Best Web Hosting
Based on In-Depth Reviews

Best Managed Service for WordPress

Managed WordPress is different than your regular “WordPress Hosting” plans. Regular WordPress hosting usually costs the same or a little more than regular shared hosting plans and comes with pre-installed WordPress, as well as some degree of WordPress “optimization.” On the other hand, Managed WordPress plans are designed so that clients can focus on what they want to show users, instead of having to worry about coding, databases, or other technical matters. Hosts whose sole focus is on managed WordPress have years of experience optimizing it. Because their experts work with your site directly instead of giving you instructions on how to do things on your own, tech support is usually much better as a result, too.

Screenshot wpxhosting.com, July 2, 2019. 

Competition among Managed WordPress-focused hosts is fierce, since most target the same niche: individuals, agencies, and business who want the best of the best for WordPress and are able to pay for more than an average hosting plan. Some of the hosts we considered here were WPEngine, FlyWheel, Kinsta, Dreamhost (DreamPress), and LiquidWeb. Our winner for this category was WPXHosting.

No-nonsense Hosting

WPX’s approach to hosting is focused on attracting consumers who are tired of traditional web host marketing strategies. All WPXHosting plans include the same essential features, including unlimited migrations and SSL, 28-day automatic backups, a staging area, and its proprietary CDN, WPX Cloud. The only difference between plans is the price, the number of websites you can host (5, 15, 35), and the amount of storage and bandwidth you get. WPX hosting plans start at $20.83 (yearly) and $24.99 (monthly), renewing at the same price. 

Free Malware Removal

WPXHosting takes several steps to ensure the security of the sites it hosts. For starters, they employ Incapsula enterprise-level DDoS protection. Incapsula can detect and mitigate attacks that exploit application and server vulnerabilities. It can also protect against hit-and-run events and large botnets (head here to learn more about Incapsula). WPX employs application firewalls, spam protection, and WHOIS Privacy, as well. On top of this, WPX does daily malware scans to ensure your site’s wellbeing, removing any malware at no additional cost. This is something that many web hosts are not willing to do for its customers. 

Stellar Performance

WPXHosting finished Review Signal’s 2019 Performance Benchmarks with three top tier mentions, one for each category it participated in (<$25/mo, $25–50/mo, and $51–100/mo). It reported 100% uptime statistics in all but one instance, where it delivered 99.99% uptime. Its results for load time were also remarkable across plan tiers, both with and without the use of cache software. 

Screenshot wpxhosting.com, July 2, 2019.

Because WPXHosting was not present in HRANK or HostingFact’s 2018 Study, we looked elsewhere for additional test data. We found Matthew Woodward’s site, which ran numerous tests in 2019 to find results for WordPress hosting. In his results, WPX hosting came out on top for image heavy speed tests, plugin heavy speed tests, load impact of 500 users, successful support request resolution, and WP performance execution time.

The reason why WPXHosting has shown such good results can likely be attributed to a combination of its server infrastructure and proprietary content delivery network. WPX has its own SSD servers which they explicitly state to underload so that users have plenty of growing space and are not negatively affected by heavy traffic. Its CDN was built from the ground up and specifically tailored for high performance on WordPress sites. Internal testing by WPX showed improvement of up to 320% in response time, depending on the website’s configuration and resources.

Outstanding Reputation

Online, customer feedback for WPXHosting is nothing short of outstanding. This positive response to the host’s services is present in every single third-party review aggregator we looked at. Reviews often describe its customer support as “excellent” and “prompt,” the latter of which supports WPX’s claim of addressing client issues in a mere 32 seconds. Moreover, it was awarded the 2019 Spring High Performer Award by G2 Crowd and is the #1 rated company on Trustpilot's web hosting category.
 

Option 2: Kinsta

Kinsta is an extremely powerful alternative for those who are willing to spend a little more on their managed WordPress hosting. It is powered by the Google Cloud Platform and features an extremely fast hosting architecture built on NGINX, PHP 7, LXD software containers, and MariaDB. Additionally, it has partnered with KeyCDN, a real-time HTTP/2 CDN powered by IPv6, to further improve user performance. Speaking of performance, it garnered top tier mentions in all the categories it was featured in for Review Signal’s 2019 Benchmarks—similar to WPXHosting. Kinsta also boasts a very positive online and from customers, despite its lack of phone support.

Option 3: FlyWheel

FlyWheel is a recent entrant into the field of managed WordPress, but it has quickly made a name for itself in the industry. It is particularly well-known for its popularity with freelancers and agencies. While it has been featured in past Review Signal Benchmarks—even winning its 2016 Top Specialty Hosting Award—it has stumbled there as of late. Nevertheless, it remains one of, if not “the”, best managed WordPress alternatives for beginners. Like Kinsta, it is powered by the Google Cloud Platform and uses NGINX as its default web server. It features the premium Fastly CDN, its proprietary FlyCache caching software, and its auto-healing technology with all plans. Its interface is also exceptionally easy to navigate, while its support team enjoys one of the highest satisfaction levels across the industry.

Best for Beginners

After rounding up our final list of the best web hosts, we decided to test them for a variety of factors that were relevant for new users. We picked two of our editors, who had no experience whatsoever building a website, and gave them each the same number of web hosts to build and post their website online. Our writers evaluated the hosts based on ease of use, quality of support, and money-back guarantee promptness.

Screenshot dreamhost.com, August 2019

During our testing period, we quickly noticed that many web hosting platforms were not well-suited for absolute beginners. Several web hosts lacked adequate support and had control panels that were difficult to navigate. In some cases, we simply could not get our test website up and running. One web host that came way ahead of the rest in nearly all of our testing criteria was Dreamhost.

Fast and Easy to Set Up

Part of what made Dreamhost such a strong contender for this category is just how easy it was to get a website up and running. This was one of the first web hosts that our editors tested, which meant they had barely any idea what things like “pointing a nameserver” meant, let alone did they know how to do it. And yet, our editor tasked with testing Dreamhost succeeded in getting her website up merely hours after paying for the service.

Screenshot dreamhost.com, August 2019

“I was able to set up the webpage easily!! I love this service!” said the writer. They also complimented just how responsive customer support was. Dreamhost’s customer support crew guided her every step of the way and would get back to her in minutes after sending an email or support ticket. The web host’s proprietary control panel also deserves a mention for being so intuitive to use. Thanks to its uncluttered and clear design, it was significantly easier for our volunteer to navigate.

Affordable and Accessible

In addition to making it remarkably easy to set up a website, Dreamhost is also quite affordable. Its Starter Shared Hosting plan costs a low $4.95/mo and includes free privacy protection software, pre-installed WordPress, a WordPress website builder, SSD storage, and automated backups, among many other features. For those who want more than a single website and email in their hosting, Dreamhost offers unlimited shared hosting for $10.95/mo.

Screenshot dreamhost.com, August 2019

One thing we really liked about Dreamhost’s subscription model is that it does not make use of renewal prices. Although we understand the purpose that this type of prices might have for web hosts and customers alike, we believe simply having a static price to be much more transparent—especially with the web hosting landscape as it is today. DreamHost allows customers to pay monthly, yearly, and for three years upfront.

Very Good Uptime Results

Among some of the bigger fish in the web hosting industry, Dreamhost is one of the more reliable competitors. We were able to acquire a larger sample of uptime results for Dreamhost and, although they show that the host does not compete with more expensive, designer-tailored solution, it stands as one of the best at its price point.

Dreamhost did relatively well in Review Signal’s 2019 Performance Benchmarks, with its only significant flaws being high response times when up against a large number of visitors. On HRANK, Dreamhost showed a good uptime of 99.784%, while on HostingFacts.com’s 2018 Case-Study it had a reasonable 99.953% uptime.

Alternative 1: Hostinger

Screenshot hostinger.com, August 2019

Hostinger shares many similarities with Dreamhost that make it a good alternative for beginners. The first is the host’s control panel. Like Dreamhost, Hostinger has a proprietary control panel that is frequently complimented for its design and ease of use. It also features a site builder with numerous templates and highly responsive customer support, with technicians responding very quickly to chat. “Easy to change pictures, intuitive, fast,” said our volunteer tester about its platform.

Alternative 2: A2 Hosting

Screenshot a2hosting.com, August 2019

A2 Hosting promises high-performance hosting for consumers at an affordable price. It delivers on both of these fronts; A2 shows very strong uptime results to back up its claims and has monthly plans for shared hosting that are loaded with features and start at $7.99. According to Review Signal’s Kevin Ohashi, A2 Hosting performs very well, just barely missing a top mention in his 2019 Performance Benchmarks. The host shows similarly positive uptime results in HRANK and the HostingFacts.com’s 2018 Case-Study. The only real complaint from our editor regarding A2 hosting was regarding its highly limited selection of templates.

Best for the Environmentally Conscious

In 2014, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy wrote down ten facts about the energy efficiency of U.S. data centers. About 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity were consumed by data centers in 2013 alone, according to the office. This represented more than 2% of all electricity use nationwide. More recently, information in the Who is Winning the Race to Build A Green Internet? 2017 study by Greenpeace.org showed that, if the Internet was a country, it would rank 6th in the world for electricity usage.

Screenshot greengeeks.com, July 2, 2019.

As Internet traffic and digital content continue to grow rapidly, data centers have become a growing environmental concern. The major polluters are corporate and multi-tenant data centers, not “hyper-scale cloud computing” centers, as The Natural Resources Defense Council call them. Although there’s been a large shift in data storage towards cloud infrastructure, just switching to the cloud isn’t enough. Major technological breakthroughs could allow for greater computing efficiency but, for now, those who want to lessen their digital carbon footprint and still want to host a website have limited choices.

Among hosts that advocate for “green hosting,” as it is called, there are two major camps. The first focuses on buying Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and supplementing that with other environmentally friendly practices. The second is focused on providing clients with web hosting that’s fully powered by renewable energy. Although the latter of these two has a greater impact on preserving the environment, our pick for best green hosting is GreenGeeks, which is part of the former.

GreenGeeks might not depend entirely on renewable energy sources, but it does put a lot of money into the renewable market. The company invests in enough wind energy credits to put three times the amount of energy they consume back into the grid. This is on top of their servers, which are designed for maximum efficiency to avoid energy waste. GreenGeeks is also a recognized EPA Green Power Partner, meaning they receive tools and resources, technical support, and advice from experts for reducing their carbon footprint as a company.

Screenshot greengeeks.com, July 2, 2019.

Fast and Reliable

GreenGeeks consistently rates highly for its performance. The host states that, through the creation of optimally run servers, they are able to minimize the amount of energy waste they create. In Review Signal’s 2019 Benchmarks, GreenGeeks earned a Top Tier mention, with solid uptime results of 99.984 and 99.98% with no errors in either of the two loading tests. On HRANK, GreenGeeks has a great uptime of 99.983%, with its lowest recorded uptime during the last six months being 99.972—still well above average. Finally, its results in HostingFact’s 2018 Study were also positive, showing 99.969% uptime.

GreenGeeks uses SSDs configured in a redundant RAID-10 storage array. RAID increases redundancy and performance by merging small capacity disk drives into a single array of disks. Furthermore, GreenGeeks servers are HTTP/2 enabled and PHP 7 ready. The host uses LiteSpeed as their web server with both MySQL and MariaDB databases. For those in their mid- and high-tier plans, GreenGeeks also employs its proprietary PowerCacher technology, a set of tools and services that provide page speed acceleration.

Option 2: Kualo

Although companies investing in renewable energy credits is a step forward, it’s still just baby steps to a greener future for the Internet. For those who are willing to sacrifice GreenGeeks’ better performance, Kualo is a fantastic example of truly 100% green hosting. The company’s U.S. servers are entirely powered by renewable energy, as certified by Green-e, the global leader in clean energy certification. Like GreenGeeks, Kualo is an EPA Green Power Partner, but it is also a partner of the Green Web Foundation, a non-profit whose goal is to create a completely green Internet by endorsing environmentally-friendly digital practices.

Best Overall Value

“Value” is a hard thing to evaluate, since what that word means varies widely between budgets. However, we still decided to include this category in order to guide consumers who are simply looking for an all-around solid web host with reasonably priced services. We ended up choosing SiteGround, which we consider one of the most well-rounded web hosts in the market, lacking only in medium-range price plans. Other than that, SiteGround has nearly everything you could want in a shared web host: better than average uptime, fast load times, a free drag & drop builder, and an excellent reputation among consumers.

Screenshot siteground.com, July 2, 2019.

Excellent Reputation

SiteGround may not be one of the biggest players in the web hosting industry, but their surge in popularity during the last few years has put them in the spotlight. Yet, despite their increasing number of clients, SiteGround continues to have one of the most highly-regarded customer support teams in the entire industry. 

For example, SiteGround holds the 2019 Spring Leader award in G2 Crowd, where it also features largely positive reviews from verified customers. And on Review Signal’s website, it currently sits atop the shared hosting category. Among all reviews, the help from customer support is often cited as one of the best things about the company.

Award-Winning Uptime Backed by a Robust Infrastructure

SiteGround has received numerous awards from Review Signal in the past, including three in 2016’s WordPress Performance Benchmarks. In 2019’s Benchmarks, it obtained honorable mentions in the <$25/mo and $25–50/mo categories. Its results showed excellent 99.993 and 100% uptime results, as well as no Load Impact errors and minor Load Storm errors. On HRANK, it is one of the highest-ranking shared hosts, with 99.997% uptime in the last 30 days since we checked and the lowest 99.982% uptimes in the last six months. Lastly, HostingFact’s 2018 Study reported similarly high uptime results of 99.988%.

SiteGround’s platform is built on top of LXC (Linux containers) technology, which creates more elastic and resource-efficient servers. Speaking of its servers, they are all based on SSD drives, enabled for HTTP/2, and support multiple versions of PHP, from 5.6 to 7.3. SiteGround also uses a customized version of CentOS with a mix of Apache and NGINX as its web server. Its caching technology, called SuperCacher, is available on all plans but increases in efficiency the costlier the plan.

Screenshot siteground.com, July 2, 2019.

An Excellent WordPress Alternative

If managed WordPress plans are too expensive or are simply not worth the money for you, SiteGround should probably be your pick for hosting on WordPress. SiteGround is one of WordPress’ three recommended hosts. It supports unlimited MySQL databases, has several WordPress features pre-installed and configured, and will migrate WordPress sites to its platform, even for clients of its cheapest plan tier.

Another feature that stands out is SiteGround’s SG Optimizer Plugin. The plugin is only available on the host’s mid- and top-tier plans and is designed to go above and beyond regular WordPress caching software. It has automatic image optimizations, GZIP compression, and CSS&HTML minifications, among other tools.
 

Option 2: ChemiCloud

ChemiCloud is a hidden gem in the web hosting market and an excellent alternative to SiteGround. It offers powerful hosting on the CloudLinux OS, with LiteSpeed Caching, HTTP/2 enabled servers based on SSD drives, and PHP 7. Its plans are also packed with additional features at surprisingly low prices, ranging from as little as $2.95 to $11.95.

Unfortunately, ChemiCloud offers no monthly plans, so customers have to subscribe to at least a year of service—and they have to pay upfront. There are no renewal prices though; your initial rate will be locked in for the entirety of your service. Additionally, ChemiCloud has a 45-day money-back guarantee, 15 days longer than the average of 30 days. ChemiCloud's customer support also gets rave reviews online.

Best for Growing Sites

If your site is growing fast—or you expect it to, once it’s live—you need to look at more than just price and performance. A web host’s ability to accommodate for growth, that is to say, its scalability, should be the main thing on your radar during the decision-making process. Scalability is more than just having different plan tiers and hosts telling you to “upgrade to VPS” when you hit your shared hosting limits. A good web host for growing sites will allow you to modify or change your plan as required and/or automatically adjust your rates based on your level of storage and bandwidth usage.

Screenshot cloudways.com, July 2, 2019.

Cloud hosting has the advantage in this department, due to the natural flexibility provided by cloud infrastructures. Cloudways, our pick for best web host for growing sites, is a fully managed cloud host. It uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model where clients pay for any changes done throughout the month in their next billing cycle. Moreover, clients can easily upgrade their server specs thanks to 1-click vertical scaling for RAM, CPU, and storage.

What makes Cloudways unique is that it does not run on a single cloud infrastructure. Rather, the host works with five major cloud computing infrastructure providers: being DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and the Google Cloud Platform. This grants clients even more flexibility than usual by allowing them to select from a wider variety of plans and prices—but all under the functionality of the Cloudways platform.

Well-Designed, Easy-to-Use Platform

Given that Cloudways uses the infrastructure of other companies to provide its hosting, it stands to reason that the host would focus most of its resources in creating a solid platform for users. The Cloudways platform is rich in quality-of-life features, from 1-click backups, server and app changes via UI, and multiple PHP version and database support, to staging areas, Git integration, and team collaboration tools.

Screenshot cloudways.com, July 2, 2019.

Strong Performance Results

Cloudways received a top mention in the $25–50/mo tier of Review Signal’s 2019 Benchmarks thanks to a stellar 99.9% uptime on both monitors used for testing and not even a single load testing error. Cloudways hosting is based on SSD, HTTP/2 enabled, PHP 7 ready servers, all featuring dedicated resources. By creating separate hosting environments, users can get a more optimized server and app experience. 

Cloudways uses a NGINX proxy in front of an optimized Apache web server, pre-configured PHP-FPM, and built-in Memcached, Varnish, and Redis caching. These all help the host attain its high-performance levels. Cloudways also offers a proprietary CDN to further accelerate page loading speeds.

Optimized for WordPress

Those looking for cloud-based WordPress hosting will be happy to know that Cloudways is one of the best alternatives out there. Cloudways boasts excellent WordPress performance in part due to its proprietary Breeze caching software. Breeze’s functionality includes:

• internal and static caching features

• Gzip compression to compress files

• HTML, CSS, and JS file minification and grouping

• file exclusion 

Essentially, Breeze is designed to boost the page load performance of WordPress sites optimizing and cleaning up databases. Breeze also comes pre-installed with Varnish, an HTTP accelerator, and is included in all Cloudways plans.

Option 2: GreenGeeks

Among all shared web hosts, GreenGeeks is one that stood out for us in the scalability department. GreenGeeks states that its hosting platform is fully scalable, much like cloud hosts, and allows clients to upgrade their computing resources as needed. Doing so eliminated the need of upgrading to VPS when all you might need is a bit more processing power or RAM. GreenGeeks has consistently ranked in the top echelon of performers in the web hosting industry, both in uptime and speed categories.

Option 3: SiteGround

SiteGround’s fully managed cloud hosting is a robust alternative for business and large agencies who have the budget—it starts at a steep $80/mo price tag. Clients can enjoy SiteGround’s usual high standard of hosting and support, but with the added benefits of guaranteed resources. As a fully managed service, SiteGround’s cloud hosting also comes with a pre-existing stack of CentOS, Apache/Nginx, managed PHP versions, MySQL and Postgre support.