9 Best WordPress Hosting Options Compared for 2020
Finding the best WordPress hosting can be a painful process. Finding a solution that will do justice to your content, offer rock-solid reliability and hopefully not break the bank is a task that requires lots of research.
The good news is, now that you’re here, you don’t have to do any of that research. Because we did all the work for you by testing the best WordPress hosting platform available today.
In this article we feature some of the best WordPress hosting companies out there:
- WP Engine: Fast and reliable hosting with excellent performance
- SiteGround: Best overall features, affordable pricing, and excellent support
- Kinsta: Reliable hosting with great features and beginner-friendly dashboard
- Bluehost: Affordable hosting with unlimited space and bandwidth
- Page.ly: Advanced WordPress hosting with dedicated system resources
- Flywheel: Cloud hosting powered by Google Cloud
- Dreamhost: Managed hosting optimized for WordPress
- Hostgator: Cloud hosting with unlimited storage
- InMotion: Affordable hosting with unlimited space
We went ahead and created an account with each and every one of these platforms. We setup a test website and ran some tests to see which one offers the best performance.
Keep reading to find our results.
Quick Summary
Our findings reveal that SiteGround (for shared hosting) and WP Engine (for managed WordPress Hosting) are the clear winners for WordPress users (last updated October 1st, 2020).
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|---|---|---|---|
| Avg. load time (LoadImpact, approx.) /ms | 400 (.4s — After caching) | 260 (.26s) | 0.9s |
| Bandwidth | unlimited | 25,000 visits / month | – |
| Hosting Type | Shared | Managed | Shared |
| Custom Support (response time /m) | 0.25 | 11 | 12 |
| Cost per month | $3.95 | $29 | $4.99 |
| Visit: | Get SiteGround | Go to WPEngine | Go to Inmotion |
SiteGround offers unmatched prices for their WordPress hosting services, which was enough to put them on our radar. However, it was their WordPress-friendly features that sealed the deal, such as a free wildcard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, fast support, and daily backups with up to 30 copies in storage on their GrowBig plan (which we consider to be their best feature). In short, Siteground is perfect for bloggers & small business owners.
WPEngine is one of the most expensive WordPress hosting providers on the market, but its quality more than makes up for the high cost. This WordPress-centric web host is especially well-suited to rapidly growing sites. In addition, they offer enterprise-grade security features, albeit at a cost of disallowing a few popular plugins due to security vulnerabilities. You can get started with their cheapest plan, then upgrade as necessary.
What Is Managed And Shared WordPress Hosting?
While going through the article, you’ll come across terms like managed WordPress hosting, shared hosting, and cloud hosting. There are a few differences between these options.
A managed WordPress hosting plan includes lots of benefits for building WordPress websites. Such as hosting on servers optimized for WordPress software with high-tech caching systems. Automatic WordPress software updates and daily website backups. And much more. Basically, managed WordPress hosting offers faster and more reliable hosting features.
Shared WordPress hosting plans are much cheaper compared to managed hosting. However, they don’t offer the same benefits of managed hosting plans. When you use a shared hosting plan to host a website, your website usually gets stuffed on a server full of hundreds of other shared websites. This, of course, means slower website performance.
Overall, it’s best to use a managed WordPress hosting plan if you have big plans for your website. Or you can start with a shared plan and upgrade to a managed plan later, depending on the hosting platform you choose.
What To Look For In A Hosting Provider
We’ll kick things off here with a look at features that should simply be non-negotiable in any solid WordPress hosting setup.
(If you’d rather cut straight to the chase and dive into our WordPress hosting comparison, go for it!)
- Speed: Web users are notoriously impatient so the speed is vital. Google is also cracking down on slow sites so you really can’t afford to be slack in this area. This is especially the case when it comes to WordPress hosting. Left unoptimized, WordPress can be a resource-heavy application so you need top-notch hardware in place to get the most bang for your buck.
- Full feature set: This isn’t specific to WordPress hosting of course but it should go without saying that your hosting provider offers email accounts and forwarding, appropriate server access and excellent tooling on the admin side.
- Security: Nothing ruins a day quicker than discovering your site has been pawned by script kiddies. Your host should have verifiably secure systems in place to deter common attacks.
- Support: Excellent support is essential in a hosting provider. You should be able to reach friendly and knowledgeable support people at any hour of the day or night. Waiting around on email tickets isn’t good enough if there’s a real problem.
- WordPress-friendly hosting: WordPress has its own specific requirements and peculiarities and not every host is set up to handle it optimally. Right now, WordPress ideally needs to be running on PHP 5.6 (or greater) and MySQL 5.5 (or greater) to avoid security vulnerabilities and potentially broken features. Look for a host with a strong track record in dealing with WordPress sites.
- Pricing and value for money: It’s all very well having a super-fast, super-secure server, and an awesome site, but if you’re spending ten times as much on it as you can ever hope to get back, all that effort is in vain.
Best WordPress Hosting Providers to Choose From (2020)
We’re going to be running the rule over nine hosting providers in particular, each offering packages specifically tailored for WordPress users.
How We Tested Hosting Platforms
Unlike many other hosting guides that are biased in favor of one particular provider from the get-go, we’ve reviewed each of the hosts totally independently. We also used popular and reputable website testing tools such as LoadImpact and Pingdom Speed Test tools to check website performance after setting up a test site in each web hosting platform.
Let’s start drilling into detail and look at the different types of WordPress hosting that are actually available for your site.
1. SiteGround (www.SiteGround.com)
- Price: $3.95 per month
- Website Loading Speed: 342ms
- Best Feature: Fast customer service
- Our Hands-On Review
SiteGround’s shared hosting packages are suitable for sites of all manner of sites but they also provide WordPress-specific options which include one-click installs and auto-updates.
SiteGround offers daily backups, server isolation and 24/7 support on all three WordPress packages with pricing ranging from $9.95 per month to $29.95 per month. Specialist features such as one-click WordPress Staging and GIT support are available on the higher-tiered packages.
Main Benefits of SiteGround Hosting
- Best customer service: Siteground customer support team is very fast and responsive. They’ll even offer to setup your website for you.
- Free daily backups: Siteground keeps your website backed up every day, just in case.
- SuperCacher: Siteground uses its own unique caching system to speed up hosted websites.
- Free CDN & SSL: You’ll get a free SSL certificate with your hosting plan as well as CDN integration.
How Fast is SiteGround Hosting?
- Pingdom Speed Test: 942ms
- Load Impact Test: 1s
- DNS Response Time: 17ms
“Variable” is probably the word to describe this somewhat disappointing graph from the LoadImpact tests.
Peaking at nearly three seconds, results tended to stay in or around the one-second mark.
Our 189kB page came in with a load speed of 942ms, and scored 75% on Pingdom’s performance grade. It took 638ms to load with Developer Tools.
The average DNS response time meanwhile came in at 17ms.
How Fast is SiteGround Customer Service?
Siteground customer support team took about 25 seconds to respond to our live chat question. They were able to solve our problem in just 3 replies. Fastest among all the hosting platforms.
Siteground Pricing
- Startup: $3.95 /mo for hosting 1 website with 10GB space
- GrowBig: $5.95 /mo for hosting unlimited sites with 20GB space
- GoGeek: $11.95 /mo for hosting unlimited sites with 30GB space
2. WPEngine (www.WPEngine.com)
- Price: $28 per month
- Website Loading Speed: 350ms
- Best Feature: Best website performance
- Our Hands-On Review
WP Engine describes its product as simply “the best WordPress hosting” – a bold claim to kick off with.
The company sells itself on robust infrastructure, site speed and security along with exceptional support. With over 220,000 currently active WordPress installations and serious funding behind it, WP Engine is very much one of the big beasts in the WordPress hosting space.
WP Engine offer a number of standard packages split out by traffic, storage and number of sites that can be hosted. These range in price from $28 to $232 per month. For our tests, we ran on the entry-level Personal package.
Main Benefits of WPEngine Hosting
- EverCache: This in-house built caching technology help speed up your website performance.
- Free exclusive themes: With WPEngine you get access to a collection of over 30 exclusive themes built using Genesis framework.
- Automatic updates and backups: WPEngine provides automatic WordPress system updates and daily backups.
- Free SSL and CDN: You also get free HTTPS and CDN for your website.
How Fast is WPEngine Hosting?
- Pingdom Speed Test: 350ms
- Load Impact Test: 260ms
- DNS Response Time: 4ms
With only a couple of blips, our WP Engine WordPress hosting loaded at around 260ms with LoadImpact.
The 290kB page loaded in just 350ms on Pingdom, earning a performance grade of 75%.
It’s marked as faster than 99% of other sites tested with the same tool. With developer tools, a full page load took just 269ms.
The DNS response time averaged out at 4ms.
How Fast is WPEngine Customer Service?
It took 11 minutes for WPEngine team to respond to our live chat request. But they were fast enough to solve our issue in just 4 replies.
WPEngine Pricing
- Startup: $28 /mo for hosting 1 website with 10GB space
- Growth: $92 /mo for hosting 5 websites with 20GB space
- Scale: $232 /mo for hosting 15 websites with 30GB space
3. Kinsta (www.Kinsta.com)
- Price: $30 per month
- Website Loading Speed:
- Best Feature: Best managed WordPress hosting
- Our Hands-On Review
Kinsta is one of the rising stars in the managed WordPress hosting industry. It offers a range of services for all sizes of websites at an unmatched price range.
Even though Kinsta is a fairly new contender to the industry, it’s already being recognized as a solid hosting provider. And is trusted by major brands such as Ubisoft, Ricoh, and more.
Their pricing starts at $30 per month for hosting one website and goes all the way up to $1500 a month for hosting 150 websites.
Main Benefits of Kinsta Hosting
- WordPress-optimized architecture: Kinsta uses state-of-the-art technology such as Nginx to provide faster performance to hosted websites.
- Automatic scaling: Kinsta also uses automatic scaling to keep your site live during traffic spikes.
- Hack fix and backups: In addition to full security protection, Kinsta also offers to fix your website in case of a hack. And provide daily backups as well.
- User-friendly dashboard: Kinsta has a beginner-friendly dashboard for managing all your websites in one place.
How Fast is Kinsta Hosting?
- Pingdom Speed Test: 173ms
- Load Impact Test: 500ms
- DNS Response Time: 9ms
Kinsta had one of the fastest loading speeds clocking in at 173ms in our Pingdom speed test. It also scored a performance grade of 96.
On the LoadImpact test, our Kinsta test site managed to stay stable during the entire traffic load. And kept an average load time of 500ms.
The average DNS response time was 9ms.
How Fast is Kinsta Customer Service?
Kinsta customer support team took 2 minutes and 11 seconds to respond to our live chat. And provided a solution to our question in just 2 replies. Not the fastest response time in our list but fair.
Kinsta Pricing
- Starter: $30 /mo for hosting 1 website with 10GB space
- Pro: $60 /mo for hosting 2 websites with 20GB space
- Business 1: $100 /mo for hosting 5 websites with 30GB space
- Business 2: $200 /mo for hosting 10 websites with 40GB space
4. InMotion (www.InMotionHosting.com)
- Price: $4.99 per month
- Website Loading Speed: 0.48 seconds
- Best Feature: Affordable pricing
InMotion is one of the biggest names in hosting. Their WordPress plans are particularly attractive due to budget-friendly prices.
While InMotion doesn’t excel in any particular area, it offers an overall decent WordPress experience. Loading speeds aren’t exceptional but aren’t too bad either. Their support team is friendly and knowledgeable, but often take ages to answer. If we had to sum up InMotion in a single word, it would be “average”.
Their cheapest plan comes in at a surprisingly low $4.99 per month. For the features they offer, that’s one of the best prices around. As long as you don’t expect exceptional performance, then you’ll be happy with them.
Main Benefits of InMotion Hosting
- SSD and Nginx: Powered with SSD storage and Nginx, InMotion offers faster website load times for websites.
- Automatic updates: InMotion offers automatic updates for both WordPress system and plugins.
- Free backups: Your website will get backed up automatically, every day.
- Free SSL, CDN, and Domain: You get a free domain name, SSL, and CDN integration with all accounts.
How Fast is InMotion Hosting?
- Pingdom Speed Test: 0.48 seconds
- Load Impact Test: 0.8 seconds
- DNS Response Time: 32ms
InMotion came out looking decent during the Load Impact test, with an approximate average of 0.8 seconds and a couple of moderate spikes above the 1-second range. Pretty good for a budget WordPress web host.
As is to be expected, those times came down during the Pingdom test. Our website took 0.48 seconds to load and scored a modest 63 on their performance grade.
Meanwhile, Chrome Developer tools clocked its loading time at approximately one second. That’s a wide variance, but still within the range of our tests.
InMotion’s DNS response time clocked in at a respectable (but not blazing fast) 32ms.
How Fast is InMotion Customer Service?
InMotion customer support team was able to respond to our live chat within 12 minutes. They helped solve our problem in 5 replies.
InMotion Pricing
- WP-1000S: $4.99 /mo for hosting 1 website with 40GB space
- WP-2000S: $7.99 /mo for hosting 2 websites with 80GB space
- WP-3000S: $10.99 /mo for hosting 3 websites with 120GB space
5. Bluehost (www.Bluehost.com)
- Price: $19.95 per month
- Website Loading Speed: 2794ms
- Best Feature: Unmetered space and bandwidth
Bluehost took quite a beating over the years for being an unreliable web hosting provider and for their poor customer support services. However, the platform has drastically improved since then.
Handling over 2 million websites is not an easy job. Bluehost does its best to provide a good service to all of its customers. Even though it’s not perfect at times, Bluehost is now a reliable platform for hosting WordPress websites. Their WordPress managed hosting plans start at $19.95 per month with the freedom to host unlimited websites.
Main Benefits of Bluehost Hosting
- Unlimited everything: With Bluehost, you get unlimited space and bandwidth to make unlimited websites.
- SSD storage: With SSD servers, Bluehost promises faster website performance.
- Free SSL and CDN: You also get free HTTPS and CDN with all plans.
- Security: Bluehost also provides a service to detect malware and remove them from your website.
How Fast is Bluehost Hosting?
- Pingdom Speed Test: 2794ms
- Load Impact Test: 640ms
- DNS Response Time: 78ms
Bluehost’s results with LoadImpact stuck at around 640ms even as requests increased. Alas, good performance did not last.
Bluehost delivered a not-so-wonderful set of results on Pingdom, taking 2794ms to serve the content – although still managing 75% on the performance grade.
With Developer Tools, results were somewhat better (if still not stunning), taking 1150ms to serve the page. DNS average response time was 78ms, way out compared to all the other hosts.
How Fast is Bluehost Customer Service?
Bluehost took 40 minutes to reply to our live chat request. And it took them 7 replies to solve our issue. Slowest among all our contenders.
Bluehost Pricing
- Build: $19.95 /mo for hosting unlimited websites and daily backups
- Grow: $29.95 /mo for hosting unlimited websites and Bluehost SEO tools
- Scale: $49.95 /mo for hosting unlimited websites and unlimited backups
6. Pagely (www.Pagely.com)
- Price: $499 per month
- Website Loading Speed: 731ms
- Best Feature: Dedicated resources
Page.ly doesn’t beat around the bush with its marketing claims, billing itself as “the most scalable WordPress platform in the world”. They boast an enviable roster of clients including giants such as Disney, Twitter, and Facebook.
We used their entry-level Business hosting package for the purposes of this article but a suite of other options are on offer ranging from $499 per month all the way up to a whopping $2500 per month.
Page.ly make use of Amazon Web Servers (AWS) to power their hosting with advanced security and performance systems in place in the form of PressARMOR, PressCDN, and PressCACHE.
WordPress-related tasks can be carried out from Page.ly’s Atomic Core control panel.
Main Benefits of Page.ly Hosting
- Scalability: With hosting powered by Amazon AWS servers, you’ll be able to freely scale your website as it grows.
- Dedicated resources: Each hosting plan receives its own VPS with dedicated resources.
- Daily backups: You will also get free automatic backups
- SSL acceleration: With this technology, your website performs faster and offers better protection.
How Fast is Page.ly Hosting?
- Pingdom Speed Test: 731ms
- Load Impact Test: 115ms
- DNS Response Time: 20ms
There was a slight trend upwards for Page.ly on LoadImpact in response time as more requests were sent and a couple of big jumps along the way.
Response times tended to stick in a range between 80ms and 115ms overall.
Our 291kB page loaded in 731ms. This earned it a performance grade of 75%, better than 94% sites tested with Pingdom. 459ms was the result with Developer Tools.
The average DNS response time meanwhile, was 20ms.
How Fast is Page.ly Customer Service?
Pagely only took 7 minutes to respond to our live chat. They solved our problem in 3 replies.
Page.ly Pricing
- Performance: $499 per month with 50GB SSD storage and 4GB RAM
- Performance+: $999 per month with 50GB SSD storage and 8GB RAM
- Scale: $2500 per month with custom SSD storage and custom RAM
7. Flywheel (www.getflywheel.com)
- Price: $23 per month
- Website Loading Speed: 1580ms
- Best Feature: Optimized WordPress hosting
Flywheel has pitched its services firmly at designers and creative agencies and offers advanced site collaboration tools and reseller options.
Flywheel offers a range of pricing options to cater to various scenarios along with WordPress-tuned servers, staging site options and easy transfer billing to clients. On a pay-per-site basis, pricing ranges from $23 per month to $266 per month. Bulk plans covering 10 and 30 sites are available at $100 and $250 per month respectively.
Main Benefits of Flywheel Hosting
- Powered by Google Cloud: With the power of the Google Cloud platform, Flywheel offers faster and reliable hosting for websites of all sizes.
- Flycache: Flywheel’s in-house caching system also optimizes websites for better performance.
- Free backups and security: Flywheel also provides free nightly backups and protection from malware and hackers.
- Free migration: Flywheel will even offer to migrate your site from another host for free.
How Fast is Flywheel Hosting?
- Pingdom Speed Test: 1580ms
- Load Impact Test: 1000ms
- DNS Response Time: 4ms
The response speed on LoadImpact was a little unstable for Flywheel and tended to increase with more requests.
Overall, it stayed around the 1000ms mark.
The 290kB page took 1580ms to load up, scoring 86% in Pingdom’s performance ratings. It was faster than 66% of websites testing on the site.
It took 2776ms with Developer Tools, however. Flywheel’s average DNS response time came in at a speedy 4ms.
How Fast is Flywheel Customer Service?
Flywheel took 15 minutes to respond to our live chat and it took them 5 replies to solve the problem we were having.
Flywheel Pricing
- Starter: $23 /mo for hosting 1 website with 5GB space
- Freelance: $105 /mo for hosting 10 websites with 20GB space
- Agency: $266 /mo for hosting 30 websites with 50GB space
8. DreamHost (www.DreamHost.com)
- Price: $14.95 per month
- Website Loading Speed: 1.25s
- Best Feature: Affordable shared hosting price
DreamHost is unique in the WordPress hosting world. They offer both a shared plan and a managed one – both aimed towards WordPress users – with a single payment structure for each. Both plans enable you to host unlimited sites, as well as all the space and bandwidth you’ll need.
It could be said that most hosts offering one-size-fits-all plans tend to provide a service that’s less focused, but DreamHost manages to keep their standards high.
Their shared plan costs $2.59 per month, while their managed alternative costs $14.95 for the same period.
Main Benefits of DreamHost Hosting
- Advanced caching: DreamHost uses an advanced caching system to provide faster page loading speeds.
- Free backups: DreamHost offers both automated and on-demand website backups.
- SSD storage: All servers are equipped with SSDs to provide the best performance.
- Premium support: DreamHost customer support team consists of highly trained experts to solve your problems faster.
How Fast is DreamHost Hosting?
- Pingdom Speed Test: 1.25s
- Load Impact Test: 3s
- DNS Response Time: 37ms
Our Load Impact test returned concerning results for DreamHost, with an average request-response time of nearly three seconds – way above the norm compared to the other hosts in this list.
Over at Pingdom, our findings were a little better. Dreamhost scored a performance grade of 77 (which is solid), and the page loaded in 1.25 seconds. On the other hand, a quick test using the Developer Tools took 1.95 seconds – a small but significant increase.
As far as DNS response times go, DreamHost came in at an average of 37 milliseconds.
How Fast is DreamHost Customer Service?
Dreamhost responded to our live chat within 6 minutes. They also solved our problem in 4 replies.
DreamHost Pricing
- DreamPress Basic: $14.95 /month with 30GB SSD space and unmetered bandwidth
- DreamPress Plus: $24.95 /month with 60GB SSD space and unmetered bandwidth
- DreamPress Pro: $71.95 /month with 120GB SSD space and unmetered bandwidth
9. Hostgator Cloud (www.HostGator.com)
- Price: $5.95 per month
- Website Loading Speed: 1.64s
- Best Feature: Cloud hosting
HostGator is a renowned name in the web hosting world, but not a beloved one. Lots of experienced users tend to look down on their hosting plans, but they’ve now come out swinging with a strong offering for WordPress users – their WordPress Cloud Hosting plans.
Their basic plan obtained decent results during our tests (more of which later), and they start at a reasonable $5.95 per month, going up to $9.95 per month.
Main Benefits of Hostgator Hosting
- Cloud hosting: Hostgator boasts 2.5X faster load times thanks to its cloud architecture and low-density servers.
- Unlimited storage: You also get unmetered storage space with all plans.
- Free migration: Hostgator offers free migration services for moving your site from a different host.
- Free CDN and SSL: You can optimize your site for better protection using free SSL and CDN as well.
How Fast is Hostgator Hosting?
- Pingdom Speed Test: 1.6s
- Load Impact Test: 1.3s
- DNS Response Time: 40ms
HostGator didn’t fare that well either during the Load Impact test, with an approximate average of 1.3 seconds throughout.
As for Pingdom, our test site scored a performance grade of 63 and loaded in 1.64 seconds. Meanwhile, the Developer Tools caused our site to load in 1.83 seconds.
Finally, HostGator’s average DNS response time came out at 40ms. It’s not stellar, but definitely not the worst we’ve seen thus far.
How Fast is Hostgator Customer Service?
Hostgator customer support team was fast enough to respond to our live chat in 3 minutes. And solved our issue in 2 replies.
Hostgator Pricing
- Starter: $5.95 /mo for hosting 1 website with unlimited space and 1GB backups
- Standard: $7.95 /mo for hosting 2 websites with unlimited space and 2GB backups
- Business: $9.95 /mo for hosting 3 websites with unlimited space and 3GB backups
WordPress Hosting Customer Support Analysis
Speed and cost aren’t the only metrics that matter when it comes to determining a good WordPress hosting provider. In fact, we would argue that customer support is just as important as any other metric when looking for a suitable host.
To determine how each provider fared in this criterion, we went ahead and asked each one a simple question via live chat: How do I install a new plugin on my WordPress site? Once we received their replies, each provider was scored according to their response time and how many responses it took them to guide us through the process.
Finally, we gave each host a subjective score out of five. Let’s see how they fared:
| WPEngine | Pagely | SiteGround | Flywheel | Bluehost | Dreamhost | Hostgator | InMotion | Kinsta | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Response times /m | 11 | 7 | 0.25 | 15 | 40 | 6 | 3 | 12 | 2 |
| Number of responses until resolution | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 2 |
| Overall score (0-5) | 3.5 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
Needless to say, this test provided us with some surprising results. For one, SiteGround absolutely blew away the competition by responding in less than half a minute, and promptly answering our question. Secondly, HostGator offered a quality of support that was unexpected considering their reputation.
Moving on, DreamHost and Pagely scored highly overall, with decent response times and knowledgeable support staff. WP Engine and Flywheel fell behind a little, but it’s worth noting that their response times were still acceptable. Considering how many queries these hosts deal with, it’s a testament to their dedication that they respond in a matter of minutes.
That being said, one host in particular disappointed us in terms of response times and quality – Bluehost. Although the support agent who chatted with us did resolve our query eventually, their responses were generally insufficient and curt, which led to us spending more time than necessary rephrasing our request.
Overall Hosting Platform Comparison
We’ve summarized the results of our tests in the following table with leading results highlighted in green and lower-ranking results in red.
| Web Hosting | Cost | Load Time |
SSL |
Email Service | Free Domain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SiteGround | $3.95/mo | 400ms | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 2. WPEngine | $29/mo | 260ms | ✓ | X | X |
| 3. Kinsta | $30/mo | 500ms | ✓ | X | X |
| 4. InMotion | $6.99/mo | 800ms | ✓ | ✓ | X |
| 5. BlueHost | $2.75/mo | 640ms | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 6. Flywheel | $25/mo | 1s | ✓ | X | X |
| 7. Dreamhost | $2.59/mo | 3s | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 8. HostGator | $2.99/mo | 1.3s | ✓ | ✓ | X |
Which Hosting Platform Is Best?
WP Engine came out on top in the end for us (for managed hosting) but, having kicked the tires of all eight providers, we were pleasantly surprised at the overall quality of offerings on display. Don’t forget to use our exclusive WPEngine coupon to get 4 months of free hosting.
If you are looking for a more reasonable option, SiteGround is the 2nd best choice. They have almost the same features as WPEngine and come up with super-fast support.
Compared to the dark days of even five or six years ago, it really is remarkable how much better options for simply and affordably hosting a WordPress site have gotten.
As we mentioned at the top of the article, managed WordPress hosting really is the way to go unless you’re bringing considerable server-level expertise to the table. All hosting providers surveyed performed admirably in their respective ways.
WordPress Hosting: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The followings are some of the most common questions and answers that’ll help you understand WordPress hosting a little bit better.
Is WordPress Really Free To Use?
WordPress software is completely free to download and use. Make sure that you download it from wordpress.org website. When using a WordPress hosting provider, you can install it directly from your hosting account dashboard. It only takes a single mouse click.
Do I Need Hosting For WordPress?
Yes. Even though WordPress software is free to use, you need to install the software on a server to setup your website using the software. And to make your website accessible to everyone on the Internet. There are many different types of hosting you can use to setup a WordPress website at different price ranges.
Are There Free WordPress Hosting Websites?
Unless you setup a website with official WordPress.com, which puts lots of restrictions and limitations, you won’t find free hosting to make a professional WordPress website. Even if you come across any free hosting sites, avoid them. Because they will only offer slow hosting and fill your website with advertisements.
How To Backup WordPress Website?
Managed WordPress web hosting platforms offer free daily backups of your website. However, it’s always a good idea to have an alternate option. You can use a free plugin to setup an automatic backup system for your website. Follow this guide to pick the right plugin for the job.
Can I Add Translations In WordPress?
Yes. Using third-party plugins such as WPML and Polylang you can easily add multilingual support to your website. And offer translations in dozens of languages.
Difference Between WordPress Hosting And Shared Hosting
The main difference between WordPress hosting and shared hosting is that WordPress hosting includes servers that are specially optimized to boost the functionality of WordPress software. They also include special caching systems to speed up your websites. Shared hosting, on the other hand, doesn’t provide any special features but offers affordable pricing.
How To Move WordPress Website To A New Host?
This is a complicated process that involves multiple steps and it can also differ depending on the type of hosting you use. It’s best to contact your web hosting provider and ask for their help. Most WordPress web hosting providers will even offer to move your site for free.
How To Transfer WordPress.com To WordPress.org
If you started a blog on WordPress.com and want to transform it to a self-hosted blog, you can do so by transferring all your data to a new hosting account. Follow this guide to learn how it’s done.
I think one more point to consider would be whether the host would do all the initial wordpress installations. This changes the whole equation as a user need not bother about the hard stuff (installing the blog, setting up email ids etc).
I agree with some of what you said. I believe the only real WordPress host or whoso would ever recommend to a friend if they said you know of any good WordPress hosts? would be WP engine I am hosting my site right now it’s lightning fast on it outstanding support and if you’re paying $50 or more for a host as you are with host gator you should clearly look at how little $50 extra dollars a month is for your business and put it on the pro plan on WP engine if you can’t stomach paying that use Zippy kid you get very similar hosting to WP engine a content delivery network and 100,000 viewers a month for $24 And $5 more a month for every additional hundred thousand unique visitors. Now if you want VPS WebSynthesis is the only way to go for real WordPress hosting with a VPS for only $25 a month now please remember there’s no reason you need a VPS if you’re using managed WordPress host. Last but not least I would recommend page.ly they are able to offer quite a bit and those are the only hosts I would ever recommend to my friend if they asked me about WordPress. Your girlfriends website gets half 1 million hits a month and you put her on nickel and dime hosting why? Does this site not generate enough money to have a decent host I find that hard to believe if it’s really getting half million hits a month.
I forgot to tell you one thing host gator has been accused and rightfully so please Google this “host gator found putting links customers websites” I am not going to say they do or they don’t I’m just saying apparently a lot of people on Google believe that they do.
@Thomas Zickell: Thanks for the input. And to my girlfriend’s site – a few months ago I did go ahead and move her site over from Dreamhost to WP Engine and have been happy with the change.
Hi, thank you so much for this post, I’m trying to find a good host for my WordPress blog and I didn’t know what other hosts are out there besides Dreamhost. Thanks for the info!
I’ve used dreamhost and wpengine. I’ve been using liquidio.net recently, so far it’s solid. Really just stay away from hostgator and you’ll be fine lol.
Why are some WordPress Hosting so expensive?
Is there really such a difference between something like Websynthesis.com ($47) Pagely.com (24$) or WpEngine (29$) and something like MyWoHo.com (1$) or Bluehost.com (3.5$)?
Or is the reason why most blogs list only companies like websynthesis, pagely or wpengine the fact that this companies earn 30-40 times what others earn and that they can spend this money in advertising?
I doubt there is any difference, probably a little more optimizing here and there, but not worth the cost.
Dreamhost doesnt backup. I am moving all my sites. Unbelievable a host that doesn’t BACKUP
ipage.com is the best!
I had Media Temple.
After a DDOS attack and how they couldn’t helped me I moved to DreamHost.
But my WordPress malfunctioned after the move, so now DreamHost can’t help me.
Another alternative is BlogDroid. Like WP Engine, they offer managed hosting but they are a little cheaper – and like Dreamhost they have an installer that makes it really easy for new WordPress users to get started. They also have automatic WordPress upgrades, the ability to create staging sites via a button and secure file permissions that work right out of the box.
Good, information, but still I am confused about the best host, Dreamhost is Good, when I have hosted my sites on Dreamhost, rank of my websites in Google was really nice but when I moved to Hostgator, it fall badly… I need something like hetzner.
I think the only reason that companies like Host Gator get put in these best WordPress or best Drupal (and so and so on) articles is just because they are an easy choice. WP Engine definitely has a great reputation and every one I know that uses them has been generally happy. My workplace uses Nexcess.net and we have had only good things to say about them. The support staff is knowledgeable and always quick to respond. They’re definitely worth a look.
I’m always suspicious of comments that drop a reference to some no-name hosting company at the end of the comment since in my experience a majority of them are someone from that same company astroturfing.
Thank your for this post. It is just unbelievably FRUSTRATING trying to find information on hosts for WordPress. Currently I’m with Hawk Host, which was recommended to me, but service there is by email only and spotty at best. If WP Engine really delivers on the promised security and expertise, it would be worth paying for.
Good information on comparing these hosts. I had my wordpress site hosted on shared with Hostgator, however after a while I moved it to VPS, but my site kept crashing. I did alot of research and after moving through various host, I finally host with webnet hosting. They provide quick support and also their server speed is pretty fast, I am quiet happy so far
Wpengine is not bad, but its costly. BlueHost is my favourite one. Thanks for honest reviews.
Bluehost doubled their prices and their support is crap. They used to have great support, if they had a sale and you talk to them they would the changes you requested to match their sale. Now, they got ought by EIG which own almost all hosting companies out there and they moved their support to India and they could care less about pleasing the client, they do not have the same “the customer is always right attitude”. They doubled their prices and refused to make any changes to match the $6 a month for new accounts, so I told them: Thank you, I am going to start looking for a new hosting company… and they could not care less. So I went with hawkhost and now I am paying $2.24 a month.
WP ENGINE is really bad, often down and under attack. your site will be down often
I have been to Hostgator, Media Temple, and several other shared hosting, even Synthesis. But nothing beats WP Engine in terms of performance, security as well as price. I haven’t tried Dreamhost though so I can’t comment on their services.
I just moved from a shared server to HostGator VPS (Level III) and have nothing but trouble so far. The site is 10x slower than it was on our developer’s shared server and we keep having to put out fires (figuratively), with things not working at all on our site.
I have to agree with the article. Cost should not be the primary factor when one is looking for the best wordpress hosting. However there are a plethora of web hosts out there who offer great wordpress hosting for a very competitive price. One thing to consider is page load times for the host. Any reputable host should be able to give you some examples of sites they have on shared hosting. Then you can use something like pingdom tools to test the load times and go with the host that has the fastest load times and reliable support/hardware/network.
I’ve been using Hostgator since a year and hosted many of my sites there! Their customer service is pretty good! I only faced couple of downtimes when their Provo servers had outrage. . . apart from that, I’m very satisfied with performance. . .
As a web design, I can say that WP Engine is the best for WordPress. If your a web business with lots of traffic WP Engine is a good investment , however I find Hostgator more that acceptable for most small to mid-size website, especially if you add cloudflare or a cache plugin. Hostgator also has really good support. I can hop on a chat or call and be communicating in usually 1-2 minutes, practically zero down-time. I can name several times where a website will be down and a client calls and by the time I check the website is back up.
From experience with multiple clients, I can say Godaddy Hosting is not great for WordPress, even small websites it not that good. I also don’t like that they don’t use cPanel.
Thanks for your comment. I use Host Gator and discovered my sites were down. They told me it had to do with my cache and that I needed to clear it. This never happened to me before and I can’t assume the visitors to my website will know they will need to do this. They’ll just leave and never come back. Hostgator said to to prevent this from happening, paste this to your domain .htaccess:
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault A1
Header append Cache-Control must-revalidate
Does that sound right to you?
Used to be a big fan of wpengine … but it looks like as they gain in popularity the service and attention to detail has gone out the window.
I am on their 10 site plan ( $249/month gulp ) and I can’t get a ticket resolved on the weekend ?!? and when it gets finally answered it’s always the guy that just came back from vacation and I have to explain everything all over again.
Just cancelled my plan with them .. I am sure for the same monthly investment I can get someone that replies on the weekend as well 🙂
Yeah, I haven’t been super impressed recently either unfortunately. Just moved a big site away from them.
Which host are you on? We’re pleased with WPEngine, but been getting 502 timeouts due to the amount of WooCommerce extensions we have. We are basically running 90 odd plugins at all times, and this causes 502 errors when we try updating the site. Add to the fact that we might soon be hitting 25k of unique visitors, we might need to look for a new host.
I’ve spoken to those awesome guys from WPE, but their ping timeout is 60 secs max. No adjustments possible 🙁 sigh. Any idea on where to host and not get 502 ping timeout?
I’m very happy with ASmallOrange so I’d try them. However your situation sounds like you need expert help with your setup instead of throwing more resources at it. It might be worth getting a company like WP Valet or similar to go through your code/plugins and do a site audit.
Excellent comparison and perfect timing as I’m in the middle of choosing a new hosting company.
Great work.
Glad you found it useful, Michael. Thanks for the comment.
One thing I recommend is do your research on how easy it is to work with the host. I started a website back in 2009 (not using a host on this list). The price was good but the backend was terrible. I had them install WordPress, so I didn’t have to deal with their backend enough to care. Then I wanted to add another website to my hosting plan. It was a pain trying to figure out how to create a folder for the domain. I finally got it. A few months later I wanted to add another one. I had to go through the process all over again because it wasn’t intuitive enough for me to remember how to add the folder. I now have 6 sites on that plan. I’ve noticed some loading issues. I’ve also noticed that I can’t install some plugins because they require a higher version of PHP than what’s on my hosting plan. I asked them about this and they said I need to move to a newer server.
Buying the plan for the new server wasn’t even intuitive. I ended up getting the wrong thing and finally had to contact them. I now have two hosting plans (one is an old Linux server and the new one is c-panel). Now I’m trying to move all of my sites to the new plan. I still don’t have it done. I had issues and now everything is back to the original plan. After a few months of trying I’m tempted to just move to a new host entirely. Thanks for this detailed overview. I might just go with one of these hosts. They all look better than the one I’m currently with.
Hi Randy!
I’m sorry to hear you’ve been having such an unpleasant experience. I’ve had some bad experiences myself, so I understand the importance of having something you can just “set and forget”. If you do decide to move to a new host, I wish you a smooth transition.
Cheers,
Tom
How is inmotion? Has anyone taken a look at them and their hosting?
Cheers
E
Hi Eric,
InMotion looks like a great hosting company — we’re working on a review / roundup post, should be up in next few weeks.
Want me to give you an heads up, when it goes live?
Is your review of InMotion up?! I’m considering using them and their reseller tools but am wanting to do some research before moving from Bluehost.
It should be up by the end of next week.
Hey Kenny, we finally did the review — http://www.designbombs.com/inmotion-hosting-review/
Fantastic! I’ll check it out! Thank you!
I’ve had a very bad experience with Bluehost. First of all Downtimes! I opened a ticket and for a few days nobody answered me. Didn’t like Bluehost at all and don’t recommend it.
Hi Mark,
I’m sorry to hear that. I trust they were able to solve your issue, though?
Cheers,
Tom
well actually there were too many problems with them. i did some researh and chose another company. user reviews were really helpful.
I see. Well, at least your problems are now solved — and yes, user reviews can be very helpful when searching for the best solution (providers, products, etc).
I have been a Bluehost Client over year’s but I left because Bluehost don’t know what is happening with your account, I had 45 account’s with you and also a Reseller account ( that you close). I think that they have so many clients that they don’t seem to care about losing you.
Very sad about the bluehost experience. I moved my accounts to another company and they don’t even care. The service was slow, recently they got problems (like their where hacked) and I lost all the information in two site, when I called they said “Buy a backup plan” but they have a guarantee of 99.99% availability on their service.
So if you don’t want to wait 30 minutes for a Chat to Technical support and downtimes all time, do not use Bluehost. Very bad experience.
I came upon this site for one reason and one reason only – that I am DESPERATE to leave Bluehost. Over the last two weeks my sites have been down (COMPLETELY down – I can’t access the editor at all and people receive an error message when trying to visit them) about a dozen times that I’ve come across, sometimes for hours at a time. At other times they’ve been so slow that tiny little changes – adding a page to the menu, changing the order of pages in the menu – take minutes, and a page with nothing but a couple thousand words of text and one 200 kB image can take a minute or far, far more to load. Until I change hosts, I’ve essentially given up on my site – it’s excruciating to edit, and I do not want to market it for fear that somebody will attempt to view it for the first time, find it unavailable or unusable, and never return. Bluehost is the stuff of nightmares, and my primary goal in life right now is to find somebody reliable.
Hi David,
I’m sorry to hear you’ve had such a bad experience with Bluehost. As one can expected in this kind of thing, I’ve had some issues myself, but they have always been minor and quickly went away on their own or with some help from the staff.
I assume you’ve tried to contact support. What did they have to say about that issue? How helpful where they?
Cheers,
Tom
Hi,
Nice informative article. I was a long time Blue host user but I moved onto WP Engine and I think it is the best WordPress hosting currently available.
I hope this helps the users of your blog.
Thanks,
Thanks for sharing that with us, Matthew!
Cheers,
Tom
This looks to be one of those change the dates on the title posts, but nonetheless, shared hosting today is not like it was in the past. There are bigger and badder plugins, IO rates need to be increased, you need more cores, people need to be able to handle driving traffic and not have to worry about downtime. I created a solution to handle a majority of these issues (within reason as some limits need to be imposed) but the typical limits of today are solely driven by the amount of people a host wants to cram on one server. If you design the hosting to work for the people, you won’t have to worry about it working for your pocket.
People need CPanel / WHM – One site per Panel with full reseller control capabilities via WHM. This will remove the chance of one account being infected and taking down an entire CPanel account full of sites (YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER BY NOW)
People need Nginx and LiteSpeed in their configurations.
People need the latest PHP versions and be allowed to select them on the fly.
People need IO rates that are higher than 1-3Mb/s.
People need to support Multiple Backends! (HHVM, PHP7, NodeJS, etc)
People need more than a single core sometimes!
People need more than 20 Entry Processes if they are driving traffic.
People need mod_security rules with using OWASP, Gotroot, or a NAXSI setup.
DDoS protection should come standard with every account!
On the fly Malware detection, and AV scans should come standard with every account!
The list can go on and on, but there is no reason why a host needs to cram 1000’s of accounts on one server. Empower the users and charge a bit more, and everyone will win.
Hi Incendia,
Wow, thanks for the detailed feedback! I agree with pretty much everything you say – and should you ever start your own hosting company, I’d be interested in knowing.
Cheers,
Tom
Screw Bluehost – nothing but problems with them – installed a new WordPress website – they flagged it as “malware” – freshly installed WP, core files that were downloaded off of WordPress.org!
Their other tactic is to lockdown your account and to say that there’s malware, and then to offer you to buy some server cleanup service for $200-300 dollars, one time I was offered it for $79.99 and my friend was offered it for $300+, so I’m guessing it depends on which “sales rep” you get.
Every time we asked which files are infected or what type of malware is on it – “by our policy, we cannot tell you” – WHAT KIND OF POLICY IS THAT?! “We’ll generate malware.txt – but this is last time. You need to go through every single file on your server on your own and clean it up. Run your own cleanup if you don’t want to buy our service.” Their customer service reps are not nice (not all, but so far 90% of them) and keep on pushing to buy cleanup serice.
Bluehost’s WordPress plan also offers a lot of extra features to help you set up and maintain your website or blog but there are several issues that make Bluehost not ideal for those new to WordPress.
Just FYI, Pagely no longer offers their $64/mo. plan to new customers.
Their lowest plan is now called Neutrino and it runs $99/mo. for up to 5 sites.
Hey Dave,
Thanks for pointing that out — just updated the pricing.
Great review!I like how you compared these quality word press hosting sites, brief yet detailed. I see that WP Engine topped the results. Have you considered customer support with your analysis?
Nick,
Glad you liked the review / overview. No, we did not take customer support into account when doing the review. But from my personal experience, SiteGround & WPEngine has the best support.
Next, Flywheel also has a great & friendly customer staff who knows WordPress, but sometimes it can take a few hours to get a response. And if you work on weekends, their support might not be available. Though they do have a separate email for emergency situations, where the response time is much faster and available on weekends / holidays.
Bluehost, their support is mostly bad. I’d be probably stay away from them.
As for Pagely, I never created a support ticket / talked with their support staff, so have nothing to report.
Sorry for the late reply, somehow missed your comment.
Nice overview, I am personally using bluehost. So far my experience with bluehost is very good. I think bluehost & siteground may be the best choice for new bloggers.
Hey Pawar,
Thanks for sharing your experience. You are probably the first person who has said a good thing about bluehost in months. Otherwise I always heard bad / negative reviews about them.
As for SiteGround, they are definitely the best choice for beginners and for advance users, as well. I have been using them for one of my sites and their support is super fast (under 10 minutes, most of the times).
Meanwhile these hosting is the concern which handle initially so well if you’re serious then go for the option which allow you for bringing quality with consistency accessible 24/7 have a support once it down unfortunately under rare circumstances will handle collaboratively so well.
Thanks for the article (and download links). I was using blue host for years but now switch at WP engine its way much better than that..
Hey Simon, thanks for sharing your experience and congrats on making the switch. WPEngine is definitely better in all aspects. I hope your transfer was seamless.
Awesome review and needed this. My renewal is up on Bluehost and I want to leave them. I don’t want to jump on the train against Bluehost, but things said are true. To my experience, my site could not connect to them more than a few times–hence no website. Yes, the customer service is slow too. I thought I was crazy because Bluehost is known as a standard, but I have had problems like others. When they get too big, you seem to lose care. I’m going with SiteGround.
Glenn
Hey Glenn,
Thanks so much for sharing your experience. The quality and customer support on Bluehost has gone down considerably in recent years. When we did the customer analysis, it took us 40 minutes to receive a response from their live chat.
Yes, for some reason Bluehost is know as standard, plus there are so many how-to guides / articles promoting them, even though, they have more negative reviews than positive. I also noticed a strange thing, pretty much anyone who writes an how to start a blog guide (like we did last week), tend to mention BlueHost.
Also, BlueHost is owned by EIG, which owns pretty much all the shared hosting providers except WordPress specific hostings.
Once again, appreciate you taking time to write an honest review.
Cheers!
I think it’s misleading that the date on the article is Nov 21, 2016 as if this was just written yet it is actually over two years old. For IT and hosting that is eons and I think you need to do the analysis and tests at least once a year for this to be accurate.
Hey Dave,
No it is not. The original article was written by Max, and it didn’t include any speed tests, you can see that via Wayback Machine — https://web.archive.org/web/20150213141430/http://www.designbombs.com/best-wordpress-hosting
We recently updated the article to include speed tests and are working on another update, to add a few more hosts and exclusive discounts.
Hope to see you around :).
WPEngine has been my go-to client website hosting solution for more than three years and I am very satisfied with them. Their support is terrific and their features and developer tools are terrific. They have been extremely reliable.
Thanks for the nod to Pagely.
Quick note: Page.ly is now Pagely, for future reference.
Bad news, Pagely fans–they’ve quit offering their $99 plan. Looks like they decided to totally focus on Big Business.
It’s a pity, as I’ve used Pagely for my site and loved it. I am grandfathered in at $69, and they’ve taken good care of me. I hope I don’t wind up having to move because they choose to orphan smaller businesses.
I am not tech savvy and I am searching for a WordPress server in order to be an Affiliate. My main concern is, if I want to relocate, I don’t want the host to take over my site. I was with Hostgator a couple years ago, and decided to move due to the poor customer service. They declared that they were the owner, even though I was paying separately for the domain name. (I checked back later and found that they had taken over my site, domain and all!)
I am making sure I read their ‘Terms of Service’ first. You’ve turned me onto to Siteground. Can you say for sure that I will own my website if I join?
This type of review where you have a comparison is more reputable than individual reviews where you know the Reviewer is bias to one particular host.
Thanks.
Hey Helen,
Not sure, how HostGator can just take the ownership of your site. I think you may have registered the domain name with them, as well. If yes, then you should still be able to get the access to domain, if it is not lapsed. Reach out to them and see if they can let you transfer out the domain.
If that doesn’t work, hit them on the social media (twitter / facebook).
Also, in future, make sure to register the domain with different provider (such as Namecheap, Hover, or Godaddy) and hosting with different site (i.e. SiteGround). That way, you can easily change hosts in future and your domain will be safe with the domain provider.
Yes, your website will be safe and SiteGround or not, you should always register the domain separately.
Hope that helps.
I confirm about Bluehost.
I ve been using Bluehost since 2011 first with a basic account – time loading disaster, but I was not enough experienced user to notice that and I loved their Cpanel, chat support was friendly and helping at that time. Starting Jan 2017 a new Pro account with them I found some tech problem which they apparently don’t want to solve and don’t care if I remain their client.
Chat become a disaster … People who are answering they apparently have less tech knowledge then me !
And you are waiting for their response, and “please, be on hold”, and “thank you for your patience “, and “I am still checking” – It takes more then 1 hour just to make them understand where is the problem ! But then they start to convince you that this is ok. How it’s ok ? I still have my old (basic) account which is not expired and where everything works fine !
I never had any malware problem with them. One time I have purchased a service which I didn’t use after and I was refunded immediately after request. So, Bluehost is still not completely down, but they are going there. I think there were some company’s internal decisions which led to quality fail.
Thank you for the article. I think I will go with Siteground or Inmotion.
Hi Irina,
Bluehost used to be a good company, but they are not anymore. Their support time takes hours and is super lazy. You can easily find more negative reviews than positive ones.
I appreciate you taking time to share your experience, it help other users choose the right hosting provider. If / when you decide to switch, please consider leaving an honest review about your new hosting service :).
Thanks!
Thank you Dev !
I am in the mood of moving away ( and test SiteGround, which looks fresh and pretty :)), but they (BH) told me they will fix everything. I put a condition that it should be done by Saturday, for my opinion it can be done in less then 24 hours, so, 2 months pending issue is unbelievable. Will see.
Hey Dev,
I just found your site again! Right after I wrote you I signed up with Siteground. I had purchased a domain with Shopiand and was planning to transfer it to Siteground after the 60 day wait period. Now I will let Shopify keep it as long as I don’t have to host with them.
As far as Hostgater goes, it happened about 3 years ago. I did buy and register my domain, and host with them. It was a lesson I learned the hard way. It took me all this time to venture out into the world of website scouting. I appreciate you finally clearing things up for me.
So far I am doing good with Siteground. They really seem to have a 24×7 Customer Service, phone and chat!
Helen
I’m so disappointed with godaddy’s hosting. Arrg..
Hey Dev,
What are the duties of the host? Do you call them if you are having problems relating to WordPress?
Helen
Hey Helen,
Yes, if you are having any WordPress related problems, but not for customizations. They also provide regular backups, cdn (either their own or via 3rd-party), site caching (without having to use any third-part plugins), etc.
Thank you for all of your insight here, I am just getting started and this really helps. My main question is this
If I am going to use WordPress to host my blog why do I need a hosting site. I am considering Siteground after reading this article.
cheers
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
No problem, glad to be of help. There are two version of WordPress – WordPress.org & WordPress.com!
WordPress.org is a self-hosted version, for which you will need hosting, and hosting is where you data is stored. WordPress.com is hosted version, which doesn’t require hosting or anything, because that part is managed by them.
Here’s a quick explanation on difference between WordPress.com & .org!
I hope this helps, let me know if there is anything else.
How is Pantheon not on this list. Not only is their workflow a lifesaver for development, but the platform itself is lightning fast and their support is good. I can use wp-cli, they include New Relic, and I get a nice report of any errors on the dashboard. Do it.
I’ve used SiteGround for 3 Years. The support is still out of country and the language barrier is very frustrating at times, with my technical issues not being resolved at times.
My real cause of finally leaving them however is their deceptive charging tactics. They’ve charged me a week in advance for a service I did not want renewed, numerous times. I’ve turned off the renewals, but did not know of the hidden switches nested under a small link: billing -> billing settings. BTW, they have a renewal section under account where they have most services renewal status, just not the big costs… To resolve the issue, they offered me 30% off at the cost of double their competitive rate. ($15.95 instead of advertised $5.95). Sorry for being a long time customer, you should pay more.
I did like their exclusive caching and somewhat optimized for WP, but I’m seeing much better results with other competitors as of late for lower costs. The language barrier would also be a non-issue if they gave more privileges to users. Even on a cloud hosting account, they limit SSH to be useless.
Thanks for a concise and informative article! I’ve been looking for a good place to host and I am still researching.
SiteGround do indeed seem to be a good service, though I’ve read such mixed feedback about them from customers.
I’ve done enough research on HostGator and Bluehost and I can’t agree with your recommendation, not only for the fact that they were swallowed by the EIG. As well as their mediocre support, Bluehost in particular is too expensive for what little they offer.
You also recommended WP Engine however, I found that WPX Hosting offer all the same features as WP Engine but they also offer email, free SSL, have PHP7, and free migration. They don’t charge for any of these extras and the price is still lower than WP Engine at $24. Have you heard of them?
I’ve been doing a lot of research lately, trying to find better deals and services. I’m interested in what you think of WPX in comparison to what you’ve already recommended, like WP Engine and Bluehost. I want to hear more opinions from experts before committing to anything.
Thanks again and I’d appreciate your advice!
Sam
I have two sites running on Inmotion shared hosting.
Today they had suspended my account due to high resource uses.
After too much conversation with them, they lifted the suspension but still, they warn me not use more than 150cp. (as it is the highest resources uses in their shared hosting plan.)
If Inmotionhosting is so good for WordPress then how can they offer such a low resource uses?
Actually, I am facing problems from beginning with Inmotionhosting.
I will never recommend Inmotionhosting to any one
I prefer the Bluehost, because I am already using Bluehost, godady, hostgator etc. I think Bluehost is the best among them.
Great post, thanks for sharing. I’m familiar with BlueHost and Hostgator, must admit I have never had any difficulty with these hosting providers. Also use Go Daddy, and will be checking out the other alternatives. Thanks again for a great post.
Thanks for sharing such a resourceful article. I am kinda familiar with almost all of these provider but personally hostgator is way to easy to use compare to other providers.
Stay away from all hosts that use the Fraud Service Site Lock… in this list Blue Host and Host Gator are using that service and will suck 300 out of your pocket to fix problems that do not exist. IMHO this list SUCKs
I just attempted to sign up for DreamHost managed WordPress hosting, but it went horribly. My credit card company decided to put a hold on the purchase pending my confirmation. DreamHost could not recover from this. They “deactivated” my account so I could try again, but that only allowed me to succeed in purchasing a deactivated account!
It’s possible that they would have eventually figured out how to re-activate the account, but I went a day without hearing from them and then a day in which all they did was asking me if I had attempted the purchase again! That evening a “robot” decided to re-assign my last support request to someone new and informed me that it might be another 24 hours before I heard from anyone. Had I been running a live site with a critical problem (such as being locked out!), I’d have been quite distressed.
Either my case was a series of flukes, or something’s wrong with customer support. However, when I sent an email asking for a refund, they gave it to me promptly, so things can’t be all broken.
It’s a shame, as I had been reading quite good things about their managed hosting.
Thanks for sharing such an informative article.
I have been using HostGator and SiteGround and they are great. I never faced any difficulty. Hostgator is easy to use.