5 Best WordPress Hosting Solutions Compared (2023 Edition) 

Are you looking for the best WordPress hosting solutions for your new website?

Web hosting is a crucial component of a successful business site. Not only is it your website’s home online, but the best website hosting solutions can improve your SEO rankings and boost sales.

There are many types of WordPress hosting available, including free, shared, dedicated, VPS, and managed WordPress hosting. That’s why in this article, we’ll share only the best WordPress hosting options on the market.

What Are the Requirements for WordPress Hosting?

WordPress is a lightweight platform that works with all good web hosting providers. The only requirements that WordPress has for hosting are:

• PHP version 7.4 or higher
• MySQL version 5.7 or higher OR MariaDB version 10.3 or higher
• HTTPS support (SSL)

Since WordPress is so popular, the best hosting companies offer easy 1-click WordPress installation. Moreover, every hosting option in this guide provides complete support for running a WordPress website.

Choosing the Best WordPress Hosting Provider

You’ll need to consider your business needs to choose the best WordPress hosting. Some web hosting companies may have features you won’t use, so evaluating your needs before buying hosting can save you hundreds of dollars.

That said, here are some other critical hosting factors to consider:

• Good uptime and minimal downtime (anything below 99.9% is not acceptable)
• Hosting features like SSL, domain names, and email addresses
• Good bandwidth and disk space
• Has the option to upgrade when needed
• Keeps your WordPress site secure
• Good value for money

It’s also crucial that your hosting service offers top-notch customer support. You’ll want to be able to contact an expert and have your issue solved promptly, so live chat support is a must-have feature.

Evaluating the Types of WordPress Hosting

As we mentioned earlier, several types of web hosting are available, like free, shared, dedicated, VPS, and managed. Here’s an overview of each option so you can decide which is best for you.

Free WordPress Hosting

While several free WordPress hosting solutions are available, they often come with a catch. 

You may find people offering free hosting in small groups and forums. In many cases, this hosting is managed by an individual reselling their server space to recoup costs. The catch, in this case, is you’ll have to add banner ads to your website or a link in your website’s footer. The individual will sell that banner or link space to advertisers to cover the cost of your free hosting and will keep any profits.

One of the most significant downsides to free hosting is unreliability. The individual can stop offering to host your site whenever they want, which can leave you hanging.

We suggest avoiding free WordPress hosting if you want to run a serious business or website.

Shared WordPress Hosting

Shared hosting is the most popular WordPress hosting for beginners. It’s a good starting point for new users and has affordable pricing.

Shared hosting is where multiple websites share the same server. This is a cost-effective way for hosting companies to offer the service at affordable prices.

However, the catch is when these companies say they offer unlimited resources because there is no such thing as unlimited. While it may say unlimited, there are still restrictions on your usage. For instance, if your site significantly increases the server load, shared hosting providers may ask you to upgrade; otherwise, it will have a negative impact on the other sites hosted on your server.

In essence, as your business grows, so too will your costs. That said, shared hosting is the best entry-level hosting solution for small businesses, startups, and bloggers.

WordPress VPS Hosting

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server and refers to a virtual machine. It’s a way to partition a physical server into multiple servers that meet individual customer needs.

Despite sharing your server with a handful of other websites, you’ll have as much control as you would on a dedicated server. You’ll also have the privacy of a separate physical computer that you can configure to run specific server software.

Developers and intermediate users often use VPS hosting, and some medium-sized bloggers will use it to scale their websites. If you have yet to gain any technical experience, you’ll need to ensure you purchase a managed VPS. That means the hosting provider will manage system upgrades for you and can assist if you need help.

WordPress VPS hosting is best for designers or developers, medium-sized businesses, and high-traffic blogs.

WordPress Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is a physical server you can lease from the hosting provider, allowing you complete control over the server without sharing it with other websites. You won’t need dedicated hosting if you’re just starting. But once your site receives significant traffic, it’s worth considering this option.

If you don’t employ a system administrator or have no experience with server management, we recommend getting a managed dedicated server. WordPress hosting providers that offer this service employ full-time system administrators to maintain your servers. Besides carrying out software updates, they monitor your server, offer phone support, and more.

Dedicated Server hosting is ultimately best for high-traffic websites.

Managed WordPress Hosting

Since WordPress is so popular, many hosting providers now offer managed WordPress hosting. Creating a hosting account with one of these providers allows you only to host a WordPress-based site.

The clear benefit of managed WordPress hosting is you won’t need to worry about anything. The host will optimize your website for performance, keep your site secure, make regular backups, and advise you if specific plugins have a negative impact.

Managed WordPress hosting is fast, hassle-free, and offers support from WordPress experts. That said, the pricing plans for managed WordPress hosting are generally pricier.

For example, a personal hosting account can cost up to $29 per month for only 1 website. The next level up, which offers hosting for multiple domains, is around $99 per month. A user that is just starting can’t afford these prices.

Ultimately, Managed WordPress hosting is good for established websites that can justify the expenses. It’s also for people who don’t have the time or skills to deal with the technical side of hosting a WordPress website.

What Are The Best WordPress Hosting Services?

Now that you know the types of WordPress hosting options available to you, it’s time to decide on a solution. Below we’ve compared the very best web hosting providers for WordPress on the market.

Each company offers excellent customer service, and we’ve given each of them a perfect 5 out of 5 star rating. Check out our hand-picked list of the best WordPress hosting providers below.

1. Bluehost WordPress Hosting

Bluehost is the best WordPress hosting solution and an excellent option for getting started. They’re an official WordPress-recommended hosting provider and the #1 choice for small businesses.

Bluehost has 3 different web hosting options and managed WordPress plans, including shared WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting services. You can start with the shared hosting plan if you’re a beginner.

By opting for this WordPress hosting plan, you share your server with several other websites. Plus, it’s a good option if you’re looking for something budget-friendly.

They also offer a dedicated plan for managed WordPress hosting. This plan is optimized for WordPress and is super secure in protecting your site from any threat.

Bluehost offers free domain names for the first year, SSL functionality, automatic WordPress installation, daily backups, and round-the-clock support. You can also access the Bluehost marketplace for premium WordPress themes and plugins at exclusive prices.

Additionally, you won’t have to worry about uptime and bandwidth because Bluehost offers 100% uptime, fast page loading speeds, and unmetered, unlimited bandwidth and web space. Moreover, this solution provides 24/7 support, including email, live chat, and phone support, so help is always available when you need it.

Here are the results of our performance test of Bluehost:

Our test website loaded in under two seconds, faster than 85% of all tested sites. Considering our sample website wasn’t using any caching plugins or speed optimization, it’s an excellent result.

After, we ran a Load Impact test on Bluehost servers. We built up to 100 unique visitors at once to see how our site would handle more requests from multiple connections simultaneously.

The green line represents the active virtual users, and the blue line represents the server load time. As you can see from the results, the server load was stable during the test.

Next, we used Bitcatcha to test more accurate server response times from different geographical locations.

The Bluehost server performed excellently in the U.S., loading under a fraction of a second. In other locations, the response was higher but still under a second.

Now let’s look at the pros and cons of Bluehost:

• Pros: Officially recommended by WordPress.
• Pros: Free website staging.
• Pros: Free CDN with unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth.
• Pros: Free WordPress themes and plugins included, like WPForms and OptinMonster.
• Cons: Support can be slow at times.
• Cons: It does not automatically come with All in One SEO installed.

Get started with Bluehost today.

For more details, you can check out this Bluehost hosting review.

2. SiteGround WordPress Hosting

SiteGround is a brilliant hosting provider for WordPress sites. It’s known for its excellent support and fast, reliable, hassle-free hosting plans.

Like Bluehost, SiteGroud offers dedicated WordPress-optimized hosting plans. You can also opt for the one-click WordPress install option that helps you get started right away.

Some of the services include automatic updates, instant setup of Cloudflare’s free CDN, and SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt. It also offers a 1-click WordPress staging test site, the latest PHP versions, daily WordPress backups, built-in caching, 99.9% uptime, and excellent response and load times.

SiteGround has a managed WooCommerce hosting solution if you have an eCommerce business, and their customer support team is second to none.

Their server infrastructure is powered by Google Cloud with built-in high-performance features like Ultrafast PHP, SG Optimizer, and more to give even an entry-level website a cloud hosting experience.

Here are the results of our performance test of SiteGround:

As you can see above, our test site loaded in under a second (491 ms), making it faster than 95% of tested websites.

After this test, we used Load Impact to see how the servers would perform as we built up to 100 unique visitors.

The green line represents the site’s active users, and the blue line represents the server response time. SiteGround had consistent performance throughout.

Finally, we used Bitcatcha to analyze accurate server response times from locations worldwide.

The test site’s server performed well in the United States and took less than a second to respond in all other locations.

Now let’s look at the pros and cons of SiteGround:

• Pros: Excellent WordPress support, with fast speed and free SSL.
• Pros: Advanced security features running on the Google Cloud platform.
• Pros: Several data centers running across the world.
• Pros: Free website migration.
• Pros: Includes powerful tools and plugins like AIOSEO, OptinMonster, WPForms, and more.
• Cons: No free domain and higher pricing for premium hosting.

For the best performance, we suggest the GrowBig or GoGeek plans which come with Ultrafast PHP and good scalable options.

Get started with SiteGround today.

3. DreamHost WordPress Hosting

DreamHost is another popular WordPress web hosting provider, hosting millions of websites. It also has over 400,000 happy customers from over 100 different countries. Plus, it’s an officially recognized WordPress.org hosting platform with PCI-compliant hosting.

DreamHost has all the features you need to start a WordPress site and includes 1-click WordPress installation to make getting started much easier.

All plans include a free domain name with free domain privacy, a free website firewall, and a free SSL certificate. It’s an excellent choice if you need a WordPress host that offers easy website creation and high-speed SSD storage.

Here are the results of our performance test of DreamHost:

The screenshot above shows that our test site loaded in under a second, faster than 93% of all tested websites.

However, this test site doesn’t have any traffic, so we ran a Load Impact test to see how the servers would stand up against peak traffic times.

As you can see, the server was stable during the whole test.

Afterward, we used Bitcatcha to test more accurate server response times from worldwide locations.

The DreamHost server had excellent performance in the U.S., loading under a fraction of a second, and the response times were also good worldwide.

Now let’s look at the pros and cons of DreamHost:

• Pros: Great speed, free SSL and domain with privacy protections, and 1-click WordPress installation.
• Pros: Officially recommended by WordPress.
• Pros: Free web application firewall.
• Pros: Free automated WordPress migration.
• Pros: Access powerful WordPress plugins and tools, including AIOSEO, WPForms, and more.
• Pros: Shared unlimited plan includes unlimited emails.
• Cons: The hosting control panel (Cpanel) is somewhat outdated.

Get started with DreamHost today.

4. Hostinger WordPress Hosting

Hostinger is a well-known web hosting service and a popular solution in the WordPress community because it offers the cheapest WordPress hosting. The platform is robust and reliable, and they offer 24/7 support through live chat.

According to web hosting statistics, over 1.3% of all websites use Hostinger. So let’s take a look at the results from our performance test of Hostinger:

The test site loaded in less than a second, which is excellent news. However, our test site doesn’t have any traffic, so we did a load impact test next to see how Hostinger would perform at peak traffic hours.

Hostinger performed well on this test. As virtual users increased, the response time remained steady.

So if you have a small business website, an online store, or a growing WordPress blog, your website can easily handle sudden traffic spikes with this web host.

After the load impact test, we used Bitcatcha to test more accurate server response times from various locations.

For each location, Hostinger responded in under a second. The response time was excellent across the board, particularly in North America and Europe.

After analyzing Hostinger, we find it an excellent option for small businesses that value fast and cheap WordPress hosting. The plans grow as your business grows, but they make it affordable to get started with the basic plan.

Now let’s look at the pros and cons of Hostinger:

• Pros: Great speed, free SSL, domain, and email accounts.
• Pros: Cheapest plan starts from $1.99 per month with 30GB of disk space.
• Pros: 30-day money-back guarantee.
• Pros: Managed auto updates and WordPress acceleration built-in.
• Pros: Choose from multiple data centers.
• Pros: Includes powerful WordPress plugins and tools like MonsterInsights, WPForms, AIOSEO, and OptinMonster.
• Cons: High renewal fees.

Get started with Hostinger today.

5. HostGator WordPress Hosting

HostGator is another popular web host for many website owners. By signing up for the HostGator plan, you can have a domain name for free for a whole year.

It comes with 5 different hosting packages with prices that fit various budgets. Like the other hosting companies in this article, this one also offers dedicated hosting for WordPress users with 1-click WordPress installations.

HostGator has several add-on tools to build your website and offers 99.9% uptime.

You can use their free site migration services if you’re a new HostGator account holder. If you’ve previously hosted your site with another hosting company, you can easily migrate it to HostGator at zero cost.

Here are the results from our performance tests of HostGator:

Our test site loaded in 1.03 seconds, faster than 94% of all tested websites. But since this is a new website with no traffic, we wanted to see how it would perform under peak traffic times.

With that in mind, we used Load Impact to gradually build up to 100 unique visitors to see how HostGator servers would handle the load.

The test site performed well throughout the test, with an average response time of 203 milliseconds.

After this test, we used Bitcatcha to test more accurate server response times from various locations worldwide.

The server response time was still less than a second, and in the United States, it was only 26 ms.

Now let’s look at the pros and cons of HostGator:

• Pros: Fast with 24/7 support
• Pros: Cheap prices for the first year and free migration
• Pros: Free domain and free SSL 
• Cons: Renewal fees are high

Get started with HostGator today.

Which Is the Best WordPress Hosting?

After looking at the performance and feature comparison of the top WordPress hosting companies, it’s time to decide on the best solution for your business.

Here is a table with a side-by-side feature list to quickly compare the best WordPress hosting companies.

Hosting	Pricing	Free Domain	SSL	1-Click WQP
Bluehost	$2.75 per month	Yes	Yes	Yes
SiteGround	$3.99 per month	Yes	Yes	Yes
DreamHost	$2.59 per month	Yes	Yes	Yes
Hostinger	$2.19 per month	Yes	Yes	Yes
HostGator	$2.64 per month	Yes	Yes	Yes

In our opinion, Bluehost is the best solution for hosting your WordPress website. It has everything you need to create and launch a WordPress website with zero effort. They’re officially recognized by WordPress.org, offer fantastic uptime and user-friendly features, and have first-class customer support.

That said, all of the top WordPress hosting companies mentioned above offer excellent uptime, fast servers, quality support, and incredibly low prices, so you can’t go wrong.

WordPress Hosting FAQ

That’s it!

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress hosting provider for your business website.

If you’d like a handy checklist for launching WordPress, you’ll love this tutorial.

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