Web hosting is one of the key components in the success of any website but is often overlooked. If you are new to WordPress and have no idea which web host to choose or you have a WordPress website but not satisfied with your web host then this article would help you with your confusion.
On top of the pressure to work with the best in the business to give your website the best, choosing the best among hundreds if not thousands of web hosts is a challenge.
With so many options, one question always seems to surround us seeking for the best web host, “How to choose the best WordPress host for your website?”. Hold on to this article to get answers to your questions.
What features to look for in hosting providers?
There can never be specific features to look for while you are looking to manage your online business. Evey different website or business seeks different sets of features to help grow your online business. However, there are a few things you must look into before committing to a particular web host and I have listed these things below for you to see:
- Uptime
Uptime is the amount of time your website is online on the internet for people to surf and get access to your website. Having a great uptime is one of the major things you should look into before choosing a web host.
Most of the website offers an uptime of 99.5% and few offers 99%, which does not seem a lot but it does affect in the long run.
- Support
Customer support is another thing you might want to look at if you are jumping into a new web host or are basically new into business.
You might run into some issues and might want to have as support as you can get. From phone support to live chat, you might also need to look for better documentation.
- Speed / Performance
To give your website the ultimate best, you might have to choose a web host that offers services from great hardware so that you get the absolute best.
Good hardware essentially helps in providing better quality services and having a better RAM, disk, and CPU plays an important role.
Different types of web hosting – which one to choose?
There are a number of web hosting services offered by different web hosting service providers but choosing the best one that would enhance your business is a difficult task.
Hence, here in this category, I have described briefly all the web hosting services you could choose for your WordPress website:
- Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting is the cheapest web hosting plan you can find on most of the web hosting service providers. Shared as the name suggests is basically suited for small businesses where you have to share processing power, disk space, and memory.
In this hosting plan, different websites are hosted by the same server and is compatible with websites with less traffic.
- VPS Hosting
VPS or Virtual Private Server is the type of hosting where you are not actually given a physical server. Instead, the server is partitioned virtually and you are given an amount of memory, processing power, and disk space.
It is a really good choice if you do not actually need a private server but the other options are just not enough for you.
- Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is the most expensive hosting service you will find offered by any web host service provider. This hosting provides you with the private server and you will have access to the server’s full memory, processing power, and disk space. You should choose this only when your website has a lot of traffic and no other web hosting services can be enough.
- Managed WordPress Hosting
This is the best plan for someone who has very little knowledge of web hosting and website overall. In this hosting plan, all the technical aspect of managing the WordPress website is handled by the host.
The host manages security, uptime, updates, backups, speed, and scalability. Most of the customer service in this plan is equipped with WordPress experts, resulting in better help offered when you run into a problem.
Among all of these hosting services, the best you can use, and my recommendation for WordPress is Managed WordPress Hosting.
Best Managed WordPress Hosting
WPEngine
WPEngine is the best-Managed WordPress hosting service provider in the market considering the fact that they are the ones that came up with the concept of Managed WordPress Hosting.
They have been working with the extremely popular websites like Yelp, Asana, National Geographic, etc so that you know they are actually the best in business.
You have the choice of different data centers located in the USA, London, and Tokyo. If your website has high traffic and you are in search of the top-notch web hosts then WPEngine will for sure help you with that.
It is best for beginners who have just started working with WordPress. WPEngine partners with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud offering its customers the absolute best with the highest scalability, security, speed, and availability.
Key features
- Price: Starts at $20 per month
- Speed: 582 ms
- Uptime: 99.99%
- Customer Support: 4/5
- Website: wpengine.com
Bluehost
Bluehost is the most popular web host in the market and one of the oldest web hosts as well which was started back in 1996.
It is also rated as the number 1 web host for small businesses. Bluehost is the official WordPress.org recommended web host and you can not go wrong with choosing this web host.
With the Bluehost, you do not need to worry about the speed even if there is huge traffic on your website because your speed is never compromised.
On top of that, the support is provided 24/7 by phone, live chat, or even email. A free domain and an SSL certificate is something you can take advantage of.
Key features
- Price: Starting at $2.75 per month
- Speed: 689 ms
- Uptime: 99.99%
- Customer Support: 4/5
- Website: bluehost.com
SiteGround
SiteGround is another popular website hosts in the industry and is also the WordPress.org recommended WordPress hosting service provider which is a big deal.
It is one of the highest-rated web hosts out there as well. SiteGround is the fewer web host that offers location location-specific hosting services with three different data centers in the USA, Europe, and Asia.
You get to choose the data center that is closest to you and this helps in the loading speed of your website so that your website is lighting fast.
The web host offers the best customer service 24/7 where you can connect to them through phone, live chat, emails, and even through social networking sites.
Other popular and mostly used features offered by SiteGround has to be automatic backups, unlimited databases, CDN, and GIT version control.
Key features
- Price: Starting at $3.95 per month
- Speed: 649 ms
- Uptime: 99.98%
- Customer Support: 5/5
- Website: siteground.com
GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks has been a well-known web host in the industry for offering a lighting fast website in the most eco-friendly way.
This web host uses renewable power and gives back 3 times the power they consume into the grid. The 24/7 US-based support and 30 days money-back guarantee is another thing you might be interested in.
GreenGeeks has been offering its services at a blazing fast speed because of its use of SSD storage. The world-class services they have been offering includes automatic WordPress install, managed updates, free CDN, free site migration, and enhanced security.
GreenGeeks offers its services with the data center located in 5 different places so that you can choose the one that is nearest to you.
Over 500,000 websites are hosted by GreenGeeks all over the world and it is not wrong to say that their customers simply love them.
Key features
- Price: Starting at $2.95 per month
- Speed: 697 ms
- Uptime: 99.92%
- Customer Support: 4/5
- Website: greengeeks.com
DreamHost
Sticking around since 1997, DreamHost is another official WordPress.org recommended WordPress hosts. It is an independently owned company and is known for making hosting easy.
Hence, you can consider DreamHost to be the beginner-friendly web host offering maximum features with free setups as well.
It offers a 97 days money-back guarantee which is amazing for beginners or the one who is trying DreamHost for the first time.
The web host is equipped with amazing features such as 1-click WordPress install, automatic updates, unlimited features (unlimited bandwidth and unlimited space), and free SSL certification.
The use of SSD in its plans makes the website load 200% faster and it powers over 600,000 websites worldwide. You also get a free domain with its plans.
Key features
- Price: Starting at $2.95 per month
- Speed: 445 ms
- Uptime: 99.90%
- Customer Support: 4/5
- Website: dreamhost.com
Final Say
Choosing a web host is, of course, the most important and unknowingly the difficult task while creating and managing a website.
When talking about WordPress websites, I still do recommend Managed WordPress Hosting by WPEngine as it is the best in the business.
But if you want to have more control over your website then you can choose any plans from any web host listed above.