Website hosting is a huge market worth over $57 billion. By December 2020, there were over 191 million active hostnames, and this is a huge challenge for anyone looking to choose the best website hosting for beginners or even experienced users. A lot of people struggle to choose a web hosting company for the first time, not knowing the option that will meet their needs the best.
In this article, I’ve prepared a list of the website hosting services that offer the best value for money. These service providers will work best for your small business, consultancy services, blogging, and artistry, just to mention a few.
Bluehost
Bluehost is the best overall website hosting service due to its price, features, and ease of use.
ScalaHosting
ScalaHosting is an ideal choice if you're planning on expanding and scaling your business rapidly.
SiteGround
SiteGround is perfect if you want the best security solutions implemented on your site.
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is an excellent choice because it's reliable and fast; two features that all sites should have.
GreenGeeks
If you want to help fight climate change while getting excellent website hosting - try GreenGeeks.
What is the Best Website Hosting Service?
1. Bluehost
The overall best website hosting service provider ($2.95/month)
Bluehost is the best web host out there. It’s designed to work best for anyone new to website building.
Bluehost offers shared web hosting plans in three categories, including Prime, Plus, and Basic plans.
These plans offer a 99.98% uptime and 100GB disk space. When you sign up with this platform, you’ll also get free backups, cPanel access, and a free domain, which will be very useful in managing your website hosting (unless you’re in Canada).
Bluehost is also the best service provider when it comes to integration into the WordPress site. In fact, it offers a free migration service into WordPress.
After signing up for the plan, your site will be reviewed by the Bluehost in-house team for a free-of-charge transfer to WordPress or Bluehost, depending on the hosting of your existing website.
Key Features:
- Robust Support: It supports 24/7 live chat, email, and phone customer support.
- ECommerce Features: Bluehost WooCommerce offers the best plans for online stores, given its ability to automatically install an eCommerce theme for your website.
- WordPress Integration: Bluehost is fully integrated for WordPress websites and has even earned a recommendation for WordPress itself.
Pros of Bluehost:
- It offers excellent speeds (641ms)
- It supports a good uptime of up to 99.96%
- Easy installation of WordPress
- It is beginner-friendly and easy to use
- It offers a free site builder and domain
- Supports 27/7 phone and live chat customer support
Pricing:
Or, check out how Bluehost compares to Squarespace for certain website-building requirements.
2. ScalaHosting
Best Website Hosting Provider For Scalability and Security ($29.95/Month).
ScalaHosting is a revolutionary cloud hosting service that offers secure, fast, and reliable website hosting. The top-rated company has thousands of excellent reviews on sites like Trustpilot and has won awards for the best VPS host and best email host of 2022. Sign up for the managed VPS service to get all your server management needs handled. You won’t have to worry about things like regular maintenance, monitoring, software installations, hardware setup, or any technical issues. This means you can free up more of your time to focus on more important aspects of your online projects.
In addition to Managed Cloud VPS, ScalaHosting also offers WordPress Hosting, Email Hosting, and Reseller Hosting. Whether you’re a freelance web developer, design agency, or busy eCommerce website, you’ll find the best web host to suit your needs.
Key Features:
- Advanced Security: ScalaHosting has robust security measures in place, including SShield Security System that blocks out 99.998% of attacks.
- Proprietary SPanel: The platform is an all-in-one hosting platform with its own in-house control panel.
- Seamless WordPress Management: The SWordPress feature simplifies the management of your WordPress website and makes it easier to add multiple layers of security.
Pros of ScalaHosting:
- Varied Hosting Plans: Choose the right plan for your needs from Web, WordPress, VPS, Email, and Reseller Hosting.
- Security Lock: The platform’s SWordPress Manager comes with a unique security option that effectively locks your files and directories when activated.
- Optimal Performance: ScalaHosting is optimized for high performance thanks to innovative software and enterprise-level hardware.
Pricing:
Or read my Scalahosting review to learn more
3. SiteGround
The best web hosting services for a secure and speedy website ($4.99/month)
If you’re interested in gaining traction on your website, fast-loading is a key element to consider. Experts have noted that about nine in ten potential visitors on your site will leave when it takes longer than five seconds to load.
This is probably one of the principles that SiteGround is founded on because the platform offers top-class speed to its customers.
SiteGround uses the Google Cloud to maintain stable and swift connections. Besides, they have an SSD persistent data storage that ensures your website maintains a low latency.
There would be no harm in enjoying excellent speeds among those new to websites. Besides, it will guarantee them good security when building their brand and online presence. Nevertheless, these web hosting services are ideal for experienced individuals.
Key Features:
- Super-Fast Servers: The host has an ultrafast PHP that enables SiteGround to provide the best hosting service that they can, and that is 30 percent faster than the standard PHP services, which are already fast.
- Robust Security: The security features are enhanced by the isolation of accounts on SiteGround servers. The platform is always vigilant in keeping the sites for their customers stable and secure at all times. They are also scanning emergent platform vulnerabilities regularly and offer their customers auto-updates on a regular basis.
- Easy Transfers: SiteGroud will support the transfer of plans when you’re moving from a different existing host.
- Advanced Support: Users will enjoy advanced support from command line managers on WordPress hosting on every plan.
- Custom Dashboard: The custom dashboard is user-friendly, with the SiteGround building hosting services that make website management easy for you. Besides, it supports easy access to the basic tools when building a website on SiteGround.
Pros of SiteGround:
- You can easily access branded email address with SiteGround hosting
- The host supports automatic data update on any of its plans
- The host service provider has some of the best customer support teams and 24/7 access to their services
- Excellent knowledge base pages are available for novice users
Pricing:
4. A2 Hosting
The best web hosting services when it comes to speed and reliability ($8.99/month)
A2 Hosting is the fastest and most reliable website hosting service provider I have tested so far. They have an incredible loading speed of 279 ms on average.
The speed is associated with optimizing its servers for WordPress websites and the fact that they use LiteSpeed cache. None of the hosts I have reviewed or come across outperform A2 on speed.
This hosting provider is also excellent in reliability, offering an average uptime of 99.97% on average.
The hosting company works with major content management companies like Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and OpenCart. These and other features make A2 web hosting excellent for both beginners and experienced users.
The hosting plans supported by the system servers include unlimited SSD storage, LetsEncrypt SSL certificate, and free site migration.
The shared hosting plans for A2 are both Linus and Windows supported. The most common is Linux, which also serves as the best for blogs and other simple sites.
Windows hosting has an equal offering but adds a Plesk Onyx 17.8 control panel. Besides, it will offer you a free migration with a single click for Drupal, WordPress, phpBB, B2evolution, Drupal, Joomla, and BogEngine.
Key Features:
- Stellar Support: The host has a reliable customer support team that allows customers to connect with them any time and any day via tickets, phone, emails, and live chats.
- Flexible Plans: VPS, reseller and dedicated hosting plans are supported.
- Super-fast Servers: A unique feature available from A2 WebHost is Turbo Max and Turbo Boost plans that provide access to the Host’s Turbo servers. These servers are 20 times faster than the rest of their servers.
Pros of A2 Hosting:
- The uptime offers high reliability
- Excellent load time
- 24/7 Guru support team
- Offers over 20 email accounts
- Offers unlimited storage and bandwidth
- Servers are WordPress-optimized
Pricing:
A2’s cheapest plan is called “Lite” and starts at a monthly rate of $2.96, renewing at $7.99 a month.
The plan supports 25 email accounts, one website, one annual domain, unlimited disk space and bandwidth, and free Cloudflare CDN.
5. GreenGeeks
Best hosting provider for those who want to help the ecosystem ($9.95/Month)
When reviewing the best website hosting service providers, I came across an interesting web host, the GreenGreeks, that relies on purely renewable energy to provide the best web hosting services.
GreenGreeks will provide you with excellent hosting with uptime, speed, and excellent services in shared hosting, virtual private servers, WooCommerce hosting, and WordPress Hosting.
The host supports unlimited MySQL databases, cPanel access, drag-and-drop website builder features. The platform ensures the security of your data by providing advanced security features and free daily backups to guarantee the security and safety of your customers.
This service provider is are a good starting point for beginners as well as people who have prior experience with web hosting services.
Key Features:
- Free Upgrade: The host supports a free upgrade to more flexible VPS services when your website is growing bigger.
- Flexible Features: GreenGreeks offer customers unlimited email accounts, domain names, and nightly backups.
- Eco-friendly Hosting: The host has an impressive feature of a 300% renewable energy match that attracts many of its users.
- Unlimited Storage: The host has a shared plan option that provides unlimited SSD storage and bandwidth. It also supports free domain registration.
Pros of GreenGreeks:
- They offer 24/7 support through chats, phone calls, or ticket systems
- The website transfer services are offered free of charge
- They have a 99.95% uptime guarantee
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth
- Good load time supported at 451 ms
- The host matches 300% renewable energy
Pricing:
6. InMotion Hosting
Best in VPS hosting and true excellence in technology ($2.49/month)
InMotion is an excellent web hosting service provider that offers a massive self-help knowledge base for users. If you get into trouble in the course of building or managing your website, you’ll always find a guide somewhere for your reference.
This makes InMotion an ideal starting point for individuals seeking to venture online with their products through a website.
One thing I found interesting about InMotion is that they have straightforward plans that are focused on growth.
The hosting company encourages their uses to upgrade because this will help them improve the speed of their websites and earn extra databases.
Upgrading will also provide more subdomains and websites. I loved the InMotion features and found them suitable for websites that aren’t complex and small businesses.
Even if you’re new to website hosting, you won’t come across confusing tiers and pushy upsell to worry about.
Key Features:
- Unlimited Disk Space and Bandwidth: The outstanding thing I found on this feature is unlimited disk space across the lowest tier pricing plans. These are the features that earn InMotion a high rating on the VS hosting.
- Free Backups: The hosting offers free backups, free SSL, and a hack protection feature.
Pros of InMotion:
- High-quality support that can largely benefit beginner customers on a 24/7 basis
- Users can access free website builders
- An extensive knowledge base is also supported
- Ease of switching to the dedicated or more scalable VPS when your website starts to grow
- An averagely good uptime of 99.93% and speed of 463 ms are supported
Pricing:
7. Hostinger
The best hosting provider in affordability ($0.99 /month)
Hostinger is popular for affordability with its hosting plans and does not compromise the performance and the quality of its hosting services.
The superiority of its features and low pricing will definitely appeal to those starting to build a website for their products.
The company provides various hosting services with distinct features that support easy website building, 99.9% uptime, free SSL certification, and 24/7 customer support services.
The cheapest hosting plan for Hostinger costs $0.99/month, but only if you opt for the 48-month payment option. However, the renewal of the services starts at a rate of $2.15/month.
You will enjoy unlimited bandwidth provided you have not selected the single web hosting plan. Selecting the single web hosting will limit you to a 10 GB disk space, one My SQL database, 100 GB of bandwidth, and a single email address.
The cheapest plan excludes free domains and limits the memory and processing power for your website. All Hostinger plans come with a 30-day standard guarantee for money payback.
Key Features:
- Growth-Focused Plans: The company provides three web hosting plans, including the Business, Baby, and the Hatchling. These features have strong baseline offerings, but they obviously ramp with one another.
- Reliable Uptime: Hostinger offers the best guarantee on uptime running for any provider at 99.99 %.
- Top-Level Domains: You can acquire different top-level domains like .org, .tech, and .com, as well as niche domains like .coffee or .art, among others.
Pros of Hostinger:
- You’ll get a fast-loading time of up to 345 ms
- Cheap pricing that starts from $0.99
- Free SSL certification available
- The company has data centers in Asia, Europe, and the United States
- Availability of 24/7 customer support services
Pricing:
8. DreamHost
The best website hosting in affordability for month-to-month hosting plans ($3.95/month
DreamHost is another ideal host for beginners because it is beginner-friendly and affordable. It supports a great hosting experience and a custom dashboard.
This platform is the best guide when you are seeking to use WordPress. In fact, it offers a unique builder for a WordPress website which acts as a good guide when you’re building a WordPress website.
The host offers strong security features, unlimited monthly data transfers, and different domain management tools.
DreamHost provides a pre-installed WordPress in addition to the company’s beginner-friendly website builders and ease of use.
The host’s admin panel offers the same features like the cPanel available from popular providers of similar services. Beginners will definitely find this host resourceful as they start their journey into website building as writers, consultants, or small businesses.
Key Features:
- High Uptime: The host has an uptime of 99.62 % and a speed of 1180 ms.
- Monthly Subscription: DreamHost is particularly unique from other websites because of offering a monthly subscription rather than yearly like most other host companies. You can sign up for a $4.95 plan and use the services right away.
- Robust Features: DreamHost supports drag-and-drop website-building features and you can add an email at a monthly fee of $1.67.
- Generous Refund Policy: You’re assured of a generous 97-day refund policy when you choose DreamHost for your website.
Pros of DreamHost:
- Great for storage and unlimited bandwidth
- Availability of cheap shared hosting
- Availability of 24/7 customer support
- You will be provided with free email hosting services
- Guarantees and uptime
- Avails monthly plans
- The host offers a 97-day money-back guarantee
Pricing:
What Features to Look For in Website Hosting Services
1. Speed
Speed is critical for your site ranking. It will also earn satisfaction from the visitors or users of your site, increasing the conversion rates.
It’s essential to remember that your website speed will affect every aspect of the business. Therefore, look for a host that will provide speed on your website.
You could decide to start at a low subscription plan whose speed is sufficient for your needs. However, consider the availability of higher speed upon upgrades when your business has grown.
You will want the speed of your website to accelerate its growth. I strongly advise you to choose a host that will allow your site to maintain excellent speeds even under high traffic.
2. Uptime
Nobody wants their website to be unavailable most of the time that customers are seeking your services. In fact, you would possibly dream of having a website with 100% uptime. But his is not practical.
Most of the host companies understand website uptime is the most critical component of a website and that their customers will make losses or gain an audience when their sites are down. Therefore, they guarantee up to 99.99% uptime.
When choosing a hosting company, you should avoid promises that don’t guarantee a measurable uptime. This will decrease uncertainties regarding the downtime on your website and assure you of the reliability of the web hosting services. This is why it’s important to choose a reliable website hosting provider.
3. Cost
When choosing a web host, avoid making decisions on a price basis. There are cheap web hosting options out there, but they will end up frustrating you on service delivery.
But this does not mean that you spend overly on web hosting. Find a site that charges averagely with an excellent service guarantee.
I also recommend avoiding distraction by promotional messages by a few companies because such offers are only available when you are new to their site.
4. Customer Support
Customer support is one of the most important factors to consider when choosing a hosting service provider. Although a host can have excellent features and technical capabilities, poor customer support will cause you frustration.
You need someone to help you out when you get stranded or unsure about what you’re doing. In other cases, you could be faced with security concerns or challenges using some features.
When that happens, you need prompt and responsive customer support. Lack of good support could lead to loss of revenues.
5. Scalability
Depending on your business type, you might realize the need for scaling your performance when requested and rescale when the demand wanes.
For example, you could be running online retail where demand increases at a particular season of the year. In such a case, your host must respond by scaling you up and then down later when the demand is low.
Look for web hosting service providers who will support this capability of your business demands.
How Does Website Hosting Work?
Web hosting occurs when the files in a personal computer are uploaded to a web server from a local computer.
This server has such components as hard drive space, RAM, and bandwidth allocated to the websites using it.
The server resources are divided based on the selected hosting plan. The plans differ from one another on the ease of access, functions supported, and cost.
The three principal web hosting plans include:
- Shared Hosting;
- Virtual Private Servers; and
- Dedicated Servers.
Shared hosting is where the server resources are shared with other users. It is similar to renting a workstation in a noisy, busy, open office where other people work. It is suitable for small and upcoming businesses.
Virtual Private Servers (VPS) are different from shared hosting because they are isolated from each other. They are suitable for medium businesses and allow individual users to organize their businesses independently.
Dedicated Servers are more comprehensive and expensive. It suits those who value high performance and reliability. Users control the entire space and determine the configurations they need within the huge space under their command.
Cloud software is best for web hosting because it will facilitate maintenance of the website resources in multiple virtual servers in the cloud.
It will also be extremely easy to set up a website with cloud storage. Besides, you can enjoy faster deployment if you’re looking to start hosting on the cloud immediately.
Summary
Based on my experience and detailed review of the best website hosting service providers, my #1 recommendation is SiteGround hosting services.
I have selected this host because of its robust security features and excellent speed.
Similar hosts with matching capabilities are usually much more expensive, which is why I recommend SiteGround.
However, you’re free to choose the best website hosting for you from our list of web host services based on your specific needs and budget.
Remember to check such features as speed, uptime, cost, customer support, and scalability when choosing a host.
Good luck with building your website.
Bluehost
Bluehost is the best overall website hosting service due to its price, features, and ease of use.
ScalaHosting
ScalaHosting is an ideal choice if you're planning on expanding and scaling your business rapidly.
SiteGround
SiteGround is perfect if you want the best security solutions implemented on your site.
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is an excellent choice because it's reliable and fast; two features that all sites should have.
GreenGeeks
If you want to help fight climate change while getting excellent website hosting - try GreenGeeks.