Finding the best web hosting provider will depend on your budget and what features you’re looking for in a website host.
In this article, we share the top 12 companies with the undisputed best web hosting on the market right now.
How do we know?
To bring you this list, we tested over 16 different performance factors and features on 50+ web hosting companies and we’ll be sharing all the juicy details below.
We left our opinions and emotions at the door to deliver you an unequivocal list of the 12 best hosting companies in 2023, as proven by the raw data.
Let’s dig in!
Table Of Contents
- Top 12 Web Hosting Services
- 1. SiteGround — Best Web Hosting for Security
- 2. WPX — Best for WordPress & Next-Level Customer Support
- 3. Hostinger — Best Web Hosting for Affordability
- 4. FastComet — Best Web Hosting for Global Performance
- 5. Scala Hosting — Best Vps Hosting
- 6. Hostwinds — Best Web Hosting for Scalability & Versatility
- 7. KnownHost — Best Uptime & Server Reliability
- 8. A2 Hosting — Best for Performance Optimized Shared Hosting
- 9. HostPapa — Best Web Hosting for Small Business
- 10. InMotion Hosting — Best Unlimited Hosting Plans
- 11. Kinsta — Best Cloud Hosting for WordPress
- 12. DreamHost — Best All-Rounder for Beginners
- How to Choose the Best Web Hosting Service for Your Website
- What Is Shared Hosting?
- What Is VPS Hosting?
- What Is WordPress Hosting?
- What Is Dedicated Hosting?
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS)
- Our Verdict: What’s the Best Web Hosting Service in 2023?
Top 12 Web Hosting Services
- SiteGround — Best Web Hosting Services for Security
- WPX — Best For WordPress & Next-Level Support
- Hostinger — Best Web Hosting Services for Affordability
- FastComet — Best Web Hosting Services for Global Performance
- Scala Hosting — Best Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
- Hostwinds — Best Web Hosting Services for Scalability & Versatility
- KnownHost — Best Uptime & Server Reliability
- A2 Hosting — Best for Performance Optimized Shared Hosting
- HostPapa — Best Web Hosting Services for Small Business
- InMotion Hosting — Best Unlimited Hosting Plans
- Kinsta — Best Cloud Hosting
- DreamHost — Best All-Rounder for Beginners
1. SiteGround — Best Web Hosting for Security
Founded in 2004, SiteGround has become a fast favorite for anyone seeking a balance between affordability and performance.
It currently hosts over 2 million websites and operates with over 500 full-time staff.
SiteGround’s web hosting services are unparalleled when it comes to the level of security offered for the price point.
It’s also no surprise why WordPress.org recommends SiteGround as one of the leading web hosting companies in today’s market.
Add to this mix SiteGround’s dedication to delivering quality tech support that responds in less than 5 minutes (based on our 7 years of experience working with them) and you’ve got a decent web hosting service for just about anyone!
Key Features
Uses Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to deliver state-of-the-art cloud services- Official WordPress partner
- Excellent support team
- Decent storage with 10GB – 40GB available on shared plans
- No limits on monthly visitors
- Free SSL certificates on all plans
- Beginner friendly with a range of 1-click install features
- Free CDN built by SiteGround
- Enhanced security built by SiteGround’s in-house team
- Free, daily automated backups on all plans
We’ve awarded Siteground the title of the best web hosting for security due to the range of features it includes with all it’s hosting plans, out of the box.
| Free SSL Certificate | Yes (Let’s Encrypt, pre-installed) |
| Hotlink Protection | Yes |
| Spam Protection | Yes |
| Auto Backups | Yes (Daily) |
| Web Application Firewall | Yes |
| DDoS Protection | Yes |
| Brute Force Protection | Yes |
| Bot Blocking | Yes |
| Malware Protection | Yes |
| 24/7 Server Monitoring | Yes |
| WP Security Plugin | Yes (Free) |
What impressed us the most in our research is that SiteGround has maintained a steadfast dedication to top-notch security since it started. Never compromising on quality for the sake of competing with cheaper web hosts.
Pricing Plans
| Promotional Pricing | Renewal Pricing | Disk Space | |
| Shared Hosting | From $2.99/mo | From $14.99/mo | From 10GB web space |
| WP & Woocommerce Hosting | From $3.99/mo | From $14.99/mo | From 10GB web space |
| Managed Cloud Hosting | From $100.00/mo | From $100/mo | From 8GB memory, 40GB SSD and 5TB data transfer. |
| Reseller Hosting | From $6.69/mo | From $24.99/mo | From 20GB web space |
Performance
In addition to outstanding features for reasonable prices, SiteGround wowed our review team with its stellar performance too.
| GT Metrix Performance | GT Metrix TTFB | |
| Vancouver | 93% | 108ms |
| London | 72% | 936ms |
| Sydney | 72% | 269ms |
| Pingdom Performance | Pingdom Load Time | |
| San Francisco | 96 | 508ms |
| Frankfurt | 96 | 726ms |
| Tokyo | 96 | 792ms |
| London | 95 | 1.79s |
| Washington DC | 86 | 720ms |
| Sydney | 96 | 1.21s |
Our tests with both GT Metrix and Pingdom showed some minor performance drops from London servers.
To be fair, though, we didn’t set up the test website on SiteGround’s London servers so you’re likely to be able to get great performance in the UK if you opt for the local servers instead of US-based ones.
As far as uptime goes, SiteGround has delivered a record-breaking performance with 2022 offering an uptime average of 100%.
Very few companies in our tests have reached this level of server reliability!
| 2018 Uptime | 2019 Uptime | 2020 Uptime | 2021 Uptime | 2022 Uptime | |
| SiteGround | 99.99% | 99.99% | 99.99% | 99.99% | 100% |
- Officially recommended by WordPress
- Google Cloud Platform partner
- 24/7 outstanding tech support
- User-friendly custom dashboard
- Excellent speed & uptime
- Free SSL certificates
- Beginner-friendly
Not the cheapest option (but still in the realm of affordable hosting)- Doesn’t offer domain name services
- No VPS or dedicated hosting
Who It’s Best Suited To
SiteGround is best suited to anyone on a budget who also wants decent performance, security, and support.
While not being the cheapest solution out there, SiteGround is still rather affordable. If you want to host your website with a reputable company, this is the place to go.
2. WPX — Best for WordPress & Next-Level Customer Support
If you want next-level performance and are happy to pay a little more for it, WPX is our go-to recommendation.
📢 Spoiler alert: when reviewing the best web hosting for SEO, WPX consistently came out on top for multiple categories.
WPX continues to impress us time and time again with its commitment to delivering fast, expert tech support.
We’re talking less than 30 seconds to receive a response to a ticket or chat query!
We’ve selected WPX to host many of our own websites and anytime there’s been an issue (even if it wasn’t WPX’s fault) the support team has been onto it and fixed it faster than the blink of an eye.
If you think about the last time you tried to get your hosting company to fix an issue for you, what was the experience like? Has it ever felt as easy as you just blinking and voila, the problem was gone?
Exactly.
With WPX, it really is that easy. And that’s why we think they’re the bee’s knees.
Key Features
- Fully managed hosting for WordPress sites
- Super speedy, 24/7 help when you need it
- Free, unlimited website migration
- Fast WordPress content delivery network (CDN)
- One-click staging setup
- Automated, daily backups
- Free on-demand backup restoration
- Enterprise-level DDoS protection
- WPX will fix any malware or hacked content issues
With state-of-the-art servers and one of the fastest CDN’s in the world, WPX means business when in comes to performance and top-notch features.
Not to mention the dedication to security and complimentary virus removal services.
Pricing Plans
| Business | Professional | Elite | |
| Price/month | Promo: $20.83/mo Renewal: $24.99/mo |
Promo: $20.83/mo Renewal: $49.99/mo |
Promo: $20.83/mo Renewal: $99.99/mo |
| Websites | 5 | 15 | 35 |
| Bandwidth | 100 GB | 200 GB | Unlimited. |
| Storage | 10 GB | 20 GB | 40 GB |
| Free Malware Removal | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free Site Speed Optimization | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 30-Day Money Guarantee | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 99.95% Uptime Guarantee | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free fixes if site Online | yes | Yes | Yes |
Performance
If you haven’t taken the time to watch our video on the best web hosting for SEO above, now is a good time. We share a bunch of great data on WPX’s performance and how it compares to other companies we tested out.
Here’s a super quick snapshot:
| Time to First Byte (TTFB) | 110 ms |
| Fully Loaded Time | 357 ms |
WPX has also had a history of server reliability in our experience though it hasn’t yet cracked an average of 100% for the year like SiteGround has.
Either way, it’s consistently above 99.95%!
- Excellent customer support
- Beginner-friendly WordPress hosting
- Fast servers with loading times under 1 second
- Over 99.95% uptime
- Daily backup automation
- Free website migrations
- Unlimited free SSL certificates
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Despite all the wonderful features WPX has going for it, there are a few downsides to be aware of too.
- No cPanel since WPX uses its own custom dashboard
- Fairly pricey compared to other providers
- Not suited for hosting a large portfolio of over 35 websites (the largest plan only accommodates 35 websites
Who It’s Best Suited To
If you want next-level web hosting services for your WordPress site, WPX is the company for you. Its level of customer support is unparalleled which also makes it a suitable option for beginners.
3. Hostinger — Best Web Hosting for Affordability
If you’re on a tight budget, Hostinger is our top pick for you. However, it’s worth noting that there’s a difference between a cheap web hosting service and one that delivers value for money.
Hostinger is consistently among the most affordable options worldwide as it frequently matches its prices and features to meet what’s available within the local market.
For instance, in our search for the best hosting in Malaysia, Hostinger had the lowest-priced shared hosting package (yes, even cheaper than all the other local providers).
However, while Hostinger is the cheapest initially, in the long run it is likely you’ll end up paying much more than you expect if you don’t factor in the renewal costs.
Key Features
- From 50GB SSD storage on the cheapest plans (that’s over 5x what most hosting companies offer for similar prices.
- Unlimited SSL certificates available
- hPanel: Unlike other web hosts that use cPanel, Hostinger uses its own intuitive control panel called hPanel.
- Global servers: Hostinger has servers located all over the world, delivering great performance worldwide.
- High-speed SSD storage which improves your website performance
- 99.9% uptime guarantee which matches the industry benchmark
- 30-day money-back guarantee.
- 24/7 customer support to answer your queries and provide help.
Pricing Plans
| Promotional Price | Renewal Price | |
| Shared | From $1.99/mo | From $9.99/mo |
| VPS | From $2.49/mo | From $8.99/mo |
| Cloud | From $9.99/mo | From $29.99/mo |
Performance
While Hostinger’s performance doesn’t compare to SiteGorund’s or WPX’s it is still among the top performing web hosting providers around the world.
Its servers are stable and reliable with minimal downtime and site loading speeds are super fast (often faster than local companies with servers on the ground).
| Site Speed | Hostinger | Best Practice |
| Time to First Byte (TTFB) | 189 ms | 100 to 300 ms |
| First Contentful Paint (FCP) | 729 ms | < 1.8 seconds |
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| Uptime | 99.97% | 99.94% | 99.74% | 99.97% | 99.94% |
- Dedicated IP on every VPS plan
- Full root access on every VPS plan
- Low-cost plans to get started
- Great deals if you buy many years in advance
- Beginner friendly
- Flexible pricing options
- Great performance in many regions around the world
- 24/7 multi-lingual live chat support
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Free site migration service
- Unlimited web hosting available (unmetered bandwidth)
- More resources on cheapest plans than other local providers offer
- You may quickly outgrow Hostinger’s plans
- Support responses could be better
- Lots of pop-ups and upsells
- No traditional cPanel; Hostinger uses its custom hPanel
Who It’s Best Suited To
As far as performance and affordability stack up, Hostinger has never been one to disappoint.
It consistently shows up in our lists of the best web hosting providers in regions all over the world and we recommend checking out their web hosting services if you’re on a tight budget but still want a decent service.
4. FastComet — Best Web Hosting for Global Performance
Much like Hostinger, FastComet consistently shows up in our tests as one of the best-performing web hosting providers around the world.
So far, it’s at the top of our list for the best web hosting in Australia, Nigeria, South Africa, and even Nepal.
Powered by 11 enterprise-grade data centers, FastComet has an excellent global reach.
It also has 200 global CDN access points.
A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is crucial for expanding your website’s reach around the world.
It’s thanks to FastComet’s CDN, paired with a multitude of data center locations, that it is (hands down) the only hosting company to show up at the top of our list for so many global web hosting performance tests we’ve run.
From shared cloud hosting to VPS and dedicated server hosting, FastComet has a range of options well suited to projects of any scale! Their cloud hosting is amongst the best web hosting services out there.
Key Features
FastComet offers a range of value-packed features with each of its plans. Its shared hosting plans are the most popular and at a minimum include:
- 15 GB to 35 GB SSD storage
- Free website transfers
- Free domain transfers
- Daily backups
- Free CDN (Cloudflare)
- Free SSL certificates
- Plus more
Pricing Plans
| FastComet’s Plans | Promotional Pricing | Renewal Pricing |
| Shared Cloud Hosting | From $2.95/mo | From $9.95/mo |
| WP Cloud Hosting | From $2.95/mo | From $9.95/mo |
| WooCommerce Hosting | From $2.95/mo | From $9.95/mo |
| Magento Hosting | From $2.95/mo | From $9.95/mo |
| OpenCart Hosting | From $2.95/mo | From $9.95/mo |
| Joomla Hosting | From $2.95/mo | From $9.95/mo |
| VPS Hosting | N/A | From $59.95/mo |
| Dedicated Server Hosting | N/A | From $139/mo |
Performance
FastComet’s speed performance is consistently better than the average in many areas around the world that we’ve tested out.
| FastComet (Global Average) | Best Practice | |
| Time to First Byte (TTFB) | 189 ms | 100 to 300 ms |
| First Contentful Paint (FCP) | 953 ms | < 1.8 seconds |
Its servers are also quite reliable and the uptime average is consistently above the industry average of 99.90%.
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
| Uptime | 99.98% | 99.98% | 99.98% | 99.96% | 99.97% |
- Excellent speed and performance
- Average uptime over 99.98% in all our tests over recent years
- Free domain and website transfer
- Fast and efficient customer support
- Reasonable storage in all price plans (min 15GB on shared plans)
- Easy to set up, even for beginners
- Free domain included in all plans
- 11 data centers to help you target customers around the world
- IP address not dedicated in shared hosting
- No VPS or dedicated server hosting
Who It’s Best Suited To
FastComet is a great option for anyone who wants affordable cloud hosting with excellent global reach and performance.
5. Scala Hosting — Best Vps Hosting
Scala hosting is our top pick for the best VPS hosting plans for scalability.
It is a multi-award-winning company offering a variety of flexible VPS hosting packages including cloud options and both managed and unmanaged VPS hosting plans too.
However, what we like best, and the reason we consider Scala Hosting to offer the best VPS hosting plans for scalability, is that you can get as many as 24 CPU cores on your server.
This is quite rare.
Having so many cores can be very useful for very large or high-performance websites.
The more CPU cores, the better your server’s performance and resource allocation will be.
With more CPUs, you can also run more programs and do more things without it affecting speed and performance.
So if you’re looking for a truly scalable solution that can handle even the most demanding enterprise-level websites, take a look at Scala.
You can build your own custom cloud VPS without the regular limitations for how big you can scale your hosting package.
Key Features
If you’re after self-managed VPS hosting, here’s what Scala can offer you:
- CPU cores: between 4 and 24 CPU cores
- RAM: from as little as 8 GB up to 64 GB
- SSD storage: the lowest available is 240 GB up to 2 TB
Since it’s also one of the most flexible options on the market, you can also add extra resources to boost your server’s power and features.
For instance, you can add another CPU for only $6/month.
Whereas extra RAM will only set you back $2 a month and additional storage only $1.
Not to mention you get to pick your preferred operating system too.
On the other hand, with a fully-managed plan, you get:
CPU cores: as few as two CPU cores, maximum of 24- RAM: as little as 4 GB, maximum of 128 GB
- SSD storage: minimum 50 GB, maximum 2 TB.
Pricing Plans
Scala’s pricing is quite flexible and will vary depending on the combination of features you choose.
It’s also worth noting that at first glance, the managed VPS plans seem cheaper than the self-hosted plans.
While the monthly bill is definitely lower, you’ll be receiving less feature-wise.
So it’s not comparing apples to apples.
The question just becomes whether you want more features or the ease a managed service provides.
Self-Hosted Pricing:
Fully-Managed Pricing:
- Powerful servers with up to 24 CPU cores available
- Fully managed VPS available
- Free website migration
- Free advanced security
- Multi-award-winning VPS hosting provider
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Somewhat expensive
- The features can be overkill for small projects
- Too many options for beginners to choose
- Not 100% beginner-friendly
Who It’s Best Suited To
Scala is best suited to developers and website owners who want scalable, enterprise-grade hosting solutions.
It’s also suitable for anyone who wants complete control over their VPS server specs, even if their website is still fairly small.
Scala gives your budding website room to grow and it will scale with you so you don’t have to worry about re-platforming later on.
6. Hostwinds — Best Web Hosting for Scalability & Versatility
Hostwinds is a lesser-known web hosting company but it’s definitely worth your time looking into if you are after versatile and scalable hosting solutions.
It also pleasantly surprised us and you can read the details of how and why in our full Hostwinds review.
In short, Hostwinds is newer and smaller than web hosting industry giants like GoDaddy.
It had the opportunity to start fresh and to overcome many of the problems that bigger competitors were creating in the market, and they took it.
Instead of churning out more low-cost, low-quality web hosting services, Hostwinds runs its own data centers and it owns its IT infrastructure, giving it 100% control over the quality it delivers.
Key Features
- cPanel dashboard with a range of 1-click installs
- Free website transfers managed by in-house migration team
- Many “unlimited” features including storage, domains, and emails
- 24/7 server monitoring
- DDoS protection included
- Range of managed or unmanaged options
- Linux and Windows servers available
- Decent uptime
- Excellent VPS hosting plans
Pricing Plans
| Hostwinds Plans | Promo Pricing | Renewal Pricing | Storage & Features |
| Shared Hosting | From $5.24/mo | From $6.99/mo | From 1 website with unlimited storage & bandwidth. |
| Business Web Hosting | From $8.99/mo | From $11.99/mo | From 1 website with unlimited storage & bandwidth. |
| Reseller Hosting | From $5.24/mo | From $6.99/mo | From 1 website with unlimited storage & bandwidth. |
| Managed Linux VPS | From $8.24/mo | From $10.99/mo | From 30GB storage, 1TB RAM & 1GB RAM. |
| Managed Windows VPS | From $12.74/mo | From $16.99/mo | From 30GB storage, 1TB Bandwidth & 1GB RAM. |
| Unmanaged Linux VPS | From $4.99/mo | From $4.99/mo | From 30GB, 1TB bandwidth & 1GB RAM. |
| Unmanaged Windows VPS | From $10.99/mo | From $10.99/mo | From 30GB storage, 1TB bandwidth & 1GB RAM. |
Performance
We’re quite impressed with Hostwinds’ performance. Check out our full Hostwinds review for all the details on its speed and uptime performance.
Here’s a quick snapshot:
| Location | GT Metrix Performance Score |
GT Metrix TTFB |
| Vancouver | 94% | 240ms |
| London | 99% | 191ms |
| Sydney | 86% | 87ms |
| Location | Pingdom Performance | Pingdom Load Time |
| London | 78 | 755ms |
| Frankfurt | 78 | 734ms |
| Tokyo | 69 | 1.67s |
| Washington DC | 77 | 662ms |
| Sydney | 68 | 1.98s |
| San Francisco | 77 | 789ms |
Considering Hostwinds offers one of the highest uptime guarantees at 99.9999%, they had a lot to live up to.
According to Pingdom’s uptime monitoring data, in the 12 months between September 2020 and August 2021, Hostwinds experienced a solid record of 100% uptime every single month without fail.
All in all, Hostwinds’ uptime is among the best we’ve ever seen.
- Great uptime
- Decent speed scores in our tests
- Decent customer service
- Excellent VPS hosting plans
- Reasonably affordable
- Average 5-minute tickets for resolving support requests
- Free unlimited email accounts
- Unlimited disk space
- Unlimited bandwidth on shared plans
- Free daily backups are not included in out-of-the-box hosting plans
- Tends to lack some security features other hosting companies include in all plans
- Only 72-hour money-back window
- Not 100% beginner-friendly
Who It’s Best Suited To
If you’re after reliable web hosting, Hostwinds is worth checking out. We also recommend it for affordable agency web hosting services as their reseller plans deliver amazing value!
7. KnownHost — Best Uptime & Server Reliability
KnownHost was founded in 2006 and has made waves over the years with its VPS and managed dedicated server hosting.
Not only does KnownHost back its performance with a guaranteed service level agreement (SLA), but it also prioritizes state-of-the-art technology paired with excellent, expert support when you need it.
If you run the kind of business that relies on a high-performing website, such as an online store, a forum, or a media publication with heavy traffic, you’ll need the best from your web host too.
And that’s what KnownHost delivers!
Key Features
- Unlimited premium bandwidth on all plans, even cheap shared hosting
- Large range of managed and unmanaged VPS and dedicated hosting
- Daily, automated backups
- Free SSL certificates
- State-of-the-art security
- Free website migrations
- Fully redundant server network
- 99.99% (proven) uptime, guaranteed
- Excellent speed performance
Pricing Plans
| KnownHost’s Plans | Promo Pricing | Renewal Pricing | Storage & Features |
| Shared Hosting | From $3.47/mo | From $8.95/mo | From 5 GB NVMe storage, unlimited bandwidth & 512 MB memory. |
| WordPress Hosting | From $5.98/mo | From $11.95/mo | From 50GB storage, 100k monthly visitors & unlimited bandwidth. |
| Reseller Hosting | From $6.97/mo | From 13.95/mo | From 25GB storage, 800GB bandwidth & 1.5GB RAM. |
| Semi-Dedicated Hosting | From $28/mo | From $35/mo | From 50GB SSD storage, 2GB RAM & 50 websites. |
| Managed VPS | From $37/mo | From $40/mo | From 75GB SSD storage, 2TB Bandwidth& 4GB RAM. |
| Unmanaged VPS | From $4.25/mo | From $5/mo | From 20GB SSD, 1TB bandwidth & 1TB data transfer. |
| Cloud Hosting | From $6.80/mo | From $8/mo | From 20GB storage, 2TB bandwidth & 1GB RAM. |
Performance
Not only does KnownHost have fairly cheap web hosting services, its performance impressed us too. Seriously, there’s not much more you could ask for in a high-performance hosting company!
| GT Metrix Performance Score |
Time to First Byte (TTFB) | |
| Vancouver | 100% | 50ms |
| London | 94% | 72ms |
| Sydney | 90% | 56ms |
Given that KnownHost claims to have the “proven best uptime on the planet” we thought we’d take a deeper look into whether there’s any truth to the claim.
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| Average Uptime | 100% | 99.988% | 99.9978% | 99.99066% |
In our tests, it appears that it’s a classic case of under promising and overdelivering, which is a breath of fresh air in today’s hosting arena.
KnownHost’s uptime is far better than most hosting companies can say about their services!
- 30-Day money-back guarantee
- Tested (and proven) 99.99% uptime
- Free daily backups
- Flexible billing cycles
- Free website migrations
- Round-the-clock 24/7/365 support
- Expert support agents
- Top-tier, world-class data centers
- Some beginners may find it challenging to get started
- Choosing a plan can be confusing
- No website builder included
Who It’s Best Suited To
KnownHost is best suited to developers or owners of media-rich websites who need guaranteed performance and server reliability.
With hosting prices as low as $1.99 per month, A2 Hosting has developed a reputation around its initial affordability. But it is also one of the best web hosts out there.
A2 Hosting also prioritizes the speed and performance of its servers and offers upgraded options with its “turbo” plans.
All Turbo plans are on the fastest servers which use NVMe storage disks. These are up to 25x faster than traditional disks.
Key Features
- Websites: From 1 to unlimited
- Storage: 100GB SSD – Unlimited NVMe
- Free site migrations
- Backups: Free and automatic on all but the lowest plan
- Free SSL: On all plans
- 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
Pricing Plans
| Promotional Pricing | Renewal Pricing | Disk Space | |
| Shared Hosting | From $1.99/mo | From $10.99/mo | 100GB SSD on the smallest tier. Unlimited on the rest. |
| WordPress Hosting | From $8.99/mo | From $23.99/mo | From 50 GB NVMe storage. |
| Virtual Private Server Hosting | From $45.99/mo | From $99.99/mo | From 8 GB RAM and 250 GB SSD storage. |
| Dedicated Hosting | From $199.99/mo | From $329.99/mo | From 32 GB RAM & 2×1 TB SSD storage. |
| Reseller Hosting | From $15.99/mo | From $34.99/mo | From 60 GB SSD or 60 GB NVMe storage. |
Performance
In our tests, here’s how A2’s performance measures up.
| A2 Hosting | Best Practice | |
| Time to First Byte (TTFB) | 194 ms | 100 to 300 ms |
| First Contentful Paint (FCP) | 639 ms | < 1.8 seconds |
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
| Average % of Uptime | 99.97% | 99.96% | 99.53% | 99.93% | 99.93% | 99.97% | 99.99% |
With excellent speed and uptime around the world, and such affordable plans, you have no excuses not to get started with building your website!
- Initial affordability is great for getting started
- Decent out-of-the-box optimizations on higher plans
- Improved uptime in recent years
- Turbo plans are much faster than traditional servers
- High renewal rates
- Guru support can be a little slow at times
Who It’s Best Suited To
If loading speed and performance are essential to you (and you’re on a budget), A2’s turbo-optimized shared hosting plans are definitely worth checking out.
9. HostPapa — Best Web Hosting for Small Business
Hostpapa is an excellent option for small business website hosting. It is a Canadian privately-owned web hosting provider with a range of products and services that help small businesses get online.
All in all, the data from our tests indicate Hostpapa is acceptable as a cheap web hosting option. It’s better suited to small businesses or solopreneurs who don’t want to sink much money into their hosting.
Key Features
- Storage: 100GB SSD – Unlimited
- Bandwidth: Unmetered on all plans
- Free Domain: Included on all plans
- Cloudflare: Available on all plans
- SSL Certificate: Free with all plans
Pricing Plans
| Promotional Pricing | Renewal Pricing | Disk Space | |
| Shared Hosting | From $2.95/mo | From $9.99/mo | From 100GB SSD + unmetered bandwidth. |
| WordPress Hosting | From $2.95/mo | From $9.99/mo | From 100GB SSD + unmetered bandwidth. |
| VPS Hosting | From $19.99/mo | From $19.99/mo | From 2GB memory, 60GB SSD and 1 TB transfer. |
| Reseller Hosting | From $29.99/mo | From $29.99/mo | From 2Gb RAM, 50GB SSD & 500 GB bandwidth. |
Performance
Here’s a snapshot of HostPapa’s performance:
| Average Performance Score | 98% |
| Average Uptime | 99.89% |
| Average Response Time | 847ms |
| Average TTFB | 100ms |
| Average Fully Loaded Time | 3.4s |
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
| Average % of Uptime | 99.94% | 99.94% | 99.55% | 99.98% | 99.92% | 99.99% | 99.95% |
Although there are better-performing hosting companies in our list, HostPapa is still decent!
- Excellent performance score at 98%
- Decent uptime in recent years
- Free site migration
- Great for small businesses
- Support could be improved
- Expensive renewals
- Automated backups are not included in most plans
- LunarPages customers have been experiencing storage issues since Hostpapa took over.
Who It’s Best Suited To
The data from our tests indicate Hostpapa is acceptable as a cheap web hosting option that’s best suited to small businesses or solopreneurs.
10. InMotion Hosting — Best Unlimited Hosting Plans
InMotion offers a number of excellent hosting plans with unlimited resources available.
Instead of only reserving the unlimited features for the highest tiers, InMotion includes them in almost all of its shared and WordPress hosting plans.
The price point variation with each plan simply correlates to the performance of each server instead of the limit of resources available.
Key Features
- Unlimited features on most shared plans
- Free domain name included
- Free SSL certificates
- Hack & malware protection
- DDoS protection
- Automatic backups
- Website builder
- Marketing tools
Pricing Plans
| Promotional Pricing | Renewal Pricing | Disk Space | |
| Shared Hosting | From $2.95/mo | From $8.99/mo | From 100GB SSD + unlimited bandwidth. |
| WordPress Hosting | From $3.99/mo | From $11.49/mo | From 100GB NVMe storage, unlimited bandwidth + free lifetime SSL. |
| VPS Hosting | From $19.99/mo | From $59.99/mo | From 4GB memory, 90GB SSD and 2 TB bandwidth. |
| Dedicated Hosting | From $139.99/mo | From $169.99/mo | From 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD & 4 CPU cores. |
- Free domain name
- Free migrations for WordPress sites
- Free SSL certificates
- Unlimited websites & emails supported
- Unlimited monthly bandwidth available
- Dedicated IP addresses
- Root access available on all plans
- Loads of extra features you can’t always find with other companies
- 99.99% uptime guarantee
- Free website transfers
- Relatively expensive after initial discounts
- No Windows hosting, only Linux
- Free backups aren’t always included (though they’re quite inexpensive)
Who It’s Best Suited To
If you are looking for web hosting with no limits on how many websites you can host, storage or bandwidth, InMotion is ideal for you!
11. Kinsta — Best Cloud Hosting for WordPress
Kinsta specializes in managed hosting plans for WordPress.
When Kinsta moved all its customers to Google’s C2 server infrastructure (and for a fraction of the cost of competitors like WP Engine), people noticed.
Since then, Kinsta is known and loved by many WordPress website owners for its commitment to performance.
And it’s no surprise why. Kinsta frequently delivers performance improvements from 30% to over 200% for their clients!
Key Features
- WordPress Installs: 1 – 150
- Traffic: Up to 3 million visits/month
- Disk space: 10GB to 250 GB
- Free SSL: Included on all plans
- Free CDN: Included on all plans
- Free Staging: Included on all plans
- Free Migrations: Included on all plans
- Daily automated backups
Pricing Plans
Kinsta only offers one type of web hosting: managed WordPress hosting.
Its plans start at $35/month if paid month-to-month and include:
- From 1 WordPress installation
- From 25,000 monthly site visits
- From 10GB disk space
All plans also include free SSL, CDN, staging, and website migrations.
Performance
In our tests, Kinsta performed quite well. Most notably, its uptime percentage is very hard to overlook at 99.996%!
| Average Performance Score | 82% |
| Average Uptime | 99.996% |
| Average TTFB | 256ms |
| Average Fully Loaded Time | 4.3s |
- Scalable service as your website grows
- Excellent uptime with checks every 2 mins
- Guaranteed fixes if your site gets hacked
- Affordable access to Google’s C2 machines
- Expensive compared to other hosting options
- Only one type of hosting plan offered
- No phone support
- Need to optimize more to get better speed performance
Who It’s Best Suited To
If you need a premium web hosting provider that means serious business and can support your growing website, Kinsta is well worth looking into.
12. DreamHost — Best All-Rounder for Beginners
The final company on our list is DreamHost. Like SiteGround, DreamHost is also featured by WordPress as an official recommendation for anyone seeking WordPress hosting.
However, DreamHost is not exclusive to WordPress sites.
Founded over 25 years ago, DreamHost currently hosts over 1.5 million websites. It is dedicated to delivering top-notch, beginner-friendly services suitable for any type of website.
Key Features
- Free domain name
- Free, automatic WordPress site migrations
- Pre-installed WordPress
- Fast SSD storage on all plans
- Free, pre-installed SSL certificates
- 100% uptime guarantee
- Automated daily backups
- 24/7 ticket support
- Custom, user-friendly control panel
- Free domain privacy included
Pricing Plans
| Promotional Pricing | Renewal Pricing | Disk Space | |
| Shared Hosting | From 2.59/mo | From $7.99/mo | From 50GB |
| WordPress Hosting | From 2.59/mo | From $5.99/mo | Unmetered |
| VPS Hosting | From $10/mo | From $15/mo | From 30GB SSD storage |
| Dedicated Hosting | From $149/mo | From $169/mo | From 4GB RAM and 1TB HDD |
Performance
For a complete breakdown of DreamHost’s performance, check out our full DreamHost review.
In truth, it doesn’t have the greatest performance out there. But DreamHost is a decent web host for beginners to get started with.
- Fairly cheap pricing
- Loads of “unlimited” features
- A good variety of options for hosting packages
- Decent security measures
- Free, automated daily backups
- 97-day money-back guarantee
- Excellent support (as rated by users)
- Official recommended WP hosting provider
- Month-to-month hosting you can cancel anytime
- Easy to use, intuitive control panel (it’s custom)
- Slower performance than competitors
- Uptime does not always meet the guarantee
- Server reliability has been declining in recent years
- Free website migrations are only offered as a DIY option
- Limited live chat support
- Over-priced, under-resourced dedicated servers
Who It’s Best Suited To
DreamHost is ideal for beginners and small business owners on a budget. However, if you’re looking for top-notch performance, we suggest looking at one of our other suggestions above.
How to Choose the Best Web Hosting Service for Your Website
Choosing the best web host comes down to understanding the features your website will need and which hosting company can deliver them to you.
However, there are also a few core tenets a decent web hosting provider must deliver no matter what.
These include:
- Speed: Servers that are optimized to deliver the best speed performance for your website matters for both your website’s ability to rank in search engines and to deliver an excellent user experience too.
- Uptime: Uptime is a metric that alludes to how reliable and stable your server infrastructure is.
- The fewer downtime events, the better.
- Ease of Use: If you struggle to use the interface or navigate a dashboard to perform basic functions, that’s a problem.
- A good web hosting provider should make it easy for you to access everything you need as efficiently as possible.
- Customer Support: In the event anything goes wrong, the worst that can happen is that you’re left hanging by a customer support team that is slow to respond or unable to help you fix your issue.
- For us, poor customer support is one of the biggest deal breakers.
We’ve looked at all of the above (and more) to bring you our list of the best hosting companies.
Shared hosting is the cheapest type of hosting available on the market.
It allows multiple people to share a single server and its available resources.
Although being the most cost-effective type of hosting, it is also the least secure and you cannot customize your server’s specifications to your needs.
What Is VPS Hosting?
Virtual private server hosting (VPS hosting for short) is like a cross between shared and dedicated hosting.
It is a virtually partitioned space on a single shared server.
You get all the resources in this space to yourself, but you’re still sharing the server with other websites.
What Is WordPress Hosting?
WordPress hosting is often a fully managed hosting solution offered by web hosting companies.
More often than not, the web host will have designed a specific service to help you maximize the performance of your WordPress website.
It is typically a specific type of shared hosting that’s combined with the services of a dedicated team of experts who will maintain things like the backups, site health, and performance of your website.
What Is Dedicated Hosting?
Dedicated hosting gives you access to your own physical server. It is best for websites that get a lot of traffic every month and need more resources.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS)
What Type of Web Hosting Service Is the Best for My Business?
The best web hosting for your business will depend on how large your website is and what resources it requires to operate at peak performance.
Many small businesses can get by with shared or managed hosting plans.
However, if you run an eCommerce, media-heavy, or high-performance website VPS or dedicated hosting is likely the better option.
Is Web Hosting the Same as a Website Builder?
No, web hosting is different from a website builder.
A website builder is a tool or platform that allows you to design a website from scratch, often using drag-and-drop functionality to make that happen.
However, website hosting is a service that stores all the files associated with your website, no matter what builder or platform has been used to create the website.
Can I Get Free Web Hosting Services?
Yes, you can certainly find free web hosting services.
However, we wouldn’t recommend using them for any business-related website or if you intend on scaling or monetizing your website.
There are many caveats that come with free website hosting making it an unfavorable option in the long run.
What’s the Cheapest Web Hosting Provider?
We analyzed over 1,000 hosting plans when researching the cheapest place to buy web hosting services. Check out the full post we wrote: Cheapest Web Hosting Services in 2023.
What’s the Best Hosting Provider for a Small Business?
Depending on your budget, we would suggest SiteGround or WPX as the best web hosting provider for small businesses.
Our Verdict: What’s the Best Web Hosting Service in 2023?
If you’re after the best web hosting company right now, we’re handing it to SiteGround and WPX.
Both of these companies provide excellent and immediate support.
They also invest in their server infrastructure and make sure it’s the bes t it can be.
That’s why performance and server reliability are also among the best we’ve seen in all the companies we’ve tested out over the years.
We recommend SiteGround for small businesses or anyone who’s starting out on a tighter budget.
If you have a little more to spend and you’re operating a WordPress website, WPX’s service is unparalleled and it’s what we use for our website portfolio with great success.
