Best Web Hosting for WordPress
The Ultimate Webmasters Guide: The Best Web Hosting for WordPress in 2020
A Look Into WordPress Web Hosting
Millions of websites around the world use WordPress to create websites. WordPress has created an image as one of the most efficient and accessible content management systems (CMS). The software is generally free to use but needs WordPress hosting to use WordPress on the web.
WordPress hosting is an optimized shared web hosting used for operating WordPress sites. Several WordPress users also like it because of its quick loading speed, efficient security system, and overall performance. Furthermore, many web hosts also offer very nice features such as customization of themes and plugins, automatic backup, file, and update versioning.
A Summary of Our Top WordPress Web Hosting Sites for 2020
Here is a simple summary to further help you choose the perfect fit for your preference. The table shows you the difference in the uptime, load time, support system, and starting cost of our Top 7 web hosting sites.
This is a side by side comparison of DreamHost WordPress Hosting, HostGator Managed WordPress, GoDaddy WordPress Hosting, SiteGround WordPress Hosting, A2 WordPress Hosting, BlueHost WordPress Hosting, and Hostinger WordPress Hosting.
UPTIME LOAD TIME CUSTOMER SUPPORT STARTING COST*
- DreamHost WordPress Hosting 99.92% 569 ms 24/7 live support $2.59/mo
- HostGator Managed WordPress 99.99% 369 ms 24/7 live support $3.99/mo
- GoDaddy WordPress Hosting 99.99% 554 ms 24/7 live support $2.99/mo
- SiteGround WordPress Hosting 99.98% 629 ms 24/7 live support $3.95/mo
- A2 WordPress Hosting 99.93% 295 ms 24/7 live support $3.92/mo
- BlueHost WordPress Hosting 99.99% 390 ms 24/7 live support $2.75/mo
- Hostinger WordPress Hosting 99.93% 339 ms 24/7 live support $2.15/mo
*cheapest plan
Important Features to Consider When Choosing a Web Hosting Service
When choosing the best WordPress Hosting provider, you must know which features are important to ensure an excellent website performance. We have listed some essential features that must be prioritized when selecting the best option for you.
Uptime
The ideal uptime for any service provider needs to be at least 99.94%. If your site crashes, consumers may not be able to look up the website. Those who are interested in visiting your site may prefer other alternatives since your website is down. Constant crashing also discourages and frustrates clients that may affect your site's performance. When choosing a hosting web service, you must check if the uptime percentage is above 99.94%. Although a perfect 100% is considered unrealistic, some providers offer up to 99.99%.
Customer Service
Unseen problems may arise anytime, especially when you are new to setting up your site. It will help if you choose a provider that will give you the best customer service. Customer support is part of the key features to consider since many technical problems may occur. You must ensure that you will get a web host that has an experienced and friendly team. It would also really help if they offered 24/7 support using various platforms.
Security
Just like your physical valuables need protection, your website must also be protected. Therefore, SSL certificates would be helpful. An SSL connection encrypts data that moves between your site and users' web browsers, which safeguards the transmission of purchasing information. Most web hosts have free SSL certificates together with your chosen plan. You must make sure that you prioritize your data security, especially when hacking and identity theft are prevalent. But it would help if you were critical of any hidden charges that come with attaining an SSL certificate.
Money-back Guarantee
There are currently several options available in the market right now, claiming that they are the best WordPress web hosting provider. Because of this, users may be confused about what to choose and would try anything. A sudden change of mind is normal, especially for beginners. But you must ensure that your chosen provider gives you an appropriate window period to test their services with an assurance that your money will be returned. There are instances that your taste might change, or you do not feel contented with your current provider, that is why you have to choose a host that allows you to leave quickly. Some services offer a 30-day refund. There are even services that provide more extended periods of up to 90 days.
Affordability
Many aspiring beginners to WordPress web hosting do not have all the means to spend on costly plans. When choosing a host, make sure that there are affordable entry-level plans that still have the best features. When you have more resources to spend on your website, you can choose to upgrade to better plans later on.
Does WordPress Host Domains?
Yes, WordPress hosts domains. A domain name is the site address that people type into their browser to visit your site. If you have a WordPress website, it is not necessary to subscribe to a hosting site.
With the help of WordPress.org, you can launch your WordPress website. But you can also host on WordPress’s servers through their WordPress.com service and create your very own customized domain name.
WordPress.org
Through WordPress.org, you can download the software, create your site for free, customize it using their unlimited themes, and even add the plugins you like. You also have total ownership over hosting and whatever you produce, which you can then monetize by way of having advertisements on the website.
However, using WordPress.org has its fair share of disadvantages. You always need to be online to maintain, configure, and update your website personally. You must also have a basic background on technical aspects so that you can utilize HTML and PHP.
The constant need for more space is also an issue. You will need to have to buy a separate hosting package to host the website.
WordPress.com
Unlike the software-based WordPress.org, WordPress.com demand that you will avail of a specific hosting plan for your needs. Unlike the former, where you must always be hands-on throughout the entire process, in WordPress.com, you do not have to set up your website because everything is taken care of by the hosting provider. This allows you to have more time because you do not need to worry about disk space, hosting management, and performance.
But just like WordPress.org, this service also has its limitations like having a specific limit on ownership because you are, in a way, sharing it with the hosting provider.
However, you can always choose to make arrangements to change this. There is also a limit when it comes to mixing themes and other add-ons to boost your site. It would also cost you a certain price if you wanted to avail of them.
The choice to avail of an independent hosting site is always a good idea, especially if you have the opportunity to do so.
Do I Need a Hosting Site for WordPress?
The simple answer is yes. If you want to create a WordPress website, then you need the best web hosting service. Although free WordPress hosting providers are available today, experts often discourage using them. This is due to several reasons like unwanted advertisements, and a constant risk of viruses. There is no guarantee that your website will not be shut down.
Since it is always a risk to put out money for any type of service, it is recommended that you invest in the best WordPress-based hosting, especially if you are serious about your page. Besides having a lot of benefits that will really help your brand grow, you will also be provided with quality services that cater to your needs.
It is just a matter of choosing the web hosting service fit for your vision and budget. But before you commit to anything, you should always research ahead of time because specific hosting services apply to different purposes.
What is the Best Web Hosting Service for WordPress?
There is a long list of hosting companies that offer WordPress plans. That is why we prepared our very own list of Top 5 Best WordPress Hosting Services for 2020 with their brief descriptions, strengths, and weaknesses.
Whether you are a new user, freelance blogger, or a handler of a big business brand, there is something that is just right for you here.
1. DreamHost WordPress Hosting
With 18 years of experience, DreamHost is the leading and best WordPress hosting service providers. DreamHost continues to promise reliable, efficient, and fast service to its over 300,000 customers. They are also one of the most productive hosts with around 600,000 WordPress websites under their belt.
PROS
- They provide a promising no setup fee policy that also provides you with a free domain.
- All their plans from VPS to Managed all come with unlimited bandwidth, a WordPress website builder, one-click staging, custom dashboard, SSD storage, automatic updates, and free SSL.
- They also offer a live chat 24/7 support for all your customer service concerns.
- They let you install any plugin you desire.
- They have a 97-day money-back guarantee for their shared hosting services.
- DreamHost also just recently added staging to its WordPress offerings that enable you to test new site features on another site without affecting your live pages.
- But what truly sets them apart from their competitors is that they have a stable page speed.
- DreamHost also has impressive uptime.
- They have stable security features, unlimited monthly data transfers, and great cloud hosting services.
- They provide a WordPress staging feature and broad free domain management.
- They also offer a money-back guarantee to ensure efficient customer support, so you do not need to worry about your money.
CONS
- Their site transfers are not free, so if you wanted to avail of it, it would cost you $99. However, they are free with their DreamPress plan, which is $16.95/mo.
- Their customer support is also not ideal because they only operate from 5:30 AM - 9:30 PM considering that they have visitors from outside the US with no telephone option.
- There is also no option to choose server locations that are outside the USA.
- They also do not have managed Windows-based servers and true reseller hosting plans.
PRICING
DreamHost hosting company offers various WordPress web hosting packages such as the entry-level DreamPress, DreamPress Plus, and DreamPress Pro.
- The entry-level DreamPress starts at $16.95 every month. DreamPress is a Managed WordPress Hosting services type. It gives your website the white-glove treatment by automatically updating the leading content management system software, performing automatic daily backups, and providing WordPress-specific support and security. They are also hosts that offer a wide array of WordPress web themes, SSD storage of 30 GB, unlimited email, and data transfers as long as they do not exceed 100,00 people.
- Should you want to double the storage and increase the visitor count of around 300,000 plus a content delivery network (CDN) for faster site operation, then DreamPress Plus is for you. It starts at $24.95 a month.
- If you want the highest quality with the best features, you can also avail of their DreamPress Pro that provides a 1 million visitor limit and 120 GB of SSD storage.
2. HostGator Managed WordPress
Hosting over 10 million domains worldwide, HostGator remains one of the most popular and best WordPress hosting providers today. HostGator is known for its easy-to-use processes and many practical plans for consumers and businesses big or small. HostGator is the best option for webmasters who are new to the field.
PROS
- They specialize in WordPress hosting solutions with 99.9% uptime performance, 24/7 customer service support, and 1-click WordPress installation with a money-back guarantee for 45 days.
- HostGator is also the top host choice for websites with high traffic that need faster loading times.
- They also provide quality uptime, free SSL, one-click staging, useful software for site-building, and efficient shared hosting packages.
- They also offer a free domain whenever you buy any of their hosting plans for a year or more.
- HostGator allows you to install the WordPress content management system (CMS) onto any of its servers.
- WordPress is easy to set up on HostGator even if you do not exactly go the managed-WordPress route.
- The customer portal has an option called Quick Links that opens a dedicated interface for installing third-party applications.
- There is also a handy shortcut called Get Started With WordPress Today. This button leads to the Quick Links interface that makes linking sites more accessible and more convenient.
CONS
- HostGator does not offer a Windows-based VPS hosting.
- They also have a lot of marketing emails that may not sit well with users who do not prefer to see a long list of emails in their WordPress hosting services.
- HostGator also has high hosting prices, no free daily backups, and server downtime.
PRICING
HostGator hosting company offers three kinds of managed WordPress web hosting, namely: Starter, Standard, and Business.
- The Starter managed web Hosting, which starts at $14.95 per month, is packed with 50 GB of storage. It also has the best capacity to host a WordPress site, unlimited email, and allows 25,000 visits per month.
- The Standard Web Hosting plan starts at $20.95. It provides two WordPress sites, 200,000 monthly visits, and 150GB of disk space.
- The Business Web Hosting starts at $27.95 per month. It grants you three WordPress sites, 300,000 monthly visits, and unlimited storage. All plans come with the best customer support, free page caching, and a boosted WordPress hosting environment.
3. SiteGround WordPress Hosting
In the WordPress community, SiteGround is considered one of the best hosts and top-rated web hosting providers for WordPress. They are part of the most recommended providers in the market today. Over the years, around 800,000 domain names have been suby SiteGround since its creation in 2004.
PROS
- SiteGround has a 24/7 support in the industry through its live chat feature that aims to resolve all issues.
- The impressive features included in SiteGround packages are high-caliber speed, free SSL certificates, trusted security systems, automatic upgrades, built-in WP caching, CDN, free domain.
- They also provide one-click staging, a 30-day money-back guarantee for their shared hosting services, and GIT version control.
- They are also one of the few industries with planned locations and sites placed around Asia, Europe, Australia, and the US for better performance.
- They are one of the very few web hosts that allow you to change data center locations like Europe and the USA.
- They also provide free CDN for caching purposes and free WordPress site transfers and image boosting that all make a website more reliable and better performing.
- On top of all that, they have a strong customer service support through their live chat to answer all questions and satisfy all customer needs.
CONS
- Their most significant downside is that they have costlier mid and high tier plans compared to other companies.
- SiteGround has higher renewal fees compared to other web host sites.
- Furthermore, SiteGround also has limited data storage and a very strict data over-usage policy that tends to be a problem for most of their online web hosting consumers around the world.
PRICING
- The StartUp Plan starts at $6.99 a month. It comes with a website, 10 GB web space, unmetered traffic, free WP Installation, and free WP Migrator. This Plan includes WordPress auto-updates, free SSL, daily backups, free CDN, and unlimited emails.
- The GrowBig Plan starts at $9/99 a month. It has all the features in the StartUp plan but upgrades its monthly visit capacity to around 25,000. It also has added th best features such as unlimited websites, on-demand backup copies, speed-boosting caching, and staging.
- The GoGeek Plan starts at $14.99 a month. It has all the features of the GrowBig Plan and upgrades the visiting capacity to around 100,000. It also has added functions like speed-boosting caching, staging, and priority support. It also enables you to add collaborators and maximize the potential of white-label clients.
4. A2 WordPress Hosting
If you are using WordPress and looking for one of the best web hosting service providers today, A2 Hosting is the choice for you.
PROS
- Packed with impressive features, A2 boasts its unlimited SSD storage, bandwidth, monthly data transfers, SSL, and free Cloudflare CDN.
- They provide you with the option to change server locations.
- They offer impressive uptime performance, reliable WordPress hosting packages, an excellent money-back guarantee, one-click staging, and excellent customer service.
- Based on performance tests, A2 has a faster page loading capacity at 295 ms compared to the regular shared hosting package due to its boosted environmental setup.
- A2 also provides a multi-platform custom service support through online live chat and even phone services 24/7.
- Their connectivity is on level with their competitors because they have smartly placed data centers around the world, such as The Netherlands, USA, and Singapore.
- They also have good customer support to assist their clients.
- Should you choose other WordPress web hosts, A2 has the best money-back guarantees. You just simply cancel your account within the first 30-day time frame for a full refund. You can also have a refund after 30-days and receive an amount calculated to the unused services.
CONS
- The A2 hosting company does not provide Windows server options.
- It is also a more costly WordPress host compared to its competitors that are available in the market today.
PRICING
- A2 is part of the best WordPress hosting sites that offer the Linux-based WordPress hosting plans, namely: Lite, Swift, and Turbo. They also provide managed plans that give your installation the white-glove treatment for a relatively same price and liberty to choose your own domain name.
5. GoDaddy WordPress Hosting
GoDaddy is considered as one of the best hosts out in the market. It has consistently changed and developed its brand to become the reliable and flexible web hosting provider it is today. It offers a wide range of tools and services guaranteed to fit the performance needs of any client. Signing up has also proven to have its own set of practical advantages.
PROS
- GoDaddy proudly boasts its thousands of WordPress themes and plugins.
- It also offers nightly backups and automatic WordPress software updates to lessen your burden and ensure connectivity and protection.
- Like other managed WordPress hosts, GoDaddy does not require you to install the CMS, since it already comes with it. Once you are logged into WordPress, you will be able to create pages, posts, and galleries just like you would with any other self-hosted WordPress site.
- GoDaddy has an excellent 24/7 customer service support, email integration into Microsoft programs, managed WordPress hosting, and Windows- and Linux-based servers.
CONS
- One of the disadvantages of GoDaddy is that it does not provide users with a free SSL certificate for their Basic or Deluxe plan.
- They are also one of the hosts that charge a fee to access the industry-standard cPanel.
- It is also hard for its clients to leave should they choose another web hosting provider.
PRICING
GoDaddy provides its version of WordPress hosting the white-glove treatment with four types of Linux-based, managed WordPress hosting such as Basic, Deluxe, Ultimate, and Developer.
- The Basic Plan, which costs $8.99 a month plan, comes with one domain, 10GB of SSD storage, and a limit of 25,000 monthly visitors.
- The Deluxe Plan, which costs $12.99 per month, increases the storage to 15 GB and the monthly visiting capacity to 100,000. It also adds site staging and a search engine optimization plugin.
- The Ultimate Plan, which costs $19.99 per month, upgrades the Deluxe package by providing storage of 30GB, 400,000 monthly visitors, virus scanning and removal, good customer support, and the ability to host two sites.
- The Developer Plan is at a rate of $24.99 per month. It serves up a storage of 50GB, 800,000 monthly visitors, and the capacity to host five sites without affecting the performance.
6. BlueHost WordPress
BlueHost is considered part of the best WordPress hosting services among business owners. What sets them apart from other managed WordPress hosting providers is that they offer efficient features worth the price. Their one-click installation process also allows many newcomers to use their services conveniently.
PROS
- BlueHost's uptime is 99.99%, with only 24 outages in less than an hour.
- The average page loading speed is 390 ms.
- They are one of the few web hosts that are officially recommended by the WordPress.org community.
- All of their plans come with a secure WordPress install feature, free SSL, and WordPress staging environment.
- They also have an extensive database of WordPress tutorials. This is designed to help all customers with no knowledge about technical matters
- All BlueHost managed plans come with 24/7 live customer support. They also offer chat support with experienced staff
- All plans have other useful features like unmetered MySQL DB, site analytics dashboard, and unlimited sub-domains.
- They also have a BlueHost Marketplace, where users can access premium plugins and other add-ons at affordable prices.
- New BlueHost accounts can also avail of the free service called Blue Spark, which gives support to newcomers with everything WordPress related.
CONS
- BlueHost is relatively costlier. Prices start at $2.75 per month, but it already has a free domain name with SSL.
- No option to pay monthly. They have 12-month commitments.
PRICING
- The Basic plan starts at $2.75 per month for the first term. It has 50 GB SSD storage, a single website, a free domain for one year, and $50 Marketing Credit.
- The Plus plan starts at $5.45 per month for the first term. It has the same features of the Basic Plan but have added features. These include unlimited websites, free CDN, upgraded webspace, and malware protection. It also has a WP staging environment.
- The Choice Plus plan starts at $5.45 a month for the first term. It has even more features than the Basic Plan.
- BlueHost also has a managed hosting solution called WordPress Pro. Prices start at $17.95 monthly. These plans have several added features like unlimited features, malware removal, business review tools, site analytics, etc.
- BlueHost also provides a 30-day money-back guarantee should you opt to choose other providers.
7. Hostinger WordPress Hosting
Hostinger currently hosts around 29 million users around the globe. A considerable part of this number is because of their WordPress specific plans. On top of that, Hostinger consistently banks on its cheap pricing, fast speed, and one-click WordPress installment.
PROS
- Their key features include a free email account and free SSL
- You can seek assistance from their customer support service to switch your server locations once you are signed up
- They have a good uptime of 99.93% with a load time of 339 ms
- Hostinger provides the best 24/7 customer support through live chat
- They also include a WordPress website builder that is very useful for beginners
- Hostinger has a wide selection of WordPress guides and tutorials
CONS
- Uptime is average compared to its competitors in the market
- The response rate for customer support is not as fast as other providers
- Modest performance results for locations outside of the UK and US
PRICING
- Their cheapest WordPress managed WordPress hosting plan starts from $2.15 a month. This plan has a 100 GB bandwidth, an email account, and an SSL certificate.
- You can also get a full refund until 30 days from the signup if you decide to switch partners or if you are not satisfied.
Choosing What Is Right for You!
Hosting providers for WordPress are almost everywhere nowadays. These website hosts promise you that they are the best WordPress host out there. Although it may be tempting to select a host immediately, you should not be fazed with too good to be true offers.
For you to choose the best WordPress web hosting service out there, you need to thoroughly read through the pros and cons of these web hosts. Try to assess which is the best WordPress host in terms of features, budget, customer support, and the package that will give you the most satisfaction.
You must think about what you need before purchasing your WordPress hosting provider so that you can save hundreds of dollars from unwanted services that do not bring out the best value of your money. Partnering with the best WordPress hosting site will eventually make or break your plans. It would be best to have a web host that will support you towards achieving your goals.
Comment down your feedback on our top WordPress hosting providers and exchange insights with our readers from around the world!