Introduction
For every kind of website and application, there is a suitable web hosting company. Choosing the correct one can have a significant impact on performance and value for money. With assistance from our knowledgeable reviewers, which include website designers, web developers, gaming enthusiasts, and network experts, I have personally selected the top web hosts for the most common use cases.
It is not enough for us to only test speed and uptime, develop sites, compare control panels, check out tools, and chat with customer support. As we receive input from you as well as our testers, we collaborate closely with hosts to help shape the services and products that you use. Your access to the most up-to-date and correct information is guaranteed by the frequent updates of these reviews, which are entirely independent.
In summary, the top three web hosting services
- Best for newbies: Hostinger
With a variety of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to assist with website development and management, Hostinger’s user-friendly interface makes it quite simple to use. You may build and manage your own distinctive, business-like websites & game servers without any technological experience.
- Top choice for tech-savvy people: inMotion Hosting
This is a good option for you if you’re experienced with hosting and want speed, power, and dependability. You can get a wonderful balance between functionality and pricing with plans intended for developers.
- ScalaHosting is best for businesses.
In order to free up your time to concentrate on expanding your company, ScalaHosting’s customized VPS plans have all the cloud’s advantages, including redundancy and auto-scaling. It is a great choice for e-commerce retail.
Top Web Hosting Services of 2025
We’ve chosen the top web hosting services for each of our categories. Although there are many various kinds of hosting offered by each web hosting company, I’ve selected the best offerings based on their areas of expertise.
1. Hostinger: The most reliable web hosting provider for beginners
Hostinger has expanded over the years into a huge hosting provider that provides a wide range of services, including WordPress hosting, robust VPS packages, business-focused email hosting, shared hosting, Minecraft hosting, and an intuitive website builder for e-commerce.
Features
One major benefit of Hostinger is value for money. Free domain registration, free SSL certificates, email, backups, limitless bandwidth, virus scanning, and other features are included in even the most affordable shared hosting packages.
Professional features like dedicated IPs, quick NVMe storage, a free CDN, and WordPress object caching, which increases speed, are all available when you upgrade.
Surprising extra features can be found all over. If your intended audience is located outside of North America, some providers may only be able to host your website there, which could slow it down. When you join up with Hostinger, you may select the site that best suits your needs from its data centers located in North America, Europe, & Asia.
Moreover, Hostinger offers unique AI capabilities to produce written content (AI-generated graphics should be available soon) in addition to making it simple to set up WordPress and launch your first website once you’ve chosen a plan.
My experience
It’s simple to get started using Hostinger. Payments can be made with cards, PayPal, cryptocurrencies, and other methods supported, and the intuitive web dashboard swiftly guided us to the appropriate place.
The industry-standard control panel (cPanel) is not available from Hostinger, but its own hPanel—along with a straightforward 1-click installation for WooCommerce, WordPress, and other popular apps—allows even inexperienced people to quickly develop and launch their websites.
Through six months of testing, I was able to find that Hostinger had a respectable 99.96% uptime over which many sites would be happy. This is not flawless, but it is better than the 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Although there isn’t phone assistance, Hostinger offers live chat support around the clock, and its ticketing system provided us with helpful responses in as little as two minutes, which is among the fastest time frames I’ve encountered.
Additional information that you should know
If your website receives a significant number of visitors each month, Hostinger is not the best option because it does not provide premium dedicated hosting options. All things considered, nevertheless, we discovered that Hostinger is a very good web host that charges a reasonable fee for a wide range of useful features.
Although Hostinger’s AI site builder is highly regarded, I would advise against utilizing it as it does not grant you full control over your website. You will not be able to move your website to a different host if you utilize the website builder. This could develop if you ultimately decide that managed VPS hosting and dedicated hosting are what you want to use because Hostinger does not provide those options. Rather, I suggest that you deploy WordPress or some open-source website builder using Hostinger, allowing you to move the website to any host of your choice.
It’s not a huge concern if you do choose to use the artificial intelligence website builder and then change your mind and wish to use another hosting provider later on. All you’ll have to do is start over with a new website, which won’t take much time or money if you’re upgrading your hosting.
The reasons it’s the best
For the majority of customers, this feature-rich service is excellent—that is if you don’t manage demanding, high-traffic websites. I would suggest selecting Hostinger for the best overall experience if you’re not sure which to choose or if you are unfamiliar with web hosting in general. It’s simple to use and comprehend, and it’s also incredibly reasonably priced for what you get.
Bottom Line
Fast-loading, dependable websites may be hosted by Hostinger, which also offers AI tools to make site creation and hosting simple.
2. SiteGround: Top WordPress web hosting option
Due to their 20 years of strong collaboration with the WordPress community, I believe SiteGround to be the most outstanding WordPress hosting company. It has given them a wealth of knowledge about configuring WordPress in a way that maximizes security, speed, and dependability. Additionally, it shows that SiteGround and its users have accumulated a great deal of customer support WordPress knowledge.
Over 10,000 results can be found in the forums when you type SiteGround into WordPress’ search box. Due to its high degree of knowledge and experience, we believe SiteGround is the best WordPress hosting option and well worth the small monthly premium over some of the other options.
Features
The no-cost WordPress migrating tool and email migrater are available to you if you currently have a WordPress website. While migrating is free with SiteGround, there are other providers who charge for this. The WordPress installer can be installed with only one click if this is your very first WordPress site.
A personalized firewall keeps an eye out for dangerous code and attacks on your website to ensure security. A daily AI anti-bot system from SiteGround blocks millions of attacks, and the company is continuously developing new rules. Daily backups of your account, up to 30 copies, are also provided. Not only does this make possessing less storage capacity not that much of an issue, but it’s another reason why we believe SiteGround is worth the money. Although the spec plans of other providers, such as Hostinger, are lower, they only give weekly backups.
In order to increase speed, the package includes a content delivery network (CDN), which is not included in other providers’ plans. Additionally, SuperCacher-based dynamic and static caching for NGINX is activated instantly out of the box.
A simple WP beginning wizard, automatic upgrades for both the core plugin and core software, and professional support are all included with managed WordPress sites. Although it’s unlikely given that SiteGround has some of the top customer reviews in the business, there is also a thirty-day refund policy if you’re not happy.
Testing
Using Uptime.com, which records logs every 5 minutes for fourteen days to document any potential failure, we evaluated SiteGround. While other providers saw an average response time ranging from 0.3 to 0.8 seconds, SiteGround achieved an impeccable 100% uptime rating with a mean response time of 0.207 seconds.
Additionally, we made use of GTmetrix, a tool for measuring page load times. In comparison to other leading hosts, SiteGround’s time of 0.7 seconds was somewhat below average in this regard, but it was still significantly faster than average overall.
Additional information that you should know
Because of the WordPress academy & AI website builder features, which can assist you in creating WordPress sites, Bluehost could be a better choice for you if you’re a total newbie and are nervous about using WordPress. If you aren’t starting from scratch, SiteGround’s features will provide you with fantastic value; but, if all you need is a very simple website, Namecheap is a better option.
What’s best about it
Numerous years of knowledge, an abundance of helpful articles, and outstanding client feedback in the context of the company’s size.
Bottom line
From almost the beginning of WordPress, SiteGround has been providing code and organizing community events to support the website. They are easily recommended as the finest for WordPress because of their history with WordPress and assistance.
3. DreamHost: Ideal for small enterprises
DreamHost is the most suitable option for small enterprises, in our opinion, due to its excellent value and cutting-edge AI Business Advisor feature, which provides you with personalized recommendations and ideas.
The shared plan, starting at $2.59/month ($4.95/month upon renewal), is a solid option for small enterprises with modest traffic variations between normal & peak hours. It offers unlimited traffic, a domain for free for a year, and an SSL certificate. For $3.95/month ($8.95/month after renewal), you can also choose the shared unlimited plan, which grants you access to an infinite number of websites.
It is possible for shared hosting to become unstable if other users are consuming more resources than is typical. If your company isn’t affected by changes in the resources that are available, then this is usually OK. Take the case when your company’s search phrases are really distinctive and you use your website to advertise the address of your physical store. It wouldn’t be good if people were looking through and buying stuff from your website. VPS plans are advised for these kinds of organizations.
At DreamHost, VPS plans with 2 GB RAM & 60 GB SSD start at $24.99/month and go as high as $114.99/month with 12 GB RAM & 360 GB storage after renewal. They offer excellent service and can help you choose the best plan if you need assistance deciding which one to utilize.
As we noted in the best VPS manual, these plans are not limited to VPS plans, so if you require root access, you’ll either have to select another host from among the best small-scale web hosting or e-commerce web hosting providers or choose a cloud hosting plan for your company.
Features
Together with the AI (artificial intelligence) Business Advisor tool, the VPS plans provide you extendable RAM and storage to accommodate changing business needs and satisfy clientele. With automated software updates, you can save up your time by not having to deal with security updates, Ubuntu OS upgrades, PHP releases, or the most recent WordPress versions.
Testing
After a week of testing, DreamHost performed admirably. We achieved a response time average of 0.342 seconds and 100% uptime for our site.
We also measured the time it takes for the primary content to load on a page from the test site using GTmetrix. Between 0.55 & 0.90 seconds is how most proficient hosts acquire their outcomes. At 0.732 seconds, DreamHost’s score was entirely satisfactory.
Additional information that you should know
You can still get assistance when you want it even though there isn’t phone support. Good ratings from customers and prompt response times were observed in the chat service.
The reasons it’s the best
DreamHost is a wonderful choice for small businesses due to its value for money, as previously indicated, and its AI Business Advisor tool can provide insightful information that you might otherwise overlook.
Bottom line
An AI business adviser solution that offers excellent value for small enterprises. If you have clients worldwide, you will need to invest more money and effort in setting up a content delivery network (CDN) as it is one of the elements that is missing. If they have clients outside of the US, small enterprises might want to take a closer look at SiteGround.
4. Namecheap: Best affordable web hosting
Namecheap started off as a domain registrar over twenty years ago and has since grown to provide a wide range of business, hosting, and other services. Namecheap can be the ideal partner for you if you enjoy the ease of obtaining all the internet-related solutions you require from a single supplier.
If you’re just starting out and want to run a WordPress website, your options are shared hosting & WordPress hosting. The first year of shared hosting costs $1.98/month (renews at $4.48/month), and a domain for free is included. Although you will have to handle the site yourself, this is the most economical alternative.
That means you’ll need to stay current with security and updates. WordPress hosting is the alternative; it costs $2.91 during the first year and renews at $6.88. The cost will increase if you additionally need to make payments for a personalized domain name. Namecheap claims that their managed WordPress hosting is three times faster than conventional hosting, and they will also handle your website. Giving you more time to concentrate on your website instead of the hosting.
Features
From affordable shared hosting and website builders to managed WordPress, VPS, and devoted hosting for high-traffic websites, Namecheap offers a wide choice of hosting options. If you’d like to start your own hosting business, you can also purchase reseller products from Namecheap.
Both the specifications and the prices are enticingly cheap. At least three websites, thirty email accounts, one-click WordPress installs, a free domain name, and other features are included with all shared plans. It should be noted that shared hosting plans only offer free SSL during the first year of service.
With a large selection of domains and among the most reliable SSL certificates, Namecheap ranks as one of the most popular domain registrars. You may also sign up for image production tools, marketing solutions, a VPN, and premium DNS (Domain name system) or Namecheap’s proprietary CDN to speed up your website.
Testing
I was initially bewildered by Namecheap’s account admin panel. The user interface has an excessive number of menus, sidebars, lists, and icons. After spending a short while getting to know the fundamentals and exploring the dashboard, I felt like I could quickly and easily access most of the crucial site administration sections.
While Namecheap is commendable for offering such a large selection of hosting products, its premium plans especially do not provide you with as much flexibility as those offered by competing hosts. For example, there are just three VPS plans available and zero Windows hosting.
During the course of my testing, Namecheap maintained 100% uptime. My site, which was hosted on a shared package, had load times that were marginally slower than typical. Nonetheless, they remained quite satisfactory for a low-cost host, and all things considered, Namecheap provides good value for the money.
Additional information that you should know
There isn’t phone assistance, but we were able to get support via live chat and tickets, and we received informative and timely responses. If you’d rather figure things out on your own, there’s a vast online knowledge library.
What’s best about it?
Metered, unmetered, and unlimited bandwidth hosting differ significantly from one another. Namecheap offers unmetered storage (no set limits) on select plans if you’re getting tired of hosting accounts having tight storage restrictions. I thought Namecheap’s costs were reasonable for what they offered, even though many other web hosting services offered limitless bandwidth.
Bottom line
Namecheap is the best choice if you’re looking to keep things uncomplicated and get both hosting and domain name services from one company.
5. InMotion Hosting: Best VPS
Since its founding in 2001, InMotion Hosting has expanded to accommodate more than 170,000 clients with a variety of hosting services, such as shared, VPS, reseller, dedicated, and WordPress hosting, for anything from simple website hosting. They have a really good assortment of VPS plans, the first of which has 4GB RAM, 4 vCPU cores 90GB storage, & 2TB bandwidth. For a period of three years, the package costs $14.99 each month, which is a fairly affordable amount.
InMotion Hosting offers six more plans that expand upon the base plan. The most expensive option, which costs $74.99 a month, has 32GB RAM, 32 cores, limitless bandwidth, and a massive 540GB NVMe SSD storage.
InMotion Hosting’s Launch Assist is among its greatest features. As many as two hours of free support are offered by InMotion Hosting in case you run into difficulties. They can assist with managing database files, customizing cPanel, adapting domain settings, or transferring WordPress.
DDoS protection is offered by InMotion Hosting, and redundancy is built into VPS servers. Traffic is bound to be diverted to an equivalent server in the event that one server experiences a major problem. This adds to InMotion Hosting’s already excellent assistance and makes it one of the most trustworthy hosts.
The secure vaults housing InMotion Hosting’s data facilities are guarded by armed guards and hand scanners. But they guard more than just your servers. They also contribute in some small ways to environmental protection. To save money and, the environment, and increase server efficiency, InMotion Hosting has made significant investments in green cooling technologies.
Pricing for plans may still add up, but InMotion hosting offers better value than Digital Ocean. Because cPanel costs an additional $20 per month, it is not a practical substitute for the least expensive choice, CWP panel, which costs $5 each month. These VPS packages are a fantastic substitute for InMotion Hosting’s shared plans, which are known to offer an abundance of unrestricted features, which may turn off some people.
Additional information that you should know
InMotion Hosting offers an incredible 90 days for the most of plans (which includes resellers) whereas other providers only provide a 30-day money-back guarantee. This is a significant advantage.
The reasons it’s the best
I have found that being able to sell domains & plans to customers is essential for businesses such as web marketing and design agencies, as well as freelancers. InMotion Hosting truly shines in these reselling packages.
Bottom line
With their well-rounded plans and abundance of security features, InMotion Hosting makes some of the best VPS packages available.
6. GreenGeeks: The top green web hosting company
An outstanding selection of environmentally friendly VPS and shared hosting services is offered by GreenGeeks. Basic monthly plans begin at just $2.95; after the second year, they rise to $11.95 per month. A domain for free for a year, unlimited databases, free nightly backups, and 50GB of web space are all included in the entry-level package.
For individuals looking for a green hosting option for a WordPress website, GreenGeeks is a great choice because they provide managed WordPress hosting options that can significantly reduce the effort of website maintenance. Even the most affordable plans have free caching, CDN, and unlimited bandwidth. The company’s servers are all fairly performant.
InMotion Hosting and SiteGround, both of which have very strong green credentials, may be of interest to you if you’re looking for more robust plans as GreenGeeks does not offer dedicated servers and any cloud solutions. It’s risk-free to try GreenGeeks because they offer a thirty-day refund policy and a free website transfer if you decide they’re not adequate.
Additional information that you should know
While GreenGeeks may not offer the most premium plans required by the sites with the highest energy & resource use, what they do offer is extremely effective at that level. It would be difficult to find another hosting company that shares your values if your website isn’t too demanding and you truly care for the environment.
The reasons it’s the best
Their products, their consumers, and the environment are all important to them.
Bottom line
Many web hosting services are going green these days. Although GreenGeeks are by far the greenest, InMotion Hosting & SiteGround aren’t far behind.
7. A2 Hosting: The top hosting for resellers
A2 Hosting manages the hardware ensuring that you can market hosting services that are bundled under your brand. You may devote all of your attention to your web hosting brand’s marketing and customer service as you won’t have to worry about operating servers. Web developers can also provide their clients with their own hosting using this option.
Features
A2 offers Turbo programs for customers who require that extra kick. This includes LightSpeed cache plugins, enhanced speed, and up to 250 GB of NVMe SSD storage. For websites that prioritize ranking & conversion rates, the additional performance may prove to be worthwhile.
If you already use a reseller hosting company but are dissatisfied with their offerings, you can transfer your accounts for free to A2 Hosting. Without causing you any trouble, a group of professionals will be ready to handle everything.
Being a reseller, A2 Hosting’s hardware ownership is one of its strongest features. As a result, they exercise greater control over what is on every server and the line of communication is shorter. Faster speeds and less overloaded resources are the results of this.
The billing software also includes reminders and features for provisioning, suspension, invoicing, and payment processing. This host is an excellent choice for reseller hosting because of all these features.
Testing
For a duration of 14 days, we employed Uptime.com to monitor a WordPress website every five minutes, GTmetrix to measure the loading time of the test site, and k6 to observe the site’s performance during high visitor traffic.
Uptime for A2 Hosting was 100%. That is to be anticipated with such a short measuring time, although it is not a certainty. Four of the 15 hosting web hosting services we’ve reviewed suffered some downtime when we ran our testing.
The server response speeds, which ranged from 1.1 to 3.36 seconds, were not particularly spectacular at 1.53 seconds. The response times are significantly faster and more reliable, with an average of 0.06. At 1.1 seconds, the LCP was also faster than usual. We will retest and get in touch with support if the speeds persist because this didn’t quite live up to our expectations.
The K6 result was similarly unimpressive. While most providers average between 14 and 16 requests per second, A2 only achieved an average of 11 requests per server.
Additional information that you should know
In addition to being a solid choice for business-related reseller hosting, A2 Hosting also offers high-end VPS & dedicated hosting services.
The reasons it’s the best
For managed hosting for WordPress, I suggest looking at WP Engine because of its dedication to WordPress and its helpful list of extensions that can cause problems with your site.
Bottom line
When it involves reseller hosting, A2 hosting is at the highest level of our list. It’s not surprising because the features that allow for reselling are quite excellent.
8. HostGator: The top provider of shared web hosting
Founded in Texas and serving the internet community for more than 20 years, HostGator is a very well-known web host. Although we found several enticing, budget-friendly add-ons, the company offers a very wide selection of hosting products (reseller, shared, VPS, WordPress, website builder, and dedicated), but we believe their shared hosting plans are the finest.
Features
A respectable feature set is available on all of HostGator’s offerings. The most affordable Hatchling plan comes with free SSL, free domain registration for the initial year, and unlimited bandwidth. With HostGator, you can effortlessly integrate with some of the most well-known brands out there, such as Google WorkSpace for team collaboration, CodeGuard for backup, and SiteLock Security to ensure malware scanning.
Testing
Although not the most elegantly designed online dashboard I’ve ever seen, I thought HostGator spent a bit too much time attempting to convince us to purchase additional products.
Fortunately, all of that is offset by the company’s use of robust site management tools and industry-standard cPanel. Businesses should especially delight in this, in my opinion, as there is no need to master a specific control panel. If you have any prior expertise with web hosting, you’ll probably feel perfectly at home from the start.
Even the most affordable shared account provided us with a decent 99.9% uptime, according to my 18 months of monitoring a test HostGator site. HostGator guarantees 99% uptime.
The true highlight of HostGator is its speed, though, as my test site had the fastest load speeds out of 15 of the top candidates, according to the benchmarking tool GTmetrix.
Additional information that you should know
Despite not having a dedicated WooCommerce product, HostGator offers some robust e-commerce plans with its Website Builder that include enhanced shipping, safe payments, selling on Instagram and Facebook, and support for an infinite number of products. In my observations, the HostGator support team can address most issues in a matter of minutes. If you have any difficulties, they are available round-the-clock via phone and live chat.
The reasons it’s the best
I suggest looking into HostGator since they provide a particular shared hosting solution if you are managing several websites and require them to be hosted on a single server. For more information about shared hosting, go to our website hosting FAQs.
Bottom line
Excellent host with outstanding features and reviews
9. ScalaHosting: Top cloud web hosting
ScalaHosting is a seasoned web hosting company with 15 years of expertise, situated in Dallas.
The company offers a plethora of low-cost hosting plans for basic websites and initiatives, but it was chosen for my list because of its robust VPS line, which is still incredibly cheap but strong enough to manage other websites and highly demanding commercial websites.
Features
Across the board, ScalaHosting offers striking features. A shared hosting account gives you daily offsite backups and limitless email storage—features that are frequently costly additions elsewhere. Some competitors just utilize slower conventional SSDs, yet even the most affordable plan utilizes fast NVMe storage.
Extreme configuration options are what make the VPS line unique. You can create your own plan with ScalaHosting by selecting from a range of options, including two to 24 cores, Four to 64 gigabytes RAM, and Fifty to 2000GB storage (far more powerful than what I’ve seen before). Other hosts can force you to pick from three or four basic items.
There are also free website migrations available. ScalaHosting meticulously migrates all of your websites for you; if you’re not content, they will even transfer them somewhere else and discontinue your account. Some providers make this claim and then provide you an extension to do it yourself.
Once operational, your website may take advantage of free SSL, real-time malware protection, speed-enhancing CDN integration, and the ability for professionals to select their favorite web host (Apache, Apache plus NGINX, OpenLiteSpeed, & more).
Testing
Through its own control panel, SPanel, ScalaHosting customers can administer their web space. Although I normally like the industry-standard cPanel, SPanel is a strong, user-friendly substitute that makes a fantastic website for both novices and specialists.
I monitored download speeds with the industry-leading testing tool, GTmetrix, to assess ScalaHosting’s performance. Though somewhat below average, the outcomes were still significantly better than the cheap competition and easily within the grasp of major players like GoDaddy.
ScalaHosting received a very respectable 99.94% when I tracked the availability of my test site for a full year (and that was with the least expensive shared plan; VPS hosting would have been even better).
Additional information that you should know
Enroll with ScalaHosting and benefit from their important Anytime Money-Back Guarantee, which is applicable to most products. Should you withdraw within a month, you will receive a full refund; if you pay for an entire year, you can quit after six months of use and still receive a refund for the 50% of your subscription that you haven’t used. Other refund options include prorated refunds.
The reasons it’s the best
With cloud hosting, an application or website is housed on a system of linked servers as opposed to one physical server. I went into great detail on this in our tutorial. How is cloud hosting used, and what is it? A virtual server allows resources so that you pay only for what you use when you use it. Consider ScalaHosting if you’re searching for a cloud hosting provider that can grow with your company.
Bottom line
There are far too many hosts using the term “cloud” without any real cloud benefits. ScalaHosting is a cloud company at its core.
10. Liquid Web: The top-notch managed web hosting
Liquid Web is an established supplier of premium managed hosting services for a wide range of cloud goods, including dedicated servers, WooCommerce, WordPress, VPS, and email. The company was founded in 1997.
Liquid Web offers a multitude of options if speed, dependability, and features are more important to you than pricing. The service isn’t really meant for consumers; in fact, it does not provide shared hosting.
Features
Although Liquid Web’s VPS plans start at $20 per month, they are actually much less expensive when you look at the features.
Some inexpensive providers may begin offering VPSs at just $1 or $2 per month, but if you read the fine print, you’ll find that these plans are incredibly basic and nearly useless. With two CPUs and two gigabytes of RAM, Liquid Web can start up and run most operations quite quickly.
An incredible 10Gbps network connection is available with Liquid Web; this speed is 10 to 30 times faster than what I typically experience from most hosting.
No more playing about with promises of “unmetered” bandwidth, which usually translates to “there’s a limit and I can’t tell you what that limit is.” Instead, a whopping 10TB of bandwidth is included in even the most affordable VPS subscriptions.
Is 99.9% uptime guaranteed by your host? Together with a rigorous Service Level Guarantee outlining how credits will be issued in the event that the 99.999% uptime is not met, Liquid Web also provides other features.
Liquid Web is a premium service, so while the pricing may seem costly, I believe they are reasonable considering the value they provide.
Testing
A managed hosting solution is crucial if you lack the means or expertise to handle important maintenance duties. Your web hosting company can handle them; to my knowledge, Liquid Web has made it really simple to manage and keep an eye on my test website. For additional information about managed hosting, including its significance, refer to our FAQs section.
I found it simple to find all the information I needed to track and regulate my website thanks to Liquid Web’s clear and simple dashboard interface.
Prompt load speeds and 100% uptime were seen over the review period following the installation of my typical test WordPress website, which was closely monitored.
Additional information that you should know
In the event that you encounter difficulties, Liquid Web offers an extensive knowledge base that includes everything from intricate text guides to more approachable YouTube video explanations.
The reasons it’s the best
However, the standout feature of Liquid Web is its customer service team, which you can contact via phone, email, or live chat around the clock. I found their representatives to be always helpful, knowledgeable, and willing to go above and beyond to fix my problems. Response times were quick no matter which method I used (the company explicitly guarantees an initial reply within fifty-nine minutes via e-mail, 59 seconds through live chat, or via phone).
Bottom line
When you’re looking for them, Liquid Web is going to be available.
11. Shockbyte: Top Minecraft Web Hosting Provider
Popular games such as Arma 3, Rust, Minecraft, and Ark: Survival Evolved are supported and provided by specialized servers offered by Shockbyte. That they’re among the most well-liked hosts for fans of Minecraft is not surprising for a hosting company that specializes in gaming.
Features
Shockbyte offers everything you could possibly need: support for BungeeCord, compatibility with both MCPC and MCPE, Java version switching, 100% uptime, complete FTP access, support for all mod packs, support for custom jars, instant setup, easy server customization, free subdomain, nil server lag, open MySQL databases, protection against DDoS attacks, automated backups, infinite slots, 1Ggbps port, infinite SSD storage, infinite bandwidth, and support for MC.
Based on their excellent ratings on Trustpilot, this best Minecraft server host appears to deliver on all of these features as well.
Testing
With its 1GB RAM and eight or more player slots, the Dirt plan is what we used. Our experience with the server was positive; even with more players added, we were able to maintain a ping time of 30-35 ms. The whole gaming experience was exceptional, with mods being simple to add and remove.
Additional information that you should know
Though Shockbyte’s customer service has received some rather harsh criticism, they deserve credit for addressing one-star complaints on Trustpilot, where the great majority of evaluations are really positive.
The reasons it’s the best
Shockbyte (Australia-based) is a well-known brand in the Minecraft hosting industry, with locations in Europe (Germany, UK, Poland, and France), Asia (Singapore), and North America (Canada and the US). They don’t get any better than this as a committed provider of gaming servers with excellent ratings and a worldwide network.
Bottom line
Nothing gets easier or better when it comes to hosting Minecraft.
Web hosting: What is it?
Enabling global access to a website is essentially the act of hosting it. It is possible to host a site from your house, however this is not a recommended option. In the first place, it doesn’t seem particularly safe to invite everyone into the house router. In addition, you’ll need to constantly run your PC, which will consume more energy. Afterward, it’s doubtful that your hardware can handle increased traffic to your website.
The most logical course of action is to contract out website hosting. Web hosts can help with this. Their server, where your website is kept, is always up-to-date, secure, and equipped with the best hardware available to guarantee peak site performance.
Renting your own resources, sharing a server, or even renting a space and furnishing it with your own hardware are all options. There are choices for everything, and the appropriate kind of hosting can significantly impact both price and performance depending on your company’s needs.
Shared hosting works well for small websites. Money will be wasted on anything else. A private virtual server is a preferable choice if your eCommerce store is larger. Because numerous copies of your website are kept in separate locations, the website will always be up in the event of a disaster, cloud hosting is ideal if your organization is extremely sensitive to any disruption.
Beyond that, there are more specialized choices like the best Minecraft server or WordPress hosting. For the best speed and financial value, these hosting packages have been optimized for these particular uses.
How do we evaluate top web hosting companies?
To evaluate the features offered to new customers and the ease of use of each company’s dashboard, our evaluators test every web hosting company by enrolling and buying a plan. We give the assistance that is provided to you a lot of thought.
We evaluate all the features and provide a ranking to each web host according to how well-designed their features are for mass consumption and how transparent they are about what exactly customers are getting with each package.
We pay close attention to whether every web hosting company provides its products in a truly honest, straightforward, and clear manner since we understand how vital it is to choose a web host that you can trust. In our research, this is simple to see when we contrast the things each firm says it provides with what we really get access to after we sign up for their service.
In conclusion, the least expensive shared hosting plan offered by a provider is typically the basis for our web host performance testing.
Subsequently, we upload a rudimentary static website to our web hosting account, incorporating HTML, CSS, and a few photos. We then established Uptime.com to periodically monitor the site’s performance and availability every five minutes. This offers us a ballpark idea of the speed & uptime you should anticipate when you choose the ideal web hosting company in the end.
The reason behind selecting each web hosting company below is that they are the best in their respective fields when it comes to web hosting. To help you locate a web hosting provider that meets your specific requirements, we have compiled the finest of the best, from shared server hosting to reseller hosting.
In the event that you require additional guidance on selecting the best web hosting provider for your needs, what kinds of hosting services exist, or how to purchase a hosting service, check out the information at the bottom of this article.
Considerations for selecting a web host
We are unable to precisely predict what you will require or not require because every person has different hosting preferences. However, we can offer you some broad guidelines that will help you in the correct way.
It seems wonderful to have unlimited (or rather, unmetered) storage space and bandwidth, but the most important thing is to have enough for your website, which may be considerably less than you might imagine. For example, web host Kinsta stated that the average size of its clients’ WordPress websites was just approximately 1GB. If that describes you, there are no advantages to purchasing “unlimited” capacity.
If you’re not using an SSL certificate, visitors will most likely see concerning “insecure” warnings instead of safe, encrypted communications with your website. Although SSL is usually free for the initial year, there are situations where you have to make payments after that. Be sure to read the fine print before committing.
Free domain names are a tempting perk if you don’t already have one, and many web hosting services come with them. You will then have to pay the provider’s regular renewal fees. However, this is usually free only for a year. The yearly renewal cost of a dot com domain is typically between $10 and $20, but for other domains, the situation is more complicated. To figure out the true long-term cost, if you require a domain, examine renewal prices.
Backups are essential if you aim to reduce downtime caused by website malfunctions, which happen for a variety of reasons. A backup service should be included in your plan; however, the frequency of the backups should be considered carefully. While weekly backups may be sufficient for static websites, daily backups are recommended.
You will periodically want assistance, regardless of your level of familiarity with web hosting. Examine the support page of your potential hosts. Is the information readily understandable and covers the expected subjects? At the very least, a host should offer round-the-clock live chat assistance. Additional contact options such as calling, ticket, and email are also beneficial.
Shared Hosting: What is it?
In a basic setup, several websites are kept on the very same web server, which is a kind of computer, under shared hosting.
Sharing hosting has the advantage of being easy to use. As the provider looks after the server maintenance, you are not required to spend a moment on it. Take care of your own website. That’s all.
When hundreds of websites are hosted on a single web server, you may expect to pay extremely low prices because sharing a server also means splitting the costs.
The main issue with shared website hosting is that the CPU, RAM, storage, and network connection of your server are also shared. Since there is only so much bandwidth available, your own website will probably load slower and be less stable the more sites you have hosted on your server.
In numerous circumstances, shared hosting remains the optimal option. The shared alternative is great for small-scale projects like blogs, family websites, local clubs, and other low-traffic websites where users won’t mind if the site periodically loads slowly. You can obtain good plans for about two to four dollars a month from several web hosting services, and it’s quite simple to use.
However, people will leave a website that is unreliable or slow when it is something more significant, like an online store or business website. Upgrading to a more potent option is definitely worthwhile.
VPS hosting: What is it?
With the use of sophisticated technology, Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting splits a single physical server into numerous server environments.
You can access what appears to be the entire server by logging onto a VPS. Although this is significantly more complicated than shared hosting, you have a lot more control over it. Installing any app, adjusting any server configuration, or even replacing the operating system entirely is up to you.
Your speed may be slightly decreased by other VPS settings on the same server (albeit not by as much as with shared hosting). However, you will be able to use the RAM, storage, CPU time, and network bandwidth as you see fit. Compared to shared hosting, these aren’t shared with other clients, therefore your website should experience faster and more reliable performance.
Plus, upgrading is frequently fairly simple. You can usually add more resources to your plan with just a click, and they will be ready almost instantly, in case your website traffic increases and you require additional CPU time, more RAM, or a higher bandwidth allotment.
There is a cost associated with this additional power, but it may be far lower than you anticipate. The lowest-priced VPS plan offered by Hostinger is only $2.99 over a four-year period, while the lowest-priced shared hosting package is $1.99 per month. Although it’s an elementary service, you can check if a VPS might be right for you at a reasonable $8.99 for a one-time month.
Dedicated Hosting: What is it?
A server is allocated to one client in a dedicated hosting plan, as the name implies. With your own system, you won’t have to worry about speed concerns caused by sharing RAM, CPU time, or bandwidth with other accounts.
The majority of suppliers let you outfit the server with any hardware you choose because you are renting the complete physical machine. Generally, you have a choice of CPU, operating system, bandwidth allotment, and storage devices (with cheap and large-capacity HDDs or smaller yet faster SSDs).
This might cost a lot. Even low-cost providers like Namecheap cost $50 to $60 a month for their basic dedicated server options, and Liquid Web’s corporate models, which are targeted at large sites with over a million page views per month, can cost $500 or more.
Maintaining a dedicated server also requires additional work. Your server should be rebooted or fixed by the provider support staff if it crashes while using shared hosting. However, unless you pay the service provider even more to have it handled for you, all that falls on your shoulders if you are managing the server.
However, a dedicated service is certainly the best option if you want to have total control over your server and optimal performance.
WordPress Hosting: What is it?
WordPress is an open-source content management system and website builder. It’s free to install manually on a Virtual Private Server or higher specification hosting type, or you may rent a shared or VPS server that already has WordPress installed.
With WordPress accounting for more than 40% of all websites, most shared hosting packages come already optimized to maximize speed and security for WordPress. WordPress ought to function as quickly and securely on a VPS plan as well, but in order to maximize its potential, you’ll need to understand what you’re accomplishing.
Managed & unmanaged hosting are the two primary varieties of WordPress hosting. When you use managed hosting, many of the updates and security are handled by the hosting company; this is not the case with unmanaged hosting. Although it costs extra, you can save a significant amount of time with it.
Does the location of the server matter?
Yes. Although employing a content delivery network (CDN) allows you to host your website from anywhere in the world and still achieve quick loading times, it is still preferable to host the website as near your clients as feasible. In regions where the website is not often frequented, a content delivery network (CDN) can impede site speed on regularly visited pages.
A CDN is also frequently an additional expense. You wouldn’t require a CDN if you only bought a server near your clients. It is worthwhile to look for the best hosting provider in a certain location if you plan to reach a local audience.
Managed Hosting: What is it?
While it’s usually quite easy to manage shared hosting accounts, more advanced products like WordPress, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers frequently need a variety of maintenance activities to be performed. Test and upgrade WordPress plugins, deploy OS patches, identify and fix server faults, and possibly restart a server in the event that it freezes or crashes are some of the tasks you might need to complete.
If you choose a managed website hosting package, the regular support staff of your hosting company will handle all or any of these duties. In addition to perhaps saving you actual time and hassle, issues will be quickly resolved by the most skilled individuals in the event that they arise.
Excellent, so why should anyone take any other course of action? Primarily, the cost. For example, the unmanaged DIY edition of Hostwinds’ (8GB RAM, 4-core) VPS is only $38.99, a significant savings above the fully managed $59.99 version.
This is important to remember while analyzing WordPress, VPS, and dedicated plans offered by different web hosting services. Although Host A is quite inexpensive, are you comparing an unmanaged plan with a managed plan? Make sure to read the fine print.
Additionally, there is no set definition for the term “managed,” so don’t think that having a managed plan entails zero upkeep. Make sure you know exactly what is covered when you buy by checking the provider’s definition of coverage as each one differs.
Email Hosting: What is it?
Having your own unique email address (Mark@abcd.com) is much more striking and professional than abcd457@gmail.com) is one of the key benefits of purchasing a domain.
For example, when you purchase a domain, you generally won’t get email. Although email assistance is included in most hosting plans, it might not be as robust as you call for, particularly for corporate use. Strict restrictions are frequently placed on the amount of space in your inbox, the number of addresses you can open, and even the daily email send limit.
Sending and receiving emails using a custom domain is made possible by email hosting. If you register a domain and purchase email hosting, you can create and use an unlimited number of name@abcsite.com email accounts. You don’t even need to purchase web hosting from the exact same provider as your email hosting.
Email hosting allows you to send and receive emails utilizing a custom domain. An infinite number of name@abcsite.com email accounts can be created and used if you acquire a domain and buy email hosting. Even web hosting doesn’t have to be purchased from the same company as email hosting.
With many email hosting packages costing between $1 and $2.50 a month, this could be an option that is well worth having in your hosting lineup. However, if you presently use a cheap shared hosting plan, remember that upgrading could also get you a ton of other benefits in addition to improved email services. To see what you get exactly, look through the hosting feature lists provided by your provider.
What’s the TLDR website hosting?
WordPress hosting, whether shared or dedicated, is simpler but a little more costly. The easiest but most involved way is to upload & install WordPress using a file transfer provider and a virtual private server.
Given sufficient time and a simple website concept (such as a blog or portfolio site), I would recommend investing in a virtual private server (VPS) and configuring everything manually. In case you are not satisfied, you have the opportunity to switch to a managed WordPress solution and utilize a money-back guarantee.
You need something flexible for eCommerce so you may expand your website during periods of high trade and marketing activity. To ensure that you never experience downtime, you should also look for something with redundancy and daily backups. Additionally, since the benefits of quicker loading pages are substantial, you should look into something that addresses website loading speed.
What other factors should I take into account before choosing a web host?
Although appealingly low costs can be found in 3 or 4-year hosting plans, they are not usually beneficial. You might have to get a new plan sooner rather than later if your current one isn’t working well for you or if your website expands and the previous one can’t manage the extra traffic. At the very least, it’s safer when you sign up for just a year (or less) and maybe go with a VPS or something similar where you can easily add extra capacity as needed.
Any prominent website should pay close attention to its uptime, or the proportion of the time that it is accessible. Potential clients may perceive you as unprofessional at best or give up on you completely and go elsewhere if they are unable to access or navigate your website.
Although uptime percentages like “99.9%” are frequently quoted by web hosting companies, this may not always account for all possible problems. Look closely for any disguised catches in the small print.
Keep an eye out for an SLA (Service Level Agreement), particularly when it comes to premium hosting options like dedicated hosting. These provide specifics about the compensation you will receive in the event that the goal is not met, going beyond the ambiguous promises made on websites to guarantee efficiency, support turnaround times, and other aspects of the service.
Features of web hosting explained
Some of the phrases and functions may seem unfamiliar to someone who is not familiar with web hosting. The most typical components of web hosting services have been condensed into a brief explanation for your convenience:
- Domain Name: It’s the URL that users enter into their browsers to access websites, such as msn.com. For the initial year of registration, a number of hosting packages come with a free domain name. Select a .com domain to prove your authority, or a .online domain for a more cost-effective option.
- SSL Certificate: With the use of this feature, hackers are unable to access your website since the link between it and their browsers is encrypted. Usually, hosting companies offer one from ‘Let’s Encrypt’ for free. A premium version, which can give a stronger warranty and degree of verification, is sometimes offered as an add-on by some.
- Unmetered bandwidth: There is no reason to be concerned about additional bandwidth consumption fees as the website’s traffic increases because the hosting company won’t monitor or control the quantity of data transferred. It is advisable to review the terms and conditions of the company before using any unmetered resources, as each one has its own policy.
- SSD Disk space: SSDs offer far greater reliability as a storage solution than HDDs do. The speed of your website will increase because it can provide data multiple times faster and is less susceptible to disk problems.
- C panel: Without any technical knowledge, novice users may easily manage their hosting with this control panel’s user-friendly layout. With only a few clicks, you can check on your resource utilization, access various features, and adjust the domain’s settings.
- WordPress auto-installer: With the hosting control panel, you can quickly and easily set up WordPress thanks to this capability. In this manner, downloading and uploading the CMS files manually is avoided.
- Website migration: The majority of hosting companies allow moving an already-existing website from one server to another. The process usually involves entering some website information, submitting a request to their support department, and then waiting a few hours for the transition to start.
- Custom HTML & CSS: The CSS and HTML files for your website should be accessible through the control panel using an FTP client or file manager. Edit them to suit your preferences and personalize the front end of the website.