Write for Us Best WP Hosting PSD to WordPress The Best WordPress Hosting Providers in the World [By the Numbers] Updated on January 25th, 2017 • in WORDPRESS HOSTING • by Tom Ewer - 78 Comments Selecting the best WordPress hosting for your website can be a frustrating task. And especially if you don’t want to get your hands dirty testing out 3-5 hosts yourself before settling on one. So this is where the resource you’re reading right now comes into play: There’s no fluff, no “empty opinions,” no hidden agendas here. This comparison of the best WordPress hosting providers is based on pure performance data, actual speed test experiments, user ratings from the largest WordPress hosting survey to date (skip to learn more about our testing methodology), plus our own experience running websites regularly visited by 670,000+ people each month. Dig in to find out which firm is going to be the best WordPress hosting match for your individual needs: How to best consume this comparison This comparison goes from general to detailed. What it means is that we start by giving you our honest recommendations first, and then get into the specifics of why we’ve made those recommendations + the data behind them. Shortcuts: In a hurry? The best hosting companies in a nutshell What makes the best WordPress host + why How we find out what real users think of WordPress hosting How we do our own performance tests for WordPress hosts The overall rankings of WordPress hosts The individual reviews: SiteGround, InMotion, A2 Hosting, WP Engine, Bluehost, DreamHost, HostGator, GoDaddy The verdict INFOGRAPHIC In a hurry? Here are the best WordPress hosting companies in a nutshell Generally, there are four main hosts that we recommend to 95% of our users/customers/friends/everybody. Each of them is slightly different and will cater to a slightly different kind of user: For small business – aka the best WordPress hosting for small business in 2017: Best WordPress Hosting 2017 Best WordPress hosting shortlist for small business and bloggers SiteGround InMotion Hosting A2 Hosting Logo * from the nearest location The best entry-level hosting choice for people who want to launch their first WordPress site. SiteGround offers an easy-to-grasp installer that everyone can use. Great if you’re starting with more than one website. For example, launching two sites with InMotion will cost you the same as launching one with SiteGround. Great if what you need most of all is great site performance. A2 offers one of the fastest hosting around and for a good price. User survey rating: 4.6 User survey rating: 4.3 User survey rating: N/A Av. load time: 0.41s * Av. load time: 0.95s * Av. load time: 0.48s * 10GB of disk space | Unlimited Bandwidth Unlimited disk space | Unlimited Bandwidth Unlimited disk space | Unlimited Bandwidth Websites: 1 | Free Domains: 1 Websites: 2 | Free Domains: 1 Websites: 1 | Free Domains: 0 From $3.95 / month From $3.99 / month From $3.99 / month Go to SiteGround Go to InMotion Go to A2 Do you have a larger site with an already established audience? Or maybe your site is your business and you can’t afford to have any problems with your host later down the road? In this case, you best look into managed WordPress hosting, and particularly: WP Engine – the leading managed WordPress hosting solution out there. WP Engine only allows you to host WordPress websites, which means that their entire server infrastructure has been optimized to provide the best WordPress experience possible. It’s a little more expensive, but it’s the right choice for a serious WordPress-based project (website on the rise, e-commerce store, popular online publication with a lot of traffic, and also for developers working on client sites who just want to avoid any problems in the future). Top managed WordPress hosting platform WP Engine User survey rating: 4.2 Av. load time: 0.37s 10GB of disk space | 25,000 visits/month Websites: 1 | Free Domains: 0 From $23.20 / month Go to WP Engine … If you’re in a hurry, you can stop here and go straight to one of the above four recommended WordPress hosts. But if you want to dive a bit deeper, with each paragraph you will learn more about: the performance scores that you can expect from each hosting solution on this list, the ratings that each of the hosts has gotten in the hosting survey, the load that each of those hosts can withstand should your website experience a spike in traffic, the ins and outs of the WordPress hosting industry, and much more. Go to top Best WordPress hosting dissected: What makes a host great + why Bonus: The dirty little secret of most WordPress hosting reviews Basically, the web is chock full of hosting recommendations and glowing reviews proclaiming this company or the other to be the best WordPress hosting around. But how do you really know who’s 100% honest with their recommendations, and why Company A is higher rated than Company B by some reviewer? Well, you don’t. So if you really wanted to find out where specific hosting companies come in the race, you would have to do two things: Ask the actual users of some popular hosting platforms what their experiences are. Do some testing yourself on multiple hosts and measure the performance you’re getting. We did both: a) We found out what real users think of best WordPress hosting b) We did performance tests ourselves Typical WordPress hosting package components Aka. what you get when you buy WordPress hosting + what matters and what doesn’t: Like their cousins in the ISP and mobile phone provider space, hosting companies are often far too fond of blind-siding consumers with an overload of options and information in the hopes of forcing a sale. An example here from the milder end of the spectrum would be the HostGator shared hosting comparison page »» HostGator features In an attempt to keep things manageable, we’ve highlighted the following most important areas for our overall package comparisons: Cost per month: Hosting companies have a nasty habit of quoting the cheapest of all possible prices as the standard monthly price. To simplify matters, we’re taking the bare-bones, entry-level package from each provider and listing monthly fees at 12-month and 36-month contract durations, so you can compare like with like. Space: The amount of physical storage space listed as being available on the server. Bandwidth: The amount of traffic it can handle per month. Be aware from the outset that “Unlimited” will nearly always mean “Unlimited subject to certain terms and conditions”; just as with space, check your provider’s terms. DreamHost have admirably clear guidelines in this respect. Sites: The number of websites you are allowed to run on the package. Domains: Any free domain registrations on offer. Marketing options: Any significant marketing incentives, such as free Google Adwords or Facebook advertising vouchers. As we walk through each package, we’ll point out other relevant features on offer on a case by case basis. Go to top THE OVERALL RANKINGS Top 10+ best WordPress hosting platforms Host Price / month User rating Av. load time * Go to SiteGround From $3.95 4.6 0.41s Visit | Read Review InMotion Hosting From $3.99 4.3 0.95s Visit | Read Review A2 Hosting Logo From $4.40 N/A 0.48s Visit | Read Review WP Engine From $20.30 4.2 0.37s Visit | Read Review Bluehost From $4.95 3.0 0.93s Visit | Read Review DreamHost From $9.95 4.3 0.84s Visit | Read Review HostGator From $7.16 3.7 0.79s Visit | Read Review GoDaddy From $6.14 3.5 0.45s Visit | Read Review kinsta hosting logo From $100 4.9 N/A Visit | Read Review Flywheel From $15 4.7 N/A Visit digitalocean logo From $5 4.6 N/A Visit Now let’s look at the providers individually. The following is our full review of the best WordPress hosting companies out there. The list covers both affordable shared hosts, best hosts for small business, as well as those little more pricey managed WordPress hosting packages. Find out who wins the battle of best #hosting providers for #WordPress CLICK TO TWEET Go to top SiteGround We went for the StartUp package. Although for a generally more WordPress-optimized package, we’d recommend the GrowBig plan. It’s a tad more expensive, but it comes with additional features, free SSL and priority support. Initial signup with this shared WordPress hosting plan was simple and to the point. The backend impressed as well, with its presentation of a carefully considered initial set of options. WordPress installation Getting WordPress up and running with the built-in installer took just a few clicks. Customer support As in with the other hosting providers, SiteGround customer support were able to help us get a temporary URL working quickly and efficiently. Special mention has to go out to the slickness of their customer support software and the extra mile the staff were prepared to go in offering detailed account advice and providing screenshots. (This makes it a great HostGator alternative, for instance, if you want a more refined support environment.) SiteGround PACKAGE NAME: StartUp Cost per month (12 months): $3.95 (for the first year) Cost per month (36 months): $3.95 Websites: 1 Space: 10GB Bandwidth: 10,000 visits/month Free domains: 1 Marketing offers: – Go to SiteGround Pingdom test Server location: Amsterdam Not surprisingly, the only install on the list hosted on a European server performed particularly well from Amsterdam. Melbourne, on the other hand, was thoroughly underwhelming. Testing location Load time 1 Load time 2 Load time 3 Amsterdam 0.40s 0.40s 0.42s New York 1.07s 1.16s 1.15s Melbourne 3.76s 3.76s 7.75s LoadImpact test Server location: Amsterdam Testing machine location: Dublin, Ireland Minimum response time: 0.46s Maximum response time: 0.87s There were superb times on a geographically close test server, but we experienced more variance with different locales. SiteGround LoadImpact test Online reputation SiteGround rated 4.6 / 5 by users in our hosting survey. 93% of users will extend their hosting subscription when it’s up for renewal. SiteGround support rated 4.7 / 5 by users. Back to the ranking table Go to top InMotion Hosting InMotion offers a lot of hosting options, but we wanted to look into the ones that are optimized for WordPress specifically, so we went into the “WordPress hosting” section and selected the plan called Launch. This one is the most affordable. The great thing about it is that you get SSD disk space without any additional fees (SSDs are known for their superior performance compared to the other hard disk technologies). Also, you can have 2 websites on this plan. WordPress installation Another surprise with InMotion is that you get WordPress preinstalled as part of your hosting package. All you need to do is tick the right checkbox during the checkout process. In other words, you don’t actually need to do handle WordPress installation on your own, it’s all being done automatically. Also, during install, you get to select your preferred “max speed zone.” There are two settings: east and west. Depending on which you choose, the site is going to be faster in some parts of the globe vs the others. After everything is done, you’ll get the access details to your new WordPress dashboard, which is all that’s needed, honestly. Customer support Right after you sign up, you’ll realize that InMotion has a lot to offer in terms of support and helping you to launch your website. There are tens of different guides and tutorials on various hosting-related matters. There’s also a separate knowledge channel all dedicated to WordPress. But that’s not all, the support chat is available 24/7. We’ve tested it by asking some domain-related questions regarding the temporary URL of the site. The person on the other end was able to solve those at first try. Really cool. inmotion hosting logo PACKAGE NAME: Launch Cost per month (12 months): $3.99 (promo) Cost per month (24 months): $3.49 (promo) Websites: 2 Space: unlimited Bandwidth: unlimited Free domains: – Marketing offers: $250 of free ad credits Go to InMotion Pingdom test Server location: Los Angeles, CA InMotion shows good performance near the sever location and also reasonably good results for Europe and Australia. This isn’t the fastest host on this list, but surely nothing we’d call uncomfortable. Testing location Load time 1 Load time 2 Load time 3 Stockholm 1.70s 1.56s 1.72s New York 0.97s 0.93s 0.96s Melbourne 2.38s 1.98s 1.90s LoadImpact test Server location: Los Angeles, CA Testing machine location: Washington, D.C. Minimum response time: 0.83s Maximum response time: 2.75s InMotion’s performance is good up until the 10 concurrent users mark, at which point it takes a slight dip, but then restores around 20 concurrent users and stays somewhat level up until even 50 users. Overall, more than enough for normal usage and server load. inmotion loadimpact Online reputation We didn’t hear from too many survey respondents using InMotion in our hosting survey, but the ones that did submit their opinions were very happy with the service they’re getting. They rated InMotion’s reliability at 4.4 / 5, the support at 4.2 / 5, and gave the platform the overall rank of 4.3 / 5. Back to the ranking table Go to top A2 Hosting A2 Hosting has been making a name for themselves in the WordPress space lately thanks to their affordable prices and very good performance (compared to other similarly priced hosts). The company has more than 10 years of experience in the hosting world, and seems to know a thing or two on how to deliver a high-quality product. Their WordPress hosting offering is set on a couple of principles: being developer friendly, offering high security, good performance, and a WordPress-optimized environment. WordPress installation All WordPress hosting accounts with A2 Hosting come with WordPress preinstalled. You can also install new instances of WordPress through Softaculous’ one-click installer. Customer support A2 Hosting prides itself on giving you access to “24/7/365 Guru Crew Support.” They claim to hand-pick their support team and only work with the most knowledgeable technicians. When contacting the support, you can use live chat, email or even phone. The agents don’t disappoint when it comes to basic WordPress knowledge and, based on our quick test, they are ready to recommend some solutions even if the question you have for them isn’t entirely hosting-related. A2 Hosting Logo PACKAGE NAME: Lite Cost per month (12 months): $4.40 (promo) Cost per month (24 months): $3.92 (promo) Websites: 1 Space: unlimited Bandwidth: unlimited Free domains: – Marketing offers: – Go to A2 Hosting Pingdom test Server location: Michigan A2 Hosting gives you three main server locations to choose from: Michigan, Amsterdam, and Singapore. But to make performance even better, they let you integrate your server with CloudFlare Free CDN. Testing location Load time Stockholm 0.91s New York 0.48s Melbourne 2.24s LoadImpact test Server location: Michigan Testing machine location: Ashburn, US. Minimum response time: 0.23s Maximum response time: 0.29s A2 Hosting’s ability to withstand load is pretty impressive and surely puts it up there along the best WordPress hosting platforms in the market. There’s very little difference no matter if the site is hit with just one visit or 20 concurrent ones. A2 Hosting Load Impact test Back to the ranking table Go to top WP Engine The plan we’ve tested here is called Personal, and it’s the entry-level plan with WP Engine. As part of it, you’re allowed to have 1 WordPress install, and it can handle up to 25,000 visits a month, so probably more than enough for most new websites. WordPress installation The whole sign-up process with WP Engine is very straightforward, and I’m only mentioning it here because getting WordPress installed is an integral part of that initial sign-up. In other words, you don’t need to do any WordPress installing on your own, the WP Engine team takes care of that for you. At the end of sign-up, you simply get an email with all the access credentials and important data regarding your new site. Customer support WP Engine offers some great support options – via helpdesk and chat (plus phone if you’re on a higher pan). Overall, users report very good quality of WP Engine’s support – currently rated 4.5 / 5 by our survey respondents. And we can only confirm this, as the quick interaction we’ve had with the support team has been nothing but positive (helped us get the test site going after solving a billing issue). WP Engine PACKAGE NAME: Personal Cost per month (1 month): $23.20 (promo) Cost per month (12 months): $19.33 (promo) Websites: 1 Space: 10GB Bandwidth: 25,000 visits/month Free domains: – Marketing offers: – Go to WP Engine Pingdom test Server location: California WP Engine shows great performance when accessing the site from a New York server (even though New York and California are properly away). European connections are also really good. Lastly, Melbourne connections get a bit lower performance. Testing location Load time 1 Load time 2 Load time 3 Stockholm 0.94s 0.79s 0.77s New York 0.42s 0.36s 0.34s Melbourne 1.16s 1.14s 1.13s LoadImpact test Server location: California Testing machine location: New York Minimum response time: 0.21s Maximum response time: 0.36s Really good performance across the whole spectrum. The number of concurrent user connections had little impact on the results. WP Engine LoadImpact test Online reputation 4.7 / 5 – that’s how users rate WP Engine’s level of WordPress optimization. 92% of users say they will extend their hosting subscription with WP Engine. WP Engine reliability ranked 4.5 / 5 by users (the top rank among the best WordPress hosting firms here). Back to the ranking table Go to top Bluehost We went for the starter package here. One immediate point to note is that Bluehost was the only alternative on the list that doesn’t offer a monthly package. Twelve month commitments are the minimum, though that is offset somewhat by a strong money back guarantee policy that I have personally invoked without issue. WordPress installation In addition to the standard cPanel options in place, Bluehost’s one-click WordPress installations are handled by a service called MojoMarketplace. The MojoMarketplace interface for installing WordPress left a lot to be desired. It was possible to install multiple instances accidentally, and overall feedback on what was happening at any given point was inconsistent and confusing. (For instance, when we look at Bluehost vs SiteGround, the latter gives you WordPress installs in just a few clicks.) On the plus side, this gave us an instant opportunity to talk to support! Customer support Service via chat support was fast and friendly and helped us with clearing up the initial WordPress installation problems and setting up a temporary URL to view our site. Bluehost PACKAGE NAME: basic package Cost per month (12 months): $4.95 Cost per month (36 months): $3.49 Websites: 1 Space: 50GB Bandwidth: unmetered Free domains: 1 Marketing offers: – Go to Bluehost Pingdom test Server location: Utah Load times reported via Pingdom were broadly respectable but showed the sort of variance often expected in a shared hosting environment. Testing location Load time 1 Load time 2 Load time 3 Amsterdam 1.8s 3.14s 1.57s New York 1.01s 0.92s 0.87s Melbourne 1.73s 1.71s 1.72s LoadImpact test Server location: Utah Testing machine location: Palo Alto Minimum response time: 0.62s Maximum response time: 4.9s The variance our initial Pingdom tests suggested seemed to be confirmed here with occasional spikes up over four seconds as load increased. Bluehost LoadImpact test Online reputation Bluehost reliability ranked 3.4 / 5 by users. 23.7% of Bluehost’s customers are first-timers to web hosting. Bluehost is the first hosting platform ever recommended by WordPress.org. Back to the ranking table Go to top DreamHost We selected the standard shared hosting package with DreamHost, which was the most expensive of the base offerings we tested. Overall account signup with this shared WordPress hosting provider was slick and painless, and I was eager to see how DreamHost’s much-touted SSD servers would perform. WordPress installation The one-click install options in the backend worked straight out of the gate and the interface was generally straightforward to navigate. Customer support We needed some help in configuring a temporary URL as a subdomain on the main Dreamhost domain. Customer support was easily reachable via chat and able to help us clear the issue up quickly. DreamHost PACKAGE NAME: shared hosting Cost per month (12 months): $9.95 Cost per month (36 months): $7.95 Websites: unlimited Space: unlimited Bandwidth: unlimited Free domains: 1 Marketing offers: – Go to DreamHost Pingdom test Server location: Los Angeles DreamHost load times were impressively stable across locations and went into an early lead in terms of US response times. Testing location Load time 1 Load time 2 Load time 3 Amsterdam 1.51s 1.25s 1.26s New York 0.93s 0.79s 0.79s Melbourne 2.74s 2.06s 2.18s LoadImpact test Server location: Los Angeles Testing machine location: Palo Alto Minimum response time: 1.24s Maximum response time: 1.68s DreamHost stayed impressively solid throughout our test with just a small range of variance, but there was little evidence of the performance boost promised by SSD disks. DreamHost LoadImpact test Online reputation DreamHost rated 4.3 / 5 by users in our hosting survey. DreamHost rated 4.4 / 5 by users when asked how happy they were with the value they’re getting for their money. DreamHost’s user-friendliness ranked 4.2 / 5. Back to the ranking table Go to top HostGator We went for the Hatchling package here. Signup with HostGator was straightforward and we were soon logged into a pretty traditional cPanel setup on the backend without incident. WordPress installation Installation was also painless using the built-in cPanel WordPress installer. We did find ourselves having to update themes post-install, but that was just a matter of a few clicks. Customer support Again, we reached out to customer support for assistance in setting up a temporary URL. Here we hit our first minor inconvenience with a wait time of eight minutes on chat. They weren’t quite as quick to point us in the right direction as previous providers, but we got there in the end. (E.g. when comparing HostGator vs. Bluehost, the support chat is much easier to access with the latter.) HostGator PACKAGE NAME: Hatchling plan Cost per month (12 months): $7.16 Cost per month (36 months): $5.56 Websites: 1 Space: unlimited Bandwidth: unmetered Free domains: 0 Marketing offers: $200 Go to HostGator Pingdom test Server location: Houston, Texas Again, the initial load times were more than respectable across territories. Testing location Load time 1 Load time 2 Load time 3 Amsterdam 1.31s 1.28s 1.22s New York 0.93s 0.72s 0.72s Melbourne 2.47s 2.45s 2.45s LoadImpact test Server location: Houston, Texas Testing machine location: Palo Alto Minimum response time: 0.78s Maximum response time: 0.89s There’s a clear difference here in terms of both overall speed and consistency, firmly under the one second barrier and staying there. Tests from servers in other geographical locations were slower but the consistency remained impressive. HostGator LoadImpact test Online reputation HostGator rated 3.9 / 5 by users when asked how happy they were with the value they’re getting for their money. HostGator rated 4.1 / 5 on reliability . 74% of users will extend their hosting subscription when it’s up for renewal. Back to the ranking table Go to top GoDaddy We went for the basic package here. Despite their formerly less than stellar user interface reputation, signing up to GoDaddy went without a hitch. I recently spoke to a GoDaddy customer representative at WordCamp London 2015, and it is clear that they’ve put a lot of work into the front-end to possibly become the best WordPress hosting out there. This feeling continued on into the backend, which was a modern take on cPanel and intuitively laid out – the easiest one to navigate so far in fact. WordPress installation WordPress installation was a snap with the built-in installer. Customer support GoDaddy was the only provider on our list not to support the provision of temporary URLs, so we were forced to set up a standard subdomain here. Our initial attempt to contact support via chat was less than ideal, with wait times of over 40 minutes reported, so we hit the phones instead. (E.g. when comparing GoDaddy vs. Bluehost, the chat can be accessed much quicker with Bluehost.) Support here was superb. Extremely friendly and professional, they talked us through the subdomain options and assisted in making changes on the account itself. This continued on in subsequent chat support tickets that were required to clear up some minor DNS snafus that emerged on the registrar side. GoDaddy PACKAGE NAME: basic plan Cost per month (12 months): $6.14 Cost per month (36 months): $4.91 Websites: 1 Space: 10GB SSD Bandwidth: 25,000 visits/month Free domains: 1 Marketing offers: – Go to GoDaddy Pingdom test Server location: Arizona GoDaddy impressed instantly with consistently strong US and European load times. Testing location Load time 1 Load time 2 Load time 3 Amsterdam 1.06s 0.93s 0.92s New York 0.52s 0.42s 0.41s Melbourne 3.04s 1.82s 2.14s LoadImpact test Server location: Arizona Testing machine location: Palo Alto Minimum response time: 0.63s Maximum response time: 0.83s As with HostGator, GoDaddy got down under one second and stayed there. Their performance in other tests wasn’t quite as consistent admittedly, but the numbers posted here are impressive. GoDaddy LoadImpact test Online reputation GoDaddy is the biggest hosting company on this list. 78% of GoDaddy customers are likely to extend their hosting subscription. GoDaddy’s reliability ranked at 3.8 / 5. Back to the ranking table Go to top The overall verdict So who wins the battle to become the best WordPress hosting overall? That’s a tough question, but: Upon reflection, we would lean away from Bluehost on the grounds of a clunky backend interface, comparatively poor WordPress installation tools, slightly erratic performance and inflexible long-term contract requirements. DreamHost, though more than respectable across their service offering and performance, didn’t do enough for us to justify the price differential in their offering. Both HostGator and GoDaddy had slightly different plus and minus points, but none were ultimately persuasive enough to pick out a clear winner. We were impressed with their price point, setup process, backend and performance though. On the managed hosting side, WP Engine has proven to deliver a really good performance, and it should be more than enough to handle any new or growing WordPress site. In Olympic style – to highlight that all services are surprisingly good – we’ll hand out medals accordingly: SiteGround InMotion WP Engine Update. Taking our newest survey findings into account, we’d actually recommend you to go with the GrowBig plan at SiteGround. You get WordPress-specific features, free SSL, priority support, plus a great track record with our survey respondents. In other words, this is the best WordPress hosting we can recommend today. We’d like to stress that none of the shared WordPress hosting providers here failed any test. The overall standard was refreshingly high. Furthermore, all providers also offer a full range of more advanced hosting options if you start to outgrow the entry-level packages. Our hope is that the information above will help you do two things: provide a framework to distinguish between high-profile providers, and use their overall offerings as a sensible reference point if you are comparing with other hosting services in the market. We’d love to hear more about your experience in finding the best hosting for WordPress in the comments below. Get in touch! Bonus. The Truth About Hosting Reviews **There's a dirty little secret that many hosting reviews have.** Find out what it is. Learn how to tell an honest review from a fake one. And ultimately, how to pick the right hosting plan for your own unique needs. We explain everything on the next page. Unlock it through the form below. Enter your email address here... Instant Access Bonus. The Truth About Hosting Reviews **There's a dirty little secret that many hosting reviews have.** Find out what it is. Learn how to tell an honest review from a fake one. And ultimately, how to pick the right hosting plan for your own unique needs. We explain everything on the next page. Unlock it through the form below. Enter your email address here... Instant Access Finally, one more look at the lineup, the pricing, and a quick overview of basic service offerings by our featured WordPress hosting companies: SiteGround InMotion WP Engine Bluehost DreamHost HostGator GoDaddy SiteGround inmotion hosting logo WP Engine logo Bluehost DreamHost HostGator GoDaddy Plan tested Startup Launch Personal Starter package Shared hosting Hatchling plan Economy $ / month * $3.95 *** $3.99 **** $19.33 **** $4.95 $9.95 $7.16 $4.99 $ / month ** $3.95 $3.49 **** $19.33 **** $3.49 $7.95 $4.86 $3.99 Websites 1 2 1 1 Unlimited 1 1 Space 10GB Unlimited 10GB 100GB Unlimited Unlimited 100GB Bandwidth 10,000 visits per month Unlimited 25,000 visits per month Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Free domains 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 Marketing offers – $250 ad credits – $50 – $100 Google Adwords – VISIT VISIT VISIT VISIT VISIT VISIT VISIT * 12-month contract ** 36-month contract *** just for the first year **** promo price Infographic best wordpress host Share This Image on Your Site * This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and then purchase the product, we’ll receive a small fee. No worries though, you’ll still pay the standard amount so there’s no cost on your part. 84 Comments Codeinwp blog Login 1 Recommend 6 Share Sort by Best Avatar Join the discussion… Avatar #TruthToMan • 8 months ago I am a former site developer for commercial clients, and I have used Bluehost for at least ten years. I stuck with them because of their good customer service and reliable server performance. But the last several months I have experienced many, many server resets as I worked on client sites, causing me to lose data repeatedly. They also went with that useless MojoMarketplace. But the main thing is server performance, which is not consistent at all, followed by a degradation in technical support among their first level responders. They are not up to speed on technical issues and have to ask someone else every time I contact them. So after well over a decade of delight w/ Bluehost, I am looking for smaller, faster, better - elsewhere. 2 • Reply•Share › Avatar Alan #TruthToMan • 3 months ago That's exactly how I feel - they seemed to have bombed over the last year or so. Also I'm getting really irritated with their marketing. I work in marketing and I know good marketing from bad and there's is bad, pushing hard on scare tactics and crude pitching. For example the reason I'm here today looking at alternatives is the "Renew now or make a backup as your account is due to be deleted!" email I just got from them. My account isn't due for renewal for another 2 months. They sent me a similar email a few months ago, nowhere near my due date. When I complained I was told, literally, that "You don't have to renew if you don't want to." Yeah, thanks, f^ck you very much Bluehost. After 7 or 8 years with them I'll take their advice and look elsewhere. • Reply•Share › Avatar Bob Benedetti • 2 years ago I have been using Hostgator for 5 years (Business plan) and remain satisfied. Good uptime, very few problems and fast loading are some of the things I like. Recently they have switched to MojoMarketplace for the one step Wordpress install and it is awful. A confusing interface and when I delete the WP installation in my test subdirectory it also deletes the installation on my main domain the old c-panel app never did this. This is one of those cases of money over customer service that we are seeing in too many places now. 2 • Reply•Share › Avatar Erik Emanuelli Bob Benedetti • 2 years ago I'm very happy with HostGator too. After more than 5 years of Baby plan, I'm on a dedicated server since a few months. Uptime is fantastic and I love the technical assistance. • Reply•Share › Avatar Bryan Jackson • 2 years ago I might have considered this to be a worthwhile comparison until I saw that GoDaddy was in the line up for evaluation which pretty much nullifies this as being anything near a serous study. 3 • Reply•Share › Avatar John Owen Bryan Jackson • 2 years ago Also known as NoDaddy 2 • Reply•Share › Avatar Brian Rice Bryan Jackson • 4 months ago I had the same opinion, but I have heard they have really turned things around with their hosting. I haven't tried them in the last 4-5 years but I might give them a shot. Also Bob Parsons (AKA: Elephant Killer) stepped down as CEO, which was a step in the right direction, although he is still the biggest shareholder. I have been with hostgator and they have declined. I have clients with Bluehost and Siteground. Both are solid. Siteground feels a bit more modern/current. Example - Siteground supports "Let's Encrypt" a free SSL service. • Reply•Share › Avatar Louise Montgrain Bryan Jackson • 2 years ago What is it that leads you to distrust the study because of GoDaddy being in it? Please? • Reply•Share › Avatar Alan Louise Montgrain • 3 months ago GoDaddy are infamous for their hard-sell, nickel and diming, constantly pushing you to upgrade and spamming the heck out of their existing customers, and then being awkward when people try to leave - both for their hosting and domain name service. They say they've improved? Whatever, why reward such behavior when there are other companies out there that never did such things? • Reply•Share › Avatar Bryan Jackson Louise Montgrain • 2 years ago I guess my reply din't post so I'll give it one more try - I never said I distrust GD, I said they are not a company to be mentioned in any serious discussion about hosting because their platform is sub par to say the least. Maybe there is a GD spy lurking who had my reply removed so if you are not reading this, then it will further prove my point because only a sub par service would go to great lengths to quite unfavorable comments • Reply•Share › Avatar christopher carfi Bryan Jackson • 2 years ago Hi Bryan Jackson . (Disclosure, I work for GoDaddy. And not a spy. Well, if I was, I couldn't tell you anyway. You know how it is with spies.) A *lot* has changed over at GoDaddy since 2011. The results here are, frankly, pretty consistent with what we're seeing from other neutral, third-party assessments from folks like ReviewSignal (http://reviewsignal.com/blog/2... ) and CloudSpectator and others. This review was on our shared/cPanel infrastructure, which has been totally revamped over the last 18 months. If there are particular, current issues you're having with any performance-oriented things, ping me at ccarfi@godaddy.com and we'll look into them. (And forward-referencing this as an answer to Joshua Mans 's comment below as well.) By the way, thank you, Ionut Neagu for doing a thoughtful job on this analysis. 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Eduard Ungureanu christopher carfi • a year ago If godaddy will be the only hosting provider I will have to change my career. By the way have you heard about nshost? You should try to see what a great hosting service it should be 😉 I don't work at nshost or in not affiliate with then in any way except I move all my clients from godaddy or hostgator to them😉 • Reply•Share › Avatar Suefour profit Bryan Jackson • 10 months ago Thats the thing Bryan, companies and corporations can't stand when people say negative things about them, whether it is said online or offline. For this reason, yes they do have spies, very large teams of them in fact. The difference is that instead of calling them spies they call them "public relations". Mr. Carwifi down there is an example. Want to test it out further? Go on Twitter and say something bad about a company, then tag them in it. More often than not, you'll have a response within the hour, or a serving from their lawyers in your email. • Reply•Share › Avatar Atish Ranjan • 2 years ago I am a user of Hostgator, Bluehost, Hawkhost and One.com. I am very happy with all but HG and bluehost are working great when it comes to load time and uptime. One.com is quite well in all aspect, but their chat support is just awesome and even better than the big players mentioned in the article. I loved this post as it is clear unbiased whereas most of the reviews I read online seems to be either get paid for the review or they are affiliates. Loved the infographic as well. You have done a great job Tom. 3 • Reply•Share › Avatar Nikhil Makwana Atish Ranjan • 3 months ago I am using HostGator since 2012 for my multi sites and I have been really happy. Never experienced down time! • Reply•Share › Avatar Shivani Awasthi • 5 months ago There are many reputable hosting providers out there in the industry who provide WordPress Hosting to bring customers excellent experience. But, there’s no best for everyone , every provider offers something unique to its clients that make it the best for them. So , you should know exactly what you want. My personal experience would recommend everyone to go with Znetlive. They offer cheap and reliable services with 24X7 support. 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Adelina Tuca Mod Shivani Awasthi • 5 months ago Hi, thanks for the suggestion. It's good to hear new names that are not so known. :) • Reply•Share › Avatar Dollz • 6 months ago Thank you for list of decent wordpress hosting companies. Of all those mentioned, I have a few wordpress websites with Siteground. Another company that I would like to recommend to your list is https://www.rshosting.com/word... ... I have few of my wordpress websites with them, and they offer managed wordpress hosting. 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Adelina Tuca Mod Dollz • 5 months ago Hi! Thanks for giving us new suggestions. • Reply•Share › Avatar BookMyIdentity • 8 months ago Greatly balanced post that makes a nice & smooth read! It provides nice insights on best WordPress hosting, keep up the good work! 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Adelina Tuca Mod BookMyIdentity • 8 months ago Hey, we are glad it helped. Thanks for reading us. • Reply•Share › Avatar MOHAN NAYAK • 10 months ago I am a user of HostGator, as of now I am not facing any problem. their uptime score and Server response time are just fantastic. 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar GoodWPThemes • a year ago In my experience DreamHost is always good because, they keep their hardware and site updated to modern standards and their customer support is fantastic. They offer SSD drives on all plans even on their shared plans which give an added speed boost to your site. Even the best guarantee won't stop your site going offline - they are giving me 100% uptime even though they have promised 99.9% uptime. However, their web hosting admin panel is custom designed, which is clean and easy-to-use. 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Cesar S Falcao • 2 years ago In my experience A Small Orange beats in speed and support, by far. Very cheap shared plans, all with SSD. 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Ben Ustick • 2 years ago I'm not going to say anything bad about any of the hosts on the list, other than to say that it is the most popular doesn't usually mean the best and I would encourage people to look far beyond these five. I mean McDonald's sells a whole bunch of cheeseburgers, but no one is saying that they make the best cheeseburger. I work with Nexcess, and as a shared WordPress host they offer great service and support and succeed within a few niche areas. Smaller hosts with a specific focus will usually offer a much better level of service and support than bigger hosts who see clients purely as a numbers game. That's how I feel. 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Mike G • 2 years ago Curious why my host, WPEngine, is not included. It is certainly a hosting site, but are they a shared hosting site? What is the difference? Were the contenders selected from data that shows the most popular hosting sites? 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Ionut Neagu Mike G • 2 years ago Hey Mike, WPEngine is a managed WordPress hosting company, I don't really know how they infrastructure looks like, probably for lower plans is still shared hosting, however due to the pricing difference, is hard to compare with companies like hostgator/siteground . • Reply•Share › Avatar Brin Wilson Ionut Neagu • 2 years ago I'm pretty that's exactly right Ionut: I'm pretty sure the lower spec WPEngine plans are run on shared infrastructure. Nice post btw. :) • Reply•Share › Avatar Eduard Ungureanu Brin Wilson • a year ago 2000 MB (2 GB) SSD Cloud Monthly traffic unlimited Shared Ip Address LiteSpeed 1 domain hosted Daily Backup Files & MySQL Unlimited email accounts Control panel - cPanel Cloud How this sound for 1.7 usd / month sounds 😂😂😂 • Reply•Share › Avatar Chris Finiksopoulos • 2 years ago It would be awesome if you could write an article about VPS compare 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Ionut Neagu Chris Finiksopoulos • 2 years ago We would probably do that, however getting different accounts here and there would be more expensive :) • Reply•Share › Avatar fatherb • 2 years ago This would possibly be a reliable review if it weren't for the fact you included GoDaddy, easily the worst place to put a Wordpress hosted site on. Just moved a client's site from GoDaddy and got a 400% boost in speed. The biggest problem with them is the number of sites that share your ip. We were on an ip address with 3000 other sites on it! 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Ionut Neagu fatherb • 2 years ago Thank you for the feedback, would be awesome for our readers if you can back up the comment with data, if you blog a small case study about your experience I am sure that will be helpful. • Reply•Share › Avatar Bryan Jackson fatherb • 2 years ago I feel your pain. As many clients as I can save from them, I will. As many as I can persuade to never go near them the better. Of course they are not entirely without merit. I do enjoy the .99cent domain sales which is pretty handy for scooping up 20 or so domains at a bargain price for testing.:) • Reply•Share › Avatar Ionut Neagu Bryan Jackson • 2 years ago Thanks for feedback Bryan! We will make sure that from time to time we will go even deeper and test those hosts again/add others. While Tom shared his own experience with GoDaddy, he also linked to different external sources for reviews, so people can check for themself, those along with real users comments here, should help our visitors decide what is the best for them :) • Reply•Share › Avatar Ozair Akhtar (Oxair Online) • a day ago I am using Hostasset and I have paid only for $35 per year subscription. I would like to know if there's any good option out there for me? • Reply•Share › Avatar Ozair Akhtar (Oxair Online) • a day ago What about the Host Asset? • Reply•Share › Avatar Agha zahid Ali • 6 days ago I cannot afford the price.Is is free for learner.Because first to learn free.As I have interest in writing.As retired worker with small I cannot afford the price.There is any chance to you your platefarm • Reply•Share › Avatar rickytell • 6 days ago site ground is the best. • Reply•Share › Avatar Sherissa • 6 days ago Do test WPOven. They are great and the support has been exceptionally good. • Reply•Share › Avatar David Paul Krug • 7 days ago Ive used all of the hosts in this review, they all suck except WPEngine and Kinsta. • Reply•Share › Avatar rickytell • 8 days ago Siteground is the best of them all. customer support is awesome. the fastest and most friendly/ all SSD starter plans. • Reply•Share › Avatar Shahroze Nawaz • 8 days ago Cloudways is one on the TOP giving competition to the managed hosting companies with five Providers DigitalOcean, Vultr, GCE, AWS and KYUP. • Reply•Share › Avatar krishkusuma • 9 days ago I've been using inMotion for almost 1 year .. so far I'm happy with them .. very low down-time, good and helpful support. Unfortunately I can't choose my preferred date & time when they perform maintenance service. And the last time they did it during office hour after lunch. But they do maintenance not very often. I give them 4 of 5 stars. • Reply•Share › Avatar Farhang • 9 days ago None of them are impressive if you compare it to Liquidweb's new managed WordPress hosting. i was amazed by the speed of their hosting. and their support team? well they are 59 seconds away when you need something. BUT it's really expensive starting from $119 it worth it if you plan to grow your business. • Reply•Share › Avatar Muhibul Haque • 9 days ago Amazing collection of WordPress hosting. Thanks for great share. • Reply•Share › Avatar Sanu Mondal • 10 days ago I am Running My Domain on Namecheep this is very good hosting site. • Reply•Share › Avatar Roxy Chan • a month ago From my personal experience, Inmotion is more preferable one. We do prefer our clients to host there. The customer support is fantastic with 24X7 service. No down time at all. Thank you for such detailed comparison. Planning to buy WP Engine which plan should i prefer? • Reply•Share › Avatar snsj2 • 2 months ago I'm more than satisfied with BGOcloud's hosting services. The speed is awesome! • Reply•Share › Avatar Fritz Walcov • 2 months ago Bluehost is disgusting. Can you imagine a host being down all day. No web site. No email ALL DAY today. Pathetic. • Reply•Share ›