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When looking for a solid Web hosting provider, start by making a checklist of what is most important for you to get out of your website. You want to get the most value out of your site, think about what features and add-ons will help you operate your site. If you need help in making a decision, the below review will touch upon key components that are provided by these web hosting providers. Furthermore, if you are stuck in your decision, feel free to take a look at our Decision-Making Model.
Types of Hosting
When we see ads for free or cheap hosting, we need to realize that there are limitations to what you can do on those platforms. Cheap hosting services may come with complications like downtime and slow speeds, a few no-no’s in Google search engine optimization. Your decision may also be aligned with how the provider offers their hosting service, let us take a quick look at the type of hosting services available
Shared – A type of web hosting that where a single on-premise server hosts multiple sites. There will be many users accessing the resources which keeps the costs down although they will each get their own space within the server. While costs will be low, speed and performance will be impacted negatively.
Managed – This is a type of hosting where the provider administers the entire web hosting experience for you by managing the server, executing updates, patching, handling security, monitoring, and ensuring uptime is at its highest. The main advantage to managed hosting is avoiding security risks, ensuring clients are happy with site access and uptime, and continuous updates with modern technology.
Cloud – A type of hosting where multiple servers are pooled together to create a cluster. Even if a server goes down, another one will spin up to help in balancing the load. With cloud hosting, you will be getting incredible uptime, segregated resources, capability to scale and a dedicated IP address.
VPS – A Virtual Private Server is a type of hosting that allows you to have exclusive server space and resources that are not shared with other users. A key benefit with VPS is the ability for you to install and utilize your own preferences. The costs can get a bit high and unless the site holds a lot of assets, it might not be entirely necessary.
Dedicated Server – Dedicated means the entire server is yours to use, the entire foundation of the server is yours and you can run your operating system how you like plus get the best performance out of your website. Costs are a huge drawback in comparison to other types of hosting going up to and above $100 dollars per month.
Our Recommendations
Speed, speed, speed that is what Google likes and its one of the reasons that we recommend Cloudways as the best overall web hosting provider. Our site efriendlytools.com is hosted on Cloudways and I came to know about them from my friend Resham Panth.
There is no cPanel unlike most hosting providers, they have innovated and customized their platform to provide you with speed and avoids any slowdowns. With Cloudways you get a variety of cloud hosting options from Digital Ocean to AWS and best part of it is not a shared service, so you get benefits of performance, speed, security and much more. Cloudways is a simple yet powerful managed hosting platform with an emphasis on choice, simplicity of use and freedom to manage the site the way you want.
Here are some key features Cloudways users love which will ultimately benefit your audience:
- Launch Multiple Apps in 1-Click. (WordPress, WoCommerce, Magento)
- Unlimited apps on a server
- 5 top-notch cloud providers (AWS. Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, Linode & Vultr) in a 1- click
- Free SSL certificates.
- Built-in CloudwaysCDN
- High-performance stack for WordPress, Wocommerce and Magento
- Pay-as-You-Go Pricing model.
- Built-in Free Cache Plugins for WordPress & Magento
- 1-Click Operations (server launch, server/app cloning, monitoring, and many more)
- Dev friendly Staging Environment
- Managed security and backups.
- Effective Team Collaboration features
- Easy GitHub automation for developers
- Flexibility to Scale Servers
- Transfer servers and billing to your clients in simple clicks.
What we really love are some of the add-ons including Rackspace Email for $1/month, Elastic Email for mass email delivery, Cloudways CDN and a host of others. These additional benefits make Cloudways my preferred hosting provider.
Pricing for Digital Ocean starts at $10 dollars a month and its worth every bit.
Areas for improvement: Customer service over the phone is not currently provided as a standard benefit although you can do live chat and email.
We use iPage for several of our client projects in business and what we love most about it is the variety of options available especially for small businesses who want to have a powerful website but not break the bank. Ipage offers standard hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated hosting, and WordPress hosting with prices starting at $ 3.75/month for the WP Starter package which includes a free 1-year domain registration. They are always coming up with offers to save you money so continue to check back on their site for the best deals.
Some Core features include
- Unlimited disk space
- Scalable bandwidth
- Unlimited domain names allowed
- Unlimited MySQL databases
- Free SSL Certificate
- Free domain for 1 year ($14.99 value)
- Other cool features include:
- The iPage Website Builder (6 Pages)
- Mobile optimization
- Hundreds of Themes and templates
- Free online Store
- PayPal integration
- 6 different shopping carts
- POP/IMAP Email service
- Step-by-Step tutorials
- Solid customer service 24/7 Phone and Chat
Areas for improvement: There were some instances where the site was down although the customer service was very helpful.
My website designer friends tell us Siteground is very effective and provides excellent customer service. They offer reliable web hosting, managed WordPress hosting, Woo Commerce Hosting and Cloud Hosting.
Plan | StartUp | GrowBig | GoGeek |
|---|---|---|---|
Price | $6.99 | $9.99 | $14.99 |
Features | free SSL, 10 GB of web space, plus free CDN and Email | All features of StartUp plus on-demand backup copies, speed boosting caching, staging, and Add Collaborators | All Features of GrowBig plus plus Git, White-label clients, higher tier resources and priority support. |
The StartUp, Grow Big and GoGeek are similar for webhosting, WordPress and wooCommerce. SiteGround also has a cloud hosting service starting at $80.00/Month if you are interested in scaling and taking your business to the next level.
SiteGround received rave reviews from Yoast, the number 1 search engine optimization plugin for wordPress. SiteGround has consistently made efforts to improve WordPress experiences according to Yoast by participating in WordPress community events and programs throughout the world. SiteGround is very mission critical in supporting their customers with Phone, Chat and E-mail customer support as well as keeping their employees happy.
Furthermore, their community involvement reaches into the student population with Student Plans starting at just $1.99/Month with a valid university email along with all the features of a regular hosting plan. Faculty at universities and colleges can get a free plan along with integration with Learning Management System. SiteGround has so much to offer, we think they are a great option for most web designers, newbies, and businesses.
Areas for Improvement: There are no month-to-month plans and their servers are LINUX based which could have issues with window-based software.
According to WordPress.org, Bluehost is the number 1 recommended web hosting company. There are several reasons that make Bluehost popular with WordPress.org including 1-click WordPress installation, dashboards geared towards the WordPress user community, free domain name, very low-cost email, FTP and professional services. On top of that, they have a very responsive customer service available by phone 24/7, efriendlytools.com domain resides on WordPress.org and we can vouch for the customer service via phone and email. If WordPress is the way you are going to build your website and there isn’t too much activity, Bluehost can be very cost effective. Their shared hosting plans start at $3.95 per month for the basic service, $4.95/MO for the Plus plan, $6.95/MO for the Choice Plus and $13.95/MO for the Pro Plan. The higher you go in plan, the more unlimited features you get such as unlimited parked domains, Choice plus also includes domain privacy and site back up and the Pro plan includes a dedicated IP address. Bluehost also offers VPS and Dedicated hosting to meet your scaling needs.
There are a few other features that we found interesting, including their email options at starting at just $2.99 per month for basic email and calendar called the Email Essentials. In addition, Bluehost has two Professional side-by-Side services which are unique. Their consulting service offers full-service website advisory including design support, marketing, and content writing help. Their SEO service helps your web site and its contents to be discovered on search engines like google by identifying relevant keywords. They also work with you on PPC Ads and website migration. Their BlueSky service helps you to maintain your WordPress site for the long-term with expert advice and support to grow your website. We very much like Bluehost for wordPress and small scale, low traffic web sites.
Areas for Improvement: We experienced some slow page loads on the Shared plan. Also, to get the lower hosting price, they require a longer commitment (36 months).
Domain.com is perfect for small businesses, startups, entrepreneurs, and creative professionals looking to get online. Helping individuals become successful since 2000, Domain.com delivers high quality, reliable domain name registration and web hosting services at some of the most affordable prices in the industry. Domain.com, an ICANN-accredited registrar, offers a full range of solutions to create and market websites including web hosting, domain registration, email, SSL certificates, website design, and email marketing.
The name of the company might seem like they only sell domains but that is not their only product. Web Hosting on Domain.com is fairly effective and pricing is set at $3.75 per month and what’s unique and nice about their plan is regardless of whether you sign up for 12, 24 or 36 months, it’s still $3.75 per month so you don’t have to sign up for a lengthy term in order to get a good deal. Their Deluxe plan offers unlimited storage and Scalable bandwidth at $6.75 per month and the Ultra plan offers unlimited databases and FTP logins at $13.75 per month. Use coupon code DOMFREE at checkout to get a FREE domain name for one year.
Domain.com also offers a website Builder starting at $1.99 per month featuring page building, layouts, over 550K images to insert into your site, SEO tools, analytics, phone support and PayPal integration with the highest plan. The Email packages come with an option to choose from either Microsoft Office 365 or G Suite putting the choice in your hand. Security is also a top priority as they offer SSL Certificates, Domain privacy and protection as well as siteLock by partnering with Let’s Encrypt. How can we not talk about their Domain name services with a name like Domain.com? They offer premium domains, new domain extensions, transfers, WHOIS lookup and more.
Areas for Improvement: When it comes to hosting you will not get higher level hosting services such as VPS, Cloud or Dedicated hosting.
Whether you are a seasoned webmaster, web site owner, digital agency, channel partner, or you are just getting started, the Cloud has never been easier, or more profitable! TurnKey Internett is a premier provider of Dedicated Servers, Cloud Servers, Web Hosting, Virtual Private Servers (VPS), Mail Servers, Colocation, and Managed Services. Turnkey Internet gives you all the tools and support you need to succeed along with a 5-star reputation that you can count on for cloud partnership. Established in 1999, Turnkey Internet provided exceptional services to Internet Service Providers and the telecom industry. Since then, their services have been catered to businesses of all sizes and shapes and many of their offerings are reasonably priced.
The Linux/cPanel web hosting plans start at just $2.49/month with unlimited features such as SSD storage and bandwidth. VPS Cloud server pricing start at $4.99/month while dedicated servers start at $99/month. Other Products include enterprise colocation, cloud reselling and backup solutions. Turnkey Internet also provides numerous other services including Managed Solutions, Server Migration, website Migration, Domain Registration, Domain Transfer, Licensing and Disaster Recovery.
Turnkey Internet has also taken to steps towards Green initiatives such as using a certified green data center, using low-energy and low-impact systems while maintaining a high performing data center. They have devoted resources such as blogs to provide knowledge to everyday users and have received excellent reviews from the customer base.
Areas for Improvement: There are a lot of plans to choose from and the cloud terminology may not be familiar to some users.
Designed for ease of use and affordability, HostGator has everything you need to get started, scale, grow and then some. Founded in 2002 by Brent Oxley, then a Florida Atlantic University student hence the Gator reference in the name, the company has steadily grown and has a solid reputation in the WordPress community for optimization. They have top notch reviews from organizations such as Hosting Advice, PC MAG, and wpbeginner. They really do have every type of hosting imaginable from shared web hosting, Cloud Hosting, WordPress Hosting, Reseller hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated hosting, Application hosting, windows hosting, and a website builder. Then there are other services such as Domain registration and domain transfers. In additional they provide several professional services including web design, SEO, and PPC for lead generation.
Plan | Hatchling | Baby | Business |
|---|---|---|---|
Price | $2.75 | $3.50 | $5.25 |
Features | Single Domain, One-Click WordPress install, unmetered Bandwidth, Free SSL, Free Domain | Unlimited Domains and all benefits of the Hatchling Plan | All the benefits of the Baby Plan plus Free upgrade to Positive SSL, Free Dedicated IP, Free SEO tools |
All of the above shared plans come with $150 Google Ads matching credit and $100 credit toward Bing Ads along with free email. HostGator also has a unique Web Site builder featuring drag and drop tools and an eCommerce store. Whatever your needs are, HostGator most likely will have a plan that is right for you.
HostGator has an excellent reputation for customer service with Phone, Email, and chat to quickly respond to inquiries. Their guarantee includes a 45-day money back promise on the shared, reseller, and VPS hosting packages. To get the most out of HostGator, we recommend the cloud hosting plan starting at $4.95 per Month to ensure stability and page load speeds.
Areas for Improvement: With lots of plans to choose from be aware of the length of terms to get the lower pricing per month. We advise you to go through each plan to pick the right one for your needs.
Trusted and approved by CNet, TechRadar, Mashable, and others, Hostinger is the preferred web hosting provider of over 29 million users worldwide with cutting-edge technology for the most competitive price on the market. We consider Hostinger the best value available in comparison to most web hosting providers, with low prices, a highly rated customer service and solid performance. Hostinger delivers 99.99% uptime, responds to calls in less than a minute, has a response time of 143 ms for WordPress hosted sites with 7 data centers worldwide helping to lower latency and deliver reliable service worldwide.
Hostinger offers several plans including Shared, Cloud, VPS (and windows VPS), EMAIL and WordPress hosting. The lowest available price per month is $0.99 (48-month sign up) for the shared plan, WordPress plans start at $1.99 per month, Their cloud plans start at $9.99 per month, and VPS plans start at $8.95 per month (2 vCPU). Their email service is pretty cost effective starting at just $0.99 per month with 10 GB Email storage and the Enterprise service available at $2.49 per month with 30 GB Email Storage, both email plans include an Antivirus Check.
Other services include and online store and a website Builder called Zyro that comes with numerous templates and requires no coding skills or design capabilities. The website builder is available for $1.30 per month and $1.99 per month, both plans include templates, SSL security, SEO tools, AI tools with the higher plan coming with a free domain for 1 year along with more integration capabilities. They also offer Domain services such as WHOIS and Domain transfer. We highly recommend Hostinger for the value you get for the price you pay.
Areas for Improvement: To get lower pricing, you have to sign up for a longer period of time, if you aren’t sure you need a hosting service for that long (48 Months), you can still sign up for 12 months at just 2.99 per month which is still not too bad for the cost of a shared plan.
The company has been around since 1996 offering services to businesses and individuals in high-powered website hosting with low costs. Hostmonster’s experience gives them an edge in several areas having been around for so long such as quality customer service, highly rated equipment, maximum uptime, high performing tools for administration, secure backups, and trusted best practices in business. They offer a 30-day money back guarantee on the hosting service. Hostmonster’s customer service is available via chat and phone.
The basic web hosting plan starts at $4.95 per month with 50 GB space, unmetered bandwidth, 5 email accounts and 100 MB Email storage Per account. The Plus and Choice Plus are available at $6.95 per month and offer lots of unlimited features with the choice plus also having domain privacy and Codeguard basic for backup protection. Their managed VPS hosting starts at $19.99 per month (Dual Core, 2 GB RAM, 1 IP); overall, the VPS technology is marketed for cloud technology with an enhanced cPanel with root access with guaranteed server resources, instant provisioning and multi-account management. Hostmonster also offers dedicated hosting for those who need the bandwidth starting at $79.99 per month.
Areas for Improvement: The website itself needs a little bit of improvement as the higher-level plans (VPS, Dedicated) are found in the footer of the website.
Founded in 2000, Namecheap is a leading ICANN accredited domain name registrar and web hosting company. Today Namecheap has millions of customers worldwide and more than 10 million domains under management. They help to bring people’s ideas online, from domain names, web hosting and SSL certificates, to productivity and marketing apps. Namecheap products are competitively priced to help you meet your budget.
The pricing starts at $1.44 Per month on the stellar plan (20 GB SSD, 3 websites), $2.44 per month on the stellar plus Plan (Unmetered SSD, Unlimited Websites, Auto backup) and $4.44 Per month on the Stellar business (Cloud Storage, 50 GB SSD, Unlimited Websites, Auto backup), these plans require yearly commitment. If you chose a month-to-month plan, we like Namecheap for a decent bargain, the stellar plan is $2.88 per month, stellar plus is $4.88 per month, and the stellar business plan is $8.88 per month. All plans come with CDN and a domain name for 1 year. Other hosting Plans include managed WordPress plans starting at $3.88 per month, reseller hosting starting at $8.88 per month, VPS Hosting starting at $8.88 per month, and Dedicated hosting starting at $48.88 per month.
We also like some other options that come with Namecheap including a website builder, VPN service, domain registration, domain transfer, Premium DNS and migrating service.
Areas for Improvement: Need improvement in customer service wait times.
123-Reg offers a variety when it comes to their services and products. Your web site can be fully functional with all the tools necessary to acquire, build, secure and market. Be aware this is a UK based Hosting platform, be sure to check all updates on pricing including Value Added Taxes (VAT). The web hosting plans offered include shared, WordPress, Premium and VPS.
Web Hosting Plans
| Starter | Pro | Ultimate |
|---|---|---|
| The basic set of features and resources you need to get your first website online for an incredibly cheap price. | More resources for sites that require running complex tasks and having lots of visitors. | The ultimate hosting package, capable of running the most demanding online stores and applications. |
| Features: | Features: | Features: |
| 1 Free Domain included | 2 Free Domains included | 3 Free Domains included |
| 1 Mailbox | 3 Mailboxes | 5 Mailboxes |
| 1 Website | 1 Free SSL certificate included | Free SSL certificate(s) included (AutoSSL) |
| 100GB Storage | Unlimited Websites | Unlimited Websites |
| Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited Storage | Unlimited Storage |
| 10 x 1GB MySQL Databases | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth |
| 1 CPU | Unlimited x 1GB MySQL Databases | Unlimited x 1GB MySQL Databases |
| 512MB RAM (shared) | 2 CPU | 2 CPU |
| One-click Linux apps | 1GB RAM (shared) | 2GB RAM (shared) |
| Unlimited Autoresponders | One-click Linux apps | One-click Linux apps |
| Unlimited Email Forwarders | Unlimited Autoresponders | Unlimited Autoresponders |
| Catch-All Emails | Unlimited Email Forwarders | Unlimited Email Forwarders |
| Programming languages | Catch-All Emails | Catch-All Emails |
| SSH Access | Programming languages | Programming languages |
| Protected Directories | SSH Access | SSH Access |
| Cron Jobs | Protected Directories | Protected Directories |
| Cron Jobs | Cron Jobs |
The website builder is another powerful tool that helps you to increase your productivity while building your site. Domain registration and email services are other added services which can help you focus on your business and the website. 123-Reg also offers additional SSL certificates to help secure transactions on your site such as e-commerce stores. To help improve your site’s performance and boost your Google ranking, 123-Reg also has a search engine optimizer with powerful data analytics at your fingertips which can help you gain insights into your website traffic.
Area for Improvement: Users have brought up issues with pricing, be aware of terms.
While servers are the name of the game for Interserver, did you know they provide Standard and Cloud VPS Hosting with lots of features? The Standard web hosting plan is $5.00 per month and cost of Domain is $7.99 per year which comes with the following features:
Unlimited ULTRA SSD Storage
| Unlimited E-Mail Accounts
| 30 Days Money Back Guarantee
|
450+ Cloud Apps
| Global Content Caching
| Free Website Migration
|
SitePad Website Builder
| Intershield Protection
| Free SSL Certificates
|
Included for free is Intershield Security developed inhouse that includes defense against web attacks, automatic virus scanner, a machine learning firewall and an in-house Malware database. Additional services include Caching plus CloudFlare and Inter Insurance to investigate, restore and prevent issues such as compromised, hacked, or exploited accounts. All this and we have not even talked about Interserver’s Cloud VPS which starts at $6.00 per month for 1 Core CPU featuring reliability, easy access, full control of your site, fast loading speeds, dedicated resources and 8 more reliable services.
Interserver has a variety to choose from when it comes to servers: Dedicated, storage, 10 GBPS, GPU dedicated, rapid deploy and colocation. The team has a great reputation for delivering 24/7 customer service by phone, email, and chat. Additionally, the team has put out tons of content including various tips and tutorials to really support their customer. The pricing is month-to-month, so you are not tied-up for long term.
Areas for Improvement: There are lots of plans to choose from which can also be tough to pick the right plan for you. Also, many of their services such as servers put you in control so you may need expertise before signing up.
One.com goes beyond web hosting by supporting their customers with a plethora of tools. The Web site builder is included with all plans in 2 versions and the best part is that the premium builder is included for 1 year (Renews at 4.99). The web builder allows for ease of use to become creative along with over 140-Plus templates and 1 year of premium builder at your hands gives you the opportunity to build a dream site. The process to get going with a WordPress website is very easy with 1-click to install and there are a plenty of plans to choose from based on your need.
Web hosting Plans and Prices
| Guru | Expert | Enthusiast | Explorer | Beginner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Best for | Best for | Best for | Best for |
| Agencies | Businesses | Entrepreneurs | Blogs | Small Projects |
| $9.99/mo. | $7.49/mo. | $5.49/mo. | $3.99/mo. | $2.49/mo. |
| Renews at $19.99 | Renews at $14.99 | Renews at $10.99 | Renews at $7.99 | Renews at $4.99 |
| Key Features: | Key Features: | Key Features: | Key Features: | Key Features: |
| -10 websites supported | -7 websites supported | -5 websites supported | -1 website supported | -1 website supported |
| -750 GB SSD storage | -500 GB SSD storage | -200 GB SSD storage | -100 GB SSD storage | -50 GB SSD storage |
| -1,000 Premium mailboxes | -750 Premium mailboxes | -500 mailboxes | -200 mailboxes | -100 mailboxes |
| -Daily backup & restore | -Daily backup & restore | -Daily backup & restore | -Daily backup | -Daily backup |
| Also Included | Also Included | Also Included | Also Included | |
| -Free site protection | -Free site protection | -1-click WordPress install | -1-click WordPress install | |
| -Free SEO tool | -Free advanced WordPress tools | |||
| -Free advanced WordPress tools |
Along with web hosting, One.com has several key tools that can help boost your web site’s power and marketing reach. Their security features help to stop malware and infectious viruses, and these are included in the premium plans. Another vital tool for businesses today is email; One.com has an Email account service along with office 365 setup for just $9.50 per month. Domain services include acquiring new web addresses and transferring old ones. Their marketing and SEO service for your web site can help you generate endless traffic.
Area for Improvement: The pricing is pretty good the first year but some of the plans have a lofty renewal rate in comparison to other hosting companies.
Analysis: Be thorough in your search for Web Hosting, don’t go with the cheapest service just because you see the sales ad in front of you. Make a list of important attributes you want from the hosting company such as uptimes, price, type of hosting, etc. Rank each of those attributes for a few providers and then make a solid decision based on your own analysis and what is most important to you. Feel free to review our Decision-Making Model, it could come in handy when you pick your web hosting provider.