If you’re planning to start your small business or blogging site for you and you need to gain more audiences and traffic to your site, we recommend you choose WordPress. You want to know why?
WordPress is the most famous Content Management system CMS which is an Open source system that can be self-deployed.
It comes with various plugins available, and they all come with little to zero cost. It is flexible and used by almost 75 million websites.
The main reason WordPress is popular is that it’s user-friendly. Even a non-tech savvy person can understand how a WordPress website works and can set up his/her website with low maintenance cost.
So what are you thinking about still? Take a look at the top 8 Web hosting platforms to host your WordPress site in a matter of minutes. Keep reading!
Best Web hosting platforms
Looking to renew your domain or host your domain for word press, but not sure which one to settle down for? Here is the list of the top 8 web hosting platforms that offer website domains, migration, server response time, and many features.
Bluehost | Dreamhost | Hostgator | Site ground | Kinsta | Hostinger | A2 hosting | WP engine | |
Pricing | ||||||||
Plans | Basic - $2.75 Pro - $ 5.45 Plus - $ 5.45 Choice Plus - $13.95 | WordPress Hosting - $2.59 Website Hosting - $2.59 VPS Hosting - $10.00 WP Website Builder - $2.59 Dedicated Hosting - $169.00 | Powerful WordPress Hosting - $2.75 Hatchling - $2.75 Baby - $3.50 Business - $5.25 | Startup - $6.99 GrowBig - $9.99 GoGeek - $14.99 | Starter - $30 Pro - $60 Business 1 - $100 Business 2 - $200 Business 3 - $300 Enterprise 1,2,3 & 4 - $600, $900 & $1200 $1500 | Single shared - $0.99 Premium shared - $1.99 Business shared - $3.99 | Startup - $2.99 Drive - $4.99 Turbo boost - $9.99 Turbo max - $14.99 | Startup - $25 Professional - $49 Growth - $95 Scale - $241 |
Speed | 688ms | 1320 ms | 734ms | 716 ms | 544ms | 356ms | 285ms | 291ms |
Uptime | 99.97% | 99.90% | 99.93% | 99.99% | 99.90% | 99.74% | 99.97% | 99.98% |
Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | 100 GB | Unmetered | 500 GB |
Storage | 50 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | 10 GB storage | 250 GB Storage | 10 GB storage | Unlimited | 50 GB storage |
Apps | Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, phpBB, Etc. | Drupal, Shopify, Wix, WordPress, Blogger, Etc. | Over 75 supported Apps | Over 500 supported Apps | Over 20 supported Apps | WordPress, Joomla, PrestaShop, OpenCart, and Drupal | WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, OpenCart, and Magento | WordPress |
Hosting plans | Shared, WordPress, VPS, Reseller and Dedicated Servers | Shared, Cloud, WordPress, VPS, and Dedicated Servers | Shared, Cloud, WordPress, VPS, and Dedicated Servers | Shared, WordPress, Cloud, Reseller, Enterprise, and Dedicated Servers | Woocommerce hosting, Enterprise hosting | Shared, Cloud, and VPS | Shared, WordPress, VPS, Reseller, and Dedicated Servers | Managed and dedicated hosting |
Money Back Guarantee | 30-day refund policy | 97-day refund policy | 45-day refund policy | 30-day refund policy | 30-day refund policy | 30-day refund policy | Anytime money back policy | Free 60-day trial |
Hostgator
About
Hostgator is a global Web hosting provider which was founded in 2002. In 2008, Hostgator set the bar high by providing unlimited services for their customers. By 2020, Hostgator offered its cheapest monthly plan starting at $2.08 per month. Let’s take a look at other features, pros, and cons of using Hostgator as your Web hosting platform.
Features
Yes, this is the one with a blue alligator in their logo. If you’re looking for a less expensive hosting plan for your website since you’re in the developing stage of your company or an active blogger, then you can blindly choose Hostgator.
Here are some of Hostgator’s best features :
- They provide 1-click WordPress installation, offer discounts and coupons for their customers, free domain names, and a free SSL certificate.
- They provide 24 hours customer support to their clients, and they have a 45-day money refund policy.
- Hostgator guarantees 99% uptime to its users and provides a flexible billing period. Yearly or monthly.
- The Server Response time of Hostgator is incredible; it takes only less than a second to load a complete website, faster response time and improves your website’s SEO.
Pricing :
The following are the different plans provided by Hostgator :
- Powerful WordPress Hosting – $2.75/month.
- Hatchling – $2.75/month.
- Baby – $3.50/month.
- Business – $5.25/month.
Pros
Website builder tool – Gator :
- Gator by Hostgator is a website builder tool that comes with myriads of features.
- It comes in handy for those who are getting started with website hosting.
- Gator provides all the necessities needed like custom templates, eCommerce plan, SSL certificate, and site analytics.
User friendly with an excellent support system:
- Hostgator is user-friendly for bloggers, beginners, and experienced web designers as well. It provides several tutorials, walkthroughs, demos to help you navigate your website and become familiar with it.
- If you find it impossible to resolve an issue or couldn’t figure out something, their live chat comes to your rescue. The support system is exceptional, and your issues will be resolved in a matter of a few minutes.
Free migrations of Cpanel & domain:
- If you plan to migrate your domain from a different site to HostGator, the migration is done for free.
- Even if you have multiple C panels or multiple sites or subdomains installed. That transfer is done for free as well.
- Thus, Hostgator helps you migrate any files, domain names, databases, Cpanel, site migrations free of cost.
Cons
There’s always a Catch with pricing:
- Hostgator provides a word press hosting at just $2.75/month. But it’s a marketing gimmick to lure more customers into buying their product.
- When you choose the Baby plan, which can be accessed at the rate of $2.75/month only with a three-year prepaid plan, suppose you do not choose a 3-year plan. Then the pricing starts at $10.95 per month.
- Suppose you choose the 3-year plan, and after one point, you want to renew your plan. Then basically, you’ll be paying more than $250.
Bluehost
About
Bluehost has been in the game since 2007; although it’s not so long since the company launched its Web hosting platform, it has become one of the top 3 WordPress org recognized platforms with almost 3,000,000 hosted websites, blogs, and applications.
Features:
Bluehost allows you to host your domain at an affordable price. It is known as the best WordPress hosting company.
Bluehost provides VPS hosting, WordPress hosting, Shared hosting, Woocommerce hosting, Cloud Hosting, and Dedicated Server hosting.
Added to these, the speed test, uptime, and other features of Bluehost are :
Their performance grade is A+, with 1-click WordPress hosting, Free domain and free SSL certificate, free cloud-fare CDN.
They provide reliable and fast responsive chat support 24/7, and they have minimum Downtime on their websites.
Bluehost server’s response time is less than a fraction of a second, and their traffic control and speed optimization are perfect.
It also provides free migration of hosting and a 30-day money refund policy.
Pricing :
Bluehost provides a bunch of offers for various plans, they are:
Basic plan – $2.75/month.
Plus plan – $5.45/month.
Choice plus – $5.45/month.
Pro plan – $13.95/month.
Pros
Exceptional Uptime & Faster page loading time:
Bluehost’s ideal uptime is always at 99.93%, never less than that. Since uptime and loading time are the two most crucial aspects in choosing a web host, the average time taken for page loading by Bluehost is 688ms.
Free WordPress site migrations, Cpanel & domain:
If you plan to migrate your domain from a different site to Bluehost, the migration is done for free. However, this feature has a couple of contingencies. Free migration is available only if your single site is built in WordPress; for others who have multiple C panels or multiple sites or subdomains installed, it costs $149.99 transfer is done for free as well.
WordPress recommended Host with Great customer support:
WordPress recommends the top 3 WordPress site hosting partners. Among which, Bluehost is one. Although the pricing plan of Bluehost might vary and might feel a pinch for startups and bloggers. Yet, it’s recognized by the official WordPress org. The customer support provided by Bluehost is 24/7, with email, chat, and phone options available, along with answers to any queries you have related to the hosting platform or plans.
Cons
The hosting plan comes with heavy restrictions:
Not all hosting plans in particular, but the cheapest hosting plan has minimal features and limited storage space. It happens to provide more security features and multiple sites for higher-tier plans. In the minimum starting package, you get one free SSL certificate for one site and limited storage.
Renewable rates are significantly higher:
Like any other hosting platform, you have to subscribe to a three-year basic plan so that the renewable rates would be around $8.99 monthly for three years. Of course, it’s significantly high. But without a 3-year subscription, it’s even more, higher than this.
DreamHost
About:
Dreamhost is a Web hosting provider founded in 1996; it hosts over 1.5 million sites, blogs, and applications worldwide for over 25 years. It is the only Web hosting company that gives a 97-day money refund policy. Besides this, it has exceptional one-month affordable payment plans, bandwidth, storage, and many more.
Features:
DreamHost hosting plans are super affordable and reliable. It provides feature-rich eCommerce websites with 1-click WordPress hosting. Dreamhost gives you a fast and reliable server with Dedicated hosting, and you know your website is safe and secure with quick responsive rates. Dreamhost provides a user-friendly interface with a simple and chic Dashboard, making it easier for users to track their progress, traffic, uptime, and downtime. They offer a list of various server types that you could choose from, which includes VPS hosting, shared hosting, or Dedicated hosting servers. They provide a free domain name and an SSL certificate with a 97-day money refund policy. It provides a 24-hour chat and email support system.
Pricing :
The various plans provided by Dreamhost (Monthly) are as follows.
WordPress Hosting – $2.59
Website Hosting – $2.59
VPS Hosting – $10.00
WP Website Builder – $2.59
Dedicated Hosting – $169.00
Pros
Great basic plan & cancel anytime feature:
Dreamhost offers a great starter plan with unlimited bandwidth, storage, WordPress site Pre-installed, free SSL certificate, and comes with Dreamhost Web builder – Remixer. Dreamhost doesn’t have any catch or trap when it comes to payment. You can pay monthly and cancel anytime you want with a 97-day refund policy.
Energy-efficient, Environment-friendly & Unlimited storage:
Dreamhost has high efficient cooling processors to reduce the carbon footprint of the company. It is environment-friendly which focuses on producing clean wind as a renewable resource energy. Dreamhost is the most generous Web hosting platform which offers unlimited everything to its customers.
Custom Cpanel & Free migration:
Dreamhost offers free migration of domains and websites, although it has recently come into action. But it also provides a custom-made C panel, which is beginner-friendly with tutorials and videos to get a grasp of it.
Cons
Low Average Uptime & Slow Average speed:
Dreamhost used to deliver an above-average speed, although, over the period, it had gradually declined. It offers an average uptime of about 99.90% and an average speed of 1320 ms.
Limited Live chat Option:
Dreamhost offers 24/7 live chat support, although you’re probably going to end up chatting with a chatbot answering a predefined set of questions. Even when you try to reach out to customer care, there’s nobody to respond to your issue.
SiteGround
About:
SiteGround was founded in Bulgaria in 2004. It has been on top of the rank list of Web hosting platforms that provide excellent uptime and loading response time. Let’s dig deep about its features.
Features:
SiteGround has almost 2 million domains registered so far; besides domain hosting, they also provide features like email hosting, enterprise solutions, and domain registration for websites. SiteGround offers free SSL certificates and CDN along with DIY Free WordPress migration tools. They provide custom-built websites for their customers who are starting to grow their business to improve their Search engine optimization using SEO services targeting national and international search engines. They provide a 30-day money refund policy, One-page sign-up process, minimum Downtime, Fast and reliable servers, Online marketing, and professional website designs.
Pricing :
Here are the various plans provided by SiteGround :
Startup plan – $6.99/month
GrowBig plan – $9.99/month
GoGeek plan – $14.99/month
Pros
Excellent Uptime & Faster page loading time:
Since uptime and loading time are the two most crucial aspects in choosing a web host. SiteGround’s ideal uptime is always at 99.99%, never less than that, and provides an above-average time of 716 ms.
Fantastic customer support & Free migration:
SiteGround offers free migration of domains and websites; it comes with a DIY WordPress migration plugin that comes with your hosting account. You have little work to do. The plugin will help you migrate any number of sites.
Customer support is available round the clock with a knowledgeable and friendly support team to resolve your issue ASAP. Beginner-friendly & Free SSL and CDN. If you plan to migrate your domain from a different site to SiteGround, the migration is done for free. It also provides free SSL and CDN certificates. SiteGround has a website builder. Weebly offers simple features like a drag and drop custom panel and is great for beginners and bloggers.
Cons
Hosting plans upgrade is high:
Not all hosting plans in particular, but the cheapest hosting plan has minimal features and limited storage space. One website gets around 10GB of space, and if your website exceeds the limit, the upgrades come at a higher rate.
Renewable rates are high:
Like any other hosting platform, you have to subscribe to a three-year basic plan so that the renewable rates would be low on a long-term subscription. Without the 36 monthly subscriptions, renewable rates are significantly high.
Kinsta
About:
Kinsta provides a powerful WordPress hosting platform that was founded in the year 2013. Kinsta provides excellent security plugins for your website with a 30-day money-back guarantee and many more features.
Features:
Kinsta acquired 262% client base growth in 2018 with a support satisfaction rate of 97%. Besides domain hosting, they also provide many features like website builders, SEO services, and security tools for websites. Kinsta is hands down one of the best Bootstrapped WP hosting companies. They offer free SSL certificates and CDN even with a starter pack with 10GB space. They offer Plugin services powered by the Google cloud platform and provide migrations easier with A+ support service and make the shipping changes easy for beginners. Kinsta provides an average Uptime of 99.9% for their customers. They provide fast and reliable servers, Online marketing, and professional website designs.
Pricing :
Here are the various plans provided by Kinsta :
- Starter – $30/month
- Pro – $60/month
- Business 1 – $100/month
Business 2 – $200/month
Business 3 – $300/month
- Enterprise 1,2,3 & 4 – $600, $900 & $1200 $1500/month
Pros
Stellar customer support & Free migration:
Kinsta offers customer support around the clock with a knowledgeable and friendly support team to resolve your issues right away. It also has a quick, easy setup with a single site free migration of domain and websites.
Free SSL, CDN, and automatic backups:
Kinsta offers one-click free SSL and CDN certificates. It has automatic updates of security patches daily. Kinsta also provides WordPress site and system data backup every day, along with downloadable weekly manual backups.
Cloud-based hosting & phenomenal uptime:
Not all hosting plans, in particular, have cloud-based hosting like Kinsta. That’s the reason it stands out from other Web hosting platforms and offers high speed for its customers from 20 Google cloud server locations worldwide. Kinsta promises its users 99.9% uptime guaranteed, and it has never failed to deliver since 2018.
Cons
Hosting plans are high:
Kinsta’s hosting plans start at $30/month, and it is relatively high compared to its competitors, who provide a starting package at $3/month. It is just the starting package; it goes all the way up to $1500/month. So it’s not suitable for small startups and bloggers.
No phone support & email hosting:
For a company where you pay a fortune for hosting your site, Kinsta fails to provide Phone support and email hosting for its customers, which is more conventional and straightforward, unlike other hosting platforms.
Hostinger
About:
Hostinger was founded in the year 2007, and they started offering free Web hosting services under the name 000webhost.com; soon, they gained more audience, and by 2017 their user base skyrocketed to 29 million.
Features:
Hostinger is the only Web hosting platform that provides its services and features starting at $1. They have gained popularity among their users for their free services. Hostinger provides shared hosting, cloud hosting, and VPN hosting. They also have a 30-day refund policy. They also provide many features like website builders, SEO services, and security tools for websites. It also offers free SSL certificates, 99.9% uptime, single-site free transfer, and many more. Let’s have a look at their pros and cons.
Pricing :
Here are the various plans provided by Hostinger (Monthly) :
- Single shared plan – $0.99
- Premium shared plan – $1.99
Business shared plan – $3.99
Pros
Faster page loading time & great uptime
Hostinger guarantees an ideal uptime rate at 99.9%, never less than that. Since uptime and loading time are the two most crucial aspects in choosing a web host. It offers an average loading time of 356ms.
Free WordPress single site migrations & Easy use interface:
If you plan to migrate your domain from a different site to Hostinger, the migration is done for free (Single site). Hostinger provides an interface with updates, tracking your visitors, dashboard, and update billing system with large icons and comes in handy for beginners.
Free website builder with Multilingual customer support:
Hostinger provides a free website builder and domain name for its premium and business plan users. The customer support provided by Hostinger is exceptional and is available 24/7 with email, chat, and phone options available in multilingual, depending on your regional preferences.
Cons
No traditional cPanel:
Hostinger doesn’t come with a traditional cPanel, whereas it has large icons, which makes it easier for navigation than the traditional cPanel. Albeit, many find this as a disadvantage.
Inconsistent average uptime:
Although Hostinger guarantees a 99.9% uptime, it had a poor performance on an average of 3 months, delivering only 99.75% uptime.
A2 Hosting
About:
A2 Hosting is a US-based hosting provider founded in 2001. It is widely known for its ultra-fast shared web hosting servers; it uses Litespeed cache to provide optimized WordPress websites.
Features:
A2 hosting has almost 500,000 domains registered so far. Compared to its competitors, A2 hands down won in providing the best fastest shared hosting platform. A2 offers more than just shared hosting; they also provide unlimited storage, free SSL & migration, website builder, and security tools. They provide good uptime, fast loading time, their plans are developer-friendly, and their unique feature includes an Anytime money refund policy. Let’s delve deep into the pricing, pros, and cons.
Pricing :
Here are the various plans provided by A2 hosting (monthly):
- Startup plan – $2.99
- Drive plan – $4.99
- Turbo boost – $9.99
- Turbo max – $14.99
Pros
Faster page loading time & Reliable uptime:
A2 hosting guarantees a reliable average uptime rate at 99.97%, never less than that. Since uptime and loading time are the two most crucial aspects in choosing a web host. It offers an average loading time of 285ms, one of the fastest loading times.
Free site migrations & developer-friendly:
If you are planning to migrate your sites to A2, the migration is done for free. It offers free migration for 1-25 sites depending upon the plan you’re on.
A2 provides many CMS tools like WordPress, Magento, Drupal, etc., which can be installed in a few clicks and you necessarily need not be a nerdy developer to do that.
Fantastic customer support & Environmental friendly:
Customer support is available round the clock with a knowledgeable and friendly support team to resolve your issues through live chat, tickets, email, or phone. A2 contributes towards reducing global warming by supporting renewable resources, reforestation, and reducing carbon footprint. Albeit, it necessarily doesn’t have to be the deciding factor to choose a Web hosting platform.
Cons
Renewable rates are high:
Just like any other hosting platform, renewable rates of A2 are almost double the rate of the standard plan, with a 15-day cancellation policy before the renewal date; if you miss to cancel it, then it will automatically renew your plan.
The cheapest plans come with heavy restrictions:
The cheapest hosting plan in A2 has minimal features and with limited storage space. You get only a single website with 100GB of SSD. It happens to provide more security features and multiple sites for higher-tier plans.
WP engine
About:
WP engine was founded in 2010 situated in Austin, Texas. It offers purely WordPress site hosting and nothing else. It’s perfect for SaaS development, Enterprise, and blogging platforms trusted by over 70,000 companies worldwide.
Features:
WP engine has the perfect platform for your WordPress website, reliable, scalable, secure, fast, and flexible. It’s gaining popularity because of its One-click staging sites, free SSL & SSH, automated migration, and many more. They have hosted over 1.2 million websites worldwide. WP offers a free 60-day trial period during which you can decide to continue or quit. WP engine supports their customers who are starting to grow their business to improve their Search engine optimization using SEO services targeting national and international search engines. They have been awarded the best customer care and technical support. They provide stellar uptime, fast and reliable servers to power remarkable online experiences.
Pricing :
Here are the various plans provided by WP engine (monthly) :
- Startup plan – $25
- Professional plan – $49
- Growth plan – $95
- Scale plan – $241
Pros
AWS & GCP for optimized WordPress:
WP engine provides a reliable, fast, and scalable hosting platform by partnering with AWS and Google cloud to provide highly secure experiences for its users.
Faster page loading time & excellent customer service:
WP engine hosting guarantees a reliable average uptime rate at 99.98%, never less than that. It also offers 24/7/365 customer service who are experts in WordPress who could resolve your issues related to your site.
Free SSL, CDN, and automatic backups and restoration:
WP offers one-click free SSL, SSH, and global CDN certificates. It has automatic updates of security patches daily. WP engine provides data backup every day; so that you can sleep peacefully knowing that your website data is backed up safe and secure.
Cons
Hosting plans are high:
WP hosting plans start at $25/month, which is relatively high compared to its competitors. WP provides decent features and security in the professional plan, which is $49, this is pricey, and so it’s not suitable for small startups and bloggers.
Limited allocated resources & strictly WordPress hosting platform :
WP engine has allocated resources per site, and thus site performance decreases when the number of visitors exceeds the given limit. WP is not suitable for Non-WordPress sites since it supports only WordPress hosting. So for those whose websites are not powered by WordPress should find an alternate hosting platform.
FAQ
Once you finish setting up your account, you’ll get a welcome email with a walkthrough and set of instructions, and your website will go live within minutes after your payment is successful.
Not all web hosting platforms provide you a free migration for multiple sites and Cpanel. Some provide only single site migration for free. In contrast, others will provide you a complete migration for free. It varies from one platform to another.
Whichever hosting platform you use from the above list, they provide highly secure storage for your data, and your data never gets compromised at any point. They also provide automatic backups; in an emergency, they provide you a fully automatic backup restoration of data.
Conclusion
Choosing a Web hosting platform is crucial for your website security, uptime, page loading time, server response time, backups, bandwidth, storage capacity, and email accounts. These are very important to improve traffic to your website, improve your SEO, and improve your website’s quality to attract more audience. Having a Web hosting platform improves your website and enables customization options to your website. But in the end, choosing a hosting platform for your website comes down to your budget, flexibility, Interface, SEO services, and what you want according to your sine qua non.