10 Best Web Hosting Services: Tested and Reviewed in 2024

Other Notable Top Web Hosting Providers

By definition, a top 10 list should stop at the top 10, but we feel these web hosts deserve an honorable mention for their outstanding service.

GreenGeeks – GreenGeeks may be a small host in a big pond, but it’s a low-priced and eco-friendly web host – and we like that. There’s so much more to its service beyond a noble commitment to the environment. We love GreenGeeks for many reasons, but what stands out is its 24/7 live support. The team really knows what they’re doing, go way beyond what’s expected to help, and are always a live chat away.

ScalaHosting – ScalaHosting is another great hosting provider, but we prefer its VPS plans over its shared web hosting. For this reason, we consider ScalaHosting to have more niche appeal. ScalaHosting makes an ideal “next step” when your site outgrows its shared hosting provider and needs to upgrade. It’s also an especially great choice for new VPS users thanks to its beginner-friendly setup.

Kamatera – While we like ScalaHosting for the newbie who needs to upgrade, Kamatera is our top choice for the advanced user because its cloud VPS hosting is honestly one of the best options on the market. But if you’re just looking to host a basic site or aren’t great with your server management skills, Kamatera may be too much to handle. Its managed service add-on is also quite pricey.

Popular Hosts That Didn’t Make the Cut

Some big names that you’ve probably encountered in your online travels are missing from my top ten list. While some of them actually have a place in the “Worst 10 Hosts” list I’ll get around to writing one day, others were simply meh.

Namecheap – Namecheap is one of the best options for buying, selling, and registering domain names. But you may not know that NameCheap is also a fairly decent shared hosting provider. Still, it’s not quite good enough to make our top ten list – you’re likely better off with something from our top 10 or from our top list of Namecheap alternatives.

Bluehost – We tested Bluehost’s hosting service and found it to be pretty decent. In fact, Bluehost would make a solid budget host for the first-time site owner, as its platform is fairly non-techy and easy to use. Bluehost plans are also generously discounted for your first term and very well priced – especially the entry-level options for shared and WordPress hosting.

GoDaddy – It’s the most famous web host of all time, but who cares? I signed up to see if it has a place on this list, and when I tested it for three months, what I discovered was a weak service offered at prices that will get you a better service.

HostPapa – I’ve actually liked HostPapa in the past, and found it to be a generally dependable host. I signed up again to check how it’s doing today, and despite the fact that nothing was horrendous, nothing was very good either. Speeds were disappointing, features were missing, and it offers poor value for money compared to the competition.

The Global Web Host Comparison Project: How We Did It

Now, I try to be trusting. When people tell me they can do something, I want to believe them. But when each and every host in existence claims to be the very best, how can anybody take their word for it?

Some hosting providers use the term “blazing speeds” loosely, but in reality, it often translates to a slow loading time of three seconds for a basic landing page. Similarly, claiming to offer “24/7 expert support service” can be misleading, as the support staff is occasionally available and may not be experts in their field.

The only way to really size these companies up is to test them. And so, I set out on a journey to find the answer to the most important question:

Which web hosting services are actually the best ones today?

The process wasn’t easy, as the competition was fierce. I broke my analysis down into three smaller questions:

1. Which are the most popular and most appreciated web hosts today?
2. What am I looking for in a quality hosting service?
3. After signing up to and thoroughly testing the contenders, how do they compare in terms of features, performance, ease of use, prices, and support?

I’m happy to report that the project went well, and that I was quite surprised by the results myself.

Before we get started, I’ll just mention that we hosted our sites on servers located in these providers’ US data centers, and you can see the results on this page. But our tests didn’t end there – we also had 30+ Website Planet experts from all over the world test these hosts in their own countries, and compare them to local hosts. To see the results of the local tests, you can change the language in the upper right corner of this page.

Or, simply jump ahead to a summary of results for each host, with coupon discounts.

Who Are the Top Web Hosts Available Today?

To find my contenders for the coveted spot of the world’s #1 host, I looked for versatile companies that offer hosting for the widest range of clients – from simple shared hosting and managed WordPress to cloud instances, VPS machines, and dedicated servers.

First on the list was the obvious Hostinger. It’s a host that just keeps on growing, with many millions of customers. Personally, I didn’t think this industry giant would score highly, as oftentimes big companies cruise along on name recognition alone, forgetting about trying to be the best. Still, real testing had to be done to determine this.

I had to delve deeper to find my other hosts, as I didn’t want to choose according to popularity alone. I convened with our Website Planet experts from all over the world (Zoom meetings!) to get their opinions on the best services available today. I also asked around in various web development communities, groups, forums, and subreddits. Basically, every place I could think of.

We all discussed our past experiences with dozens of web hosts and debated which ones have been a disappointment, which ones have continuously exceeded our expectations, and which ones were just… meh. We also compared feedback from actual clients to understand which providers they’ve chosen as the most reliable ones.

The hosting companies that came up the most often during this research phase make up the bulk of my list.

My dream team was ready, and it was time to start. The next steps were to test each one separately, obsessively gather the results in way too many Google Sheets, and ultimately, compare and rank them.

I’ll explain the testing process and discuss the results in a short moment, but first of all, let me introduce Website Planet’s final list of contenders. You can click each web host’s name to read a full, honest review.

• Hostinger – Full Review
• IONOS – Full Review
• InterServer – Full Review
• A2 Hosting – Full Review
• Nexcess – Full Review
• Kinsta – Full Review
• FastComet – Full Review
• InMotion Hosting – Full Review
• SiteGround – Full Review
• HostArmada – Full Review

You can also jump to the conclusion of this article for coupon discounts on all of the above hosting providers.

However, please note that the above hosts are ranked for the best general use. That is to say, they may not be the best for specific use cases. For more specific use cases, we’ve made it our mission to find the best hosting for Windows server hosting, building a WordPress website, or reaching an international audience.

We have a lot of other top 10 lists that we’ve personally tested, which you can consult if you have a specific use case in mind.

If You Want To Test a Web Host, You Have To Build a Real Website

It isn’t possible to evaluate the quality of a web host without using it for real, and to use it for real, you need to build a website. WordPress was my obvious go-to platform, but my website still needed to be about something…

Which brings us to a dark and rainy February night. I was waiting for the bus when I realized my head was a bit stuffy and my throat a bit sore. I was catching a cold! Then I remembered an article I’d read about how vitamins and good nutrition could boost your immune system and possibly avoid the dreaded common cold. Out of my misery and regret, I hit upon a brilliant website idea.

I’m honored and pleased to introduce you to my very own fictional startup, Nutritionistica!

Armed with my revolutionary idea, I bought a flexible WordPress theme, and designed a series of similar websites that I launched on each of the 10 hosts’ platforms.

For each host, I repeated the same process:

Before signup, I had a long chat with support to size them up. I played dumb (really dumb), asked a ton of questions, and noted how honest and professional the agents were.

If they tried to push me into buying an advanced plan I didn’t need, told tall tales of how performance in Australia would be amazing (even though their servers are located in the US), or showed a general lack of comprehension, I took points off.

After that, I created hosting accounts and linked domain names with each of these providers. I almost always went for the most basic shared hosting plan available, and thoroughly documented the process. I wanted to understand how easy each host is to use, and to check which ones try to weasel some extra bucks off you when you’re not looking. I made note of the data center locations, and if the host offered domain name registration, I used it for that, too.

In each instance, I installed WordPress, an SSL certificate, uploaded my custom theme, and evaluated what the plans actually include. What resources will you be getting and what tools are at your disposal? What features are freely available and what lies locked behind a paywall?

When all my websites were up and running, I contacted support again, telling the agents that my loading speed was disappointing, and requested help to make my website load faster. I then proceeded with any suggested optimizations.

The final step was my performance tests. I measured loading times in the US and all over the world, and enabled uptime monitors to see which hosts were the most reliable. The tools I used were:

• GTmetrix PRO
• Sucuri Load Time Tester (unfortunately it’s no longer available so in some of our tests we also used GTmetrix PRO)
• UptimeRobot’s Pro plan

Results and Analysis: How Did Each Host Fare?

After months of experimenting with the hosts and gathering data, I was finally able to complete my mission – to compare all these hosting providers and find the best one.

I’ve ranked each service in five categories:

1. Features
2. Ease of Use
3. Performance
4. Support
5. Pricing

You’ll find a detailed table for each category, followed by an explanation and in-depth discussion of all comparison criteria.

Features

Features are what each service gives you. This consists of the options, resources, tools, services, perks, and bonuses that are provided as part of the plan. Here’s what you can expect with the basic plans:

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Disk space

Everything you host is going to take up space. From your WordPress (or any other platform) installation to your text, images, videos, and files, it all counts towards your allotted disk space. InterServer and InMotion Hosting provide unlimited space.

IONOS, Kinsta, GreenGeeks, and SiteGround provide the smallest amount of space, with Nexcess, FastComet, HostArmada, and Hostinger doing slightly better.

Still, don’t jump to the conclusion that more is always better. 10GB is certainly enough for blogs, business pages, and even e-commerce stores with thousands of HD pics. “Unlimited space” sounds amazing, but it’s always bound to some “fair use agreement” and you’re never the one who gets to decide what’s fair.

Bandwidth or data transfer

When people visit your website, the host sends them the page they requested. In the same way that all your hosted data counts towards your disk space limit, your bandwidth is how much data you’re allowed to send in a month. The more visitors you have, the more bandwidth you’ll require.

SiteGround and Kinsta provide the least amount, although they will still do well for small-to-medium audiences. Most of the other hosts do significantly better, offering unlimited bandwidth. However, much like with disk space, these “unlimited” claims are often misleading. You’ll likely encounter restrictions if your site uses too many resources. For this reason, Nexcess is the true bandwidth champion, guaranteeing an obscene amount of traffic.

Control panel

Do you speak Linux? Nope. That’s why control panels were invented. They allow you to easily edit and configure your hosting solution, from DNS records to databases and email accounts.

Most hosts offer cPanel, which is the most popular option out there. As far as basic hosting management is concerned, you can never go wrong with it. Hostinger, IONOS, and SiteGround developed panels of their own, and while all of them mimic cPanel in some ways, they fail to deliver an equally powerful solution.

Kinsta and Nexcess completely did away with the idea of a fully-fledged control panel. They don’t offer nearly as many options as the contenders, but there’s a reason for that – both services are managed, meaning most configuration is already taken care of for you.

Auto-installers

Installing CMSs (content management systems) like WordPress used to be a tedious manual process, but today, most providers offer an easy-to-use automatic installation.

Most hosts offer the cPanel control panel bundled Softaculous, a very capable auto-installer that offers easy installation for hundreds of CMSs, including the most popular: WordPress.

Hostinger, IONOS, and SiteGround have self-developed solutions that work similarly and include their own website builders. But don’t think this means you can’t opt for a third-party CMS or builder. In fact, Hostinger ranks as one of our top best hosting providers for WordPress as it has tailored its plans to support it.

Kinsta and Nexcess, true to their promise of managing things for you, don’t give you access to such a service. Instead, your CMS of choice comes pre-installed.

Platform support

What CMS can you actually install with each service? WordPress is popular, but it’s far from the only website platform available today – hundreds of options exist, from Joomla and Magento to self-developed PHP-based projects.

Almost all hosts provide “full” platform support, meaning that you can run any CMS you desire. There are a few exceptions, though.

SiteGround supports most PHP and MySQL-based CMSs but if you require a VPS plan to run your CMS, you’re out of luck there. Nexcess supports the most popular platforms but its servers are highly-optimized for each type (you can opt for a Flexible Cloud Plan if you’re looking for flexibility). Kinsta is strictly a WordPress (and WooCommerce) service and can’t be used for any other CMS.

SSL certificates

I can’t stress the importance of an SSL certificate enough. It secures and encrypts your visitors data, guaranteeing their safety if they are logging in to or submitting data on your site. It’s a must for e-commerce sites, and is also known to positively affect Google rankings and SEO in general.

While SSL certificates used to be quite expensive, today there’s a much cheaper solution. Let’s Encrypt SSL, cPanel AutoSSL, and Cloudflare SSL certificates are free to use. Any host can easily choose to provide them and that’s exactly what almost all of these hosts have done. Take note when a host offers a premium SSL certificate for free with its plans, like HostArmada (Sectigo) and IONOS (DigiCert Wildcard).

FastComet also provides a free Comodo Positive SSL on its most expensive shared hosting plan, while Kinsta offers a Cloudflare Wildcard SSL. These advanced paid SSL certificates offer superior encryption and security for your website and applications. However, a Let’s Encrypt certificate is still good enough for most sites – and much better than no SSL.

SSL Qualys score

Qualys tests the strength of your website’s SSL protection, ranking it on an A to F scale. Care about your visitors, your SEO, and about being a responsible adult? Anything less than an A ranking is cause for concern.

Apart from FastComet and InMotion Hosting, all other hosts scored an A or above, guaranteeing you complete peace of mind. What should you make of the B score? That these hosts could’ve done better, but for reasons unknown, chose to neglect this aspect of the service. That’s bad news.

Backups

While all auto-installers can be configured to run a CMS backup onto your disk space, I’m looking for full system backups that are automatically made and stored on a remote server. So if your hosting space was compromised by hackers, an untouched backup still exists.

Most hosts only provide these backups as a paid add-on, which is a crying shame. It’s absolutely necessary and most of our top picks provide you with easy access to daily or weekly backups – and you can freely restore them at any time. The only exception is InMotion Hosting, which doesn’t provide free backups for its shared plans.

HostArmada and FastComet also go one step further with off-site backups.

Number of domains

This does not refer to the domain names you’ve registered, but to the number of separate websites you can host with your plan. One domain is obviously the minimum, and is usually what basic plans offer. Pay more for advanced plans, get more domains.

This is true of all the hosts on this list except InMotion Hosting and InterServer. InMotion Hosting gives you 2 domains on the basic plan, while InterServer’s plan comes with unlimited domains – which is undoubtedly the host’s biggest selling point. Just remember that behind-the-scenes computing resources are still limited, so use this plan for running multiple landing page sites and average-sized blogs – not resource-hungry megastores.

Number of email accounts

If you want a domain-specific email account, and are planning to use this address for business purposes, be sure to check what your host offers. IONOS, for example, only offers a single email account with its basic plan. Hostinger does one better with 100 email accounts.

Some of our top hosts offer unlimited emails on basic shared plans, like InMotion Hosting and FastComet – though you’ll need to sign up for a higher-tier budget plan. And all the others, except Kinsta, let you open unlimited accounts on any plan.

Kinsta, sadly, has no email hosting at all, meaning you’ll have to shell out for a separate email service such as G Suite.

CDN

Your website is hosted on a physical server somewhere in the world. The farther your visitors are from this location, the longer it will take them to load your website. Looking to offset this? Enter a CDN (content delivery network). A CDN caches (creates copies) of your website’s assets (images, code, and rendered versions of your site’s pages) and spreads them over a global network of servers, speeding up content delivery.

Hostinger, Nexcess, and Kinsta excel here, giving you access to premium CDN services. Most other hosts offer easy, one-click integration with Cloudflare’s third-party CDN. Cloudflare has a free service, but it’s not the fastest.

Caching

A CDN isn’t the only thing that can cache your website pages. Your hosting server can do it too! Why let your server “rebuild” your homepage every time a visitor arrives, when it’s the exact same homepage every time? A caching tool creates ready-to-send versions of your pages, significantly reducing the load on your server.

All of these hosts offer some form of server-level caching, which allows site pages to be delivered more promptly. However, you should also expect advanced caching services on more expensive plans. Hosts like Kinsta, SiteGround, and A2 Hosting offer their own out-of-the-box caching solutions.

Security tools

A malware scanner, WAF (web application firewall), and any other tool that helps you secure your hosting, are highly recommended. It’s a dangerous world online, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Most hosts include basic security for free in their plans, including a firewall, DDoS protection, and a malware scanner. InterServer takes the prize here by letting you access a full range of scanners and security tools in its InterShield security suite, all pre-installed and easy to use.

Ease of Use

Not enough companies take the time to plan out the user experience and make it as seamless as possible. Still, ease of use is of the utmost importance. Learning how to play nice with a badly designed service can cost you hours, even days.

Don’t be surprised to see a tick next to nearly every ease-of-use feature below. User-friendliness is one of the most important aspects of a hosting service, so we only shortlisted hosts that score well in this category.

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Easy signup

Nobody wants signing up to a service to feel like high school homework. I gave the best a ✔ for having an easy sign up, which in a perfect world consists of me inputting my email address, choosing a password, and entering payment information. If the sign up process involved annoying questions, irrelevant data, or a needlessly complicated process, I gave them an ✘ or a ✔.

Most hosts did pretty well here. Some had me going through extra pages and were slightly confusing, but that’s a relatively minor offense. Still, Nexcess and Kinsta asked for the least amount of details, did not hinder my progress in any way, and basically let me finish the whole process in under a minute.

Immediate account activation

Silly me, thinking that after signing up and entering my very legitimate payment information, I’d immediately be activated. How wrong I was. Many hosts have “anti-fraud” protocols in place, and these protocols were very quick to block my purchase and send me back to the drawing board. You might not get tagged by the protocols, but in many cases, I was.

Hostinger, IONOS, Kinsta, and InMotion Hosting were the only hosts to activate my account immediately. SiteGround and InterServer made small charges to my credit card, which I then had to confirm to be verified successfully. FastComet asked for a screenshot of my credit card charge. InMotion Hosting didn’t set up my server immediately, which caused delays in the website set up process.

Connecting the domain

It’s really easy to score highly here. All a host has to do is put the nameservers or server IP in a visible spot, and include a quick guide on what to do. How can you fail this super-basic step that every client has to go through?

InterServer, Nexcess, Kinsta, and SiteGround made this surprisingly difficult, and had me manually configuring DNS records. This is something that almost all other hosts automatically do for you – and it took me an hour I’m never getting back.

Website migration

Many things can go wrong with a website migration: loss of data during the moving process, incorrect URL mapping, unexpected downtime. That’s why you should look for a host that offers site migration as part of its services for new clients. Many hosts actually offer this service free of charge to encourage new sign ups.

Generally, hosts will only do this for you if you have a copy of all your website files or you’re using cPanel or WordPress with SSH access. The service is also limited to a certain number of sites (usually one), after which you’ll need to pay for additional migrations. Some hosts might also offer migration software you can use for free.

Though we couldn’t test site migration services directly, we did consider the website migration services on offer from all the hosts we tested. We even have a separate ranking of the top 10 hosts for free migration services because we know not all migration services are created equal.

Website builder and AI tools

A website builder is a useful feature that allows you to create a unique site with no coding experience. Most builders offer customizable templates, which makes building a website even easier. The latest builders also feature AI tools that can generate a custom site from a few prompts and even create content for it, like Hostinger’s AI builder.

While some hosts offer their own proprietary website builders, others may refer you to third-party services like Weebly or Squarespace.

Third-party website builder platforms generally have free and paid tiers. Proprietary website builders made by hosting providers are often free to use with your hosting account. However, do note that some hosts – including IONOS – charge extra for the use of their site builder or may only offer free use on select hosting plans.

Installing a CMS

As long as an auto-installer is included, this is easy. Just click it, enter your new website details, and go live.

SiteGround and Hostinger did well, letting me install WordPress automatically right after signup. IONOS, Nexcess, Kinsta, and InMotion Hosting were the best – WordPress was already pre-installed and waiting for me on WordPress hosting plans.

Using the account area

Between the hosting control panel and you stands the account area. This is usually some weird twilight zone that lets you view your plans, go over billing, purchase more stuff, or really, sometimes, just be there. The more complicated it is to navigate, or the more it’s filled with annoying upsells, the less happy I get.

InterServer scores very low here as its account area is an under-designed mess, filled with upsells and links to products you don’t have. Hostinger is very sleek, but constant upsell popups pushing you to upgrade your plan or purchase more add-ons are a pain. InMotion Hosting’s account area looks like it was designed by my grandma, who despite being a phenomenal person, is not a user interface expert.

Kinsta and Nexcess offer what is basically a perfect user experience, seamlessly integrating an easy-to-use account area with the hosting control panel. That means less time loading pages, navigating menus, or making wild guesses about what lies where.

Performance

This is the most important aspect of a web hosting service. My test website is very similar to the blog, business page, or portfolio you might want to host, so these results are a very close approximation of your actual performance.

You might’ve seen other “testing” websites that offer performance metrics of various web hosts. I’m sad to say that most of them are going about it entirely the wrong way. If you’re interested in learning how to do it right, we’ve written a full article on the subject.

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Data center locations

Data center location matters: you need a data center that’s close to your target audience. Running a French politics blog, written in French, aimed at French citizens? Don’t host it in Los Angeles. Go for Paris, or at least Amsterdam. You often won’t have a choice with shared web hosting (kudos to those that do give you an option) – that’s why it is important to check your host’s server locations.

Using Google Cloud’s network of servers (30+ locations globally), Kinsta is easily the winner when trying to reach those hard-to-serve audiences in such locations as Japan or Australia.

FastComet comes in a close second, and most other hosts on our list operate from Amsterdam and the US East Coast, with the occasional data center in Singapore. InMotion Hosting and InterServer also have data centers in Los Angeles, making them a great choice for US West Coast audiences.

Hostinger is also a top pick. Even on its shared plans, Hostinger lets you choose your data center location from a selection that includes Brazil, France, US, and the UK – making it one of our top UK hosting services.

Web server

The technology that powers your website. Think of it as the code (not to be confused with the actual server, which is the physical machine that runs the code) that was written by some very talented people to make sure your visitors can view your pages and interact with your site. Apache and its successor, Apache 2.x, are the oldest web server technologies commonly used today. They’re great and reliable, but newer web servers, like NGINX and LiteSpeed, are known to outperform Apache.

IONOS, InMotion Hosting, and FastComet are all lagging behind in this aspect, as they only offer Apache.

Loading speed

Page loading speed, measured in seconds, is based on a large number of factors, some under your control and some beyond it. Visitors from different locations, and sometimes even the same visitor at a different time of the day, will get slightly different loading speeds. Still, average loading times of over 3 seconds aren’t desirable Many users will simply click away if they have to wait too long for a site to load.To help gauge each hosting provider’s performance. I’ve used GTmetrix to measure loading speeds over a long period of time.

GTmetrix speeds: How long the GTmetrix testing server took to load our website, in seconds. I ran these speed tests on an almost daily basis, and now I present you with the average speed to fully load our test site. Unsurprisingly, our top two hosts, Hostinger and IONOS, returned the fastest scores, but so did A2 Hosting and the two most expensive managed cloud services: Nexcess and Kinsta.

Uptime

Uptime is measured in percentage, and I used UptimeRobot to test it over several months. 100% means the website was never down. 99% means that it was down for 1% of the testing period. That’s 1% of the time when no visitor was able to view your website. Translate that to lost customers, lost readers, whatever – they may never try to visit your website again. Most hosts guarantee (or at least aim for) around 99% uptime. I like my websites shaken, not stirred, and with at least 99.99% uptime.

I’m happy to report that uptime results were fantastic for all hosts. Give it time – when they falter, I’ll be here with the update.

Uptime guarantee

Reliable hosts guarantee uptime in their SLA (Service-Level Agreement). They stand by their guarantee, and offer you reimbursement if they can’t live up to their promise.

Thing is, some companies are sneaky. They use misleading language to avoid responsibility, or define an “uptime guarantee” in ways that work for them – but not for you.

For example, InMotion Hosting advertises a “99.9% guarantee,” but this isn’t backed up by an SLA. So, it’s actually under no formal obligation to provide you with 99.9% uptime. Hostinger guarantees uptime, but will only reimburse you for 5% of your monthly fees in credits. In contrast, FastComet gives you 10% of your monthly fees as a credit for every hour of downtime you experience below its guarantee.

As you can see, these terms are drastically different so, it’s important to read the fine print. Even premium host Nexcess isn’t entirely truthful. It proudly displays a 100% uptime guarantee, but if you dig into the SLA, you’ll find that you’d need to accumulate 15 minutes of downtime across a given month to be due compensation. This is hardly a 100% guarantee, but at least it’s still better than the standard 99.9% guarantee.

Support

When you have a question, or simply need help, you’ll have to rely on the host’s support agents, tutorials, and knowledge base. If you’re a beginner or a little less tech-savvy, you have to be sure that these guys will be there for you.

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Pre-sales support

If you’re looking to sign up, you probably have questions. That’s why having a professional sales support agent available is important. One that knows their stuff and won’t try to sell you plans or products you don’t need. I tried to talk with all the hosts before signing up. Surprisingly, it wasn’t always an option. Live chat is obviously my preferred way, but prompt email responses are also appreciated. Just don’t make me call you – I don’t want to.

Nexcess’ professional agent was honest, quick to respond, and simply got me psyched about signing up. FastComet was also great, promptly answering my questions with a solid knowledge of the service and no overselling. A2 Hosting and Hostinger faltered here and there, but were generally dependable. Best thing about all of these hosts? They were available through live chat.

Kinsta made me use email, which was surprising considering how much the service costs. I didn’t get an answer to my questions, but the option to make a phone call was available. Ugh.

I had a lot of trouble getting in touch with IONOS’ sales team. The live chat service was frequently unavailable, and there didn’t seem to be an email address for sales support. Again, the only option left to me was phone support – which was a bit of a pain as I only had a few brief questions.

InterServer’s agent was disappointing. He had a weak grasp of the English language and didn’t seem to understand how loading speeds are affected by physical distance from the data center. SiteGround also struggled in the pre-sales department.

Support channels

As a customer, I want to be able to contact support when I need it, in the way most convenient to me. I also want live chat and the option to get support through phone, email, and tickets.

All of the hosts offer the standard mix of chat, tickets, and phone support. Nexcess was particularly quick to respond on live chat and equally quick to offer a solution.

In-house support

To provide the most reliable support, the team needs to be in-house. Hopefully, that means in the very same building as the technicians, sales staff, and all other personnel. Outsourcing support makes things a lot cheaper for the hosts themselves, but it spells disaster for you. When speaking with such agents, expect broken English, a general lack of knowledge, and sometimes a complete inability to assist outside of reciting scripted responses.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with outsourcing, but language barriers can cause issues. If a host outsources, they must also take the necessary steps to adequately train their customer service representatives – something we found lacking with IONOS and InterServer.

However, if you consider IONOS’ pricing at the time of testing ($1 per month for a year of hosting!), you can understand why. Cheap hosting isn’t always the best option. Sometimes, it’s better to pay a little more, especially to hosts that allocate a good percentage of their budget to their support department.

Availability

When I contact a support team, I want an agent to be available to me 24/7. And to answer my message in a timely manner, which in my book is around 30 seconds. I gathered data on how long it really took to get support, and what the working hours were.

All hosts advertise a 24/7 support service, but with some, this isn’t actually the case. Hostinger, IONOS, and InMotion Hosting took a very long time to answer questions on live chat, sometimes making me wait up to an hour, or even longer.

Helpfulness

What good is a support agent that answers immediately but doesn’t know the first thing about connecting a domain to a hosting account or about setting up an SSL certificate? No good. I had multiple interactions with each provider’s support team, and got a good idea of the overall standards.

Simply put, you can’t count on InterServer for help via live chat. The agents are not trained for the job, and are only there to give you the illusion of support. InterServer does have actual agents available through tickets, so I eventually gave up on chat support.

SiteGround, HostArmada, Nexcess, and Kinsta are the complete opposite. These hosts know hosting. They have experience with it. They were able to handle every problem I had, quickly and with ease.

What about the rest? They’re hit or miss. With FastComet, for example, one agent tried to reinstall my website in an attempt to solve an unrelated issue. Another agent turned out to be an optimization machine, spending a long half hour improving my site’s loading speeds and earning an A in my book.

Going the extra mile

Sometimes you’re going to be in need of a helping hand, but the specific issue you’re dealing with isn’t covered by the service level agreement. Many times, the agents know exactly what needs to be done. It’s up to them to either make you a happy customer, or to cling to rules and regulations and say “Sorry! That’s not part of the service!” It’s okay to do the latter. Really. But if you want a place in my heart, you’ve gotta go the extra mile.

InterServer fails miserably because it can barely go the first mile, never mind the extra ones. Nexcess was open to making my life easier – a Nexcess agent installed a WordPress theme for me. While this is a one-click no-brainer, many other hosts tell you to either Google it or look for the button. FastComet also scored highly here, although it really seems to depend on the given agent, and on how Jupiter aligns with Mars.

But the absolute winner here? GreenGeeks. I’m not exaggerating – these guys want to help. Badly. They will sit with you for an hour and guide you through how to use WordPress for the first time. They will optimize your website for you, thoughtfully taking care of every issue and providing full information each step of the way. They’re the best.

Pricing

The best hosting options will balance cost with value to provide the optimal service to you. After all, they need to pay their technicians and support agents, as well as upgrade and maintain their hardware and infrastructure.

See Promo Codes for All These Hosts

Entry-level monthly plan price

Simply put, the monthly price of the most basic shared hosting plan. Sometimes monthly plans aren’t available, and in those cases I’ve calculated the monthly price as the plan price divided by the number of months.

Wondered where Kinsta and Nexcess were going to get you? It’s right here. The basic monthly price is much, much higher than any other host on this list. Kinsta is actually four times more expensive than InterServer, which is the obvious winner. Even when paying monthly, the price is still an amazingly fair $2.50.

Annual term plan price

The trick with most hosting companies is, to get the best possible prices, you need to sign up for the longest possible term. In the table above, I’ve included the monthly price if you sign up for a year with any host.

Hostinger becomes one of the absolute cheapest options in the history of web hosting… when you sign up for four years. It’s truly an amazing price, but it’s up to you to consider how your needs will change in four years – the plan will likely stay the same.

Payment periods

Some people want to sign up to a service and start a business that you know is going to be around for a long time. You might be alright with signing up for years in advance. But otherswant flexibility. Monthly payments give you the ability to change your mind and be done with the plan by next month.

Luckily, most of our recommended hosts offer monthly terms, as well as longer-term options from 6 months all the way up to 4 years with Hostinger. It’s really just the pricing you need to watch out for. Hostinger, IONOS, and InterServer are definitely the most generous, with monthly (and full price, not promotional) rates starting at well below $10/month.

Payment options

Paying by credit card is okay, and debit or e-check options are swell, too. And I appreciate having alternative choices like bitcoin or chickens. But when it comes to hosting or any online transaction, really, we generally recommend PayPal because it’s much more reliable for refunds. Most of our top 10 hosts have this option, but you can check out our list of the top 10 hosts that accept PayPal payments for more options.

The biggest surprise was Kinsta. It gave me no PayPal and no chickens, instead sticking to credit cards like it’s the jolly 1990s.

No automatic upsells

When signing up to the service, some hosts automatically add extra services you never asked for. Because… they want you to pay more. It’s a sneaky, disgusting business practice.

The main offenders here are SiteGround and InMotion Hosting. They all seem to think that they know better than you, and add a backup service or some other extra that balloons the monthly cost past the Kinsta stratosphere. I recommend being very careful with them during the signup process.

No hidden fees

Hidden fees are almost as annoying as upsells. These are fees that surprisingly pop up, usually when you’re already set on buying the product. Made-up terms like a “setup fee” (it’s all automatic – nobody is “setting up” your new account) that come with a $15 price tag are a big no-no in my book.

There are also what I like to call “fine print” fees associated with services that you need to watch out for. For instance, A2 Hosting’s SiteBuilder is free with a shared hosting plan as long as you stick to a 1-page design – otherwise you’ll have to pay extra.

Money-back guarantees

If your chosen hosting provider doesn’t work out, you’ll want to bid them adieu and get your money back. Thankfully, all the hosts on our list have a money-back guarantee or a free trial, allowing you to try them completely risk-free.

It’s worth pointing out how InMotion Hosting gives you a full three months to make up your mind on long-term plans, which is one of the more generous policies I’ve encountered.

Free domain name

I don’t recommend hosting your website and purchasing your domain name from the same provider, but sometimes the deal is too good not to consider. While most hosts will advertise a free domain with hosting, there may be limitations on what type of domain extensions are available.

Hostinger, IONOS, HostArmada, and InMotion Hosting will throw in a free domain name if you sign up for a year or longer. While there’s no free offering here, InterServer will let you purchase a heavily discounted one.

Domain name registration

Even if you signed up for a free domain, chances are that it won’t be free forever. The second year, you’ll pay full price – and that price may be a lot more than what was quoted for your first year. FastComet and Hostinger have the lowest prices among these ten (for a .com domain), and all others are surprisingly expensive.

But seriously, don’t buy a domain where you host. Just go with Namecheap1 or Namesilo. They’re cheaper, more reliable, and include WHOIS protection for free. And if you’re going to host multiple websites on your hosting plan, you’ll likely need to do it sooner or later.

It’s rare for a host to offer multiple free domain names, even if they allow for the creation of multiple websites. You can check out our list of the top 10 hosts for multiple domains to learn about some good options.

Final Conclusions and Recommendations

Feeling a bit lost after being bombarded with all this data? Well, not to toot my own horn or anything, but the most detailed hosting comparison ever done can seem confusing at first.

Before I go into specific use cases for each host, let me reiterate one thing – there are no bad hosts in our Top 10. There are no mediocre hosts on this list. All ten companies provide a solid, dependable service, and the rankings only have to do with how well they performed relative to each other.

Now let’s see which host is best for you.

Hostinger: Best for Personal Websites, Has the Cheapest Long-Term Plans1

I’m going to be completely honest here – if you’re running a business-critical website or an e-commerce store that’s bound to experience huge traffic spikes, don’t choose Hostinger’s shared plans. The shared plans are best for projects like blogs, portfolios, and businesses looking to get an online presence. If that’s what you’re looking for, go for the long-term plan and enjoy some of the cheapest hosting in the world. My testing still has Hostinger out-performing almost all other hosts in terms of speed, and there’s plenty to love about the simplified control panel. Plus, Hostinger has branched out into VPS and cloud hosting, which is ideal if you enjoy the speeds but need more dedicated resources.

IONOS: Cheapest Access to Premium Features1

Despite the low prices, IONOS goes the extra mile with its features. The scalable performance lets your site react instantly to traffic surges, whereas other budget hosts would simply let your website stop functioning. The frequent huge discounts for new customers only sweetens the deal – but keep in mind that despite having a dedicated support agent, IONOS’ support quality could be better.

InterServer: Best for Hosting Unlimited Websites on an Affordable, Flexible Plan1

InterServer’s Standard shared hosting plan has two main strong suits: most resources are unlimited, and its monthly rate (with no advance commitment) is only $7. On top of that, you get up to 65% off for your first term of hosting, which can be up to 2 years for just $2.50/month. You can also trial its VPS hosting for a month for a single cent.

A2 Hosting: Best Host for Performance-Based Plans1

A2 Hosting excelled in most of our tests, but one area that stands out is its performance in North America and parts of Europe – loading speeds touching 0.3 seconds is nothing to scoff at. While it may not be the cheapest host on our list, it offers value-based shared hosting. You’ll have to pay a bit more to get unlimited resources and Turbo-boosted LiteSpeed plans, but they’re still affordable.

Nexcess: Best for Managed WordPress Cloud Hosting1

Nexcess is a premium host with premium prices, but it’s actually relatively cheap when compared with similar managed services. It offers great performance and comprehensive managed hosting for WordPress, Drupal, Magento, and others. You’ll also get sizable coverage in North America, Europe, and Australia. Overall, Nexcess is a great pick if you’re ready to move to a more powerful platform, but you’d like to keep your hosting relatively affordable.

Kinsta: Best WordPress Hosting Available (If You’re Willing To Pay the Price)1

More expensive doesn’t always mean better, but that’s definitely the case with Kinsta. The premium price tag of $30.00/month might seem way over your budget limit, but my testing found Kinsta’s Google Cloud-driven managed hosting to be simply the best. It’s easy to use, has data center locations all over the world, and delivers consistently spectacular loading times. Keep in mind that only WordPress is supported and that email hosting is not available – meaning you might be dealing with yet another monthly expense.

InMotion Hosting: Best for Trying Out Web Hosting, With Plenty of Time To Decide1

After signing up for InMotion Hosting, you’ll immediately have access to what is maybe the most detailed knowledge base on the market. Steps for any web hosting-related task are clearly laid out, and you can go from zero to hero in the span of a few tutorials. What’s more, InMotion gives you an unprecedented 90-day money-back guarantee. That’s three times more than what most others offer. Give it a chance, take your time, and if it somehow doesn’t work out, get that full refund before three months is up.

FastComet: Widest Global Deployment in Shared Hosting, Coupled With Great Support1

If you’re looking for shared hosting, you’ll usually only find it in three areas: the US East Coast, the Netherlands, and Singapore. FastComet is the exception. The host has data centers in hard-to-get-to locations such as Japan, India, or Australia. If your audience is located in one of these areas (or in nearby countries like New Zealand), don’t even think about hosting in Europe. It’s true that some hosting services have a more impressive selection of global data centers, but they also usually cost several times what FastComet charges. Do the math and see what’s right for you.

SiteGround: Best for Cheap Managed Hosting With Decent Speeds1

With its own custom control panel, SiteGround is a reliable hybrid between managed and shared hosting for limited budgets. While it isn’t as streamlined or as easy to use as the more expensive managed hosting providers, it still does quite a bit to make your life easier and let you focus on your actual website. Wondering what the catch is? That would be the price. Managed hosting is generally more expensive, especially after the renewal rate. If you’re looking to upgrade in the future, SiteGround’s pricey cloud plans could also be a deterrent.

HostArmada: Fast, Reliable Hosting With Better-Than-Average Support1

HostArmada combines security, speed, and reasonable pricing to provide you with a hosting plan both value-packed and budget-friendly. You get better-than-many features like a 45-day money-back guarantee and a customer-centric company attitude that rivals many of our top hosting providers. HostArmada is the right choice if you need an inclusive, friendly place to host your blog, personal, portfolio, or small business site.

FAQ

Can I change my web hosting provider?

Yes, you can. If you’re unhappy with your current web host, know that many of the web hosts on this list provide free website migrations. Contact support after signing up to your new service, and the agents will happily take care of everything for you. Some hosts, like InterServer, will even clean a hacked website as part of the process. However, be aware that migrations are often limited to one site.

Which web host is best for small businesses?

For e-commerce websites, go with Kinsta or Nexcess. Hostinger is an excellent and affordable option if you’re looking to showcase your business, but I wouldn’t recommend using it for a full-fledged e-commerce store. If your website is going to be the center of your business strategy, Nexcess should be your go-to if you want an easy solution for selling products.

Which web hosts offer free SSL?

All hosts on our top 10 list currently offer free SSL certificates, from free Let’s Encrypt SSLs to premium SSLs from the likes of DigiCert and Comodo. Keep in mind that hosts sometimes change plan features, so during the sign-up process be sure to double-check that an SSL certificate is included. For the best security (especially for e-commerce or websites that capture visitor data), we recommend installing a paid SSL.

Can I host a website for free?

Kind of. Free hosting exists but while it won’t cost you money, it may cost you visitors. Free services can be slow, unreliable, and insecure – and if you use one, you should expect anything from frequent downtimes to your entire website being hacked, blacklisted, or used for spam. It’s best to avoid these issues altogether and stick with a great almost-free host like Hostinger.

Which web host is best for WordPress?

While all hosts on this list fully support WordPress, their use cases differ. If you’re looking to build a WordPress blog or a simple business website on a budget, Hostinger should definitely be your first consideration. Alternatively, InterServer is your best bet for multiple low-resource sites like landing pages. You can reference our list of the top 10 WordPress hosts in 2024 to discover more options.