BEST WEB HOSTING COMPANIES (2020)

I think you will agree when I say choosing the best hosting service is a challenging feat, more so if you're a beginner.

With the many web hosts available, how do you choose the very best for your business? Hosting is an important part of running a successful website, meaning you need only the best service money can buy.

Here are a couple of web hosting scenarios to provide some context.

Are you the perfect beginner looking to start a website but don't what to do or where to start? Perhaps the whole idea of web hosting hasn't sunk in because, sadly, you're still wet behind the ears. Don't worry, we have your back.

If you're not the perfect greenhorn and have hosted a website or two before…

Are you tired of web hosting companies that burn you? Perhaps your website was hacked, and restoring your business was an uphill task. Was getting the backups you needed easy? Have you ever had to rebuild your site from scratch?

Maybe installing some software was a headache or some apps weren't supported. Perhaps you're dealing with slow page speeds and regular downtimes, and it's hurting your progress.

If that's not it…

Have you ever been with a provider that provided shoddy customer support when you really needed it? How about a company that threw hidden costs at your face when you least expected it?

If you answered yes to some of the questions, you are in the right place. At Website Hosting Rating, we review the best hosting providers in the industry. We offer you all the information you need to pick the best company for your specific needs.

What is Web Hosting?

For the sake of the absolute beginner, it's important to shine a light on web hosting. What is web hosting? Here's an analogy that breaks down the whole business of website hosting.

Say you'd like to start a brick and mortar store in your neighborhood to sell your grandma's cookies. To hit the ground running, you must secure physical premises, get a business address, and fill your shelves with your grandma's delicious cookies.

Now, if you want to create a website to sell your grandma's cookies to the rest of the world, you need a couple of things. You need web hosting, a domain, and a website/e-store. In that case, web hosting is the physical premises, the domain name is your business address and the website/e-store is the storefront where people can view and buy your cookies.

With that in mind…

Web hosting is basically where you store your website so that the whole world can access it via your domain name. A hosting provider is simply the company that rents you space on their servers for a recurring fee, just like you pay rent for your offline store. Think of a hosting provider as your landlord; they offer you the space to store your website online at a fee.

Nowadays, website hosting services allow you to register a domain when creating your account, but I prefer buying my domain names separately.

Down the line, they offer tools such as a website builder that help you to create your website from the ground up. For instance, if you're building a WordPress blog, many web hosts offer you a one-click WordPress installation tool.

The best web hosting providers offer many other tools including a free SSL certificate, professional email addresses, site health audits, security apps and so much more. You want to go with the absolute best service since the health of your website largely depends on the provider you choose.

What Makes a Good Web Hosting Service? The Three S's

A good company is many things, but the best in the industry thrive and stand out due to their commitment to stellar customer support, security, and site speed. Think of these as the three S's of good web hosting service i.e., speed, security, and support.

Speed

There are many types of website hosting packages at different prices, but no matter what you choose, ensure your web host offers enough resources to run your website. A small personal blog will thrive on most shared hosting accounts, but things might change when you grow big.

A big and busy website needs more resources in comparison and is more at home on dedicated servers, cloud hosting, or WordPress hosting. Speed is crucial to offer a better user experience, so don't compromise. Google appreciates fast websites also, meaning you get better rankings in Google's search results.

In other words, buy a hosting service that guarantees fast loading pages. Base your purchase decision on the size of your site, and the number of visitors your website gets. Don't settle for a plan that throttles your speeds when you surpass an X number of users.

Security

Over 100,000 websites are hacked every day, unfortunately. It's a shocking number that paints a grim picture of the state of cybersecurity. As such, it's paramount to choose a web host that takes security seriously. If your website is down because a hacker had their way, you'll lose time, effort, and revenue.

Before picking a web hosting company, check for all the security measures they have in place. While we all love saving a buck or two, don't jump on the first cheap web hosting service you find. Clearly, you cannot expect robust security features for a web host that charges $0.1 per month.

You can always bolster your security, but it pays to start with a reputable company with tried and tested security features. Web security features to keep in mind when choosing a service include regular backups, free SSL certificates, two-factor authentication, DDoS prevention, malware scanning, firewalls, disaster recovery, and so on.

Support

As you run your website, it's inevitable that you'll contact your web hosting company for one reason or another. Perhaps you'd like to set up an extra service but don't how to go about it. Maybe your website broke due to a traffic surge and you're stuck. Or perhaps you want to ask what the money-back guarantee is. It doesn't matter, you'll end up contacting your web host at one point or another.

For this very reason, it's important to go with a company that offers world-class customer support. For starters, you need a web host that responds quickly to your queries. With your business offline, you don't want to deal with long wait periods. Your choice web host should respond quickly via phone or chat.

Your web host should help with site migrations should you need that option. If you're creating a new website, they should offer assistance with that as well, preferably with one-click installation. So do your due diligence, and read our honest reviews to determine if your chosen website hosting company offers great customer support.

That being said, what are the best and cheapest web hosting services?

What are the Cheapest and Best Web Hosting Services?

There are many great hosting companies out there. As such, it's hard to choose who to work with – and it's not a decision you should make at random either. You want to go with a fantastic company that offers a money-back guarantee and adequate but affordable plans for your website.

You obviously don't want to break the bank when buying hosting. At the same time, you don't want to be cheap and end up shooting yourself in the foot. As long as you understand the specific needs of your website, you can find a great but budget-friendly i.e. cheap web hosting provider.

To learn more, it's important to highlight the different types of hosting.

Different Types of Web hosting

There are many options available, each catering to different website needs. Don't rush when choosing, because picking the wrong type of hosting can cause you a lot of problems down the line.

All types of website hosting will put your website online; the only difference is the amount of storage, control, server speed, reliability, and technical knowledge required.

That being said, here are the most common hosting packages you will most often find:

Shared Web Hosting

Shared hosting is the most popular type of hosting you will find. Many cheap hosting plans offered by web hosts such as Bluehost (review ➡), Siteground (review ➡), Hostinger (review ➡), HostGator (review ➡), GreenGeeks (review ➡), FastComet (review ➡), and A2 Hosting (review ➡) among others are shared hosting packages. Shared hosting plans are cheap since you're essentially sharing a server with other websites.

Due to the low cost and an easy setup process, shared hosting is perfect for beginners. Whether you're an aspiring writer creating your first website with a website builder, a stay-at-home mom looking to start a WordPress blog, a small business without much traffic, you'll find shared hosting quite adequate for your needs. All providers nowadays come with helpful customer support, free SSL certificate and CDN, a built-in website builder, and a generous money-back guarantee. Some even come with a free domain, daily backups, and site migration.

However, shared hosting is only good for small websites without many users or traffic. That's because you're sharing server resources such as memory, RAM, and CPU. When you grow big, you'll start having downtimes unless you upgrade to a more powerful plan. Also since you're sharing a server, a problem with another website could affect your site as well.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

Most companies that offer shared hosting also offer Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting. VPS is the sweet middle ground between shared and dedicated hosting. It's the perfect hosting plan for people who need more control, but don't want to invest in a dedicated server.

Unlike shared hosting, each website lives in its own space on the server, although you're still sharing the physical server with others. Usually, VPS hosting offers you more storage space, RAM, private SSL certificate, and more customization options. Still, the plan is unsuitable for websites with high traffic levels.

In other words, VPS hosting offers the control of dedicated server hosting and the cost benefits of shared hosting. It's suitable for people who need the power of dedicated hosting but lacks the technical knowhow. VPS plans are usually more costly than shared hosting plans.

Dedicated Server Hosting

If you are creating or running a high traffic website with many users, you will definitely love dedicated server hosting. This type of hosting offers you more power and control than both VPS and shared hosting. It is also the most costly of the three and requires a high level of technical expertise to install and manage.

With dedicated hosting, you rent the server exclusively. In other words, you don't share any resources with anybody; it's all yours. As such, you have full admin and root access, meaning you control everything from the operating systems you run, apps you install, and the overall security of the server.

If you have a website with high levels of traffic and/or need complete control of your server, this kind of hosting is the way to go. It's suitable for big businesses and enterprises with big server needs and the budget. You can find a dedicated hosting plan from the same providers that offer shared and VPS hosting.

Cloud Hosting

The cloud is all the hype nowadays. The technology is everywhere you look, and now it has crossed over to website hosting with some serious benefits. Unlike traditional hosting where your website is stored on a physical server, cloud hosting makes use of virtual servers that tap into many different physical servers.

As such, you have unlimited server resources at your beck and call. If you need more resources, say you have a traffic spike, you don't have to upgrade your entire package. Simply pay for the resources you need to handle the spike, and once things go back to normal, continue paying the usual rates.

One of the biggest benefits of cloud hosting is the flexibility to scale up or down depending on your needs. This means you also have flexible pricing. On top of that, you enjoy other benefits such as high uptime & availability, speedy server setup, minimum hardware issues, faster website performance, and so much more.

Looking to try cloud hosting? Check out hosting providers such as Bluehost (review ➡), A2 Hosting (review ➡), InMotion Hosting (review ➡), DreamHost (review ➡), SiteGround (review ➡), and HostGator (review ➡), among others.

Managed WordPress Hosting

For WordPress lovers, managed WordPress hosting was a welcome idea. Pioneered by Pagely, managed WordPress hosting has caught on with the entrance of amazing hosting companies such as WP Engine (review ➡) and Kinsta (review ➡), Cloudways (review ➡), and for managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting Liquid Web (review ➡) is a solid option.

Managed hosting is the Godzilla of WordPress hosting. They host WordPress websites only on generous packages that ensure you're always online. The best managed WordPress hosting companies also take care of site maintenance for you, so you can focus on other important aspects of your business.

Managed WP hosting is a bit pricier than shared and VPS hosting, but the benefits are well worth it. If you only work with WordPress, you'll love this option. You get so much for the price of coffee, and then some. SiteGround WordPress (review ➡) is a popular choice and Namecheap EasyWP (review ➡) is a cheap option for beginners testing.

What's Next?

Feel free to check out our unbiased web hosting reviews of the top web hosts, or read more on our blog. Alternatively, you can reach out directly via the contact us page, and we'll respond instantly.

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