What web hosting for WordPress? Here are 10 the most recommended options
For many years WordPress has invariably remained the CMS number 1, supporting about half of the world’s websites. All hosting service providers declare compatibility with WordPress – and in most cases this is true. WordPress has no excessive technical requirements. However, it can’t be denied that WP-based websites work better than elsewhere on the servers of certain providers.
Web hosting for WordPress – what does it mean?
WordPress will work properly on any Apache or Nginx-based web hosting with a MySQL or MariaDB database. But some web hosting providers boast that their servers are optimized for WordPress.
Sometimes it only includes the PHP configuration that takes into account the requirements of WordPress and the most popular plug-ins (e.g. WooCommerce or WPML). Frequently the term “optimization for WordPress” implies the availability of an additional cache for which there is a WP plug-in (e.g. LScache). The auto-installer for the latest version of WordPress is almost always available.
In the most developed version, “WordPress hosting” is a service with pre-installed WordPress. In this option you don’t have to log in to any web hosting service panel or upload any files. You gain access to already installed WordPress and you start to create your website immediately.
How to choose the provider?
There are hundreds of companies offering web hosting services – because it is very easy to start this type of activity. There are ready server solutions for customer service and even for marketing. A large number of the web hosting offers available on the market are resellers – that is, intermediaries who have only created a brand they promote – and the service is provided by a web hosting provider that works simultaneously with many other resellers.
We don’t recommend working with resellers in which the customer service is not provided by the same people who provide the services.
We also advise against using extremely opposite options – the largest web hosting service providers on the market, treating clients instrumentally, that are not flexible and often use their dominant position on the market.
You shouldn’t believe all the opinions on Google or Facebook either. More and more can be heard about buying positive opinions.
We have prepared for you a list of 10 web hosting plans for WordPress, most recommended in selected groups on Facebook
To some extent, the configuration of services from all providers is identical or very similar. Everyone uses fast SSD discs, a modern HTTP/2 protocol. Everyone offers a free of cost SSL certificate (Let’s Encrypt), CDN, daily backups.
Most of them protect their clients using WAF (application firewall) and offer free website migration included in price.
Almost everyone uses their own custom panel solution for managing the service – only two providers use cPanel.
Below there is a list of providers – with a handful of information about each of them – and a list of parameters that differentiate their offers, i.e.:
- whether the servers are optimized for WordPress
- what level of availability is guaranteed (SLA) – in other words, below what level the compensation is paid
- capacity – that is, the amount of storage space for files, database and mail
- RAM – the amount of main memory available for the account
- limit of the number of web pages that can be installed on one account
- monthly limit of transfer – how much data can be sent (uploaded and downloaded) within a month
- monthly limit of visits (an alternative for the limit of transfer) – how many times you can access the website per month
- limit of simultaneous processes – how many users can view the website at the same time (without taking into account the cache)
- geographical location of the data center
- the price for the extension for a year – we don’t compare prices for the first year because of various promotions.
Below the list of recommended web hosting providers, you will find a hint on how to choose the right package from a given offer.
Comparison of offers
Alphabetic order.
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting was set up in 2001 by Bryan Muthig in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Active in the field of ecology (a member of Carbonfund.org since 2007). The company offers web hosting on servers located in the USA (Michigan and Arizona), the Netherlands and Singapore.
The highest of the three plans in the price list is “Turbo” – apparently, up to 20X faster, not only due to greater resources per user, but also thanks to a smaller number of users (accounts) on the server.
Offer details:
SLA: 99.90%
Plans:
| Storage | RAM | Websites | Monthly transfer | Concurrent processes | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unlimited | 0.5 GB | 1 | unlimited | 35 | $7.99 |
| unlimited | 1 GB | unlimited | unlimited | 35 | $9.99 |
| unlimited | 2 GB | unlimited | unlimited | 35 | $18.99 |
| 10 GB | 2 GB | 1 | unlimited | 30 | $24.46 |
| 25 GB | 3 GB | 3 | unlimited | 50 | $38.75 |
| 40 GB | 4 GB | unlimited | unlimited | 75 | $75.48 |
Cloudways
Cloudways, registered in Malta, offers an innovative platform of the managed hosting, without having its own data center. When you order the service, you can choose one out of 5 cloud operators (Digital Ocean, Linode, Vultr, AWS, Google) – server fees are already included in the presented price list. Below we present the prices in the Digital Ocean version.
Offer details:
SLA: 99.00%
Plans:
| Storage | RAM | Websites | Monthly transfer | Concurrent processes | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 GB | 1 GB | unlimited | 1 TB | 20 | $10 |
| 50 GB | 2 GB | unlimited | 2 TB | 20 | $22 |
| 80 GB | 4 GB | unlimited | 4 TB | 20 | $42 |
| 160 GB | 8 GB | unlimited | 5 TB | 20 | $80 |
Dreamhost
Dreamhost, registered in Brea, California, has acquired over 400,000 customers in more than 100 countries over 18 years of operation and currently maintains over 1.5 million websites.
In addition to inexpensive WordPress hosting (the first two options presented in the table below), Dreamhost also offers DreamPress – the managed hosting with separated resources (the other three options).
Dreamhost is one of the two companies in our comparison that has servers only in the USA.
Offer details:
SLA: 100.00%
Plans:
| Storage | RAM | Websites | Monthly visits | Concurrent processes | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 GB | 0.5 GB | 1 | unlimited | unlimited | $4.95 |
| unlimited | 0.5 GB | unlimited | unlimited | unlimited | $10.95 |
| 30 GB | 1.5 – 2 GB | 1 | 100,000 | unlimited | $19.95 |
| 60 GB | 1.5 – 2 GB | 1 | 300,000 | unlimited | $29.95 |
| 120 GB | 1.5 – 2 GB | 1 | 1,000,000 | unlimited | $79.95 |
Flywheel
Flywheel is a relatively young company – it was set up in 2012 by Rick, Dusty and Tony in Omaha, Nebraska. They have a very interesting product – Local – a free tool for local development of WordPress-based websites. Flywheel servers, outside the USA, are also located in Canada, the UK, Belgium and Australia.
This is the only company on our list that doesn’t offer SLA on uptime.
Offer details:
SLA: n/a
Plans:
| Storage | RAM | Websites | Monthly visits | Monthly transfer | Concurrent processes | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 GB | dynamic | 1 | 5,000 | 20 GB | unlimited | $15 |
| 10 GB | dynamic | 1 | 25,000 | 50 GB | unlimited | $30 |
| 20 GB | dynamic | 10 | 100,000 | 200 GB | unlimited | $115 |
| 50 GB | dynamic | 30 | 400,000 | 500 GB | unlimited | $290 |
InMotion Hosting
Another web hosting provider from California (El Segundo). It has also offices in Colorado and Virginia. For 17 years, it prides itself on a high position in the CNET ranking (it operates since 2001). All InMotion Hosting servers are located in the USA.
Offer details:
SLA: 99.90%
Plans:
| Storage | RAM | Websites | Monthly visits | Monthly transfer | Concurrent processes | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 GB | 1 GB | 1 | 20,000 | unlimited | 4 | $8.99 |
| 80 GB | 1 GB | 2 | 50,000 | unlimited | 6 | $12.99 |
| 120 GB | 2 GB | 3 | 125,000 | unlimited | 8 | $16.99 |
| 160 GB | 2 GB | 6 | 300,000 | unlimited | 12 | $32.99 |
Kinsta
The company was set up in 2013, it is constantly developed organically (bootstrapped). The services of this company, focused on WordPress, are realised based on Google Cloud, thus gaining a physical presence in 14 countries (21 data centers). Kinsta only offers managed hosting.
Offer details:
SLA: 99.90%
Plans:
| Storage | RAM | Websites | Monthly visits | Monthly transfer | Concurrent processes | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 GB | 0.5 GB | 1 | 20,000 | unlimited | 2 | $30 |
| 30 GB | 0.5 GB | 5 | 100,000 | unlimited | 4 | $100 |
| 50 GB | 0.5 GB | 20 | 400,000 | unlimited | 6 | $300 |
| 100 GB | 0.5 GB | 60 | 1,000,000 | unlimited | 8 | $600 |
| 250 GB | 0.5 GB | 150 | 3,000,000 | unlimited | 16 | $1,500 |
Liquid Web
A provider present on the market for 22 years, serving over 30,000 customers from 130 countries. The company from Lansing, Michigan, is financed by the listed on the stock exchange Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC (“MDP”). It boasts a high NPS (Net Promoter Score) of 67. Liquid Web servers are located in the USA, the Netherlands, the UK and Australia.
Offer details:
SLA: n/a
Plans:
| Storage | RAM | Websites | Monthly visits | Monthly transfer | Concurrent processes | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 GB | n/a | 1 | unlimited | 2 TB | 10 | $19 |
| 40 GB | n/a | 5 | unlimited | 3 TB | 20 | $79 |
| 100 GB | n/a | 25 | unlimited | 5 TB | 30 | $149 |
| 300 GB | n/a | 50 | unlimited | 5 TB | 40 | $299 |
| 500 GB | n/a | 100 | unlimited | 10 TB | 50 | $549 |
| 800 GB | n/a | 250 | unlimited | 10 TB | 60 | $999 |
SiteGround
A company with a Bulgarian origin, with offices in the USA (Virginia), the UK, Spain and Bulgaria. It operates since 2004. It offers hosting in data centers located in the USA, the UK, the Netherlands and Singapore. Like Kinsta, it uses Google Cloud. SiteGround boasts that it is a hosting provider officially recommended by WordPress.org.
Offer details:
SLA: 99.90%
Plans:
| Storage | RAM | Websites | Monthly visits | Monthly transfer | Concurrent processes | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 GB | 768 MB | 1 | 10,000 | unlimited | 10 | $11.95 |
| 20 GB | 768 MB | unlimited | 25,000 | unlimited | 20 | $19.95 |
| 30 GB | 768 MB | unlimited | 100,000 | unlimited | 30 | $34.95 |
WP Engine
The platform chosen by such brands as wpbeginner or SoundCloud. Registered in Austin, Texas, with foreign offices in the UK and Australia. WP Engine has servers in the USA, Canada, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Japan, Taiwan and Australia. Their hosting offer for WordPress includes a valuable bonus in the form of a theme collection worth $2,000.
Offer details:
SLA: 99.95%
Plans:
| Storage | RAM | Websites | Monthly visits | Monthly transfer | Concurrent processes | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 GB | n/a | 1 | 25,000 | 50 GB | n/a | $30 |
| 20 GB | n/a | 10 | 100,000 | 200 GB | n/a | $115 |
| 50 GB | n/a | 30 | 400,000 | 500 GB | n/a | $290 |
WPX Hosting
Another Bulgarian company on our list – set up in 2013 by Terry Kyle – an entrepreneur from Australia, recommended by Thrive Themes. It maintains clients’ websites on servers located in the USA and in the UK.
WPX Hosting co-finances Dana Foundation, which helps homeless dogs.
Offer details:
SLA: 99.98%
Plans:
| Storage | RAM | Websites | Monthly visits | Monthly transfer | Concurrent processes | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 GB | 128 MB | 5 | 25,000 | 100 GB | 3 | $24.99 |
| 20 GB | 256 MB | 15 | 100,000 | 200 GB | 3 | $49.99 |
| 40 GB | 512 MB | 35 | 400,000 | unlimited | 3 | $99.00 |
What hosting package should you choose?
After deciding on the choice of service provider, you must choose a package from the list of packages offered by it. If you are not able to estimate your needs – because the website does not exist yet and you don’t know what traffic you can expect – start with the smallest package. Changing to a higher option is never a problem.
The easiest way is when you migrate the existing website. You know how much space it takes (and what, more or less, is the growth rate) and how much traffic it attracts and what transfer it generates.
But don’t forget about electronic mail, which can quickly consume the server space – especially if you use the IMAP protocol and all your e-mails remain on the server.
Added services
Every second of the hosting service providers listed above also offers Internet domain names. Half of them also have commercial SSL certificates in their offer.
Prices do not differ significantly. For example, extending the .com domain costs from $10.99 to $15.99. The prices of the cheapest SSL certificate range from $15 to $199. The cheapest domains are in WPX Hosting and the cheapest certificates are in Dreamhost.
Remember – you don’t have to buy the domain name and SSL certificate from the company that provides you with the web hosting.
A service that needs to be bought from another provider is website monitoring – i.e. a service consisting in detecting website failures and faults.
Scaling in the future
As traffic on your website will increase, along with its popularity (we wish you that), unfortunately the costs associated with hosting will also increase. However, the positive effects of the growth of popularity will cover this increase in costs with interest.
When you have reached the limit of all the scaling potential as part of the shared hosting service and you will not keep within the largest package, it will be time for the next level. It will be VPS (Virtual Private Server) or a cloud server, i.e. your own server, but virtual. Separated physical server resources (disk space, RAM, processor cores) over which you have full control, including the operating system and all the installed software. But this is tour de force and you will need a system administrator to operate such a virtual machine.
The next stage is your own physical server – the whole machine at your disposal. Or many machines connected within a cluster, if your website grows considerably.
