Are you planning to set up a new WordPress website or are you interested in moving your existing site and are looking for the best WordPress hosting?
You are not alone. I went through the same process when I decided to make my first WordPress blog. The truth is, there are quite a few WordPress hosting providers on the web today. Some of these web hosting companies are really great, but some of them don’t deliver the services they promise.
I’ve created this guide to save you some time and help you to choose the best WordPress host for your new project. To ensure that we provide you with reliable information, our team collected and analyzed data from three sources (this way you know that this content is not just our opinion, but information backed up by real research):
- A survey of WordPress professionals (194 responses);
- Recommendations from top bloggers (71 bloggers); and
- Data from Google search (companies ratings of 50 websites)
If you want to explore the details of our WordPress web hosting study, use the link below.
Jump to WordPress hosting industry survey and research details
I have also reviewed the product features of each hosting company and compared the WordPress hosting plans & pricing that they offer.
Disclosure: FirstSiteGuide is supported by our readers. When you purchase WordPress web hosting products through links on our site (e.g. Bluehost services), we may earn an affiliate commission. This comes at no extra cost for you, but it helps us to create more useful content.
All of this information will provide you with a clear understanding of which web hosting provider is the best choice. Below are the top picks for best WordPress hosts based on the survey results.
Before you start examining all of the best WordPress hosting companies on this page, here are some helpful facts and common questions people often ask before they begin a WordPress website hosting hunt:
The 10 Best WordPress Hosting Providers
Choosing a hosting company should not be a shot in the dark. Through the research, I narrow down the choices to only the 10 best hosting companies for WordPress. Remember, the hosting provider is responsible for your website, so you only want the best.
- Bluehost Starting at $2.75 per month
- GoDaddy Starting at $6.99 per month
- SiteGround Starting at $6.99 per month
- InMotion Hosting Starting at $6.99 per month
- DreamHost Starting at $2.49 per month
- HostGator Starting at $5.95 per month
- A2hosting Starting at $2.99 per month
- GreenGeeks Starting at $2.49 per month
- WPEngine Starting at $25 per month
- Liquid Web Starting at $19 per month
Bluehost — Starting at $2.75 per month
Bluehost is one of the best WordPress hosting companies. It’s popular among WordPress professionals and top bloggers. This was one of the first hosting companies officially recommended by WordPress. That fact should speak for itself.
Today, the company powers more than 2 million websites all over the world. It’s trusted by millions because of their great customer service and the best WordPress inexpensive plans.
Key features
- Free domain name for the first year
- One-click WordPress install
- 24/7 Customer support
- Automatic WordPress updates
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Plans and pricing
Bluehost WordPress hosting is available in three different plans – Basic, Plus, and Choice Plus:
Basic
-
As low as $2.75/month
For 3 years plan billed as one payment of $99.00
Basic plan gives you one website, a free SSL certificate, 50GB SSD storage, and a domain name for 1 year.
Plus
-
As low as $5.45/month
For 3 years plan billed as one payment of $196.20
Plus plan offers everything you receive in the Basic plan, plus you can host unlimited websites and you have unmetered SSD storage.
Choice Plus
-
As low as $5.45/month
For 3 years plan billed as one payment of $196.20
With the Choice Plus plan, you receive unlimited websites and unmetered SSD storage, plus a free CodeGuard Basic Backup.
GoDaddy — Starting at $6.99 per month
GoDaddy is a leading domain registrar company that’s been around for years. It was only a matter of time before this tech giant offered specialized WordPress hosting, which was instantly recognized as one of the world’s best WordPress hosting providers.
With GoDaddy, you can use WordPress with a one-click install, and their support team is there for you via live chat 24/7. Also, if you are not happy with their services, you have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Key features
- 99.99% uptime
- Automatic WordPress core and security updates
- Free domain for the first year
- Automatic daily malware scans
- Free business email for the first year
Plans and pricing
GoDaddy WordPress hosting is available in four hosting plans – Basic, Deluxe, Ultimate, and eCommerce:
Basic
- From $6.99/month
The basic plan provides one website, 30GB storage, is ideal for up to 25,000 monthly visits, and has automatic daily malware scans.
Deluxe
- From $9.99/month
With the Deluxe plan, you receive one website, 75GB storage, up to 100,000 monthly visits, website backup protection with 1-click restore, automatic daily malware scans, and SEO optimizer.
Ultimate
- From $12.99/month
The Ultimate plan offers one website, unlimited storage, unlimited visitors, website backup protection with 1-click restore, automatic daily malware scans, SEO optimizer, unlimited malware removal, and hack repair.
eCommerce
- From $15.99/month
With the eCommerce plan, you get one website, unlimited storage, unlimited visitors, website backup protection with 1-click restore, automatic daily malware scans, SEO optimizer, unlimited malware removal, and hack repair, no transaction fees, unlimited products, appointment scheduling, and real-time shipping rates.
SiteGround — Starting at $6.99 per month
SiteGround is a powerful yet simple to use managed WordPress hosting company recommended by WordPress.org, Woo, and Yoast; all big players in the industry. It’s truly one of the best WordPress hosting providers.
The company offers excellent customer service and you can choose different data centers where you want to host your WordPress website. For example, if you are from the UK, you can choose the London datacenter. SiteGround also offers five more data centers on different continents
Key features
- Fast WordPress installation
- Smooth WordPress transfer
- Regular security updates
- Powered by the Google Cloud platform
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Plans and pricing
SiteGround’s WordPress managed hosting is available in three hosting plans – StartUp, GrowBig, and GoGeek:
StartUp
- From $6.99/month
The StartUp plan offers one website, 10GB storage, about 10,000 monthly visits, free WP installation, free SSL, and daily backup.
GrowBig
- From $9.99/month
With the GrowBig plan, you receive unlimited websites, 20GB storage, about 25000 monthly visits, free WP installation, free SSL, and daily backup.
GoGeek
-
From $14.99/month
The GoGeek plan offers unlimited websites, 40GB storage, about 100,000 monthly visits, free WP installation, free SSL, and daily backup.
InMotion Hosting — Starting at $6.99 per month
InMotion Hosting (IMH) is a web hosting solution trusted by more than 170,000 customers that counts more than 300 expert team members. They have over 15 years of hosting knowledge that will serve you and your WordPress site.
We host our own website (firstsiteguide.com) with this company. Since our website gets quite a few visitors per day, we don’t use their shared hosting plan but one of their WordPress VPS hosting plans instead. However, IMH’s regular WordPress hosting plans are a great option for small businesses.
Key features
- 24/365 customer support
- Drag and drop WordPress builder
- Premium malware and hack protection
- Staging service included
- 90-day money-back guarantee
Plans and pricing
InMotion Hosting services are available in four pricing plans – WP-1000S, WP-2000S, WP-3000S, and WP-4000S:
WP-1000S
- From $6.99/month
WP-1000S offers one website, 4x performance, and speed suitable for 20,000 visitors, 50GB SSD storage, unlimited email accounts, and a website builder.
WP – 2000S
-
From $9.99/month
With the WP-2000S plan, you receive two websites, 6x performance and speed suitable for 50,000 monthly visits, 100GB storage, unlimited email accounts, and their website builder.
WP-3000S
-
From $12.99/month
WP-3000S offers three websites, 8x performance, and speed suitable for 125,000 monthly visits, 150GB storage, unlimited email accounts, and their website builder.
WP-4000S
- From $19.99/month
If you choose the WP-4000S plan, you can expect six websites, 12x performance, and speed suitable for 300,000 monthly visits, 200GB storage, unlimited email accounts, a website builder, and a dedicated IP address.
DreamHost — Starting at $2.49 per month
Another hosting service officially recommended by WordPress is definitely worth considering. This experienced company knows how to handle WordPress sites and provides a money-back guarantee that will assure you of their quality and skill.
DreamHost is well known in the industry for its WordPress specialized products and services. It’s also recognized in the developer’s community as a trusted WordPress hosting company.
Key features
- Pre-installed WordPress
- Site builder included
- Free domain name
- Unlimited traffic
- Auto WordPress updates
Plans and pricing
DreamHost hosting for WordPress is available in two pricing plans – WordPress Starter and WordPress Unlimited:
WordPress Starter
- From $2.49/month
If you select a Starter, you will receive one website, a domain, unlimited traffic, pre-installed WordPress, free automated migrations, a website builder, and a free SSL certificate.
WordPress Unlimited
- From $3.99/month
The Unlimited plan offers unlimited websites, domains, unlimited traffic, pre-installed WordPress, free automated migrations, website builder, free SSL certificates, and unlimited email addresses at your domain.
HostGator — Starting at $5.95 per month
With millions of websites under their wing, HostGator is another WordPress hosting provider that should be on your radar. They offer a money-back guarantee and provide a simple way of hosting for WordPress blogs.
If you decide not to commit to buying HostGator’s services for the full year, they also offer affordable monthly billed hosting plans.
Key features
- Pre-installed WordPress
- Advanced malware protection
- Free migrations
- Free domain name for the first year
- 45-day money-back guarantee
Plans and pricing
HostGator WordPress hosting is available in three pricing plans – Starter Plan, Standard Plan, and Business Plan:
Starter Plan
- From $5.95/month
Starter plan comes with one website, 100,000 monthly visits, 1GB of backups, free SSL, and free domain.
Standard Plan
-
From $7.95/month
Standard plan offers two websites, 200,000 monthly visits, 2GB backups, free SSL, and free domain.
Business Plan
-
From $9.95/month
Business plan provides three websites, 500,000 monthly visits, 3GB backups, free SSL, and free domain.
A2hosting — Starting at $2.99 per month
A2 Hosting team is proud to be a member of the WordPress community. Along with attending and sponsoring WordCamps and meetups, this team provides a fast and reliable WordPress hosting service that should be considered even by the most ambitious users.
The company offers WordPress specific products, an easy one-click install process, and support via live chat 24/7.
Key features
- High-performance SwiftServer platform
- Unlimited storage
- Unlimited email accounts
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- 99.9% uptime
Plans and Pricing
A2 Hosting WordPress plans is available in four pricing levels – Startup, Drive, Turbo Boost, and Turbo Max:
Startup
-
From $2.99/month
Startup offers one website, 100GB SSD storage, and free site migration.
Drive
- From $4.99/month
Drive provides unlimited websites, unlimited SSD storage, free site migration, and free automatic backups.
Turbo Boost
- From $9.99/month
Turbo Boost comes with unlimited websites, unlimited SSD storage, free site migration, free automatic backups, and up to 20 times faster service.
Turbo Max
-
From $14.99/month
Turbo Max comes with unlimited websites, unlimited SSD storage, free site migration, free automatic backups, up to 20x faster service, and 5x more resources.
GreenGeeks — Starting at $2.49 per month
The founders of GreenGeeks realized that the Internet is actually a massive polluter of the environment. That’s why one of their main goals is to reduce energy usage, and it’s worth noting that GreenGeeks has been recognized by the United States EPA since 2009 and works with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.
The company also offers in-house support via live chat, phone, or email 24/7.
Key features
- Free CDN
- Unlimited email accounts
- Free nightly backup
- One-click WordPress install
- Automatically monitors for malware
Plans and pricing
GreenGeeks hosting is available in three pricing plans – Lite, Pro, and Premium:
Lite
-
From $2.49/month
Lite comes with one website, unlimited storage, unmetered data, free SSL certificate, free domain for the first year, free CDN, and unlimited email accounts.
Pro
-
From $4.95/month
Pro offers you unlimited websites, unlimited storage, unmetered data, free SSL certificate, free domain for the first year, free CDN, unlimited email, and 2x performance.
Premium
- From $8.95/month
Premium plan offers unlimited websites, unlimited storage, unmetered data, free SSL certificate, free domain for the first year, free CDN, unlimited email, 4x performance, and a dedicated IP.
WP Engine — Starting at $25 per month
With more than 120,000 customers worldwide (including big company names like Under Armour and some famous universities), WP Engine is definitely one of the most popular managed WordPress hosting services worth considering. They offer higher-priced hosting plans, but if you have the budget, they could be the right fit for you.
This company offers products specifically optimized for WordPress, best-in-class customer support, and lightning-fast load times for websites via optimized CDN (Content Delivery Network).
Key features
- Advanced security solutions powered by Cloudflare
- Automated backups
- Multi-datacenter clustered environments
- Google Analytics integration
- Automated SSL certificates
Plans and pricing
WP Engine managed hosting is available in four pricing plans – Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom:
Startup
-
$25/month
Startup comes with one site, 25,000 visits, 10GB storage, and 50GB bandwidth.
Growth
-
$95.83/month
Growth offers 10 sites, 100,000 visits. 20GB storage, and 200GB bandwidth.
Scale
- $241.69/month
The Scale plan offers 30 sites, 400,000 visits, 50GB storage, and 500GB bandwidth.
Custom
-
Price upon request
With a custom plan, you can get up to 1TB storage, 400GB+ bandwidth, and millions of visits.
Liquid Web — Starting at $19 per month
This renowned web hosting company focuses on small companies, designers, and developers, as well as cloud experts who look for professional hosting services. They have more than 250 expert admins and can vouch to keep your WordPress business working like a rocket.
Key features
- Staging site
- Automatic SSL
- Automatic Backups
- Company-owned data centers
- Developer tools included
Plans and pricing
Liquid Web hosting is available in seven pricing plans – Spark, Maker, Designer, Builder, Producer, Executive, Enterprise:
Spark
- $19/month
Spark offers 1 website, up to 15GB storage, and 2TB bandwidth with 30 day backups, and unlimited email accounts.
Maker
- $79/month
With Maker, you will get up to 5 sites, 40GB storage, 3TB bandwidth, 30-day backups, and unlimited email accounts.
Designer
- $109/month
The Designer plan gives you the ability to deploy up to 10 sites, 60GB storage, 4TB bandwidth, 30-day backups, and unlimited email accounts.
Builder
- $149/month
Builder offers up to 25 sites, 100GB storage, 5TB bandwidth, 30-day backups, unlimited email accounts.
Producer
- $299/month
With the Producer plan, you get up to 50 sites, 300GB storage, 5TB bandwidth, 30-day backups, unlimited email accounts.
Executive
- $549/month
The Executive plan goes big and offers up to 100 sites, 500GB storage, 10TB bandwidth, 30-day backups, and unlimited email accounts.
Enterprise
- $999/month
The biggest plan is Enterprise with up to astonishing 250 sites, 800GB storage, 30-day backups, and unlimited email accounts
More WordPress hosting companies
In addition to the best WordPress hosting companies listed above, there are more services that are worth mentioning. These WordPress hosts may not have as many customers as those from the top 11 list, but they definitely offer good WordPress plans. Their products range from shared hosting to dedicated server type hosting.
Kinsta
In the last few years, Kinsta has become a provider popular with serious WordPress users that need completely managed WordPress hosting. Kinsta runs its service on cutting-edge technology to make sure that your sites work fast and show proper load times. They’re known for their great support and security. You can start using Kinsta for $30 per month.
Media Temple
Media Temple offers simple, professional, and secure WordPress managed hosting. They’re renowned for easy site migration and their customizable themes. As soon as you start using their service, you get two staging environments and access to professional developer tools. You can also expect automatic core updates, security monitoring, and automatic backups.
FlyWheel
With a plethora of unparalleled features, FlyWheel is another WordPress host offering affordable managed hosting. They allow you to manage hundreds of sites, collaborate with your coworkers, update DNS, and much more. You can start using FlyWheel for $15 per month, where you receive 5,000 monthly visits, 5GB disk space, and 20GB bandwidth.
Heart Internet (UK)
This UK based web hosting provider offers a fast and secure service optimized for your websites. Since WordPress is pre-installed, you can start without a fuss and relax, knowing the customer support team will take care of your updates and security patches. That leaves you more time to devote to the design and content so that your visitors can enjoy the site.
Pressable
Created by the people behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Jetpack, Pressable hosting service offers one of the best environments for your WordPress websites. They offer 99.999% uptime (note the extra digit that can make a difference), free migrations, unlimited bandwidth, 27/7 support, and much more. The most vital aspect of this provider is the expert customer support who will be able to solve any problem you may encounter with your site.
Pressidium
This company is known for managed WP hosting products, smooth WordPress installation, and a great support team. By introducing highly sophisticated security architecture and software solutions, Pressidium is able to offer a unique hosting experience that can make your site run impressively fast.
Pagely
Pagely offers managed WordPress hosting that’s entirely focused on the European Union. No matter how complex your project is, you can host your site from any of 3 EU or 10 other data centers around the world. Their team has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands, and since their infrastructure is built on AWS, you can never outgrow your hosting needs.
How to check and choose the best WordPress hosting
Plans and pricing
As a rule of thumb, you will end up paying somewhere around $5-15 per month for your shared WordPress hosting plan, plus your yearly domain registration fee. You can find fantastic deals and offers that go as low as $1.00/mo for web hosting or even free WordPress hosting offers.
If you read the Terms and Conditions of this kind of offer or contact sales support, you will learn that this is a promo price if you sign up for multiple year packages. After that period, the rate will usually go up. I’ve seen people caught by surprise when the renewal date comes, so we want you to be aware of that. If you want to go for monthly payment plans then check out our guide about the best month to month WordPress hosting plans.
Money-back guarantee
Most companies offer certain full payback periods (30, 45, 90 days) and during that period you will receive a full refund. You might see “anytime money-back guarantee” claims from some companies. Usually, that means that you will receive a prorated amount back after the suggested period passes. Make sure to read their “Terms of Services” before you commit.
Customer support
These days, most companies offer technical support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, it’s always good to test out support by emailing at midnight and on Saturday nights or Sunday mornings. Check out how long they take to respond. Along with checking the speed of their responses, check to see if customer support is technically competent. You wouldn’t want to sign up with a host that is operated by a bunch of salespeople who only know how to sell products, not fix problems.
One-click install
While each host has different control panels, the WordPress installation process will be similar when you purchase services from the best WordPress web hosting companies. Most hosting providers offer one-click WordPress installation, and you’ll find it very easy to set up. Usually, you’ll see an icon on the host’s control panel that says “Install WordPress” and it’s as simple as clicking that icon and following the step-by-step instructions to install the latest version of WordPress.
Uptime
Most WordPress hosts will offer 99.9% or 100% uptime. The reality is that every server needs time to reboot and fix eventual hardware failures. You need to understand that 0.01% of downtime means that your server could be unavailable for about eight and a half hours over the course of a year. So, 99.9% is not some crazy high number the company is promising you. As a matter of fact, that number should be even higher. The reality is that servers are pieces of hardware and, though quite reliable, need maintenance from time to time.
Load speed
The load time speed of your website is crucial, and Google has announced that site speed does have an impact on search rankings. If you search the Internet, you might find some sites performing speed tests on different hosting companies. These tests are useful, but the results can vary since all of these tests are done based on the performance of one single website hosted on a single server of the hosting provider. Thus, these load times are useless and give you no value since you don’t know how your specific site would perform.
Once you set up your website with the WordPress host you have selected, it’s a good idea to check your website’s load times yourself and work on improving that factor. Here are some free tools that you can use to test your speed: Loadimpact, Pingdom, Google PageSpeed.
Backups
It’s important to pay attention to your backup plan. There can be a huge difference between web hosts’ backup options. It is important to have a good backup plan, so your best choice is a host that performs daily backups. The worst choice is to go with a host that has no backup plan. Many web hosts offer backups for an extra fee. If the price is reasonable, then it is most definitely worth the cost.
Remember, if your website goes down and you have no backup, there is no way to get it back. To repeat once more: regular backups are a must!
SSL certificate
If you are planning on selling goods or services through your website, you will want to check if the web host allows you to set up SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). You may have seen this on other sites where their web address begins with an “HTTPS://” instead of “HTTP://.”
SSL certificates are required if you plan to collect credit card payment information. Since Google has announced that they use “HTTPS://” as a ranking factor, this means that your website can rank higher if you use a secure connection. That’s why it’s important to check if this service is available before you commit to a host.
Servers location
If you know that most of your visitors come from a specific country, for example from the USA, you have the option of hosting your site with a local provider. This makes it easier to deal with support and contact them by phone or an in-person visit, if necessary.
The Internet is global, and you can create a website no matter where you live. For example, if a site has a French web address, that does not necessarily mean that the website is actually on a server placed in France. Although data is traveling at high speeds, there will always be a bigger time delay with greater distance between a server and the user’s computer. The best solution would be to locate your website on a server that is closest to your audience. So, don’t forget to check where prospective web hosts place their servers.
WordPress hosting industry survey and research details
Below you can see a correlation chart (scatter plot) of companies’ ratings and the number of times recommended.
A table combining survey results of 3 separate types of research:
Company name | Opinions + recommendations | Rating |
BlueHost | 68 | 4.23 |
GoDaddy | 62 | 3.31 |
SiteGround | 27 | 4.58 |
HostGator | 19 | 3.95 |
DreamHost | 17 | 4.27 |
InMotion Hosting | 17 | 4.43 |
A2hosting | 4 | 4.52 |
Liquid Web | 3 | 4.39 |
Namecheap | 3 | 4.02 |
WebHostingHub | 2 | 4.19 |
iPage | 2 | 3.91 |
A Small Orange | 2 | 3.58 |
1 and 1 | 1 | 3.03 |
You can check the details of each survey and research in the dropdown sections below.
WordPress hosting FAQs
There are a number of free WordPress hosting services that will let you show off your website to the world. Some of the most popular ones are WordPress.com, 000webhost, and AccuWeb Hosting. However, before committing, please understand that free hosting comes with a lot of limitations, no customer support, and you usually have to showcase their advertisements on your site. If you’re building a serious website, blog, or business, we strongly recommend avoiding free web hosting services.
Creating a WordPress website is free if you’re building one on your own. You can start one locally or even with free hosting. However, as soon as you decide to make your website more serious, you will need serious web hosting. For a good WordPress hosting solution, you will need to pay anything from $2-$100 per month. If you select premium WordPress themes and plugins, your annual bill can easily go up by a few hundred dollars.
You can start hosting your WordPress blog or website for as little as $2 per month or as much as a couple of hundred dollars per month. It all depends on the hosting provider you have chosen and the features they’re offering with each hosting plan. On average, you can subscribe to a quality hosting service for less than $10/month.
Web hosting is a service that can take care of any website you want to host. It can be a custom-coded site or run by any CMS available on the web. This type of hosting will let you upload your files to the web servers and manage them by yourself. You can get a reliable service (even with shared hosting) that will make sure that your website is always available to anyone visiting it from anywhere in the world.
On the other hand, WordPress hosting is a relatively new term that’s become popular in the last few years. When hosting companies realized how popular WordPress is, they decided to offer a unique service to people who use this CMS. While technically it’s the same product (hosting space in one of the data centers), the difference comes in the hosting management and support. This type of hosting is specially optimized for WordPress sites so that you can make sure that your website runs as smoothly as possible. It is also packed with special tools that will make your WordPress site better, and support is trained for it, so no matter what your problem is, you can be sure that the hosting service will be able to help you out.
Although choosing a hosting provider is a big step, you shouldn’t worry that much because you can switch hosting at any point. Most modern web hosting services have free migrations included in their pricing plans. This means that the experts in the field will move your entire site from the old WordPress hosting plan to a new one.
Managed WordPress hosting is a premium service that takes care of every aspect of a WordPress site when it comes to performance. This means that the experts at the hosting company will make sure that your website runs smoothly & fast. They will take care of your updates, security, backups, and different optimization techniques that will make your site excel.
Along with all of the perks, you can expect premium support, and be sure that you will always get what you need. Of course, this kind of service requires a deep pocket, but if you do not know how to handle a site or do not have time for it, you can rest assured the experts have it handled.
If you’re just starting a blog, shared WordPress hosting will be more than enough for your needs. That’s usually true even for seasoned bloggers or companies that need website hosting.
Managed WordPress Hosting should be considered only by people who earn money from their blogs/sites and don’t have time to take care of it by themselves.
Conclusion
Choosing the best WordPress hosting provider is an essential first step in going live with your website or blog. Although there are hundreds of WordPress hosting plans available, we suggest choosing one of the companies we have listed in this article. These service providers are all experienced, reliable, and can provide reasonable prices that are affordable even for beginners.
Take your time and write down your needs, your budget, and what each of the companies offers before you commit to the one that will host your website. Still, don’t forget that you can always switch to a different WordPress hosting company, and don’t settle until you have the best service you can get for your specific needs.
GREAT WORK, KEEP IT UP!!!
Thanks Jack… I appreciate it!