer, photographer, or writer and you want a website to feature your work without taking time away from your creativity and without needing to fork out a decent chunk of money. DreamHost has got you. DreamHost’s Shared Hosting plan provides all the essential tools to get a blog or portfolio online and nothing else keeping hosting a site simple and cost effective.
Why it’s best
If you have limited technical skills and budget, DreamHost offer an affordable hosting solution that also has a streamlined set up and with tonnes of practical advice you’ll be able to create and manage your site with ease. WordPress comes pre-installed so you don’t have to figure any of that out and DreamHost’s Liftoff website builder is powered by AI. You also get an AI business advisor if you want help and advice on how to make more money from your work.
DreamHost has everything you need that the other hosts provide but they come in at almost half the price at $5.99 a month after renewal! That’s because they don’t include some features that you probably don’t need like email and a CDN for super fast speeds. The first year is even cheaper at $2.59 a month.
| Feature | Header Cell – Column 1 |
|---|---|
| Number of sites | 1 |
| Domain | Free (one year) |
| Site visits | Unlimited |
| WordPress | Pre-installed |
| Website Builder | Powered by AI |
| Storage | 50 GB SSD |
| Support | 24/7 |
| Money-back Guarantee | 97 days |
For a full list of features see DreamHost’s Shared Starter plan
Test results
Our test shows that DreamHost takes every so slightly longer to load a page and slightly longer to respond compared to the other hosts but they’re half the price and those metrics are not that important for a blog or portfolio. Uptime is great and requests per second are impressive too considering the cost of the plans. There really isn’t anything to complain about here.
For a full review of DreamHost and the speed test scores see our DreamHost review
The best for agencies
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | The standard plans are well resourced you get a lot extra thrown in with SPanel | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | There’s a 20-30 minute learning curve for SPanel but once you climb it you’ll benefit from the features | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | End user chat support in a hosting panel and the ability to request features is a bonus | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | TBC | TBC |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it’s good at |
|---|---|
| Reliability | Cloud architecture gives ScalaHosting a super robust hosting package. |
| Speed | For technical SEO and fast page loading in complex builds ScalaHosting have the edge with its experience and architecture. |
| Trust | ScalaHosting is so confident in its products that it offers any anytime moneyback guarantee. So, if my hosting bill was a significant cost, I know where I would spend. |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it could to better at |
|---|---|
| Documentation | I’ve occasionally found some out of date content in the documentation and there is a focus on using ScalaHosting products rather than integration. |
The best plans for agencies and agency workers
When you need high-performance websites for better SEO results and pages that load quickly for every customer and client reliably, cloud infrastructure is a solid choice. You also have an agency to run so you don’t want to be dealing with server management like regular maintenance, monitoring, hardware setups, and dealing with technical issues. So, leave it to ScalaHosting’s managed VPS plans and their seasoned support team.
Why it’s best
Custom built servers on enterprise-level hardware with self-healing capabilities, and on demand scaling ensure that you get high-performance all day every day. If you’re migrating to ScalaHosting you don’t need to worry about that either as they will migrate any number of sites for free.
SPanel is a defining feature of ScalaHosting that is specifically designed for VPS and if you want a feature you can request it through the Cloud Democracy project. If other web masters vote on your request you can see it implemented to help you and others in providing an easier management solution. SPanel also provides end-user live chat support freeing up your time even further to be able to focus on your business. With the Build #2 plan coming in at $44.95 a month for the first year and then $91.95 a month after you’re buying more than just hosting for good value
| Feature | Header Cell – Column 1 |
|---|---|
| CPU | 4 cores |
| RAM | 8 GB |
| Storage | 100 GB NVMe |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered |
| CDN | Cloudflare |
| Support | Apache, NGINX, OpenLiteSpeed, LiteSpeed enterprise, and more |
| Data center locations | US, Europe |
| Apache Logs access | Yes |
| Security | SShield |
| Flexibility | Fully configurable |
For a full list of features and other specifications see ScalaHosting’s Managed VPS plans
Test results
In previous tests ScalaHosting performed well but the results do not compare apples to apples as we tested ScalaHosting’s most basic Mini plan and those results are not suitable in this context. We have used this plan and are confident that it delivers we just want to wait until the results come in over a longer period of time before we list them officially.
See our full ScalaHosting review for a more in depth analysis and full metric scores.
The best web hosting for WordPress
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | After the first year there are no free backups. It’ll be an additional $3.99 a month | ★★★☆☆ |
| Ease of use | Onboarding and setting up a site is easy. I’m not giving 5 stars here because the documentation could be a little more accessible for beginners | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | Bluehost get 5 stars here because of the AI builder tools and wide support for WordPress plugins | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | OK for the price | ★★★★☆ |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it’s good at |
|---|---|
| WordPress | Bluehost have gone all-in focusing their business around WordPress and it shows in the amount of features and WordPress academy. |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it could do better at |
|---|---|
| No free backups | Backups are such an integral part of hosting. To not offer at least free weekly backups is basically forcing you to pay extra each month taking the price considerably higher than other hosts. It also seems unnecessary to not offer them as standard. |
The best WordPress hosting
Pretty much any host on this page is excellent for WordPress hosting but each one has a slightly different take. If you’d like to know more about that you can read what they said when I asked them what makes hosting good for WordPress. Plus, no matter which host you go with, the likelihood is that you’ll be using WordPress anyway. So, why are Bluehost recommended as best for WordPress, and why should you choose them over another host?
Why it’s good for WordPress
I’ve singled Bluehost out for WordPress because of the WordPress academy and the years in the WordPress game. Also, they’re favoured by WordPress because they give WordPress money to use the rights to the name and support the community. So, it’s possible you’ll have an easier ride than say, GoDaddy or WP Engine have had when Matthew Mullenweg gets upset.
If you care about your website more than caring about learning the ropes with WordPress then I would try another host (they’re all good when it comes to helping you build a site). If you care about really getting into WordPress then go with Bluehost.
Key features (Choice Plus)
| Feature | Header Cell – Column 1 |
|---|---|
| Number of sites | 50 |
| Storage | 50GB NVMe |
| Monthly visits | 200,000 |
| Domain | Free (one year) |
| Free trial | |
| Backups | Free trial |
| CDN | Free |
| Money back guarentee | 30-days |
For a full list of features see SiteGround’s GrowBig plan
Test results
Our tests showed that Bluehost had a 100% uptime over the duration of the testing period. The LCP was also impressive showing that the plan was powerful enough to quickly load sites with high quality content. Bluehost also scored just above average managing to handle 15 requests per second so if you’re lucky enough to get that popular you’ll be OK with Bluehost.
For a more in depth review and metric scores for Bluehost see our full Bluehost review
The best web hosting for developers
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | The value is good if you don’t require everything for every project | ★★★★★ |
| Ease of use | Not exactly built for beginners but the features are not hard to use | ★★★☆☆ |
| Features | There are features for everything at a good price but none stand out as industry leading | ★★★★☆ |
| Speed test | Our site speed was average in our speed test | ★★★☆☆ |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it’s good at |
|---|---|
| Knowing what developers need | Namecheap started with just domains and over the years they’ve created more and more services and features for developers to the point where they’re now well known for not just domains but all web hosting services. |
| Price | It feels a bit lazy to put price as a pro for multiple hosts but it’s a genuine reason why they’re good at what they’re specifically offering and Namecheap are very good value if you want to pick and mix services and features. |
| Header Cell – Column 0 | What it could do better at |
|---|---|
| Packaging multiple products and services together | This pick and mix approach is good but it can mean an extra layer of management. If you want a more traditional packaged style of hosting with well proven Namecheap products try Spaceship |
The best web hosting plans for developers
Namecheap started off as solely a domain registrar and over the years they’ve been adding more and more products and services for developers. On the hosting side, there’s shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated servers all at a price that justify the moniker Namecheap.
And then, if there is a service that’s related to hosting Namecheap will do it. For example, SSL, CDNs, 2FA, domain privacy, marketing tools for sites, business email, WordPress and VPS management, and of course, domains.
Why the plans and services are best for developers
This wide range of products and pick-and-mix like options allows you to manage client websites with multiple suppliers providing different levels of functionality for complex to simple builds.
The hosting is cheap. Take the Quasar VPS plan for example, 4 vCPU cores and 6 GB RAM is $15.88 a month after renewal. Keep in mind that the plan is unmanaged and doesn’t come with a web panel so there will be additional expenses if you require those things which is why if you’ve got a bunch of different projects with differing requirements that you want to manage under one roof, Namecheap is the best option.
| Feature | Header Cell – Column 1 |
|---|---|
| CPU | 4 vCPUs |
| RAM | 6 GB |
| Storage | 120 GB SSD RAID 10 |
| Bandwidth | 3000 GB |
| Management | Basic + $10/ month, Complete + $25 / month |
| Web panel | cPanel solo + $130/year |
| OS | AlmaLinux, Ubuntu, Debian |
| Domains | .com $6.49 1st year ($14.98 after) |
| Business email | 5 mail boxes, $5.99/ month |
For a full list of features and plans see Namecheap
Test results
Our tests show that Namecheap is slower than average and the hosting plans can handle fewer requests per second but it’s unfair to really compare them to hosts that cost considerably more. These are the results for our shared hosting tests and we’re currently doing more with the VPS plans.
See our Namecheap review for more details and the results.
Honourable mentions
These hosts were not picked in my top 5 but that doesn’t mean they’re not some of the best hosting providers out there. My top five are based on some of the most popular use cases so these are some of the best hosts for some other areas that are more general or on the flip side of that very specific like Minecraft hosting or the best shared plan.
Best Green web hosting: GreenGeeks ⭐⭐⭐⭐
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | Plans are good value with low starting prices | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | Not difficult to use and if you do have problems there’s support | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | Plenty of in-house features for security, speed, and management | ★★★★☆ |
See our full GreenGeeks review
Best for Minecraft: Shockbyte ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | There have been some price increases recently but still good value for money | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | Lots of out-of-the-box features that require no skills to use | ★★★★★ |
| Features | Important and vital features including DDoS protection supported | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | We had no lag or downtime playing Minecraft | ★★★★☆ |
See our full Shockbyte review
Best shared hosting: Hostgator ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | HostGator is affordable but the add-ons could get pricey if you pick a cheaper plan | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | We found it easy to get started and navigate through the dashboard | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | HostGator has just about every feature you’ll need from a web host | ★★★★★ |
| Speed test | HostGator performed the best in our speed test compared to the other hosts for shared hosting | ★★★★★ |
See our full HostGator review
Best managed WordPress: WP Engine ⭐⭐⭐⭐
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | WP Engine is expensive and although it comes with lots of features, some could be included as part of the overall price | ★★★☆☆ |
| Ease of use | Not the easiest to use for beginners but still straightforward enough | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | Lots of great features but a lot comes at an extra cost | ★★★★☆ |
| Speed test | WP Engine performed exceptionally well in our speed test | ★★★★★ |
Best for front end developers: Liquid Web ⭐⭐⭐⭐
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | Liquid Web is more costly but you get what you pay for | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | Liquid Web’s dashboard is straightforward and easy to use | ★★★★☆ |
| Features | Plenty of features including scalability | ★★★★☆ |
| Speed test | Our tests showed speedy scores even on the cheapest plans | ★★★★☆ |
See our full Liquid Web review
Best reseller hosting: A2
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | I’d say yes. It can be more expensive than others but the features make it worth while | ★★★★☆ |
| Ease of use | Not the most user friendly for beginners | ★★★☆☆ |
| Features | Lots of management options here | ★★★★☆ |
| Speed test | A2 Hosting scored pretty much average on the tests. Nothing bad, nothing exceptional | ★★★★☆ |
For more information see our full A2 Hosting review
Meet the authors
James created websites and managed hosting for successful businesses before moving into an editorial role helping cloud computing companies improve documentation. Now, he combines these areas of expertise at TechRadar Pro managing everything there is to do with web hosting.
“I’m proud to work at TechRadar Pro because all products are listed based on the result of testing and use by experts. Page rankings are not for sale and as an editor I have complete control over what I recommend. This freedom and responsibility inspires my team and I to really get to know the products and services we recommend.”
Lewis has over two decades of experience in software and web development for high growth businesses and has maintained critical infrastructure that handles millions of transactions daily. Lewis’ extensive experience in architecting scalable, secure web solutions, combined with his role at a cutting edge AI startup creating tools for web developers making him the perfect analyst. Lewis helps with evaluating tools, user experience, and assessing the value of products.
Mike Williams
Mike has a degree in computer science and has been testing products for TechRadar longer than some of the products have been around. When it comes to uptime, load testing, LCP times, and time to first byte Mike knows how to put web hosts through their paces to ensure that you’re getting what you pay for and your business gets reliable hosting.
Krishi Chowdhary
Krishi has over 5 years of experience simplifying complex topics and creating no-nonsense guides on all things hosting, including WordPress and domain names. He gets hands-on with the providers he recommends, and gives clear reasons why and for whom they’re suitable for. When Krishi is not busy creating the next perfect buying guide, you can find him scrolling through the latest happenings in the cybersecurity space.
How we test web hosts
First, we decide what we think a host is best at and if we were to get a web host for something, which one are we likely to choose. Then, we purchase the hosting, build our site or transfer a site and see how smooth it goes. After that we use all the features and start to record speed and stress test metrics using respected tools like GTmetrix. Sometimes, we’ll realize we’ve picked the wrong host or plan and start the process again.
We have a range of testers from beginners, the tech savvy, and seasoned web devs so we can test exactly how the user would be using the service. We also invite each other to have a go to try and remove bias we might have based on experience with other hosts. After we’ve finished using the host we give the host a user score based on the value, ease of use, and features.
Because we know it’s important to pick a web hosting company you can trust, we focus on whether each web hosting provider presents its products in an honest, clear, and transparent way. In our tests, this is easy to pick up on as we compare the list of features each company claims it offers, to what we actually have access to once we begin using their service.
Our web host speed tests are generally based on the cheapest shared hosting plan available from a provider but we’re expanding them to include VPS plans too.
FAQs
How to choose a web host
Everyone has their own individual hosting priorities, and we can’t tell you exactly what you’ll need and what you won’t. But based on my experience from hosting a range of websites I can give you some general rules that will point you in the right direction.
Unlimited resources: Actually good value for money?
Unlimited (or unmetered) disk space and bandwidth sounds great, but all that really matters is you’ve enough for your site, and that may be much less than you think. Web host Kinsta reported that its clients’ WordPress sites averaged only around 1GB in size, for instance. If that’s you, paying for ‘unlimited’ space won’t bring any benefits at all. Plus, unlimited can have its drawbacks. Unlimited resources often bring in the wrong crowds and you don’t want someone acting maliciously on the same server as you.
SSL certificates
Your website almost certainly needs an SSL certificate to enable secure encrypted connections with visitors, and avoid the worrying ‘insecure’ warnings they’ll get if you’re SSL-free. Most plans offer free SSL, but check the small print: occasionally SSL comes free for the first year only, and you’ll have to pay after that.
Domains
Many web hosting plans include a free domain name, a tempting sweetener if you don’t have one already. But beware, it’s typically only free for a year, and then you’ll pay the provider’s standard renewal fees. Dot com domain renewals don’t vary much (an average $10-$20 a year), but it’s a different story with others. If you need a domain, check renewal prices to find out the real long-term cost.
Thinking about managed hosting? Can you keep up with updates and backups?
Websites can break for all kinds of reasons, and if you want to keep downtime to a minimum, backups are an absolute must. Look for a plan that includes a backup service, and pay attention to frequency: weekly backups might be just about acceptable for sites that never change, but daily backups are much better.
Support
No matter how experienced you are in the web hosting world, you’re sure to need support occasionally. Check out your prospective hosts’ support site: does it have content on the topics you’d expect, and is this helpful and easy to read? A host should at least have 24/7 live chat support, but telephone, ticket, and email help, too: there can’t be too many ways to get in touch.
What types of web hosting are there?
What types of web hosting are there?
Hosting a website basically means making it accessible to the world. You can host a website from your own home but it will be a pretty bad idea. First of all, you’ll be inviting the entire world into your home router, which doesn’t seem very safe. You’ll also need to keep your PC on all the time, which won’t be energy efficient. Then, if your website gets busy it’s unlikely your hardware will be able to cope.
The most sensible thing to do is outsource the task of hosting a site. This is where web hosts come in. They store your website on server and it’s secure, always on, and has the most up to date hardware to ensure site performance when it’s busy.
You can share a server, rent your own resources, or even rent a space and put your own hardware in it. There are options for everything and based on your business requirements the right type of hosting will make a big difference to cost and performance.
If you have a small site, shared hosting is fine. Anything else will be a waste of money. If you have a larger eCommerce store then a virtual private server is a better option. If your business is ultra sensitive to any downtime then cloud hosting is perfect as multiple copies of your site are stored in different locations so if a disaster occurs your site will always be online.
Then, there are more specific options like the best WordPress hosting, or best Minecraft server. These hosting options have optimizations for these specific uses to give you the best performance and value for money.
What is shared hosting?
Shared hosting is a simple scheme where multiple websites are stored on the same web server (a type of computer).
One benefit of shared hosting is its simplicity. You don’t have to spend any time maintaining the server, because your provider does that. All you need to do is work on your own site.
Sharing a web server means sharing the costs, too, and with sometimes hundreds of websites on the same server, that usually means rock-bottom prices.
The big problem with shared hosting is you’re also sharing your server’s system resources: CPU time, RAM, storage and network connection. There’s only so much to go around, and the more sites on your server, the slower and less dependable your own website is likely to be.
Shared hosting is still the best choice in many situations. If you’re creating a simple blog, a site for family, a local club, or anything with very light traffic where no-one will care much if the site is a little slow occasionally, the shared option is ideal. It’s very easy to use, and you can get decent plans from many providers for around $2 to $4 a month.
But if this is something more important, a web store, maybe a business site, then a slow or unreliable website will drive visitors away. It’s well worth upgrading to something more powerful.
What is VPS hosting?
VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is a clever technology that divides a single physical server into multiple server environments.
Log onto a VPS and you’ll have access to what looks like the full server. This is far more complex than shared hosting, but it also gives you much more control. You can install any apps, tweak any server settings, and even replace the entire operating system if you like.
There will be other VPS environments on the same physical server (though not as many other accounts as with shared hosting), reducing your performance a little. But you’ll have your own allocation of network bandwidth, RAM, storage, and CPU time. These won’t be shared with other customers, which means your site should see higher and more consistent speeds than you’ll get with shared hosting.
Upgrading is often very easy, too. If website traffic grows and you need additional resources – more CPU time, extra RAM, a higher bandwidth allowance – then you can typically add them to your plan in a click or two, and they’ll be available almost immediately.
This extra power comes at a price, but it might be much less than you think. Hostinger’s cheapest shared hosting plan is $1.99 a month on the four-year plan; its cheapest VPS plan is just $2.99, again over four years. It’s a very basic plan, but at $8.99 for a one-off month, it’s not expensive to see if a VPS could work for you.
What is dedicated hosting?
As the name suggests, dedicated hosting is a plan where a physical server is dedicated to a single client. That means no more speed issues because you’re sharing bandwidth, RAM or CPU time with other accounts: the entire system is yours alone.
As you’re renting the entire physical server, most providers allow you to build it with whatever hardware you need. You can typically choose your CPU, storage drives and type (cheap and high capacity HDDs, smaller but faster SSDs), operating system, bandwidth allowance and more.
This can be expensive. Even budget providers like Namecheap charge a monthly $50-$60 for their most basic dedicated servers, and Liquid Web’s top-of-the-range enterprise models might cost $500 or more (although they’re aimed at huge sites which might have a million page views a month).
There’s more work involved in managing a dedicated server, too. With shared hosting, if your server crashes, the provider support team should notice and fix or reboot it. But if you’re running the server, all that is up to you, unless you pay even more to the provider to handle it for you.
If you absolutely need top performance and complete control of your server, though, a dedicated plan is probably the way to go.
What is WordPress hosting?
WordPress is a website builder and content management system. It’s free and you can install it manually on a VPS or higher spec hosting type or you can rent a VPS server or shared server with WordPress pre-installed.
Over 40% of websites are built on top of WordPress so most shared hosting plans are pre-configured to be optimized to make the WordPress software run as fast and securely as possible. You should be able to make a VPS plan run WordPress as fast and securely too but you will need to know what you’re doing to get the most out of it.
The two main types of WordPress hosting are managed and unmanaged. With unmanaged hosting you’re responsible for updates and security but with managed a lot of those responsibilities are passed to the hosting provider. It does cost more money but it can save you a lot of time.
Does server location matter?
Yes. You can host your website anywhere and still get fast loading times on the other side of the world by using a CDN but it’s still best to host the actual site as close to your customers as possible. A CDN can speed up website access on pages that are frequently accessed but if your site is not in constant use in a region, you will see less benefit. Plus, a CDN is often an added cost. If you simply purchased a server close to your customers, you wouldn’t need a CDN. If you have an audience in a specific region it’s worth searching for the best web hosting services in that area. For example, the best UK web hosting.
What is managed hosting?
Shared hosting accounts are generally very simple to operate, but higher end products – WordPress, VPS hosting, dedicated servers – often require running all kinds of maintenance tasks. You might need to test and update WordPress plugins, install operating system patches, spot and troubleshoot server errors, maybe reboot a server if it locks up or crashes.
Buy a managed web hosting plan and some or all of these tasks will be carried out by your hosting provider’s regular support team. You’ll potentially save real time and hassle, and if problems do crop up, they’ll be speedily addressed by the people best qualified to fix them.
Sounds great– so why would anyone do anything else? Cost, mostly. Hostwinds’ 4-core 8GB RAM VPS costs $59.99 fully managed, for instance, but only $38.99 for the unmanaged DIY version, a big drop in price.
One key message here is to keep this in mind when comparing WordPress, VPS or dedicated plans between hosting providers. Host A may look seriously cheap, but are you comparing a managed with an unmanaged plan? Be sure to check the small print.
There’s no precise definition of ‘managed’, either, so don’t simply assume a managed plan means you’ll have absolutely no maintenance to do. Every provider has its own definition of what’s covered and what isn’t, so check it out, make sure you understand exactly what’s covered before you buy.
What is email hosting?
One of the big advantages of registering a domain is you can have your own custom email address (Steve@thebestbuilder.com is far more impressive and business-like than builder457@gmail.com).
You probably won’t get email when you register a domain, for instance. Most hosting plans include some email support, but it may not be as powerful as you need, especially for business use. You’ll often see strict limits on Inbox size, the number of accounts you can create, even the number of emails you can send a day.
Email hosting is a service which allows you to send and receive emails via a custom domain. You don’t have to buy email hosting from the same provider as your web hosting, and in fact you don’t need web hosting at all: just register a domain, buy an email hosting plan and you’re ready to start creating and using all those name@yoursite.com email accounts.
Signing up for email hosting may get you a better service. The top providers give you plenty of Inbox space, support large attachments, don’t hold you back with annoying usage limits and provide built-in spam, phishing and malware filters to keep you safe.
This could be a feature well worth adding to your hosting line-up, and it’s generally inexpensive; many email hosting plans cost around $1-$2.50 a month. But if you currently have a budget shared hosting plan, keep in mind that upgrading might get you better email features and a bunch of other goodies, too. Check your provider’s hosting feature lists to find out exactly what you get.
What’s the website hosting TLDR?
For WordPress, Shared/WordPress hosting is easy but slightly more expensive. Managed is slightly more on top of that but even easier. Using a VPS and a file transfer service to upload and install WordPress is the cheapest but more complex option.
If you’ve got time and your website idea is not very complex (like a blog/ portfolio site) I’d but the effort into using a VPS and setting everything up yourself. If you don’t get on with it you can always use a money-back guarantee and transfer to a managed WordPress option.
For eCommerce, you want something flexible so you can scale your website for peak trading and promotional activities. You also want something with daily backups and redundancy so you never have any downtime. You’ll also want something that focuses on website loading speed because the payoff for faster loading pages is worth it.
What else should I consider when picking a web host?
Three or four-year hosting plans can have appealingly low prices, but they don’t always work out. If you’re unhappy with a host, or your site grows and the old plan can’t handle the increased traffic, you may have to buy something else early. It’s safer to sign up for a year (or even less), at least initially, and perhaps choose a VPS or similar plan where it’s easy to add more resources as required.
Uptime (the percentage of the day that your website is available) is a key stat for any serious website. If a potential customer can’t find or use your website, at best they’ll think you’re unprofessional, at worst they’ll give up on you entirely and go elsewhere.
Web hosting providers often quote uptime figures such as ‘99.9%’, but these don’t always cover the issues you might expect. Check the small print carefully for any hidden catches.
Look for a Service Level Agreement (SLA), too, especially for dedicated and other high-end hosting plans. These go beyond vague website promises to guarantee uptime, support response times and other elements of the service, and describe the compensation you’ll get if the target is missed.
Web hosting features explained
If you’re new to web hosting, some of the terms and features may sound confusing. To help you understand them, we’ve come up with a quick explainer for the most common elements in web hosting services:
Domain name. It’s the address people type in their browsers to visit your website, like techradar.com. Many hosting plans include one domain name for free for the first year of registration. Choose a .com domain to establish your credibility or .online for an affordable alternative.
SSL certificate. This feature encrypts the connection between your website and your visitors’ browsers, preventing hackers from accessing it. Hosting providers usually provide one for free from Let’s Encrypt. Some also offer a premium version as an add-on, which can provide a better warranty and level of verification.
Unmetered bandwidth. This means the hosting provider won’t monitor or cap the amount of data transferred, so there’s no need to worry about extra bandwidth usage fees once the website’s traffic grows. Each company has a different policy on unmetered resources, so make sure to read their terms and conditions beforehand.
SSD disk space. Compared to HDDs, SSDs are a much more reliable storage solution. They’re less prone to disk failures and can serve data twenty times faster, speeding up your website’s performance.
cPanel. With this control panel, new users can manage their hosting via an intuitive interface – no technical skills required. You can access different features, check out your resource usage, and configure the domain’s settings within a few clicks.
WordPress auto-installer. This feature lets you set up WordPress in a few clicks from the hosting’s control panel. That way, there’s no need to download and upload the CMS files yourself.
Website migration. Most hosting providers allow transferring an existing site from another host to their servers. Typically, you have to insert some information about the website, submit a ticket to their customer support team, and wait a few hours for the migration to initiate.
Custom HTML and CSS. The control panel should provide access to your website’s files, including HTML and CSS, via the file manager or an FTP client. Feel free to edit them to customize the site’s front end to your liking.
LCP. This is the time it takes to display the content on the page. If when you click on a link and you start to get parts of the page through at different times then the LCP is low. You want the lowest time possible. Otherwise your users will have a bad experience and maybe leave you site.
Notes from the editor
November 2024 There have been lots of changes to this page and if you’re wondering why let me give you an explanation. First of all, I’ve put some pros and cons in a table to make the information more accessible. I’ve also changed some of the formatting on the page for the same reason. I’ve also removed a logo on the main image because that host is no longer on this page. They’re still a good host, and best at what they do. It’s just that category is not on this page anymore. I’ve also done away with the category approach and tried to recommend hosting for you specifically. Well, not you but people like you that are small business owners, or people wanting to start a blog. You don’t care if it’s shared or VPS or cloud and how any vCPUs or RAMs a hosting plan has. You just want something that will get the job done and I’ve selected them for you with the help of my team. There’s also been a change of recommendation on a host level. For example SiteGround were recommended for best for WordPress but now they’re recommended for eCommerce. That’s not to say they’re no longer a WordPress recommendation, they still are, and continue to support the WordPress community. They’re recommended for something different because I think this recommendation is more useful to more readers. You will be the judge on if this approach works. If it doesn’t, then expect to see another heavily updated page in December.
