Are you launching a new site and looking for the best WordPress hosting company?
There are 100’s of them out there, and choosing the right one for your site can improve your SEO and boost your sales. So in this guide, we’ll discuss how to choose the best WordPress hosting service.
Here’s a table of contents for easy navigation:
What Is the Best WordPress Hosting?The companies below have excellent support teams and solid, reliable service, which is why we recommend them to WPForms users. They’ve also agreed to offer our readers exclusive discounts up to 63% off.
1. BluehostBluehost is one of the most popular web hosts on this list, probably because they’re an official WordPress.org recommended hosting solution. They’re also consistently rated #1 for small business web hosting, so you can’t go wrong here. They’ve got a traditional cPanel dashboard area for you to easily control your hosting.
And with Bluehost, you don’t have to worry about your website being slow just because there’s a spike in traffic, for instance. In addition, their 24/7 customer service is available by phone, email, or live chat and can help you whenever you need it. They also offer a free domain and free ssl certificates.
Bluehost is optimized for WordPress also has an amazing 1-click install for WordPress, so you can rest assured that’s taken care of easily.
On top of that, prices start at just $2.75 per month.
- Speed: 689 ms
- Uptime: 99.99%
- Customer Support: 4/5
SiteGround is another wildly popular WordPress web hosting provider that’s got sky-high ratings from users. Plus, it’s also recommended officially by WordPress.org, which is a big deal. And they provide unique in-house WordPress speed and security solutions to make your site as fast and secure as possible.
Also, SiteGround offers location-specific hosting with 3 different data centers in the USA, Europe, and Asia so you can choose the one closest to you and make sure your site is lightning-fast. Additionally, they offer WordPress daily backups, daily caching, plus unlimited databases and email accounts.
And, their pricing starts at just $3.95 a month.
- Speed: 649 ms
- Uptime: 99.98%
- Customer Support: 5/5
Another officially recommended hosting provider from WordPress.org is DreamHost. This is one of the best WordPress hosting options that’s independently owned and operated company is a smart choice because they offer a 97-day money-back guarantee. Plus, they’ve been powering millions of sites since 1997. Their standard shared hosting package is a popular choice.
And if you choose DreamHost, you’ll get a custom dashboard, one-click WordPress installation, automatic updates, unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, and free SSL certificates. So if you’re looking for an excellent WordPress host that offers easy site creation with high-speed SSD storage, then DreamHost could be the right one for you.
Plus, prices start at just $2.95 a month.
- Speed: 445 ms
- Uptime: 99.90%
- Customer Support: 4/5
WPEngine is a managed hosting company used for WordPress. And you know they’re reliable since they have some popular clients including companies like Yelp, MyFitnessPal, Asana, National Geographic, and PBS. That’s because they’re one of the best managed WordPress hosting plans in the world.
So if you’ve got a high-traffic site and need a top-notch host, you’ll appreciate that WPEngine has cloud hosting through Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. These partnerships give your WordPress website the highest possible availability, speed, scalability, and security. And it all comes with 24/7 customer service.
In addition, WPEngine plans include the Genesis Framework + multiple StudioPress themes completely free (an amazing value). And if you want, they can help you get WordPress pre-installed if you’re starting from scratch.
Prices start at around $20 per month.
- Speed: 582 ms
- Uptime: 99.99%
- Customer Support: 4/5
HostGator supports millions of websites and is a leader in the shared hosting space. They have affordable plans with a 45-day money-back guarantee.
In addition, all plans include a website builder with templates, unlimited bandwidth, and $100 in AdWords credits to help you with WordPress SEO optimization. On top of that, HostGator offers amazing 24/7 support.
Additionally, prices start at just $2.75 a month.
- Speed: 691 ms
- Uptime: 99.96%
- Customer Support: 5/5
Hostinger is a fast-growing and popular hosting company. Hostinger’s many great features include unlimited bandwidth, a free domain and free SSL, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Plus, they also have automatic 1-click WordPress install with managed updates and WordPress-optimized speed acceleration.
Also, we love that they have 24/7 live chat support, and offer a choice of 7 data centers in USA, Europe, Asia, and South America.
And prices for Hostinger start at only $2.19 per month!
- Speed: 146 ms
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Customer Support: 5/5
The most eco-friendly hosting company on this list is GreenGeeks. Not only do you get a free SSL certificate and free domain name, but they give back 3x the power they consume into the grid in the form of renewable energy, for instance. Also, their SSD storage makes them one of the fastest WordPress hosting providers that also delivers on security and reliability.
Plus, they’ve got a 30-day money-back guarantee and 24/7 support.
And their prices start at just $2.95 a month.
- Speed: 697 ms
- Uptime: 99.92%
- Customer Support: 4/5
So now that you’ve seen the best web hosting services for WordPress and what they have to offer, it’s time to decide which one is right for you.
Ideally, you want to pick a service that’s fast, in your budget, and promises over 99% uptime. All of the hosting providers on this list are excellent, but our overall recommendation goes to Bluehost.
That’s because they’re officially recommended by WordPress.org. Plus, Bluehost is super affordable for blogs and small business websites, but can also work for eCommerce sites as well. And you’ll get amazing 24/7 support from a WordPress expert at any time.
And if you change your mind down the road, it’s easy to switch to a new web host.
Best WordPress Hosting FAQHere are some answers to frequently asked questions about WordPress hosting:
How Did Your Speed and Performance Tests Work?We used independent 3rd-party tools like Bitcatcha, Pingdom, and Load Impact to test the performance and reliability of each of these companies, so the data above can help you make a reliable decision.
So, below are a few speed and performance tests we ran on these web hosting companies:
1. Performance
We used Load Impact to analyze the performance of the web hosting server. And we gradually built up to 100 visitors at once because we wanted to see how the servers would handle increased requests from multiple connections at the same time.
2. Speed
We used Pingdom, an industry-leading website speed test service, to check speed across the hosting companies.
3. Server Response Time
Bitcatcha helped us determine server response times across from geographical locations including the US, London, Singapore, Sao Paulo, India, Sydney, and Japan.
So now you know exactly how we got the scores for the companies on this list.
What Is WordPress Hosting?Web hosting is where your website lives on the internet. So if it helps, think of WordPress hosting as a house where your website’s files, images, and content are stored.
On the other hand, WordPress hosting is web hosting that’s designed to be used exclusively with WordPress websites. So, it’s specially optimized to help your site load quickly. And it often includes other tools and features to make managing your WordPress site easy.
Do You Need a Hosting Site for WordPress?If you want to make a website using WordPress.org, then yes, you need a hosting site.
But if you’re using WordPress.com, you can obtain a free domain and site without signing up for hosting.
So still asking yourself is managed WordPress hosting worth it?
Well, if you want to have control over your website and be able to monetize it, then yes, you do need a hosting site for WordPress. WordPress.org allows you to add WordPress plugins to add features and customize your website as much as you want.
WordPress.com isn’t the right service for most people, so check out our post on WordPress.com vs WordPress.org to learn more about why you’ll probably need a hosting site for WordPress.
Reading this because you asked which hosting service is best? We’ll fill you in with all the details next, but first, we’ll show you exactly how to choose the best WordPress hosting providers in 2020.
How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting?The best way to choose your website hosting service is to pay attention to these 4 important factors:
- Speed — The server load speed should be under 300 ms
- Uptime — A reliable hosting service will have at least 99% availability
- Customer Service — For help with WordPress related questions
- Your Needs — The hosting service should work with your business size and type
So to figure out which WordPress hosting plan will fit your needs, you’ll need to know the different kinds. Here are the top 5 web hosting options:
- Shared WordPress Hosting. The most popular type of entry-level WordPress hosting used by beginners offers hosting via a large shared server. Best for small businesses and blogging.
- Managed WordPress Hosting. Premium hosting for WordPress specifically that offers bells and whistles that keep you worry-free. Best for established sites or bloggers who aren’t tech-savvy and can justify the expense.
- WordPress VPS Hosting. A Virtual Private Server (VPS) can combine the privacy and control of a managed hosting platform while still using a shared server. Best for medium businesses and high-traffic blogs.
- WordPress Dedicated Server Hosting. A physical server you’ll lease from the provider for full control. Best for extremely high-traffic sites and blogs employing a system admin.
- Free WordPress Hosting. There’s free web hosting out there, but most have some sort of catch like requiring you to put their ads on your site. We suggest avoiding free WordPress hosting.
Unless you’re running an extremely high-traffic site, we recommend our readers start out with shared WordPress hosting or managed WordPress hosting.
For even more details, check out our article about shared vs managed WordPress hosting.
So when choosing the best WordPress web hosting, keep in mind that a good WordPress hosting company prioritizes making your site fast so you can improve user experience, rank higher in search engines, and get more form conversions.
And a bad WordPress hosting company can lose you visitors because of slow load times and unreliable service.
So now that you know how to choose the best WordPress host, it’s time to check out our hand-picked list of the best hosting services for WordPress sites.
Final Thoughts: The Best WordPress HostingWe hope this list of the best WordPress hosting services helped you find the right option for you and your site.
And if you’re just installing WordPress and growing your business online, be sure to check out this post on how much it really costs to make a website.
And, if you’re looking for ways to speed up your website, make sure to take a glance at our list of the best CDN providers out there.
Now that you’ve got your host, it’s time to set up your web forms and start collecting leads. Get started with the most powerful WordPress forms plugin today.