WordPress Hosting

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What is the best WordPress hosting in 2024?

Ask a dozen people and you'll get as many answers, based on personal experiences, anecdotes, and perceptions based on 'what I've heard'.

This can lead to bad choices based on misguided advice from inexperienced webmasters.

We take a different approach, basing our WordPress hosting reviews on real-world WordPress hosting performance testing as well as price, service, and support comparisons.

We want to provide a true comparison and recommendations based on data, in addition to our years of experience in the trenches.

If you have any questions or thoughts you'd like to share about our WordPress hosting reviews, please comment at the end of the article.

Contents show

Best WordPress Hosting Companies in 2024

Rankings

These are the best WordPress hosting companies in 2024, ranked according to our own in-house performance testing. These rankings are also weighted in consideration of each hosts overall service offering, support and pricing.

Click the View Plans link to see the full range of plans available for that host, or Full Review to see the full and comprehensive details of our expert review and performance testing, as well as reviews from other users of that host.

Rank Host Price Action
1 Pressable-logo From $19/mth View Plans / Full Review
2 wix From $8.75/mth View Plans / Full Review
3 Siteground From $3.95/mth View Plans / Full Review
4 Bluehost From $2.95/mth View Plans / Full Review
5 GreenGeeks From $2.95/mth View Plans / Full Review
6 Arvixe From $7.00/mth View Plans / Full Review
7 Site5 From $4.95/mth View Plans / Full Review
8 iPage From $1.99/mth View Plans / Full Review
9 A2 Hosting From $3.92/mth View Plans / Full Review
10 Dreamhost From $7.95/mth View Plans / Full Review
11 Hostgator From $3.82/mth View Plans / Full Review
12 GoDaddy From $2.49/mth View Plans / Full Review
13 InMotion Hosting From $4.99/mth View Plans / Full Review
14 Web Hosting Hub From $4.99/mth View Plans / Full Review
Performance Data

We update our best WordPress hosting recommendations for 2024 based on regular testing.

We make these recommendations based on their entry-level shared hosting plans which are ideal for small to medium-sized WordPress websites.

Detailed WordPress Hosting Reviews for 2024

Our 2024 WordPress hosting reviews offer a very comprehensive overview and comparison of the best WordPress hosting providers.

To ensure a fair comparison we have taken a very standardized approach to our performance comparisons. Our WordPress hosting reviews, and the results of all tests, can be accessed at the links below.

1. WPX

WPX Hosting Pricing

For the longest time, we used WP Engine for this website, but a year ago we decided to make the switch to WPX Hosting.

We couldn't be happier with the results. WP Engine is a good host but has become relatively expensive for what you get.

We've more than halved our hosting bill for WP Dev Shed without compromising our performance or capacity.

If anything I think the site is now running better than it was on WP Engine.

Here are the key reasons we switched and why we think that WPX Hosting is the best choice for larger sites with more traffic:

  1. Superb support. We've never waited more than a couple of minutes to get a thorough and useful reply from support. None of those stock standard copy/paste answers. WPX support is provided by people who really know what they are doing and are empowered to actually help.
  2. Awesome control panel for super easy deployment of your staging site and management of automated backups and restores. In fairness, WP Engine has this too, but we now pay less than half the price.
  3. Superfast SSD servers with the WPX CDN. Again SSD and CDNs are not unique to WPX, but their service does genuinely run fast and is super well priced.
  4. Really easy and fast deployment of Google-sponsored SSL certs. So handy when every site these days MUST have a security certificate.

WordPress hosting of this kind isn’t for everyone, but if you are a business and you are prepared to spend a bit more for the best WordPress hosting then WPX Hosting is definitely the place to go.

Check out WPX Hosting's plans

Highly recommended.

2. Pressable

Pressable

Pressable is a WordPress hosting company that has a really good reputation among existing clients, and the fact that they can help you grow your business successfully through WordPress-supported websites can make all the difference.

One of the things that we love about this WordPress hosting company is that they can help anybody from a freelancer to somebody who is part of an agency, and even small businesses.

Because they are an ongoing service, they offer their clients support that is available around the clock, and they say that this is fast and friendly, so you don't have to worry about having to wait in line for assistance.

Pressable also say that everything about what they offer their clients is completely scalable, and they have enhanced security available on all of their plans, so that you don't have to worry about compromising personal information, or any additional information on your website that you don't want to be leaked.

3. SiteGround

SiteGround

SiteGround is an excellent web hosting option, especially if you want high-quality support but you don't want to spend the money on it.

These guys offer what is called managed WordPress hosting, which means that they fit right in between the weird grey area between shared and dedicated hosting packages.

What they essentially are saying is that you get a lot of the benefits of managed WordPress hosting, but you will only pay what it is going to cost to get a shared hosting plan.

They are one of the officially recommended web hosts of WordPress, and they have received outstanding reviews on a consistent basis.

All of their hosting options for WordPress come with support that is platform-specific, so from troubleshooting plugins to helping you with migrations, they are ready to help.

They offer customer support not only through phone, but through a ticketing system, and live chat. They also keep on top of updates and configuration so that your site stays fast.

They offer their clients automated WordPress installation, and a WordPress starter kit that is both powerful and practical.

They also offer a free builder for your websites, free WordPress migrations, managed updates and security at both the application and server level, performance optimized for WordPress websites, and unlimited email accounts for free.

Of course, they have more expensive and more affordable plans and we think that with each option what you get what you pay for.

4. Bluehost

Bluehost

Bluehost is easily an industry leader in the web hosting space, especially when it comes to WordPress sites.

It powers more than two million sites around the world, and it is actually one of the few web hosts that has been suggested officially by WordPress as a first choice.

These guys are a great choice in 2024 for anyone who is hoping to develop a new website completely from scratch, and the best part is that you get a free domain name for a year, and it is just a one-click install through WordPress.

Normally, you have to pay upwards of $15 for a domain name, but these guys want to give it to you for free. You also don't have to go and register your domain either, because everything is done in one single step.

We think that when it comes to WordPress hosting, this is about as affordable as it gets. It's going to cost you just $2.95 a month but just know that if you want to make the most of the best deal they have, you will need to sign a contract for three years.

This works in most people's favor, as the majority of people are always going to need hosting, especially if they plan on having a brand online for a long time.

With these guys, you get automatic WordPress updates and unlimited traffic, 50 GB of storage, and $200 in free marketing credits which can go towards Microsoft advertising or Google ads, and you are able to securely configure your login credentials for WordPress.

We think that for a plan that is on the entry level, 50 GB of storage is more than enough. With their more advanced plans, you are able to build as many sites as you need, whereas the basic package is going to limit you to just one.

You also get unlimited storage with their more expensive plans, so it all comes down to what's in your budget, and what you think is going to be worth your time right now.

The bottom line with these guys though is that they are definitely one of the most affordable options out there, making web hosting a breeze, especially with WordPress.

5. GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks is a web hosting service that has been doing their thing since 2008, and currently hosts a few hundred thousand sites.

It definitely isn't the cheapest option in the industry for hosting, but it does have a green premium that comes with services and products that are eco-friendly.

As a result, they have a green mission statement on their website which explains that they support green initiatives, so that they can reduce energy consumption on the net.

Their eco plan offers an unlimited level of disk space, unlimited domain names, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited emails for a domain, and unlimited databases.

You are provided cPanel, as well as Drupal, Joomla and WordPress. They offer their clients a couple of template-based site builder programs, which is a great list in terms of website development.

They come with helpful tutorials that can assist you in working out how to set up an email account, how to install script options, and other common issues around website development.

They have a few reseller hosting services for brands to offer their clients, and provide all of their customer support in-house, so they don't outsource for it at all.

While you won't get a free domain name with your hosting, they will transfer or register your domain name for free as part of the web hosting package.

When it comes to apps that they support, you will be able to access more than 150 applications that are ready to install, including WordPress.

Their cPanel control panel makes it really easy to manage your hosting because you can manage not only any website, but your files, emails, and other things. Lastly, they offer automated backups to their clients on a daily basis.

6. Arvixe

Arvixe

Arvixe is a web hosting company that has been doing their things since 2003, and they can help you with web hosting with Windows, Mac, and Linux.

They also help with managed dedicated hosting, and they also have reseller and personal plans as well as a standard business plan for you to choose from.

As with other web hosting services aimed at individuals and small businesses in the market, their stock plan offers data transfer, unlimited disk space, email accounts and a free site builder tool.

You also get a free domain, and this is free for life when you purchase it with a hosting plan and a free control panel. They have US-based phone support that is available around the clock, but you will need to pay a little bit more for this.

When it comes to blogs, they offer a number of different hosting platforms including word press and they also offer a number of different hosting options when it comes to video sharing. If you are signing up with them from Canada or America, you can get a voucher for Google Adwords.

Arvixe have a relatively robust cancellation policy, which means that you can cancel your subscription with them anytime within the first 60 days, and they will offer you a full refund, no strings attached.

They also have a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and if it drops below this at any point during the first month, they will offer a refund on the hosting fees of that month.

The good news is that if you already have a website, and you want to move over to these guys, they can transfer your website easily, including your domain name, without any additional costs.

7. Site5

Site5

Site5 is a web hosting company that was established in 2001, and they say that they guarantee high-quality performance for their clients.

They say that their servers are completely uncrowded, and they don't outsource for their customer support, so you don't have to go through three or four people to get the help that you need.

They also offer their clients in-house development capability, as well as engineering, and they don't have any hidden fees further down the track, as well as any gimmicks.

Of course, like other major web hosting companies out there, they offer a basic, pro, and turbo hosting plan, and they also offer fully anonymous reseller hosting choices.

This means that they are able to personalize domains that you might bring over from another host. When it comes to their VPS hosting plan, they promise it is 100% dedicated and protected as a resource, and for each account, you will get 24 GB of RAM.

Plans like this eliminate the possibility of other users taking up more space because you only receive the space that you pay for.

They also have a promise that is called their ‘no worry full management’ promise, which means that they will keep track of making sure that your software is updated regularly, and they will consistently fix any operating system security issues, and they also offer 24/7 monitoring for their VPS clients.

All of their standard plans come with unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, free migrations, and customer support that is available around the clock.

Their price points begin at $4.95 a month, and they have special discounts depending on the time of year.

They also offer a free trial, which lasts for 30 days, which we think is more than enough for you to determine whether they are the right web hosting platform for you.  

8. iPage

iPage

iPage is a pretty popular web hosting company, considering it currently hosts about a million sites, and offers plenty of add-ons through a standard hosting package.

As well as all of the standard hosting options, which include WordPress, they also offer website management, and services for Ecommerce.

This is going to include credit card processing, shopping carts, and SSL certification. Some of their marketing services are available for a small additional fee, and they offer their clients unlimited disk space.

They also don't have a limit on the number of domains that you can acquire with them, and you can expect to have unlimited bandwidth as well.

They have a site building tool that can be used for up to six pages, and they also have a site builder that comes with customized templates.

They have a toll-free phone number that you can use if you are an American customer, and when it comes to their email services, pretty much all of them are free.

As far as we are concerned with this web hosting company, especially when compared to other web hosting companies, they are definitely one of the more affordable options.

Also, unlike other companies on this list, they offer a refund trial period, and this lasts for 30 days. On top of this, they have an anytime money back guarantee, and you can also cancel your account with them after the first 30 days.

9. A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting is a web hosting company that is focused particularly on WordPress, so its features are specifically designed for quicker WordPress loads.

They own all of their own servers exclusively and they have a data center that is located near Detroit. As well as helping you with WordPress, they can also help you with Joomla and other websites.

They have three hosting plans for you to choose from, which are called light, swift, and turbo, and they even have a performance plus option that you will have to pay a little bit more for.

This is a great feature to use to maintain speed during high traffic periods, and their high-speed hosting options include European and American server locations.

All of their plans come with 64 GB of RAM, and a 12-core server. With all of their plans, you receive Yahoo and Bing ad credits, and it is worth noting here that their swift plan is quite a bit of an upgrade from their light plan, but the good news is that it isn't that much more expensive.

The turbo plan is a lot more expensive than their swift plan, with the main difference being the load time when it comes to pages.

They have a money-back guarantee, so that you can receive a full refund within a month, and they can easily transfer your website or websites from your current host.

10. Dreamhost

Dreamhost

Dreamhost is a web hosting company that is based in Los Angeles and it has been doing its thing since way back in 1986, when there were only a few thousand webpages in existence.

Needless to say, they have been around for a while, and definitely know what they're doing. They offer dedicated hosting, as well as VPS and shared, and they also offer cloud storage, as well as other features for small businesses and developers who might not have and on-site IT department.

Currently, they host roughly around 1,000,000 sites. They don't offer support via phone, but you have the option of paying them to call you back for support, or you can get in touch with them through their live chat on the website when things aren’t too busy.

They are a popular choice for developers and web design companies because if you choose their shared hosting products, you can host unlimited domains and set up as many email accounts as you like, as well as reseller accounts.

When it comes to this company, back in the day they did have sign up fees, but they have taken these away now.

They are definitely a solid and popular hosting company, and the best part is that their shared hosting plan is going to support any type of site including business sites, online retail stores, blogs, and data based driven sites that are complex.

11. HostGator

HostGator

HostGator is easily one of the most well-known web hosting companies around today, which means that they have managed to garner a really good reputation for themselves over the last few years.

You might be surprised to learn that they have more than 9 million websites on their books, but they haven't been around as long as you might think.

They got started back in 2002, and in 2008, they started placing a special emphasis on unlimited hosting services, as well as green hosting.

This company might have started in Florida, but today, it is located in Houston. It offers its clients a basic monthly hosting plan that is very affordable, with the option of adding on as many features as you want.

They also offer VPS hosting, reseller hosting, and dedicated hosting choices, as well as support from their customer support team and even professional development assistance.

They use Weebly for their site builder tool, and they can also migrate existing content from other accounts to their own platform and optimize it for you.

We think they work well with WordPress and other scripting choices. They have standard support that is available 24/7 through email, but you can also talk to them online.

They also have a money-back guarantee that lasts for 45 days, as well as 99.9% uptime. If you need extra disk space or bandwidth, you can get this through the upgrade page, where you will upgrade to a bigger plan.

12. GoDaddy

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is another really well-established web hosting company in the industry, and they claim to have more than 60 million sites on their books.

They also say that they follow an aggressive marketing strategy, and as far as we are concerned they are the closest the web hosting industry is going to get to a standard.

They were founded back in 1997 in Arizona, and they sell services and software products on the back of their incredibly successful hosting company.

They offer many different options for their clients including marketing tools, investor tools, website do-it-yourself tools, and the ability to search and register for any domain name that a business might need.

Their pricing is competitive, but you do need to have the expectation that you will pay a premium for the reliability and track record that they have.

These guys have a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and you can request a full refund within 48 hours of making your purchase, but after 45 days, you might just need to ask for instore credit.

They also make it really easy for you to migrate a website that is being hosted by another company, and you can also move your email accounts, and databases as well.

13. InMotion

InMotion

InMotion is a web hosting company that is based in Virginia Beach and Los Angeles, and it comes with a fairly standard list of hosting products, but they claim to be the only web hosting business out there that offers maximum speed zones for their VPS and business customers.

This means that it lets its clients choose their data center location for an increase in loading speeds. They also partner with ISPs to provide direct data connections and peering exchanges for quicker connections.

From where we are standing, these guys catere to a more technologically demanding and sophisticated business clientele.

They emphasize the cutting-edge quality of their technology, so these guys are better suited to those that are well-versed in the technical side of things.

They also offer their clients the ability to email, phone, or chat with them online, so you can get instructions on how to set up their services.

They offer clients a 30-day money back guarantee, and if you aren't satisfied with their services, they will offer a refund without asking any questions.

14. Web Hosting Hub

Web Hosting Hub

Web Hosting Hub has been in business since 2010, and they say that their services cater primarily to small businesses and individuals who want an affordable, hassle-free hosting option.

They say they offer their clients three different plans, none of which are going to cost you too much.

They offer their clients a quick starter plan, so that you can get up and running the right way, especially if you are someone who is brand new to the world of web hosting, and you don't know anything about it.

They also make it super easy for you to search for the right domain for your brand and register it, and their packages include more than 300 free apps for site building, including of course WordPress.

All of their plans offer fairly standard features, including a free domain and with their more basic package, you get 25 parked domains, and then as you go up, this becomes unlimited.

Also with their more expensive plans, you can choose where your data center is located, and they also offer discounts on things like in-house web design.

Comparing WordPress Web Hosting Providers

Even when you've chosen a web host you'll have to choose a plan, so it pays to understand the differentiating factors, and importantly what actually matters and what doesn't so you can make a fair comparison.

Of course you should also start with a good understanding of what you need:

  1. Will your site be a standard business website with a few pages describing your business, or will it have 1000's of pages?
  2. Will you need lots of storage for many large files, and will your storage requirements grow over time?
  3. Will your site consist of static content or does it provide some kind of interactive application? An application or script with lots of database calls will require more processing power.
  4. How many concurrent visitors do you need to cater for? Again, this will determine how much processing power you need.

Once you have a firm idea of your own requirements you'll need to consider the following parameters when comparing the best WordPress hosting providers...

What Are The Key Differences Between the WordPress Hosting Plans?

  • Diskspace: If you are starting a new blog or planning to run a simple website this is unlikely to be a major factor. You'll only really need to think about this if you are running a very large site, uploading lots of media files, or running an app that stores more and more data over time.
  • Bandwith: Large media files, especially video, are what will use up the most bandwidth, but this can be mitigated to some extent by using a 3rd party Content Distribution network like Amazon Cloudfront or MaxCDN. A CDN will carry the bandwidth of delivered files rather than your host with the added benefit of better performance. If you will be hosting your own media you'll need to think about how much bandwidth this is likely to consume. This calculator might be handy. All that said, if you are running a regular blog or a small business site with relatively few visitors (<1000/day) this isn't likely to be a limiting factor.
  • Processing Power: For most people, this will be the most important differentiating factor. Assuming you have enough disk space and bandwidth, it is the processing power your site has that will determine how many concurrent users it can handle and how fast it will respond when the number of concurrent users grows. It can be hard to determine how much processing power a shared WordPress hosting plan offers, so if the ability to grow and handle larger volumes of traffic is important to you then we'd recommend you look at a VPS or managed host with dedicated processing power.
  • Drive Type: There is no doubt that the future is solid-state drives. With no moving parts, it is no surprise they are faster than regular hard drives with spinning disks. This is why we really like these companies which all offer SSDs. Here's why you should choose SSD hosting.

We've taken all these factors into consideration in making our recommendations, as well as a great deal of experience with all the top WordPress hosting companies so we also have a good sense of the more qualitative factors such as customer support.

Web Hosting Requirements for WordPress

Web Hosting

If you are still shopping around for the best hosting for WordPress you just need to keep in mind the requirements for running WordPress. Thankfully WordPress has very simple requirements and will run on just about any standard Linux based hosting service.

Indeed a hosting company would be mad not to support WordPress given it is used on around 20% of all websites. That said, it pays to be aware of the specific requirements, namely:

  • PHP version 7 (or higher)
  • MySQL version 5.6 (or higher) or MariaDB version 10.0 (or higher)
  • HTTPS Support - This is why we always recommend a host that supports free shared SSL certificates at a minimum. Any new site these days should go all HTTPS from the outset.

And that's it! If you have these two then the latest version of WordPress will run great. Of course, GreenGeeks and Siteground are all good to go.

Any web server that supports PHP and MySQL is good, but our recommendation is always to seek out a host that uses the Apache or NGinx web server technology, and specifically can enable the rewrite module as you will need this to enable the friendly URL features of WordPress.

As long as you use a reputable and experienced company then the chances are that this will be the case. If you are unsure we suggest asking them if they do enable the mod_rewrite module in Apache by default before signing up.

We recommend you use hosts that run Apache only because along with Linux, PHP, and MySQL It really is the most commonly used platform so you can always find people who can help either professionally or via the support forums.

Types of Web Hosting Available

Making sure you sign up for a service that caters for WordPress is actually pretty easy (almost everyone covers the basic hosting requirements), but still there are various levels of service that you can opt for, and you choice will depend on your needs...

Free WordPress Hosting

FREE WORDPRESS HOSTING

There is really only one option if you want free hosting, and that is to go with WordPress.com. You can sign up and have your own site hosted at yourname.wordpress.com in a matter of minutes.

If you are not sure if you are ready to commit to running your own site on a dedicated domain then this is a great first step.

The downside is that you don't have your own dedicated domain, and for many people that is a big downside...having your own domain means you can brand yourself (and have a branded email address) rather than being a subdomain on WordPress.com.

Check out our recent post on the problem with free hosting.

There are other services like WordPress.com that offer a very similar free hosted service, but WordPress.com is run by Automattic, the company behind the platform, so it stands to reason that they know it best.

It's also worth noting that Automatic are very well funded so there is no chance that they are going to close up shop or disappear for any reason, and that WordPress.com does actually have a paid upgrade option that allows you to host with your own domain...so that might be a good upgrade path for the first time webmaster.

That said, even if you pay to use your own domain on WordPress.com you still get the same WordPress hosting platform which does have some limitations, principally in terms of the plugins and theme customization options.

It is these limitations that lead us to ultimately recommend you go for a self-hosted installation which will give you the ultimately flexibility...

Shared WordPress Hosting

SHARED WORDPRESS HOSTING

This is where we recommend most new webmasters start out when they want to start their first blog. Shared hosting means you will be on a server with hundreds of sites so you share the resources and costs of the server.

It is a great option because it is affordable (starting at $5-7/mth) and you still get most of the features of a more powerful setup.

Shared plans are often sold as 'unlimited' bandwidth and storage which is a bit of a misdirection in a way because the performance bottleneck isn't going to be bandwidth or storage, it's going to be processing power.

A shared server will provide your site with plenty of processing power for a few thousand visitors a day, but if your site grows to an extent that it has many concurrent users then you are going to want to upgrade to a VPS or dedicated server...and for this reason, we do recommend you go with a shared WordPress hosting provider who offers a good upgrade path.

Shared WordPress hosting accounts always provide you with a web-based interface like cPanel to manage the various elements of your site, including email setup, databases and typically offer easy installation tools for all the popular web site software packages.

WordPress isn't actually hard to install manually in any event, but the 1-click installers do make it faster and ensure that all the file permissions are set right so that future updates to themes and plugins are all easily performed via the WP control panel.

As above, we think that GreenGeeks, Bluehost, and Hostgator offer the best-shared service.

WordPress VPS Hosting

WORDPRESS VPS HOSTING

A VPS server is a great next step up from shared hosting.

It is also shared in the sense that your VPS will run on a physical server with other clients, but the server will typically host much fewer clients and you also get low-level access to the server administration functions.

It runs in effect like your own dedicated server, but on a server with other users. VPS plans will typically come equipped with a control panel like WHM which allows even non-technical users to manage the various server functions via a web interface.

For this reason, a VPS is a great option if you are a designer/developer who wants to offer hosting to your clients, but doesn't want to mess with technical system administration.

We use a VPS to host many of our own sites and client sites.

Managed WordPress Web Hosting

MANAGED WORDPRESS WEB HOSTING

If your site has grown increasingly popular, and you need the additional capacity, but you do not have the time, know-how, or the staff on hand to deal with server operations then managed hosting might be a great option for you.

Once applicable only to dedicated plans, managed services can now be had for VPS, cloud, or co-location hosting as well.

It's an option to consider if you:

  • Lack sufficient expertise to properly administer the space.
  • Are long on skills but short on time to manage a server yourself.
  • Can justify the extra expense.

With managed plans, you are renting not only the server but also its support team. Costs can vary.

Depending on your choice of host, your benefits will include:

  • Trouble-shooting and maintenance.
  • Software installations and upgrades.
  • Hardware repairs and server monitoring.
  • Greater security and peace of mind.
  • Built-in Content Distribution Network (CDN)
  • Built-in caching layer for improved site performance

Dedicated support staff and faster problem resolution could provide the biggest benefit. A crashed website equals money lost.

The dedicated knowledge and experience of the web host's staff can get you back in action in a hurry. In spite of the extra fees, managed hosting solutions can still save you money.

Under these plans, you will likely pay less for such essentials as software, hardware, server space, and bandwidth.

In addition, its relatively low cost is certain to trump the expense of hiring even one technology expert.

Dedicated WordPress Hosting

Dedicated WordPress Hosting

If your site is a huge success then you will ultimately want to get your own dedicated server hosting (though for 98% of all business sites and blogs a shared server or VPS is more than enough).

This means you'll have your own physical server hosted in the provider's location, dedicated to just you.

There are of course many levels of server you can lease, from smaller cheaper servers right up to very powerful servers with a huge amount of processing power.

The important difference between shared and VPS-type offerings is that you will have complete control over your WordPress hosting environment.

If you get to this level you probably have your own system administration resource, though most dedicated server providers can also provide a managed solution (which of course costs more).

Hosting Companies to Avoid

If you spend enough time looking around at the various offers out there you will come across plenty of cheap WordPress hosting offers of $1/mth. Sounds pretty good right? $12/yr... I mean, what could go wrong?

In our experience, these 'too good to be true' deals always end badly. The companies providing this type of service might have the best intentions, but the fact is they can't possibly provide the level of support you want for that kind of money. They can only hope to make money by doing serious volume and keeping their costs low.

In the hosting game, the biggest cost is people so that means less support. The few dollars you might save per year will not seem worthwhile the first time you have an outage and can't reach anyone for days.

Our advice is always to read real WordPress hosting reviews and to stick to reputable companies with a real track record and real support. No host is perfect, and from time to time you are going to need some support, so best to go with a WordPress host that you know will always be there when you need them. Your time and peace of mind is worth more than a few dollars a month. If you are on a budget there are some great options.

WordPress Hosting FAQs

Here are some quick answers to your burning questions.

What is WordPress Hosting?

WordPress Hosting

When people refer to WordPress hosting they are talking about any web hosting service that supports the open-source WordPress content management system.

In other words, WordPress is a platform for managing the content on your website, but your website (and WordPress) needs to be hosted on a web server connected to the internet.

What Is WordPress Engine?

 WP Engine

"WordPress engine" is longhand for 'WP Engine' which is the largest and best-known managed WordPress hosting provider.

Based in Austin, Texas, WP Engine was one of the earliest to recognize the accelerating demand for specialist WordPress hosting services and support.

WP Engine's plans are more expensive than your standard shared plans, so are typically used by larger, more established sites and businesses with more budget.

What Is the Best WordPress Hosting?

WPX Hosting

The answer to this question must be based on a balanced view of performance, service, price, and reputation.

We've done the testing and in our opinion, Siteground is the best shared provider while we recommend WPX Hosting as the best managed option.

How to choose the best WordPress hosting?

We've tried to answer this in the section above on comparing the best WordPress hosting providers. You can also watch the Beginners Guide to WordPress Hosting video above too.

Is there any SEO benefit to hosting on WordPress.com?

In short, no.

If you use WordPress.com you'll have a domain like mysite.wordpress.com and that doesn't infer any benefit from the undoubted strength of the WordPress.com domain, as it is technically a different domain.

If the parent domain did pass on benefit then all free hosted domains would rank like crazy (they don't).

And if you use the paid option from WordPress.com, with your own domain (mysite.com) then there is no more or less SEO benefit compared to any other host.

Which host is good for a blog with up to 1000 daily visitors?

Any of the shared hosting plans ranked above will comfortably handle 1000, or even 2000 visitors a day as long as your site is well optimized.

Where things get tricky is if all those visitors arrive at the same time. If you expect big spikes in traffic then you would be well advised to go with a managed service capable of handling more concurrent traffic.

How much does WordPress hosting cost?

Good quality hosting starts around USD$5/mth, though you can sometimes get better pricing when the big hosts are offering special deals.

This price level is for a standard shared plan. Do not be tempted by the $1/mth hosts, you get what you pay for. Pricing for managed services usually starts around $20/mth for the entry-level plans. $25-30 is pretty typical.

From there you start getting into VPS and dedicated server territory and here the price really depends on how much capacity you need.

How to Secure WordPress Web Hosting?

 

This is a great question and we could write a lot more on this than we have space for here, indeed we already have. Check out our blog posts for more info.

How to Install WordPress?

 

If you are using a regular shared WordPress hosting provider they will almost certainly provide a website control panel with one of the popular script installers such as Installatron, Fantastico, Scriptaculous, or possibly the newer Mojo Marketplace option which seems to be increasingly popular.

Each of these options works in much the same way.

Log in to your control panel and locate the installer tool. Click on the icon and follow the prompts to install WordPress.

These tools all let you install a wide variety of web applications, but WordPress will always be top of the list as the most popular of all.

You'll be asked a few questions such as what directory you want to install in (usually it should go in the root directory, i.e yourdomain.com/) and what title to give your site, but once you have answered these you literally click install and wait a few minutes for the tool to do its job once installed you will be able to log in and start managing your themes, plugins, and content.

I'm assuming here of course that you have already configured your domain name to point to your account.

Which Hosting Is Best for WordPress, Linux, or Windows?

Linux is the best hosting for WordPress. You can install WordPress on a Windows server, but it usually requires additional configuration and in our experience is usually a bit of a hassle.

We always recommend hosting your sites on a Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP server set up, commonly known as a LAMP stack.

Web hosts offering a PHP and MySQL service will usually have simple one-click installations of WordPress as well which makes life much easier.

How to Upload WordPress to Your Host?

Long gone are the days of having to manually upload and install WordPress on your hosting account. WordPress was famous for its 5min install, but these days it can be done in less than a minute using one of the common installers as described above.

Don't bother with a hosting provider that doesn't take care of this for you...unless of course, you are managing your own dedicated server, in which case you don't need our help 🙂

Do I need CPanel to host WordPress?

 

No, but it sure makes everything a lot easier in terms of installation and then managing email accounts on your domain, etc. If you are looking at a shared hosting plan for your site I would go with a host that offers CPanel.

How to Judge the Best WordPress Web Hosting Companies

It is easy to be drawn to a hosting company because of promotional deals with good starting prices and packages of free advertising credits.

There are however several factors to consider when you compare hosting providers.

Determine Your Technical Needs

One of the biggest choices webmasters make is to run their site using Linux or Windows hosting. Although some people need Windows hosting for specific Windows-based applications, most people choose Linux.

The best web hosting companies offer both choices. If you plan to use one of the popular open-source content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, or Magento you are definitely better off with Linux.

Determine what other technical features you require. The best web hosts support a range of server-side scripting languages such as PHP, Ruby, and Python, or ASP and .NET (on Windows).

You may also want to consider what web stats tools, server access, database options, and domain handling options are provided (such as subdomains and parked domains) and support for Javascript, Flash, and Shockwave.

People who need to run multiple domains or sites should also look for a host offering unlimited domains and unlimited disk storage.

Calculate Your Bandwidth Needs

For most new sites, determining bandwidth needs may be tricky. It is always better to go with a larger option if the site is expected to grow fast.

The best way to stay current with bandwidth needs is to choose an average package and monitor site stats for a few months. And sign up with a host who has an upgrade path should you need to do so.

How much Storage Do You Need?

Every customer is allowed a certain amount of hard disk space. Some sites such as simple portfolios for business reference may not require much space.

However, complex sites and e-commerce sites that are continually growing, adding pages, and adding images need a much larger amount of disk space.

Most sites need more storage space as time passes.

Webmasters who have all of their site files in one folder or directory on their computers can simply view the properties of that location to determine the amount of needed space to start. It is best to allow for growth.

However, do not purchase excessive amounts of space that will remain unused.

Start with a comfortable amount and move up as needed. Again, storage is not normally a limiting factor as it is cheap and abundant. As long as you have an upgrade path you will be fine. Much more important are the performance requirements.

Consider Performance

The web host’s server speed and processing power is probably the most critical factor in determining the performance of your new site.

Shared, VPS, dedicated, and cloud server hosting are common choices. Shared hosting is a good, cheap, entry-level option but it will not handle large amounts of traffic.

VPS hosting (Virtual Private Server) is the next level, capable of handling thousands of daily visitors on a well-optimized site. Dedicated hosting is what you'll need when you really need to scale up to cope with large amounts of traffic.

If you need to maintain performance with large traffic spikes and a constant growth rate, then you are best to choose dedicated server hosting or perhaps a cloud hosting option that makes it possible to scale as your traffic grows. These options can however be more expensive.

Although cloud and shared servers do not allow root access, cloud servers can handle higher traffic spikes often for a lower cost than dedicated servers. The main benefit of a shared server is the low associated cost. Shared and VPS servers are better for low to medium traffic sites respectively, while dedicated or cloud servers are better for high-traffic sites.

Find out if the host you are looking at offers SSD hosting. Solid State Drives are fast becoming the standard because they offer more reliability and faster access times for better performance.

Check Reviews For Feedback On Support

 

Not all hosting companies have the same levels of support, and not all hosting companies respond to customer inquiries in the same time frame or fashion.

For example, some small hosting providers may only provide ticket-based support or offer very limited hours for phone support. Larger hosting companies may offer 24/7 chat, phone, and email support.

Webmasters who plan to run businesses with their sites and must be able to have continual access to support should choose a company with a proven quality support system and plenty of contact options. The best web hosting providers excel at support and reviews will often focus on their service performance, so this is a good theme to look for as you read online ratings.

Compare Pricing

Price should never be the top determining factor because cheap web hosting must compromise on some level, and normally it is the support that suffers.

Price, however, is still important. The best WordPress hosting delivers on your technical requirements, has a good track record for service, and offers a good price. Be sure to understand promotional prices versus the prices after any promotional periods and the length of time that service packages are purchased.

Final Thoughts

Lastly, be sure to read the latest and best WordPress hosting reviews for 2024 before choosing a host.

Never rely solely on the reviews that are on a hosting company’s site, and beware of sites that do not moderate their reviews as you can’t be sure that they are legitimate.

We manually moderate all reviews so you can be sure they are genuine.

93 thoughts on “WordPress Hosting

  1. This is a great list and I appreciate the level of detail added for each web hosting site. It would be great to see a year-over-year comparison, showing which companies maintain a solid high-level of technical and human support. Plus, I’m always interested in learning more about new web hosting companies and services. It’s helpful to understand how my experience compares to what others are sharing in the comments. Thank you!

  2. I have Two personal website (Digital Signature and Acciojob). But I’II am not happy with my current hosting at more traffic my website go in down, that is more effect my business. Please help me give good hosting in mu budget 200-500RS Per months

  3. Petrick P says:

    It’s great. If you are taking requests for additional hosts I’d like to see LiquidWeb compared Please.

  4. Devid says:

    I am searching on google for the top hosting site list and I got it here. Thanks, admin!

  5. Kelly Hubbard says:

    As someone who was with Bluehost for almost ten years I would have agreed that they were among the best. Not anymore! Like many major corporations, including those in the hosting business, they have gone offshore for their tech support. What was the best tech support is now just as bad as everyone else. Their techs are clueless. They keep you waiting forever and rarely have any answers. After many complaints from me, a loyal customer who had no issue paying more for Bluehost, all of them ignored, I moved to another top-rated company but in the few days I have spent transferring all my sites over to them their technical support, also offshore judging by the unpronounceable names I get, is just as useless. They just ignore you for ten or fifteen minutes at a time and appear to have no technical training whatsoever. Is this what low-cost hosting has left us with?

  6. Michelle L says:

    Hello Charles, I appreciate the depth you went with this post. I have heard many good feedback regarding WordPress and blogs. I want to start a passion project with a domain name belong to me. I am glad I was able to stumble upon your post, as the first step as I’ve read is purchasing hosting and a domain name. I already know my domain name and I have confirmed it is available, now the tricky part is getting an affordable and reliable provider. I guess I might be choosing the cheapest option among Siteground, Bluehost and Greengeeks. Which one would you choose if you absolutely had to? A rough idea of my passion project would be high resolution photos uploaded of my photoshoots and an explanation on how I made my outfits as I am a cosplayer! I have a good following on FB but I have found FB ruins the quality of photos. So I want my audience to get redirected to my site when needed.

  7. Chelsea says:

    Thanks for this impressive and well written post. I am scouting around for suggestions on good WordPress hosting providers and some posts were just a pain to read with information flowing everywhere. Anyway, I noticed that Siteground is suggested most often by a lot of blogs. I am likely to go with Siteground but I don’t need anything too advanced and I am concerned with Siteground’s pricing — it might be not the most cost efficient choice for me. I am just a copywriter and I want to set up a professional website for my portfolio. Do you think Siteground is the way to go or do you have another best on this list that you think I should look more closely into? Thanks in advance.

  8. Aman Gupta says:

    I have 1 traffic heavy website hotel website (Nature Vilas). But I am not happy with my current hosting at more traffic my website go in down, that is more effect my business. Please help me give good hosting in mu budget 200-500RS Per months

  9. Peter Smith says:

    I also loved dealing with Siteground. Their service is top notch. Keep posting more charles.

  10. Ashley Jones says:

    I’ve been with Inmotion hosting more than two years and totally happy with their services. I am using POWER package with lot of features bring my website loading fast includes SSD, Nginx web server with caching optimized. I got one domain free when purchased their hosting. Easy Cpanel control panel as well as CloudFlare free are the good features too.
    90 Days Money Back Guarantee is the very good guarantee for everybody, most of hosting provider allows only 30 days money back guarantee but I never get cancel with Inmotionhosting. Will continue use Inmotionhosting for sure and I highly recommend them to all.

  11. I had my WordPress website journey started with Siteground. For $3.95/month, they are the ultimate choice for any starter. Their support is top-notch whenever I approached them. Glad they make it on your list Charles!

  12. Sal Patel says:

    Hey Charles,

    I hope you are well and fit. Reading through the page and going through how you’ve aligned each host and would love to see if you could fit in Stablepoint.com? Happy to provide you an account for testing purposes and would love to see an honest genuine opinion on our service, support and an overall test?

    We pride ourselves in being a high end host with an affordable price tag for each package we provide.

    Looking forward hearing from you.

    Sal – Stablepoint

    1. Hi Sal, thanks for your interest. The testing is a fairly big undertaking and I have no plans to add new hosts to the list at this time.

  13. sandhiya says:

    This article is of great support for comparing hosting companies and hosting plans.

  14. Alisha Ross says:

    I have used Bluehost for several years too and use them for all my sites and client sites. I got into troubles recently and thought seriously hard about changing hosts but their support was so great that when the time came to renew my hosting I stuck with them.

  15. Hey Charles – in a similar vein to Vinicius’ last post it would be great if you included 20i in your next batch of testing. We do provide entry-level WordPress-optimised hosting…and I think we’d win. 😉

    1. charles Charles says:

      Thanks Richard, will check your site out and add to the list of possible additions. Just to set expectations, I can’t promise if or when this might happen. All the testing is a time consuming business and it has to fit in around other commitments. Cheers.

      1. No worries; I understand. Thanks Charles.

  16. Vinicius Fernandes says:

    Thanks very much for doing all this testing, it’s great. If you are taking requests for additional hosts I’d like to see LiquidWeb compared please.

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Vinicius, you’re welcome. Thanks for the suggestion. We are planning to add some more hosts to the testing roster and I’ve put Liquid Web on the list of possible additions. I know they get great reviews from many users so it would be interesting to see how they perform. We are focused here on a comparison of the entry level shared hosting plans which are most popular with most of our readers so i just need to check if Liquid Web offers something like this. My impression is that they are more in the VPS and dedicated market. Will definitely look into it.

  17. Muhammad Safwan says:

    Hey how about Namecheap, they offered $9.88/year . I see their features, and it is quite good.

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Muhammad, $9.88/yr is their introductory price with renewals at $38.88/yr which is similar to the levels offered by the likes of Green Geeks etc. It is a good intro price, but I havn’t tested Namecheap so I can’t comment on their performance or recommend them. That said I am looking to add additional hosts to our testing routine so I’ll add Namecheap to the list. They are better known as a domain registrar, but are well liked amongst bloggers so makes sense to test their hosting service.

  18. Bobby says:

    Hi, if my hosting company does regular backups as part of their service is there a good reason to also use another 3rd party for backups? I’m confused because many people recommend 3rd party services but it seems like most hosts already do this. Any advice would be great.

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Bobby, Good question. I think the answer depends on the host. Most hosting company backups take the form of downloadable files you can use to manually restore your website, and this is great to have at the very minimum. But what the backup companies provide is a simple way to not only schedule regular backups but also to do simple restoration right from the console. Say you break your site, or it gets hacked, you can roll back to the latest backup with a few clicks. For non-technical webmasters that is a very nice option to have.

      The managed/dedicated WordPress hosts like WP Engine also offer this kind of functionality. They typically don’t use CPanel which is the standard hosting control panel offered by just about all shared hosts. Instead they normally have their own custom WordPress hosting panel with these kinds of backup and restore features baked in.

      In short, if you are using a host like WP Engine or Pagely, then a 3rd party backup service is probably not necessary. But if you are using one of the standard entry level shared hosts then a 3rd party backup service which will integrate with your hosting platform to enable routine backup and simple restore functions might be a good idea.

  19. Greg says:

    Hi, please can you add 1&1 hosting to the list of reviews.They are very popular in Europe and I’d love to see how they perform compared to the US companies you cover here.

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Greg, yes, we do intend to add 1&1 to the roster of hosts we review. I’m aware that they are one of the biggest (if not the biggest) hosting companies in Europe so it totally makes sense to cover them. I expect we’ll have our first 1&1 review completed in the next month. Stay tuned.

  20. Susan says:

    Hi, I’ve been told that I should use Cloudflare to speed up my site. Do you recommend that?

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Susan, great question. I am also a big fan of Cloudflare. The free service is amazingly powerful…add it to your entry level shared hosting and suddenly you have a global content delivery network for your files (images, js, CSS, html etc), static caching, DDoS protection, and free SSL. It’s pretty amazing and can really improve site performance. You can then upgrade to very reasonable pro plans with advanced security features, image optimizations, special mobile optimizations, and even faster content delivery.

      I’m not using it on this site right now because we are too big for the free plan, and we already pay for a managed service with WP Engine which includes caching, CDN and SSL. That said I am actively considering it if only for the security benefits. And for small businesses and personal blogs I do think Cloudflare is a great way to improve your site performance and security. Hope that helps.

    2. Kristopher says:

      I absolutely share Charles’ opinion. CloudFlare is a very powerful and yet affordable way to optimize the performance, security and reliability of your website. The fact that it caches your content across a global network allows for it to be delivered really fast to your visitors no matter where they’re located. My current web hosting plan with BGOcloud includes CloudFlare CDN and I see the benefits from it. The speed of requests is a loooot faster now, which is just great.

  21. Phil says:

    Hi, My wordpress dashboard processes are very slow. It takes several seconds to open a page or navigate through the admin area. This is especially painful when running woo commerce because that’s where most of the shop management happens. I’m looking for a faster host (I’m currently with GoDaddy).
    Which one of your tests show the performance in this area?

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Phil, believe it or not I’m actually a blackbow backer! Can’t wait to receive it 🙂

      In terms of the best hosting for your site, it depends a bit on where you expect to be selling. I gather you’d like customers from all over the world, but you are using a .co.nz domain which really does flag it as a NZ site. If you expect NZ will be your main market then I’d go with a local host so that requests and traffic doesn’t have to traverse the globe…I would be tempted to go with WPNet.nz locally.

      If you intend to be a global eCommerce site then I’d recommend you use a .com address, and for hosting I would look at WP Engine. It is more expensive than entry level shared hosting but imho it is worth it. WooCommerce will run great on WP Engine.

  22. I have two sites running on Inmotion shared hosting.
    Today they had suspended my account due to high resource uses.
    After too much conversation with them, they lifted the suspension but still, they warn me not use more than 150cp. (as it is the highest resources uses in their shared hosting plan.)
    If Inmotionhosting is so good for WordPress then how can they offer such a low resource uses?
    Actually, I am facing problems from beginning with Inmotionhosting.
    I will never recommend Inmotionhosting to any on

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Prasanna, can you expand on what is the cause of your high CPU usage? I think you will find that the amount of allowed CPU usage on InMotion is very similar to other shared hosts so it may be that you have simply outgrown a shared hosting plan and need to move up to a VPS or dedicated server…unless of course there is some problem with your site that is causing unusually high CPU usage? Were the support people able to help you understand the cause?

      InMotion is not my top recommendation these days (based on our performance data), but I do still use InMotion shared hosting for some projects and have never had any such problems with their service.

  23. Scotty Clinton says:

    Hey, thanks very much for this great resource. Any plans to add other hosts to the review? Specifically, I’ve had Westhost recommended to me and I’d love to see how they stack up compared to the hosts you cover here. Cheers.

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Scotty, I’m glad you ask! We do plan to add more hosts to our ongoing review. We’ve set up our testing infrastructure so that we can run all the performance testing on a regular basis, currently aiming for monthly. This way we always reflect the latest performance data and we can track how the performance of each host changes over time.

      To answer your question more directly, we can also add new hosts to the mix fairly easily and we do plan to do this. Westhost is on the radar, as are 1 and 1, Hostpapa, Fatcow, and Interserver. And we do also have plans for a thorough side by side performance comparison of the big managed hosting companies like WP Engine, Pagely, Pressidium, Pressable etc. Testing all the big managed hosts is a much more expensive proposition though so this is something we are figuring out how to approach, and will be a bit further off.

      Check back in the next month or so for new hosts added to our comparison of shared hosting providers.

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