Best Web Hosting Services in 2024

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The best web hosting services provide affordable solutions to deliver fast-loading, scalable websites with all the functionality you need. There are plenty of providers on the market, but the best website hosting companies offer well-rounded packages for every type of site.

To help you find the right hosting platform for your needs, we’ve tested and reviewed the best web hosting providers and shortlisted the top options.

Best Website Hosting Solutions

Domain.com – Best Web Host for Small Personal Sites

VISIT SITE

DreamHost – Beginner-Friendly WordPress-Oriented Web Host

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Bluehost – Easy-To-Use WordPress-Focused Hosting

30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
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InMotion Hosting – Great Web Host For Small Businesses

VISIT SITE

Liquid Web – Premium VPS Hosting

VISIT SITE

A2 Hosting – Security and Speed-Focused Web Hosting

VISIT SITE

InterServer – Affordable Monthly Hosting

VISIT SITE

IONOS – Secure and Reliable Host For Smaller Sites

VISIT SITE

HostArmada – Managed Cloud VPS Hosting with Full Root Access

VISIT SITE

Namecheap – Cheap Shared Hosting With 100% Uptime Guarantee

VISIT SITE

Best Web Hosting Services at a Glance

  1. Domain.com – Best web hosting service for range of plans
  2. DreamHost – Best hosting provider for WordPress sites
  3. Bluehost – Reliable and beginner-friendly hosting service
  4. InMotion Hosting – Best website hosting provider for small businesses
  5. Liquid Web – A premium VPS hosting for small-to-medium online stores or apps
  6. A2 Hosting – Highly secure and speedy hosting provider with Turbo servers
  7. InterServer – Affordable unlimited shared hosting solution for personal use
  8. IONOS – Best budget-friendly website hosting
  9. HostArmada – Managed shared hosting built on a cloud platform.
  10. Namecheap – Cheapest web hosting provider

Best Website Hosting Platforms Reviewed

Here are our in-depth reviews of the best hosting services for websites, covering their features, functionality, and pricing. Let’s dive in and explore the pros and cons of the top-rated web hosting companies on the market.

1. Domain.com – Best Web Hosting for Well-Rounded Services

Best For Smaller personal sites and portfolio pages
Free Domain and SSL
Disk Space From 10GB
Starting Price $3.75/month
Why We Picked It

Domain.com is often named as the best domain host on the market, but it’s also one of the best web hosting providers. One area where it particularly shines is with the large range of plans that it offers.

Features

The hosting provider offers three shared hosting plans that are well-optimized for WordPress hosting.

Depending on which plan you opt for, you can host at least one website with a minimum of 10 GB storage, unmetered bandwidth, a free custom domain, and a secure SSL certificate. However, a professional email account is not included in the package. Users can purchase custom email addresses for an additional $3/month per user.

While the provided storage is fairly small, especially compared with A2 Hosting or InMotion Hosting, where both offer 100 GB even on their entry plan, Domain.com includes just enough for a personal site or a smaller online business page.

However, be mindful that the free domain can only be a “.online”. If you opt for a “.com”, “.org”, or any other TLD, it will cost extra. Regardless, all domains come with a domain protection feature that will help you keep your personal information concealed in the WHOIS public database.

Pricing

Domain.com offers fairly average pricing, starting at $3.75/month and going up to $13.75/month. The same rate is available for all subscription terms, so you don’t have to commit for longer periods to secure a lower price. There’s also a standard 30-day money-back guarantee in place.

Basic Plus Premium
Price $3.75/month $6.75/month $13.75/month
Who It's Best For

Domain.com is a great website hosting service. It’s ideal for users looking to build a portfolio site or a small business landing page, and there are a wide range of plans on offer, giving users significant scalability as their sites grow.

Pros

  • Scalable bandwidth available
  • Also offers the best website hosting for bloggers
  • Unlimited storage on every plan
  • No feature differences among the plans
  • Offers a free domain name for the first year

Cons

  • Features are somewhat basic
  • Not the fastest web hosting on our list
Domain.com
9.7
Review

2. DreamHost – Best WordPress Hosting Service

Best For WordPress websites
Free Domain and SSL
Disk Space From 50GB
Starting Price $2.59/month
Why We Picked It

DreamHost is one of the few hosting providers that has hourly plans. While hosting plans are usually designed to be paid monthly and annually, DreamHost lets you pay for every hour of usage. It’s also arguably the best hosting provider for WordPress.

Features

If you want to create a temporary site, you won’t have to pay the full month’s price. The hourly rate starts at $0.0075/hour, and you have to make an initial deposit before you get started.

However, note that the hourly payment structure is only available for their cloud hosting plans. That said, if you want to work on WordPress, we highly recommend its shared hosting plan.

It comes with WordPress pre-installed and a free automated migration plugin that helps you migrate your existing WordPress site in a few simple steps.

If you don’t already have a WordPress site, you can build it here with the free WP Website Builder. It comes with a drag-and-drop builder, tons of free professional templates, and a site-design wizard that’ll guide you through the building options.

Pricing

DreamHost’s Shared Hosting plans are very affordable. You can get started for just $2.59/month, and if you’re willing to pay $1.50 more, you can host an unlimited number of websites.

Plan Price
Shared Starter $2.59/month
Shared Unlimited $3.95/month
Who It's Best For

DreamHost is one of the best web hosting services for WordPress, and it’s also an ideal integrated web solution for new businesses. Along with their hosting service, you get a lot of other benefits from their Pro Service. This includes website design, management, marketing, and social media services.

You can access everything you’ll need to build a website from scratch on the same platform. Given all this, many also rate it as the best web host for small business.

Pros

  • 100% uptime guarantee
  • Offers one of the fastest WordPress hosting services
  • WordPress comes preinstalled
  • Unlimited traffic on every shared hosting plan
  • Hourly rates available for the Cloud Hosting Plan

Cons

  • No free email hosting on its shared hosting plan
DreamHost
9.7
Review

3. Bluehost – Best Web Host Solution for Beginners

Best For Beginners
Free Domain and SSL
Disk Space From 10GB
Starting Price $2.95/month
Why We Picked It

Bluehost has over two decades of experience in the web hosting industry, and it’s remained one of the most popular options. It’s also the web host most cited as being best for beginners.

Features

You get unmetered bandwidth with every plan, which means you can handle unlimited data transfers. This is an advantage over hosting solutions like Domain.com, which provide scalable bandwidth that will eventually hit caps.

To deliver content to your users at record speed, Bluehost uses a unique technology called Speed Boosting CDN, where the content requested by a user is cached at a location that’s closer to them.

This reduces the number of requests your site’s server has to send to prepare the content, ultimately reducing the overall time taken in the process. From the Choice Plus plan onwards, you also get a lot of extra web tools that’ll help you run your site better.

For instance, you get to enable domain privacy, which replaces your personal contact information from the public WHOIS database with generic Bluehost contact information.

Similarly, Bluehost recently teamed up with Yoast – the SEO booster plugin, and ever since then, every user has had free access to this plugin. It can be used to improve keyword allocation, linking, and readability to rank better on the SERP.

Pricing

Bluehost’s Basic plans start at $2.95/month and allow you to host one site with a free SSL certificate and 10GB of storage. You can upgrade to Choice Plus for 40GB sites and the capacity for three sites, and to the Online Store plan to add ecommerce features.

Plan Price
Basic $2.95/month
Choice Plus $5.45/month
Online Store $9.95/month
Who It's Best For

Bluehost is a great web hosting solution for beginners. It’s easy to use and having benefits like unmetered bandwidth and free SEO tools makes it simple to scale your site.

Pros

  • Faster content delivery to your users
  • 20+ years of experience in the industry
  • Unmetered bandwidth on every plan
  • Helps you boost SEO ranking through Yoast integration

Cons

  • No uptime guarantee
Bluehost
9.4
Review

4. InMotion Hosting – Best Website Hosting Provider for Small Businesses

Best For Small business websites
Free Domain and SSL Free SSL
Disk Space From 100GB
Starting Price $2.29/month
Why We Picked It

InMotion Hosting is the only web hosting provider on the list that lets you manage two websites on its cheapest plan. All other hosting providers only let you manage one website – which is just one reason we rate it as the best website hosting provider for small businesses.

Features

This is a huge blessing for small businesses that have two websites but can only afford the starter plan. The prices are extremely reasonable, with the cheapest plan starting at just $2.29/month for 3 years.

You also get a 90-day money-back guarantee, which is 3x the standard money-back guarantee offered by other hosting platforms. Plus, you’ll get unlimited SSD storage (except on the base plan), and what makes it special is it uses NVMe SSD instead of regular SSD.

There’s a tremendous difference in the performance of these storage types. The regular SSD with a SATA protocol can have a maximum data transfer speed of 550Mbps.

Whereas the latest generation of SSD with NVMe protocol has a 5,200Mbps to 7,300Mbps speed. Although these numbers are theoretical and in practical use, the speeds will decrease slightly, but NVMe SSD still remains superior to regular SSD.

Another benefit of using InMotion is you get a free set of marketing tools in every hosting plan. This includes a free, no-code website builder, email marketing tools, and customer management tools.

Beyond this, you’ll get free advertising credits to run ads for your site, and if something’s wrong with your site, you can also use its free Domain Checker tool.

This will give you information on the domain’s registration, server status, and which page it’s pointing to. You can use these free tools to take complete control of your site.

Pricing

InMotion has a wide range of plans, giving small businesses plenty of choice and a lot of capacity for scaling. The cheapest plan allows you to host two sites and includes a free domain and SSL certificate, ten email addresses, unlimited bandwidth, and 100GB of SSD storage for $2.29/month.

Upgrading to Pro for $10.99/month allows you to host unlimited websites with unlimited bandwidth, storage, and emails.

Plan Price
Core $2.29/month
Launch $4.99/month
Power $4.99/month
Pro $10.99/month
Who It's Best For

InMotion Hosting is a great web hosting provider for small businesses. Unlimited storage, affordable plans, and free advertising credits are invaluable benefits that will help you grow your firm.

Pros

  • Unlimited NVMe SSD storage available
  • Live chat and phone support
  • Comes with a suite of marketing and security features
  • Integration with over 400+ apps over cPanel through Softaculous

Cons

  • Can be a little slow sometimes if under an intense workload
InMotion Hosting
9.3
Review

5. Liquid Web – Premium Managed VPS Hosting for Easy Scaling

Best For Medium-sized sites and apps
Free Domain and SSL Free SSL
Disk Space From 40GB
Starting Price $5/month
Why We Picked It

Liquid Web has a variety of hosting plans compared to other hosting providers on this list – and it’s a great option for VPS hosting.

Features

With Liquid Web, you can get dedicated and cloud server hosting, managed WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento hosting, plus Enterprise hosting, amongst others.

Liquid Web is ideal for large enterprises and e-commerce stores. Moreso because its unique auto-scaling feature keeps your site’s loading speed and performance consistent.

This feature automatically adjusts the server resources based on the incoming traffic. If there’s a sudden spike, it’ll make more resources available to you, and if there’s a decrease in traffic, it’ll scale down the resource consumption.

This flexibility in resource usage makes it cost-effective and a popular choice. It also allows you to bring unlimited users onboard under its e-commerce hosting plans.

Usually, hosting providers impose a limit on users based on each plan. But Liquid Web understands that growing any business is a team effort. The only thing that slightly bothered us was it doesn’t offer any shared hosting.

All its plans, be it the cloud hosting or the ecommerce plans, work on a single-tenant model, meaning only one business is hosted on a single server – which is great for performance and speed but not as cheap as shared hosting.

So, to make up for it, Liquid Web provides VPS hosting, where you share the server with multiple tenants, just like shared hosting, but you get dedicated private resources.

This means that your site doesn’t have to fight for space or speed with other tenants. Overall, it’s better than shared hosting and cheaper than dedicated hosting.

Pricing

Liquid Web provides an excellent range of plans for handling large volumes of traffic. The provider’s cheapest offering is its Cloud VPS plans, which offer 1GB of memory, 30GB of storage, and 1TB of bandwidth for $5/month.

Managed VPS plans, meanwhile, start at $20/month and include 40GB SSD storage, 2GB RAM, and 10TB of bandwidth.

Plan Price
1 CPU, 1GB memory, 30GB storage, 1TB data $5/month
1 CPU, 2GB memory, 60GB storage, 2TB data $10/month
2 CPU, 4GB memory, 80GB storage, 3TB data $15/month
2 CPU, 6GB memory, 120GB storage, 4TB data $20/month
4 CPU, 8GB memory, 240GB storage, 5TB data $40/month
4 CPU, 12GB memory, 320GB storage, 6TB data $60/month
6 CPU, 16GB memory, 440GB storage, 7TB data $80/month
6 CPU, 24GB memory, 540GB storage, 8TB data $110/month
8 CPU, 32GB memory, 640GB storage, 10TB data $160/month
Who It's Best For

Liquid Web’s managed VPS hosting plans are perfect for sites handling significant volumes of traffic. They give you scalability and security while minimizing administrative overheads at the same time.

Pros

  • Ideal for running e-commerce stores
  • Unlimited access for your entire team
  • Hassle-free migration conducted entirely by its internal team
  • Offers multi-server hosting solutions if you want better speed

Cons

  • No shared hosting plans available
Liquid Web
9.0
Review

6. A2 Hosting – Best Web Hosting Provider for Fast and Secure Hosting

Best For Fast and secure hosting
Free Domain and SSL Free SSL
Disk Space From 100GB
Starting Price $2.99/month
Why We Picked It

A2 Hosting is one of the fastest web hosting providers on the market thanks to its Turbo Plans, which come with turbo servers.

Features

For example, its shared hosting service comes with two turbo plans – Turbo Boost and Turbo Max. What makes them different is the servers under these plans are available to limited customers only.

This approach helps to prevent overcrowding and, therefore, slow speeds on the servers. Also, these servers use advanced caching technology, better hardware, and undisclosed performance enhancers, making them great for handling high-speed browsing.

It was further found that these turbo servers can handle up to 9 times more traffic at 3 times faster speed compared to non-turbo servers.

Another remarkable feature of this hosting provider is it keeps your performance stable even during a traffic spike. We often hear that sites crash when too many people log in at the same time.

But say you’re having a sale at your online store. Would you want your site to crash and send away all those interested buyers empty-handed? Thanks to A2 Hosting, you won’t have to worry about that.

Whenever there’s a sudden increase in traffic, A2 Hosting automatically optimizes resource usage at the backend so that you can continue to support new users as they flood in.

If you’re planning to integrate your site with other platforms such as WordPress or Joomla, you’ll also be happy to know that the integration will be easy, thanks to A2-optimized plugins.

After multiple rounds of testing, the A2 Hosting team has settled on the “Settings” of certain third-party providers that work best for A2’s platform. This is called auto-configuration and is currently available for WordPress, Joomla, PrestaShop, and many other platforms.

Pricing

A2 Hosting offers shared web hosting starting at $2.99/month. This gets you hosting for one site, 100 GB SSD storage, and free site migration.

Upgrading to the Drive plan allows you to host unlimited websites with unlimited storage and includes free automatic backups. The provider also offers affordable managed WordPress hosting, starting at $11.99/month.

Plan Price
Startup $2.99/month
Drive $5.99/month
Turbo Boost $6.99/month
Turbo Max $14.99/month
Who It's Best For

If you’re looking for the fastest web hosting, A2 Hosting offers some of the best website hosting services around. It also offers secure and scalable hosting for individuals and businesses.

Pros

  • Eco-friendly infrastructure
  • Performance protection from traffic surge
  • Free email addresses available with spam protection
  • Comes with special turbo servers that are faster and have more bandwidth

Cons

  • Some users find the signup process time-consuming
A2 Hosting
9.0
Review

7. InterServer – Best Shared Hosting Website Hosting Solution

Best For Shared hosting
Free Domain and SSL Free SSL
Disk Space Unlimited
Starting Price $2.50/month
Why We Picked It

InterServer is a great option for unlimited shared hosting – and it offers some great security tools.

Features

InterServer comes with two amazing free add-ons – InterShield Security and Inter Insurance. InterShield Security offers an automatic virus scanner that finds and neutralizes viruses on your site.

And to protect you from new attacks, it checks every incoming IP address with its database of blacklisted IPs. If there’s a match, that connection is blocked immediately. This database is in-house and is updated frequently.

Anytime a user is threatened by a suspicious URL, it’s blacklisted so that the other InterServer users don’t face the same problem. The database is smartly designed to only capture dangerous IPs and spare good bots such as the Googlebot that crawls and indexes your page.

The Inter-Insurance add-on kicks in when your site’s in trouble. Whether it’s caused by a hacker or technical errors, InterServer will help you clean up the mess by investigating the problem, finding and fixing the underlying cause, and restoring it to its original state.

Usually, website recovery is a paid service (and really expensive at times), but InterServer does it for free. InterServer is also ideal for growing businesses that require more bandwidth because it’s currently using only 50% of its servers and resources.

The rest is left unused as of now to accommodate your growth without compromising your site’s performance. Beyond all this, other web hosting features are also at par with industry standards.

You get unlimited storage space, data transfers, FTP accounts, and weekly backups on the Standard Web Hosting plan. You can also integrate your site with 400+ apps, and each of them comes with a one-click installation model – including WordPress and SitePad.

Pricing

InterServer is a great option for sharing hosting and includes unlimited bandwidth, storage, and FTP accounts, as well as weekly backups for $2.50/month. You also get free migrations and a 30-day money-back guarantee to make transferring sites as simple as possible.

You can also get cloud VPS hosting from $6/month, WordPress hosting from $6/month, and a dedicated server from $49/month.

Who It's Best For

InterServer is a great option for individuals running smaller sites – and it offers affordable plans that are packed with features.

Pros

  • Free account recovery
  • Ready to scale as your business grows
  • Comes with a suite of strong security features
  • Provides unlimited disk storage and data transfer on the Standard hosting plan

Cons

  • Doesn’t provide a free domain like most hosting providers do
InterServer
8.9
Review

8. IONOS – Best Domain Hosting Platform for Usability

Best For Usability
Free Domain and SSL
Disk Space From 25GB
Starting Price $4/month
Why We Picked It

IONOS offers a range of plans and solid security solutions for your site. It’s also extremely easy to use and is among the best hosting providers for quickly setting up a new site.

Features

IONOS makes getting started easy, and the onboarding process is very simple. You get a personal consultant with your plan who will help you make the right subscription choice for your business. They’ll also be your singular point of contact so that you don’t have to explain your business goals to a new executive again and again.

The hosting provider guarantees 99.9% uptime and offers geo-redundant infrastructure. This means your site’s data is recorded on two different data centers so your site keeps running even if one of them is under maintenance.

Also, while other hosting providers offer a free standard SSL certificate, IONOS provides a free wildcard SSL certificate. A standard SSL only protects a single domain, whereas a Wildcard SSL protects your main domain and up to 10,000 sub-domains.

In short, your entire site – all the pages and posts – will be protected from external attacks. Another USP of IONOS is that it can provide you with readymade websites that’ll be created by its in-house experts.

You won’t even have to lift a finger, let alone work with a drag-and-drop builder. This is ideal for those who’d like a new site up and running in no time and with minimal input from their end.

Pricing

IONOS’ Start plan costs $4/month. It allows you to host one site and comes with automated backups and 25GB of storage. Grow extends storage to 50GB and includes five email accounts and Boost offers 75GB of storage and ten email accounts.

Plan Price
Start  $4/month
Grow  $5/month
Boost $8/month
Who It's Best For

IONOS offers great security, and its site-building service makes it extremely simple to get started. From site creation to site management, it’s supremely easy to use.

Pros

  • The cheapest provider on the list
  • Free 24/7 support on every plan
  • 99.9% uptime with geo-redundant infrastructure
  • Better protection with Wildcard SSL certificate

Cons

  • The interface can be hard for users to navigate initially
IONOS
8.7
Review

9. HostArmada – Highly Reliable Cloud Hosting Service

Best For Cloud website hosting
Free Domain and SSL
Disk Space From 15GB
Starting Price $2.49/month
Why We Picked It

HostArmada understands the importance of site backups. The cloud provider has a 99.9% uptime guarantee, stellar customer support, and offers 7 to 21 daily backups, depending on the plan you choose – and it’s a great option for managed shared hosting.

Features

While it’s neck-and-neck with Liquid Web when it comes to offering tons of different types of hosting services, this one’s more focused on cloud hosting plans.

You’ll find everything from WordPress to Shared cloud hosting and everything in between, and the managed shared hosting option is particularly. Working at the backend is also quite simple since the dashboard is a blend of the cPanel and a regular dashboard, so both technical and non-technical staff can both manage it.

The main dashboard is very user-friendly. You’ll find all the options on the left-side menu. Here, you can manage your invoices and domain names, plus access the knowledge base, amongst other features.

And under “My Services”, you’ll find quick access to the cPanel (a Linux-based control panel) that hosts the technical features of your site, such as the SQL Database, SSL certificates, servers, and DNS management tools.

A unique feature that deserves special mention is Web Hosting Account Isolation. It basically splits the occupied server area into smaller, user-specific hosting environments in a way that each user is independent of others.

This way, if something goes wrong on a user’s end, such as a malware attack, it won’t affect the rest of the users. This also prevents users from accessing files that don’t belong to them.

Pricing

HostArmada’s cheapest plan is StartDock, which is available for $2.49/month and allows you to host one site with 15GB of storage. Upgrading to Web Warp allows you to host an unlimited number of sites, with 30GB of storage and daily backups. Speed Reaper includes 40GB of storage and a 21-day backup history.

Plan Price
Start Dock
$2.49/month
Web Warp $4.11/month
Speed Reaper $4.94/month
Who It's Best For

HostArmada comes with an excellent range of plans, and it’s a great option for small-to-medium domains looking for WordPress, shared, and managed shared plans.

Pros

  • Multiple backups every day
  • Flexible payment cycles
  • Quick access to a fully managed cPanel
  • Limits user numbers to ensure speed and performance

Cons

  • Renewal costs are very high
HostArmada
8.5
Review

10. Namecheap – Best Cheap Web Site Hosting

Best For Cheap site hosting
Free Domain and SSL
Disk Space From 20GB
Starting Price $1.48/month
Why We Picked It

While Namecheap isn’t the best free website hosting, it’s pretty close and is one of the cheapest hosting providers on our list. You can get started for as little as $1.48/month, and the renewal prices remain reasonable.

Features

Namecheap is one of the best web hosting provider for email marketing. While almost every hosting provider offers a professional email domain (either for free or as an add-on), only a few, like Namecheap, come with a full suite of email marketing features.

For starters, depending on the plan, you can create 3 to unlimited email accounts. You can assign each department a separate email account to make it easier for customers to connect to the right person.

Next, you can create automated responses to customer emails. This way, your customers will have something to keep them engaged until a member of your team is ready to take it.

SpamAssassin, a popular spam protection tool, is installed by default on its servers to keep away unwanted bot emails. For spam protection, you can use the BoxTrapper feature, which makes all users reply to a verification email before they email you.

Namecheap also helps you manage your Parked Domains, which you’ve purchased but aren’t yet connected to a page. Having a list of your parked domains in one place ensures you don’t forget about any of them, especially during renewal.

Also, you can store unlimited parked domains on every plan, and Namecheap is very sincere about user security. To protect you from brute-force attacks, it uses unique Leech Protect technology.

It limits the number of times someone can attempt to log into your account in a two-hour timeframe. Since brute-force attacks depend on multiple logins in short intervals, this puts a complete stop to it.

Pricing

Namecheap offers three introductory pricing plans for shared hosting. Stellar costs $1.48/month and includes 20GB SSD storage, 30 mailboxes, and capacity for three sites, with one free domain name.

Stellar Plus allows you to host unlimited sites with unlimited mailboxes and unmetered storage.

Plan Price
Stellar
$1.48/month
Stellar Plus $2.98/month
Stellar Business $4.98/month
Who It's Best For

Namecheap offers some of the cheapest hosting plans on the market today, and it’s a great pick for users on a budget. The inclusion of solid security features and an email marketing suite add further value to the package.

Pros

  • 100% uptime
  • The interface is very easy to use
  • Helps you manage parked domains
  • Access 100+ apps for free with the Softaculous marketplace

Cons

  • No phone support

Best Web Hosting Companies Compared

Here’s a web hosting comparison table laying out the key features of our top recommendations so you can see what each one has to offer:

Website Hosting Platform Starting Price Uptime Guarantee Average Page Load Speed Traffic and Storage Free Domain Money-Back Guarantee
Domain.com $3.75/month 99.9% US – 2.1s, EU – 2.5s, Asia – 3.0s Unmetered, 10 GB to 40 GB 30 days
DreamHost $2.59/month 100% US – 0.6s, EU – 0.9s, Asia – 1.9s Unmetered, 50 GB to Unlimited 97 days on shared hosting
Bluehost $2.95/month US – 0.7s, EU – 1.2s, Asia – 1.4s Unmetered, 10 GB to 40 GB SSD 30 days
InMotion Hosting $2.29/month 99.9% US – 0.8s, EU – 1.2s, Asia – 1.8s Unmetered, 100 GB SSD to Unlimited 90 days
Liquid Web $5/month 100% US – 1.2s, EU – 1.8s, Asia – 1.9s Unmetered, 40 GB to 200 GB SSD Not on the VPS plan 30 days
A2 Hosting $2.99/month 99.98% US – 1.3s, EU – 1.5s, Asia – 1.5s Unmetered, 100 GB SSD to unlimited 30 days
InterServer $2.50/month 99.99% US – 1.6s, EU – 2.2s, Asia – 2.3s Unmetered, Unlimited 30 days
IONOS $4/month 99.9% US – 1.9s, EU – 2.2s, Asia – 3.1s Unmetered, 10 GB to Unlimited 30 days
HostArmada $2.49/month 99.9% US – 1.9s, EU – 2.1s, Asia – 3.1s From 30k-120k visitors/month, 15 GB – 40 GB SSD 45 days
Namecheap $1.48/month 100% US – 1.7s, EU – 1.9s, Asia – 3.1s Unmetered, 20 GB to 50 GB SSD 30 days
Methodology

How We Review And Test Hosting Providers

15 Providers Tested

20 Data Points Measured

300+ Hours Testing

500+ User Reviews Read

To be able to offer our readers factual information and only the best web hosting solutions, we evaluate and test the most popular hosts in the market. Here are the main factors we focus on:

  • Features: We ensure the provider includes basic features like a custom domain, an SSL, generous storage and bandwidth, and email accounts, as well as advanced tools like domain protection, staging, automated backups, and more.
  • Ease of use: It’s important that, regardless of their experience managing a site, all users can quickly and easily navigate the hosting provider’s dashboard. All providers on our list either offer an easy-to-navigate custom panel or a widely used cPanel.
  • Performance: We ensure the provider offers at least a 99.9% uptime guarantee and uses up-to-date and functional servers. We test this by setting up a site with each provider, testing site loading speed and traffic handling capabilities, and monitoring the uptime.
  • Customer Support: We ensure that users can reach customer support 24/7 via various support channels. We also contact them to test whether the support agents are knowledgeable and efficient.
  • Value for Money: We evaluate the features within the package and the price point it retails for. We only recommend plans that offer the best value for money.

How Does Web Hosting Work?

Websites are made up of numerous files, like images, fonts, text, and databases, and anything else needed for your site to work. For visitors to be able to access your site, these files must be uploaded to a web server. Web hosting services offer storage for your files on their servers.

A web hosting provider offers exactly that – storage space on a server that is available 24/7. On top of allocated server resources, you’ll also need a domain name, of course.

A domain serves as a link between the visitor and your server. Every time a visitor types in your domain address, the browser then delivers the right site files from the server.

Diffеrеnt Typеs of Wеb Hosting Services Explainеd

There are several different types of web hosting, and each has its own advantages and drawbacks. Because of this, it’s important to choose one that fits your website’s budget, needs, and technical requirements.

  • Shared Hosting: This hosting type suits small websites and beginners with limited traffic and resource needs. It’s the most basic and affordable hosting option, where your website shares server resources with other websites.
  • VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting: VPS hosts provide a virtualized environment where your website has dedicated resources, but it still shares a physical server with other websites. It offers more control and scalability compared to shared hosting. For more information, check out our guide to the best VPS hosting.
  • Dedicated Hosting: Dedicated server hosting provides maximum control, performance, and resources, as you get your own dedicated server. It’s relatively expensive, though.
  • Cloud Hosting: Cloud hosting uses a network of interconnected virtual servers, often spread across multiple data centers, providing users with scalability, flexibility, and reliability, as you can pay for resources on-demand.
  • WordPress Hosting: While most hosting solutions are compatible with WordPress, WordPress-specific solutions are entirely focused on the CMS. Typically, WordPress hosting includes management of services like automated WordPress core updates, plugin updates, enhanced performance, and more.
  • Managed Hosting: Any type of hosting can be either managed or unmanaged. Managed hosting means that the web hosting provider will take care of service management, for example, handling updates, backups, security, and more. This can include managed WordPress hosting and managed cloud hosting.
  • Ecommerce Hosting: This type of hosting offers features for online stores, like the ability to sell and accept payments online, add products to the site, take bookings and appointments, track store analytics, and more.

What Features Can You Expect From a Web Hosting Service?

Hosting isn’t just about providing you with a digital storage space. Today, many domain registrars also act as domain hosting websites and offer additional services, so there’s plenty to consider when comparing products. Here are some common features and services you can expect from a website hosting service.

  • Development Tools: The best web hosting services provide development tools, including FTP access, SSH access, and support for programming languages like PHP, Python, and Ruby.
  • Website Builders: Many website hosting companies offer WYSIWYG website editors. They make it easy to build websites from templates, which you can then customize to your needs. See our guide to the easiest website builders for beginners for more details.
  • Email Hosting: Most hosting services offer email hosting, allowing you to set up and manage custom email addresses associated with your domain.
  • Database Support: Hosting plans typically include support for database management systems like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server.
  • One-Click Installations: With hosting plans, you’ll often get one-click installations for popular content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, simplifying website setup.
  • Security Features: Hosting companies offer various security features, including firewalls, malware scanning, SSL certificates, and regular backups, to protect your website and data.
  • Monitoring and Analytics: Many good hosting providers offer monitoring tools and website analytics to help you track your website’s performance, visitor traffic, and other essential metrics.
  • Ecommerce Features: If you plan to run an online store, look for a host that offers ecommerce features such as shopping cart software, SSL for secure transactions, and payment gateways.

Factors to Considеr Whеn Choosing the Best Wеb Host

Wondering what to look for in a web hosting solution? These are some of the key factors to consider when assessing the best hosting provider for your needs.

Pricing and Plan FeaturesServer Responsiveness and SpeedUptimeIntuitive DashboardData SecurityCustomer Support

Pricing and Plan Features

When assessing your budget, pay attention to plan caps such as bandwidth, storage, and the number of sites you can host.

Ensure the chosen plan offers the features you need, such as email hosting, database support, and scripting languages. More advanced features, like ecommerce support and dedicated IP addresses may come at a higher cost or require an upgrade.

Some users will also be interested in reseller hosting plans, enabling you to sell on hosting services and bandwidth.

Server Responsiveness and Speed

A web host with fast server responsiveness ensures your web pages load quickly, keeping visitors engaged and satisfied.

A slow site can frustrate visitors, leading to higher bounce rates and a negative brand perception. Search engines like Google also prioritize fast-loading sites, so a sluggish site can hurt your SEO efforts and visibility.

Look for hosts with servers close to your target audience to minimize latency and improve load times and that provide features like content delivery networks (CDNs) to enhance website speed. The best domain hosts will ensure users get lightning-fast load times, wherever they are.

For more information on SEO hosting, see our full guide to the best SEO hosting providers.

Uptime

High uptime scores indicate that your website will be consistently up and running. For example, 99.99% uptime means your site will have a downtime of less than 9 seconds per day.

Using a hosting provider with poor uptime will mean your website is frequently inaccessible, leading to missed opportunities, lost revenue, and damage to your online reputation.

Look for reliable web hosting from a web host with a strong track record for high uptime to ensure your website remains accessible and delivers a positive user experience.

Intuitive Dashboard

A user-friendly dashboard simplifies configuring settings and managing domains, databases, and other essential aspects of your hosting account.

It enables you to monitor website performance, access support resources, and seamlessly make adjustments. An intuitive, well-designed dashboard will save you time and frustration.

It will allow you to focus on creating content, running your online business, or managing your website without the complexity of navigating a complex interface.

Data Security

Security is paramount for protecting your website and user data. The best website hosts should offer robust security measures, including firewalls, DDoS mitigation, regular security updates, and SSL/TLS certificates for secure data transfers.

Neglecting security can expose your website to risks such as hacking, data breaches, and malware infections, with the potential for data loss, financial theft, and damage to your brand image. Also, inquire about data backup and recovery options in case of security breaches.

Customer Support

Technical issues with websites are inevitable, so having responsive and knowledgeable customer support can make a significant difference.

The best website hosting providers offer excellent customer support, ensuring you have assistance 24/7 through channels like live chat, email, and phone to promptly troubleshoot and resolve problems.

This support minimizes downtime and technical website glitches, which can directly affect your online presence and business operations.

Selecting a provider with excellent customer support can save you time, money, and stress when you encounter challenges with your web hosting.

Can I Host My Own Website?

Yes, it’s possible to host your own website. It will often involve a complex server setup, regular maintenance, and a steep learning curve for managing web servers, security, and performance optimization, though.

Hosting your own website, hence, requires a significant investment of time and resources and the technical expertise needed to ensure reliability and security.

To make this process smoother and more accessible, you should consider using trusted web hosting providers like Domain.com, DreamHost, Bluehost, InMotion Hosting, Liquid Web, or other tools on our list.

The best web hosting companies offer user-friendly interfaces, reliable server infrastructure, robust security features, and excellent customer support to simplify the whole hosting process.

By choosing a reputable hosting provider, you can focus on creating and managing your website content, leaving the technical complexities to the experts for a smoother, more efficient online presence.

Will I Get a Domain Name With a Web Host?

Whether you get a domain name with a web host depends on the hosting provider and the plan. Many web hosts offer domain registration as part of their hosting packages, providing a one-stop solution for your online presence.

Providers like Domain.com, DreamHost, Bluehost, and IONOS include a free domain name when you sign up for their hosting services. However, it’s important to review the terms and conditions of your chosen plan.

Not all hosting packages include a domain, but this integrated approach simplifies setting up your website, putting your domain and hosting under the same roof for simple management. Some hosting providers offer domain registration as an optional add-on with a fee.

If you already have a domain name registered with another provider, you can typically connect it to your chosen web host’s services. This flexibility ensures that you can retain your current domain while benefiting from the features and services offered by your web host. It’s advisable to make sure this is an option before committing.

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References

Krishi Chowdhary
Tech Expert
Krishi Chowdhary
Tech Expert

Krishi Chowdhary has half a decade of experience writing buying guides and product reviews for numerous leading technology websites. He spent two years writing for Business2Community.com before joining Techopedia.com. He has a degree in Commerce and extensive experience in the technology industry. He's also the key driver behind TechReport.com's news content, delivering expertise insight into the latest tech and cybersecurity news daily.