The 10 Best WordPress Hosting Providers Compared for 2023

The best WordPress hosting services offer secure and affordable hosting solutions on servers optimized to run the content management system. They also include a range of additional features, such as free business email, a free domain, a free SSL certificate, pre-installed plugins, and on-demand backup.

That said, with so many excellent WordPress hosting services on the market, it can be difficult to choose one solution over another. That’s why we’ve compared the best WordPress hosting sites, looking at their features, pricing, and WP support, to help you make an informed decision.

The Market’s Top 10 Best Hosting Sites for WordPress

After reviewing dozens of WP hosting solutions, we’ve narrowed down the list of the best WordPress hosting providers to the following 10:

  1. DreamHost — Overall, the best WP hosting service in 2023, with free WP site migrations, an intuitive WP website builder, and 24/7 expert customer support.
  2. BlueHost — Hundreds of WP themes and plugins to choose from and full design freedom. Ideal for smaller businesses looking to launch their website ASAP.
  3. InMotion — Fast and reliable WP hosting, with 20+ years of industry experience and 24/7 US-based customer support.
  4. Liquid Web — Best managed WordPress hosting service, with a multi-server configuration that ensures excellent speed, reliability, security, and uptime.
  5. A2 Hosting — Flexible hosting solution for every purpose, with super-fast Turbo servers that can handle 9x more traffic than regular hosting servers.
  6. InterServer — Unlimited bandwidth and ULTRA SSD storage for shared WP hosting, as well as free InterShield Security that ensures your website is 100% protected.
  7. IONOS — Best cheap WordPress hosting service with unlimited traffic, customizable auto-updates, and free DDoS and malware protection.
  8. HostArmada — Nine data centers to choose from and up to 21 free daily content backups. Perfect for blogs and websites that produce a ton of content.
  9. NameCheap — Great for managing multiple websites from a single dashboard, with a one-month “free trial” to test out the service in practice.
  10. Domain.com — Hand-picked WP themes, pre-installed plugins, and a customized control panel, so you can bring your vision of the ideal website to life as quickly as possible.

The Best WordPress Web Hosting Services Reviewed

Here are in-depth reviews of the top 10 services that offer the best hosting for WordPress, so you can see exactly what different providers offer for the price and choose the one that’s best for you:

1. DreamHost — Overall, the Best WP Hosting Service in 2023

DreamHost is a super-flexible WP hosting service that offers a wide variety of hosting plans to choose from, including everything from shared hosting to a managed WP experience and a VPS (Virtual Private Server) for your WordPress site.

The hosting service is recommended by WordPress.org itself, so you can rest assured knowing that your WP hosting is in the hands of experts. If WP’s seal of approval isn’t enough to convince you of DreamHost’s expertise, you’ll be glad to know that the company offers a 100% uptime guarantee, offering to compensate customers if it fails to deliver on that promise.

DreamHost Best WordPress Hosting Service Overall

Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
From $2.59/month 100% 1.75 seconds  

Unlimited on shared hosting and VPS, 100k to 1M monthly visitors on managed hosting

From 30 Gb to 240 Gb SSD storage

DreamHost is an excellent choice for both new businesses and those who already have a WP website and want to migrate it to DreamHost for free. If you’re looking to build a website for your business from the ground up, you can leverage the company’s simple drag-and-drop website builder and choose from over 200 templates for any industry to launch your site fast.

In addition to WP hosting, you also get a free “Let’s Encrypt” SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate and a free domain name with a personalized email address for your business.

The company also offers 24/7 professional WP support, both via Live Chat and email, so you’ll get expert assistance in an instant whenever you need any help with your WP website.

Pricing

Here are the available DreamHost pricing plans.

WordPress Basic (Shared):

  • WordPress Starter — From $2.59/month (1 website, free domain, unlimited traffic, WP website builder, free automated WP migration, free storage, free SSL certificate)
  • WordPress Unlimited — From $3.95/month (Starter + unlimited websites, unlimited email @ your domain)

DreamPress (Managed):

  • DreamPress — From $16.95/month (1 website, free domain included, ~100k monthly visitors, 30 Gb SSD storage, SSL, unlimited email, 24/7 support, free migration, WP website builder, on-demand backups, one-click staging)
  • DreamPress Plus — From $24.95/month (DreamPress + ~300k monthly visitors, 60 Gb SSD storage, unlimited CDN)
  • DreamPress Pro — From $71.95/month (Plus + ~1M monthly visitors, 120 Gb SSD storage, priority support)

VPS WordPress:

  • VPS Basic — From $10/month (1 Gb RAM, 30 Gb SSD storage, unlimited websites, unlimited traffic, free SSL, unlimited email @ your domain)
  • VPS Business — From $20/month (2 Gb RAM, 60 Gb SSD)
  • VPS Professional — From $40/month (4 Gb RAM, 120 Gb SSD)
  • VPS Enterprise — From $80/month (8 Gb RAM, 240 Gb SSD)

Pros

  • Recommended by WordPress.org
  • Free WP site migration
  • Simple, drag-and-drop WP website builder
  • 24/7 support for managed hosting
  • Affordable

Cons

  • Requires decent WP knowledge to utilize fully

2. BlueHost — Hundreds of WP Themes and Plugins to Choose From and Full Design Freedom

BlueHost is another popular WP hosting service provider offering everything you need to get your website off the ground.

If you opt for BlueHost, you’ll be able to choose between shared, dedicated, or VPS hosting, all of which come with a free domain, free SSL, and free CDN (Content Delivery Network).

BlueHost WP Themes

Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
From $2.95/month 99.99% 2.5 seconds Unlimited From 10 Gb to 240 Gb SSD

BlueHost’s most notable strong suit is the fact that its WP website builder gives you full design freedom, so you can easily customize your website to your heart’s content.

That said, you won’t have to build your website from scratch — there are hundreds of free and premium customizable WP themes in BlueHost’s marketplace to choose from. The marketplace also features a wide variety of easy-to-install plugins, so you can adjust the appearance and functionality of your website with a few simple clicks.

Regardless of which hosting plan you choose, you’ll have access to 24/7 support and lots of how-to guides, so you’ll have all the help you need to ensure your site is fully functional and running optimally.

Additionally, you can pay extra for dedicated 1:1 expert support to guide you through every step of the way or fully outsource website building to BlueHost’s team of professional designers.

Another thing worth mentioning is that BlueHost offers valuable marketing tools to help improve your website’s visibility, such as for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Google Business Profile, and Google Ad Services.

The one drawback of BlueHost is that it cannot handle hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors. While the company doesn’t provide information regarding traffic limits, user reviews suggest it can comfortably handle anywhere from 100k to 500k monthly visitors, depending on how well the website is optimized.

Pricing

Here are the available BlueHost annual pricing plans.

Shared Hosting:

  • Basic — From $2.95/month (1 website, free CDN, free domain for the first year, 10 Gb SSD storage, custom WP themes, one year of free SSL)
  • Choice Plus — From $5.45/month (unlimited websites, 40 Gb SSD storage, one-year free domain, free SSL, daily website backup, domain privacy, malware scanning)
  • Online Store — From $9.95/month (Choice Plus + 100 Gb SSD storage, exclusive store theme, store analytics, eCommerce plugins pre-installed)
  • Pro — From $13.95/month (Choice Plus + 100 Gb SSD storage, free dedicated IP)

Dedicated Hosting:

  • Standard — From $89.98/month (4 cores / 8 threads, 8 Gb RAM, 1 Tb HDD storage, unmetered bandwidth)
  • Enhanced — From $119.88/month (8 cores / 16 threads, 16 Gb RAM, 2 Tb HDD storage)
  • Premium — From $139.99/month (8 cores / 16 threads, 30 Gb RAM, 2 Tb HDD storage)

VPS Hosting: 

  • Standard — From $29.99/month (2 Gb RAM, 2-core CPU, 120 Gb SSD, unmetered bandwidth)
  • Enhanced — From $39.99/month (4 Gb RAM, 2-core CPU, 165 Gb SSD, unmetered bandwidth)
  • Ultimate — From $69.99/month (8 Gb RAM, 4-core CPU, 240 Gb SSD, unmetered bandwidth)

Pros

  • Hundreds of professionally designed WP themes
  • Easy-to-use WP builder with full design freedom
  • Fast and knowledgeable support

Cons

  • Simplistic hosting and not the best for advanced websites with lots of monthly visitors
  • Slower loading times for content-rich websites compared to competitors

3. InMotion — Fast and Reliable WP Hosting, With 20+ Years of Industry Experience

InMotion is a reliable company with over 20 years of hosting expertise, offering fast and powerful servers with 99.99% uptime and premium malware and hacking protection.

The company offers shared WP hosting on cPanel, a user-friendly Linux-based GUI (Graphic User Interface) that lets you manage your WordPress website with ease.

InMotion Features

Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
From $2.29/month 99.99% 1.19 seconds Unlimited From 100 Gb to unlimited SSD storage

It’s an excellent choice for people with little-to-no previous WP experience since cPanel is super-intuitive and lets you add plugins and subdomains, create new email accounts for your team members, upload files to your server, and back up your website with ease.

You get a free domain and SSL, unlimited business email addresses, and a free website builder on every shared hosting plan. Additionally, you’ll have access to US-based customer support 24/7, every day of the year.

In addition to shared hosting, InMotion offers managed WP hosting, as well as VPS hosting on powerful, super-fast, and highly secure servers.

Other reasons to opt for InMotion include flexible billing, with the option to change plans at any time, and an impressive 90-day money-back guarantee.

Pricing

Here are the available InMotion pricing plans:

  • Shared Hosting — From $2.29/month (free SSL, from 100 Gb to unlimited SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, email addresses, security suite, marketing tools, live chat support)
  • Managed Hosting — From $3.49/month (from two to unlimited websites, 100 Gb to unlimited SSD storage, native backups and migrations, advanced caching, from 2 to 6 PHP workers per website)
  • VPS Hosting — From $19.99/month (from 4 to 16 vCPU cores, 4 Gb to 16 Gb RAM, 90 Gb to 360 Gb SSD, free SSL, free website transfer and server setup, choice of control panel, phone, and Live Chat support)
  • Dedicated Hosting — From $89.99/month (from 16 Gb DDR3 RAM, 1 Tb SSD, 4 core / 8 thread CPU, dedicated IP, 10 Gb free backup storage, 10 Tb/month bandwidth, security suite, Live Chat support)

Pros

  • Unlimited bandwidth and traffic
  • Excellent value for money
  • Reliable, stable server infrastructure
  • Professional 24/7 US-based support

Cons

  • The backend looks a bit dated
  • Doesn’t offer automatic site backup for shared hosting services

4. Liquid Web — Best Managed WordPress Hosting Service 

Liquid Web offers fully managed WP hosting solutions — dedicated, VPS, and cloud hosting — for businesses of all sizes, custom-tailored to your industry, brand, and goals.

The service includes helping you pick the ideal hosting solution according to your needs, migrating your existing website, online store, or application, proactively managing your site’s network, security, and availability, and regularly updating your server and OS.

Liquid Web Hosting Solutions

Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
From $7.60/month 99.99% 1.4 seconds Unlimited From 15 Gb to 408 Gb SSD

One of the main benefits of Liquid Web is the fact that it offers multi-server configurations, ensuring superb uptime and performance. The server architecture relies on the latest security standards and is fully HIPAA and PCI-compliant.

Another area where Liquid Web excels is customer support. You can reach hosting professionals via phone, Help Desk, or Live Chat 24/7, and the company guarantees an initial response time of less than a minute.

Pricing

Here are the available Liquid Web pricing plans:

  • Managed WordPress — From $7.60/month (1 site, 15 Gb storage, 2 Tb bandwidth, 30-day backups, unlimited email accounts)
  • VPS Hosting — From $25/month (2 vCPU cores, 2 Gb RAM, 40 Gb SSD, 10 Tb bandwidth, AlmaLinux or CentOS 7)
  • Dedicated Server — From $149.25/month (4 cores @ 3.5 GHz, 16 Gb RAM, 2 x 240 Gb SSD primary disk, 1 Tb SATA backup disk, 5 Tb bandwidth, 250 Gb backup)
  • Cloud Dedicated — From $149/month (4 cores / 8 threads, 16 Gb RAM, 408 Gb SSD, 5 Tb bandwidth, Linux, three panel types to choose from)

Pros

  • Good range of servers
  • Custom-tailored solutions for your business
  • Multi-server configuration that ensures performance and uptime
  • Fast, professional customer support

Cons

  • Only offers fully managed WP hosting
  • Lacks one-click staging to live functionality

5. A2 Hosting — Flexible Hosting Solution for Every Purpose

A2 Hosting boasts some of the fastest WP hosting servers on the market, which can handle nine times more traffic at three times faster read/write speeds than regular servers. This not only impacts your site’s loading times but also contributes to better SEO rankings and lower bounce rates.

The main appeal of A2 Hosting is the flexibility of the company’s services. It offers customizable solutions for SMBs, enterprises, personal websites, agencies, blogs, and more. Even better, every WordPress install is pre-configured to offer the best speed and security, thanks to the company’s proprietary A2 Optimized plugin.

A2 Hosting Solutions

Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
From $2.99/month 99.99% 290ms on Turbo servers Unlimited From 100 Gb SSD to unlimited

In addition to hosting services, this provider offers free website migration, super 24/7 customer support, and a money-back guarantee. A2 Hosting also boasts a 97% client satisfaction rate, so you can rest assured that your WP website hosting is in good hands.

Pricing

Here are the available A2 Hosting pricing plans:

  • Shared Hosting — From $2.99/month (1 website, 100 Gb SSD storage, free website migration, unlimited email addresses, free SSL certificate, free website builder, website staging, choice of data center location)
  • Managed WordPress Hosting — From $11.99/month (1 website, 50 Gb NVMe storage, 4 Gb RAM, daily onsite backup, Jetpack Free)
  • VPS Hosting — From $39.99/month (4 Gb RAM, 150 Gb SSD, 2 Tb bandwidth, 2 cores, free SSL certificate, free CloudLinux OS, free cPanel, free website transfer)
  • Dedicated Hosting — From $159.99/month (4.6 GHz Turbo CPU, 16 Gb DDR4 RAM, 2×1 Tb SSD, 6 Tb bandwidth, root access, 1 Tb backup, free SSL, free CloudLinux OS, free cPanel)

Pros

  • Ultra-fast Turbo hosting servers
  • Customizable hosting solutions for every purpose
  • Pre-configured WP installs, optimized for speed and security
  • Free staging area for your website

Cons

  • Turbo servers only available on the more expensive plans
  • On-demand website backup is a paid add-on

6. InterServer — Unlimited Bandwidth and ULTRA SSD Storage

InterServer is a decent option if you’re looking for reliable shared hosting at an affordable price.

What’s great about this provider’s shared WP hosting plan is that it comes with unlimited ULTRA SSD storage, which dynamically adjusts the performance according to the workload. You also get unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, unlimited email accounts, and access to over 450 cloud apps.

InterServer Hosting

Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
From $2.50/month 99.99% 2.3 seconds Unlimited Unlimited

What’s more, if you opt for InterServer, your website will be fully protected by InterShield Security at no extra cost. This includes automatic virus scanning, web attack protection, a strong firewall with built-in machine learning, and an in-house malware database.

If you already have a website up and running and want to switch the hosting over to InterServer, you can do so for free. That said, if you’re building a new website from scratch, you’ll have to pay an extra $7.99 to register a new domain.

Apart from shared hosting, InterServer also offers dedicated and VPS hosting, so you can let their experts handle everything from daily website backup to site updates.

Pricing

Here are the available InterServer pricing plans:

  • Standard Web Hosting — From $2.50/month (Unlimited ULTRA SSD storage, unmetered traffic, 1 core / 4 SQL cores, 8 Gb RAM, free SSL certificate, free InterShield Security)
  • Boost Web Hosting — From $9.95/month (Standard + 2 cores / 8 SQL cores, 4 Gb RAM, 2.86 Gbps SQL IO)
  • WordPress VPS — From $6.00/month (1 core, 2 Gb RAM, 30 Gb SSD, 1 Tb bandwidth)

Pros

  • Excellent value for money
  • One-click install scripts for over 450 cloud apps
  • Unlimited bandwidth and storage for shared hosting
  • Free InterShield Security for your website

Cons

  • Doesn’t offer free domain registration
  • Slower page load speed than the competitors

7. IONOS — Best Cheap WordPress Hosting Service

IONOS offers some of the cheapest WordPress hosting plans for shared hosting services, starting from as little as $1/month for the first year.

What’s even more impressive than the extremely low cost of shared WP hosting is the fact that the company recently upgraded its servers to be three times faster. The average page loading speed is now around 700 milliseconds (0.7 seconds), so your website will load lightning-fast.

IONOS WP Hosting

Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
From $1.00/month 99.98% 0.7 seconds Unlimited From 25 Gb to 75 Gb SSD

Additionally, all plans include a free domain and SSL certificate, unlimited traffic, access to 24/7 customer support, built-in malware protection, and automatic updates. You also get free SiteAnalytics, a caching plugin for faster reloads, and Jetpack backup.

Another reason to opt for IONOS is the fact that the auto updates are fully customizable, so you can turn them on or off for core, theme, plugin, and PHP versions separately.

Pricing

Here are the available InterServer pricing plans:

  • Shared Hosting — From $1.00/month (1 website, 50 Gb SSD, 15 Gb RAM, 5 email addresses, free domain and SSL, unlimited traffic, malware scanning, caching plugin, Jetpack backup)
  • Managed WordPress Hosting — From $1.00/month (same as shared, but with fully managed updates, daily content backups, and built-in website performance monitoring)

Pros

  • Super cheap for the first year
  • Free DDoS and malware protection
  • Customizable auto-updates
  • Upgraded servers with 3x faster SSD and caching

Cons

  • Outsourced customer service (English as a second language) that occasionally struggles to provide clear, straightforward solutions to issues

8. HostArmada — Nine Data Centers to Choose From and Up to 21 Free Daily Content Backups

HostArmada provides a fully managed WP hosting experience, which includes installation, configuration, website optimization, themes, plugins, and updates.

Every managed WP hosting plan HostArmada offers comes with free website migration, a free SSL certification, free domain registration, malware scan and removal, and from seven to 21 daily content backups. This makes it ideal as a blog host and for websites that put out a lot of content daily, as you can always revert to the backed-up version with a single click if anything goes south.

Host Armada data centers

Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
From $2.99/month 99.9% 1.5 seconds From 30k to 120k monthly visitors From 15 Gb to 40 Gb SSD

In addition to managing the technical aspects of your website, HostArmada provides comprehensive WP tutorials, so even if you have no previous experience, you’ll be able to easily add new pages and content to your site through the intuitive cPanel.

One of the biggest selling points of HostArmada is the company’s server distribution. With data centers in nine different locations around the globe, you can offer super-fast page loading times to customers in North America, Europe, and South-East Asia (SEA).

Pricing

Here are the available HostArmada pricing plans:

  • Start Dock — From $2.99/month (1 website, 15 Gb SSD, 2 CPU cores, 2 Gb RAM, DNS management, 7 daily backups, advanced firewall, malware scanning, ~30k monthly visitors)
  • Web Warp — From $4.93/month (unlimited websites, 30 Gb SSD, 4 Gb RAM, 3 website migrations, 14 daily backups, ~60k monthly visitors)
  • Speed Reaper — From $5.92/month (unlimited websites, 40 Gb SSD, 6 Gb RAM, 5 website migrations, 21 daily backups, ~120k monthly visitors)

Pros

  • Multiple free daily content backups
  • Free website migration for up to five sites
  • Nine data center locations to choose from

Cons

  • Limited monthly traffic

9. NameCheap — Great for Managing Multiple Websites from a Single Dashboard

NameCheap offers secure and reliable managed WP hosting solutions for businesses of all sizes, with thousands of themes and plugins to choose from.

With the service, you also get free domain name registration for a full year, unmetered bandwidth on all plans, and simple one-click backups for your site.

NameCheap Pricing Plans

Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
From $1.98/month 99.98% Over 2.5 seconds Unlimited From 10 Gb to 100 Gb SSD

The main advantage of NameCheap over other hosting service providers is the fact that you can manage all your WordPress sites from a single easy-to-use dashboard. This is excellent if you’re simultaneously managing a blog and an online store or several blogs, but it is otherwise a fairly niche use case.

Another reason to opt for NameCheap is the fact that it offers a “free trial” for the managed WP hosting service. Regardless of the plan, you get the first month for free and can cancel at any time if you’re not satisfied with the service.

Pricing

Here are the available NameCheap pricing plans:

  • Shared Hosting — From $1.98/month (free domain name registration, 3 websites, 20 Gb SSD, 30 domain-based email addresses)
  • Managed WP Hosting — From $34.88/year (10 Gb SSD, 50k monthly visitors, free CDN)

Pros

  • The first month of managed WP hosting is free
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Easily scalable managed hosting solutions
  • Free domain name registration

Cons

  • Doesn’t offer a free SSL certificate on the starter plan
  • Limits the number of monthly website visitors

10. Domain.com — Hand-Picked WP Themes, Pre-Installed Plugins, and a Customized Control Panel

Domain.com is a WP hosting provider that helps you turn your website vision into reality with a selection of hand-picked themes and pre-installed plugins.

While Domain.com is slightly more expensive than the competitors, it offers a user-friendly control panel that’s fully customized to suit the needs of your website and your business. It also doesn’t limit the storage or bandwidth on any plan and offers free domain name registration for a full year.

Domain.com WP Hosting

Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
From $3.75/month 99.99% Over 2.5 seconds Unlimited Unlimited

That said, the biggest reason why Domain.com is at the very bottom of our list is the fact that customer support is only available if you opt for the more expensive pricing plan. The same goes for malware removal and website security.

Pricing

Here are the available Domain.com shared WP hosting pricing plans:

  • WP Starter — From $3.75/month (one website, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, customized control panel, pre-installed themes, and plugins)
  • WP Essentials — From $6.95/month (Starter + 24/7 customer support, automatic malware removal, Sitelock professional security)

One thing to keep in mind is that both plans are billed upfront for 12, 24, or 36 months. There are no monthly payment options.

Pros

  • Curated WP themes and pre-installed plugins
  • No limit to storage or bandwidth
  • Fully customized control panel

Cons

  • No monthly payment options
  • Domain privacy and website security only available on the Essentials plan

The Best WordPress Hosting Providers Compared

Here’s a quick web hosting comparison table to provide a better overview of what different hosting providers offer for the money:

WP Hosting Provider Starting Price Uptime Average Load Time Traffic Storage
DreamHost From $2.59/month 100% 1.75 seconds Unlimited on shared hosting and VPS, 100k to 1M monthly visitors on managed hosting From 30 Gb to 240 Gb SSD storage
BlueHost From $2.95/month 99.99% 2.5 seconds Unlimited From 10 Gb to 240 Gb SSD
InMotion From $2.29/month 99.99% 1.19 seconds Unlimited From 100 Gb to unlimited SSD storage
Liquid Web From $7.60/month 99.99% 1.4 seconds Unlimited From 15 Gb to 408 Gb SSD
A2 Hosting From $2.99/month 99.99% 290ms on Turbo servers Unlimited From 100 Gb SSD to unlimited
InterServer From $2.50/month 99.99% 2.3 seconds Unlimited Unlimited
IONOS From $1.00/month 99.98% 0.7 seconds Unlimited From 25 Gb to 75 Gb SSD
HostArmada From $2.99/month 99.9% 1.5 seconds From 30k to 120k monthly visitors From 15 Gb to 40 Gb SSD
NameCheap From $1.98/month 99.98% Over 2.5 seconds Unlimited From 10 Gb to 100 Gb SSD
Domain.com From $3.75/month 99.99% Over 2.5 seconds Unlimited Unlimited

Understanding the Different Types of Web Hosting

Most providers offer several different types of web hosting services. If you have no previous experience with WP hosting, you’re probably unaware of the key difference between shared, managed, dedicated, and VPS hosting.

To help clear out the confusion, here’s a quick breakdown of the different types of web hosting, so you can choose the one that’s the best fit for your website, business, and budget.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting implies that your website will share the server’s resources with the other websites on the same server. Since this lets the provider fully utilize each server by catering to multiple clients, shared hosting is usually the most affordable option.

The drawback of shared hosting is that you might experience downtime or slower page loading times if one of the websites you share resources with regularly gets a huge amount of traffic.

Additionally, with shared hosting, you’re fully responsible for updates, plugins, backups, and other crucial website maintenance tasks in the WordPress backend.

Managed WP Hosting

Managed WP hosting is a much better option for WordPress sites since the server architecture is designed specifically for WordPress, which results in noticeably better site performance. You also get built-in caching on the server level for faster reload times, automatic WordPress updates, one-click backups, access to staging areas, and WordPress-specific security features.

What’s more, all the technical aspects are handled by the hosting provider — updates, security, backups, plugins, and optimization. This lets you focus on creating and publishing content for your website while dedicated WordPress experts take care of the underlying infrastructure.

As you would expect, managed WP hosting services are slightly more expensive, but a few dollars extra each month isn’t too big of a cost increase, considering the benefits.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is the most expensive option, but it comes with a huge upside — you get to choose the server hardware and don’t have to share the resources with anyone else.

While this may sound tempting, in reality, you don’t need the power of a dedicated hosting server for a WordPress website. This type of hosting is much better suited for large businesses whose websites must be hosted in an isolated environment for regulatory and compliance reasons.

VPS Hosting

Virtual Private Servers are the middle ground between shared and dedicated hosting. The hardware resources are still shared between multiple websites, but each site is hosted on a partitioned virtual server.

Put simply, you get a part of the server’s resources that are dedicated solely to your website but at a much more affordable price compared to dedicated servers. Because of this, VPS hosting results in optimized performance regardless of the traffic level (both yours and of other websites you share the server with), so it offers more reliability and better stability than shared hosting.

The drawback, aside from the increased cost, is that you’ll likely need a team member with decent WP experience to actively manage your server.

Which Type of Hosting is the Best for You?

Every type of web hosting has its own advantages and drawbacks, so it largely depends on your needs, budget, and experience with WordPress. Here are the key differences between the types summed up in an easy-to-understand table:

Hosting Type

Resources Performance Cost WP Experience Required
Shared Shared with other websites on the server Depends on the level of traffic of other websites on the server Low

Some experience required

Managed WP 

Isolated resources for your website Excellent performance due to servers specifically optimized for WP Medium No experience required; all technical aspects handled by hosting provider
Dedicated Isolated resources for your website Superb performance Super high

Decent experience required

VPS

Shared, but you get a dedicated portion of the server’s resources Decent performance Medium-to-high

You’ll likely need a full-time system admin

Factors to Consider When Choosing the Best Hosting Service for Your Needs 

The type of website hosting is just one of many factors you need to consider when choosing between multiple web hosting companies. Other key factors include the average page load speed, server resources, traffic limitations, server uptime, pricing, customer support, and user reviews.

Here’s a breakdown of each of these factors, so you know exactly what you should pay attention to:

Average Page Load Speed

The speed at which your website loads greatly impacts the visitors’ experience and your website’s SEO. If it takes more than a couple of seconds for the site to fully load, people might click away and leave your website.

What’s worse, high bounce rates will negatively impact your website’s SERP (Search Engine Result Page) rankings, resulting in fewer visitors and conversions.

What you should aim for is a service with an average page load time of around 1.5 seconds or lower.

Server Resources

Your site’s load speed may fluctuate significantly if you opt for shared hosting, especially if you share the server with large websites that get a lot of traffic. That’s why managed WP hosting is a more reliable option, given that all the server’s resources are solely dedicated to your website.

When it comes to dedicated and VPS hosting, the more resources you have at your disposal, the better your website will perform.

Traffic Limitations 

Different providers offer varying traffic limits on different types of hosting and different plans within the same hosting type.

Reaching a monthly traffic limit doesn’t mean you won’t be able to receive website visitors. Instead, the provider will charge you extra for all traffic beyond the determined limit.

Most shared hosting plans come with unlimited traffic, but the catch here is that the level of traffic one website receives impacts the performance of all other websites that share the same server.

On the other hand, most managed WP hosting solutions have a strict monthly traffic limit. While this is arguably the biggest drawback of managed hosting, the limit on the most expensive managed hosting plans is usually between 500k and 1 million website visitors. With that many visitors and decent conversion rates, you’ll have no trouble paying a few extra dollars a month for going over the limit.

Server Uptime

When a server your website is hosted on goes down, people won’t be able to access your website. This means you’ll be losing potential customers and revenue, so it’s crucial to opt for a provider with 99.9% uptime or better. Even that 0.1% means you can expect your website to be down for more than 8 hours a year.

While it’s almost impossible to guarantee that a server will never go down, providers should proactively monitor the status of each of their servers and instantly react to get the server back up as fast as possible.

That’s why providers like DreamHost are the top choice. Their 100% uptime guarantee doesn’t necessarily mean that there won’t be a single second of downtime, but instead that the downtime will be minimal and that you’ll be financially compensated for every minute your website is unavailable.

Pricing

When it comes to site hosting, the initial price tag can be quite deceiving. You need to carefully consider what’s included in the pricing plan before you commit.

Some providers turn crucial features and functionalities, such as SSL certification and domain registration, into paid add-ons that you have to pay separately, so the advertised price is often several times lower than the actual price you’ll end up paying.

Customer Support

Every now and again, you might encounter an issue with WordPress itself or one of the plugins. If you’re not particularly tech-savvy and have a ton of WP experience, you’ll need quick and easy access to professional, technical customer support that can help you resolve the issues as quickly as possible.

That’s why it’s best to opt for providers that offer in-house support and are experts on the subject. The last thing you want is to have to sit through multiple conversations with outsourced customer support, try and explain a complex issue to someone who uses English as a second language, and have to spend days solving a problem.

User Reviews

Last, but not least, you should read through a handful of user reviews of the provider you’re interested in, to get a better feel for the provider’s reliability, advantages, and drawbacks.

Every company will advertise its hosting services as the very best in the industry, so user reviews are the best way to get objective opinions on the quality of the service.

Can I Host My Own Website? 

You certainly can, provided you have the required budget and the technical knowledge, or a server administrator on your payroll.

In order to host your own website, you first need to build a server. The average cost of the hardware required to build a server and host a website ranges from $1,000 to $2,5000, not to mention the cost of server maintenance.

Unless you absolutely have to host your own website due to regulatory and compliance reasons, it’s much more cost-effective to opt for a website hosting service.

WordPress Hosting FAQs

How much is WordPress hosting?

What is the best free web hosting for WordPress?

Should I use WordPress or regular hosting?

Which type of hosting is best for WordPress?

Which hosting is best for website speed?

What’s the best hosting for WordPress eCommerce?

What’s the cheapest WordPress hosting service?

Conclusion – What’s the Best Hosting Provider to Use for WordPress Sites in 2023?

There are quite a few excellent hosting services on the market, so the choice comes down to the needs of your business, the amount of monthly traffic you expect, and your budget.

The provider that’s best for you will depend on whether you’re looking for the best shared hosting for WordPress or the best managed WP hosting service or if you want a dedicated server for your website.

If you still can’t make up your mind after reading our reviews and considering all of the key factors, we recommend trying out DreamHost. It’s affordable, has a great average page load time, lets you migrate your website for free, and offers knowledgeable WP support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Get started with DreamHost and see first-hand why thousands of businesses consider it the best web hosting for WordPress.

Aleksandar Stevanovic

Alex is a Senior Software Content Writer at Techopedia. He focuses on creating reader-oriented comparison pages, reviews, research pieces, and editorials. With nearly a decade of experience, he’s written for numerous leading brands across various niches, such as The Tech Report, Bitcoincasinos.com, CEX.IO, Forbes, Business2Community, and many more. His expertise in cybersecurity has made him a popular authority on privacy tools such as VPNs, password managers, blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, and antivirus software. You'll find Alex working on cars, playing guitar, and cooking fantastic food in his spare time. You can reach Alex on Twitter: @stevanovic_alex