Best Web Hosting
Moderate
Excellent
Varies by plan
One-click WordPress installation
Yes
Low
Good
Unlimited
One-click WordPress installation
Yes
High
Excellent
Unlimited
Platform templates
Yes
High
Fair
Unlimited
Platform templates
No
Low
Good
Unlimited
One-click WordPress installation
Yes
Thanks to today's best website builders, you no longer need coding skills to build a website. But you do need web hosting. Whether you're planning a personal blog or opening an e-commerce shop, a reliable web hosting platform is a must-have.
Web hosting can range from simple, but limited platforms, to full-service, enterprise-level solutions. We've put together a list of some of the best web hosting companies and the features they provide to help you pick one for your project.
Our Top Picks For Best Web Hosting
- Bluehost: Best For WordPress Sites
- Shopify: Best For E-Commerce
- HostGator: Best Shared Hosting Options
- Squarespace: Best Website Builder Tool
- DreamHost: Best For Free Domain
Best Web Hosting Reviews
Why we chose it: Bluehost is the top name in WordPress hosting for a reason: It's recommended by WordPress, its tools make setting up your site simple and it's affordable.
Bluehost is one of the oldest web hosting companies, dating back to the Stone Age of the internet — 1996. It has excellent 24/7 customer support that's easily accessible through email, chat or phone. Plus, its one-click install process makes setting up WordPress easy enough that you may never need customer support.
Bluehost has web hosting solutions that cater to small and medium-sized businesses. There are four options for shared hosting.
The Basic plan includes the following features:
- One website
- Up to 25 subdomains
- 50 gigabytes of solid-state drive storage
- Five email accounts with 100 megabytes of storage space each
The Plus plan includes:
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited storage
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Unlimited email accounts
The Choice Plus plan includes all the features of the Plus plan and:
- Free domain privacy
- Automatic daily backups
The Pro plan includes all of the features of the Plus plan and a dedicated IP address.
Bluehost is a great option if you're just getting started with a WordPress site. It will automatically install your WordPress site for you, and it has an extensive database that contains articles, guides and how-tos that can answer many of your questions. Additionally, its control panel is intuitive and easy for beginners to understand.
Although Bluehost works well for beginners and small sites, it's powerful enough to grow with you, too. As your site gets bigger and your traffic increases, Bluehost shared hosting can handle a moderate amount of traffic and some traffic spikes, so you won't need to worry about your site crashing if you generate some popular content. However, if you anticipate heavy traffic on a regular basis, you'll want to upgrade to a dedicated hosting plan.
Why we chose it: Shopify is an all-in-one platform that makes setting up an e-commerce shop a breeze. You can piece together a shop with other services, but Shopify's built-in hosting gives you everything you need to run your store.
The company's plans are fully hosted and include a free website builder. You won't find the variety of features you might get from a multipurpose web hosting site, but Shopify is ideal if you want to focus on e-commerce. Since e-commerce is Shopify's specialty, it also offers loads of features that allow you to efficiently manage your store, including inventory tracking and user accounts.
Shopify provides a huge library of free and paid themes you can customize to build your store. You can also dive into development with Shopify's API. All Shopify plans allow you to sell through various channels, including social media, with a "Buy Now" button.
Shopify's plans are significantly more expensive than traditional web hosting solutions, but it's worth it if e-commerce is the main purpose of your website. Nonetheless, if you're just selling a few items or digital products on the side, Shopify's additional expense and robust features may be more than you'll need. You can opt instead for a plug-in solution for your site that will be much cheaper.
You can choose from three different plans when setting up your Shopify account. The most significant differences between the plans are the credit card fees, shipping discounts and the number of staff accounts. All plans offer unlimited bandwidth, storage and products, so your website can grow with your business.
Why we chose it: Given its wide array of shared hosting options, strong customer service, comprehensive knowledge base and search engine optimization tools, HostGator is the best option for shared hosting.
HostGator offers a wide variety of plans that are good for small and medium-sized businesses. Its 99.9% uptime guarantee and 45-day money-back guarantee mean it stands behind the quality of its hosting. HostGator includes tools for bloggers and businesses to build websites, and its website builder tool makes it easy to get started.
Unlike Bluehost, HostGator offers month-to-month plans, so you aren't locked into a long-term commitment. The company offers three shared hosting plans and a promotional discount for introductory pricing.
The Hatchling plan includes:
- One website
- 10 gigabytes of disk space
- Unmetered bandwidth
- WordPress one-click installation
- Email hosting
- Chat support
- The first year of domain registration free
The Baby plan includes everything in the Hatchling plan plus:
- Up to five websites
- 40 gigabytes of disk space
- Phone support
- $500 match for Google ads
- $100 Microsoft ad credit
The Business plan includes everything in the Baby plan plus:
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited disk space
- Cloudflare content delivery network (CDN)
- Dedicated IP address
- Secure sockets layer (SSL) upgrade
- Search engine optimization (SEO) tools
- Professional services for website migrations
One drawback to HostGator is that it's not optimal for e-commerce hosting. It doesn't have a WooCommerce package, although it does include options for building an e-commerce site.
HostGator offers solid security features on its higher-end plans, including a PositiveSSL certificate, CodeGuard backups and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection. With the prevalence of malware attacks, these security features can offer greater peace of mind. Some of them cost extra, though HostGator does offer discounts.
Why we chose it: Squarespace is the best option if you want to create a stunning website with minimal effort, mainly due to its award-winning templates created by professional designers, which is apparent in their bold, modern appearance.
Squarespace is one of the most intuitive and easy-to-use website-building tools out there. You start by choosing a template and then use the drag-and-drop editor to make changes, which lets you easily customize the layout's features — no coding skills required. Its fully integrated e-commerce tools make it easy to sell products from your website, making it a favorite among photographers and other visual artists.
Squarespace will be most beneficial for beginners who want to set up a simple-but-stunning blog, portfolio or website but don't want to spend much time learning web development. Squarespace might not be for you if you're a skilled developer who wants total control. The Personal plan doesn't allow CSS or JavaScript, limiting your customization options.
This lack of customization extends to using third-party tools. Squarespace has some excellent built-in tools, but you'll hit a wall if you want to incorporate outside tools. While it can integrate with some outside tools, it's a complex and clunky process.
Another limitation of Squarespace is that it doesn't provide phone support, so you won't be able to get immediate help if you need it. However, it does provide a help center portal with guides and articles for many common issues.
Unlike many website builders, Squarespace also doesn't offer a free plan, but it does provide a 14-day money-back guarantee. It's definitely not the cheapest option available, so it's not for bargain hunters.
Why we chose it: DreamHost is easy to use, provides free domain registration and offers affordable, feature-rich plans. It's been around for a while and has a history of providing reliable service.
DreamHost provides a solid value for shared hosting. Its pricing structure is simple, offering a choice of two inexpensive plans, both of which include free domain registration, SSL, domain privacy, content delivery network, daily backups and unmetered bandwidth. The main difference between them is that the Shared Unlimited plan includes unlimited sites and unlimited email.
Like Bluehost, DreamHost is endorsed by WordPress, so it's a good choice for building a WordPress site. Another feature DreamHost shares with Bluehost is that you'll notice a price jump after your introductory period expires. However, this price increase is much more reasonable than Bluehost's, making Dreamhost a better option for long-term use. The web host also has one of the most generous money-back periods in the industry: a full 97 days to change your mind.
In addition to hosting, DreamHost can also help you build your website. Its integrated website builder is a block-based editor that includes all standard options, such as text and layout editing. One major drawback to its website builder is that it lacks image editing tools, so even the most basic changes, such as cropping, must be done on another platform.
Should your website take off and experience a lot of growth, DreamHost offers cloud-based and dedicated hosting as well, so you won't have to change hosts. If you're looking for a free domain, robust security features and a price that will remain low after your renewal, DreamHost is a great choice.
Other Web Hosting We Considered
GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks takes an environmentally-friendly approach to web hosting. It plants a tree for each subscription and purchases wind credits to offset three times the energy it uses.
While its commitment to the environment is laudable, its speed and performance leave room for improvement, so GreenGeeks didn't make our top five list.
Rackspace
Rackspace is a cloud-based OpenStack hosting provider. It provides a broad array of features and options on its cloud, but most are targeted at larger organizations with complex needs.
Although it's a good option if you need the resources, we didn't include it in our "best of" list because it doesn't offer plans for smaller businesses with more modest requirements.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
No matter what type of service or feature you need, AWS probably provides it. Many of the biggest platforms in the world run on AWS. It's endlessly customizable, providing almost every type of cloud-based service imaginable.
However, even contemplating the options can be confusing and overwhelming if you're just starting with a small website. While you can get what you need from AWS for a reasonable price, it's not the best option for beginners.
Web Hosting Guide
If you're new to web hosting, the number of options can seem overwhelming. There are so many web hosting companies to choose from and so many different types of hosting. It doesn't help that different companies can have wildly different pricing structures and commitment requirements.
This guide will go through everything you need to know about web hosting to get your website up and running.
What Is Web Hosting?
Web hosts are like landlords. If you want to open a brick-and-mortar store downtown, you'll have to find a storefront to lease so you'll have the physical space you need to sell your wares. Web hosting is the digital equivalent. It provides a server for your website and a way for your customers to access it.
You don't need a web hosting service to build a website; you can create a stunning website on your computer. However, if you want anyone to be able to find your website on the internet, you'll need to have a web host.
In fact, you may be surprised to learn that you can host your website on your personal computer. However, this is a case of "just because you can doesn't mean you should." You could install the web server software on your computer and configure it to accept requests from a specific directory and then store your website in that directory.
Unfortunately, opening your computer to serve content directly to the internet carries substantial security risks. And even if you don't care about the security risks, your personal computer isn't powerful enough to handle significant traffic. Web servers are much more powerful than standard computers.
How Does Web Hosting Work?
Web hosts own servers that provide storage space for your website. These servers are powerful computers that can process requests to view your website files. When someone types in the URL of your website or clicks on a link leading to it, their device sends a request to the server, which responds by sending back the particular webpage that was requested.
Although that's the crux of web hosting, most web hosting services offer additional services to help you build and maintain your website builders, security features and customer support. Some are all-in-one platforms designed as a single solution, while others are intended to be used with outside tools.
Types Of Web Hosting
You'll run into a lot of terms when you're researching web hosting services. Some of them can sound confusing, but the concepts behind them are pretty simple. Most web hosting services offer one or more of the following types of hosting:
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is one of the most scalable types of web hosting. You've probably heard the term "cloud-based" used to describe a number of different services. When something is in "the cloud," it just means that you access it from the internet rather than storing it on your computer's hard drive.
Cloud hosting refers to web hosting services dispersed across several different servers rather than just one. A network of remote servers work together to store, manage and process your data. Cloud hosting provides a high level of scalability, which is ideal as your website grows and its traffic increases.
Because your site is hosted by a network of servers instead of just one, cloud hosting is also more reliable and secure. If your grandmother ever told you, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," she'd probably appreciate the benefits of cloud hosting.
With cloud hosting, you typically pay for the resources you use as you need them. This model can be very appealing if your website experiences episodic periods of high traffic. You only pay for the increased resources to handle high traffic when you need it. When your traffic slows down, you'll pay less.
VPS Hosting
VPS stands for "virtual private server." VPS hosting is a type of shared hosting where a portion of the server is reserved just for you. With VPS hosting, a physical server is divided up into multiple virtual servers, each with its own resources.
VPS hosting provides a higher level of customization and performance than a standard shared server. It mimics having a dedicated server while being more affordable. You may want to move up to a VPS hosting plan from a shared hosting plan when your site starts receiving more traffic.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the most common and least expensive hosting option. Your website will be hosted on the same server as multiple other websites, meaning you'll share the server's resources, such as bandwidth, disk space, CPU and memory. For websites that experience low levels of traffic, shared hosting is usually an adequate solution. There's no need to invest in more expensive types of hosting when you don't need the resources.
However, because you're sharing a server, your site can be affected by conditions at other sites. If one of your site's "server-mates" experiences a huge spike in traffic, it can negatively impact your site's performance. Generally, though, shared hosting is a good starting point unless you're launching a huge site or expecting massive traffic from the get-go.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is one of the more expensive hosting options. With dedicated hosting, you have an entire server dedicated to hosting your website. This is often the best option for websites that generate a lot of traffic.
However, in addition to paying more for your own private server, you'll have to pay someone to manage it for you. With dedicated hosting, you have full control over your server and can customize it to best suit your needs. Dedicated hosting provides better security, reliability and performance than shared hosting.
Colocation Hosting
Colocation hosting allows you to rent space in a data center to store your own servers. With colocation hosting, you provide and maintain your server, including the hardware and software. The data center provides the physical space, power, cooling and internet connectivity needed to keep your servers operating.
In the colocation model, you'll typically rent a specific amount of rack space, power and internet bandwidth from the host, then manage your servers remotely. This model is only efficient for extremely large sites that require massive resources. It's often used by large organizations that don't want to deal with the hassle of building and maintaining their own data centers.
Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed hosting is a type of dedicated hosting where the host manages your server for you. If you need the resources of a dedicated server but don't want to manage it yourself, a managed hosting service will handle the operation, security and maintenance.
Managed WordPress hosting is a specific type of managed hosting dedicated to WordPress sites. Since WordPress websites are the most popular, this is a common option. The web host will ensure the WordPress platform is current and provide additional services such as enhanced security, technical support, optimized performance and a customized dashboard.
Web Hosting FAQ
How We Chose The Best Web Hosting
Our methodology for choosing the best web hosting providers included considering the following criteria:
- Features offered in addition to web hosting, such as website builders, free domain registration and integration with e-commerce tools
- Reliability, including documented up-time and interruptions in service
- Security options to help prevent malicious attacks such as network monitoring, secure access, automatic backup and malware removal
- Price and value for the services offered
- Customer support, including the availability of phone support and the difficulty of opening a support ticket
- Offered storage and bandwidth amounts, which impact the features you can include on your website and the amount of traffic you can handle
