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If you’re looking for the best web hosting service for your next project, you’ve come to the right place.
When it comes to web hosts, there are tons of platforms to choose from, making it a bit of a headache to find the perfect hosting server.
Whether you’re starting a blog, an online side business, an online store, or just having fun making websites, the first thing you need to do is to learn how to host a website and choose the best web hosting service for your specific needs.
All hosting services provide different types of features, performance, and price range.
Depending on what you want to do (and your budget), you need to choose carefully, so you don’t put yourself in the position of having to change the web hosting some time later.
Let’s get started.
What is the Best Web Hosting Service?
The best web hosting services will provide you with the best site loading speed, uptime rates, security features, and customer support you’ll need to have a fast and reliable website.
Let’s go over these web hosting features briefly:
- Site loading speed. The name speaks for itself. We don’t want to waste our time waiting eternally for a website to load, do we? If your website is not fast enough, people may lose interest and skip it. 40 percent of consumers will abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load.
- Uptime rates. This is the time the server is actually running. You’ve probably already entered a website that was down. Not a good feeling, right? That’s why it’s important that the server uptime is high enough so you don’t lose visitors. The best web hosting servers usually offer an uptime equal to or greater than 99%.
- Security features. The most common security features web hosts provide are firewalls, malware and virus detection (including web shell attacks), spam filters (including email anti-spam protection), SSL security certificates, domain name privacy, regular backups, and more.
- Customer support. There are different types of support that web hosts can provide their clients: knowledge base access, ticket support, live chat, email support, and phone support.
The majority of web hosts offer some enticing initial discounts, making it easier to get started. These web hosting reviews will show you all you need to know to get started right away.
- DreamHost
- Rocket.net
- Cloudways
- Bluehost
- HostPapa
- HostGator
- A2 Hosting
- Hostinger
- WP Engine
- GreenGeeks
- SiteGround
- iPage
- Kinsta
- Liquid Web
- InMotion Hosting
- Namecheap
- GoDaddy
- Nexcess
- Flywheel
- Hostwinds
1. DreamHost
Best web hosting service provider, proudly powering over 1.5 million websites in more than 100 countries. ($2.59/mo).
DreamHost is my top choice regarding web hosting, as they have free domain name, free SSL, unlimited traffic, 1-click WordPress installation, award-winning customer support available 24/7 via live chat, email, and social media, and an amazing 97-day money-back guarantee. Their cheapest plan starts at $2.59 (68% off on their 3-year plan).
Being around since 1996, they’re one of the oldest web hosting companies out there, trusted by 1.5 million websites worldwide. Besides, they’re one of the three web hosting companies recommended by WordPress itself.
When it comes to performance, they have an average load time of 0.719 seconds and guarantee an unbeatable uptime of 100%.
The cheapest plans to get started are called Shared Starter. This means you’ll be sharing the server with other websites. That’s why it’s cheaper.
However, when your website grows over time, you may want to choose a more dedicated server, increasing the performance and reliability, such as VPS (Virtual Private Server) starting at $10/mo.
Its simple and well-laid-out user interface makes it easier to get started on your website. And if you encounter any technical problem, you can rely on their in-house fast and fantastic customer support.
You can read more about DreamHost and compare their different web hosting plans on their website.
Also, don’t forget about the best DreamHost alternatives.
DreamHost cheapest plan:
- Shared Starter at $2.59/mo for 36 months.
- Total cost: $93.24.
2. Rocket.net
The world’s fastest WordPress hosting company ($25/mo).
If speed matters to you, look no further than Rocket.net.
It’s the only hosting provider that can get you a 100% score on mobile on PageSpeedInsights. And because mobile-first indexing is an important Google ranking factor, this is not to be overlooked.
Rocket.net offers its customers a CloudFlare Enterprise integration for free (worth thousands of dollars), meaning you’ll have one of the top CDNs backing up your website and providing incredible page loading speeds.
By offering SSL, CDN, and WAF protection all for free, many top-tier agencies and companies rely on their enterprise-grade services. I moved from Cloudways to Rocket.net for improved speed and protection (including amazing mobile speed) and can’t recommend it enough.
While it’s not the cheapest solution, it’s the fastest. This gives a quality signal to search engines, increasing your overall user experience and the probability of higher rankings.
If you decide on a yearly billing cycle, you’ll get two months free. You can also test it for $1 on the first month before committing to a full subscription. Their 30-day money-back guarantee allows you to run your tests without stress.
Rocket.net cheapest plan:
- Starter at $25/mo on a yearly cycle.
- Total cost: $300 per year.
Try Rocket.net for 30 days for only $1.
3. Cloudways
The best pay-as-you-go cloud-based web hosting platform ($10.00/mo).
With digital agencies, developers, and eCommerce businesses in mind, Cloudways provides you with the best managed hosting plans so you don’t have to deal with technical hassles. Simplicity and innovation lie at their heart.
Cloudways provides more dedicated resources than shared hosting since they use cloud servers. This also means a boost in speed and stability, with load times as fast as 0.4 seconds.
They work with 5 different providers, namely DigitalOcean, Vultr, Google Compute Engine (GCE), Linode, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). You get to choose which provider you want before you start. A provider is basically another company that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service to Cloudways.
With Amazon and Google as two of those providers, it’s really not surprising Cloudways’ speed and an uptime of 99.99%.
As a breath of fresh air in this web hosting scene, Cloudways offers a 3-day trial period for customers to get familiarized with the platform. When the trial expires, you’ll be charged monthly (pay-as-you-go) depending on the features you’ve chosen.
All their plans come with free SSL, dedicated firewalls, staging environment, automated backups, and 24/7 customer support. The major drawback, in my opinion, is not having email hosting. You have to pay $1/mo for an email integration add-on with Rackspace. However, for having an unlimited number of sites with the great speed provided by cloud hosting, you can’t find a better price.
Cloudways cheapest plan:
- DigitalOcean provider at $10/mo.
- Total cost: $10.00 (monthly charges, pay-as-you-go)
4. Bluehost
One of the oldest and greatest web hosting platforms, powering over 2 million websites ($2.95/mo).
Bluehost is another well-known web hosting company, appraised by many website owners for a long time. Founded in 2003, they have one of the most affordable prices for beginners that want to launch their website or blog.
Their plans come with a free domain name, free SSL, 1-click WordPress installation, and 24/7 customer support, backed up by a 30-day money-back guarantee. The most affordable plan starts at $2.95/mo (70% off on their 12 or 36-month plan).
According to third-party testing, Bluehost’s loading times can range from 0.046 seconds to 3.43 seconds depending on the location of the server you’re using. Their servers are located in the US, London, India, and China.
They also have a 99.98% uptime rate, making them one of the best-performing web hosting companies you can choose from.
Their shared hosting plans range between $2.95 and $13.95 for yearly terms (all these introductory prices will rise once you have to renew the contract – this basically happens with every web hosting service).
Bluehost cheapest plan:
- Basic Plan at $2.95 for 12 or 36 months.
- Total cost: $106.20 (36 months).
Get started with Bluehost for $2.95 (70% off).
5. HostPapa
Smart web solutions for small businesses ($2.95/mo).
HostPapa is a privately owned web hosting company based in Canada, operating in several different countries. Founded back in 2002, they’re now home to more than 150 telecommunications companies. According to its website, they’re better suited to small business owners.
HostPapa is 100% powered by green renewable energy sources, being one of the first web hosting companies to make a public commitment to going green. Although not a big company, like many of the other hosts reviewed here, they provide great security and technical support to their customers at a high level.
With loading times of around .759 seconds and an uptime rate of 99.9%, HostPapa is amongst the fastest web hosting companies you can choose from. They also provide a 30-day money-back guarantee with all their plans.
Their most popular plan is the Pro plan at $5.95/mo, billed yearly. Although it’s the same price as the Plus plan, the discount is much superior, and you have more features included, like unlimited email accounts and websites.
HostPapa cheapest plan:
- Start plan at $2.95.
- Total cost: $35.40.
6. HostGator
Fast and reliable servers ($2.75/mo).
HostGator is another web hosting giant that powers more than 2 million websites and has very competitive introductory prices, as low as $2.75/mo (60% off on their 3-year plan).
Don’t forget to check out the renewal prices, as they vary a lot depending on the company.
Their most affordable shared web hosting plans all come with 1-click WordPress installation, free SSL, free domain name, free email, and a 45-day money-back guarantee. As with all great web hosting services, their customer support is available 24/7, also by phone and Twitter.
HostGator’s overall performance varies depending on where you are located regarding their servers. As you may know, this is common to all web servers. The closer you are to a server, the better will be the performance of your website.
All in all, they have a 99.9% uptime rate, and their loading times range between 0.69 seconds to 8 seconds, according to third-party testing.
HostGator cheapest plan:
- Hatchling Plan at $2.75/mo for 36 months.
- Total cost: $99.
7. A2 Hosting
Fastest web hosting starting at $2.99/mo (66% off).
A2 Hosting is one of the fastest web hosts that you can find, having a loading time as fast as 0.036 seconds. The most affordable hosting plans all come with free SSL certificates, perpetual security (including virus scanner), free website migration (in case you’re coming from another host), unlimited email accounts, and a 24/7 crew support available through the most conventional mediums, such as email, ticketing systems, chat, and also by phone.
Besides their super fast hosting features, they also have a pretty decent uptime commitment of 99.9%.
Probably one of the reasons they’re well-known for their speed is their Turbo Server feature, which offers 20X faster page loads than competing hosts – a great factor if you think about ranking on Google.
Site speed is one of the most critical aspects when choosing the right web hosting service since page load time will influence the reader/customer behavior on your website. And that’s why A2 Hosting prides itself on being one of the fastest web hosts available.
A2 Hosting cheapest plan:
- Startup Plan at $2.99/mo for 36 months.
- Total cost: $107.64.
8. Hostinger
High-speed affordable web hosting starting at $1.99/mo (80% off for their 48-month period).
Hostinger has been around since 2004 and is trusted by 29 million people from 178 countries around the world. Don’t think that their cheap introductory price means a lack of quality. They’re one of the largest web hosting companies in existence today and provide an amazing loading time of 0.143 seconds, which is above the industry average.
Backed by their 30-day money-back guarantee, their cheapest plan offers 1 website, 1 email account, 24/7 customer support, and free SSL (only if you purchase the 48-month period). On the other hand, this economical web hosting plan doesn’t offer you a free domain name, as many others do.
Nonetheless, they have great features for the low price they charge, and the renewal price, although higher, is only $9.99. Adding the incredible site speed and an uptime rate of 99.91%, you’re in for a good deal.
If you’re starting a blog and don’t want to invest too much in the beginning, Hostinger is a great option. But bear in mind that you’ll have to commit for 48 months (4 years!) to truly enjoy the low price (don’t worry, you can always migrate your website to other hosts, or upgrade your plan at any moment). Even so, their higher-tier plans are also very affordable.
You can learn more about Hostinger plans and services right here.
Hostinger cheapest plan:
- Single Shared Hosting at $1.99 for 48 months.
- Total cost: $95.52.
9. WP Engine
Premium WordPress hosting plans ($25.00/mo).
WP Engine is one of the first companies providing a premium WordPress hosting plan, offering managed WordPress hosting (fine-tuned WordPress hosting, better performance, superior support, automatic backups, better speed). These plans are best suited for websites with lots of traffic.
If you’re just starting out and have a small budget, you might not need this at the beginning. However, as soon as you start making money with your website, and your traffic starts to increase, it’s best to have a look at these premium plans unless you want to risk your website losing readers/clients.
With an uptime of 99.9% and an average load time of 0.582 seconds, WP Engine stands out as a truly premium reliable company to host your website.
Trusted by more than 90,000 customers in 140 countries, their servers were specifically designed to host WordPress websites, with personalized caching that makes them super fast.
All of their plans include the Genesis Framework, 35+ Premium StudioPress Themes, 24/7 chat support, and many more features.
For the Startup plan annual discount of $25.00, you can get 25k visits per month, 10GB of storage, 50GB of bandwidth, free SSL, CDN, and a lot more features, like a staging environment, where you can try out different settings, plugins, themes, without affecting the live site.
WP Engine cheapest plan:
- Startup Plan at $25.00 for 12 months.
- Total Cost: $300.
10. GreenGeeks
Eco-friendly web hosting plans ($2.95/mo).
Having started in 2008, GreenGeeks may not house a big number of websites, like most of their competitors, but they’re not to be overlooked. One of the best features they have is speed, with loading times ranging from 0.452 seconds to 0.9 seconds, according to many third-party testing.
On top of that, if you’re really focused on having the best environmentally-conscious web host, then GreenGeeks is for you. According to its CEO, Trey Gardner, data centers account for 2% of the world’s carbon emissions (as much as the airline industry). That’s one of the reasons they put back 3 times the power they consume into the grid in the form of renewable energy.
Besides the great speed this web host has, it also guarantees an uptime of 99.9%, ranking it alongside other more well-known web hosting companies for the highest uptimes.
All their plans come with free SSL, unlimited email accounts, free domain name for the first year, 300% Green Energy Match, 30-day money-back guarantee, and 24/7 customer support via email tickets, live chat, and phone.
As with many other hosts, to benefit from the introductory low price, you have to commit for 1 to 3 years. In this case, GreenGeek’s most affordable plan starts a $2.95/mo, but only if you commit for 3 years.
GreenGeeks have really a lot to offer for a relatively low-priced web hosting company. In addition to the complimentary daily backups and security features, they are the perfect eco-friendly web host to get your website started off the ground.
GreenGeeks cheapest plan:
- EcoSite Lite at $2.95 for 36 months.
- Total cost: $106.20.
11. SiteGround
Proficient, friendly, and top-rated customer satisfaction, powering 2 million websites all over the world ($6.99/mo).
Although not as cheap as other web hosting services, SiteGround has a fast and dedicated customer support team, having a 98% customer satisfaction rate. Each plan comes with free SSL, free email, unlimited traffic, daily backups, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
And besides the ticketing system, email, and chat support, they also offer phone support.
One of the best features of SiteGround is its incredibly fast speed. The average loading time is around 0.750 seconds, but some third-party testers report values between 0.056 and 0.138 seconds, which is pretty impressive. Aside from speed, they have an average 99.99% uptime rate.
Their cheapest plans range from $6.99 to $14.99 for the initial term. They’re definitely not the cheapest when compared to DreamHost or Bluehost, but the overall quality of their services, as well as their customer support, brings in lots of value.
With the StartUp plan, the initial discount price is only valid through the period of 1 year, renewing at $14.99/mo. However, for a 24-month period, the price goes up to $9.99/mo, and for a 36-month period, it rises to $10.49/mo.
SiteGround cheapest plan:
- StartUp at $6.99/mo for 12 months.
- Total cost: $83.88.
12. iPage
One-size-fits-all hosting plan for small businesses ($1.99/mo).
Founded in 1998, iPage is one of the oldest web hosting platforms in existence today. Powering more than 1 million websites, they lean more towards small businesses, offering one of the best pricing in the industry, now at $1.99/mo (75% off on their 3-year plan).
If your intention is to build an online store, they’ve got you covered. They give you a free online store with PayPal integration, plus six different options for shopping cart software.
While they have a custom website builder, it only gives you 6 pages. However, they have a WordPress 1-click installer with hundreds of templates and themes. Everything is backed up by their 30-day money-back guarantee, and just like all other hosts, you get 24/7 customer support.
Based on third-party testing, loading times range between .0787 seconds to 2.6 seconds, and their uptime is 99.9%. With free SSL, free domain name, and free email address, iPage is a strong competitor of those most well-known hosts.
iPage cheapest plan (in fact, the only one):
- Web Hosting Plan at $1.99 for 36 months.
- Total cost: $71.64.
13. Kinsta
Best managed WordPress hosting ($29.16/mo).
Founded in 2003, Kinsta is on a mission to create the best WordPress hosting platform in the world. Not only are they obsessed with performance, using state-of-the-art technology, but they also check the status of all websites they host every 2 minutes.
Once you start to make some money with your blog and want to level up your game, Kinsta is one of the best choices for having some major upgrades to your websites, such as increasing your monthly visitors, without losing speed and reliability.
They have 10 different plans, ranging from $30 to $1.500 (or more). The more you pay, the more WordPress installs, monthly visitors, and SSD storage you get. If you’re a small business and think of scaling your hosting as you develop over time, their 10 plan tier is there for you.
Backed up by their 30-day money-back guarantee, all their plans have free migrations from other hosts, automatic daily backups, 24/7 customer support, free SSL, and security features.
With average loading times of between 0.798 seconds and 2 seconds, as well as their uptime rate of 99.9%-100%, Kinsta is well beyond the industry average.
Their most economical plan is the Starter Plan for $35/mo (or $29.16 if you commit to 12 months). You get up to 25.000 visits, 10GB of disk space, and 1 WordPress install.
In the premium web hosting scene, Kinsta offers you features far above what other companies offer, making it an excellent web hosting choice. Plus, if you need to scale your website over time, without losing speed and security, Kinsta is an excellent option.
Kinsta cheapest plan:
- Starter Plan at $29.16/mo (paid yearly).
- Total cost without taxes: $350.
14. Liquid Web
Reliable, highly available, secure, and hassle-free hosting ($15.83/mo).
Liquid Web is a premium fully managed web hosting, powering over 500,000 websites with the help of the “most helpful humans in hosting”, as they call it.
From managed hosting and cloud hosting to VPS hosting and dedicated servers, they have it all.
Some of Liquid Web’s great features include free SSL, automatic daily backups, no traffic limits, staging site, 24/7 customer support by phone, email, and chat, and you never need to worry about plugin updates. Plus, you can migrate your site for free.
According to third-party testing, load times are around 0.901 seconds, and they have an uptime of 99.999%.
The best plan to get started, especially if you’re starting a brand new site, is the Spark Plan, at $19.00/month or $15.83/mo if you commit for 1 year. You get 15GB SSD storage, 2 TB Bandwidth, and unlimited email accounts. And if you’re not sure if their hosting plan is right for you, they even have a 14-day free trial so you can try it out.
Liquid Web cheapest plan:
- Spark Plan at $15.83/mo for 12 months.
- Total cost: $190.
15. InMotion Hosting
Fast and cheap WordPress hosting ($4.99/mo).
Launched back in 2001, InMotion Hosting provides speed-oriented hosting plans and also domain name services, offering shared, dedicated, reseller, VPS, and WordPress managed hosting.
With their new proprietary Operating System stack, UltraStack, they’ve fine-tuned their servers to give us the fastest shared hosting experience possible. They have an uptime rate of 99.9% and an average loading time of around 0.827 seconds according to third-party testing.
You can easily install over 400 applications with their 1-click auto-installer Softaculous, great for eCommerce, blogs, and more. Their managed security includes malware protection and automatic backups.
Regarding customer support, InMotion claims to be a leader in the industry. Their support team is US-based and is available 24/7 through either live chat, phone, or email ticketing system.
Their most affordable plan is the shared Launch Plan, starting at $4.99/mo (50% off), including free domain, up to 2 websites, 50GB SSD storage, security features, free SSL, and more.
If you’re looking for an affordable shared hosting plan but with some managed hosting features like great speed, then you should give InMotion a try. In any case, they have an incredible 90-day money-back guarantee.
InMotion cheapest plan:
- Launch Plan at $4.99/mo for 36 months.
- Total cost: $179.64.
16. Namecheap
Cheap, fast, and reliable web hosting ($1.24/mo).
If you’re really on a budget and are looking for one of the cheapest web hosts, then Namecheap is a great option for you. Founded in 2000 they now manage over 10 million domains and are one of the fastest-growing American companies according to the 2018 Inc. 5000.
Besides helping you register domain names, they now provide different hosting options, such as shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting, reseller, and VPS hosting, and dedicated servers.
Although Namecheap offers you one of the most competitive prices in the market, their cheapest plan, Stellar, only comes with a 1-year free SSL certificate (renewing at $3.88/yr), and they also charge for email accounts. However, they offer WHOIS domain privacy protection free forever, which many other hosts charge for. This is important to secure your personal information, your domain, and your website.
All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee and 24/7 customer support.
In terms of performance, third-party testing shows an average load speed of 0.83 seconds. Not on the top of the list, but above average. And just like DreamHost, they claim to have a 100% uptime rate, which is impressive. In the case of some fault on their end, they offer a 1-day Service cycle prolongation for each hour of downtime experienced.
Namecheap cheapest plan:
- Stellar Plan at $1.24/mo for 24 months (56% off).
- Total cost: $29.76.
17. GoDaddy
Fast and reliable cPanel hosting ($5.99/mo).
Founded back in 1997, GoDaddy has become to world’s biggest registrar, being the world’s largest web host by market share, with over 80 million registered domains, and 14 offices around the world.
Despite being very popular, they’re not the cheapest and, in my opinion, lack some fundamental features for their most economical plans. For example, SSL is a must for any website, no matter how small, and the majority of web hosts offer it for free. While GoDaddy’s most affordable plan starts at $5.99/mo, there’s no free SSL, not even after the renewal at $8.99/mo.
Besides the renewal pricing jump, much higher than DreamHost or Bluehost for the same comparable hosting plans (the two top hosts I recommend for beginners), the domain name renewal is also high, and they only let you host 1 website.
Nonetheless, being one of the oldest and most reliable web hosting companies in existence today, they offer you free migration of your website from another host, and also automatic WordPress core software updates, as well as setups, and security patches.
When it comes to performance, they rank among the best web hosting companies, with speeds ranging from 0.0294 to 0.517 seconds, which is pretty impressive, and an uptime rate of 99.9%.
Regardless of the plan you chose, their 24/7 customer support can be reached via phone, email, or chat, and they have a 30-day money-back guarantee for their annual plans.
GoDaddy cheapest plan:
- Economy Plan at $5.99/mo for 36 months (33% off).
- Total cost: $215.64.
18. Nexcess
Great for eCommerce hosting ($15/mo).
With more than 18 years of hosting experience, Nexcess has been powering 45,000+ websites. Their highly secure data centers are spread across the globe in North America, Europe, and Australia, so you don’t have to worry about speed page loads.
They also guarantee an amazing uptime score of 99.99%.
A feature that sets them apart from the competition is that they don’t focus solely on WordPress managing, but also on Magento, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce, perfect for any online store.
Other features include:
- Free SSL.
- Automatic Auto Scaling to handle unexpected traffic coming to your website, reassuring a reliable speed, security, and good user experience (a Google ranking factor).
- Cloud Accelerator to decrease page load time.
- CDN Service that allows you to access a global market of content delivery networks, speeding up your website.
- Free Staging Environment so you can make tweaks and tests without affecting the “real website”.
- Unlimited Email Accounts.
- 24/7 Customer Support by phone, chat, and email.
Depending on the CMS (Content Management System) of your choice, WordPress, Magento, or WooCommerce, they deliver different pricing packages. Though not the cheapest on this list, they offer great support, advanced security, and improved performance.
And if you’re expecting your online store to grow, Nexcess is a great hosting provider to try.
Their pricing system goes from as low as $15/mo for up to 1 site to $832/mo for up to 250 sites. And you can choose a monthly or yearly subscription model (like the majority of hosts), which in turn changes the price.
Nexcess cheapest plan:
- Spark: $15/mo for a 12-month subscription.
19. Flywheel
Managed WordPress site hosting specialist featuring a stylish design ($15/mo).
Most companies offering managed WordPress hosting provide a better experience than their shared-platform counterparts, and Flywheel is no different.
Founded in 2013, Flywheel touts itself as a client-focussed WordPress hosting providing an effortless hosting experience. It delivers on that promise.
Once you login into the dashboard, it immediately becomes apparent that their target demographic is designers and creative agencies. A modern design with an easy-to-use interface welcomes you, a far cry from the low-cost alternatives that rely on cPanel software.
As a managed WordPress hosting service provider, Flywheel offers unique features such as caching at the server level, and site optimization to enhance performance, and eliminates the need for security plugins as the inbuilt security scans and blocks malware and hackers.
It features one-click staging technology where you can test site changes. There’s no need for manual installations of themes and plugins as it features reusable configurations that can auto-install on new sites.
What this means for you is fast servers with 0.524 seconds loading times, a respectable 99.9% uptime, and helpful chat support available 24/7. Lastly, there is a handy nightly backup feature for your peace of mind.
Their ‘Tiny’ package is the cheapest pricing, found under managed hosting. Like most of the others on this list, the $13/mo charge only applies if you go for the yearly plan. Thereafter, it defaults to the still reasonable $15/mo.
Flywheel cheapest plan:
- Tiny plan at $13/mo for 12 months.
- Total cost: $150, inclusive of 2 free months.
20. Hostwinds
The leading enterprise-level and personal level web hosting solutions ($3.74/mo).
Ever since its formation in 2010, Hostwinds has been offering bargain basement pricing to business owners, on the back of competent service and quality customer support.
The first thing that strikes you about Hostwinds is the wealth of options at your disposal. Its unique features include managed or unmanaged hosting, shared hosting, white-labeled hosting, and reseller hosting solutions.
Hostwinds also boasts solid-state drives for pacy performance, unlimited email accounts, free domain and SSL certificate, and Weebly site builder and accompanying Softaculous auto-install for quick website building.
The wave of options keeps on coming as it is one of the few companies offering VPS hosting for both Windows- and Linux-based plans. Further, there is a wide range of payment options, including cryptocurrencies.
Hostwinds guarantees 99.9999% uptime as it has built redundancies into its systems, based on 2N redundancy standards. This is complemented by a solid 0.9 seconds loading time at its fastest, while the slowest is 2.9 seconds.
Hostwinds’ crown jewel is the competent technical support, available 24/7 via live chat, email, and even phone, supplemented by a comprehensive knowledgebase.
At $3.74/mo, the Basic plan under the Affordable Shared Web Hosting is the cheapest. This is only available on the first billing cycle that stretches up to 36 months (58% off), where it rises to $4.99/mo upon renewal.
For robust VPS hosting and competent service at reasonable pricing, visit Hostwinds today.
Hostwinds cheapest plan:
- Basic plan at $3.74/mo for 36 months.
- Total cost: $134.73
What is the Best Cheap Web Hosting?
If you’re on a budget, you probably want to start low on price. I get it, I’ve been there too.
These best cheap web hosting plans range from $0.99 to $2.95. Bear in mind that these are only introductory prices you pay for the first term, which range from 2 years to 4 years (usually 3 years). After that period, the price rises, and if you’re not ready you may get an unpleasant surprise. Be sure to check that out.
Here’s a list of the best cheap web hosting available right now:
Host | Price/mo | Term (months) | Total Cost |
---|---|---|---|
Namecheap | $1.24 | 24 | $29.76 |
HostPapa | $2.95 | 12 | $35.40 |
Hostinger | $0.99 | 48 | $47.52 |
iPage | $1.99 | 36 | $71.64 |
DreamHost | $2.59 | 36 | $93.24 |
HostGator | $2.75 | 36 | $99.00 |
GreenGeeks | $2.95 | 36 | $106.20 |
Bluehost | $2.95 | 36 | $106.20 |
What is the Best Free Web Hosting?
If you’re serious about your website or your blog, you’re better off with a paid host for numerous reasons.
First, with free hosting, you lack some important features like customer support. If anything goes wrong, who do you talk to? Other features you may lack are free SSL, reduced disk space, and no email account. As soon as your website starts to grow, you’ll have to spend on expensive add-ons or extra features, and it’s not worth the hassle.
Second, the speed and uptime of your site may be seriously compromised.
However, if you’re just having fun and want to learn how to start a blog, or experiment with code, it can be a beginner-friendly experience.
Here’s a list of the best free web hosting I’ve got so far:
1. 000WebHost
000WebHost, Hostinger’s partner company, offers us a free-of-charge lifetime hosting solution.
This free web host provides you with WordPress auto installation, a free website builder, and promises no ads!
But like anything in life, if it’s free, it may come with some handicaps.
Severe limitations include 300MB of disk space (not that much if you’re thinking of uploading photos), 3GB of bandwidth, and an uptime rate of 99,7%, where you can experience at least one hour of downtime every other week.
On the positive side, they have probably one of the fastest load times of all free hosts (a great feature for a shared solution).
2. InfinityFree
For over 8 years, InfinityFree has provided free web hosting for more than 350.000 people around the world.
For a free hosting service, you get unlimited domains, unlimited disk space, free SSL (a great feature for a free host), no email account, an impressive 50.000 hits, but a limited server power. However, they have an uptime of 99.9% and claim to be one of the fastest free web hosting companies.
Beware that when hosts say they offer “unlimited” bandwidth or “unlimited” disk space, you have to pay attention to their terms and services. Usually, you’ll find there additional information they don’t disclose on their features page.
For example, they place restrictions on the type of files and content you’re allowed to upload. And if you don’t comply with their “unlimited” limitations, your account might be suspended or eliminated.
Besides all of that, they have pretty good features for a free web host, and if you find yourself in need of more resources, they offer a $3.99/mo plan.
3. AwardSpace
Claiming to be pioneers in the free web hosting industry since its foundation in 2004, Awardspace boasts more than 2.5 million customers.
Besides having paid plans like all the other hosts, they offer a free plan which comes with many great features, like hosting up to 4 websites (distributed among one domain and three subdomains), 99.9% uptime, WordPress one-click installer, email account, spam/virus protection, no ads, and 24/7 customer support.
If you’re not familiar with WordPress, they offer a Website Builder with pre-made designs to build your site in no time.
As with all free hosts, there are limitations, here being the case of the 1GB of disk space and 5 GB bandwidth, which means you’ll have to eventually upgrade to one of their paid plans if you’re thinking of growing your website.
Ultimately, Awardspace is seen as one of the top best free web hosting companies. However, as mentioned earlier, if you want to grow and scale your business, you’ll need to host your website on a paid plan. Great quality features come at a price.
4. FreeHosting
The next on the list is FreeHosting, a service offered by Interweb in Prague, Czech Republic, that provides web hosting services since 2010.
Here are some of its features:
- 1 hosted domain. You can host your own domain name, although you have to pay for it, just like anywhere else.
- Unmetered bandwidth, as long as you follow their “Fair Use Policy”.
- 10 GB storage.
- 1 email account.
Just like other free hosts, you can upgrade to their premium plans or purchase individual add-ons for extra features.
Though it might seem sufficient for a small website, third-party testing shows that their load times are extremely low and have very poor uptime rates. Also, if you live in Brazil, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, or Vietnam, you might as well forget about Freehosting, as they don’t provide any services for users in these areas.
5. Freehostia
Freehostia offers several paid plans as well as a free plan. One of the things you’ll notice is their unusual plan names, like Chocolate, Watercircle, or Lovebeat, among others.
You can host up to 5 domains and have 3 email accounts, which is uncommon for free hosts. But don’t let these features delude you.
One of their main drawbacks is their 250MB of disk space, 6GB of bandwidth, and 500Kb of file size limit. Even a small blog with low traffic might find it difficult to survive in these conditions.
Besides, they have pretty bad uptime rates and load speeds, making me wonder why would anyone choose a free host like this.
Why I Don’t Recommend Free Website Hosting
Free hosting might entice people who are lacking the financials to invest upfront in their online projects. This usually backfires.
Along the way, many of these plans, if not all, will allure you to upgrade to their paid plans, showing you their best features (that you’ll eventually need). Why don’t skip all this hassle and start with a cheap hosting solution right at the start?
For only $0.99/mo, you can start with Hostinger, which offers you great features, resources, and top-of-the-industry site speed (which is a major factor contributing to rank on Google). You won’t have to deal with headaches that the free plans will often give you along the run.
If you want to try out, experiment, try some coding, and even forget about it after some time, these free plans might do the job. But if you’re serious about your blog and want to grow it over time, you should avoid free plans altogether.
What is the Fastest Web Hosting Service?
In 2018, Google announced the “Speed Update,” a new ranking algorithm designed for mobile search. Page speed was already a major factor for ranking your website on Google since 2010, but in 2018, they extended that to mobile search.
So as you can see, if you want traffic to your website, you need to have great speed. For that, you need to rely on the fastest web hosting companies that not only guarantee you optimal speed, but also high uptime rates.
Page speed is also influenced by the location of the server hosting your website relative to the user’s location. The farther they are apart, the slower it will get.
To get around that, there are Content Delivery Networks (CDN) that host your website on servers worldwide, reducing the gap between the user and your content.
The fastest web hosting services offer integration with a CDN that you can further optimize based on where your target audience is. So be sure to look for that when it comes to speed.
Here are my top picks for the fastest web hosting companies based on their own claims and also third-party testing. However, check for yourself, as software is always updated, and we never know when a host will change its features.
Best Web Hosting Services: Conclusion
If you want to leave a reliable online fingerprint in the world, one of the most important technical aspects you need to dive into is web hosting.
Focus on speed, uptime, security, and support. You’ll need all of them, and you’ll need them in the blink of an eye if you’re serious about growing your online presence through your website or blog.
To get started with the best hosting platform, I recommend you try DreamHost for $2.59/mo.
I hope this guide gives you valuable information to start your online journey. Let me know in the comments below if it’s of any help.
Thanks for sharing informative content.