Despite its rising popularity, not all website builders offer WordPress hosting. Here, we’ve narrowed down where you can find a WordPress hosting website builder and where you will get the best bang for your buck.

What is the Best WordPress Hosting Money Can Buy?

1. WP Engine – Best overall
2. Bluehost – Best value for money
3. Kinsta – Great for customer service
4. Flywheel – Great for beginners
5. GoDaddy – Best on-the-go service
6. HostGator – Great for US-based customers
7. DreamHost – Great for developers?
8. SiteGround – Great boutique-style solution

WordPress Hosting Comparison

Here’s a quick overview of everything that these services have to offer.

1. WP Engine

Best Overall WordPress Hosting

WP Engine is at the top of many WordPress hosting lists for its exceptional capabilities and ease of use. It only offers WordPress hosting, so they have fine-tuned their platform to optimize it for WordPress. This service also boasts excellent uptimes, daily backups, and increased security, including real-time threat detection.?

WP Engine has plans for businesses ranging from individuals and blogs to mid-sized companies to large-scale corporate solutions that can support millions of visitors per month.

Pros

• No long-term commitment required
• Access to free StudioPress themes
• Backup and restore data for free

Cons

• One of the most expensive options on this list
• Additional charges for exceeding the set number of storage and visitors?

Ease of Use

While WP Engine has features and plugins to lessen the burden of setup, it can still be a lot for someone just starting. We recommend WP Engine for experienced developers or experienced WordPress users looking to transfer to a new hosting site.

WP Engine’s features cater more to developers and users who understand backend processes. However, this is not to say new users cannot use WP Engine. They’ve streamlined their setup to make it as user-friendly as possible, and all of their fees are very upfront. They do not add hidden costs to your migration or setup.

Features

WP Engine offers helpful features to migrate your data and build your website.

Automated Migration: Working with partners BlogVault, WP Engine provides an automated, user-friendly WordPress migration plugin. You do not have to be a web developer to transfer your domain and import your database.

StudioPress Themes: Choose one of 36 StudioPress themes to personalize and brand your website. Themes are mobile responsive and optimized for SEO. Enhanced security features allow visitors peace of mind when shopping or browsing.

Account Activity Log: Businesses with multiple users will benefit from the account activity log. You can view all account actions and environment changes from one dashboard.

GeoTarget: Use the GeoTarget plugin to personalize your content to different markets.

Help and Support

WP Engine boasts award-winning support for its customer service. If you run into an issue, help is available 24/7 to get you the assistance you need. Users can log in for chat, phone, or email support.

You can find articles for everything from setup to general account information to features to WordPress-specific questions.

Value for Money

While WP Engine is one of the most expensive WordPress hosting services on this list, but you get a lot for your money. Your account allows you to take advantage of WP Engine’s award-winning customer support and user-friendly migration.

By subscribing annually, you can bank additional savings from monthly plans. Choosing the basic plan at an annual rate will save you $60 per year.

User Review

Ann Marie W. (Trustpilot)

Outstanding Customer Support – Very Attentive

“You don’t know what you don’t know, and I’m so glad to have found WPEngine about 3.5 years ago.

I had been using very cheap hosting, before switching to WPE. My previous host had an extremely severe internal server problem that was so severe that I had to move and rebuild my sites.

Instead of making any rash decisions, I had called on several hosting companies, but I did not call the “SALES” department. I would call the TECHNICAL department.

In addition to making my choice, I went to all of the social media channels of all of the hosting companies that I was looking at. In fact, what I was looking for was the commonality of any problems, response times on social media, and if everyone had the same issues/complaints.

In my 3.5 years with WPEngine, I can share that I have only had about 2 or 3 tickets that needed more attention than their chat can handle.

One of the most important aspects of RELIABLE HOSTING is RELIABLE SUPPORT.

In my professional opinion, and personal experience WPEngine yearly fees are worth every penny because they have always been and are very attentive while providing outstanding customer support.

That is priceless and worth every penny.

I use their chat support 99% of the time, and it’s great that they do offer phone support, however, I have rarely ever needed to use it.

I highly recommend them.”

2. BlueHost

Best Value for Money

BlueHost is the most inexpensive paid option on this list, but still competitive with the services and features. Try BlueHost out for a reduced price during your first year, and buy with confidence with their 30-day money-back guarantee.

BlueHost is one of only three hosts endorsed by WordPress to seamlessly migrate your WordPress account to BlueHost. Choose from personal or professional WordPress hosting.

Pros

• The introductory year is inexpensive. Although you will renew at a higher rate after your first year
• Uptime is reliable
• All of their shared hosting plans offer substantial storage
• They do not limit the amount of traffic your website can get

Cons

• Despite the inexpensive plans, they often try to upsell you on a lot of their extra features
• All servers are US-based, so visitors from other countries can have sluggish speeds
• Unlike competitors, there is no free migration option
• The free backup option is limited

Ease of Use

Their recently updated cPanel makes BlueHose easy and intuitive for beginners to use. Through this simplified dashboard panel, you can manage your business and website, including email addresses and blogs.

Once you’ve figured out what works best for your business, you can customize your cPanel to match your needs. You can move or delete certain features based on your preferences.

If you are just getting started with BlueHost, they offer a one-click WordPress installation that seamlessly connects your WordPress account to BlueHost. While this is a very user-friendly process, they also provide articles and information on installing your WordPress account to BlueHost hosting.

Features

BlueHost offers many features and plugins that help you build your website and support your business.

SSL: BlueHost provides a free SSL certificate with every hosting plan option. This is especially helpful if you plan on collecting visitor or customer information. Having an SSL certificate assures ecommerce customers that your website is safe for them to make a purchase.

Additional Security: BlueHost also provides standard anti-spam filters to detect unsolicited and virus-infected ads that can breach your website and CDN services, rare for a website host to offer its clients.

Add-ons: You can choose from a wide variety of add-ons to keep all of your business tools under one account. BlueHost offers a lot of marketing add-ons like SEO support and Constant Contact, which allows you to maintain a database of contact information on easily send email and ad campaigns.

Advertising: BlueHost provides $100 in Google Ads credits once you spend $25. Google Ads help increase your visibility when customers search for products, services, or information similar to what you offer.

Help and Support

If you run into any problems, BlueHost has 24/7 phone or chat support. You can also troubleshoot your issues on your own on their Help page.

Value for Money

BlueHost offers a very affordable introductory price, and then competitive pricing after your first year. You can get a basic package for $2.95 per month for the first year, which comes with a free domain and free SSL certificate.

After your first year, a basic package increases to $7.99 per month, which is still competitive with other WordPress hosting platforms.

3. Kinsta

Great for Customer Service

Kinsta made the right partnerships in their hosting services. This WordPress host uses Google cloud server hosting instead of traditional shared or dedicated hosting for increased speed, scalability, flexibility, and reliability. As a Google Cloud Premium Tier user, Kinsta taps into some of the highest fiber network speeds, reaching up to 10,000 TB per second in some areas.

For WordPress hosting, the MyKinsta dashboard is made specifically with WordPress in mind. You will find WordPress features that you may not find with a traditional cPanel dashboard.

Pros

• Automatic backups can be set for as frequently as hourly and are saved for 14-30 days
• An excellent customer service team
• Uses Google cloud server hosting for increased speed

Cons

• The basic plan does not come with multi-site support
• Does not have email hosting, but recommends G Suite

Ease of Use

Kinsta eliminates the need for cPanel with its intuitive, user-friendly dashboard. Beginners and experienced web developers will benefit from this easy to understand dashboard panel.

However, some have experienced issues with establishing their domain. Kinsta provides a guide for configuring your domain and DNS settings, but it is not very user-friendly if you have no experience resolving this issue.

Features

High Security: Kinsta’s increased security monitors and blocks malicious attacks. Its 24/7 security helps you and your visitors feel at ease.

• DDoS detection
• Hardware firewalls
• Uptime monitoring
• SSL support
• Hack fix guarantee

Google Cloud Platform: Using the Google cloud platform allows Kinsta users access to its 24 global data centers for optimal speed. Google will also securely store and transport your data.

Free Site Migrations: Based on your account, you will have access to a certain amount of free site migrations. An expert from Kinsta’s migration team will move your data to a temporary domain to ensure that everything is as it should be before going live on your active domain.

Help and Support

Kinsta supports its customers with 24/7 chat support. Some users report its chat support has quicker response times than GoDaddy or WP Engine.

If you are looking to troubleshoot on your own, Kinsta also has a plethora of information to make your transition seamless. You can read deep dive guides on learning WordPress, troubleshoot with peers in the knowledge base, subscribe to Kinsta’s blog, and take advantage of free updates. Plus, Kinsta sometimes offers free migrations from select web hosts to take that stress off of your plate.

Value for Money

Despite Kinsta not offering a free trial, they provide a 30-day money-back guarantee on their services, including their WordPress hosting. The plan you choose is also very transparent. Each plan tells you how many monthly visitors it supports, how much free storage you are entitled to, how long your backup retention is available, and more.

Like other services, Kinsta also runs discount specials for those who purchase annual plans instead of monthly. Choosing a yearly plan will get you two months of service for free in savings.

4. Flywheel

Great for Beginners

If you are new to WordPress hosting or do not have a developer platform, you can still easily transfer over your WordPress data and create a professional, modern website through Flywheel. Flywheel offers many features that benefit beginners like free migration support, website staging, automated backups, and free demo sites.

Like others on this list, Flywheel utilizes the Google cloud platform for their hosting infrastructure. This provides a stable hosting environment as well as faster loading speeds.

Pros

• Clean, user-friendly interface
• Migrate your existing website for free
• All sites have a dedicated IP addresses

Cons

• Does not sell domains, so you’ll need to purchase your domain through another service
• You cannot get email hosting through Flywheel

Ease of Use

Flywheel offers easy to understand features to help streamline your development process.

• Modern, intuitive dashboard
• Packaged themes and plugins
• One-click local development

WordPress hosting novices will benefit from Flywheel’s free WordPress migration and optimization. You don’t need to be an experienced web developer to set up an account, migrate your data over, and create a visually appealing website through Flywheel.

Features

Demo sites: Flywheel offers free demo sites to new users looking to try out their service. You can create multiple password-protected demo sites to get a feel for the system without having to provide your billing information.

Managed hosting: Flywheel is a WordPress exclusive host, and as such, they have mastered migration, support, and technical updates to provide a seamless transition of your WordPress data. You will also benefit from the increased security and cached data and performance optimization from Flywheel’s managed service.

Website staging: Utilize your test environment to make changes to your website before going live to your followers and visitors without additional servers or plugins.

Help and Support

Flywheel’s live chat service is available 24/7/365, as is the email ticket support desk. Telephone customer service is only available for plans at $250 per month or more.

To troubleshoot on your own, look at the video tutorials, blog entries, eBooks, and help documents that Flywheel continues to release.

Value for Money

Flywheel is one of the midrange WordPress hosts on this list, and you can try it for free for 14 days. If you are an individual or small business with one WordPress page, you will be fine with the Tiny or Starter packages, which start at $15 per month.

However, if you are a larger business or need to host multiple WordPress pages, you will need a Freelance or Agency package, which starts at $115 per month. Like with some of the other options on our list, you can save two months by purchasing annually instead of monthly.

The moneyback guarantee window is shorter with Flywheel than with other WordPress hosts. Monthly users only have three days to claim a refund for dissatisfaction, whereas annual subscribers have 30 days.

5. GoDaddy

Best On-The-Go Service

GoDaddy may be best known as a domain registrar, but its services expand far beyond establishing a website domain. Create a GoDaddy account to take advantage of their web security, website building, email hosting, and WordPress hosting services.

Being one of the most established WordPress hosts on this list, GoDaddy offers certain features that you won’t find anywhere else. GoDaddy is the only WordPress host on this list that has an app so you can manage your website from your phone or tablet.

Pros

• Download mobile app for on-the-go website management
• You can choose between Windows and Linux hosting
• Most plans offer unlimited websites

Cons

• Customer support can sometimes be inconsistent
• You may run into some upsells at checkout or find that certain discounts are only applied when you meet specific criteria

Ease of Use

Users who reviewed GoDaddy remarked at its ease of use. It is excellent for beginners looking for WordPress hosting. However, more experienced users may find the lack of creative control limiting.

Features

GoDaddy is a full-service WordPress host that offers many different features. However, some may be at an additional cost.

Free domain: Once GoDaddy’s bread and butter, your domain is now included in any WordPress hosted website for a savings of $34.99 per year.

Website backup: You can backup your data for up to 90 days when you enable GoDaddy’s backup restore feature. While they are not automated, you have the option to schedule backups, create on-demand, or download your data.

Security: Your account entitles you to an automatic Sucuri plugin, which provides automatic daily malware scanning to protect your site from malicious attacks.?

Help and Support

GoDaddy offers 24/7 phone and chat support for its customers. Search their global directory for customer service phone numbers within and outside of the United States. GoDaddy currently has customer service support numbers for over 50 countries worldwide.

Visit the Help Center to search common issues by topic. You will find help documents on everything from getting set up to marketing to adding appointments, events, or products.

Value for Money

GoDaddy is frequently offering discounts and special offers on their packages. Currently, they are slashing their $9.99 basic WordPress hosting plan to $5. However, this only applies to new hosting plans, and packages renew at standard pricing.

If you are looking to add email hosting to your GoDaddy website, you will pay an additional monthly fee. Email hosting plans are free for the first year but then transfer to a paid subscription. You also cannot get free SSL for your website unless you purchase the Ultimate plan or higher.

All of your purchases are backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied.

6. HostGator

Great for US-based Customers

HostGator is a fast, reliable WordPress host for US-based individuals, blogs, and businesses. Unfortunately, their data centers are only located within the United States, but they provide a fast and stable platform.

Pros

• Provide a 99.9% uptime guarantee
• Offer unlimited storage space
• Extended 45-day guarantee

Cons

• Slower response times from customer support team than competitors
• Must pay an additional fee to restore data from backups

Ease of Use

HostGator is easier to navigate than others on this list. The cPanel dashboard is very user friendly and provides all of the necessary account, billing, hosting, domain, and support tabs and icons without becoming overwhelming.

Features

You can create WordPress hosting sites through Windows and Linux with each offering various features to enhance your experience.

Free migration: Even beginners can transfer their existing WordPress website to HostGator with the help of their WordPress customer support experts, and this is included with any package.

Email hosting: HostGator uses G Suite to host your email at no additional cost to you. Create unlimited email addresses at your domain with this professional and convenient service.

Increased website performance: HostGator allows more visitors to visit your website each month than its competitors. Even the starter plan allows for up to 100k visitors per month.

Help and Support

HostGator provides its customers with 24/7/365 live chat and phone support. You can also troubleshoot or search answers to your questions in their knowledge base, which has extensive information on advanced troubleshooting, cPanel, domains, hosting products, and more.

Value for Money

If you are new to WordPress hosting, and looking to try out different services, take advantage of HostGator’s low introductory rates. However, these rates do jump after your first year.?

All plans come with free Let’s Encrypt SSL security support, and you can build your business with a $100 credit for Google AdWords after you spend your first $25 through HostGator. If you are not satisfied with HostGator, you have 45 days to claim your money-back guarantee, which is longer than most competitors.

7. DreamHost

Great for Developers?

While DreamHost may not be the household name that BlueHost or GoDaddy is, it has become a cult favorite for developers and designers. WordPress also endorses them as a reliable hosting platform.

Pros

• Provide one-click software installation
• You can host unlimited sites and unlimited subdomains
• Unlimited bandwidth

Cons

• Less user-friendly control panel than competitors
• Many features, including optimized WordPress hosting, costs extra

Ease of Use

While DreamHost’s control panel boasts a clean, modern design, it may not be intuitive for all users, especially those used to cPanel dashboards.

If you are an experienced web developer, you may appreciate the advanced customization you can do with DreamHost, but this may become daunting if you are a beginner.

Features

Unlimited bandwidth and storage: DreamHost does not cap your limit on disk space with its shared hosting.

Domain hosting: While they may not be as well known as other domain hosts, you have access to a free domain with your DreamHost subscription.

Instant WordPress setup: For hosting plans that support multiple websites, DreamHost offers their one-click installer to install WordPress within seconds.

Help and Support

As a DreamHost customer, you can access support through their website or directly on your control panel. They provide 24/7 chat support with a tech as well as a knowledge base and discussion forums where you can talk with peers who may have encountered the same issue as you.

Value for Money

DreamHost is less expensive than some competitors, but even its introductory rates only last three months. The basic WordPress hosting plan starts at $4.95 per month, then increases to $6.99 per month after your first three months. If you prepay a longer-term plan, you can benefit from additional savings.

8. SiteGround

Great Boutique-Style Solution

Because it is less known than some of the major WordPress hosts, SiteGround still provides a small, boutique feel to web development. It provides a custom solution at a reasonable price for your blog, business, or store. The well-trained staff provides expert, personalized support to get your website up and running.

Pros

• Managed WordPress host providing exclusive support and one-click staging
• Automated, free daily backups
• Access to six data centers located around the world

Cons

• Not a lot of SSD space for each plan
• Introductory price is low, but all plans renew at higher prices

Ease of Use

SiteGround has an intuitive backend interface that you can customize based on your preferences. The dashboard is a clean, modern design that is easy to follow and doesn’t overwhelm you with too many pages or information.

Features

Daily restores: Even its most basic account has free daily backups to protect your data. If you need something that was removed, you can take advantage of the one-click restore feature.

100% energy match: environmentally-conscious customers will appreciate SiteGround’s 100% energy match. SiteGround works with Google Cloud, their site partner, to match 100% of the energy consumed by its global operations with renewable energy to maintain a commitment to carbon neutrality.

Managed WordPress: All SiteGround plans can take advantage of free WordPress migration. SiteGround also provides customers with a WordPress site building wizard, automated updates, expert support, a staging tool, and more.

Help and Support

All GoGeek and higher plans provide advanced priority support to customers. Advanced support customers are assigned a support agent, and your support tickets are given priority response.

Value for Money

SiteGround is currently $6.99 per month for the StartUp package, but it is normally $14.99 per month. With this basic package, you get free SSL, email, managed WordPress, backups, and more. SiteGround provides a 30-Days Money-Back guarantee to provide customer peace of mind.

How to Choose a WordPress Host

Like with other web development, you should consider which features and design elements matter the most to you when choosing a WordPress host.

Ease of Use

If you are new to WordPress hosting and are looking for an easy-to-build template, you should consider Flywheel or Bluehost. They have extensive libraries of templates that will make your page stand out.

Features and Plugins

All of the WordPress hosts on this list offer various apps and plugins to give you an integrated experience that simplifies your website development. Some of these plugins are paid while others are free. Consider which options are worth the money and whether they come standard through other packages.

GoDaddy offers many features that you can add to your website to enhance the user experience.

Value for Money

Free services often seem most appealing, but some can be limiting regarding the features they offer or the number of templates you can access.

Most mid-range WordPress hosting services will help you get the best return on your investment.

Help and Support

24/7 support is ideal when you run into an issue. Still, many WordPress hosting services also allow you access to community forums, FAQ pages, demo pages, and other tutorials to enable you to build your best website.

Can You Use a Free WordPress Host?

Some of the hosting websites on this list provide a free WordPress option. There are also other WordPress hosting options that do not have all of the features of these top picks but offer a free choice if you cannot budget for a paid subscription.

• WordPress.com
• AccuWeb Hosting
• AwardSpace
• InfinityFree
• Freehostia

8 Best WordPress Hosting Roundup

Here is a quick snapshot of the top WordPress Hosting websites.

Best WordPress Hosting

1. WP Engine – Best overall
2. Bluehost – Best value for money
3. Kinsta – Great for customer service
4. Flywheel – Great for beginners
5. GoDaddy – Best on-the-go service
6. HostGator – Great for US-based customers
7. DreamHost – Great for developers?
8. SiteGround – Great boutique-style solution

Conclusion

While WordPress was initially designed to support blogs, it has grown to accommodate ecommerce and other businesses. Its user-friendly platform makes it great for beginners and less time consuming for website professionals.

Choosing a WordPress host will allow you to access customizable templates and features to set your website apart. Most WordPress hosts integrate smoothly with WordPress and provide user-friendly interfaces that you can operate with little or no web support staff.

FAQs

If you’re still unsure which WordPress host is best for you or your business, consider these frequently asked questions.

What is WordPress Hosting?

WordPress hosting provides a stable platform for your website that improves SEO and provides increased security. While additional features may vary based on the host, they are all usually equipped for one-click installation to easily integrate with WordPress. In general, hosting WordPress through another platform allows for enhanced security like SSL features and improved performance.

There are two different kinds of WordPress hosting.

• Shared hosting: Least expensive option
• Managed hosting: A more expensive option, but allows for higher website speeds and more secure access

How Does WordPress Benefit You?

If you are looking to optimize your search results, WordPress uses SEO tools to allow your website to show up in more search results. WordPress hosts often have their own SEO coding that allows for a cleaner website with increased SEO.

Can You Use WordPress Hosting Without A WordPress Website?

While managed WordPress hosting is only available for WordPress users, it is sometimes allowable through shared hosting. Shared hosting is mostly done with WordPress as the plugin, so you can opt not to include that plugin when building your website.

The post Best WordPress Hosting 2023 : 8 Reliable Hosting Companies for Guaranteed Uptime appeared first on WebMonkey.

This article explains what cloud hosting is and how it can benefit you. We have also evaluated the best cloud hosting services so that you can choose the one that’s right for your needs—keep reading to learn more.

What Are the Best Cloud Hosting Services?

• A2 Hosting – Best overall for small or large organizations
• Cloudways – Best pay-as-you-go pricing
• Siteground – Fully managed for those without an IT team
• Hostwinds – Some of the highest uptime in the industry
• Hostinger – Ideal for the budget-minded
• Hostgator – Unmetered bandwidth and storage
• DreamHost – Guaranteed 100% uptime
• InMotion – Great for small to large businesses
• Kamatera – Gives you complete control over your cloud hosting
• Scala Hosting – Unlimited bandwidth

Cloud Hosting Services Comparison

Best Cloud Hosting Services – Rated

Now that we've gone over how these hosting services compare, let's take a more in-depth look at each one:

1. A2 Hosting

• Storage and Bandwidth – 4 stars
• Support – 5 stars
• Features – 5 stars
• Value for Money – 4.5 stars

A2 Hosting may be the best all-around option for cloud hosting services. It’s fast, reliable, full of features like several backups of your site. Plus, it has one of the best customer support options available. If you need plenty of storage and bandwidth or need to host a Windows-based project, this is an ideal company.

A2 Pros

• Offers unmetered bandwidth
• Maintains several backups of your website
• Provides Windows-based hosting

A2 Cons

• It doesn’t have an incredibly high uptime.

• Doesn’t offer a free SSL certificate or domain, but you can purchase them as add-ons.

Storage and Bandwidth 4/5

Some companies meter the bandwidth, limiting the amount of data that can be transferred per month. None of A2's plans meter your bandwidth. The speed is also second to none. The storage space is middle-of-the-road. Still, this category gets 4-stars because of the unmetered bandwidth.

Support 5/5

The account interface page is user-friendly, but if you need help, you can contact support 24/7/365. The website also offers detailed FAQs, resources, and contact information.

Features 5/5

A2 Hosting maintains seven backups of your website and can restore it if you purchase the Drive plan or higher.

Plus, A2 offers Windows-based hosting, unlike many of its competitors. The anytime money-back guarantee is not offered by any other provider.

Value for Money 4.5/5

A2 Hosting is loaded with some of the most features of any cloud hosting service that we reviewed. This company also lets you choose your server location from the east or west coast of the U.S., Asia, or Europe. In addition to the specs above, A2 Hosting has a package that lets you host an unlimited number of sites. That’s difficult to find in a cloud hosting provider.

Customers who have larger projects or high traffic might want to look into a site with better uptime, though. While A2’s uptime isn’t as high as some of the other providers, it’s still competitive, and the higher downtime is offset by the number of features that this service offers.

1. Cloudways

• Storage and Bandwidth – 5 stars
• Support – 3 stars
• Features – 5 stars
• Value for Money – 3.5 stars

Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting service with a lot more features than A2 Hosting, but those extra perks also come with a larger cost too, which is why we've placed this one at number two.

Cloudways Pros

• Free SSL certificate
• No contract
• Feature-rich

Cloudways Cons

• Cloudways doesn’t offer root access.
• Customer support is available around the clock, but only with the higher-tier memberships.

Storage and Bandwidth 5/5

Cloudways has some of the largest storage and bandwidth out of the companies that we reviewed. That makes it ideal for larger businesses and websites with a great deal of traffic.

Support 3/5

You have to register for one of the paid support plans to have access to more than basic customer service. The support plan costs $100 a month and lets you in on assistance with customization and site monitoring. If you want to have access to 24/7 phone support, you must purchase the $500/month premium support plan.

Features 5/5

Whereas A2 only lets you choose between large regions when selecting a server location, Cloudways allows you to choose the city in which your server is located.

Another essential benefit of choosing Cloudways is its uptime. It features a high percentage of uptime and loading speeds of 400 to 600 milliseconds. One of the reasons that it is so reliable is that it partners with some of the industry’s best cloud providers. Plus, the service offers a 3-day free trial, which allows you to check out all the features and experience the speed and reliability for yourself.

Value for the Money 3.5/5

One of Cloudways’ best features is its pay-as-you-go pricing. You won’t pay for resources that you don’t use. Therefore, you don’t have to guess about how much bandwidth, storage, or other features you use. You won’t end up paying for more than what you get. That’s likely one of the reasons that the cost is higher up front.

1. Siteground

• Storage and Bandwidth – 3 stars
• Support – 5 stars
• Features – 4 stars
• Value for the Money – 4 stars

Siteground is a reliable service with guaranteed 99.98% uptime. The managed cloud is designed for high-performing sites. It automatically scales up as you need more resources so that you don’t have to worry about your website going down with bursts of traffic.

Siteground Pros

• The back end is intuitive and easy to use.
• You can create unlimited domain names, email accounts, and databases.

Siteground Cons

• You don’t get a free domain name with Siteground. That’s surprising, considering the price.
• Although many cloud hosting providers offer site migrations for free, Siteground charges you $30 on top of the price that you’re paying for your plan.
• No windows hosting

Storage and Bandwidth 3/5

The storage ranges from 10 to 40 GB, which isn’t the most, but it's suitable for smaller businesses, and you get unlimited data transfer.

Support 5/5

Customer support is available around the clock via phone, email, or chat for all plans.

Features 4/5

The shared hosting option is loaded with features, and you can customize it to meet your needs. The basic cloud hosting plan offers 6 GB of memory and 3 CPU cores.

It’s also fully managed, which will take a load off your IT team. It features an account management interface, which lets you host your own clients on a sub-account. Each user has access to their own control panel. Free SSL, daily backups, and collaboration tools round out the features of this service.

The client-facing interface is user-friendly. It has a modern look, and you can customize it to show exactly what you want to see.

Value for the Money 4/5

Siteground may be more expensive than the most, with its entry package costing $80, but it comes with lots of desirable features. It offers plenty of value, but it might not be the best starting cloud hosting service for clients with small budgets.

1. Hostwinds

• Storage and bandwidth – 4.5 stars
• Support – 5 stars
• Features – 5 stars
• Value for the money – 5 stars

Hostwinds is the ideal cloud hosting solution for those on a budget. It has one of the fastest uptimes of any cloud hosting service, and the prices are affordable and competitive. It offers plenty of value, but it might not be the best starting cloud hosting service for clients with small budgets.

Hostwinds Pros

• You can choose between fully managed or unmanaged plans.
• Your website is backed up nightly.
• There are multiple server locations.

Hostwinds Cons

• Some of Hostwinds’ plans have Windows server options. However, not all of them do. If that’s a deal-breaker, you might want to go with a different service provider.
• While this cloud hosting service has plenty of features, it’s not perfect. It doesn’t offer free domains, free backups, or server customization.

Storage and bandwidth 4.5/5

Hostwind offers sufficient bandwidth and storage for the cost. Up to 16 CPUs, 750 GB of storage, and 9 TB of bandwidth mean that your website will always run smoothly.

Support 4/5

You can access customer support 24/7. Moreover, there is a 60-day money-back guarantee, which indicates that the service is confident about its value and quality. Also, you can access the extensive knowledge base on the company’s website. Still, the customer support isn’t much different than that of other hosting service providers.

Features 5/5

You almost can’t get better uptime than what Hostwinds offers. In fact, the company guarantees it.

The back end of this hosting service is simple to use. Most applications feature a one-click install, making it easy for you to get started. You also get custom templates, SSH key management, and SSD drives for reduced loading times.

Value for the money 5/5

Hostwinds has excellent prices, especially for what you get. Every plan seems to give you more value than the competitors’ packages. You can also choose a billing method that you prefer, including a custom billing cycle. You can pay hourly, weekly, or monthly.

1. Hostinger

• Storage and bandwidth – 2.5 stars
• Support – 5 stars
• Features – 4 stars
• Value for the money – 5 stars

Are you just getting started or want to save a bunch of money? Hostinger is one of the most affordable cloud hosting services. In fact, it’s so cheap that you might wonder what the catch is. Can the performance really be stellar at that price?

Hostinger Pros

• It’s one of the most affordable cloud hosting services.
• The unlimited features of the advanced plans, combined with the low price, make them extremely desirable.

Hostinger Cons

• The basic plan has limitations
• Low bandwidth
• This isn’t the easiest server solution to manage. Although you have access to the root directory, the cPanel is set up differently than most. There’s a bit of a learning curve when you’re starting out with this company.

Storage and bandwidth 2.5/5

The basic plan is cheap and enough to get you started. However, it comes with extremely limited bandwidth. Whereas many other cloud hosting providers start with 1 TB of bandwidth, this one only begins with 100 GB. Still, it’s fast and has a high uptime guarantee.

Support 5/5

Hostinger has a dedicated and fun support staff. The chat feature uses emojis and gifs to make you smile, and every member of the team is trained to help you find solutions.

Features 4/5

The basic plan has some limitations, as we discuss in the next section. However, the two advanced plans have many unlimited features. They offer unlimited bandwidth, websites, and email accounts. Hostinger also includes a free SSL for life with all of its plans.

Value for the Money 5/5

Hostwinds is inexpensive, but the cheapest plans do come with a catch; you have to commit to several years with the company to get the best prices.

1. Hostgator

• Storage and bandwidth – 5 stars
• Support – 3 stars
• Features – 4 stars
• Value for the money – 3.5 stars

Many people are familiar with Hostgator’s brand. The company has been evolving with the decades. Clients who need to host websites without added data can get excellent benefits from using this service.

Hostgator Pros

• Unlimited bandwidth and storage
• 45-day guarantee
• Easily scale your traffic

Hostgator Cons

• Confusing pricing that goes up over time
• Customer service isn’t great

Storage and bandwidth 5/5

Hostgator’s standout feature may be its unmetered bandwidth and storage. The company doesn’t keep track of how much you use. You can scale your traffic at any time. However, because of this, traffic increases for multiple websites can slow down the servers. Still, you can upgrade your RAM and CPUs at the click of a button.

Support 3/5

The 45-day guarantee shows that this company stands behind its service. However, it’s not the longest guarantee in the industry. Many customers claim that Hostgator’s customer service is not up to par.

Features 4/5

Hostgator is also intuitive and easy to use. Even beginners should be able to move forward without much of a learning curve. There are a? few things missing from Hostgator’s collection of features. It doesn’t offer free root access, backups, or a free domain. Factor these additional costs into the price of the packages.

Value for the money 3.5/5

Hostgator’s pricing is in the middle of the road. It’s competitive and represents its wide range of features.

The pricing can also be confusing. Costs seem too good to be true initially. When it comes time to renew, the cost goes up. Make sure you ask about current and future value before making a decision.? You can purchase a variety of add-ons, but many of them are unnecessary. Still, this offers you flexibility.

1. DreamHost

• Storage and bandwidth – 3 stars
• Support – 3 stars
• Features – 4 stars
• Value for the money – 4 stars

DreamHost is another option for people with a low budget for cloud hosting solutions. It’s perfect for people with WordPress sites. However, its features and reliability reflect the pricing. It does have unmetered bandwidth, which makes it flow quickly. However, it only offers 100 GB of storage.

DreamHost Pros

• Unmetered bandwidth allows for increased traffic and smooth sailing
• 97-day guarantee
• Guaranteed 100% uptime

DreamHost Cons

• Only offers up to 100 GB of storage
• The storage that this company offers is geared toward single websites. There is not enough space to host large projects or enormous amounts of data.

Storage and Bandwidth 3/5

Unlimited bandwidth and storage let you create a project that’s as large as you’d like. However, the uptime isn’t incredibly high. That might be due to the fact that so many clients are taking advantage of the unlimited storage and bandwidth.

Support 3/5

One of the biggest downsides to using DreamHost is that it doesn’t have live phone support. If you have a problem, you have to submit a ticket and wait for someone to get back to you. That could be a problem if you’re dealing with an urgent matter. But the live chat is worthwhile, and you can’t beat the 97-day guarantee.

Features 4/5

DreamHost may be one of the only cloud hosting providers that guarantees 100% uptime. That doesn’t mean that your site won’t go down. But if it does, DreamHost will credit the client with the amount that they would have paid for their plan for the day.

This service boasts strong security features, unlimited data transfer, pre-installed WordPress and a user-friendly interface. Although it doesn’t offer a cPanel, it has its own admin area.

Value for the money 4/5

DreamHost is competitively priced. There’s not much that we don’t like about it, and it offers excellent value for the money.

1. InMotion

• Storage and bandwidth – 4 stars
• Support – 5 stars
• Features – 5 stars
• Value for the money – 4 stars

InMotion might be the best cloud hosting solution for small businesses. It’s one of the lesser-known names in the cloud hosting industry, but it’s versatile and reliable. This is an ideal company to work with if you are an agency or enterprise. It also offers small business and application cloud hosting.

Inmotion Pros

• Best customer service in the industry
• Free SSL
• Unlimited disk space

Inmotion Cons

• RAM and bandwidth could be higher
• No Windows servers

Storage and bandwidth 4/5

Get unlimited disk space to support a project with a great deal of data. Even the basic package sets you up with all of this storage. However, what you get in storage you lose in RAM. The bandwidth could also be higher.

Support 5/5

You can find assistance through 24/7 live chat and phone support. Customers can also open help tickets or turn to the knowledge center for answers. The support team receives more than 160 hours of training. They are prepared to offer you skillful direction.

Features 5/5

InMotion offers free SSL and unlimited disk space. A free domain, unlimited email accounts, included cPanel, and Corero DDS attack protection round out the ample features.

Value for the money 4/5

The fixed monthly pricing is easy to understand. The setup is easy. You get a lot of features. This competitively priced service is worthwhile. It’s ideal for small businesses that don’t have their own tech department.

1. Kamatera

• Storage and bandwidth – 2 stars
• Support – 5 stars
• Features – 5 stars
• Value for the money – 4 stars

Do you need to have total control? over your cloud hosting? Kamatera is built for performance, customization, and optimization. It allows for plenty of flexibility, but you likely need more experience in this arena than someone who is just starting out.

Kamatera Pros

• Full customization possible
• State-of-the-art data centers are spread throughout the globe

Kamatera Cons

• Uptime could be higher
• You don’t get free backups or a free domain name.
• RAM could be higher

Storage and Bandwidth 2/5

The most advanced plan only offers 512 GB of RAM. This may not be enough for a large website.

Support 5/5

Get live tech support around the clock. The company claims to have an unrivaled response time when it comes to helping you.

Features 5/5

Everything is customizable with Kamatera. RAM, storage space, CPUS, and server capacity can be adjusted almost instantaneously, letting you stay on top of traffic surges. All of the resources can be adjusted as you need them, which makes it easy to create a plan that works for your business. Build your server the way you want it.

Value for the Money 4/5

Because you only pay for what you use, you can choose? the resources that you need. You won’t overpay or waste money on features that you don’t need. Pay by the minute, ensuring that you’re not overpaying. The pricing is competitive, and it’s not necessarily expensive. However, the more you add, the more you’ll end up paying.

1. Scala Hosting

• Storage and bandwidth – 4 stars
• Support – 5 stars
• Features – 4 stars
• Value for the money – 5 stars

You may not be familiar with Scala Hosting. However, this service has a large number of features that make it desirable. It comes with managed and unmanaged plans that include all of the essentials, like free SSL, unlimited websites, backups, and auto-installers.

Scala Pros

• User-friendly
• Good for beginners

Scala Cons

• No root access
• Limited data centers
• Managed plans only feature Centos8 OS

Storage and bandwidth 4/5

The company claims to have unrivaled performance and load speed. Unlimited bandwidth helps your website operate smoothly. The amount of storage is also plentiful.

Support 5/5

Scala hosting has excellent customer service. The tech and sales support team provide knowledgeable guidance. Plus, they’re available around the clock and respond to your questions quickly.

Features 4/5

The company also prides itself on its user-friendly sales process and operation. Even if you’re a beginner, you can make this cloud hosting service work for you. Some of the features of the basic plans include daily remote backups, free snapshots, a dedicated IP address and better google rankings.

Value for the money 5/5

For all-in-one hosting and a fully managed account, you get great value with this company.

Do You Need Cloud Hosting?

A website needs to be hosted somewhere. Traditionally, websites were hosted on one server. Sometimes, that server was devoted to a single website. However, it’s more common to have a shared hosting package.

Cloud hosting is different. When you host your website on a cloud server, your website is not hosted on a single machine. The data is distributed across multiple machines. These servers are in different locations, but they’re all connected. If one server goes down, another one picks it up.

You manage your information virtually. When you work on your site, you access the various servers through the cloud.

What to Look For in a Cloud Hosting Service

There is a lot of technological lingo involved when you’re learning about cloud hosting services. We have explained some of the jargon that you’ll read about in our reviews so that you have a better understanding of what you need.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the amount of data that gets transferred between servers, the internet, and your audience. It influences the amount and rate of the transfer of information. Higher bandwidth lets your website handle high traffic without slowing down.

Root Access

With root access, you can tailor your server’s environment to your needs. Having root access lets you fully control your server, using it to host more than one website, add third party software and apps, or run a game server, to name a few benefits.

Uptime

You might be surprised to see that no provider promises 100% uptime, which is the amount of time that your website is accessible online. According to Quick Sprout, uptime is the most important aspect of hosting your website. But all servers go down from time to time. With cloud hosting, another server can take over. Still, 100% uptime is rare.

A provider that has a higher uptime percentage is more likely to be run well, besides the fact that it is likely a better managed company than some others. A provider that offers 90% availability is down 36.5 days per year and 16.8 hours per week. That doesn’t seem very desirable.

A server with 99.9 percent uptime is down only 8.76 hours per year and 10.1 minutes per week. Better yet, a provider that boasts 99.9999 percent uptime is only down for 31.5 seconds per year and 604.8 milliseconds per week.

RAM

You’re probably familiar with this term, but you might not know how it relates to cloud hosting providers. RAM stands for random-access memory. It refers to the data storage that the server uses to perform tasks.

It’s not the static storage that saves content such as photos. RAM is the working memory. The more ram you have, the more smoothly your website will run.

For one static webpage, you might be able to get away with only 512 MB of RAM. But you might want to get more than you think you need. One way to lose potential customers quickly is to frustrate them with a slow site that doesn’t operate seamlessly.

RAM might be the most important factor that you consider when choosing a cloud hosting service. Most websites should pay for at least 1 to 2 GB of RAM.

CPU

CPUs are the processing units that your server has. They work as the mastermind behind all of your website’s content and functions.

When you use a shared hosting service, the clients are sharing the provider’s resources. RAM and CPU are divided between all of the clients.

A Note About CPU and RAM

Sometimes, RAM is referred to as memory, and CPU is referred to as storage. The disk space is the amount of data that the server can hold for you. The number of CPUs indicates how well your site will operate and store your information.

You might think that it’s preferable to pay for a lot of RAM and CPUs so that your site operates well. However, that’s not always what happens with shared servers. If more clients have access to higher RAM and CPU offered by the hosting provider and maximize their available resources, the server could become overloaded.

Therefore, although CPU and RAM are important, they shouldn’t be the primary factors on which you base your decision. You should also take the rest of these elements into consideration.

• Management options
• What security measures each provider offers
• Whether the platform will help you meet security compliance measures, such as HIPAA
• How you can incorporate the architecture into your workflows
• The level of support
• Cost

Management

You have to consider how well the server provider manages its servers and clients. You should also think about how easy it is to manage the account on your end.

With a managed cloud hosting solution, you get access to a team of IT experts, such as engineers and system administrators, to run your account. You’ll have more resources and support than you would on a non-managed cloud server. Managed cloud hosting is perfect for people who aren’t adept at web development.

Another disadvantage of an unmanaged hosting solution is that you may get bogged down by maintenance. Wouldn’t you rather be able to focus on the business?

Support

Whether or not you’re using a managed server, you’ll probably have questions from time to time. If you have a dedicated in-house IT team, you might not need to rely on the hosting provider’s support. But no one likes to be kept waiting when they have a question.

What kind of customer service does the provider offer? Having access to assistance 24/7 may be vital for your business. Many providers have chat services and around-the-clock call centers. But you should ask about the level of service before you decide on a provider.

Costs

Cost may or may not play a primary role in your decision. You shouldn’t make your choice solely on cost. Instead, ask yourself what the value of the service is.

The lower costs are typically for shared hosting, whereas the higher fees are for dedicated servers. You should also make sure that you’re paying for the number of websites that you need. The levels that you choose from the above features influence the costs of your package.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Best Cloud Hosting Services

Do you have questions about changing providers? It’s easier than you think. The new provider will often arrange to migrate the site. However, you should ask if they charge a migration fee. While it’s possible to host a website yourself, it’s not a good idea. It likely won’t be as reliable as those that are available through these providers.

Are cloud hosting services reliable?

Your site will remain online even if one server goes down because your information is stored across all of the servers.

Are cloud hosting services scalable?

Cloud hosting offers plenty of processing power; your site can be responsive to increased demand when you expect additional traffic, such as during the holidays.

How adaptable is a cloud hosting option?

Instead of being offered in one-size-fits-all packages, cloud hosting services offer versatility, allowing you to set up the architecture, space, OS, processing power, and security that you need.

Will my website load quickly?

Cloud servers are ready quickly, making it easy for you to deploy your domain fast. Less strain is going on the server’s resources, which means that your website loads faster.

The post Best Cloud Hosting Services 2023 appeared first on WebMonkey.

But, you don’t want to choose just any host. You’re trying to save money by using the best cheap shared hosting. Shared hosting is a great way to stretch the dollar and get your website up and running quickly.

This guide explains in extensive detail; the best cheap shared hosting providers with bandwidth to spare. Let’s dive right in!

What Is Shared Hosting?

What if you don’t know what shared hosting is? No need to panic! A “shared” host is a place where your website can live along with a variety of other people’s websites as well. You all share the same bandwidth and storage space, so this is a great choice for small websites, new blogs, and small business sites.

Since you’re all sharing space on one physical server, the host is able to keep the operating costs low while still providing enough speed, customer support, and uptime guarantees. This factor benefits you with low monthly fees and added features.

Best Cheap Shared Hosting Providers

1. HostGator – Best Overall
2. DreamHost – Most Affordable
3. A2 Hosting – Best Customer Support
4. InMotion – Loaded with Features
5. BlueHost – Best Premium
6. Hostinger – Best for WordPress
7. iPage – Unlimited Accounts and Subdomains
8. Hostwinds – Best for Small Businesses
9. GoDaddy – Best for Office365 Users
10. AccuWeb – Great Uptime

Factors That Developed This List
We’re in the game of features, and low cost here, so let’s talk about some of the factors we considered when compiling this list.

• Cost – You want to save money, that’s why you’re here. One of the most important buying factors we looked at was the cost of hosting with these ten options. They’re all relatively low, if not lower than any other hosting providers.
• Visitor Limit – When you’re bootstrapping your hosting, you may deal with restrictions like how many visitors can pass through your site per month. If you operate a small website, this is no big deal.
• Sites Included – How many sites can you operate for the monthly price? Some are unlimited, and some are not.
• Storage Space – You’re sharing this with a bunch of other websites, so you’ll want to know how much you can have.
• Backups/Domains – If you’re thinking of transferring an existing website to a new host, you better hope the new host allows it. Some do, and some don’t.
• SSL Security – This certificate protects your visitors’ information with a lock next to the URL. This feature is essential if you plan on collecting private data on your site.
• Uptime – One of the most important factors is the host's uptime. While most hosts provide near 100% uptime, the cheaper you get – the further you travel from that magic number.

Now that you understand what shared hosting is and what factors we consider important, let’s break down the best cheap shared hosting providers.

1. HostGator – Best Overall

Pros

• Near perfect uptime – 99.99%
• Website builder
• Variety of plans
• Great customer service

Cons

• No Windows VPS hosting
• No free backups or domains

Pricing Breakdown

It’s tough to beat the price of HostGator, and that’s what brought them to the top of our list. If you pay for a three-year plan, you’re paying $2.75 per month. Annual pricing starts at $5.95 per month.

HostGator offers three shared hosting plans with a wide variety of discounted rates if you sign up for three-year deals and so on. They also offer reduced rates all throughout the year if you sign up through an affiliate link or get a promo code. Usually, discounts only apply for the first year or six months.

Top Features

The best feature of HostGator is the fact that you get unlimited email accounts and a 99.99% uptime guarantee. That basically means that out of 365 days in a year, you’ll experience less than one hour of downtime. That’s the best guarantee in the business, and it’s the reason many people turn to HostGator.

In addition to that, you get an industry-leading customer service 24/7, where you can actually call and talk to a real person. We see this less and less in hosting providers as they continue to outsource customer service and automate everything.

Lastly, they offer a 45-day money-back guarantee so you can purchase the more affordable three-year plan to decide if you like it or not and cancel before the guarantee runs out if you change your mind.

Drawbacks

The main flaws of HostGator revolve around the limitations. This is shared hosting, so you’re obviously not getting a whole suite of features. There are no free backups or domains, which doesn’t mean you can’t do it; it just means you need to pay an added fee for it.

We highly recommend buying your domain from HostGator as well because we’ve been through the migration process, and it’s incredibly taxing.

Another downside is the fact that they don’t offer dedicated hosting for Windows users, so if you’re planning on scaling with HostGator, you might want to reconsider.

2. DreamHost – Most Affordable

Pros

• Cheaper than any other host
• Unlimited visitors
• Strong security
• Cloud hosting

Cons

• Limited support
• No cPanel

Pricing Breakdown

When you want to save money on Hosting, you go with DreamHost – simple as that. The main and most significant feature of this hosting provider is its cost. At $2.59 per month for a three-year contract, it’s even a few cents cheaper than HostGator. So, why did we pick it as number two instead of one? You’ll have to continue to find out!

Top Features

The standout feature is the fact that you have no limitations on how much traffic you can send through your website. That’s a big upside for those of you who are trying to scale. Maybe you already have a solid amount of traffic, but you’re just looking to transfer to something a little more affordable.

Something else they have over HostGator is free backups and domains with an SSL certificate. So, you’re getting the most affordable hosting, with free backups, great security, and unlimited visitors. Why are we in second place?

Drawbacks

DreamHost has an uptime rating of 99.94%, which is a minuscule difference when it all boils down, but it’s still worth mentioning. The biggest downside is their customer service. They don’t have a telephone number, and from our research, the live chat and support tickets aren’t worth the aggravation either.

Plus, they don’t have a cPanel, which is the industry standard. Instead, you get a bespoke dashboard, which we won’t complain about, but it might be unfamiliar for many of you.

3. A2 Hosting – Best Customer Support

Pros

• Lifetime money-back guarantee
• Excellent customer service
• Great WordPress hosting plans

Cons

• Priced a bit higher than others
• 99.95% uptime

Pricing Breakdown

Just like HostGator, A2 offers three different plan options with the cheapest being $7.99 per month if you pay monthly. You can save as much as 20% by spreading the contract out across two years. We recommend doing this because they have a lifetime money-back guarantee.

Of course, the terms and conditions of that are extremely stringent, and you may have to fight a battle that isn’t worth it to get your money back, but at least you know you can terminate the contract whenever you want.

These prices apply to the Linux servers; if you’re running on Windows, you’ll actually end up paying a little more. The Lite plan is $9.99 per month for a single site, five databases, unlimited storage, unlimited transfers, free SSL, and a Plesk control panel.

Top Features

A2 has hands-down the best support team we’ve ever had the pleasure of contacting. The representatives here seem like they’ve gone through extensive training, they understand their product, and they know what can go wrong with it.

You don't realize how important a factor this is until you need it. When you’re running traffic through your website daily, and that results in dollar signs, having issues that prevent your website from running will quickly cost you money if you can’t get it fixed right away.

That’s the primary difference between A2 and DreamHost. DreamHost might be cheaper, but you’ll find that a lack of customer support can cost you more money than it saves you.

In addition to the support, you get unlimited storage, 25 email accounts, free SSL, and a permanent money-back guarantee.

Drawbacks

The main downside here is the price. It’s a bit more expensive than the rest, and if you’re running on Windows, it’s even more expensive. For shared hosting, we’re a little unimpressed, but we think it has something to do with the overhead of managing a support team of this quality.

The uptime of 99.95% doesn’t impress us either. Thankfully, we have confidence that any issues you have with A2 will get quickly nipped in the bud.

4. InMotion – Loaded with Features

Pros

• Best hosting features
• Two websites on the cheapest plan
• Easy to use web builder

Cons

• 25 subdomains
• No Windows servers

Pricing Breakdown

Let’s take a look at InMotions cheapest plan. It starts at $10.99 per month if you pay monthly, and that gets you a free domain, two websites, 50GB SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, great speeds, ten emails, free SSL, security, marketing tools, and a drag-and-drop web builder with 24/7/365 customer support.

How does all of that sound? Sounds pretty good to us. InMotion easily offers the most bang for your buck. While you’re paying a little more than some of the others, you can spread it out across a lengthier contract and get the payment around $5.99 per month.

Top Features

Our favorite feature of InMotion is the free website transfer with no downtime guarantee. If you need to transfer a website quickly from one host to another, most providers tell you you’re out of luck, and you’re sure to experience some downtime.

InMotion helps prevent that as long as you have a simple website with 1-3 databases. Another feature that stands out amongst the competition is the fact that you can have two websites for the price of one. While their monthly price is higher than anyone else, if you sign up for a longer plan, it’s not as bad, and the pros outweigh the cons for sure.

Drawbacks

We had to dig deep to find anything negative to say here. We understand that the price is high, but we’ve made that obvious already. Our biggest complaint would be that there are limits on traffic and subdomains.

You can only have 360,000 visitors on the lowest plan and 25 subdomains. While that shouldn't be a problem for 99% of you, I suppose the lucky 1% doing that type of traffic might have to upgrade to a more expensive plan.

5. BlueHost – Best Premium

Pros

• Free backups and domains
• Great uptime
• Loaded with features

Cons

• 50GB storage space
• 32,000 monthly visitors on the cheapest plan

Pricing Breakdown

Pricing is pretty standard here with a three-year plan putting you at $2.95 per month. If you’re not afraid of signing up for a long term relationship, you can save some money, but the monthly plan is $7.99.

For everything that Bluehost offers, we wouldn’t even be against signing up for the month-to-month because you’re getting a lot of features for a small price tag.

Top Features

When you sign up for the “basic” plan, which is $7.99 per month, you get one website with 50 GBs of SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, free SSL, one domain, and 25 subdomains. We’re pretty pleased with these features, and we consider BlueHost to be a premium WordPress host, so if you’re a WP builder, you’ll enjoy this host.

You also get exceptional uptime close to 100% and 24/7 customer support, whether you reach out to them on the phone or via live chat support. BlueHost offers a lot for Windows and Linux users, so we’re sure everyone will find something to love about this host.

Drawbacks

The drawbacks of BlueHost aren’t so much drawbacks as they are, mere limitations. If you’re trying to scale with this host, by the time you even experience its negatives, you’ll be making enough money to move on to a more expensive package so it won’t even matter.

You can only use 50GBs of storage on the cheapest plan, which is the smallest storage we’ve seen, but as we said, you’ll scale up over time. The main problem is the 32,000 monthly visitors that won’t change no matter what plan you’re on.

Once you hit that ceiling, it simply means it’s time to switch over to VPS hosting, which BlueHost offers as well!

6. Hostinger – Best for WordPress

Pros

• Easy to learn for WordPress
• Multilingual support team
• Good uptime

Cons

• No dedicated hosting
• No phone support

Pricing Breakdown

Hostinger offers three major plans for its shared hosting services. The single shared hosting is the best choice for beginners, and it offers you one website, one email, 100GB bandwidth, SSL, free domain, 99.99% uptime, and the control panel.

The features are nice, but the price tag is a little more than we would have hoped. If you elect to pay monthly, you’ll get stuck with a $9.99 per month fee. The good news is, if you decide to spread that out across a few years, you can get your payment as low as $0.99.

Top Features

While you only get one website, if you’re using it for WordPress, you’ll like Hostinger. It comes with WordPress acceleration, which makes migrating your site extremely easy, and they offer 24/7/365 customer support and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Best of all, it only takes one small upgrade to the next plan to get unlimited everything, including websites, emails, and bandwidth.

Drawbacks

There’s a few downsides here and one being the fact that you don’t get free daily backups. That means you need to manually go into your site every time you want to back it up and pay for it. Many cheaper hosting providers have this problem, and while they back up your site for free once a month or so, you’ll likely want to do it more.

Another issue is that they don’t have dedicated hosting, so you’re limited in terms of scaling. Granted, the business plan offers unlimited websites, 4X resources, and 100 subdomains with daily backups, so maybe not.

7. iPage – Unlimited Accounts and Subdomains

Pros

• Great support team
• Unlimited accounts and subdomains
• 500,000 visitor limit

Cons

• Limited plan choices
• Poor uptime

Pricing Breakdown

This factor might be a downside to some, but we like it when people keep things simple. iPage doesn’t overcomplicate things with 15 different plans and staggered features across them all, they have one plan, and that’s it.

This plan costs $7.99 per month if you pay monthly, and you get all the features they have to offer in this one plan, so you know exactly what iPage is all about.

Top Features

First, if unlimited space, bandwidth, domains, and databases sound good to you, then you might like iPage. They also throw in a free SSL certificate and a free domain for the first year. After that, you’ll have to pay $14.99.

With iPages web builder, you can customize six pages and install WordPress in one click. They offer hundreds of templates and a customizable email address that you can fit to match your domain.

With all of these features comes an online help center and ticketing system. Plus, they have 24/7 phone and chat support and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Drawbacks

It really seems like iPage is a solid shared hosting option, so why is it number seven in this breakdown? First, their uptime is around 99.94% making it one of the worst we’ve seen. Again, this might be an issue that goes unnoticed for most, but you'll notice it for those pumping high volume through their website.

iPage also charges you $100 for backups, which is a little ridiculous. That’s a big enough negative to turn us away.

Overall, it’s a great cheap shared hosting provider, and one we can always find a reason to recommend to the readers.

8. Hostwinds – Best for Small Businesses

Pros

• Great uptime
• Many plan options
• Solid customer service

Cons

• Confusing pricing
• Faulty money-back guarantee

Pricing Breakdown

Pricing is simple with Hostwinds; they offer three different options. That’s unless you get into the business plans, then they offer three plans there as well. Their pricing is the most confusing out of every host we’ve looked at so far.

The basic offering starts at $8.99 per month if you pay monthly, and that gets you unlimited bandwidth, space, and one domain. You really can’t beat that.

If you’re a small business and just looking for an affordable host that won’t put limitations on what you can do, this seems like a solid option.

They also include quite a bit of features in their most basic plan.

Top Features

In addition to getting unlimited space and bandwidth, you get an SSD, free website transfers, unlimited emails, cPanel, unlimited databases, free SSL, free domain, dedicated Ip, unlimited subdomains, free Weebly website builder, and the list goes on.

Hostwinds offers a lot, so we’re not surprised if you’re wondering why it’s so far down on our list.

Drawbacks

The main drawback comes from their money-back guarantee. The company claims to have a 60-day money-back guarantee, but you find that they’re a little deceiving with their terms when you read the fine print.

Plus, their pricing structure is very confusing for someone who doesn’t have experience shopping around for hosts. We think it might be another deception tactic to make people believe they need a more expensive plan than they do.

For shared hosting, there’s no reason to have six different plans.

9. GoDaddy – Best for Office365 Users

Pros

• Great customer support
• Strong reputation
• Good for both Windows and Linux

Cons

• No cloud hosting
• Limited email plans

Pricing Breakdown

Shared hosting is at the forefront of everything that GoDaddy does (maybe other than selling domains), and they’re a popular choice for small businesses and Office365 users. They offer four different plans, which we found very easy to understand, and the features they each offer make sense for the price point.

The economy plan is the cheapest option, and it’ll run you $7.99 per month. For that, you get 24/7 support, 100GBs of storage, unlimited bandwidth, free email, and a free domain.

We would have hoped to see a little bit more for $7.99 because that’s a pretty standard price but substandard features.

Top Features (and Drawbacks)

The biggest downside is actually the only upside of GoDaddy, and that’s their features; they don’t offer anything out of the ordinary other than a standard shared hosting service with decent uptime, one website, and a free domain.

If you decide to upgrade to the Deluxe plan, you’ll get unlimited websites, storage, and domains, but they don’t offer anything like a website builder or even a free SSL included with your purchase.

10. AccuWeb – Great Uptime

Pros

• Best uptime
• Great dedicated hosting
• Linux or Windows

Cons

• No unlimited email
• No month-to-month hosting

Pricing Breakdown

If you’re looking for shared hosting on Windows, AccuWeb is offering some of the lowest prices at $3.52 per month if you sign up for two years. You can host one website, use their control panel, and they offer cloud-based options as well.

The company has over 17 years of experience and more than 55,000 websites on their servers.

Top Features

It appears that customer service is something that AccuWeb does right. They have an average ticket response time of 11 minutes and a live chat response time of fewer than ten seconds. If you’re caught in a bind, you won’t have to struggle to get a problem fixed with AccuWeb.

Another one of their best features is their 99.99% uptime guarantee. That means, if you experience more than a few minutes of downtime per year, they’ll refund a portion of your money to help accommodate you.

Drawbacks

The downside we see is similar to the problem we had with GoDaddy; they’re pretty bare-bones in what they offer. While they offer solid hosting that seems to work for a lot of people, they don’t offer much else.

You don’t get an email, you don’t get a domain, you don’t get free transfers, and you can’t pay month-to-month, which means you need to commit to a long contract no matter what.

How to Choose the Best Cheap Shared Hosting

Before you get ready to commit to any of the hosts outlined above, let’s talk briefly about what you should consider before making a decision. There are a few buying factors similar to what we talked about in the beginning that we want to make sure you understand.

Ease of Use

You have a business to run, a blog, or something to do that takes you away from tending to your website. You hire a host and a web developer to take things like this out of your hands for a reason. If you wanted to spend hours per day on your website, you’d have gone into a different business.

We get it; you need something that is easy to jump right into and get started. That’s why you're here.

The best shared hosting providers will make it easy for you to create a website or transfer an existing one. A lot of the options recommended above allow you to do both of these.

If you’re on a shoestring budget and need to build and design the website yourself, we would suggest going with a host that provides a free website builder, so you don’t have to add additional expense.

Uptime Guarantee

You want to get as close to 100% uptime as possible. As mentioned, if you’re not driving hundreds of visitors through your website every day, you might not even notice the downtime. That’s not to say it’s not there, and that’s not to say you won’t care at some point.

The cost of paying for a host with high uptime isn’t any different than paying for one with low uptime, so make sure you make the right choice now, so you don’t have to change anything later.

Customer Support

The help and support you receive from a hosting provider is reason enough to pay a few bucks more. When you need them most, you need a host who will come through and solve problems rather than create new ones.

Have you ever contacted a customer support line, and they end up giving you a giant list of tasks to do to fix the problem? Now, not only are you losing time and money by calling them, you’re losing more time and money by spending an hour or two going through the motions.

You need a customer support team who is there to solve your problems, and they have the infrastructure to get it done efficiently.

Limitations

Each shared hosting provider has limitations but some more than others. When someone originally thinks of getting shared hosting, they probably think their site will run slowly because you’re sharing it with other people, but that’s almost never the case.

During our research and testing for this guide, we learned that shared hosting is more common than you think, and most of the popular hosting providers in this guide offer shared hosting as their primary service.

That said, shared hosting can result in limitations regarding bandwidth, traffic, and storage. Most of the hosts here do not have limitations that you’ll ever even notice unless you’re flowing tons of traffic through your site.

Just make sure you’re reading all the fine print, looking at all the features, and paying attention to anything that says unlimited.

Best Cheap Shared Hosting: Summary

Regardless of the shared hosting provider you choose, you’ll be fine with any of the options on this list. They’re all solid choices with great uptime, excellent customer service, and features that make building and hosting a website much easier.

Let’s take a quick look at our top ten options again:

1. HostGator – Best Overall
2. DreamHost – Most Affordable
3. A2 Hosting – Best Customer Support
4. InMotion – Loaded with Features
5. BlueHost – Best Premium
6. Hostinger – Best for WordPress
7. iPage – Unlimited Accounts and Subdomains
8. Hostwinds – Best for Small Businesses
9. GoDaddy – Best for Office365 Users
10. AccuWeb – Great Uptime

If you’re looking for the best of the best, we recommend going with either HostGator or DreamHost. Both of these providers offer the most features for the least amount of money. The main upside to HostGator is their support staff.

You can have an issue in the middle of the night on Christmas and call up someone from HostGator and get them right on the phone. You won’t have that luxury with DreamHost.

HostGator also has a much better uptime rating than DreamHost. The only reason we would choose DreamHost over HostGator is if we were trying to save a few bucks.

FAQs

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions revolving around cheap shared hosting providers.

What type of business should use shared hosting?

Any business can use shared hosting, but you need to keep the traffic limitations in mind. If you’re bringing in more than 50-100k visitors per month on your website, you won’t likely be able to use shared hosting because you’ll take up too much bandwidth and crash the site.

What is the difference between shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting?

Shared hosting is when you share the resources with other websites. There may be a certain amount of bandwidth and storage split across 15 different websites. That’s why shared is the ideal choice for small businesses and websites.

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server, which is when your site is hosted on a shared server, but you have improved security and resources. Dedicated means you have your own server and usually yields the highest security level and the most benefits.

Should I use cloud hosting or shared hosting?

Cloud hosting is also affordable, and it’s becoming more and more popular. Shared hosting involves a physical server that has obvious risks of theft and damage. We think if you’re storing highly confidential information, you might be better off using cloud hosting as opposed to shared.

There’s no right or wrong answer here, and it helps to understand the two to decide for yourself.

The post 10 Best Cheap Shared Hosting Providers [Expert Guide + Reviews]? appeared first on WebMonkey.

A web host company provides you with space on the internet in which to put your website. Consider it like the property on which your home sets.

Like property, you want the hosting company you use to be good. Imagine if you built your house on a sandy lot, which causes the foundation to sink. That would lead to a lot of problems down the road. You can say something similar about hosting as bad hosting will quickly sink your business.

What Is the Best Hosting for Small Business Websites?

A lousy host may lead to frequent downtime, which means your customers cannot get to your website. It could also mean a slow website that doesn't load properly and provides a horrible consumer experience. Either issue could negatively impact your sales.

According to CNet, when shopping for web hosting, you need to consider the reliability, security, features, and customer support. You also want to be sure the company offers a fair price and make it easy for you to set up and run.

With those things in mind, we've put together a list of the top 10 web hosting companies worth considering if you own a small business. We provide you with quite a bit of information on each so that you can make an informed decision that will positively impact your business.

1. Bluehost: Best overall
2. DreamHost : Best uptime guarantee
3. HostGator: Best uptime
4. SiteGround: Best customer support
5. iPage: Best pricing plans
6. GoDaddy: Best all-in-one option
7. InMotion: Best for shared hosting
8. A2 Hosting: Best money-back guarantee
9. AccuWeb: Best dedicated hosting
10. Hostwinds: Best VPS hosting

Bluehost wins as our top choice because it is easy to use, has impressive uptime, offers solid customer service, and provides good introductory and long-term pricing. Overall, this service offers the best value because it doesn't have any particularly bad issues in any of the important categories. Bluehost provides reliable service that will do the job well.

In-Depth Reviews of the Top 10 Web Hosting Companies for Small Businesses

1. Bluehost

Best Overall

Ease of use: 5 stars

Uptime: 4 stars

Features: 4 stars

Types of hosting: 4.5 stars

Customer support: 5 stars

Value: 5 stars

Bluehost is our best overall pick for small business web hosting because it is a reliable company. It may not have the top scores in every category, but it does have an overall excellent value. You can expect to have a decent uptime rate of 99.98% with minimal issues keeping your website live.

The service is quite simple to set up because Bluehost ensures the layout of its control panel is not complex, which is great if you are new to this and not a tech genius. If you use WordPress, things are a snap with one-click integration. Don't worry if you are a more advanced user as the customized cPanel has enough features to impress you as well.

Bluehost provides you with some excellent basic features, including a free domain and free SSL certificate to cover your security concerns. It also has unmetered bandwidth, and you'll get 50 GB of storage, which may not compare to some other hosting companies on our list that provide unlimited storage but should be enough to meet your small business needs.

Bluehost does only have Linux and not Windows servers. It offers all the main types of hosting:

• Shared
• VPS
• Dedicated
• Reseller
• WordPress

This company does stand out in the area of customer support. Not only are support agents attentive and knowledgeable but also they are available 24/7 by phone or live chat. You can always reach someone to assist with any need you may have. In addition, Bluehost has an impressive knowledge center where you can troubleshoot on your own.

Costs for hosting start at $2.95 a month for shared hosting at the introductory rate. The most expensive plan is for dedicated hosting at $209.99 a month. Bluehost does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Overall, Bluehost provides you with a great value. You get a lot for your money and a service that is ideal if you are new to setting up and running your business website.

Pros

• Excellent customer service
• Nice WordPress hosting
• Superior value
• Best pricing

Cons

• Small storage amount for basic plan
• Slow if you have spikes in traffic

2. DreamHost

Best Uptime Guarantee

Ease of use: 5 stars

Uptime: 5 stars

Features: 5 stars

Types of hosting: 4 stars

Customer support: 4 stars

Value: 4.5 stars

Coming in second on our list is DreamHost. This service offers a simple layout that makes startup hassle-free. You won't find any complex settings or details in the interface that will confuse you or make it tough to get your website live in an instant.

The standout feature of DreamHost is its guarantee of 100% uptime. You will find this in the user agreement, so this isn't just some marketing trick. The company stands by this promise by offering a refund of one day for every hour of downtime.

When it comes to features, the company offers you up a website builder so that if you haven't quite got everything in order, you can put together a decent website. It also provides unlimited data transfers and storage. You get free ZenCart and a free SSL certificate.

DreamHost provides the basic hosting options with the exception of reseller hosting:

• Shared
• VPS
• WordPress
• Cloud
• Dedicated

Customer support isn't quite up to par because DreamHost doesn't offer any type of live support, which can be incredibly frustrating, especially if you are a beginner who needs a bit of help. They only provide support through email and tickets. However, response time is quick, and the staff is quite knowledgeable. They also have a knowledge base if you want to troubleshoot on your own.

DreamHost offers the best money-back guarantee in the industry of 97 days. That gives you over three months to try the service risk-free. In addition, you have the uptime guarantee. Plans start at $2.59 a month for shared hosting and go up to $169 a month for dedicated service.

Pros

• Excellent security
• Best uptime guarantee
• Nice feature options

Cons

• No live/telephone support
• No email on basic plan

3. HostGator

Best Uptime

Ease of use: 4 stars

Uptime: 5 stars

Features: 4.5 stars

Types of hosting: 4 stars

Customer support: 5 stars

Value: 4.5 stars

While HostGator has a lot to offer, its interface could use some work. It gets a ding on being easy to use because of the clunky and out-of-date layout, which can be confusing for beginners. It does have one-click install for WordPress, though, which is super easy to set up. You also won't struggle with downtime thanks to the 99.99% uptime promise that comes with a one month refund if uptime drops below that percentage.

HostGator does a good job with features, offering you all the basics. It has unlimited emails and storage and unmetered bandwidth. You get an SSL certificate and a free domain for one year. The company provides you with a helpful drag-and-drop website builder. The standout feature is the email marketing software, which is what makes HostGator unique.

You'll get the basic types of hosting options:

• Shared
• VPS
• Dedicated
• Cloud
• Reseller
• WordPress

Customer support is another area where HostGator does an excellent job. The abilities of the staff and responsiveness exceed expectations. The company offers 24/7 live chat, phone, and email support.

HostGator does offer a nice 45-day money-back guarantee, which is more generous than the standard 30-day guarantee. Pricing starts at $2.75 a month for shared hosting and goes up to $139.99 a month.

Pros

• Superior uptime
• Nice variety of features
• Uptime guarantee refund

Cons

• No free domains
• Dated control panel design

4. SiteGround

Best Customer Support

Ease of use: 5 stars

Uptime: 4.5 stars

Features: 4 stars

Types of hosting: 4 stars

Customer support: 5 stars

Value: 4 stars

SiteGround makes it fairly pleasant to startup with one-click installation and straightforward website management. The control panel is pretty much mistake-proof, so you should find it quick to get things going. Plus, a nice thing about this company is that it provides automatic updates, so you won't have to mess with that. The service is also on track with a 99.98% uptime.

Looking at what the company offers, you'll get free email accounts, daily backups, free SSL security, and a drag-and-drop website builder. SiteGround also provides all the typical types of hosting, except VPS:

• Shared
• Dedicated
• Cloud
• Reseller
• WordPress

In the area of customer support, this web host does a really nice job. You'll find help 24/7 via phone and live chat. Plus, SiteGround has a well-written and comprehensive knowledge center, which is nice if you want to rely less on others and learn more about things on your own.

SiteGround is one of the more expensive options with pricing starting at $6.99 a month for shared hosting and going up to $240 a month for cloud hosting. The company does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Pros

• Recommended by WordPress for hosting
• Superior customer support
• Supports various major CMSs

Cons

• Higher prices
• No VPS hosting

5. iPage

Best Pricing Plans

Ease of use: 5 stars

Uptime: 3 stars

Features: 4 stars

Types of hosting: 4 stars

Customer support: 4 stars

Value: 4 stars

One thing that stands out about iPage is it is a green hosting company that commits to reducing its carbon footprint, which is a massive draw for many small business owners who have concerns over the environmental impact of hosting. This is also the reason we put it at number five on our list.

It is also one of the oldest hosting companies around, but despite that, it has aged well, providing one-click installation and a simple sign up process. It does lack a little in uptime with only 99.94%. While that may seem small, even a little downtime is too much when you are trying to run a business, so it has to factor into your decision.

Features are also a bit less impressive than the other companies on our list. You will get free SSL security and unlimited email accounts. You also get a free domain for the first year and add-ons for WordPress optimization. However, backups are not free and will cost you $100 each time.

The types of hosting that iPage offers include:

• Shared
• VPS
• Dedicated
• Cloud
• Reseller
• WordPress

You should know that iPage does limit the shared plan to 500,000 visitors per month, which is probably not going to be a huge issue for most small business owners, but if you plan to grow your business, it is something to note.

Customer support is fairly standard with staff that can assist with just about anything. You can get support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The main thing helping iPage to have a good value despite the few lapses in offerings is the price. You'll pay $1.99 a month for the basic shared plan to start. The highest price is $239.99 a month for dedicated hosting. The company also offers a standard 30-day money-back guarantee.

Pros

• Low introductory pricing
• Green company
• Long history

Cons

• Lower uptime compared to others
• No free backups

6. GoDaddy

Best All-in-One Option

Ease of use – 5

Uptime: 5 stars

Features: 4.5 stars

Types of hosting: 4 stars

Customer support: 4 stars

Value: 3.5 stars

You probably recognize GoDaddy as the largest domain registrar, but it offers web hosting services, too. The best thing about GoDaddy is that it offers everything you need in one place. You can get your domain, build your website, and secure hosting. This ensures compatibility and makes startup a breeze even if you are brand new to this.

You also get the reliability of a huge name. When it comes to uptime, you can expect 99.99%. GoDaddy won't commit to 100% because that is incredibly difficult to provide due to the general nature of internet stability.

Besides offering you a complete suite to set up your website, GoDaddy also provides free backups and SSL security. You also get a free domain name. The company is also generous with the limits on bandwidth, storage, and RAM.

The service provider offers all the basic types of hosting, but does not provide cloud hosting right now:

• Shared
• VPS
• Dedicated
• Reseller
• WordPress

Customer support is decent, but a large company like GoDaddy typically offers more options. It only provides live chat and phone support with no support tickets.

You will pay for name recognition if you choose this company. Shared plans start at $7.99 a month with the highest pricing being for dedicated hosting at $349.99 a month. You also have to pay for any extras, which can add up quickly. Another ding for GoDaddy is it doesn't offer any money-back guarantee.

Pros

• Excellent uptime
• Many extra features

Cons

• No money-back guarantee
• Doesn't offer service tickets

7. InMotion

Best for Shared Hosting

Ease of use: 4 stars

Uptime: 4 stars

Features: 4.5 stars

Types of hosting: 5 stars

Customer support: 3.5 stars

Value: 5 stars

InMotion earns the recognition as being the best for shared hosting, which is nice for small business websites since you probably don't want to make the investment in a higher costing type of hosting right at the beginning. You'll get a typical sign-up process that is simple. Uptime is about 99.97%. The company does a good job with its shared servers, though, and allocating resources for the most stable service.

From this company, you get free SSL security, free email, and unlimited disk space. You'll also receive a website builder if you need it and monitoring of your visitor stats for free.

InMotion offers the typical types of hosting:

• Shared
• VPS
• Dedicated
• Cloud
• Reseller
• WordPress

One area where InMotion could do a lot better is customer support, which is a red flag if you are new to all of this. While the company states it has highly trained staff, they just aren't very good at providing assistance to customers. The company does offer support through live chat and email. There isn't phone support, but there is a knowledge center.

You can get hosting starting at $2.49 a month for the shared plan. The highest plan is a dedicated hosting at $589.99 a month. InMotion does offer money-back guarantees, but it depends on your plan. Business plans only get a guarantee if it is a six-month or longer agreement. Guarantees are up to 90-days.

Pros

• Attention to shared hosting
• Top-notch basic plan features

Cons

• Lacking in customer support
• Money-back guarantees are confusing

8. A2 Hosting

Best Money-Back Guarantee

Ease of use: 5 stars

Uptime: 3.5 stars

Features: 4.5 stars

Types of hosting: 5 stars

Customer support: 5 stars

Value: 4.5 stars

A2 Hosting makes start up easy with one-click installations for most CMSs. Of course, this includes WordPress. It also provides automated WordPress updates, which is a big plus. You can waste a lot of time dealing with these, so knowing they occur in the background without any need for you to do anything is amazing.

A2 Hosting does have a lower than average uptime at 99.95%. So, you will want to note that when making your decision.

The company doesn't do bad with features, though, offering you generous storage space, daily free backups, and unmetered data transfer. You also get a free SSL certificate.

This service also gets a plus for the types of hosting because it offers both Windows and Linux:

• Shared
• VPS
• Dedicated
• Cloud
• Reseller
• WordPress

A2 Hosting also does nicely with customer support. It provides quick responses and attentive staff 24/7.

Another area where A2 Hosting shines is its anytime money back guarantee, which means you can request a refund at any point. Pricing starts from $7.99 a month for shared plans and goes up to $371 a month for cloud hosting.

Pro

• Exceptional email support
• Hassle-free WordPress hosting

Con

• Lower than average uptime
• No domain for free

9. Hostwinds

Best VPS Hosting

Ease of use: 4 stars

Uptime: 4.5 stars

Features: 5 stars

Types of hosting: 5 stars

Customer support: 4.5 stars

Value: 4 stars

While it may be low on our list, Hostwinds is still a decent web host. It is easy to use and set up. You'll get a drag-and-drop website builder, which makes creating your website a snap. It also has nice uptime at 99.99%, which is right in line with the other services on our list.

Features are actually really quite nice. You get unlimited disk space, data transfers, storage, and email addresses. Hostwinds also gives you a free dedicated IP address.

What makes this company stand out is that it offers 10 tiers of VPS hosting. This gives you flexibility and choice that allows you to work this type of hosting into your budget. In addition to VPS hosting, Hostwinds offers:

• Shared
• Dedicated
• Cloud
• WordPress
• Reseller

The company provides Linux and Windows hosting.

Customer support from Hostwinds has quick response times and shows a good knowledge about the product and technical aspects. The company provides support 24/7 via phone, live chat, or ticket.

Pricing for service starts at $3.29 a month for shared hosting and goes up to $125 a month for dedicated hosting. You'll get a 60-day money-back guarantee with all plans.

Pros

• Quick response time from customer support
• Excellent VPS options make it affordable
• Longer than usual money-back guarantee

Cons

• Slows down when traffic spikes

10. AccuWeb

Best Dedicated Hosting

Ease of use: 5 stars

Uptime: 4.5 stars

Features: 3 stars

Types of hosting: 5 stars

Value: 4 stars

AccuWeb provides you with a welcome email that gets you off to a good start. You'll find the process quick and the cPanel interface user-friendly. The service has a decent 99.9% uptime as well.

AccuWeb does not deliver very big on features.  You'll get unlimited domains, but it limits you on email, storage, and data transfers. When it comes to security, most companies provide free SSL, but with this service, you have to pay for it.

Hosting types from AccuWeb are the standard offerings:

• Shared
• Dedicated
• VPS
• WordPress
• Reseller
• Cloud

One plus, this company offers hosting for both Windows and Linux, which some of you may find to be helpful since Windows hosting is not as common. It also provides five tier options for dedicated hosting, which is why it earns the best for dedicated hosting designation.

Customer support offers good service, but it's not the best we've seen. You'll get live chat and phone support available 24/7.

AccuWeb does offer a standard 30-day money-back guarantee. Pricing starts at $3.36 a month for shared plans and goes up to $136 for dedicated plans. Plans do not offer a month-to-month payment option, so you do have to commit to a longer plan period.

Pros

• Five tiers for dedicated hosting
• Good uptime

Cons

• Not many unlimited features
• Can't pay month to month

How to Choose Hosting for a Small Business

After viewing our top 10 list, you may wonder how you will ever make a final choice. It can seem daunting when each service has its good and bad points. Even knowing which ones we ranked highest doesn't completely solve your dilemma because you have to choose the service that is best for your needs.

TechRadar suggests that you start by thinking about your needs and assessing your situation before you begin comparing web host options. You can begin with considering how much traffic you expect to have so that the host you choose can accommodate it without charging you extra for going over limits. Other consideration include:

• Technical aspects
• Growth
• Hosting features
• Pricing 

Technical Aspects

You also need to think about your own technical skills. If you aren't very tech savvy, then you need to pay attention to ease of use ratings. You will probably also have a higher need for customer support, so those ratings should play into your decision.

Growth

Think about growth, as well. Consider how a hosting service can accommodate your needs now and in the future. Make sure the service can handle your business needs as you grow and start seeing more traffic or have higher storage needs.

Hosting Features

You should pay special attention to the features a provider offers. These may seem foregin to you if you are just starting out, but they will become quite important as you get things rolling. For example, having access to emails can be nice because it adds a touch of professionalism to your website and saves you from having to pay for an outside email.

Features, such as unlimited bandwidth, are also worth noting if you expect to see large amounts of traffic or spikes in traffic. If you don't have your website already set up, a website builder is a handy feature.

Pricing

Also, make sure that you look at pricing. The price alone should not be the deciding factor, though. Make sure you understand the terms. Most web hosts will offer an introductory price, but that usually only lasts for the first year or first term of your agreement. Make sure you know how much the cost will go up.

You should also note how often you have to pay. Some services may allow you to go month to month, which is nice if you are unsure about your hosting needs and want to get a feel for things before making a longer commitment. However, many providers require annual commitments.

You need to have a well-rounded assessment of your needs and what each web host company offers to make a decision. Use the information we gave you in the reviews and take time to gather your own information so that your final decision is solid.

What About Free Hosting?

In your search for the best web hosting for small businesses, you will come across those offering free hosting. As with anything that is free, you will not get the best service from these providers.

While many of the companies are wonderful and do have great paid plans, with the free hosting, you are bottom of the barrel. If there are going to be outages, then you can expect it to happen to you. Free services rarely guarantee uptime, which is something you cannot afford.

You have to have reliability. So, even though free hosts may offer many of the same features as paid hosts, the bottom line is they are just not reliable enough to use for a business.

In addition, you won't get some of the great features that paid providers offer. Storage limits are often low as is disk space. You won't typically get free emails, domains, or transfers. You usually also won't have WordPress integration. Some of these hosts will even place ads on your website that you have no say over.

If you want something for free, then look to a free trial, which you can often find from top companies. Remember also, that most of the companies on our list give money-back guarantees, so you can essentially try them for free.

10 Best Hosts for Small Business Websites

You've reviewed our list of the top 10 best web hosting companies for your small business website and learned quite a bit about what you should expect. You are ready to go make a decision on which one you feel takes the top spot. You may agree with us or not, but you can't go wrong with any of the web hosting companies on our list. 

1. Bluehost: Best overall
2. DreamHost : Best money back guarantee
3. HostGator: Best uptime
4. SiteGround: Best customer support
5. iPage: Best pricing plans
6. GoDaddy: Best all-in-one option
7. InMotion: Best for shared hosting
8. A2 Hosting: Best for WordPress hosting
9. AccuWeb: Best dedicated hosting
10. Hostwinds: Best VPS hosting

If you have time, visit all these wb hosts and check out their websites for additional details about their service and to get a feel for the company overall. 

FAQs

If you still have a few lingering questions about choosing a web host, then these frequently asked questions may clear things up for you. 

What are the different types of hosting?

While each of our top 10 web hosting companies offers many types of hosting, you may be new to this and not be sure what it means when we say dedicated hosting or shared hosting. You'll need to know what the different types of hosting are in order to ensure you choose the right plan.

Shared hosting means you share a server with other websites. One downside to this is that if traffic is high, it can cause an outage that affects everyone on the server. So, even if you are staying within the normal traffic load, another website's load could affect you. In addition, you may have more limits on resources. However, the perk of shared hosting is that it is the cheapest option.

Dedicated hosting means you have a server to yourself. The service is more stable overall because it is only working for you. You also get more generous limits, but having a dedicated server requires more from the web host, so it costs you more.

VPS or virtual private server hosting means you are on your own virtual server. This virtual server is a partition on a physical server, which you share with others. So, it has the pros and cons of both shared and dedicated servers. However, it does allow for better growth than shared hosting and costs less than dedicated hosting.

WordPress hosting is specifically for use with WordPress websites. Since this is one of the biggest providers for websites, there is a demand for this type of hosting. Typically, you get customization that makes starting up simple.

Reseller hosting is what you need if you want to host your clients' websites through your website. This is good for website design companies, for example.

Cloud hosting uses servers in the cloud. It also provides a network of cloud resources.

What does value mean in web hosting?

Since we use value as the main way to rank the web hosting companies, it helps to know what it means. When we say “value,” we mean what you get for your money. It reflects the service with the best overall offerings when considered as a whole. A well-rounded service has a high value because you get a lot for your money. If you have a specific need, you may want to look at other ratings beyond value because value averages everything together.

Why is uptime important?

Uptime is one of the most important aspects of hosting because it speaks to the dependability of the service. You want the highest uptime possible because that means your website will always be available to customers. If a customer tries to access your website and can't, it can cause you to lose business. Furthermore, if your website is down often, you can't sell or convert leads.

The post Best Web Hosting for Small Business Websites – Top 10 Options for Guaranteed Uptime appeared first on WebMonkey.

In this guide, we'll walk you through the best (and cheapest) VPS hosting plans available today. While VPS hosting is a mid-tier option, the pricing and features can vary widely, so make sure to check out all available options before settling on a service provider. These cheap options will save you money, but as a result, you'll likely have to do much of the server management yourself.?

What Is the Best Cheap VPS Hosting?

The cheapest (and best) VPS hosting that we've found are the following:

1. Ionos by 1&1: Starting at $2 per month
2. Virpus: Starting at $2.08 per month
3. Vultr: Starting at $2.50 per month
4. OVHcloud: Starting at $3.50 per month
5. Hostinger: Starting at $3.95 per month
6. Hostwinds: Starting at $4.49 per month
7. A2: Starting at $5 per month
8. InMotion: Starting at $5 per month
9. InterServer: Starting at $6 per month
10. VPSDime: Starting at $7 per month

Overall, we think Ionos by 1&1 is the best cheap VPN for you to consider. However, Hostwinds takes a close second in terms of quality versus price, especially if you're considering a Windows-based operating system.

1. Ionos by 1&1

Ionos by 1&1 is an exciting option to consider, and — bar none — the cheapest option on our list. Their most affordable plan only costs $2 per month, and while it comes with introductory-level features to match that price, it's still enough to get a small business owner or savvy seller started.?

The reason why Ionos can make their VPS options so cheap is that they have several optional upgrade tiers. For example, if you want double the ram and storage, you'll pay $5 per month instead. If you wish to have cloud backups included, you'll need to pay an extra fee. If you want to use Windows instead of Linux (which you cannot do with their entry-level package, by the way), you'll pay an extra $20 per month. Adding Plesk costs another $5 per month.?

While this makes Ionos a poor choice for those looking for all the bells and whistles, it's great for those willing to take a more hands-on approach. Ionos' $2 tier comes with the following specifications:?

• 1 core
• 10 GB SSD
• 512 MB RAM
• Unlimited bandwidth (up to 400 Mbps)

In comparison, Ionos' next cheapest package comes in at $10 per month, but it offers some impressive specs:

• 2 cores
• 80 GB SSD
• 2 GB RAM
• Unlimited bandwidth (up to 400 Mbps)

Ionos also offers three more price tiers above their $10 option, but they're a tad too expensive to consider for this cheap VPS list.?

Included Features

One of the most critical features of Ionos' VPS hosting tiers is their unlimited bandwidth. This is a rare feature in VPS hosting plans at this price point, especially at only $2 per month.

Since Ionos keeps prices low by separating unnecessary features, there are many extras available for purchase. The downside of this is that many desirable extras come at a cost. However, you'll still receive free 24/7 support over phone, chat, online ticketing, and access to Ionos' own help center.?

Ionos offers 99.99% availability, which is not the best on this list, but it's better than most of the other options you'll see here.?

Things to Consider

The main thing to consider with Ionos by 1&1 is the differences between their price tiers. If you want to use a Windows-based operating system, for example, you'll need to pay for their $10 monthly tier and add a $20 monthly fee onto that. That's already $30 per month, so if you're looking for a Windows-based VPS host, consider other options.

2. Virpus

Virpus offers one of the cheapest VPS offerings on this list, starting at just $2.08 per month. However, this incredibly low cost is locked behind a few things: firstly, you must pay the full fee of the plan upfront ($25 annually). Secondly, this low price is only available for Virpus' SSD-cached Linux VPS hosting.

If you want to host your server on their SSD-only system, you'll have to upgrade to $5 per month. This is still a great price, but not as impressive as their SSD-cached plan.?

Virpus' $25 per year SSD-cached plan comes with the following specs:

• 2 cores
• 25 GB disk
• 512 MB RAM
• 1.5 TB bandwidth

However, cheap plans aren't all that Virpus offers. If you're looking for website hosting with better specs than the above, their plans scale up accordingly. Their most expensive SSD-cached plan comes with the following at $180 per month:

• 16 cores
• 1500 GB disk
• 48 GB RAM
• 9 TB bandwidth

If you want to upgrade to their fully-SSD-hosted plans, you'll end up paying about twice as much for similar spec offerings, but these plans are more powerful and reliable.?

Included Features

While Virpus does offer management panels with their VPS software, all management must be done by you alone. As you might expect with such cheap plans, their support leaves a lot to be desired. However, they do have a support team that will do what they can to help you when you run into issues. You can purchase management from Virpus for an added cost as well.

Do note that the prices listed above are only available with Virpus' Linux-based VPS offerings. If you want to host with Windows instead, their plans start at $20 per month. However, keep in mind that their windows scale in price better — their most expensive Windows-based plan is the same as their most costly Linux-based plan (both fully SSD-hosted).

Things to Consider

Unfortunately, despite how good Virpus looks on paper, they have had some reliability issues, and they only have about 99.94% uptime on their servers. If this number doesn't bother you, you may be able to reap some truly impressive cost savings from their least expensive plans.?

Finally, note that while Virpus does have 24/7 customer support, it is limited mostly to online tickets, not phone and chat services. While this is par for a small web hosting company like Virpus, you may need to purchase management from them or another developer if you're not experienced with server management.?

3. Vultr

Vultr is a compute instance provider that, while not a VPS hosting service in name, can be used for VPS hosting just as well as any other service. They offer very inexpensive compute instance services, and they also offer private and dedicated cloud-based servers.?

Vultr's monthly payments work a bit differently than the others on this list. Instead of paying a flat fee, you pay an hourly rate up to a monthly rate cap that your bill cannot exceed.?

Vultr's cheapest plan starts at just $2.50 per month. This plan comes with the following:

• 1 core
• 10 GB SSD
• 512 MB RAM
• 0.5 TB bandwidth

Their most expensive plan, which costs a whopping $640 per month, comes with the following:?

• 12 CPUs
• 768 GB SSD
• 48 GB RAM
• 8 TB bandwidth

Vultr sets itself apart by separating their plans into standard and high-frequency services. Of course, the high-frequency plans are more expensive, but the price gap between the two isn't bad at all. Compared to their $2.50 per month standard plan, their least costly high-frequency plan is only $6 per month.?

Included Features

Vultr gives you the option of deploying your VPS in one of seventeen locations around the world. These servers are located both in major US cities and in nations around the world, such as the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore.?

Vultr also gives you the option of using any combination of operating systems. If you'd like, you can even upload your own ISO to the server.?

However, one of the most tempting offerings from Vultr is their range of one-click programs and apps to get you started. For example, if you're looking to host a WordPress website on your VPS, they have an app to expedite that process.?

Vultr also offers an extensive library of add-on features that can enhance the capability of your VPS. Among the many things they offer are backups, firewalls, DDoS protection, and more. Of course, these features will come with extra fees, and most of these fees are far more significant than the cost of the hosting itself.?

Things to Consider

Like Virpus, Vultr's support is a bit lackluster, mostly because the company is on the smaller side. If you need to contact support, you'll likely have to open a support ticket and wait for it to be answered. However, unlike Virpus, Vultur has an extensive support library full of FAQs, documentation, developer notes, and guides that can help in the absence of an expert. The management of your VPS will also be your responsibility.

While Vultur's base price is excellent, its services tend to scale upwards very quickly, especially when you start adding-on extras. It's excellent for those looking for a cheap, bare-bones service, but those looking for a more inclusive package may want to consider more affordable options.?

4. OVHcloud

OVHcloud offers a starter experience for just $3.50 per month, but unfortunately, the specs that it offers at the starter level are a bit lackluster. Fortunately, their next cheapest plan starts at only $5.10 per month (with a two-year commitment), which isn't too bad compared to the other options here.?

The difference between OVHcloud and the competition is that OVH comes complete with a ton of features included in the price. While you would have to pay an extra $10 per month to purchase anti-DDoS protection with Vultur, it comes included for free with OVHcloud's Value plan.?

Do note that OVHcloud's extra features may not all be included in their Starter plan, which is the one that starts at $3.50 per month. This plan comes with the following features:

• 1 core
• 20 GB SSD
• 2 GB RAM
• Unlimited bandwidth (at 100 Mbps)

In contrast, OVHcloud's Value plan, which starts at $5.10 per month, comes with the following:

• 1 core
• 40 GB NVMe
• 2 GB RAM
• Unlimited bandwidth (at 250 Mbps)

While OVHcloud doesn't have as many cores to offer as some of the competition, the fact that it provides unlimited bandwidth is a bit of a game-changer. Most other VPS plans have a specified bandwidth limit — often in terabytes — that you cannot exceed over one month. With OVHcloud, you never have to worry about hitting this bandwidth ceiling.?

Included Features

Besides unlimited bandwidth and DDoS protection, OVHcloud comes with several other features included in its monthly price. You may have noticed that OVHcloud offers NVMe SSD storage specifically — these have a noticeable performance increase over some other SSD protocols.?

Additionally, OVHcloud boasts 24/7 monitoring and interventions, so if a server crash or a security breach is in progress, you can rest assured that they'll catch it quickly and do their best to put a stop to it. You also have the option of adding on automatic or manual snapshots, additional disks, and automatic backups for extra fees.

OVHcloud supports virtually any operating system, and they offer Windows-based VPS plans, too. As is the case with other VPS hosting sites, the Windows plans are more expensive.?

Things to Consider

Unfortunately, OVHcloud has a few caveats that make it a bit less attractive than it initially seems on paper. They only offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee — the lowest on this list so far. Complaints have been lodged against OVHcloud in the past because of their server instability.

However, if you're specifically looking for a VPS hosting platform with unlimited bandwidth, OVHcloud may still be an option. Do note that, if your VPS originates in Australia or Singapore, you do have bandwidth limits starting at about 1 TB. If you exceed these limits over a month, your bandwidth will be reduced to 10 Mbps for the remainder.

5. Hostinger

Hostinger is another inexpensive VPS hosting service that starts at $3.95 per month. However, unlike much of the competition we've seen so far, Hostinger is a large enough company to support high-tech features, strong tech support, and even a robust knowledge base.?

Hostinger is also different because it offers its own website builder that works in conjunction with Hostinger's VPS hosting service. They also have a thirty-day money-back guarantee.

Hostinger's most inexpensive plan starts at $3.95 per month. The features that are included with this entry-level plan are:

• 1 core
• 20 GB SSD
• 1 GB RAM
• 1 TB bandwidth

Hostinger also doesn't have any outrageously expensive plans like some of the above companies do. Their most expensive plan is only $29.95 per month, and comes with these features:

• 8 cores
• 160 GB SSD
• 8 GB RAM
• 8 TB bandwidth

Keep in mind that the prices above reflect a 48-month commitment, however. If you choose to pay monthly, you'll instead pay $9.95 per month for their basic plan and $129.95 per month for their most expensive plan.?

48 months is a big commitment, but this is offset slightly by Hostinger's 30-day money-back guarantee. If you find within those first thirty days that the plan you chose isn't for you, you'll get your full investment back immediately.?

Included Features

Despite its low price plans, Hostinger offers an impressive array of features to go with their VPS plans. Of particular note is 24/7/365 live chat with professional help. Few of the other platforms so far have offered much better than online tickets, which often come with long wait times.?

Additionally, Hostinger keeps an up-to-date blog full of helpful resources, and they also have tutorials to help get you out of tight spots. All in all, Hostinger's support package seems dependable enough to help even the somewhat inexperienced through any rough patches. Hostinger also offers dedicated IP addresses and IPv4/IPv6 support with its plans.?

Things to Consider

It seems like Hostinger is a VPS geared toward newcomers to the VPS world. Their website tends to teach visitors new terms rather than assuming they know them. The site is incredibly student-friendly, too; in fact, they offer a permanent 15% discount to any student purchasing one of their web hosting plans.?

Hostinger is also actively trying to pair with YouTube creators, ostensibly for the benefit of both Hostinger and the creator.?

6. Hostwinds

Hostwinds is still a relatively inexpensive VPS hosting platform, and unlike the other options so far, it also offers managed and unmanaged plans for both Linux and Windows. As you might expect, the managed plans are more expensive, but not by much; the managed Linux plan is only $5.17 compared to $4.49 unmanaged.?

Managed VPS plans are the perfect solution for those who aren't familiar enough with server programming to set one up on their own. Alternatively, if your time is better spent dealing with your business than tinkering with your website, a managed server could also be for you.?

The only difference between Hostwinds' managed and unmanaged plans, besides the management aspect, is the price. Otherwise, they offer the same specifications. The specifications for their most inexpensive plans are as follows:

• 1 core
• 30 GB SSD
• 1 GB RAM
• 1 TB bandwidth

In contrast, Hostwinds' most expensive plan is cheaper in the managed version at $247.69 per month, while its unmanaged plan is $296.09 per month. The specs included with this plan are as follows:

• 16 cores
• 750 GB SSD
• 96 GB RAM
• 9 TB bandwidth

Of course, just like the other hosting sites we've looked at so far, Hostwinds offers incremental plans between the two listed above. This way, they can better suit each customer's unique needs.

Included Features

Hostwinds' plans are chock-full of useful features, some of which we haven't seen so far on this list. Among these are their 99.9999% uptime guarantee, which is the very best on the market. If you see any downtime at all with your Hostwinds server, it will be quick, painless, and fixed right away.

Hostwinds also offers free website transfer services for those who host through a different company. With this service, you can import your old site directly into Hostwinds, saving you time, energy, and potential headaches. All plans also include snapshots for restoring old versions of your website and a firewall.?

Finally, Hostwinds has 24/7 monitoring of your website, and they will let you know immediately in the event of any problems. They also offer nightly backups, so your site information will never be lost.?

Things to Consider

The first thing to consider with Hostwinds' plans is that they, like many others on this list, are Linux-based. If you want to purchase a Windows-based plan instead, you'll pay slightly more across the board. However, do note that their Windows-based plans are some of the least expensive on this list.?

Other than that, your only real consideration to make will be whether you want your VPS to be managed or unmanaged. Unmanaged plans are often cheaper, while managed plans are much less time-intensive since someone else is doing the work for you.?

Finally, besides Ionos, Hostwinds has the best support system out of any hosting website we've seen thus far. They have a real call center available for help, and they also have a blog, a knowledge base, and an online chat feature for those who would prefer not to call. If you want to do things the old-fashioned way, you can open a support ticket, too.?

7. A2

A2 Hosting is a unique entity in the VPS market. Their price plans are very basic — their managed plans start at $25, while their unmanaged plans start at $5 — but their “draw” is the speed of their VPS service. They claim that their VPS service is twenty times faster than their competitors. If this is true, that can make a huge difference in your websites' page load times.

A2 has another unique offering in that they offer a hybrid managed-unmanaged plan for those that have the features of both. Their hybrid plans (dubbed “core” plans) offer both root access and professional management through A2's experts. These plans give you the flexibility to go in and make changes when you want to and the freedom to stay hands-off when you need to.

However, their managed plans can get expensive, so since we're looking for cheap VPS hosts, we'll mostly look at their unmanaged plans on this guide. Their cheapest tier, or “Entry” plan, is $5 per month and comes with the following features:

• 1 core
• 20 GB SSD
• 512 MB RAM
• 2 TB Bandwidth

In contrast to many of the other hosting platforms on this list, A2 only has three price tiers for unmanaged VPS hosting. As such, their unmanaged VPS plans are intended for small and small-medium businesses only; they don't offer the vast resources required by larger operations.

Their most expensive unmanaged VPS plan is the “Elite” plan, which is only $15 per month. They also offer a “Mid” plan at $10 per month that lies between the Entry and Elite plans in terms of features. The Elite plan comes with the following specifications:

• 4 cores
• 50 GB SSD
• 1 GB RAM
• 2 TB bandwidth

Included Features

Since most of A2's draw is to small businesses looking for a fast VPS hosting service, it offers a bit less in the way of features than the previous few we've looked at. However, one of its standout features is its 24/7/365 expert support team. While they only have a support ticket portal — no phone number or live chat — they do have a good knowledge base for tips and tricks.?

Another vital draw of A2's service is their anytime money-back guarantee. If you cancel your service within the first 30 days, you'll receive all your money back. However, even if you cancel after that, you'll get a prorated refund of what you have remaining. As a result, there's minimal risk involved with trying their VPS platform.?

Things to Consider

There are several essential things to keep in mind about A2's VPS hosting. Firstly, they only offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee, which is relatively low (and tied with OVHcloud for the lowest spot on this list). However, because of their generous money-back policy, you shouldn't have to worry about this too much.?

The only other thing to keep in mind with this service is that it's only available in Linux OS. A2 VPS hosting has no available Windows OS equivalent.?

8. InMotion

Like many of the companies on this list, InMotion offers both managed and unmanaged VPS plans. However, their managed plans are not cheap enough to be worth looking at here.

InMotion's cheapest unmanaged tier starts at $5 per month. This plan includes:

• 1 core
• 25 GB SSD
• 1 GB RAM
• 1 TB bandwidth

In comparison, their most expensive plan costs $160 per month, and there are six additional plans spaced between the least and most expensive tiers. Their most expensive plan includes the following:

• 8 cores
• 640 GB SSD
• 32 GB RAM
• 7 TB bandwidth

Unfortunately, InMotion doesn't really have anything with its unmanaged plans to make it stand out. Its offerings are much the same as any other unmanaged VPS hosting platform.

Included Features

When you purchase a VPS subscription from InMotion, you get a decent amount of extra features included. Among them are DDoS protection, snapshotting, firewalls, and a helpful knowledge base. Surprisingly, they do have a large number of support channels for those who need help, including live chat, phone, email, community Q&A via social media, and dedicated forums.

One unique feature that InMotion does have is the ability to code your server in several different languages. InMotion supports Java, Ruby, Git, and many more languages. Additionally, their unmanaged plans come with free access to the Ansible control node. This is a surprisingly attractive feature since several other VPS hosting sites charge extra for access to a control dashboard.?

Things to Consider

While not much stands out about InMotion, there's not much to worry about with them, either. The only real consideration for you to make is whether you can tolerate a Linux-only VPS. Like A2, InMotion only works with Linux operating systems.?

In the end, InMotion's unmanaged VPS platforms have a small niche, but a clear one. As long as you have a small business and know how to work with at least one programming language, this is an excellent web hosting option.?

9. InterServer

InterServer is a smaller company with a sliding scale of VPS support, but it has some exciting offerings on the table. Instead of having separate managed and unmanaged tiers, they simply add-in VPS management after purchasing four VPS slices.

The way InterServer's price tiers work is different, too. Instead of having arbitrary scaling rules, each slice of InterServer's VPS service is $6. Every slice comes with the following included:

• 1 core
• 30GB SSD
• 2048 MB RAM
• 1 TB bandwidth

If you were to purchase six slices, for example, you would multiply each of the above numbers by six to get your result. You would increase the price by six, too, meaning you'd pay $36 per month for your VPS hosting. Because of how their slice scale works, you can get quite a bit of bang for your buck.?

Note that their Windows “slices” cost $10 apiece instead of $6, so they will set you back slightly more.?

Included Features

Surprisingly, InterServer supports quite a few features. They offer one-click setups for WordPress hosting, for example, and the platform supports several different control panels, too. These control panels allow you to install frameworks to your virtual private server with minimal effort and confusion.?

InterServer also supports both Windows and Linux-based setups, so you don't need to worry about sacrificing your work if you already have a site set up on one OS. The company also has a secure transfer service to move your established websites over to their servers.

Notably, InterServer's Windows-based VPSs support Windows Remote Desktop, a program that lets you access your server from anywhere in the world. Staff can use the program to manage the site, too, meaning you can hire out your server work to other people if you so choose.?

Impressively, InterServer offers 24/7/365 support over the phone, live chat, and an online ticket system, so help is always available.?

Things to Consider

Unfortunately, InterServer does have a few drawbacks that make it just short of a stellar VPS hosting service. Firstly, they only have a 99.9% uptime guarantee, meaning they are tied with OVHcloud and A2 for the lowest spot.?

Additionally, since InterServer doesn't offer any sort of money-back guarantee whatsoever, if you find that you have an issue with your service, there's nothing you can do to get your hard-earned money back. This is especially problematic considering their uptime guarantee is quite low.?

10. VPSDime

VPSDime is another slice-based VPS hosting service that works similarly to InterServer. However, their “slices” cost $7 each per month instead. While one extra dollar per month might not seem like much, it adds up if you buy a lot of slices.

VPSDime's slice system works slightly differently than that of InterServer. Instead of scaling linearly with each slice, VPSDime offers 4 virtual cores for everyone, regardless of how many slices you're using. Otherwise, the scale of their offerings works just like you would expect.

The specs of what you get with each VPSDime slice are:

• 4 cores
• 30 GB SSD
• 6 GB RAM
• 2 TB Bandwidth

You'll notice that even with just one slice from VPSDime, you get an impressive amount of processing power, storage, and bandwidth — you may not even find that you need more than one slice.?

Included Features

There aren't many features that stand out about VPSDime aside from the generous processing power and storage that comes with their slices.

VPSDime doesn't have an extensive support system — they only use support tickets on their website — but their lightning-fast response times to these tickets help make up for this. Unless you strongly prefer to speak to an individual over the phone, you shouldn't have any problems with VPSDime's support.?

Things to Consider

The main drawback of VPNDime is its low uptime guarantee, similar to OVHcloud and A2. They only offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Additionally, their VPS servers only support Linux-based operating systems. However, their sister site called Winity can help you set up a Windows-based VPS if you prefer.?

Conclusion

In the end, Ionos by 1&1 offers the best balance of quality, price, features, and support out of all the options on this list. It offers the cheapest tier available on the market, but unlimited bandwidth comes standard with all of its tiers. It has other well-priced options available, too.?

However, the one caveat of Ionos by 1&1 is that it's not cheap when it comes to Windows-based applications. If you're looking to use a Windows OS, consider taking a look at Hostwinds, which takes a close second to Ionos by 1&1.?

The post Best Cheap VPS Hosting 2023 – Top 10 Inexpensive VPS Hosting Companies appeared first on WebMonkey.

You shouldn’t take cPanel hosting lightly, as it’s sure to be an investment in your time and money — as well as a gamble to the growth of your website. Here are some of the best cPanel hosting services on the web, what they offer, and what we like and dislike. Enjoy.

Easiest To Use

SiteGround

$2.99/mo for First Year*

• Offers a robust, extensive cPanel
• Gives you full design control of your website
• User-friendly design

• A bit more expensive than competitors

Quick Review

We like SiteGround a lot. After reviewing their cPanel options we found a full toolkit of options that gives novice users full control over the design and development process.

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Our Favorite

BlueHost

$2.95/mo for First Year*

• Reliable up times
• WordPress Friendly
• Affordable

• Adding additional features can seem unnecessary and costly at times

Quick Review

BlueHost gets 5 stars from us specifically because their cPanel hosting is intuitive and user-friendly. On top of that their uptime is near perfect and their customer service is quick to respond and very helpful.

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Most Reliable

HostGator

$3.95/mo for First Year*

• Great interface for beginners
• High-quality runtimes
• Generous storage and bandwidth

• No backups or migration tools

Quick Review

HostGator has been a steady and reliable cPanel hosting option for many years and does it with some of the lowest pricing in the industry. You can't go wrong here if you're looking for value.

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The prices above are subject to change. Your costs may vary.

In a hurry? Here’s a quick list for you to see how each cPanel hosting service ranks. 

What Is the Best cPanel Hosting Service?

1. Bluehost — Best Overall Hosting Provider
2. SiteGround — Most User-Friendly
3. HostGator — Best Reliability
4. GoDaddy — Best Perks
5. InMotion — Greatest for Shared and VPS Hosting
6. A2 Hosting — Superior Cloud Hosting
7. HostPapa — Best Value
8. GreenGeeks — Most Eco-Friendly cPanel Host
9. WP Hosting — Best cPanel Hosting for WordPress Sites
10. Hostinger — Most Affordable

Bluehost is our top choice because it offers everything we’re looking for in a cPanel host: affordability, valuable features, user-friendliness for beginner webmasters, and advanced tools for masters of the trade. 

SiteGround is second on our list because it also provides these great features — as well as quick and friendly customer service. The third is HostGator, a longtime formidable contender in web hosting and who still offers great, affordable cPanel services. 

There are other cPanel hosts on this site to suit those with specific interests, such as more environmentally oriented folks or those who specifically want to host WordPress sites. 

Keep reading to find out which cPanel host would be best for you.

Bluehost — Best Overall Hosting Provider?

Bluehost is the first contender on our list for a reason. It offers all sorts of hosting options: cPanel, WordPress, Shared, VPS, Cloud, and more. Prices are also listed in Great British pounds, Australian dollars, euros, and Indian rupees. 

User-Friendliness

Bluehost is accessible for both webmaster novices and computer science pros. Their aesthetically pleasing site has an intuitive design that allows you to quickly learn the layout. 

The cPanel area also isn’t that difficult to figure out. While Bluehost’s cPanel hosting contains multiple links and categories that may be difficult to learn, the learning curve isn’t that big. You should be set to build a website or install WordPress after a few hours on the cPanel area, max. 

cPanel Control 

You access the cPanel from the dashboard. You can restrict what access users have if you’re sharing an account with other people. Thus, multiple people can use the same Bluehost account but have differing levels of design autonomy. This would be good for small business owners or those who plan on eventually scaling up their online business. 

Those looking for VPS plans or dedicated servers can have root access from the cPanel too. You can fully command any website changes you want without having to install further apps or software. 

A dedicated plan also lets you access more storage on-demand from your cPanel, so you don’t have to have assistance from a server administrator. That’s good for people who want to maintain full control of their site without relying on other people’s schedules. 

Customer Service

cPanels can be difficult to figure out. That’s why Bluehost gives you 24/7 customer support over chat, email, and text. You can figure out any issues with your cPanel, improve your website, and grow your online presence through customer service help. 

Overall Value

Bluehost’s prices are as follows:

• Shared Hosting — Starting at $2.95 per month
• VPS Hosting — Starting at $18.99 per month
• Dedicated Hosting — Starting at $79.99 per month

These prices are suitable for beginner web hosts — especially the initial $2.95 per month option. All plans include SSL certificates, a domain manager, protection for your online resources, and verification on Google My Business. 

Pros

• Reliable up times
• Suitable for WordPress hosts
• Affordable

Cons

• Adding additional features can seem unnecessary and costly at times
• Prices increase beyond the first month/year of purchase (depending on the option you buy)

SiteGround — Most User-Friendly

SiteGround is another growing entity in the website hosting world. They launched in 2004 in Sofia, Bulgaria, but they provide excellent service for people globally — especially in the United States. 

User-Friendliness

SiteGround is pretty easy to pick up. After clicking through the tabs and links on the cPanel area, you can find where your admin access resides for your website. You can also see the areas where you can download additional installers or software, view your domains, and more. 

SiteGround customer service also provides kind and helpful service for beginners. Even if something intimidates you in the cPanel area, there’s someone who can help you quickly and effectively. 

Features

You can quickly install your CMS like WordPress through the control panel. You can also backup your website, manage domains and security features, peruse your databases, and set up individualized email accounts. 

SiteGround’s cPanel gives you full control over your website. You can access visitor stats, check out your site’s security, and manage WordPress tools from the control panel. 

You can also quickly glance at disk storage your site takes up, CPU time usage, and other useful stats to the side of the control panel. 

In all, you won’t have an issue accessing what you need to find to improve your site. You may have difficulty finding it at first because the cPanel page lists many items, but it’s there. 

Customer Service

SiteGround’s customer service can answer any questions, no matter how simple or complex. You have to login for support. Once logged in, you can reach customer service technicians through an online chat box, where a real human will talk to you and answer your questions. 

In all, customer service support offers a friendly, open experience for those who know nothing about computers. And those who do will have no issue navigating SiteGround’s customer service page. 

Overall Value

SiteGround offers three plans. 

• StartUp — $6.99 per month
• GrowBig — $9.99 per month
• GoGeek — $14.99 per month

These are a bit more expensive than what Bluehost offers, but you get lots of great perks the higher your pricing option. For the GoGeek plan, you get: 

• Unlimited Websites
• 40 GB Web Space
• About 100,000 Visits Monthly
• Unmetered Traffic
• Free SSL
• Daily Backup
• Free CDN
• Free Email
• Managed WordPress
• Unlimited Databases
• 100% renewable energy match
• 30-Days Money-Back

Therefore, there’s an option for everyone — beginner bloggers to media conglomerates. 

Pros

• Affordable
• Offers a robust, extensive cPanel
• Gives you full design control of your website
• User-friendly design

Cons

• A bit more expensive than competitors
• Complicated credit and discount system for reseller hosting options

HostGator — Best Reliability

HostGator is another formidable contender in the cPanel hosting business. The company was founded in 2002 in Austin, Texas, so it’s had ample time to grow as internet use exploded. 

To this day, they provide the following features for cPanel hosting services. 

User-Friendliness

Beginners shouldn’t have trouble figuring out HostGator’s layout. The features listed in the cPanel are organized and aesthetically pleasing. You can scroll through the categories to find what you’re looking for. You can also search for what you’re looking for in the top right bar. 

HostGator’s cPanel doesn’t list essential site stats off to the side like with SiteGround. But everything is listed intuitively and with its own logic, so you’ll be able to figure it out quickly. 

The cPanel on HostGator gives you all the tools you need to design your website from the ground up. You can 

Features

A plan with HostGator gives you the following cPanel features: 

• Free website builder
• Free domain transfer
• Free site transfer
• Free SSL
• Google Ads credits
• Bing Ads credits

All cPanel shared hosting plans give you a near 100% uptime guarantee and a 45-day money-back guarantee should you not like HostGator. You can use HostGator to install your preferred content management system like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Magento. 

HostGator also has its own drag-and-drop website builder. While WordPress is one of the internet’s most popular website builders, it can be a bit of a drag to choose pre-made themes for your site. 

The HostGator builder lets you add your own flair to your website by augmenting the layout, choosing photography, adding a portfolio, and more. You could also pick from a template, if that’s your thing. 

Everything is highly customizable through the HostGator cPanel and website builder. You can quickly make a website or invest the time that truly resonates with your personality. 

Customer Service

HostGator offers you 24/7/365 customer support. You can talk to customer service agents through the phone, chat, or email tickets. 

They’re not as fast or as helpful as the previous customer service representatives on this list, but HostGator’s help technicians will fix any problem with your cPanel when needed. 

Overall Value

HostGator offers the following pricing plans: 

• Shared Hosting — Starting at $2.75 per month
• VPS Hosting — Starting at $29.99 per month
• WordPress Hosting — Starting at $5.95 per month
• Dedicated Servers — Starting at $118.99 per month

Each pricing plan gives you top-notch security and marketing tools. Those hoping to grow their website through marketing efforts or affiliate links will appreciate the latter. Whether it’s ecommerce or blogging, there is a HostGator plan to suit your needs. 

Pros

• 99.9% reliable uptime
• Offers more control panel features than other competitors on this list
• Affordable prices to suit a variety of customers
• Fast and helpful customer service

Cons

• A bit more expensive than competitors
• While well-organized, the cPanel design looks a bit outdated and could use some freshening up. 

GoDaddy — Best Perks

GoDaddy was founded in 1997 in Baltimore. It’s one of the first major web hosts, and it’s still thriving to this year. Here’s why. 

User-Friendliness

GoDaddy’s cPanel user face is rather easy to navigate. It’s the registering process that needs more work. When you register for GoDaddy, you’re inundated with lots of add-on offers and other items at checkout. This adds friction to the initial purchase and slows you down. 

Once you manage to register, though, setting up your website is a breeze. GoDaddy offers auto-installers to help attach content management systems like WordPress or Joomla to your domain. You can quickly manage everything from the cPanel. 

The website builder is easy to use. You can create beautiful websites in under 10 minutes. If you want an update from WordPress, GoDaddy will let you build a nice site without much of a computer science background. 

Features

You get high-speed website operations, high-quality security, unlimited bandwidth, and plenty of storage for your website. 

You also get the following perks too:

• Centralized management. Whether it’s your website, social media campaigns, email marketing, or ecommerce store, you can access all your accounts from your GoDaddy website and control panel. 
• Templates from top-notch designers. Customization is nice, but sometimes it’s best to let the experts do it. You can pick from dozens of beautifully crafted templates to make your site stand out from other competitors. 
• Customizable themes. Pick a theme and tailor the layout, font, and colors to your liking. 
• Cross-platform access. Noticed something wrong with your site? You can update it from your phone, tablet, computer, whatever. This is an especially nice perk for people constantly on the go. 

• Responsive Design. Your design will look great and not experience lags. 

Customer Service

GoDaddy has some of the best customer service in the control panel industry. They offer global support with short wait times. 

GoDaddy’s customer service representatives speak over 40 languages and serve people in about 50 different countries. All GoDaddy customer support happens free of charge. You can get quick, reliable service to fix any issues with your website then continue on with your day. 

Overall Value

Here are the pricing plans GoDaddy offers:

• Web Hosting (Budget-friendly shared hosting) — Starting at $5.99 per month
• WordPress Hosting (Made for speed and ease) — Starting at $6.99 per month
• Business Hosting (Convenient and powerful) — Starting at $19.99 per month
• Reseller Hosting (Highly individualized) — Starting at $39.99 per month
• VPS Hosting (Private-server flexibility and power) — Starting at $4.99 per month
• Dedicated Servers (The most power and control) — Starting at $94.99 per month

As you can see, GoDaddy offers many payment options for a variety of website hosts. Individual bloggers, ambitious entrepreneurs, or large businesses can find a plan that suits their budgets. 

Pros

• Great interface for beginners
• High-quality runtimes
• Generous storage and bandwidth
• Easy-to-use cPanel area

Cons

• No backups
• No SSL or migration tools

InMotion — Greatest for Shared and VPS Hosting

InMotion was founded in 2001, and currently has offices in Los Angeles and Virginia Beach. They offer great shared and VPS hosting, all with good cPanel services. 

User-Friendliness

InMotion is great for those who want to build their website from scratch. You don’t need to know any code or design to build a beautiful website. 

The cPanel is also streamlined and easy to view. It appears modern and up-to-date, whereas other cPanels (like on SiteGround) look a bit old-fashioned. 

When you first log into the InMotion Hosting cPanel, you’ll see your most frequently used and/or important properties, such as the account management panel, password and security, contact information, support center, and more. 

Off to the right, you’ll also see the current user and the domain you’re altering. You can quickly glance at the total disk usage too.

In all, InMotion Hosting’s control panel is designed with ease and user experience in mind. Navigating it doesn’t involve a large learning curve. 

Features

InMotion allows for one-click app installations with more than 400 applications that can be managed directly in cPanel.

You also get: 

• Between 1 – 100 Websites Supported 
• 10+ GB of Disk Space
• SSD Storage
• MySQL & PostgreSQL Databases
• Unlimited Bandwidth
• Email Accounts
• Email Storage per Inbox
• Domain Registration or Transfer
• No-Downtime Website Transfers
• UltraStack Optimized Performance
• BoldGrid Website Builder
• Daily Backups
• Free SSL
• 24/7/365 US-Based Support
• Spam Experts included
• Money-Back Guarantee
• Free Advertising Credits
• Pro Support SLA
• E-Commerce Ready
• QuickStarter – One-page website in 2 days
• PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python
• PHP 7 Supported (up to 3x faster load times)
• SSH Access
• WP-CLI Enabled
• Easy Google Apps Integration
• Easy Control Panel
• Over 400 Free Applications
• WordPress, PrestaShop, or Joomla Preinstalled
• Safe Application Roll-Back
• Parked Domains
• Sub Domains
• Malware Protection

Customer Service

InMotion Hosting offers 5,000 helpful articles to let users quickly solve their problems. They also provide prompt service through phone, chat, or ticket support. 

You can look through InMotion’s frequently asked questions and see whether your issue falls into something that has already been answered. If not, contacting customer support usually resolves your issues within a few minutes. 

Overall Value

InMotion’s pricing plans are:

• Shared Business Hosting — Starting at $6.39 per month
• WordPress Hosting — Starting at $6.99 per month
• VPS Hosting — Starting at $21.04 per month
• Dedicated Servers — Starting at $105.69 per month

You’ll notice that there’s a larger pay range. Not many individuals can afford dedicated servers, but they’re beneficial for larger businesses who want to ensure they have reliable runtimes and fast service. Therefore, there’s an InMotion plan for everyone, no matter the size of your website or budget. 

Pros

• Lots of storage and bandwidth
• Reliable uptimes
• Sleek, efficient cPanel
• Good customer service

Cons

• No free website backups
• A bit slow compared to other cPanel hosts

A2 Hosting — Superior Cloud Hosting

A2 Hosting is best for those who don’t want to stress about a corrupted or missed backup ruining their website. A2 Hosting offers website backup done on the cloud. It’s best for those who put a lot of effort into their site and would hate for anything bad to happen to it. 

A2 Hosting was founded in 2001 in a two-room office in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It’s now one of the best cloud hosting services for website builders. 

User-Friendliness

A2 Hosting’s cPanel is pretty easy to figure out. Every item includes its name and an image associated with it. You can quickly look through each section to find what you’re looking for. 

A2 Hosting offers email accounts, security check-ups and settings, backups, software installers, and more. All of these are accessible through the cPanel. 

Features

A2 Hosting’s cPanel gives you the following features:

• Manage email usage
• Configure SSH keys
• Create a Node.js app
• Install an SSL certificate from a third party
• Manage your files
• Manage databases
• Manage domains

This cPanel hosting service uses Softaculous to make installing software to your account easy. Softaculous also auto-updates your software. You can set up auto-updates easily from your dashboard, or you can alter the settings how you like. Softaculous is a useful tool for those hoping to waste no time with their website creation process. 

Customer Service

A2 Hosting offers one-on-one assistance through chat. You can talk to a customer service representative no matter your time zone to find someone who can help ensure your site runs smoothly. 

You can contact A2 Hosting’s customer service representatives through online tickets, global phone lines, or live chat. If you prefer to solve on your own as much as possible, you can peruse A2’s sizable knowledge base to see if there’s an existing solution to your problem. If not, you’ll hear back quickly from A2 Hosting’s Guru Crew. 

In short, you shouldn’t have an issue receiving help from A2 Hosting’s customer service representatives. They have the know-how to fix common or rare problems and get your website back on track. 

Overall Value

A2 Hosting’s options are as follows:

• Shared Hosting — Starting at $2.96 per month
• VPS Hosting — Starting at $5.00 per month
• Reseller Hosting — Starting at $9.80 per month
• Dedicated Hosting — Starting at $99.59 per month

In addition to these prices, you can pay for the following periodic payment plans:

• Pay by the month
• Pay for one year in advance
• Pay for two years in advance
• Pay for three years in advance

The longer you sign up for, the more money you save in the long run. You can specialize your plan depending on your financial needs. 

You can opt for a cheaper plan with fewer perks and continue to save money in the long run, for example. Or you can pay by the month if you want quick cPanel hosting but aren’t sure if you want to commit. A2 Hosting has something for everyone.

Pros

• Fast, responsive customer service
• Affordable, scalable payment plans
• Includes many free, useful features in the cPanel
• Secure and safe cPanel hosting

Cons

• Signup process needs to be streamlined
• Has a lower runtime percentage compared to other competitors

HostPapa — Best Value

HostPapa is a Canadian-based cPanel hosting service founded in 2006. It markets itself as the best web host for small businesses. As such, it keeps its prices affordable while affording the best perks. 

User-Friendliness

HostPapa’s cPanel is organized intuitively. You see all your files clearly. Every item has a large picture next to it for easy recognition. You can operate your website without having to sift through dozens of items, unsure of what they mean. 

You can organize the cPanel menu in a grid or list view. You can also change cPanel settings based on the user profile so that some people have access to certain features while others do not. 

HostPapa’s control panel doesn’t have a large learning curve. Users also have the flexibility to limit access to those so that webmasters and administrations retain certain privileges beyond what other users have. It’s a great cPanel for those operating a small business that has multiple people accessing the cPanel. 

Features

All payment options give you:

• Two websites
• Free domain registration
• 100 GB of SSD storage
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Starter Website Builder (2 pages)

The higher the payment plan you opt for, the more features you get. For example, the Business plan gives you all of the above features as well as unlimited add-ons and email accounts. 

The Business Pro account includes performance and security enhancements as well as the above features. And yet, even the Business Pro option doesn’t break the bank.

Customer Service

Customers can access HostPapa’s 24/7 customer support technicians online. You can call them on the phone, send an email, or even send a fax if you want. 

There’s also an ample knowledge base providing lots of useful resources. It’s likely that your issue has already been answered on a HostPapa knowledge base, so you can quickly find solutions and get back to building your website.  

Overall Value

Here are the payment packages HostPapa offers: 

• Starter — $3.95 per month
• Business — $3.95 per month (special offer)
• BusinessPro — $12.95 per month

They’re much cheaper than what other cPanel hosting services offer, but you still get many features. That’s why we chose HostPapa as the best cPanel hosting service with the best value. 

Pros

• Affordable price
• Lots of useful features
• Reliable and prompt customer service
• Sleek and intuitive cPanel

Cons

• Non-automated backups for lower price plans
• Email support can be slow. Phone is much better.

GreenGeeks — Most Eco-Friendly cPanel Host

Worried about your environmental footprint? GreenGeeks has you covered. The company was founded in 2008 in California. It’s an energy negative company, meaning for every ampere it pulls from the grid, it replaces that energy three-fold. 

In addition to its excellent environmental services, GreenGeeks also provides impressive cPanel hosting services. 

User-Friendliness

You won’t have much trouble figuring out the GreenGeeks cPanel. It’s intuitively designed and places the most important items toward the top of the screen. If you have trouble finding what you need, you can always search for it. 

Features

With the most expensive pricing option, you get: 

• Unlimited Websites
• Unlimited Web Space
• Unlimited Data Transfer
• Free Premium SSL
• Free Domain Name for 1st Year
• Free Nightly Backup
• Free CDN
• Unlimited Email Accounts
• WordPress Installer/Updates
• Unlimited Databases
• 4x Performance
• LSCache Included
• Free Dedicated IP
• 300% Green Energy Match
• 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

All of this wouldn’t be bad for individual webmasters or those who want to grow their business. However, it might not serve the needs of larger online companies. 

Customer Service

Contact the GreenGeeks customer support technician through phone or chat. They also provide an extensive list of tutorials on the features they offer, such as WordPress installations and how to use the cPanel.

Overall Value

GreenGeeks has the following pricing plans: 

• Lite — $2.95 per month
• Pro — $5.95 per month
• Premium — $11.95 per month

As with the other cPanel hosting services, the higher-priced plans give you more features. 

Pros

• Most environmentally friendly cPanel hosting service
• Affordable
• Great for US-based websites
• Helpful customer service

Cons

• Price increases upon renewal
• Requires a $15 non-refundable set-up fee

WP Engine — Best cPanel Hosting for WordPress Sites

WP Engine, founded in 2003, is best suited for WordPress sites.

User-Friendliness

The cPanel for WP Engine isn’t the most attractive on the list, but it’s still easy to figure out. You know where the main items are — your domains, add-ons, installers, software, security, and more.

Features

Features depend on the price plan you get. The minimum available features for the Startup plan includes:

• 25,000 visits per month
• 10 GB storage
• 50 GB bandwidth per month
• 1 site included

With the more expensive Scale plan, you get:

• 400,000 visits per month
• 50 GB storage
• 500 GB bandwidth per month
• 30 sites included

You also have the option to customize your features. You can get: 

• Millions of visits per month
• 100 GB – 1 TB storage
• 400 GB+ bandwidth per month
• 30 sites included

Lots of traffic and bandwidth available. But you’d have to workout the details with WP Engine. 

Customer Service

Customer service is mostly done through articles the company provides. This allows people to find existing solutions to problems quickly. 

If the web pages don’t work, you can contact WP Engine customer support staff by logging into your account. 

Overall Value

Here’s what WP Engine offers: 

• Startup — $25 per month
• Growth — $95.83 per month
• Scale — $241.67 per month

Pros

• Optimized for WordPress
• High value for the price
• Good cPanel services
• Prompt customer service

Cons

• Least affordable cPanel hosting service on the list
• Not the best with non-WordPress CMSs
• Plug-ins have low flexibility

Hostinger — Most Affordable

Hostinger was founded in 2004 in Lithuania. Hostinger offers plans starting at $1 per month. That’s the reason why we chose Hostinger as the most affordable cPanel hosting service on this list. 

User-Friendliness

Hostinger’s cPanel is incredibly sleek and efficient. You can see the domain you’re operating under, SSL, emails forwarded, disk space, and other crucial data to the left of the cPanel. Each item in the cPanel has an image making it easier to find what you’re looking for. 

The rest of Hostinger’s features have a small learning curve too. You can quickly figure out how to install software or content management systems like WordPress onto your website, do backups, check security, and more. 

Features

Hostinger gives users:

• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• Daily Backups
• OpenResty nginx+lua
• Access Manager
• CloudLinux
• Custom cPanel
• CloudFlare integration
• LetsEncrypt integration
• Streamlined and automated server deployments
• LVE containers for Account Isolation
• SSD Drives for extreme speeds
• Vanguard real time anti-DDoS protection on Switches
• Intercom
• HTTP/2
• Realtime reactive server monitoring
• Proactive and predictive server monitoring
• Nginx micro cache
• Memcached (Twitter fork – Fatcache)
• Intelligent WAF (Web application firewall) on each server

The number of features available depends on the pricing plan you opt for. 

Customer Service

Hostinger offers a prodigious knowledge base to help users find solutions to their issues fast. You can also chat with Hostinger’s customer help technicians over email or text. 

Overall Value

Hostinger has the:

• Intro plan — $1 per month
• Basic — $1.99 per month
• Business  — $3.49 per month

The business plan gives you: 

• Unlimited
• Bandwidth
• Unlimited
• Storage
• Connect your domain
• Designer crafted templates
• SSL Security
• Get found with SEO
• AI Tools
• Free domain for 1 year
• Powerful integrations

And the basic plan gives you slightly fewer features. 

Pros

• Affordable
• Lots of perks for low price
• Great cPanel services
• User-friendly

Cons

• Customer service could be more responsive
• No daily backup

Final Thoughts

A cPanel hosting service is a surprisingly long-term commitment. The host will house your website, any monetization efforts you’ve done on it, connect to your domains, and hold any other work you’ve put in your website. 

It’s best to choose the best cPanel hosting service upfront to spare yourself the headache of switching services in the future. Besides, you don’t want to risk your website going down and potentially losing valuable traffic. 

That’s why we think Bluehost would be the best cPanel hosting service for you. It has great prices for beginner webmasters, excellent customer service, user-friendly WordPress installations, and a list of other great features. 

If Bluehost is not up to your standards, though, SiteGround or HostGator would also suit your needs. They’re two other affordable cPanel hosting services that can house your website for years to come.

The post The 10 Best cPanel Hosting Providers in 2023 appeared first on WebMonkey.

Whether you’re just starting with reselling or you’re looking to make a change, we put extensive research in to compile a list of the ten best reseller hosting providers. Each of these providers has an aspect of their service that makes them stand out amongst the crowd.?

Let’s take a look!?

What is the Best Reseller Hosting?

1. HostGator – Best Overall
2. InMotion – Most Options
3. A2 Hosting – Best Customer Service
4. GoDaddy – Most Affordable
5. HostPapa – Best for Small Business
6. Hostwinds – Best Features
7. AccuWeb – Best for OS Flexibility
8. SiteGround – Unlimited Hosting
9. FatCow – Unlimited Data Transfers?
10. Liquid Web – Best Security?

One of the most important aspects of hosting is uptime, and HostGator provides the best uptime guarantee. Limiting the amount of downtime you experience is essential, especially if you have a lot of traffic flowing through your website regularly.?

1. HostGator – Best Overall?

HostGator has been around for a long time, and they’ve grown to one of the most popular hosting providers on the market. While their regular hosting is their bread and butter, they’ve invested a lot of money into their reseller program over the past few years. The end result is a hosting reseller platform that far exceeds expectations.?

Pros

• Reliable service with nearly 100% uptime
• Affordable pricing that’s easy to understand

Cons

• HostGator does not provide SSD storage with its reseller program
• Poor backup policy

Best Features

If you’re trying to dive into the reselling world, but you’re not interested in dealing with the infrastructure, HostGator is here to provide you with a solution. Their reselling packages are priced around $20, and they offer completely unlimited email offerings. You get VPS packages for Linux and Windows, but you can’t access the unlimited storage until you upgrade.?

The main feature that attracts resellers to HostGator is the uptime. If you’re using a hosting service, you expect to keep your websites online as much as possible.

This factor is especially true when you’re hosting other people’s websites. You’ll have a lot of angry customers if you’re using an unreliable hosting software.?

The good news is, HostGator is incredibly stable, and across many different tests, it more than held its own in terms of reliability.?

Where we find HostGator to be most useful is when you’re building a lot of smaller websites. When the sites are mostly static and low demanding, the unlimited client accounts are what push HostGator to the top of the list.?

Shortcomings

In addition to lacking SSD storage on their reseller programs, there’s another downside that stands out. Their backup policy is complicated and less than desirable. Many hosting providers offer free backups, but HostGator creates weekly backups if you’re under 20 GB and 100,000 inodes.?

If you need to backup more than that, you’ll have to pay $25 each time you want to do it. It’s not a huge issue or a deal-breaker in any way, but it’s certainly something to think about.?

Plans/Pricing

Right now, HostGator offers three different reseller plans. They’re all priced close to each other, so it’s a bit difficult to tell what the primary differences are between each program. The plans go like this:?

Aluminum?

• 60 GB disk space
• 600 GB bandwidth
• Unlimited domains
• $19.95 per month

Copper

• 90 GB disk space
• 900 GB bandwidth
• Unlimited domains
• $24.95 per month

Silver

• 140 GB disk space
• 1400 GB bandwidth
• Unlimited domains
• $24.95 per month?

As you can see, the prices are very close together. It’s important to pay attention to the fact that HostGator also offers a lot of promotions, especially if you’re sent to the host through a link. You may qualify for one of these price points for as long as 36 months, but then it will go up.?

All the plans come with the following benefits:?

• Unlimited domains
• Free SSL certificate
• Private name servers?
• Emails
• FTP accounts
• MySQL accounts

The only real difference between the plans is the amount of space and bandwidth you get. The plan you choose will determine how many sites you need to manage and how much traffic each site gets.?

One thing we love about HostGator is that they make it easy to scale because you can upgrade your plan whenever you want. Even if you’re locked into something for a certain amount of months, you can still change your plan.?

Plus, all their offerings come with free WHMCS billing software for you to manage your accounts. You can use the control panel to monitor your servers' status and see how much bandwidth you have. This factor makes it easy to know when you need to upgrade, and you can scale naturally without having to feel the financial burden.?

2. InMotion – Most Options

The first thing that grabs your attention about this hosting provider is that they offer six different plans. If you’re the type of person who has to have a lot of options to make a decision, then InMotion might be the reseller hosting option.?

The company isn’t one of those household names like GoDaddy or HostGator, and sometimes that’s the way to go. Shopping with a smaller hosting provider usually offers better customer service and more niche features that you might not find elsewhere.??

Pros

• Plenty of plans to choose
• Natural transfer to VPS
• Great customer support

Cons

• Issues with uptime
• Limited client accounts on the lower plans

Best Features

There’s a big difference between the cheapest of something and something with the best value. When you look at the price of InMotion, you might think that it’s more expensive than HostGator and some of the other options. While that’s true, you’re getting more for the money, and the value far surpasses some of the other offerings.?

Even at their lowest plan, which is only $15.39 per month, you get 80 GBs of disk space and a bandwidth of 800 GB. That price is likely to go up to $29.99 after a certain number of months, but the introductory offer is very appealing.?

Having a higher disk space for less money is bound to make your hosting services more appealing. If you’re not paying as much for hosting, you can charge less for your service and ultimately appeal to a larger demographic.?

In addition to affordable plans and more space, InMotion also offers a free domain reseller option to add that to your arsenal of income-generating activities.?

Lastly, customer support is huge when you’re dealing with hosting. The last thing you want is angry clients coming after you without a solution. You’re relying on a white labeling process, so InMotion needs to have productive customer service if you plan to use them.?

Luckily they do. They offer 24/7 live chat with phone support and an email ticketing system. You need a fast response, and quick resolutions and InMotion does a great job of providing that. They also offer a 90-day money-back-guarantee if you’re not pleased.?

Shortcomings

The elephant in the room is the client accounts offered by this host. The lowest plan only offers 25 cPanel accounts, and if you’re paying the full price of $29.99, that’s not that great compared to the other options.?

HostGator offers unlimited accounts with free SSL for all of them. Plus, they do it all at a lower price. The uptime guarantee doesn’t live up to expectations either. While the difference is minimal, that can translate into hours lost for a website that relies heavily on high-volume traffic.?

InMotion really boasts itself as the e-commerce host provider of choice, and if you’re in e-commerce, you know that downtime can result in many dollars lost.?

Plans/Pricing

Let’s break down the plan offerings. As mentioned, InMotion offers six different plans which provide a nice variety but let’s see how they stack up:?

R-1000S?

• $29.99 per month
• 80 GB disk space
• 800 GB bandwidth
• Free IP
• 25 accounts

R-2000S

• $39.99 per month
• 120 GB disk space
• 1,200 GB bandwidth
• Free IP
• 50 accounts

R-3000S

• $57.99 per month
• 160 GB disk space
• 1,600 GB bandwidth
• Free IP
• 80 accounts

Reseller VPS-1000

• $59.99 per month
• 4 GB RAM
• 75 GB disk space
• 4TB bandwidth
• 3 IP addresses
• 5 accounts

Reseller VPS-2000

• $99.99 per month
• 6 GB RAM
• 150 GB disk space
• 5TB bandwidth
• 4 IP addresses
• 5 accounts

Reseller VPS-3000

• $169.99 per month
• 8 GB RAM
• 260 GB disk space
• 6TB bandwidth
• 5 IP addresses
• 5 accounts

One thing that InMotion does well with their plans is they make it easy to transfer from a standard hosting plan to a VPS option. InMotion offers the best VPS reseller program on the market right now.?

If you’re already experienced and trying to find a host to upgrade to, their VPS plans might provide you with the solution you want. With these plans, you can manage e-commerce websites with free billing, cPanel, WHM, SSD, white labeling, malware protection, and server management features.?

3. A2 Hosting – Best Customer Service

A2 is another small independent hosting company that isn’t as big as the other guys, but they have a strong reputation. Their packages are affordable, offer great customer service, and have a few niche offerings that make their service more appealing.?

For example, they have something called “turbo servers” that apparently have loading speeds 20 times faster than the competition. They also offer ultra-reliable servers with a 99.99% uptime guarantee. Overall, it looks like A2 Hosting offers everything we’re looking for in a host.

Pros

• Affordable
• Good uptime
• Money-back guarantee
• Fast and reliable customer service

Cons

• Clunky control panel
• Turbo booster requires upgrade

Best Features

Backups are one of the most important aspects for a host next to uptime, and A2 helps ensure you never run into any issues with lost data. Best of all, they don’t even charge you for backups. Free automated backups are a regular procedure here, but they take it a step further. You can automate the process of creating local backups on your personal computer.?

Of course, you have to pay an extra fee to get this feature, but it’s unnecessary because the automated backups will do the trick for most people.?

Something we’ve never seen before is an “anytime” money-back guarantee. All the hosts offer a typical 30-60-90 day money-back guarantee, but A2 will give you your money back no matter what.?

There’s some incentive here to sign up and test the water because they will return your prorated payments back to you even if you cancel before the contract is up.?

Choosing a host is much different than picking a web builder or something like that. We’re looking for solid hardware and a strong infrastructure here. A2 hosting seems to care a lot more about building a strong base than trying to flash its service in your face.?

Their servers come with SSds that are much faster than hard-disk drives, and even at the lowest pricing option, you get 12-core CPUs and 64 gigs of RAM. Even if you’re just starting out, you’re getting a set of servers with great speed and solid uptime.?

Shortcomings

It’s a typical bait-and-switch with the Turbo Booster because it’s only available in the biggest plan or if you want to pay for a premium upgrade. Plus, their introductory plan is pretty limited, to begin with, so if you’re starting out, it wouldn’t be long before you need to upgrade.?

Lastly, we’re underwhelmed by the control panel and overall UX of A2. We did mention that they prefer to invest their money in infrastructure and software, but that doesn’t mean you should have to sacrifice usability.

Plans/Pricing

What do you actually get when you sign up for a reseller plan through A2? Here’s an overall breakdown of their plans:?

Bronze

• $19.99 per month
• 30 GB SSD Storage
• 400 GB Transfer
• 20X FASTER Turbo Option
• Free SSL Certificates
• cPanel/WHM Control Panel
• FAST 24/7/365 Guru Crew Support
• Anytime Money Back Guarantee
• FREE Blesta

Silver

• $27.99 per month
• 75 GB SSD Storage
• 600 GB Transfer
• 20X FASTER Turbo Option
• Free SSL Certificates
• cPanel/WHM Control Panel
• FAST 24/7/365 Guru Crew Support
• Anytime Money Back Guarantee
• Free WHMCS or Blesta

Gold

• $36.99 per month
• 150 GB SSD Storage
• 1000 GB Transfer
• 20X FASTER Turbo Option
• Free SSL Certificates
• cPanel/WHM Control Panel
• FAST 24/7/365 Guru Crew Support
• Anytime Money Back Guarantee
• Free WHMCS or Blesta

Platinum

• $61.99 per month
• 200 GB SSD Storage
• 2000 GB Transfer
• 20X FASTER Turbo Option
• Free SSL Certificates
• cPanel/WHM Control Panel
• FAST 24/7/365 Guru Crew Support
• Anytime Money Back Guarantee
• Free WHMCS or Blesta

The plans don’t stand out as anything different or out of the ordinary. Overall, they’re moderately priced, and the amount of storage and transfer speed you get is somewhere in the middle compared to the competition. In terms of pricing, we think they’re priced accordingly with the rest of the market, and for these reasons, we recommend A2 as a hosting reseller provider.?

4. GoDaddy – Most Affordable

GoDaddy is the giant we’ve all heard of, and it’s the king of domain registrars. They’re also pretty popular in the web hosting world, and they do offer a reseller program. The main issue that stands out right away is the sheer size of the company makes us feel like they don’t care much about the services they provide, they’re simply looking to tack on another revenue stream.?

Like most, they offer cPanel/WHM with a free license, but they miss a few marks on standard features that many other hosts provide.?

For example, they offer unlimited SSL certificates. GoDaddy gives you a SAN SSL and wants to charge you $159.99 per year for an SSL for up to 100 domains. Also, they only have HDD storage, which isn’t a huge deal, especially as a beginner, but most providers treat SSD storage as a standard offering.?

Pros

• Great servers
• Unbranded storefront

Cons

• Confusing plans
• Limited features

Best Features

Let’s start with the most important features, uptime. They have a 99.99% uptime guarantee, but the compensation they provide if they fall below that is somewhat underwhelming. If you fall below the 99.99%, they give you a 5% credit on your monthly plan price. It’s almost like a slap in the face, and they might as well not offer anything.?

Speed tests came back positive for GoDaddy as well, with a .68 second response time and 1.32 second full load time. While it’s not the fastest hosting provider out there, they’re holding their own and performing well enough for this not to be considered a negative.?

Something that makes GoDaddy appeal to many people is that it’s familiar and very user-friendly. Creating an account and getting everything set up is simple because they walk you through all the steps. That’s one of the advantages of dealing with a large scale provider because they have the advanced infrastructure built out already to provide this type of service.?

The biggest problem is that the good news ends there.?

Shortcomings

The main problem we have with GoDaddy is the lack of transparency for what you get with the reseller program. Many customers have issues with this provider because they don’t know what they’ll get when they sign up.

They provide little to no information about download speeds, bandwidth per package, or how many client accounts you can manage. Plus, they offer zero money-back guarantees, so you’re out of luck if you sign up for six months and hate it in a few weeks.?

Another issue is the fact that GoDaddy isn’t even a hosting “reseller” in the traditional meaning of the word. When you’re selling GoDaddy hosting, you’re more of an affiliate of their products than a white-labeled seller.?

Lastly, GoDaddy doesn’t offer anything that grabs attention and makes people want to choose you over another provider. Keep in mind that you have to resell the same service that you bought into. GoDaddy's hosting is basic with a barebones setup and default everything.?

Plans/Pricing

GoDaddy offers two different plans for their reseller program. They structure things a bit differently because it’s not a typical reseller, but instead, it’s more of an affiliate program for GoDaddy products.?

Basic

• $8.99 per month
• White-label eCommerce storefront
• Credit card processing
• 24/7 support
• Sales and commission reports
• Standard buy rates, up to 20% off retail

Pro

• $14.99 per month
• White-label eCommerce storefront
• Credit card processing
• 24/7 support
• Sales and commission reports
• Industry-best buy rates, up to 40% off retail

The main thing that might appeal to you about GoDaddy's pricing plans is that you get your own storefront to help you sell the products. If you’re looking to have more variety in what you can offer, GoDaddy is a good choice because you can sell anything from the GoDaddy database.?

5. HostPapa – Best for Small Business

HostPapa manages over 500,000 websites, and while they might not be a name you commonly hear about, they’re not letting the big guys step on their toes. They offer a standard control panel with WHMCS. The problem is, it’s not free on their most affordable plan.

They also require you to get a more pricey plan if you want to handle billing and have a CRM using their software. That said, they do offer other alternatives for billing, but they’re not free either.?

We guess what we’re trying to say here is, HostPapa is not that affordable, and they will constantly pick at you, so you have to pay more to get the features you need. But, we don’t want to count them out yet.?

Pros

• Solid features (at a premium cost)
• Great multilingual customer service
• Fast servers with decent uptime

Cons

• Horrible pricing options
• No backups

Best Features

The first thing that you’ll notice about HostPapa is they offer great server speed and one of the fastest in this review. They have a response time of only .20 seconds, and while that will vary from system to system, that’s a very good sign.?

The company also offers great customer support, which is starting to become more obvious to us. Sticking with the little guy is often the best way to get the support you need. When you have clients dealing with downtime and need answers, you’ll want to have a hosting provider like HostPapa versus GoDaddy on your side.?

Plus, they offer free migrations, which is not something we’ve seen on any other hosting provider. They’re more than happy to move over all your emails, databases, and websites for free. The only catch is you have to wait 30 days after signing up. Once you’ve done that, you can transfer 50 cPanel accounts to HostPapa, free of charge.?

Shortcomings

Uptime is the biggest issue with HostPapa. First, they don’t even offer a guarantee, so you have no way of knowing what the expected uptime will be. The website won’t tell you; the customer service team won’t tell you, so we’ll have to tell you.?

From research and testing, it’s about 99.90%, which is not bad by any means, but we could do better.?

Also, they charge for backups. Even worse, they charge for all backups. Most hosting providers will offer free backups as long as you stick to their schedule. HostPapa doesn’t offer any backups without you paying for them.??

Plans/Pricing

Now let’s finally seal the deal on HostPapa. We recommend this provider for small businesses because they offer a lot of bandwidth and storage even at the smallest plan. They have five different choices, but we can guarantee, most of you will never have to move beyond the basic plan.?

Bronze

• $29.99 per month
• 4 Core CPU
• 2GB RAM
• 50GB SSD storage
• 500GB bandwidth
• 20 cPanel accounts
• Free SSL certificates

Silver

• $39.99 per month
• 4 Core CPU
• 4GB RAM
• 100GB SSD storage
• 1TB bandwidth
• 40 cPanel accounts
• Free SSL certificates

Gold?

• $64.99 per month
• 8 Core CPU
• 8GB RAM
• 150GB SSD storage
• 1.5TB bandwidth
• 60 cPanel accounts
• Free SSL certificates

Platinum

• $89.99 per month
• 8 Core CPU
• 16GB RAM
• 200GB SSD storage
• 2TB bandwidth
• 100 cPanel accounts
• Free SSL certificates

Titanium

• $119.99 per month
• 8 Core CPU
• 32GB RAM
• 250GB SSD storage
• 2.5TB bandwidth
• 150 cPanel accounts
• Free SSL certificates

The most frustrating thing about their pricing structure is that you don’t get any free backups, no billing, and no automation services. If you want to add features like those, you have to pay an additional $24.95 unless you move to a more expensive package.?

In reality, if you’re using 1.5 TBs of storage, you’re not worried about paying a little more. It’s the small businesses that are trying to get started we’re talking about here.?

6. Hostwinds – Best Features

Hostwinds has a strong reputation for being customer-focused, affordable, and reliable. They offer great support for both Linux and Windows users with VPS, dedicated hosting, and tailored options for WordPress users too.?

Pros

• Strong uptime
• 60-day money-back guarantee
• Affordable and loaded with features

Cons

• Limited servers
• Refund issues

Best Features

If you’re trying to start your own hosting business, Hostwinds says they’re here to help you do that with fully managed hosting, quick and easy setup, nightly backups, and 24/7 support. Sounds great, right??

With this, they offer SSD drives, free transfers, unlimited emails, free SSL, and softaculous auto-install. When you take a quick glance over their features and how much they charge for their service, it almost seems too good to be true.?

Shortcomings

It’s hard to find anything wrong with Hostwinds, so we might have had to reach here a little, but the ideal host will offer plenty of server options to manage your hosting. Hostwinds doesn’t do that, and in fact, many customers have some major gripes when dealing with their customer service.?

The company doesn’t issue refunds as they promise, and they will constantly try to find ways to work around it by blaming you for the problem. When you’re dealing with a smaller hosting provider that doesn’t have as many servers, it can also result in more downtime, slower speeds, and issues transferring websites over.?

Plans/Pricing

All things aside, Hostwinds is by far the most affordable hosting reseller we’ve come across. Here are their plans:?

Basic?

• $8.99 per month
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited disk space
• 1 Domain

Advanced

• $10.99 per month
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited disk space
• 4 Domains

Ultimate

• $12.99 per month
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited disk space
• Unlimited domains

7. AccuWeb – Best for OS Flexibility

This company has been in the marketplace for a while now, and they’re well recommended among Windows users. They offer a Windows reseller plan and a Linux plan, so we’ll cover both options.?

Pros

• OS Flexibility
• Loaded with features
• Great for scaling

Cons

• Expensive
• Yearly payment plan only

Best Features

Accuweb uses CloudLinux and Windows Server 2016 to manage their servers. These are standard offerings and nothing we haven’t seen before. The Linux plans use a cPanel, and Windows uses Plesk, which is also nothing out of the ordinary. So, where are all the fancy features??

For Windows users, Accuweb supports the ASP.Net Core 2.x and 1.x framework. All the reseller accounts come with ASP, PHP, and MySQL hosting and SSD storage. You can control all of your domains using Plesk, which is incredibly user friendly, and it keeps everything in the same place.?

If you decide to go with the Linux servers, you’ll get free setup, fast pure SSD storage, cPanel, and CloudLinux OS.?

Shortcomings

The main issue we have with Accuweb is its pricing. It’s much more expensive for what you get, and that definitely makes it more of a premium offering, excluding those who are just starting out. That said, if you’re looking for Linux reselling – this is one of the best programs out there.?

Plans/Pricing

Let’s break each plan down. We have both Windows and Linux reselling programs here:?

Windows Silver?

• $29.95 per month
• 15 Domains (Sites) in 1 Account
• 50 GB Pure SSD Storage – Raid10 Setup
• 150 GB Bandwidth Limits
• 15 Microsoft SQL Database
• 500 MB disk space per MSSQL Database
• Included Control Panel – Plesk
• Unlimited Email Accounts
• Unlimited FTP Accounts
• Unlimited Sub Domains
• Unlimited MySQL Database
• CDN Hosting (Addon $3.95 / Mo.)
• Free Setup

Windows Gold

• $74.95 per month
• 35 Domains (Sites) in 1 Account
• 100 GB Pure SSD Storage – Raid10 Setup
• 300 GB Bandwidth Limits
• 35 Microsoft SQL Database
• 500 MB disk space per MSSQL Database

Linux Bronze

• $8.99 per month
• 5 cPanel Accounts
• 30 GB Pure SSD Storage
• 100 GB Bandwidth Limits
• Unlimited Email Accounts
• Unlimited FTP Accounts
• Unlimited Sub Domains
• Unlimited MySQL Database
• PHP Support
• HTTP/2 Support
• Free Setup

Linux Silver?

• $19.99 per month
• 30 cPanel Accounts
• 100 GB Pure SSD Storage
• 300 GB Bandwidth Limits

Linux Gold?

• $41.99 per month
• 50 cPanel Accounts
• 150 GB Pure SSD Storage
• 600 GB Bandwidth Limits

Three Alternative Options for Reseller Hosting

If you’re looking for something slightly different from the previous seven options, you can check out three more of the best reseller hosting options.

SiteGround

SiteGround is another popular option that many of you have heard of before. They offer cPanel with Softaculous for setting up, and they go pretty far with features like IP filtering and password protected directories.?

They don’t offer any features to handle CRM or billing, but you do get SSL certificates, daily backups, SSD storage, great security, and blazing fast speeds.?

Pros

• Great features
• Optimized for WordPress
• Affordable
• Fast speeds

Cons

• Private DNS isn’t free

Plans/Pricing?

They offer three plans, $24.99, $39.99, and $80.00.?

Each of these comes with unlimited websites, WordPress updates, free migration, daily backups, free SSLs, free CDN, and free email. The main thing that separates the plans is the amount of webspace you get and the type of customer service you receive as well.?

We’ve never been a big fan of paying for priority support, but if you get the lowest plan with Siteground, we guess you won’t get the high-quality customer service they boast about.

FatCow

If you don’t need Windows Servers, then you’ll want to check out FatCow. They offer a vast assortment of hosting types, great uptime, excellent customer service, and a pricing package that meets expectations.??

Pros

• Plenty of hosting options
• Great uptime
• Good customer service team

Cons

• No Windows servers

Plans/Pricing

The bad news is if you want any more information about FatCow, you have to email a “reseller specialist” to get assistance. The whole process of using their service is outdated, and it says a lot about FatCow overall.?

The only information we were able to find on the website is that they have a wholesale reseller program starting at $49.95, but it’s apparently different from the standard reseller program, and you still need to email or call someone for more information.?

Liquid Web

Liquid Web offers WHMCS and instant provisioning for its reseller and VPS packages. You can use them for both Linux and Windows, and they both offer monthly transfers, personal branding, and 24/7 support.?

Pros

• Great uptime
• Standard security features
• Excellent customer service

Cons

• Doesn’t come with shared hosting
• Pricing is expensive

Plans/Pricing

We like how Liquid Web breaks everything down and makes it easier to understand. They do a much better job at this than Fat Cow, which makes them look much more appealing.?

They offer three different plans. A bronze, silver, and gold. Here’s a quick breakdown of each.?

Bronze

• $99 per month
• 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM
• 2 x 240 GB SSD Drives, Software RAID 1
• 250GB Acronis Backups
• Interworx or cPanel Optional
• Standard DDoS Attack Protection (up to 2 Gbps)

Silver

• $169 per month
• 16 GB DDR3 SDRAM
• 2 x 240 GB SSD Drives, Hardware RAID 1
• 1 TB SATA Backup Drive
• 250GB Acronis Backups
• Interworx or cPanel Optional
• Standard DDoS Attack Protection (up to 2 Gbps)

Gold?

• $259 per month
• 64 GB DDR4 SDRAM
• 4 x 480 GB SSD Drives, Hardware RAID 10
• 1 TB SATA Backup Drive
• 250GB Acronis Backups
• Interworx or cPanel Optional
• Standard DDoS Attack Protection (up to 2 Gbps)

FAQs

Q: What is a hosting reseller program?

A: Hosting reseller programs allow anyone to come in and utilize the already established hosting providers' tools by reselling them to other users. Essentially, you’re selling hosting that already exists by using the hosting yourself.?

Q: What’s the difference between affiliate and reselling?

A: When you’re an affiliate, you’re not claiming to sell the service as your own, and you’re transparent that you’re selling someone else's service. When you resell hosting, you’re essentially white labeling it as your own hosting.?

The post 10 Best Reseller Hosting – Top Options for Hosting Resellers 2023 appeared first on WebMonkey.

When you need more stability and flexibility at a reasonable price, you may want to try virtual private server hosting (VPS). This middle-tier hosting option combines the best of shared hosting with some of the power found in dedicated hosting.

There are plenty of VPS hosting services to choose from, but we know you’re busy, so we did the legwork. Read on to learn more about the best VPS hosting options available to see if one might work for you!

What is the Best VPS Hosting Money Can Buy?

1. HostGator – Best Overall VPS Hosting Service
2. LiquidWeb – Best Fully Managed VPS Hosting
3. inMotion – Best Cloud VPS Hosting Service
4. GoDaddy – Offers Unlimited Bandwidth
5. Bluehost – Offering the Most Power and Flexibility
6. A2 Hosting – Best Unmanaged VPS Hosting for Developers
7. iPage – Cheapest High-Quality VPS Hosting Plans
8. Dreamhost – Quality Alternative VPS Hosting Service

HostGator is the best overall VPS Hosting service because the price is right for reasonable bandwidth and features. Choose the level of web hosting you need based on your skill level, and HostGator provides plenty of room to scale as you grow.

LiquidWeb has the best managed service and some of the best customer service. inMotion offers a choice between a traditional managed VPS hosting service and Cloud VPS hosting. If you’re looking for the cheapest option that doesn’t compromise much on quality, go with iPage.

If you’re on a time-crunch, we built a comparison chart that breaks down our top picks at a glance.

VPS Hosting Comparison?

Are you ready to dig deeper into our top choices? Let’s take a look at the features that landed these eight VPS hosting services on our list.

HostGator

Best Overall VPS Hosting

HostGator is a well-known, award-winning hosting service with reasonable plans and flexible options. The service is known for its reliable service and exceptional customer support.

Pros:

• Choose from several plans at varying storage sizes and prices.
• They offer extremely low introductory rates that can last up to three years.
• Reliable and secure network security with enhanced protection options available.

Cons:

• Once your introductory pricing expires, the renewal fees increase significantly.
• There is no control panel included, you pay an additional fee to get one.

Ease of Use: 5/5

HostGator is one of the simplest hosting services to learn and use. Even beginners can navigate the system with ease, though skilled users will appreciate some of the advanced features. Additionally, site migration is simple, and HostGator offers a free assistant.

Storage/Memory/Bandwidth Options: 5/5

Choose from three tiers of service based on the size needed for your site. HostGator offers 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB RAM. The amount of disk space and bandwidth increases slightly with each tier.

Features: 5/5

HostGator offers loads of helpful features, including custom configurations and subdomains. You can also take advantage of email accounts and other dedicated resources without the cost associated with a dedicated host.

Customer Service and Support: 5/5

HostGator is known for delivering stellar customer service and an array of assistants to walk you through different aspects of hosting. Staff is available 24/7, though it may take a little time to get the fix you need for some issues.

LiquidWeb

4.75/5 Best Fully Managed VPS Hosting

LiquidWeb provides fully managed services with stellar customer service. They offer several packages and choices to accommodate a range of businesses.

Pros:

• Fully managed, including security updates and software support.
• Several packages to choose from, so you pay for what you need.
• They deliver some of the fastest page loading speeds you can find.

Cons:

• They are not as well-known as other hosting services.
• It’s expensive, especially if you choose the month-to-month option.

Ease of Use: 5/5

The benefit of a fully managed hosting service is the ease of use. Since LiquidWeb handles all of the backups, patches, website migrations, and security, you have less to worry about. They let you choose from three different control panels so that you can pick the one you’re comfortable using.

Storage/Memory/Bandwidth Options: 5/5

One of the best perks for LiquidWeb is the no-frills plan options. You pay for what you need, and there are packages to fit every need. Choose from 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB RAM, or pick a bundle-and-save package with additional features. Every package includes 10TB bandwidth and at least 40GB SSD disk space.

Features: 4/5

From free SSL and site migration to convenient control panels and impressive speeds, LiquidWeb has a lot to offer users. They even offer free email. However, for the price, you’d expect some more features to push LiquidWeb up to a five on this domain.

Customer Service and Support: 5/5

Another selling point for LiquidWeb is the outstanding customer support. They offer 24/7 assistance via phone, live chat, or email. Though you may experience some wait times at off hours, it’s rare.

inMotion

4.5/5 Best Cloud VPS Hosting

inMotion is one of the top options because they offer a choice between traditional managed VPS hosting and Cloud VPS hosting. Experienced developers and system admins will appreciate having complete control over customization and a choice in language, including Java and Ruby.

Pros:

• Choose from three traditional managed plans or three Cloud plans.
• Optimized for eCommerce.
• Three dedicated IP addresses and free SSL included.

Cons:

• Once the introductory pricing ends, expect to pay quite a bit more.
• There are no Windows servers, only Linux-based web servers.

Ease of Use: 4/5

If you want a VPS hosting service that’s easy to use, you want to choose the traditional, managed option is best for you. There is plenty of support available to get your site up and running and keep it that way.

Choosing inMotion’s Cloud VPS hosting is better for developers and system admins who can handle the blank slate and build out the website. inMotion does a fantastic job with their Cloud VPS hosting because you have full control over customization, including the language you use.

Storage/Memory/Bandwidth Options: 4/5

While they offer choices between managed and self-managed Cloud VPS hosting, they could do a little better with storage, memory, and bandwidth. The packages aren’t the worst available, but they aren’t as competitive as other VPS hosting services.

Features: 5/5

inMotion offers more features than most hosting services, regardless of whether you go with self-managed or Cloud VPS. Secure emails, schedule auto server backups, and free site migrations are just a few of the awesome features at your disposal.

Customer Service and Support: 5/5

inMotion also provides excellent support, 24/7 via live chat, phone, and email. As a bonus, all of the support is U.S.-based. If you’re not satisfied, you have 90-days to get your money back.

GoDaddy

4.5/5 Offers Unlimited Bandwidth

GoDaddy made a name in web hosting with their newbie-friendly options. They also offer advanced services, including VPS hosting with unlimited bandwidth, which is a major selling point.

Pros:

• Unlimited bandwidth
• Excellent pricing plans, including a lot of free features.
• Fully managed VPS hosting that’s easy and intuitive to use.

Cons:

• You may need to upgrade to get access to some of the features you need.
• Site owners have to migrate their own data into the VPS.

Ease of Use: 5/5

GoDaddy became a household name because of their easy-to-use hosting, and they extended the user-friendliness to the VPS hosting. You can even choose from three different levels of management for VPS hosting, so you handle as much (or as little) as you are comfortable with.

Storage/Memory/Bandwidth Options: 5/5

Unmetered bandwidth is a major selling point for GoDaddy, but they also give you plenty of storage and memory choices. You can select standard RAM or high RAM plans depending on your site’s needs.

Features: 4/5

No VPS hosting service is perfect, and while GoDaddy offers choice in a lot of areas, it lacks some of the features and functions we’d like to see. You have control over quite a bit, but you have to pay extra or upgrade for different levels of support. Also, you only get a free SSL certificate for one year.

Customer Service and Support: 4/5

Sure, GoDaddy offers 24/7 support, and it’s easy to reach them via live chat, phone, or email, but they aren’t as speedy to respond as we’d like them to be. Also, you have to pay extra for more support and assistance.

Bluehost

4.5/5 Offering the Most Power and Flexibility

Bluehost is another popular name in web hosting that moved into the VPS market. They have a decent offering with good uptime and average loading speed.

Pros:

• Your domain name is free for a year, and you get a free SSL certificate.
• Allows unlimited websites.
• Fully managed with plenty of customer support available.

Cons:

• Pricing is a bit steep for what they offer.
• May feel simplistic for experienced users.

Ease of Use: 5/5

Like their other web hosting options, Bluehost’s VPS hosting is simple to learn and use. There is plenty of support available, but the intuitive design and controls make Bluehost easy to master. It doesn’t take much time or effort to get up and running.

Storage/Memory/Bandwidth Options: 5/5

With three plans to choose from, you can select how much RAM, storage, and bandwidth you need, but they offer plenty of power to keep you happy. The middle package gives you 4GB RAM, 60GB SSD storage, and 2TB bandwidth, which should be sufficient for most users. However, you can opt for a larger or smaller package.

Features: 4/5

Bluehost is on par with some of the other services in terms of features, but you have to pay more for some of the upgrades you probably want, like domain privacy. You won’t get a lot of frills with Bluehost, but that doesn’t mean you will miss out on anything.

Customer Service and Support: 4/5

Like other hosting services, Bluehost provides 24/7 customer support via live chat, email, and phone, but they aren’t always quick to respond or resolve issues. They rely heavily on the knowledge base with articles, guides, and more, but that puts a lot on the user to figure out solutions.

A2 Hosting

4/5 Best Unmanaged VPS Hosting for Developers

While A2 Hosting offers managed VPS hosting options, they made this list for their unmanaged VPS hosting. Developers will love the freedom to customize and control every aspect of the site.

Pros:

• Choose unmanaged, managed, or managed with root access (core) VPS hosting.
• You can choose to use Windows-based hosting, unlike several other services.
• Possibly the best backup setup with seven copies of your site available in case you need to restore.

Cons:

• Slower page load speeds than some other options.
• You have to pay extra for some features, and it’s confusing to try to add them.

Ease of Use: 4/5

Not many VPS hosting services offer you a choice for unmanaged or managed with root access, but A2 Hosting does. However, unless you’re an experienced developer, unmanaged hosting is probably out of your comfort zone and managed with root access could be too much trouble.

The managed services offer satisfactory guidance and support, but other VPS hosting services do it better. Novice users should probably look elsewhere for a more intuitive hosting service.

Storage/Memory/Bandwidth Options: 4/5

There’s nothing to complain about with A2 Hosting on this domain, but there’s not much to praise about either. It’s on par with other services but doesn’t stand out for the price.

Features: 4/5

The managed hosting options give you more features for a fair price, but don’t expect anything exceptional. Should you select the unmanaged plan, you can expect to piece together the features you want for additional fees. They do offer some free options, like SSL certificate and control panel, as well as an anytime money-back guarantee.

Customer Service and Support: 4/5

A2 Hosting offers 24/7 assistance from their Guru Crew Support for any plan, managed or unmanaged. The service is satisfactory and friendly with several ways to reach them.

iPage

4/5 Cheapest, High-Quality VPS Hosting Plans

iPage offers some of the cheapest VPS hosting plans available from a reliable, reputable provider. Even after the introductory pricing expires, you can expect some of the best rates for solid VPS hosting.

Pros:

• Reasonable pricing, even after the introductory period ends.
• Choose from three levels of storage, memory, and bandwidth options.
• Includes free domain registration for one year.

Cons:

• No Windows-based features, only Linux.
• No uptime guarantee for the VPS hosting plans.

Ease of Use: 4/5

With several pre-installed scripts, an intuitive cPanel, and optional root access, you have a decent amount of control without compromising ease of use. It may be a better option for users with some experience instead of newbies, but it’s not over-complicated.

Storage/Memory/Bandwidth Options: 4/5

iPage offers three levels to choose from with varying storage, memory, and bandwidth limits. It’s easy to select the plan that fits your site’s needs, but even the lowest tier should accommodate most smaller businesses. They do offer scalability and flexibility to upgrade as you grow.

Features: 4/5

There has to be some level of sacrifice to offer cheaper pricing, and it comes by way of features. Expect to miss some of the features offered by other hosting services that charge more. Many users may prefer the lower fees and bare minimum approach that still provides plenty of control over customization.

Customer Service and Support: 4/5

Aside from a library of help topics and resources, iPage offers 24/7 customer support within a reasonable time frame. Expect to wait longer for e-ticket and email support.

Dreamhost

4/5 Quality VPS Hosting Alternative

Dreamhost doesn’t exactly top any of the others on the list in any area, but it’s a viable alternative if you don’t love the other choices. The price is right, and they offer some desirable features, like unlimited bandwidth.

Pros:

• One of the more affordable VPS hosting services available.
• Unlimited bandwidth included in all plans.
• The modern, user-friendly control panel is convenient and attractive.

Cons:

• The starter plan is basic and void of some key features, like email.
• Live chat support is only available during set hours, not 24/7.

Ease of Use: 4/5

If you use certain providers, like WordPress or Joomla, Dreamhost is easy to set up. Some providers may take a little longer on the front-end because Dreamhost only offers auto-install for eight providers. However, their control panel is easy to use once you learn it.

Storage/Memory/Bandwidth Options: 4/5

Unlimited bandwidth is a big deal for some users, and Dreamhost hooks you up regardless of what plan you choose. There are four levels of storage and memory available depending on your site’s needs, and they help you determine which plan is best for you.

Features: 4/5

Dreamhost offers good quality and some decent features, but they lack some of those key components that other hosting services offer, like built-in caching. There’s no email plan with the standard package, and the one-click installations only extend to a handful of providers.

Customer Service and Support: 4/5

Technically, Dreamhost offers 24/7 support – by email. Live chat support is only available during certain hours. You may be out of luck if your problem occurs outside of chat support hours. However, they do respond to emails rather quickly and do a sufficient job of handling support.

How to Choose a VPS Hosting Service

Phew! That’s a lot of information about some of the best VPS hosting services available. It’s a lot to process and even more challenging to choose the right service for your site. To make things easier, let’s take a look at some of the most important factors and what they mean for the success of your website.

What is the Uptime, and Why Does it Matter?

Looking at the comparison chart, there’s not a lot of disparity between the VPS hosting services on the list. Uptime is possibly the most important factor in choosing a VPS hosting service because anything less than 99.9% may be a no-go for you.

Uptime refers to the amount of time that the server is up and running. Server downtime means your site goes down, so even 0.05% could significantly impact your website’s performance. You really want a service that guarantees 99.9% uptime if possible. Note that no server can guarantee 100% uptime.

Does Speed Matter? What Should I Look for in Terms of Speed?

In terms of web hosting, speed refers to how fast your site loads. The whole point of switching from a shared hosting service to a VPS service is to improve performance, including page loading speed. Some providers claim to offer exceptional loading speeds, and some of those deliver on those claims.

Google recommends a page load time of less than two seconds, preferably a half-second or less. Several factors can affect page load times, including the size of files, especially if you use a lot of images or videos.

What Type of VPS Hosting Should I Choose – Managed or Unmanaged?

Managed VPS hosting means that the provider handles a lot of the technical aspects for you, especially if something goes wrong. Unmanaged VPS hosting leaves almost everything to your team with regard to setting up and coding your site.

Developers and site administrators may prefer an unmanaged VPS hosting service to retain maximum control over customization. On the other hand, novice users or admins who want to dedicate less time to managing the site may prefer a managed VPS hosting service.

How Much RAM, Storage, and Bandwidth Do You Need?

Each of the VPS hosting services above offers a selection of plans with varying levels of RAM, storage, and bandwidth to accommodate sites of different sizes. It’s crucial that you understand your site’s needs and select the appropriate level to meet your needs.

RAM is the amount of working memory your CPUs (computer processing unit) can access. Most users will function efficiently with 4GB to 8GB of RAM. Smaller businesses can usually do with less, but very few users will require more than 8GB RAM.

Storage is also reported in terms of GB and refers to the amount of space you have for content, videos, images, and web pages. The number of resources you require for your site is the best indicator of how much storage you need.

Bandwidth is the amount of data transmitted between your website and the server. Only a few hosting providers offer unlimited bandwidth, so bandwidth may not be a dealbreaker.

What Can You Afford?

Price matters. If your business cannot afford to take on an expensive VPS hosting service, you may have to compromise and choose a cheaper one. Know your budget and pay close attention to the length of introductory pricing periods.

Consider Included Features vs. Paid Features

Speaking of pricing, there is a lot of variety when it comes to VPS hosting services, and a lot of the differences come down to features. Some providers offer free SSL certificates, while others offer free site migration.

When you look at the features included with your plan be careful to note what’s missing. Add-ons can significantly impact your plan’s price and push a seemingly affordable option out of your budget range.

Can You Use a VPS Hosting Service?

Deciding when it’s time to upgrade to a VPS hosting service may be a huge question mark for some people. The answer depends heavily on the performance of your existing site. Keep in mind, shared hosting usually packs plenty of power for brand new sites.

If you have an existing site, there are a few reasons to make the switch, but they all involve performance issues, like page load time. Usually, you only see problems when your site gains a massive influx of traffic due to increased popularity (a good problem to have!).

There are two other reasons to make the leap to VPS hosting. If you operate an online store, the VPS hosting service gives you more security for payments and customer information. Even if you don’t operate an online store, but require enhanced security for your site, VPS hosting services provide exceptional security features.

The point of VPS hosting services is to provide more resources and support more website traffic. When your shared hosting service can’t support your website, but you’re not ready to rent a private server, VPS hosting provides an ideal alternative.

8 Best VPS Hosting Services Money Can Buy: Roundup

Each of these VPS hosting services offer more power and functionality than shared servers. They offer functionality and a variety of features for organizations of all sizes.

The best option is HostGator with a selection of features, powerful functionality, stellar customer service, and plenty of storage to meet your needs. It’s tough to go wrong with HostGator, but if you’re not feeling it, let’s recap our list…

1. HostGator – Best Overall
2. LiquidWeb – Best Fully Managed VPS Hosting
3. inMotion – Best Cloud VPS Hosting
4. GoDaddy –Unlimited Bandwidth
5. Bluehost –Most Power and Flexibility
6. A2 Hosting – Best for Developers
7. iPage – Cheapest High-Quality VPS Hosting Plans
8. Dreamhost – Quality Alternative

When you outgrow a shared server, it’s time to upgrade to more power, but that doesn’t mean your organization is ready for a dedicated server. Fortunately, VPS hosting provides a mid-level option that offers more power than a shared server without the exorbitant pricing of a dedicated server.

Switching to a VPS hosting service could mean the difference between losing business due to poor website performance and growing your traffic with more resources. Only you can decide what’s best for your site, but hopefully we armed you with enough information to make an educated decision. Best of luck!

FAQs

What is the difference between shared hosting, dedicated hosting, and VPS hosting?

Understanding the differences between your three hosting options can be a bit overwhelming, but it’s surprisingly easy to breakdown.

Shared hosting is the most common type of web hosting service. When your site uses shared hosting, you share a server with other websites. Reputable providers never overburden their servers, but some disreputable providers may add too many websites to a server, which would impact your site’s performance.

Dedicated hosting means you have a server that only handles your site. It’s expensive and usually too much power for one website.

Virtual Private Server, or VPS hosting, combines the best of both worlds by hosting a single site on multiple servers. A virtual wall separates your private server (and related information) from other websites.

How secure are VPS hosting services?

One of the big reasons to upgrade to VPS hosting is the increased security. VPS hosting services offer extensive security features, some included and others as add-ons. Since VPS hosting means you have a private server, you have more security than a shared server.

If you’re not satisfied with the base level security that comes with your plan, ask about upgrades.

What is the easiest VPS hosting service to use?

Any managed VPS hosting service should be easy enough for beginners to use. If you’re worried about learning or working with your server, try to choose a provider that offer guides and 24/7 support, like those listed here.

Which VPS hosting service offers the best customer support?

Most hosting service providers offer some level of customer support. The VPS hosting services on this list provide varying levels of customer support, though the majority offer 24/7 service through multiple avenues, including live chat.

HostGator, LiquidWeb, and inMotion frequently top lists for their features, including customer support options. They offer guides and tutorials on top of quick response times.

The post Best VPS Hosting 2023 – Top Virtual Private Server Hosting Companies appeared first on WebMonkey.

That's right — free. These hosting websites allow you to build your site and gather good customers without spending a dime on hosting. These options can ensure that you have a place to showcase your best work. Let's take a look at the top eight options.

Why Do You Need Image Hosting?

You can't afford to lose your photo archives by keeping them locked down in hardware. By uploading your photos to a hosting site, you have better insurance that your collection will exist somewhere even if your hardware fails.

Image hosting can also free up storage space on your computer if you need it. You can upload your images to an external hard drive and then easily access them through your hosting storage solution. You'll kill two birds with one stone.

You'll also be able to work with them faster, sharing with family and friends, or sending potential clients to your portfolio with just a simple click of a button. It's not a matter of whether you should upload your photos to a hosting site — it's a matter of which one.

The Best Free Photo Hosting Sites

These eight websites will allow you to upload and store photos for free, streamlining your sharing and enabling you to create backups for your photo catalog besides your hard drive. Here are eight to watch out for.

Flickr — Best Classic Viewer

The OG of photo-sharing sites, this image hosting option is still around and still going strong. It does have a paid version, but for beginning photographers, it's plenty.

The free option allows you to upload up to 1000 high-resolution images and share them through a social-media-like feed. You can group based on type or other characteristic markers and easily search for similar images.

You can comment on photos from other photographers and have them do the same with yours, giving Flickr a more community-like feel. Groups are available for you to share your photos, helping raise your visibility and create a sense of community.

The Features

Flickr's most significant feature is that community. Even the free accounts have a thriving community of people able to comment and showcase talent. You can use Flickr to integrate with a variety of other tools or just to showcase what you can do with your camera.

You can share photos quickly, and the interface is still very user friendly. It may not be the household name it was a few years ago, but for photographers, it's a deal.

User Settings

While you do have the choice to share photos far and wide, the privacy settings can also help protect images. You can allow your current clients to view their albums and make purchases without showcasing the photos for the world to see.

It also has a few basic editing tools you can use to upload and edit your photos all in one go. The interface is easy to use, and if you do decide to upgrade, it's simple to do so. If you're just getting started, however, the free option is plenty.

Who Should Use Flickr?

Beginning photographers or those looking for a community would thrive on the platform. Although it's home to billions of photos, you can target like-minded photo communities and use the easy share links to bring visibility to your photos.

It can be a source of inspiration for beginners and help fuel newer, better images. You'll be able to navigate through the community site and showcase your work.

Flickr pros:

• Editing tools embedded
• Communities make visibility easier
• Easy sharing tools

Flickr cons:

• 1000 photo maximum for the free site

500px — Best For Photo Licensing

This option is a professional site designed to showcase your images for free. You'll be able to upload seven photos per week with a maximum of 2000 photos for the free section. The sharing features are robust, mimicking social media sites and making it easy to get your photos in front of an audience.

The site is well known in the industry, increasing your chances that a curator or editor will stumble across your portfolio. It's also home to millions of users in the community, so you can easily find inspiration and comment on other photos.

It's not as large as something like Flickr, but that means there's less competition for photos. You'll be more likely to stand out if you can perfect your photography craft.

The Features

The most prominent feature of 500px is the streamlined interface. It showcases your photos cleanly and efficiently, making it a simple online portfolio. The community aspect is another good option that provides both inspiration and feedback.

While you're limited in the number of photos you can upload with the free version, if you're an art photographer, you may want to limit your uploads anyway. This is a site to showcase the best of your best.

User settings

It offers the chance to comment on others' photos, and showcase the portfolio, but it doesn't integrate directly with social media. However, you can set up licensing for stock photos, helping create a side income or a full-time hustle if you get good at it.

You get inbound statistics to gauge the popularity of photos and ensure that you're able to give the people what they want. It's suitable for growing as a photographer and jumpstarting the career.

Who Should Use 500px?

If you're experimenting with stock photography as a side hustle or you want a streamlined, professional portfolio, this could be a good option. You'll be able to build your photography career and experiment with different types of sharing methods.

It's best for semi-professional photographers and professionals who are on a budget. If you don't produce a ton of photos, but instead create single shots as a form of art, this is a good option.

500px pros:

• Licensing options
• Less competition
• Visible to curators and editors

500px cons:

• Small upload limits

IMGBox — Best Streamlined Option

This option gives you a streamlined way to share single images and host them forever. It offers unlimited storage, and you don't even have to sign up for an account. Just upload your photo and copy the link. Done.

The biggest draw of this option is that it's the portfolio for someone who doesn't want a “portfolio.” It allows you to pick and choose your images and never worry that they won't be available online. It promises to be around forever.

The site accepts multiple file types, and with an account, you can access all your photos later. Social media sharing is easy to use and helps bring comments from other viewers.

The Features

You can sign up for a free account or simply upload a photo you want hosted to receive the link. Getting an account helps you access all the available features, but it's not necessary. Social media sharing is easy and intuitive, and community options are straightforward.

You get unlimited storage space with this option, but the portfolio options aren't as robust as others. However, it's simple and easy to use.

User settings

You can share the images via links, and the interface is fast and efficient. The codes embed into websites or where you need to share an image. When you upload the photos, you can choose the appropriate file resolution and go.

ImgBox pros:

• Easy, straightforward uploading
• Embeddable codes for each image you upload
• Unlimited number of images

ImgBox cons:

• 10 MG per image

Wix — Best For Website Capability

The Wix option allows you to create a website rather than just a portfolio. If you're moving to a more professional stance or have more complex projects to show off, Wix could be a good choice.

You can arrange your portfolio on Wix, much like a full website with a bigger user map and organized sections. This gives you more freedom to build and arrange something that works for you.

Wix is a free site, which means you won't have a branded domain. If you're just starting out or you don't care about or need a fully branded area, this is a good budget option for a quick website.

The Features

Wix allows you to control the display of your photos, creating a more unique site based on your branding or personality. It's easy to use if you've ever done any web development before — even basic experience setting up features for social media will work.

You can jumpstart your website with simple drag and drop elements and templates and create sections for different aspects of your photography.

Google crawls Wix sites, so with full information on your website, you have the potential to come up in someone's search results. While you won't have a branded domain name, Google search potential is a valuable tool.

User settings

For a free site, Wix gives you a ton of control over how, where, and when your photos are displayed. You can create a simple landing page or get creative with a full-fledged website. All your photos load in full resolution and the site maintains mobile optimization.

Load times are relatively fast, and Wix has good uptimes, so your website will be available. You can embed social media icons and share links directly from the site as well.

Wix Pros:

• Looks and behaves like a full-fledged website
• Full-resolution photos with mobile optimization
• Use friendly settings

Wix Cons

• Non branded domain name

Imgur — Best For Gif Creation

Imgur is a fun site where photos go to become those viral gifs you see floating around on the internet. You can choose to share your photos with the community or upload photos and share them privately with the embedded link.

This informal photo site is perfect for those shots that don't follow professional photo rules. This is the place for that hilarious photo of your kitten or pictures of your friends laugh-reacting. If viral fame is your goal, Imgur can help get you there.

The site is free and stores your photos for as long as you wish. Uploading is straightforward, and you can always switch between public and private settings depending on your photo needs.

The Features

Imgur mimics other exclusive photo-sharing sites with a community section designed for discovery and a photo grid to make viewing easier. The grid helps you organize and tag your photos and allows you to customize your network.

Imgur stores your photos indefinitely and offers unlimited uploads. There are file size restrictions for certain types of pictures, but the site does make it easy to adjust.

With embedded linking to individual photos, you'll have an easy way to share your photos through social media or email. Reddit is a popular destination, as well.

User settings

The site doesn't give you much control over what your personal grid looks like, but that's not the point. This is an excellent site if you tend to share images one by one instead of as a full portfolio.

The privacy settings are straightforward, and you're never locked into one setting (unless a photo goes viral). You can change back and forth as you need to or set privacy settings for multiple images as you're working.

Imgur Pros:

• Excellent sharing options
• Less formal hosting site
• Facilitates viral sharing

Imgur cons:

• No branding options

Free Image Hosting — Best No-Strings Option

With this option, you don't even need an account to upload photos. Just start uploading your photos and use the embedded links to ensure that you can share your photos far and wide.

Free Image Hosting gives you a quick place to upload photos if you don't always need a public sharing repository. You get a secure HTML code to share pictures, and everything is stored forever — no limits and no expiration dates.

It also gives you the option to list your photography business in their directory if you're located in the US, making you searchable for anyone looking for a photographer or wanting to use your services after seeing your portfolio.

The Features

Free Image Hosting is stripped down and simple. That's the whole point. If you decide to use it to store photos, great. If you only need a place to store a few things publicly for your project, this is the place to start.

The home page is dated looking, but that may make it more comfortable sharing with people who don't have a lot of experience with web navigation. Despite its design, it has reliable functionality, and user navigation is straightforward.

User Settings

Free Image Hosting doesn't have a hyperlink shortener, so you'll need to alter them through a different website if that's important to you. However, without an account, you can still get an extraordinary amount done.

Signing up for an account gives you a more natural link to the photos you've already uploaded, so there's a benefit to doing that immediately. But it's a no-strings-attached choice if you don't always use online portfolios.

Free Image Hosting pros:

• No strings attached uploading
• Simple user navigation
• No limits or expiration dates

Free Image Hosting cons:

• The site looks like it's from 1996

PostImage — Best For Sharing Limits

When you upload photos to the web, they sometimes stay there forever. That may be well and good for some types of pictures, but what about when you want to share photos for a short period of time?

PostImage allows you to upload photos and set a time limit if you want, giving you the chance to share on forums or other places temporarily. It provides simple batch uploading, giving you the ability to resize multiple photos with one click.

The entire system is simple to use and gives you some nonstandard sizing options such as “message board” or “avatar.” Along with straightforward navigation, you get a small batch of features that make it simple to work with multiple photos at once.

The Features

PostImage makes it simple to work with batch uploading and batch editing. You get one-click optimization for a number of photo needs from full-sized monitor to tiny avatar images. It's popular among forum users as well as people who need to share temporary batches.

Navigation is straightforward, and each image gets an embedded HTML link to ensure that sharing is easy. This link can go to lots of different places and provides the capability to manage photos individually or all together.

User Settings

One of the best parts of this hosting site is the ability to set expiration dates on sharing for images. You can choose to share the link for 24 hours, for example, and after that period, the connection becomes inactive.

You can choose several different preset expiration options, so your photos are shareable, but you have more control over how long the images stay up without individual intervention.

Suppose you worry about your images being on the internet indefinitely. In that case, this option is going to give you peace of mind and ensure that you can control images without spending a ton of time uploading and then removing them manually.

PostImage pros:

• Sharing limits are automated
• Easy link embedding
• Batch uploading and batch editing

PostImage cons:

• Limited customization

IMGBox — Best For Multiple File Types

This simple option is a free site designed to make social sharing more accessible and commenting possible. You get a little bit of community without all the complexity of a full website. It provides you with simple uploading tools and works with multiple file types.

The navigation is user friendly and modern. If you're sending clients to your photos, it provides a secure sharing link, or others can browse through your photo gallery to see your work.

It offers presets and easy editing tools for multiple photos. Sign up for an account, and you've got everything available right away to get started.

The Features

You don't need to sign up for an account, but it does unlock the site's full features. You'll be able to store, edit, and share photos with the touch of a button. The social sharing features are simple to use, and you can begin commenting on other photo galleries right away.

The community of the site is smaller, so there's less competition, and you'll be able to find like-minded artists to inspire you and get pointers. It feels a little more intimate than some of the bigger photo hosting sites around.

The site allows unlimited storage of multiple file types and makes uploading pretty simple. You'll have more freedom with how you work based on what camera file you're using.

User settings

You do have some privacy controls with this one, but it operates better as a community effort. You can allow or disallow comments on your photos and upload or hide them with just as much ease.

The ability to hold photos in a grouping and then remove them is a nice feature. You aren't hemmed in by a specific file type, so everything you need to work is open. Even if you're working with multiple file types, you'll have the same batch editing features and privacy settings.

PostImage pros:

• Works with multiple file types
• Community-oriented
• Batch editing with one touch

PostImage cons:

• Not many extended features

Choosing The Right Free Image Hosting

There are a few things to consider if you're going to choose a free image hosting site. Take a look at these components to help you make your best decision.

Storage Capacity

Not all free sites are created equal. While you do have some free options with unlimited uploading, others limit your overall storage capacity. You'll need to decide how many photos you'll need to store and if you'll want to delete batches of photos.

If you only need something to showcase your latest and best, the storage capacity isn't that big of a deal. You'll be overwriting your storage with your latest work. If you're storing photos as a backup to your hard drive, you may hit the limits quickly and be disappointed.

Uploading Limits

One of the most common restrictions for free sites is uploading restrictions. This could include limiting the number of photos you're allowed to upload during a given time period or restricting the photo size.

If you need to upload lots of photos at a time, check to make sure the free version of your chosen host doesn't restrict you based on those numbers. If you tend to upload high-resolution images to edit or showcase, ensure that individual file capabilities are large enough for your purposes.

Expiration Dates

A few free sites automatically delete photos after a certain period of time. Again, this isn't a deal-breaker by itself. If you only showcase your latest work, this makes things easier for you to maintain.

If you're storing photos for the long term, you'd be disappointed to log in one day and see whole batches missing. Ensure that you know the parameters of storage before you choose a particular hosting site.

Photo Resolution

Photo resolution is one of your biggest deciding factors. You need to showcase your work the way you see it on your computer if you're a professional, so choose something that allows you to set the parameters.

One excellent feature, if you can find it, is mobile optimization. No matter where your clients are looking, the site automatically makes navigation easier based on desktop or mobile browsing. If you're using it as a professional selling tool, this is going to be the way to go.

Privacy And Other Features

Free sites have a wide range of capabilities and other features. As you're working through your decision, think about what kind of editing tools you'd like and what kind of privacy controls you need.

If your primary goal is sharing, choose a free site that makes embedded links and social sharing options straightforward. If you want to interact with other photographers, check out the site's community pages to see what's available. If you only want a static page, you'll want to look at your uploading and file type options.

Ease Of Use

When you navigate through the photo hosting site, look at it in two different ways. First, the website should be secure for you to browse and upload. Check out the editing and sharing functions to make sure that you can easily get your activities done without having to look up help modules.

You should look at it from your client's perspective as well. Are people able to find your work easily? Can you share and search from all kinds of devices? Do the photos show up with an excellent resolution?

You should be able to navigate the site, and your client should be able to view your photos without having to ask too many questions. No matter what type of hosting site you go with, this is a big priority if you're a professional photographer.

Even if you aren't professional, you may not want to answer questions from your family or friends every time you send out a link. Make life easier on yourself and check for easy navigation.

Why Choose Free Hosting

Free hosting is perfect if you aren't interested in spending your budget on an official website. You'll be able to showcase work or store photos outside your hard drive for safekeeping. There are many free versions of hosting out there to give you a jumpstart on your budget.

It could also make for a good companion site to your professional gallery or website. For example, Imgur might be a great place to blow off steam if you don't want to store your informal photos on your professional page.

Free hosting unlocks a variety of new projects and avenues you could take with your photography without increasing your budget. It's an excellent way to experiment with other styles of photos or separate different batches.

Free hosting also makes it easier to temporarily share photos if you can't or don't want to give access to more permanent storage methods. This could be a good idea for sharing photos with strangers or for special occasions.

When To Move To Paid Hosting

If you have an established, thriving photography business and you're spending more time trying to work around restrictions, it may be time to explore paid options. These are often only necessary if you're working with your team and have multiple people in your business managing your collections.

The presence of paid options doesn't limit you, however. Many of our free choices provide robust hosting options that almost rival their paid companions. It's only when the restrictions become limiting to your art and livelihood that you might explore changing to a paid version.

Store, Share, And Showcase Your Photos For Free

Choosing a free hosting site will allow you to skyrocket your photography career or just share your work with family and friends. You'll have the chance to build a portfolio online without having to overextend your budget.

Our list options are easy to use and offer a range of features designed to make your photography more accessible. You'll have backups for your hard drive storage. You'll be able to share photos on a variety of platforms. You'll even be able to work with a range of file types.

Check to see that the free features cover your storage needs and work with the file types you like. Once you find an option with easy navigation and the editing or uploading tools you need, you'll be ready to go.

For some, you don't even have to sign up for an account, giving you a no strings attached way to share batches of photos. There's no wrong way to host pictures. You only need to determine your needs and then begin uploading or sharing.

The post What Are The Best Free Image Hosting Platforms For Photographers? appeared first on WebMonkey.

Whether you're new to the blogging world or looking for a new hosting provider, we've got a few ideas to get you started. These eight hosting sites for blogs allow you to build your expertise and ensure that your blog is always up and running. Plus, we've answered some questions about hosting. Let's take a look.

What Is Web Hosting?

Your blog needs to have a location. The domain of your blog sits on a server somewhere, and a company runs, maintains, and monitors those servers to ensure that the customer-facing piece of your website is available.

Once you get serious about blogging, you'll need to move off the branded free sites to your own simple domain name. Once that happens, it's time to look for web hosting services. A web host will allow you to migrate your website to its servers and set your content up for expansion — think eCommerce, affiliate links, or any number of other ways to monetize a blog.

Good web hosting is affordable, but it should also offer you the bandwidth that you need to store your content. Photographers or artists may need more bandwidth than simple content bloggers, for example.

You'll also need something that can scale as your viewers increase so that your site doesn't accidentally crash during your viral post's best days. Load times can also make or break your viewership as can site “uptime” or the amount of time a site is available.

Balancing all these needs with your budget is a crucial part of getting your blog off the ground and ensuring that you look professional. Here are the web hosting options we love.

What Is The Best Hosting For A Blog?

These eight hosting providers are reliable and suit a variety of budgets. Let's find your perfect hosting spot.

Bluehost — Best For WordPress Users

Bluehost is known for its super-fast speeds, allowing users with really robust websites to improve overall performance. It's designed best for WordPress sites and provides a full suite of features for an affordable price.

Bluehost is officially recommended by the WordPress folks and provides users with a one-click website installation. You could potentially be up and running in just a few hours with everything working. If you've already got a blog going, this could help minimize disruption.

If you're new to blogging, Bluehost's integration with WordPress is familiar and easy to use. It offers a variety of storage options and price points, allowing it to grow with your blog, not work against it. It's fast and scalable.

Site And Support

The hosting provider offers a highly reliable service, providing a 99% uptime even with fast speeds. If something goes wrong, customer support is available 24/7 to handle any issues and get your site back to normal again.

It provides a 30-day money-back guarantee. You can install your site and play around, testing it to its limits. If it's not for you, you can cancel and receive your subscription back with no questions asked.

Security

The hosting provider comes with WordPress preinstalled, so there are fewer security loopholes. With robust customer service, you'll be able to integrate your site into Bluehost and ensure that everything is locked down.

With a free domain and SSL certificate, you'll be able to guarantee the safety of your blog for your users. These things are available at all levels of your subscription.

User Experience

Bluehost makes it simple for users to import blogs or create new ones. The entire experience happens pretty fast, and customer representatives help smooth out any glitches. When you partner with Bluehost, you can take part in some affiliate programs if you so choose, or just build a robust site.

Bluehost pros:

• WordPress integration
• Ultra-fast speeds
• 99% Uptime

Bluehost cons:

• Smaller storage packages for lower hosting tiers.

HostGator — Best For Scaling

If you're looking for unlimited hosting capabilities, there are few out there like HostGator. This hosting provider offers unlimited bandwidth for all its users, making it simple to keep your blog going if you experience sudden growth.

HostGator provides one-touch WordPress integration and offers an easy solution if you've already got a blog up and running. The site boasts over 99% uptime, with an average load time of just 479 milliseconds.

You get free site migration and the option to create a domain through their service. They'll ensure that a website is monitored through essential services and minimize disruption during growth.

Site And Support

The site can integrate directly with WordPress through simple uploading. The hosting provider gives you up to 45 days to try out the service. If you don't like it, you can always change it and get your money back before that deadline.

The site provides ultra-fast service and unlimited bandwidth for all its customers. This allows your website to grow quickly without the typical hitches some hosting providers have as you move through hosting tiers.

Security

HostGator ensures you have an SSL certificate, a necessity if you plan to reach a variety of readers and audience members. And because it integrates directly with WordPress, you'll have fewer glitches as you migrate to the site.

They have reliable customer service to help you through any issues with your blog or website, so the reliability of performance is guaranteed.

User Experience?

The site offers one-click migration for WordPress sites and simple step by step directions for other site options. The host provides several tiers of operation, but with unlimited bandwidth, you'll have an easier time navigating the site.

Overall, this option is easy to use and easy to scale choice, providing a lot of flexibility for your hosting. Whether you're new to the world of blogging or have an established site, this offers the kind of performance to enhance both types of blogging.

HostGator Pros

• 99.97% Uptime
• 479-millisecond website loading
• Unlimited bandwidth

Cons

• Renewal cost is inconsistent

Dreamhost — Best For Developers

Dreamhost offers a completely customizable panel designed to open your site up to the designs of your wildest dreams. The site host provides a reliable 99.5% uptime and speeds of around 700 milliseconds for load time, but it's the dashboard that shines.

It's much easier to migrate to Dreamhost than migrate off, but with such intuitive controls, you may never want to. There is a free plug-in for WordPress migration, and the site is built for scale no matter where you are in your blogging career.

You'll be able to take advantage of cloud-based hosting designed to accommodate more substantial scale websites. These are affordable and offer enterprise-level blogging if that's your thing.

Site and Support

The site provides you with almost four months of a money-back guarantee so you can really get in there and make it your own. The option to migrate isn't quite as seamless as some of the others if you're coming from WordPress already, but with the new plug-in, you won't get stuck.

Customer service is excellent and can help you overcome hurdles or make decisions about your hosting packages. The live chat feature is available only during business hours, however, leaving you with email support if you operate outside those. Technical support is extra.

Security

It comes with the SSL certificate keeping your site secure for your audience. It's a WordPress recommended site, so integration is less likely to happen haphazardly or create security loopholes.

While technical support is extra, if you happen to go for managed support packages, this comes included. Those of you just starting out may want to spring for the extra even with beginner/basic packages.

User Experience

If you're a developer or you know your way around a web creator, you will have a much better time with the dashboard. Even if you aren't, the unique panel is more user friendly than the traditional cPanel for many people.

With excellent customer support in a live chat during business hours, you shouldn't have trouble navigating through any of the features for Dreamhost.

Dreamhost Pros

• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unique dashboard for content creation
• extended money-back guarantee

Cons

• Challenging to migrate off Dreamhost if you decide to change

GreenGeeks – Best For Environment Enthusiasts

If you're concerned about the environmental footprint of web hosting, GreenGeeks is your answer. While they aren't a household name like some of the other options, they do boast renewable energy sources for their hosting services.

You don't sacrifice service with the service offering several different package tiers and good bandwidth for various varieties of blogging levels. These options are affordable and come with the security you'd expect of larger hosting sites.

It offers free site migration and technical support at various stages of the integration. With 99.4% uptime and loading speed of around 515 milliseconds, it's a good option for beginning bloggers with an environmental focus.

Site and Support

The site makes it easy to migrate your blog to the platform or offers free domains through their registry. You don't need to sacrifice speed or bandwidth to pay closer attention to the environment.

They provide customer service through live chat and email 24/7, but you'll only have phone support during certain hours of the day. While these extend to midnight eastern time, you will have to operate within those hours wherever you are in the world.

Security

The site host provides the necessary SSL certificate for your site, and all plans include daily backups for safety. The company remains up to date with the latest security plug-ins and offers a robust set of features to protect you and your audience.

There are auto-updates to your WordPress site to keep loopholes closed and to provide a proactive security approach, not just reactive.

User experience

GreenGeeks provides a one-touch migration for WordPress and a simple approach for other sites. They have domains and plenty of packages to cover a range of features. Creating and monitoring your site is simple, and the support is excellent.

Overall, the hosting is simple to use, and it provides comprehensive features and support. You'll be able to get your blog up and running fairly quickly and experience minimal disruption.

GreenGeeks Pros:

• Renewable energy powered servers
• Good customer support options
• Robust security features

Cons

• Not as well known

Siteground — Best Customer Service Options

Siteground provides a simple solution for web hosting but includes a robust set of customer service features. You'll be able to migrate your site to your new host with a simple one-click function, and Siteground is one of WordPress's recommended three options.

As a leader in shared hosting, Siteground offers ultra-fast and ultra-secure choices for small or large blogs. Many of the features you'll get are automatic, and the host provides continual updates to ensure optimal performance.

Pricing is more expensive than some of the other options, especially if you need more than just the basic package. If you need a genuinely complex hosting option for your website, this is the way to go.

Site and Support

Siteground offers integrated customer support from the beginning stages and as your blog grows and scales. The phone, chat, and email options are available around the clock, so you'll never get stuck with something you don't understand.

Aside from that, robust features and complexity built right in ensure that whether you're a beginning blogger or blogging is part of a much larger picture, the site will be able to handle your needs.

Security

Siteground has many hosting options allowing for different levels of security. Each one offers a robust security package that's automatically updated and provides new features in a proactive stance.

You'll get the necessary SSL certificate, and with dedicated servers, you'll be able to scale safely later on if your needs change.

User experience

With the type of robust customer support offered around the clock, there's little you can't do with the site. They're known for their robust options and excellent customer service, and the experience overall is no different.

Upgrades are smooth, and with a 30-day money-back guarantee, you'll be able to test out all the features you need to ensure that this is what you want. While it may be overkill for some simple operations, it's one of the best choices if you have big plans for your blog.

Siteground Pros:

• 24/7 phone, chat, and email support
• Robust security features
• Multiple hosting options

Cons:

• More expensive than other hosting

Godaddy — Best For Experimentation

Godaddy offers a wide variety of hosting options, giving you some of the most robust features if you're experimenting with the type of blog and the type of site you're building. It's useful for building and tearing down and doing it again.

They're the largest domain registrar in the world and have a significant brand presence. With excellent uptimes of around 99.97% and quick load times of 500 milliseconds, you'll get performance along with the features.

Most users are interested in blogging for the first time when they find their way to Godaddy, and the site offers domain names and simple migration. The site has plenty of customer support options as well, with free backups daily.

Site and Support

Godaddy offers email and live chat support, but it's the phone support that really shines. You'll be able to reach them around the clock with any issues, and they have fast resolution times. You'll get excellent bandwidth and can host as many websites as you like. You also get free domain renewal.

Building a site with Godaddy is simple and straightforward, whether you have one or 100 locations. You'll get good uptimes and automatic updates to keep your sites up and running no matter what. You can also opt in on free business emails.

Security

You'll get the necessary SSL certificates with your registration, and Godaddy continually updates your blog to be compliant with the latest security. It's straightforward to migrate a site to the hosting provider, helping reduce security loopholes and maintain compliance.

With continual monitoring and daily backups, your site will run smoothly, and you'll remain in compliance with the latest security options.

User experience

Godaddy is quite popular with the blogger crowd because of the number of features associated with the site. One-click site migration makes it simple to switch if you're already established, or you can shop for a domain and website right from the hosting provider itself.

The features may take some getting used to, but once you've conquered the small learning curve, it's easier to maintain your blog than you think. It can provide the tools you need without being so complex that you can't take advantage of them all.

Godaddy pros:

• An excellent suite of features
• Automatic updates
• Option for business emails and other features

Cons:

• Constant upsells at every stage

A2 Hosting — Best For Speed.

If the only thing you're after is speed, this is the way to go. A2 Hosting boasts a 99.99% uptime rate guaranteed, and with WordPress loading at around 392 milliseconds, this is the one to beat.

Aside from speed, the host provides free site migration and good customer support if you run into an obstacle. They also offer a money-back guarantee at any time. Once you cancel, you'll be refunded the price of that month, making this one a low-risk choice.

A2 hosting features are typically good, and the higher tiers have a robust set of features designed for professionals and beginners alike. They aren't an official WordPress pick, but they have optimized their servers for WordPress. If that's where your blog is, you'll be pleased.

Site and Support

A2 Hosting provides not only the fastest hosting around, but it also offers you more robust features with their top tier plans. Those features disappear with the basic options, but you should still have enough choices to build your blog as you need to.

They provide phone, email, and chat support around the clock along with ticket functions designed to streamline the support process. It's fast and gets results quickly.

Security

A2 Hosting provides the SSL certificate you'll need to keep your audience feeling secure. With excellent security features and monitoring plus automatic updates, you'll remain in compliance and help ensure there are no loopholes.

The ease of integration also helps lock down any potential security issues as you migrate. You'll launch your site with no concerns and receive the same security support regardless of where you are in your website growth.

User experience

While the basic tier doesn't support the robust features of the upper levels, speed is the same regardless of the choice of package. Overall, most users find the experience pleasant and the site easy to work with.

Once you've migrated your WordPress or another site to the hosting provider, you'll be ready to go with minimal disruptions. Support can get you over any obstacles, and the unlimited storage and data transfer help you grow and scale.

A2 Hosting pros:

• Lightning-fast speed
• Continual uptime of the highest order
• Robust customer service choices

Cons:

• Features are limited on basic plans compared to similar plans with other hosts

Hostinger — Best Budget Option

If the cost is the only thing that matters, consider a hosting plan through Hostinger. This site features programs that start at less than a dollar per month. It has plenty of basic features for bloggers to host a site and good customer service to aid in the transition.

The company offers that price for a period of up to two years if you're willing to pay upfront, and with a simple trial period, you'll be able to tell if you're willing to invest.

Single site hosting plans are still pretty cheap, even if you don't pay that much upfront. Overall, it's one of the best ways to get your blog set up at a rock bottom budget.

Site and Support

Hostinger doesn't feel like a cheap host. It has good features and allows you to play around with more robust options as you move through the tiers. They do have some upselling happening, but it's mild compared to other options on the list.

They have good customer support to help with migration and obstacles to your site, with uptimes of around 99.9% and pretty fast loading times. You have the option of several bandwidth choices, including unlimited for affordable rates.

Security

All the tiers have a free SSL certificate. Certain tiers have daily backups and provide dedicated resources to ensuring that your site is maintained and remains compliant. With simple site migration, you'll get fewer security loopholes as well.

User experience

The site doesn't feel like a bargain site with so many features. Bloggers can stay on budget and create their sites without extending or sacrificing the features they need.

Learning the dashboard is a simple process and the month to month pricing makes it easier to sign up if you aren't ready for a massive investment just yet. Overall, this is a solid bargain alternative to some of the other options on the list.

Hostinger Pros:

• Bargain prices without sacrificing features
• Good month to month options
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Cons:

• No WordPress support with the basic plan

Frequently Asked Questions About Choosing Hosting

If you're still unsure how to make the best decision for your blog, here are a few things you need to consider as you decide.

Why Do You Need Hosting?

A free blog is fine if you aren't trying to build a living or make money in any way. Free blogs don't have domain branding and offer limited features, even within simple editing tools.

Moving to an official hosting site provides branded domains and up-levels your professionalism. You'll need to look like a professional if you want to make a living from your blog. You'll also get more robust customer service and security features.

One of the most significant features of your hosting provider, as opposed to a free blog site, is controlling your own content. The host only serves as a place for your website to live. With nonbranded, free sites, your content could disappear at any time.

You don't want to spend years building a site and an audience only to lose it all one day. You won't get ranked as well on Google rankings, and you don't own your content. That's a dealbreaker for a professional blogger.

What Type Of Hosting Do I Need?

Unless you're an enterprise or dealing with some seriously sensitive data, you'll want a shared hosting provider. Your content will exist on the same server as other websites, but still have all the controls and branding of a self-hosted domain.

This can help you save money as you learn all about hosting and building a website. You'll get an affordable hosting provider and can get set up right away.

Self-hosting does have some drawbacks. You may experience some website downtimes if other sites on the same server are taken down. You might also have some trouble with site maintenance as a smaller site.

However, these occurrences are still rare, and the chance is an excellent tradeoff for affordable hosting. You'll get the branding, support, and maintenance you need without shelling out huge bucks for a single server option.

What About Cloud Hosting?

Cloud hosting options involve spreading out your site among several different servers in the cloud. If you're building a bigger site, you'll be able to guarantee your site's uptime with more reliability.

Cloud hosting also allows you to scale with ease because you can easily add more or fewer server locations to handle the increase or decrease in bandwidth. You will end up shelling out more for this type of hosting, but it will serve you better if you're looking for quick scale.

If you think you'll have more than 50,000 to 75,000 unique visitors per month, it could be time to scale up to cloud hosting. You won't want to lose revenue if your site goes down through no fault of your own. Cloud hosting can help you build in scale from the very beginning.

How To Choose The Right Site Host

There are a few things you need to consider as you choose the right site host for you.

• Uptime — Take a look at a hosting provider's average uptime as well as the uptime of what's considered acceptable. While you may be ok with negotiating that a little bit for a more affordable monthly rate, you shouldn't discount it too much.

• Average Loading Speed — You'll need your website to load quickly and efficiently to prevent higher bounce rates for your blog. People can only be so patient with your blog to load before they click away and head elsewhere.

• Customer Support — Customer service should be top of your list because if you have downtime or another obstacle, you'll need a site host that can resolve the situation quickly. Ensure that you have the support you need at the beginning, middle, and end.

• Site Migration — If you're bringing content from another place, you'll want support and ease of transfer. This will minimize the downtime your site experiences as you switch hosting.

• Bandwidth — If you're just starting out with your blog, your monthly visitors may not tax your site's bandwidth too much. As you grow, you'll need more bandwidth to handle the increase in visitors.

Choosing the Right Host

No matter what your needs as a blogger are, there are hosting options out there for you. Consider what type of blog you have and what your plans are for growth. Deciding these things upfront can help you narrow down what you need.

All the choices on our list are reliable and provide enough shared hosting and cloud features to help you grow. All you need is to decide on your content and allow the hosting provider to work its magic.

The post The Best Hosting For A Blog — The List appeared first on WebMonkey.