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Compare The Best Web Hosting Companies

Our recommendation for most people is Hostinger because it’s an affordable, fast, and reliable web hosting service. Sign up with Hostinger for as low as $1.99 per month.

Go with the wrong web host and you’ll end up paying for more than bad service. You have to get this right because a reputable web host keeps your site online and helps you avoid unnecessary downtime.

This guide explains the best types of web hosting for different situations. Use these reviews to find the best web host without breaking the bank.

The Top 10 Best Web Hosting Providers

The best web host for the majority of our readers is Hostinger because it includes everything your website needs at a great price. Save up to 80% on Hostinger web hosting today.

• Hostinger – Best overall
• Bluehost – Best for new WordPress websites
• Dreamhost – Best Unbeatable Value On a Month-to-Month Hosting Plan
• HostGator – Best for simple websites
• GreenGeeks – Best eco-friendly hosting
• SiteGround – Best WordPress Certified Host For Speed and Security
• A2 Hosting – Fast & reliable shared hosting
• InMotion – Best VPS hosting
• WPEngine – Best managed WordPress hosting
• Nexcess – Best for ecommerce hosting

Our research team reviewed and tested dozens of web hosting providers to narrow it down to the 10 on this list.

Each review covers the highlights and pricing for each web host. After the reviews is a buying guide to help you compare the best options.

Hostinger – Best Overall

Visit Hostinger

• STARTS AT JUST $1.99 PER MONTH
• FREE WEEKLY BACKUPS
• FREE SSL CERTIFICATE
• 30-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE

GET STARTED NOW

Hostinger offers dependable web hosting at a great price. Shared hosting plans start at $1.99 per month, which includes free weekly backups and enough bandwidth for 10,000 visitors to your site.

Normally you have to back up your site yourself or pay extra, but you get that peace of mind for free with Hostinger.

The most popular option is the Premium Shared Hosting plan which costs $2.59 per month. This lets you create up to 100 websites and host 25,000 visitors. You’ll also get a free domain for one year and a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate to secure your website.

The Premium Shared Hosting plan provides 100 GB SSD storage, which is enough for various website content. Should you need more space, upgrade to one of their VPS or cloud hosting plans.

Hostinger uses its own control panel called hPanel. Thanks to the eye-catching and well-organized navigation icons, it’s user-friendly and easy to navigate. It also comes with an auto installer that lets you set up WordPress or other content management systems using only a few clicks.

Another great feature is their dedicated WordPress dashboard on hPanel. 

You can manage several tasks, such as updating the core WordPress version, activating or deactivating plugins, and enabling maintenance mode from the hPanel. A navigation button lets you access your WordPress dashboard via hPanel with a single click.

LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress (LSCWP) is automatically installed when you set up WordPress. Its server-level cache and other optimization features help you accelerate the website for a better user experience.

Hostinger ensures your maximum online presence with their 99.9% uptime guarantee. Their quick-response 24/7 live chat support will also assist you whenever you need help.

Bluehost – Best for New WordPress WebSites

Visit BlueHost

• NORMALLY $8.99/MONTH
• FREE DOMAIN AND SSL CERTIFICATE
• RECOMMENDED BY WORDPRESS
• 30-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE

GET A 63% DISCOUNT

Bluehost is one of the most popular web hosting companies in the world, especially among people launching their WordPress websites. Bluehost is one of three hosts that is officially recommended by WordPress, and we agree.

They offer great rates and a beginner-friendly platform that makes every aspect of running a WordPress website easy. You can certainly build other types of websites on Bluehost, but it is definitely set up to work best with WordPress.

Most of the time Bluehost will walk you through a task the first time, like setting up a blog or email account on your site.

If you get stuck or have a problem, they have 24/7 support by phone or live chat. They list their support number and live chat options right on their site, so you can reach out for help within two clicks.

Installing WordPress is one click, as are hundreds of other apps available in Bluehost’s deep app marketplace.

Bluehost also offers fantastic analytics and SEO tools to track how well your website is ranking for specific keywords. This gives you a good idea of how you should optimize your site for the best search rankings.

The Basic shared hosting plan is usually $8.99 per month, but there are major discounts if you are a new customer. If you sign up for three years and lock in the price, you can get it at $4.95 per month.

With a 12-month commitment, the price drops to $3.45 per month. Like other hosts, renewal pricing is higher than promotional pricing, so I recommend signing up for a longer contract to lock in the low price.

Quick Sprout readers an even bigger discount on Bluehost. New customers can click here to get a rate of $2.75 per month when you sign up for a new three-year contract.

If your site keeps growing and you want to upgrade, Bluehost gives you lots of options: managed WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting. When you are ready for more server power and control, you can grow and stick with the same provider.

Bluehost is a very safe play for people who want to build their site with WordPress. If you want to use another content management system besides WordPress, there will probably be a little extra legwork and backend maintenance.

Check out Bluehost today and test-drive their web hosting with a risk-free, 30-day, money-back guarantee.

DreamHost –  Best Unbeatable Value On a Month-to-Month Hosting Plan

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• UNLIMITED TRAFFIC AND FREE SITE MIGRATION
• MONTH-TO-MONTH PRICING STARTS AT $1.99
• RECOMMENDED BY WORDPRESS
• FREE SSL CERTIFICATE

VIEW THE LATEST DEALS

DreamHost offers huge savings for their month-to-month pricing along with very solid hosting performance.

In fact, their month-to-month plans start at $1.99/month. This plan includes one website with unlimited traffic, unmetered bandwidth, and a free SSL Certificate—a great deal.

This is just the promotional pricing though. This price goes up after the first month. You’ll then be paying the current monthly rate, which is $7.99 per month. That’s still a lot lower than you’d be paying month-to-month compared to other top web hosting providers.

Of course, DreamHost also offers one-year and three-year contracts that start as low as $2.95 per month which allows you to save more money in the long run. Even though it’s not the lowest on this list (check out Hostinger for the lowest contract hosting plans), it’s still a good deal.

If you run a nonprofit, I highly recommend DreamHost. They offer one free unlimited shared hosting plan for 501(c)(3) organizations. That’s a deal you cannot beat.

It’s also a great option for WordPress hosting. DreamHost is one of three web hosts that is officially recommended by WordPress, and they also offer managed WordPress hosting called DreamPress. That is one of the most hassle-free ways to run a WordPress site.

Customer service is a little less traditional: email support is available 24/7, but live chat is only on during business hours. If you want technical support over the phone, you have to pay an additional $9.95.

However, if you spring for either the DreamPress Plus or Pro-managed WordPress plans, phone support is included along with other premium features.

Sign up with DreamHost today for the lowest price in hosting without a long-term commitment. DreamHost has an industry-leading free trial period — a full 97-day money-back guarantee.

HostGator – Best for Simple Websites

Visit HostGator

• NORMALLY $8.95/MONTH
• MONTH-TO-MONTH AT $10.95
• FREE DOMAIN AND SSL CERTIFICATE
• 45-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE

GET A 61% DISCOUNT

HostGator offers all the hosting essentials you need at a great price, plus comes with a 45-day money-back guarantee. If you don’t need a complex website, go with HostGator.

I’m talking about the standard business info website with products, services, “our story”, and so on. If you want people to be able to find you, see your portfolio, or sign contact forms, HostGator makes it as easy as possible.

HostGator offers an extensive list of how-to guides for technical support. If you don’t find the answers you need, you can turn to phone, live chat, and email support.

Unlike some hosts, HostGator does include support in all its plans. If you want a hosting plan that’s cheap and includes support, this is the host for you.

If you want to get your hands dirty, there is a bit of a learning curve to taking advantage of their advanced options.

HostGator does offer Windows hosting in addition to Linux, as well as a variety of options to upgrade, including cloud hosting, VPS hosting, managed WordPress, and a dedicated server. Shared hosting plans start at $2.64/month with a three-year contract.

QuickSprout readers can get up to 66% off new HostGator plans using the link.

If you’re interested in trying HostGator, I recommend taking full advantage of the 45-day money-back guarantee and testing out their support thoroughly before committing.

Overall, this is a great web host for simple deployment and uses like a company website that doesn’t necessarily see a ton of traffic each month. However, with VPS options, it’ll allow you to scale if you need.

GreenGeeks – Best Eco-Friendly Hosting

Visit GreenGeeks

• NORMALLY $10.95/MONTH
• FREE DOMAIN NAME
• FREE WILDCARD SSL
• UNLIMITED WEB SPACE

GET STARTED FOR $2.95/MO

GreenGeeks is an eco-friendly alternative to other web hosting providers.

What’s that mean? It means they’ve used renewable energy to power their web hosting services. So you can feel good about creating your website while showing your support for keeping the environment sustainable.

Aside from being good to the planet, their web hosting services are top-notch. They offer fast speeds, solid uptime, and great solutions for:

• WordPress Hosting
• WooCommerce Hosting
• Reseller Web Hosting
• Virtual Private Servers
• Shared Hosting

Bottom line: They’re a fantastic option for eco-conscious businesses and websites.

Here’s a look at their prices for shared hosting.

Like other hosts, they provide an automatic 1-Click WordPress Installer and auto-updates to keep your WordPress site up to date.

They also provide daily backups and advanced security features in order to help you keep your data safe and secure.

GreenGeeks also stays up to date with the latest technology like PHP7, SSD, CDN, and more. This helps make sure your website always stays fast and secure.

They also offer 24/7 support available by phone, chat, or via their ticket system. They are typically very quick to respond and can assist with a wide range of issues.

I’m a big fan of GreenGeeks for their great service and dedication to helping the planet with their environmentally-friendly web hosting plans. If you’re looking for a “green” hosting company, GreenGeeks is just what you need.

SiteGround – Best WordPress Certified Host For Speed and Security

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• STARTS AT $2.99/MONTH
• FREE SSL, EMAIL, CDN, & BACKUPS
• RECOMMENDED BY WORDPRESS
• 30-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE

GET A 80% DISCOUNT

SiteGround is built to deliver top-class speed and rock-solid security for WordPress hosting. Currently they are running a huge promotion. You can get 80% off all annual hosting plans and a free website transfer. It makes a good deal even better.

Hosting on SiteGround means you won’t have to worry about speed or security at all. It starts with the technology their hosting is built upon. SiteGround utilizes Google Cloud to maintain swift and stable connections, and their SSD persistent data storage ensures low latency.

Of course, you’re not on the hook for any of this–you just have to sign up for SiteGround and launch your WordPress site–they’ll take care of the heavy lifting on the backend.

SiteGround security is on constant alert. They run server health checks every 0.5 seconds and their AI-driven anti-bot system blocks between 500,000 and 2 million brute force attack attempts every hour.

This combination of speed and security can work for most sites. But, as one of WordPress’ recommended web hosts, SiteGround is particularly apt at delivering this performance for WordPress sites.

They add an extra level of security there, by constantly scanning for emergent platform vulnerabilities and offering auto updates.

Plus, all SiteGround plans—not just their WordPress hosting options—include one-click WordPress installation, the WP Starter site builder, and auto updates for both the WordPress platform and its plugins.

For a limited time, you can receive up to 80% off all annual Site Ground hosting plans:

• StartUp: $2.99/month for one year, paid annually
• GrowBig: $4.69/month for one year, paid annually
• GoGeek: $7.99/month for one year, paid annually

Keep in mind that each plan will renew at a higher rate after one year. SiteGround also gives you options at checkout to pay for a 24-month or 36-month term instead.

However, SiteGround gives nice discounts on renewals longer than one year. Two-year renewals get a 20% discount on the base renewal rate and three-year renewals get 30% off.

So, in terms of long-term value, you’re still getting the best deal by capitalizing on their great intro rate for one year up front.

Altogether, SiteGround offers the best technology and services to host your WordPress site and keep it fast and safe for all visitors.

A2 Hosting – Fast and Reliable Shared Hosting

Visit A2 Hosting

• NORMALLY $10.99/MONTH
• MONTH-TO-MONTH PRICING AT $9.99
• FREE DOMAIN AND SSL CERTIFICATE
• 30-DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE

GET A 63% DISCOUNT

A2 Hosting stands out for their great speeds and low prices.

At every hosting tier (shared, VPS, dedicated), A2 Hosting beats other hosts on speed. If you’re coming from another shared web host, you’re likely going to see an improvement in loading speed once you migrate to A2.

With their Turbo Boost and Turbo Max plans, you’ll get access to their Turbo Servers. They boast that it’s 20x faster than their other servers and includes:

• 40% faster AMD EPYC CPU performance
• 2x faster to first byte
• Manage 9x more traffic
• 3x faster read/write speeds with NVMe drives

A2 Hosting also has a 99.9% uptime commitment on all plans so you know you’ll have a reliable host that won’t be down often.

They offer free site migration with each plan too. If you’ve set your site up on a bad host and want to migrate, this is a fantastic deal. It’ll save your dozens of hours trying to get your site rebuilt. The A2 Hosting team takes care of it for you.

Like many of the other web hosts, there are 1-click installs for all the popular CMS tools like WordPress, Magento, and Drupal.

Note: Their startup plan includes only one website.

If you plan on hosting multiple websites, you’ll need to get the Drive plan which is an extra $2/month after the promotional period ends.

One trick to save money with A2 Hosting: the promotional prices end on renewal. To lock in the 63% discount for as long as possible, go for the tri-annual billing which will bill for three years at once. You’ll get 2 years of hosting for free.

InMotion Hosting – Best VPS Hosting

Visit InMotion Hosting

• NORMALLY $17.99/MONTH
• FREE DOMAIN AND SSL CERTIFICATE
• FREE AND UNLIMITED EMAIL
• 90-DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE

GET A 57% DISCOUNT

InMotion is the host for you if you’re looking for a virtual private server (VPS). They have the best pricing around along with top notch customer support as an added value. Something you usually have to sacrifice for a better price. But not with Inmotion. 

With VPS hosting, you get more control over the server than you do with shared hosting. This is great, but you definitely need to know what you’re doing configuring a server.

If you’re not super confident in the command line, you can opt for a managed VPS plan from InMotion. They’ll handle the technical side of things and keep an eye on security for you.

For the developers out there, InMotion VPS includes optional root access with every plan. You won’t have to upgrade to make the changes you want to the server.

Whenever questions come up, you can reach out to the company’s excellent customer support team. Don’t believe it? Try for yourself. InMotion’s 90-day free trial period gives you plenty of time to test out the quality of support.

Managed hosting, great support, and the latest technology–these are the reasons people choose to go with InMotion.

I highly recommend this option for ecommerce. Online shoppers like a fast experience with no hiccups. With InMotion VPS you can ensure that your site has the resources it needs to handle any traffic spike.

There are also a number of fail-safes built into the hosting platform. If anything happens to your server, InMotion will automatically spin your site back up almost instantly on a server in the same cluster.

You also won’t have to worry about SSL certificates, which keep your shoppers credit card info private. All InMotion VPS plans include AutoSSL, which lets you enable this crucial protection for every website visitor with a single click.

VPS hosting with InMotion gives you the speed you need along with the peace of mind that your site will always be safe and secure.

Managed VPS hosting starts as low as $17.99 per month. Visit InMotion to find out if you can get an even better deal today.

WP Engine – Best Managed WordPress Hosting

Visit WP Engine

• NORMALLY $30/MONTH
• MONTH-TO-MONTH PRICING
• FREE DOMAIN AND SSL CERTIFICATE
• 30-DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE

4 MONTHS FREE OR 20% OFF

WP Engine is one of the best (if not the best) WordPress hosts out there. Full stop.

They provide a truly excellent product, that’s highly optimized for WordPress websites. If you want all the storage and speed you can get for your WP blog or online store, this is the host for you.

It does come at a price though. A fully managed WordPress host is noticeably more expensive than shared hosting providers.

WP Engine’s lowest-priced plan is $23/month, and that’s only for one 10GB site with max 25,000 visitors/month. You get two months free when you sign up for a year, however, and can get an even better deal signing up through Quick Sprout.

Yes, the price tag is higher than other hosts, but when you factor in what WP Engine does, it’s an incredibly appealing option for WordPress site owners.

As a managed WordPress host, WP Engine only provides service to WordPress users, which means its entire infrastructure can be optimized for WordPress. Your site will be wicked fast, there’s virtually no downtime, and lots of maintenance tasks get taken care of automatically.

They offer special plans for people who are running an online store with WordPress. These are much more expensive than managed WordPress hosting, but you’ll get access to premium WordPress ecommerce themes and other tools that would cost hundreds of dollars sold separately.

Bottom line: If you want a blazing fast site where everything is taken care of automatically, you’ll want WP Engine.

Customer support is also laser-focused on WordPress, which makes for highly competent knowledgeable support staff available through tracked tickets and on live chat 24/7.

You’ll be paying more in order to get a lot more. WP Engine is the ultimate choice for any business running on WordPress. If you don’t want to waste time managing the hosting component of your website, then these are the guys to turn to.

Nexcess – Best for Ecommerce Hosting

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• MANAGED WEB HOSTING FOR 9 CMS
• GREAT FOR ECOMMERCE SITES
• 24/7 CUSTOMER SERVICE
• CHOOSE FROM 9 DIFFERENT PLANS

LEARN MORE

Nexcess is a web hosting solution from Liquid Web — a provider I’ve featured on my lists for best dedicated web hosting, best VPS hosting, and best WordPress hosting.

So it’s no real shock that Nexcess makes my list for best web hosts. Where they really shine is managed ecommerce hosting. This is ideal for people who need a speedy site, but don’t want to be the one configuring the backend.

Nexcess really specializes in these managed hosting arrangements, and offer a great selection of ecommerce platforms to build on:

• Magento
• Woocommerce
• WordPress
• Drupal
• BigCommerce
• Sylius
• ExpressionEngine
• Craft CMS
• Orocrm

Again, all of these are managed ecommerce hosting plans–you won’t be on the hook for configuring the server or troubleshooting issues that pop up.

Need more speed? Not a problem. Their Nexcess Cloud Accelerator—a feature that adds a layer on the cloud stack that increases the speed of your websites loading time.

That’s a huge boon because speed is everything when it comes to keeping your customers on your website and browsing.

Here are the three most popular ecommerce plans from Nexcess.

There are many more plans available for each type of hosting, it just depends on the resources you need.

This makes Nexcess perfect for any growing business looking to scale. No matter where you are with your business, there’s likely a plan for you with Nexcess.

On top of that, they have a dedicated support team available 24/7 to help you address any technical issues as they occur. Very important when it comes to web hosting.

If you’re running an ecommerce website or if you have a startup that you know will grow quickly, Nexcess should definitely be in consideration.

Prices vary depending on which CMS platform you want to use. But their WordPress plans start at $13.30/month.

Additional Web Hosting Reviews

In a broad top list post like Best Web Hosting, I considered how different options stack up against one another and how they fit within the general category.

But there are more things to think about, like taking a deeper dive into individual hosting providers to learn more about their strengths and weaknesses. Likewise, you also want to think about the different types of web hosting available, and check out reviews of the providers that excel in those different categories.

The following information will be helpful to you as you make your decision about the best hosting provider for your unique needs.

Hosting Company Reviews

Narrowed your list to a few top options? Before you make that final decision, check out our detailed company reviews on some of the most popular web hosting services out there today.

• Hostinger Review
• Bluehost Review
• Dreamhost Review
• HostGator Review
• A2 Web Hosting Review
• InMotion Review
• SiteGround Review
• iPage Review
• GoDaddy Review
• Whogohost Review
• NameCheap Review
• Bluehost vs Dreamhost Comparison
• Bluehost vs HostGator Comparison

Types of Web Hosting

Not clear on the different kinds of web hosting available? Wondering who is the best in a given category? No matter which criteria is most important to you, be sure to read up to learn more about it all in the following posts.

• Understanding Different Types of Hosting
• Best Free Web Hosting Plans
• Best Cheap Web Hosting Plans
• Best Cloud Web Hosting Plans
• Best Cpanel Hosting Plans
• Best Dedicated Hosting Plans
• Best Reseller Hosting Plans
• Best Shared Hosting Plans
• Best VPS Hosting Plans
• Best WordPress Hosting

How To Find the Best Host for You

You do not have to know anything about web development to get hosting.

But knowing how to assess a few key factors helps a lot.

I’ll hit on each one in this section. You’ll be able to assess your options, get something that works for you, and not have to worry about hosting again for awhile.

Featured Web Hosting Partner

Hostinger offers the most affordable premium hosting plans. With plans starting as low as $1.99/month you will not find a better deal. Plus get a FREE domain name and SSL certificate when you sign up for premium today.
GET THE BEST DEAL

So how do I evaluate web hosts? What actually matters?

Let’s go through all the key items.

Site Uptime

Uptime is the most crucial component of a good web host. If your site isn’t up, you won’t make money or gain an audience.

First and foremost, you want a web host with great uptime. This means you’re site is always available and never goes down.

To try to avoid the “just trust us” promise of near-perfect uptime, most hosts provide some sort of guarantee of at least 99.9 percent uptime. However, that guarantee isn’t much of a guarantee. It just means your bill can be discounted in the event of any unplanned downtime.

HostGator, for example, will credit you one free month of hosting if your uptime ever dips below 99.9%.

There’s a lot of fine print on these guarantees, too, including not accepting self-reported or third-party uptime data, and not providing refunds for downtime that was out of the host’s control (for example, a hurricane).

Site Speed

Site speed impacts everything related to your site. Want search rankings? Get a fast site. Want conversions on your site? Make it fast. Want happy users? Speed it up.

Every part of your business is impacted by the speed of your site.

When looking at different web hosts, make sure you’re choosing a host that can serve every page lickity split.

There is some nuance with site speed.

In the early days, you need a host that’s fast “enough.” It doesn’t have to be blistering fast, but it needs to be fast.

Think of Amazon. Back in the day when Amazon just sold books, their site needed to be fast but it didn’t need to be instantaneous.

Now that many people use it for all their shopping, Amazon’s site can’t be fast enough.

The bigger you get, the faster you’ll want to be. If you’re planning on building a high-traffic site, you’ll want a host that can maintain crazy-fast speeds on large sites.

Customer Support

When running your own site, web host customer support is the single most important thing a web host can offer.

Digging through use reviews doesn’t always give you a conclusive answer on the quality of support at a particular web host.

Watch out for glowing reviews on top publications, they don’t always reflect reality.

There is one true test for assessing the customer support quality at any host.

The free trial customer support test.

Pretty much every web host has some sort of money-back guarantee on their shared hosting plans, which means you can set up your website and see what you think of the service with relatively low stakes — just your time and any add-on fees you opt into, like paying for domain registration.

I recommend going to town with customer support during that trial period. Get on live chat, open tickets, hop on the phone as much as possible to see if you like what you’re being served up.

Most web hosts offer some sort of free trial period. I recommend using this time to really dig into your host’s customer support — its knowledge center and especially support staff across all channels. That’ll tell you the real story.

Traffic Volume

The amount of traffic that you get has a huge impact on the hosting that you need.

For a site that gets 300 visitors every month, pretty much any standard hosting package will be good enough. As long as your web host has strong customer support, you’re good to go.

As you get bigger, all sorts of small details start to matter a lot more.

Is the PHP on your server being updated regularly? Do you have a CDN for your content?

Is your site being backed up daily and can you restore it within 15 minutes if something goes wrong?

Do you have an SSL certificate? Can your server handle a giant traffic spike during a marketing promotion?

Whenever I have a larger site, I look for premium hosting that takes care of all this for me. And if I’m planning on building a large site, I look for a host that can easily scale to millions of visitors per month. I’m happy to pay a premium price in order to guarantee easy upgrades in the future.

Don’t skimp if you’re going big.

And if you plan to stay under 50,000 visitors/month, get a standard shared hosting package. There’s no reason to worry about the advanced stuff.

Price

While you don’t want to overpay on hosting, you definitely don’t want to underpay either.

Avoid choosing a host exclusively on price.

Most basic web hosting plans are in the $10-$20/month range. Yes, there are cheaper options. Some of them are promotional offers that go away at renewals. Others are hosting plans with terrible support and uptime.

My rule is if the price sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

I also don’t worry about chasing promotional offers to save a few dollars. For every site I’ve ever managed, I used the same host without ever switching. Once you have a host you’re happy with, changing to save a few bucks isn’t going to be worth it. Promotional offers come and go pretty quickly.

Migration Features

The ability to easily and quickly migrate an existing site will save you weeks of time.

Even a basic WordPress site can be a real hassle to migrate. First you have to set up a new WordPress install on your new host. Then you need to export the database of content from your old site and import it into your new one. Finally you have to re-configure everything in WordPress like the theme, plugins, and settings.

That’s a real pain and that’s why I put together an entire guide on WordPress migration.

It is possible to skip all this.

Some hosts will offer a 1-click migration for popular site builders like WordPress.

If you’re switching hosts and handling the migration yourself, look for an easy migration feature. This is a great way to make the final decision once you’ve narrowed it down to a few final options.

If you are really concerned, A2 Hosting has a team of specialists that will migrate your site for you free of charge.

Managed Hosting

Here’s how a normal host works:

• After you sign up, you get a login.
• The login takes you to cPanel. The cPanel is an app on your server that lets you manage it through a UI without needing to know how to code anything.
• You configure your server however you want.
• There’s a FTP option to upload files manually to your server.
• There are also quick options for installing WordPress and other site software if you want.
• You get full access and can do anything you want. It’s a “choose your own adventure.” Install WordPress, Drupal, Magento, or code your entire site by hand.

Alternatively, there are managed web hosts. These hosts customize the hosting environment and manage a lot more of it for you.

WP Engine is the best example, they’re a managed host for WordPress. Instead of getting a cPanel login that lets me do anything I want, WP Engine gives me a login to their custom interface that’s built to manage WordPress sites specifically.

When a web host is optimized exclusively for WordPress, three key things happen:

1. Faster performing sites than shared hosting. Everything can be tailored to making WordPress work its best, whether that’s optimizing website caching or tinkering with the command line tools. The host only needs to know how to support WordPress, as opposed to, say, Joomla and a Node server and some sort of custom-made site and on and on.
2. More security and stability. A managed WordPress host can build a system that predicts, accommodates, and patches all of WordPress’s vulnerabilities. That means fewer malicious attacks and less downtime.
3. Admin and site maintenance get a lot easier. And that service is vital because managed WordPress hosting is significantly more expensive than shared web hosting services.

While I give up some flexibility from not having a basic web server like other hosts, a managed host takes care of a lot of ongoing tasks that I’d normally have to handle myself.

If you have a small business site, a normal host is fine. If you’re building a larger site, a managed host will save you a ton of time in the long run and is worth the extra cost.

The Top Web Hosting Providers in Summary

The best hosting providers offer different types of web hosting, including shared hosting, cloud hosting, VPS hosting, WordPress hosting, and managed hosting. You also need to evaluate factors like uptime, site speed, and support.

As your traffic grows, you need a hosting provider that can scale with your site. Whether you’re starting a new website or looking to switch providers, this guide has you covered.