WordPress Website Software needs a host and a domain name in order to run a publicly facing website. In this article we compare the various popular hosting options for your WordPress site from wordpress.com, wordpress.org and many of the third party hosts (Bluehost, Digital Ocean etc etc).
PROTIP: Check out our ‘WordPress Host Plan’ Selector tool which allows you to easily sift through the various hosting plans offered by the various companies because hosting plans can be difficult to compare easily and gets complicated.
Table of Contents:
- The best Hosting from survey (top 2)
- The important difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org hosting
- What factors to consider when choosing WordPress hosting
- WordPress Hosting Compared (hosting comparison table)
- Further details on each WordPress Host
The best Hosting from Survey (top 2):
I picked the best Hosts under different circumstances in case you are short on time.
Best Host for non-technical WordPress user (managed wordpress):
We class a non-technical users as those who are not or don’t have in house developers or server admin skills. This would cover most WordPress users.
Hostinger | Best pricing in all hosts surveyed but still allows for feature rich managed and non managed plans. Dedicated and shared servers to suit all traffic volumes. |
| Basic Plan (1 website, Managed Hosting) | From $1.99 p/month which renew as low as $3.99 |
| WordPress Starter Plan (100 websites, Managed Hosting) | From $2.99 and renews at $6.99 |
| Reviews (TrustPilot independent reviewer) | 4.5 from 5 stars. View here |
Best host(s) for those with technical skills and/or want to use also sell hosting yourself (un managed wordpress):
If you have a technical background or don’t mind learning take advantage of this fact and start to pay less for hosting.
A2 Hosting | Feature Rich – hard to beat feature list very useful for developers. |
| Unlimited website plans | From as low as $5.99 p/month but does renew higher (approx. $11.99 p/month) after initial term. |
| Reviews (TrustPilot independent reviewer) | 4.5 of 5 stars |
| Nice to have | They also offer Reseller Hosting Plans from $24.95 p/month so you can make a recurring income from clients who you create sites for and sign up to hosing plans. |
Honorable mentions for,
- Digital Ocean: At $4 p/month its also quite affordable. I didn’t favor it because you can’t do reseller with AWS.
- Amazon Web Services: At $3.50 a month and very very flexible this may be of interest to you as a techie. I didn’t favor it because you can’t do reseller with AWS.
The important difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org hosting
wordpress.com and wordpress.org are different entities in the world of WordPress. Many people new to WordPress make the mistake of thinking that they NEED to use wordpress.com in order to create their site and THEY DON’T.
wordpress.com is a proprietary company that charges for their hosting in rigid ways. Using a different host is recommended by all WordPress professionals. wordpress.org is the organization which supports the free WordPress software. This software can be installed on wordpress.com or indeed any other host to launch your site. Don’t get roped into the scam which is wordpress.com where they charge you for every little thing on your site.
What factors to consider when choosing WordPress hosting
In my opinion most of the hosts are all the same with respect to
- up time (availability of your site to the public from the host’s servers),
- they mostly offer the cPanel (to manage your WP site and hosting service more generally) which is better for non-developer type users
- all of them offer shared and dedicated server plans so you can upgrade as your site grows
- and the capabilities in terms of the server computers available to rent space on with respect CPU, bandwidth, memory etc are usually high quality enough for the normal WP user,
but I think they do differ in their costing, how much marketing they do, user experience and the tools with which you may need depending on your skill level with websites, hosts and domain names etc.
WordPress Hosting Compared (hosting comparison table):
| Host | Uptime | Affordable? | Good Dashboard? | Non Dev-Friendly? | Dev-Friendly? | Multiple Sites? | One click Installation? | Free Migration? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger | 99.9% | Yes an no. They start from $1.99 p/month but increase after the renewal period to $3.99 p/month. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | More Info |
| A2 | 99.9% | Yes, starts at $2.99 p.month but renews at $9.99. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | A really good host especially if you have some skill with server admin as they have the cheapest rates around. They also have a hosting reseller feature which means, as a developer, freelancer or agency, you could offer your own hosting and increase your recurring monthly income. Very nice. More Info |
| Digital Ocean | 99.9% | Yes. From $4 p/month. | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes. | No | See here |
| AWS | 99.9% | Yes, From $3.50 per month. | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | More Info |
| SiteGround | 99.9% | Yes, from $2.99 p/month BUT renews after one year from $14.99 | Yes | Yes (Managed) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Bluehost | 99.9% | Yes and no. The cost goes up over time and is higher than it needs to be. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | See here |
| wordpress.org | 99.9% | Yes, free plans. | Limited functionality. | No | No | No | Yes | No | See here |
| wordpress.com | n/a | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | See here |
| GoDaddy | 99.9% | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | See here |
| Digital Ocean | 99.9% | Yes. From $4 p/month. | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes. | No | See here |
| Cloudways | 99.9% | No. From $12 p/month. | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | More Info |
| Kinsta | 99.9% | No. From $35 p/month. | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | More Info. |
| WPEngine | 99.9% | No, from $20 p/month. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | More Info |
| Krystal | 99.9% | From $7.99 p/month | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | More Info |
| DreamHost | 99.9% | Starting from $2.59 p/month and renews at $5.99 p/month after the first 3 years. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Some of the most affordable hosting you can find for basic sites. IMPORTANT: Some free plans for those migrating a WordPress site on the WordPress Basic Plan. More Info |
| FastComet | 99.9% | From $2.49 p/month and renews at $9.95 p/month | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | More Info |
| IONOS | 99.9% | From $2 p/month and then $4 p/month after the first year. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | More Info |
| HostGator | 99.9% | Starting from $5.95 p/month and renews higher but site doesn’t say | No | No | No | Yes, but limited to 3 sites | Yes | Yes | More Info |
| FlyWheel | 99.9% | No, from $13 a month | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | More Info |
Further details on each WordPress Host:
SiteGround:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: Yes, from $2.99 p/month
- Useful Dashboard: Yes.
- Non Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes.
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes.
- Notes: Siteground has so many more features than described here. Its more than likely the best choice for either managed or non-managed hosting for WordPress whether you are a newbie or not.
Bluehost:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: Yes and no. Bluehost offers heavily discounted plans for lengths of 12 or 36 months but after this time they renew-at a higher rate. There are more affordable long term plans out there but if you stick to the contract term and then switch to another so it doesn’t renew you can take advantage of the low rates. A wide range of plans for all occasions and users.
- Useful Dashboard: Yes.
- Non Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Developer Friendly: Yes. Can use the Dashboard or connect via SSH also.
- Can handle multiple Sites: Some of their plans support multiple sites but some have only 1.
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes.
- Summary: Bluehost scores well on most metrics. The downside is the price goes up over time which isn’t ideal. This is because the rates you see on sign up only last the length of the initial contract (12 or 36 month).
wordpress.org:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: Yes, free plans.
- Useful Dashboard: Limited functionality.
- Non Developer Friendly: No
- Developer Friendly: No..
- Can handle multiple Sites: No.
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes.
- Notes: Good if you are just starting out as a blog writer but will not handle much more than this, for eg ecommerce will not work well here. Not good for commercial use if you are a developer. Has limited functionality. Good for very new beginners to WordPress.
wordpress.com:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: No. They deliberately restrict basic functionality and you have to pay extra to access it. A visitor to the site could make the mistake of thinking they must use wordpress.com when actually WordPress software (built and maintained by wordpress.org) is open source. I recommend you use another host.
- Useful Dashboard: No.
- Non Developer Friendly: No.
- Developer Friendly: No.
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes.
- One click WordPress Installation: No.
- Notes: I recommend you use another host.
Godaddy:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: No.
- Useful Dashboard: No. The dashboard with GoDaddy is very confusing to use.
- Non Developer Friendly: No.
- Developer Friendly: No
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes.
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes.
- Notes: Overly expensive and poor dashboard.
Digital Ocean (virtual server space):
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: Yes.
- Useful Dashboard: yes.
- Non Developer Friendly: No. This is a developer level host.
- Developer Friendly: Yes. In virtual server space you can spin up as many servers as you want and specify what software runs on them depending on your software. You could have WordPress running there or a REACT App and many other options.
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes.
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes.
- Notes: This is hosting for developers who want high levels of functionality for their site(s) and apps. I would suggest that this is not for the regular WordPress user but you may want to consider if you want one server where you can run something simple like WordPress all the way to hosting Javascript Apps.
Cloudways:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: No. From $12 p/month.
- Useful Dashboard: Yes.
- Non Developer Friendly: No.
- Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes.
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes.
- Notes: You can find cheaper and feature rich hosting with Siteground.
Kinsta:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: No. From $35 p/month.
- Useful Dashboard: Yes.
- Non Developer Friendly: No.
- Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes.
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes.
- Notes: Kinsta is advertised as a managed Host but we can see from the comparison table that Siteground is a feature rich, cheaper managed host. Use Siteground instead.
WPEngine:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: No, from $20 p/month.
- Useful Dashboard: Yes.
- Non Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes.
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes.
- Notes: WPEngine is famous for being a ‘managed host’ but Siteground also does managed hosting for cheaper so I recommend that over and above all.
Krystal:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: From $7.99 p/month
- Useful Dashboard: Yes.
- Non Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes.
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes.
- Notes: You can find more affordable hosting with better features.
Hostinger:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: Yes an no. They start from $1.99 p/month but increase after the renewal period to $3.99 p/month.
- Useful Dashboard: Yes.
- Non Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes.
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes.
- Notes: Not a bad option and has a lot of useful documentation on their blog and YouTube channel.
Amazon Web Services:
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: Yes, From $3.50 per month.
- Useful Dashboard: Yes.
- Non Developer Friendly: No
- Developer Friendly: Yes
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes
- One click WordPress Installation: No
- Notes: More for developers as opposed no site admins or beginners to WordPress. Advanced users only.
DreamHost
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: Starting from $2.59 p/month and renews at $5.99 p/month after the first 3 years.
- Useful Dashboard: Yes
- Non Developer Friendly: Yes
- Developer Friendly: Yes
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes
- Notes: Some of the most affordable hosting you can find for basic sites. IMPORTANT: Some free plans for those migrating a WordPress site on the WordPress Basic Plan.
A2 (Highly Recommended)
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: Yes, plans from $2.99 p/month and renews from $9.99 after the first year.
- Useful Dashboard: Yes.
- Non Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Developer Friendly: Yes.
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes
- Notes: A really good host especially if you have some skill with server admin as they have the cheapest rates around. They also have a hosting reseller feature which means, as a developer, freelancer or agency, you could offer your own hosting and increase your recurring monthly income. Very nice.
FastComet
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: From $2.49 p/month and renews at $9.95 p/month
- Useful Dashboard: Yes
- Non Developer Friendly: Yes
- Developer Friendly: Yes
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes
- Notes:
IONOS
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: From $2 p/month and then $4 p/month after the first year.
- Useful Dashboard: Yes
- Non Developer Friendly: Yes
- Developer Friendly: Yes
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes
- One click WordPress Installation: No
- Notes:
HostGator
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: Starting from $5.95 p/month and renews higher but site doesn’t say at what rate.
- Useful Dashboard: No
- Non Developer Friendly: No
- Developer Friendly: No
- Can handle multiple sites: Yes, but limited to 3 sites
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes
- Notes: Not recommended.i
Flywheel
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Affordable Plans: No, from $13 a month
- Useful Dashboard: Yes
- Non Developer Friendly: Yes
- Developer Friendly: No
- Can handle multiple Sites: Yes
- One click WordPress Installation: Yes
- Notes: They aim their software at agencies but they seem expensive to me whether agency account or an individual site.
