When looking for the best web hosting provider for your online presence or business, there are thousands of options to explore on the internet. You can choose from VPS hosting to shared hosting and cloud hosting. The range is limitless. The vast web hosting providers in the web-hosting space make it easy to create and manage their online presence. However, not all these platforms are created equally.
The hosting platform you choose is critical to the success of your website. The last thing you want is your business website to be down when you need it the most. Reputable web hosting platforms would ensure your website is always online, helping you avoid unnecessary downtimes.
Not having to worry about your website’s technical aspect is a blessing, and that is what every potential website owner should aim at. However, with the vast number of web hosting platforms, it can be challenging to separate the wheat from the chaff, especially for newbies.
There are many good web hosting providers, however, the top option may sometimes be relative. Your best pick that suits your business boils down to the key features you need. Nevertheless, there are general features to keep your eyes on when browsing for the best web hosting
This article will review four of the best web hosting platforms on the market today. We used several criteria to evaluate our options before presenting them to you. This guide includes providers you cannot go wrong with when looking for the best web hosting services to build or host. Also, they are excellent for managing any type of website. Read on to see our expert recommendations.
The Best Web Hosting Services For Small & Large Businesses:
1. Bluehost – Overall Best Web Hosting Provider, Editor’s Pick
2. GreenGeeks – Top Eco-Friendly Web Hosting
3. Nexcess – Most Popular Hosting Platform For Growth and Scalability
4. Hostinger – Most Recommended & Affordable Web Hosting With Outstanding Uptime
#1. Bluehost – Overall Best Web Hosting Provider, Editor’s Pick
Bluehost is undoubtedly one of the best web hosting platforms on the market. If you are looking for a web hosting service that can help you elevate your online business, count on Bluehost. At the writing of this article, Bluehost has more than two million websites across the globe.
Bluehost is very easy to use. It has a straightforward platform suitable for both beginners and professionals. You do not need to be tech-savvy to host your website with this platform. They listed and organized all their services, making it easy to choose what you want.
When it comes to features, Bluehost has loads of them. From managed hosting and WooCommerce to WordPress hosting, this platform has it all regarding website hosting. They also stand out in pricing, offering top-quality services for affordable rates. They have a plan for individuals, businesses, organizations, and more.
In addition to helping you host your website, this platform has a website builder. Hence, you can build and host your website on Bluehost. They stand out in the industry in many ways. You cannot go wrong when choosing them for your website services.
Highlights Essential Features:
Bluehost offers a wide range of features, starting with its cheapest plan. The most affordable plan comes with several great features: website builder domain name. Plus, it includes a one-click install for Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal. The basic plan offers 50 GB storage and unmetered bandwidth, excellent for starters. All their tiers come with free SSL and email accounts. Furthermore, this company offers traditional shared hosting. Also, it provides managed, VPS, and dedicated WordPress hosting.
High-End Performance:
Bluehost boasts of impressive performance. Since its emergence in 2017, it has been delivering remarkable site performance. The average uptime of this hosting platform is 99.97 percent, the highest in the industry. The average loading time of Bluehost is 324 ms, excellent even for high-traffic websites.
Friendly Pricing:
Bluehost also stands out from most of its rivals due to its pocket-friendly prices. It offers many affordable plans to accommodate online businesses of all sizes. All the plans of this company come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
24/7 Customer Support:
In addition to having a simple and easy-to-navigate website, Bluehost provides excellent, 24/7 customer support. You can also reach the support team via different channels like email, phone, ticketing system, and live chat. The support team has a vast knowledge of the entire system. Thus, it is willing to help you whenever you consult them.
Advanced Security:
We also love this platform because of the high-end security it provides. It offers top-notch security for all types of websites, including WordPress sites. All their plans come with a free SSL certificate, an important security feature for all websites.
Dozens of Templates: Bluehost has thousands of templates for creating your own WordPress website on the platform.
Bluehost’s Great Deals:
Basic Plan: Bluehost’s Basic Plan costs $2.95 per month when you pay annually. This plan is for only one website. It comes with 50 GB SSD storage, 24/7 customer support, and custom themes. Plus, you get AI-driven templates, drag-and-drop functionality, WordPress integration, and free CDN and SSL certificates.
Plus Plan: The Plus Plan costs $5.45 per month when you pay yearly. This plan comes with all Basic plan features, including unlimited websites, free Office 365 (30 days), and unlimited SSD storage.
Choice Plus Plan: The Choice Plus plan is $5.45 per month for 12 months, but it auto-renews at $18.99. The additional features of this plan include free automated backup for one year and a free domain for one year.
Pro Plan: This plan costs $13.95 per month when paid annually, with additional features like optimized CPU resources and free dedicated IP.
Pros
- Easy-to-use interface
- Outstanding uptime and site speed
- Affordable plans for all business types
- Free website migration
- 24-hour support
Cons:
- Auto renews at a higher rate
- Plans lack customizability
=> Click here to visit the official website of BlueHost
#2. GreenGeeks – Top Eco-Friendly Web Hosting
If you are one of those who care so much about the ecosystem, this hosting platform is for you. GreenGeeks is an eco-friendly web hosting platform, and they provide some of the best web hosting features in the industry. This company uses renewable energy to power its operations, making its web hosting services safe for the planet.
For every amperage this company uses, they invest 300 percent more in renewable energy through Bonneville Environmental Foundation. Furthermore, they offer high-speed and high-performance hosting services. When using this hosting provider, you are less likely to experience sluggishness with your website.
GreenGeeks also offers 24/7 customer support, and you can reach the support team via ticket system, live chat, or phone. They respond quickly to queries and can assist with many issues. Impressively, this platform offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for its plan. You can get a full refund if you are not satisfied with their services within 30 days of purchase.
We also love this platform because of its unique starter plan. This is the cheapest plan, including many valuable features to help you build and grow your online business. Furthermore, GreenGeeks offers free website transfer. You can move your old website to this hosting platform without any charges.
Highlights
Latest Speed Technologies: If you are looking for the best web hosting with fast site speed, you can rely on GreenGeeks. This platform has the best speed technologies. When you host your website with this platform, you benefit from their latest speed tech. These are LiteSpeed, MariaDB, LSCache, free CDN, HTTP/2, and PHP7. The advanced techs help to make your site always secure and fast. This platform uses zero-day vulnerability fixes and custom security rules to keep your online business safe for advanced security.
Great Resources: One of the unique things about this platform is its vast resources. GreenGeeks ensures everyone can use the platform, including newbies. It has a resource center that teaches users how to make and transfer websites, start online stores, blogs, and more. If this is your first time hosting a website, you can head to the resource center to learn how to do it.
Top App Hosting Platforms: GreenGeeks also boasts of a wide range of app hosting. They provide WordPress, Drupal, WooCommerce, cPane, and Joomla. Also, Magento, CMS, OpenCart, and PrestaShop, hosting. They offer different hosting services. You may find web hosting, VPS hosting, reseller hosting, dedicated servers, and website builder.
Good Load Time and Reliable Uptime: This web host has a load time of 503 ms. It is not as fast as our number one pick, but it is better than most platforms out there. Furthermore, this platform has an uptime of 99.96 percent.
Five Server Locations: GreenGeeks has five server locations in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands. The platform offers SSD storage and fast servers. You will also enjoy unlimited bandwidth when using any of its plans.
Affordable Plans:
Lite: The Lite plan costs $2.95 per month. The features of this plan include one website, 50 GB of web storage, unmetered bandwidth, and an unlimited database. You also get one tree planted, built-in caching, managed WordPress, and free nightly backup. Plus, they include a free domain name for a year, a free SSL certificate, and 50 email accounts. It also allows multi-user access.
Pro: This is the most popular plan of GreenGeeks. It costs $5.95 per month. The Pro plan comes with all the offerings of the Lite plan, including a 300 percent green energy match, on-demands backups, and unlimited websites. Also, you get unlimited email accounts and web storage with a WordPress repair tool.
Premium: The Premium plan costs $10.95 per month. The additional features of this plan include free dedicated IP, object caching, and free AlphaSSL.
Pros
- Powerful shared hosting
- VPS and WordPress hosting
- Eco-friendly web hosting
- Free domain name for one year
- Reliable uptime and impressive site speed
Cons
- Support via phone is not available 24/7
=> Click here to visit the official website of GreenGeeks
#3. Nexcess – Most Popular Hosting Platform For Growth and Scalability
Nexcess also made it to our list of the best web hosting platforms, thanks to its solid features and better performance. One of the major selling points of this hosting platform is its managed eCommerce hosting. You can integrate this platform with a wide variety of eCommerce platforms, including WooCommerce and WordPress.
If you are looking for the best hosting platform for your online store, this is one of the best options to consider. This platform offers many tools and features to help you scale and grow your online business. This hosting service also provides one-click auto-scaling for handling unexpected traffic spikes. Hence, they will equip you with everything you need to begin, scale, and manage your online business.
Nexcess has more than 23 years of hosting experience you can benefit from when using their services. In their 23 years of existence, they have more than half a million websites under their management. They also have ten data centers around the globe. In addition, this platform offers free migration. Meaning you can switch from your old web host to this hosting platform free of charge.
Highlights
Fully-Managed eCommerce Hosting Options: Nexcess is built for eCommerce businesses, supporting many eCommerce platforms. Hence, you can migrate to this hosting regardless of the eCommerce platform you use. Nexcess offers eCommerce hosting for WooCommerce, Magento, WordPress, and BigCommerce. It includes Sylius, Drupal, Craft CMS, ExpressionEngine, and Orocrm.
Better Security: The security of your website is one of the top priorities of this hosting platform. They ensure your site is always safe with 24 hours monitoring alerts. This platform also offers a premium SSL certificate, which you cannot find on many hosting platforms. The other security features of this platform include proactive patching & updates and being PCI-certified for compliance.
Always Ready for Volume Spikes: This company was created with scalability in mind. They are always ready to handle massive spikes in your website’s traffic. This platform boasts 99.99 percent uptime, which is among the best you can find in the industry. With such a high uptime rating, your online store or website would be up and running 99.99 percent of the time. They also offer PHP 7 support and PHP optimization. Regardless of how fast your website traffic is growing, Nexcess will scale up your site’s performance to handle the traffic.
Excellent Support: Nexcess also stands out from the crowd because of its superb customer support. This platform’s support team is available 24 hours, seven days a week. They are always available to answer your questions and help you resolve any issues. This provider also offers free white-glove site migration, making moving your website to the platform easier. You can reach them via email, phone, or live chat.
Cloud Accelerator: Cloud Accelerator is one of the unique features of Nexcess, and it helps to enhance the speed and performance of your website.
A Package for Every Business Type: Managed WordPress Hosting Plans: This package has seven plans, starting with the Spark plan at $13.30 per month for three months. Managed Magento Hosting Plans: This package has six plans, starting with XS at $34.30 per month for three months. Flexible Cloud Package: Three are six plans in his package, starting with the XS plan at $49 per month. Managed WooCommerce Hosting Plans: The WooCommerce package has six different plans. The first plan is Starter, costing $13.30 per month billed at three months.
Pros
- Advanced security
- Allows for growth and scalability
- Money-back guarantee on all plans
- Acceleration engineered for enhanced website performance
Cons
- High renewal rate
=> Click here to visit the official website of Nexcess
#4. Hostinger – Most Recommended & Affordable Web Hosting With Outstanding Uptime
If you are looking to enjoy premium-quality web hosting without spending a fortune, Hostinger is one of the best options you have. Hostinger has very affordable hosting plans, and you can rely on its performance despite being cheap. With as low as $1.99 per month, you can migrate and host your website on this platform.
Hostinger’s premium plans are also very affordable. The packages come with everything you need to host and secure your online store or website. Furthermore, this platform offers free weekly backups, even for their lowest plan. Hostinger does not feel like cheap web hosting, as it offers premium features for affordable rates.
Another fantastic thing about this platform is its well-optimized, user-friendly website. The website has a simple user interface, making it easy for non-tech-savvies to manage their website. You can access all its advanced features with ease. This platform uses hPanel, its proprietary control panel for admins. The control panel is user-friendly and easy to navigate.
Hostinger has an awe-inspiring performance in terms of uptime over the past few months. The platform has maintained a 99.99 percent uptime, which is more than what most platforms offer. However, the downside of this platform is that they do not offer free domains. That means you have to purchase a domain name when hosting your site. The cheapest plans also come with limited bandwidth, so you would have to upgrade to higher plans as your business starts to grow.
Highlights
Wide Variety of Hosting Types: Hostinger does not only boast of an incredible uptime, but it also offers many valuable features. With this platform, you can enjoy different hosting types, including shared web hosting, CyberPanel VPS hosting, cPanel hosting, WordPress hosting, cloud hosting, Minecraft hosting, virtual private server hosting, and email hosting. Minecraft hosting is one of the unique hosting types of this platform; it gives you complete control over your Minecraft server via virtual private server hosting.
Free SSL and Migration: All the plans of this platform come with a free SSL certificate. It offers advanced security to ensure your website is always safe and secure. Furthermore, Hostinger offers free website migration, and they will not charge you any fees for changing your hosting provider. The package also comes with Cloudflare CDN and DDoS protection to secure your online store or site further.
Expert Customer Support and Guidance: Hostinger provides expert customer support. The support team is always available to guide you and answer your questions. They provide 24/7 live chat support with a minimal waiting time. The support team can assist with your site migration process. You can also reach them via email. However, this platform does not have phone support.
Unlimited Bandwidth: Hostinger has different pricing tiers, including Single, Premium, and Business. The Premium and Business plans offer unlimited bandwidth, making them great for large businesses. Thanks to the limitless bandwidth, you might not experience any throttling as the traffic to your website increases.
Intuitive Interface: Hostinger has a simple and nice web layout. Their website is not stuffed with overwhelming information. It has a simple design that allows you to get around with ease. The intuitive interface of this platform makes it ideal for both beginners and professionals.
Affordable Plans: The single price goes for $1.99 per month for only one website. It comes with 30 GB SSD storage and 100 GB bandwidth. This plan has all the basic features of Hostinger except SSH access, daily backup, and free domain registration.
Premium: The Premium plan costs $2.99 per month for 100 websites. It has unlimited bandwidth, 100 GB of SSD storage, SSH access, and free domain registration. However, it lacks the daily backup feature.
Business: The Business plan costs $4.99 per month for 100 websites. It offers unlimited bandwidth, 200 GB of SSD storage, free domain registration, daily backups, and SSH access.
Pros
- Pocket-friendly plans
- Incredible uptime and performance
- 30-day money-back guarantee and free SSL certificate
- Excellent customer service
Cons
- Lacks phone support
- No dedicated hosting
=> Click here to visit the official website of Hostinger
How We Made the List Free Web Hosting Providers For Developers?
What makes web hosting platforms stand out is the range of benefits and features they offer. On our quest to look for the best hosting platforms for you, we reviewed over 40 different hosting platforms. We picked only platforms that are good in all ramifications. We checked these platforms against our strict criteria that reflect high-performing services of superb quality.
Note: we did not test all the platforms we reviewed. However, we conducted extensive research and looked at the platform aspect. We also worked with data from past and experienced users. Ratings from Trust Pilot and Better Business Bureau also came in handy for our listing. Here are the key criteria we use to create our list:
What We Looked for
- Uptime: One of the essential things we looked for was uptime. Regardless of how beneficial a hosting service is, it is useless without a good uptime. The uptime is measured in percentage, and it determines the amount of time a website is online in a given period. This amount of running time depends on the services of your hosting provider. Hence, you want to choose a provider with good uptime. The best hosting platforms often have up to 100 percent
uptime, meaning your site will always be available to your visitors. However, some providers boast of 99.9 or 99.8 percent uptime, which is also good.
- Storage and Bandwidth: Websites use bandwidth to send and receive data from users and servers. Some platforms charge for the bandwidth a website uses. At the same time, others provide unmetered or unlimited bandwidth. Your website will not incur additional bandwidth charges when your traffic increases with unmetered or unlimited bandwidth. Hence, we listed web hosts with extensive storage and unmetered bandwidth, as they allow for the growth of your website without increasing costs.
- Speed: Another vital thing we looked for was speed. Regardless of how optimized your website is, if you choose a provider with poor site speed, your site’s speed will be slow. The higher the traffic to your site, the more RAM, data, and bandwidth the server would need to sustain the speed. Hence, site speed is one of our top criteria for listing. We only listed platforms that offer significant RAM and unlimited bandwidth. These determine the speed of a website. Furthermore, we ensured these platforms charge fair prices for the features they provide.
Web Hosting Services: Ultimate Guide
Finding the best hosting services can be a daunting task, mainly because of the numerous options in the industry today. However, knowing how to access key factors would help streamline your decision-making process and choose the right product.
You do not have to be tech-savvy to know the best web hosting platform to use. All that is required of you is to understand your website’s key needs to thrive and choose a platform with those features. So, how do I evaluate hosting providers and choose the right one for my website? Here are the vital factors you should consider when looking for the right web host for your site:
- Uptime
One of the most important things you should look for in every web hosting is uptime. No website owner wants to be experiencing frequent downtimes when they need their websites to be online. If your site or online store is down, you will not gain any audience or make money. Furthermore, it would affect your reputation and pursue your customers or audience to your competitors. Hence, you need a web hosting platform with excellent uptime.
The provider should be able to keep your website online always without going down. When looking for a hosting platform with good uptime, you should not rely on promises only. Work with facts and records of the platform. Some platforms claim to provide 99.99 percent uptime with no guarantee or proof to back it up.
Accept guarantees, such as a refund if the site goes below the promised uptime. You can also check third-party uptime data to know if you can rely on the self-report of the platform. We highly recommend never going down below 99.97 percent uptime.
If the web host does not provide a money-back guarantee on downtimes, move on to the next platform. The web hosts reviewed in this guide provide excellent uptime and a money-back guarantee on all their plans.
- Speed
After site uptime, the next important thing to consider is speed. If your website is always online but very slow, you are still likely to lose your audience and not make any money. Nothing annoys most visitors than a sluggish website that takes forever to load. Once potential visitors click your link and your site takes time to load, they will likely close it and move to the following link on their search result.
The speed of your website also affects your search engine rankings. The speed of your website affects every part of your business, including your conversion rates and making customers happy. Hence, you want to ensure you choose a web host that provides impressive site speed.
The platform you choose should also have room for scalability. If you want to create a website that will experience very high traffic, your target should be a web host that provides super-fast speed on large websites. The host should be able to handle your website traffic as it grows.
Many online businesses have lost most of their customers because their sites could no longer handle the traffic as they grow. Hence, an increase in traffic to your website should not affect its speed, and only a web host with excellent site speed can do that for you.
- Excellent Customer Service
Customer service is another essential hosting factor you should consider. Sometimes, things might not go as planned, and you would need some assistance. This feature is even more critical for newbies, as they are more likely to make mistakes and not know their way around.
A good customer support team can help you resolve any issues with your website. The support team comes in handy right from the migration or setup process. They can help you move your website from another host to theirs. Even when you make inevitable mistakes on your website, causing it to go down for a while, the support team can come to your rescue. Nevertheless, you can only enjoy those offers when choosing a platform with an excellent support team.
The support team should have a quick response time, ensuring they attend to your needs as fast as possible. The last thing you want is to wait for a response from the support for hours while your website is down. In addition, the platform should have multiple channels through which you can reach them.
Live chat is one of the most important channels to reach customer support. Other vital channels the company should have include phone, email, and tickets. The company should have phone support and answer their calls when needed.
Furthermore, you want to ensure they provide 24/7 customer support. You do not know when your website might have an issue, and you want to ensure you can reach customer support whenever you need their help. Hence, quick response, strong communication skills, and multiple support channels are essential when choosing a web host.
- Security
The importance of online security cannot be overemphasized. Look for a web hosting platform that can keep your site data safe and secure at all times. Hackers now use different methods to break into websites and hold them for ransom. They also steal user data from these websites and use them for criminal purposes. If you do not want to put your visitors’ data at risk of being stolen or losing your website, opt for a hosting service that prioritizes security.
You also want to ensure the company offers free SSL certificates. That would make your visitors comfortable that they are visiting a safe website.
This feature should be available free of charge with the lowest or starter plan of the company. All the web hosting companies on our list offer a free SSL certificate. This incredible security feature could earn you a more loyal audience and customers.
- Automatic Backup
Automatic backup is a highly essential feature that many people do not know they need. Backups are crucial to website owners, as you cannot predict when your website might have an issue and needs a reset. When you back up your website, you can quickly restore it when it has a problem.
Many people only back up their websites when they want to make notable changes, such as applying new themes, plugins, or adding new features. While manual backup is good, automatic backup is the best, as something can go wrong with the site at any time. Automatic backup would help prevent data loss due to cyber threats, viruses, or system crashes. Hence, we highly recommend you opt for a web host with an automatic backup feature.
An automatic backup will protect you against data loss even when you forget to save your data. Some platforms attach this feature to their premium plans, while others sell it as a standalone feature. Regardless of how the company offers it, you want to ensure the web hosting has automatic backup.
FAQs Regarding Web Hosting Services & Providers
1. Is It Necessary To Buy Web Hosting?
A web hosting is an infrastructure or server that stores your site’s data and delivers it to your visitors. The highly functional and attractive website you see consists of images, codes, text, and more. They all need to be stored somewhere for people to access them. Web hosting platforms offer storage and access to these files on servers connected to the web.
Whenever someone clicks on your URL, a request is sent to your web host’s server to fetch the necessary files. Hence, it is necessary to purchase web hosting. Without these companies and their infrastructure, you cannot host your website, and nobody can access it.
2. What Is The Best Web Hosting Platform For My Website?
There are many web hosting platforms, and the option often depends on your website’s unique needs. However, there are some general vital features every web host should have and every website needs, including excellent uptime, impressive site speed, good customer service, robust security, and more. Based on these criteria, Bluehost turns out to be one of the best web hosting services out there.
GreenGeeks, Nexcess, and Hostinger are excellent web hosting platforms you can use. They come with many valuable features at affordable rates. They also integrate with different eCommerce platforms, and you can use them for small, medium, and large-scale businesses/websites.
3. How Do I Choose The Right Web Host For My Site?
To choose the right web hosting provider for your website, you need to consider the fundamental needs of your website. List all the essential features you need for your site before you begin your hunt. The next thing to consider is your budget. Different hosting platforms come with various plans and pricing, so you have to work within your budget.
Next, choose a platform with ample bandwidth and storage space. The platform should also have room for expansion to enable you to scale your business. Always opt for unlimited bandwidth, as this will not reduce your website’s speed as your traffic increases. Furthermore, robust security and automatic backups should be part of your search criteria. You might want to consider a platform that offers a free domain name, as this would save you some money.
Lastly, consider ease of use and your technical knowledge. Some web hosting platforms are complicated, mainly suited for professionals. If you are a beginner, opt for easy-to-use web hosting. They should also have good customer support to assist you.
4. Is Free Web Hosting Good?
Some web hosting platforms offer free web hosting. However, we do not recommend you rely on free web hosting, as they lack many features, including security. From our findings, no free hosting plan comes close to the most affordable paid web hosting plan. Free plans come with issues, such as limited resources, very low storage, poor or no security, frequent ad pop-ups, no customer support, and poor site speed. Hence, opt for paid web hosting, as they offer the best services.
Conclusion: Best Web Hosting For E-Commerce & Marketing In 2022
If you want to create, manage, and scale your website without any issues, you need to choose the best web hosting provider. The best hosting services often provide different web hosting types, including cloud hosting, shared hosting, WordPress hosting, managed hosting, and VPS hosting. In addition to having different hosting types, the best platform also has incredible uptime, customer support, site speed, and fantastic security.
We hope you find our list of the best hosting platforms useful. You can choose any platform above that meets your specific needs and budget. You can also use our buyer’s guide to navigate the market and choose a provider of your choice.
