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The best web hosting site offers quick loading speeds, affordable hosting plans, and SSD storage for your site. Hostinger is the best overall web host provider on our list, but there are others we suggest for tight budgets, beginners, or advanced users.
Best Web Hosting Site
- Hostinger: Best Overall
- Bluehost: Best for Beginners
- Namecheap: Best for Affordability
- Hostgator: Best for Advanced Users
- Ionos: Best for Customer Support
Product
Performance
Customer Support
Pricing
Storage
Hosting Plans
Hostinger is performance-focused and it uses LiteSpeed servers
Only live chat and email support
Starts at $1.99/month
From 30GB SSD Storage to up to 300GB SSD on cloud hosting
Shared, cloud, and VPS plans
Slower servers if compared to its competitors
Three 24/7 live chat lines, email and phone support
Start at $2.95/month
Starts at 50GB SSD storage to up to 120GB
Shared, dedicated, and VPS plans
Poor performance
24/7 live chat with no phone support
Starts at $1.58/month
Starts at 20GB SSD to 120GB SSD
Shared, WordPress, reseller, and VPS plans
Overall stable hosting experience and a fast server
Phone and live chat, 24/7
Starts at $2.75/month
It can go up to 240GB SSD
Shared, dedicated, reseller, and VPS plans
Average website load speed is lower
Dedicated customer service page, 24/7 phone support, and live chat
Starts at $4/month
Starts at 10GB and it can go up to 240GB
Shared, dedicated, and VPS plans
Cheap doesn’t always mean good but Hostinger is here to prove otherwise. Hostinger is the best bang for the buck for web hosting services for small businesses. The company offers relatively low-cost pricing for premium services—plans starting at $1.99 per month. Plus, this web host service provider invests heavily in innovation, performance, and UX.
Pricing isn’t the only reason we consider Hostinger the best web hosting site. It’s also one of the fastest web hosts out there, with an average page load speed of 143 milliseconds—the cheapest plan can load in under one second. The company is performance-focused: It uses LiteSpeed servers for all of its plans, which provides a great response time over regular servers, Google Cloud as part of its infrastructure, and uses SSD storage. On average, Hostinger offers the fastest performance among its competitors.
The performance-driven approach goes into user experience too. The control panel (hPanel) is intuitive and easy to navigate for everyone—from beginners to experts. It displays the most needed features like file and database management, email accounts, mail server control, and domain access. The company offers a 99.99% uptime guarantee; however, the shared plan isn’t reliable enough to handle many users simultaneously, which might compromise the website load speed.
Customer support, however, could be better. Hostinger offers only live chat and email support, which means no free phone support unless you pay $2 per month extra. Tech-savvy users who don’t need much support can resort to their customer support page with guides and articles.
Another one of Hostinger’s hang-ups is that it doesn’t offer free daily backup—a standard procedure among its competitors. The option is only available in the business plan.
Why we chose it: Hostinger uses fast servers, the control panel is intuitive and beginner-friendly, and the base plan is affordable. Read our full Hostinger review to learn more about its services.
- Performance-driven
- Affordable
- Beginner-friendly
- No free daily backup
- Customer support could be better
Pricing: Starts at $1.99/month
Shared hosting plans: Single costs $1.99/month and can go up to $4.99/month for the business plan. All storage is SSD (starting with 30GB), a bandwidth of 100GB for single plan and it turns to unlimited above that, free SSL certificates for all plans, one email account for single, 100 for business and premium, multiple PHP versions and PHP configuration for all plans.
Cloud hosting plans: Recommended for small to mid-size enterprises. Prices start at $9.99 monthly and go up to $69.99 to the most premium tier. You can host 300 websites in all plans, memory RAM of 3GB for startup plan, up to 12GB for enterprise plan, SSD storage starting at 200 GB, bandwidth unlimited for all, as well as free dedicated IP, free domain registration, free SSL certificate, 100 email accounts and 1-click app installer.
VPS Hosting: Offers eight different plans, starting at $3.95/month. The CPU power starts at 1 core to VPS 1 plan and goes to 8 cores above VPS 6 plan, memory RAM starts at 1GB and up until 16 GB in the highest plan, SSD storage starts at 20 GB, bandwidth at 1TB. They all offer dedicated IP, full root access, 100 Mb/s Network, IPV4 & IPV6 support, and 24/7/365 support included.
Bluehost is a website host that belongs to EIG Group, the same group that owns Hostgator and many other web hosts. The difference between Bluehost and its counterpart is that Bluehost is feature-focused and offers every tool a first-time user needs to build their first website from scratch.
Creating websites with Bluehost website builder is pretty straightforward and you can create one ready to run in just 15 minutes if using a WordPress website (the WP feature is free). However, the downside is that Bluehost works with slower servers if compared to its competitors—that means your website will load a bit slower. But that doesn’t mean a bad thing because if you’re a beginner and don’t have many visitors, this shouldn’t compromise your website’s performance that much. Furthermore, Bluehost’s websites can handle stress quite well without compromising stability or speed.
Bluehost also offers a free staging tool, which allows you to create a copy of your website to make changes on the copy while the original site is live and won’t be affected. Users won’t come across any error messages or instability. Despite that, migration is paid if you need to migrate to another plan.
When it comes to pricing, Bluehost’s plans aren’t actually paid monthly, even though the company advertises as such. The plans are actually yearly (available for one year, two, or three years) and you’ll need to pay the total amount upfront. The longer the period, the lower the monthly cost will be.
Customer support is essential, especially for beginners, and Bluehost does not disappoint its users. The support offers three 24/7 live chat lines, email and phone support.
Why we chose it: Bluehost is one of the best web hosting sites because it provides fast and efficient 24/7 customer service, all its plans come with plenty of freebies and extra features, and it’s user-friendly, especially for first-time users. Read the Bluehost review to learn more about its features and pricing.
- Beginner-friendly
- Freebies and extra features in all plans
- Free staging tool
- Pricing is confusing
- Paid migration
Pricing: Bluehost offers three different plans: Shared hosting, VPS and dedicated hosting.
Shared hosting: Starts at $2.95/month, and it’s divided into four sub plans, Basic, Plus, Choice Plus and Pro. Basic comes with one WordPress website install while others are unlimited, with 50 GB SSD storage for Basic, and unlimited SSD storage as of Plus, custom themes for all plans, as well as free WordPress integration, free domain for one year, drag-and-drop functionality, free CDN included, and free SSL Certificate. Learn more on how to register a domain name here.
Dedicated Hosting: It comes with three options, Standard, Enhanced, and Premium. Pricing starts at $79.99 per month and can go up to $119.90 for the Premium plan. The top features are CPU—2.3GHz in Basic, CPU—2.5GHz in Enhanced and CPU—3.3GHz in Premium. CPU 4 Cores for all three plans, as well as one free domain. Memory RAM starting at 4GB, network bandwidth at 5TB, and three dedicated IPs. All plans use cPanel as the control panel & WHM with Root.
VPS Hosting: It comes with three options, Standard, Enhanced, and Ultimate. The top features are: storage starts at 30GB SSD Storage in Basic and can go up to 120GB with Ultimate package, memory starts at 2GB RAM, bandwidth of 1TB, and one IP Address. All plans use cPanel as the control panel & WHM with Root.
Namecheap is mostly known for selling domain names, but now it offers web hosting services. The company can say it lives up to its name as it provides the most affordable web hosting service on the list—pricing starts at $1.58 per month for up to three websites and a free domain. Also, there’s a minimal increase in renewal prices, which is just twice as high as the original price.
The downside, however, is that Namecheap’s servers aren’t nearly as fast as its competitors. Despite the company guaranteeing 100% uptime, this isn’t always the case, according to users. In fact, users reported that this number could go way lower than the industry standard of 99.99% uptime.
Namecheap offers a website builder tool with drag-and-drop capabilities which makes things easier for those building a website from scratch and on their own. The shared hosting plan doesn’t support more than 100GB of file upload, so if you need to upload several high-quality photos and videos, you might as well choose another host such as Hostinger, which is performance-focused. The customer support is 24/7 live chat with no phone support.
Why we chose it: Namecheap, as the name suggests, is the most affordable option, with pricing starting at $1.88 per month for up to three websites and a free domain. To learn more, read our complete Namecheap review for an in-depth look.
- Most affordable
- Three websites and free domain in the cheapest shared hosting tier
- Website builder tools
- Poor performance
- Customer support is limited
Pricing: Namecheap offers four types of hosting plans: Shared hosting, WordPress hosting, reseller hosting, and VPS hosting.
Shared hosting: This plan offers three sub plans: Stellar, Stellar Plus, and Stellar Business. Stellar comes with a free domain name and three websites included, while Stellar Plus and Stellar Business have unlimited websites. Storage at Stellar starts at 20GB SSD and all three plans come with free CDN.
WordPress hosting: WP hosting has three options: Easy WP Starter, Easy WP Turbo, and Easy WP Supersonic. Pricing starts at $24.88 per month and goes up to $54.88 monthly in the highest tier. Storage is SSD and starts at 10GB and Easy WP Starter supports 50,000 visitors per month while WP Turbo 200,000 visitors and Supersonic 500,000. The second and third tier come with free SSL and free CDN.
Reseller hosting: Three tiers are available: Nebula, Galaxy Expert, and Universe Pro. Nebula costs $19.98 per month, Galaxy Expert $39.98 monthly, and Universo Pro costs $58.88 monthly. The starting plan offers 25 cPanel accounts and 30GB SSD of storage but the number of accounts can go up to 150 in the most expensive plan. All plans include unmetered bandwidth, free cPanel/WHM, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
VPS hosting: VPS hosting offers two options: Pulsar and Quasar. Pulsar is $9.98 monthly with 2 CPU Cores, 2GB RAM of memory, 40GB SSD, RAID 10, and 1TB Bandwidth. Quasar costs $17.88 and it comes with 4 CPU Cores, 6GB RAM, 120GB SSD, RAID 10, and 3TB Bandwidth. Both plans include a 30-day money-back guarantee and full root access.
Hostgator is one of the most known website hosts out there. The company has been around for 20 years, and it offers different types of hosting services to website builders. Hostgator offers an overall stable hosting experience and a fast server when it comes to performance. The average full-page loading speed is around 2.5 seconds, which is considered good. Both uptime and downtime are generally pretty reliable—the company has a 99.99% uptime guarantee.
Despite being a good option for beginners, Hostgator is the best choice for advanced users as its customer support is designed for experienced DIY customers, offering video tutorials, guides and articles, apart from email, phone, and live chat, 24/7.
Another aspect that makes Hostgator best for tech-heavy businesses is that Hostgator’s control panel is the popular cPanel. cPanel looks confusing and might be hard to navigate for first-time users. HostGator also offers more introductory-level hosting options, similar to other providers in terms of pricing and services.
Why we chose it: HostGator has 20 years of market experience and it offers good website performance, a dedicated server for tech-heavy business, and helpful 24/7 customer service. Read our full HostGator review for an in-depth look.
- Great customer support
- 99.99% uptime guarantee
- 20 years of market experience
- Control panel is confusing
- Free security tools are limited
Pricing: HostGator offers four types of hosting plans. Shared hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS and reseller.
Shared hosting: The shared hosting option has three sub plans: Hatching Plan, Baby Plan, and Business Plan. Pricing starts at $2.75 monthly and all plans offer pretty much the same features: One-click WordPress installs, free WordPress/cPanel website transfer, unmetered bandwidth, free SSL certificate, and free domain. The difference is that the Hatching plan comes with a single website, whereas the other two are unlimited.
Dedicated hosting: This plan also comes with three options: Value Server, Power Server, and Enterprise Server. They all include unmetered bandwidth, HDD or SDD hard drives and memory starts at 8GB RAM. Starting price is $89.98 per month and costs can go up to $139.99 monthly in the Enterprise Server tier.
VPS hosting: This plan also comes with three options: Snappy 2000, Snappy 4000, and Snappy 8000. Memory starts at 2GB RAM for Snappy 2000, 2 core CPU, and storage of 120GB SSD, and it can get to 240GB SSD in Snappy 8000. All plans have unmetered bandwidth. Pricing starts at $23.95 per month.
Reseller hosting: Three sub plans available: Aluminum Plan, Copper Plan, and Silver Plan. The cost for the cheaper option is $19.95/month and it has 60GB disk space and 600GB bandwidth. All three tiers include unlimited websites and a free SSL certificate.
Suitable for small businesses and enterprise-class customers, Ionos offers all available hosting options for reasonable pricing. What separates Ionos from the pack is its outstanding customer support. Its dedicated customer service page has a 24/7 phone support line, online chat with fast response, and a help center.
Ionos’ performance is good but not excellent. The average website load speed is lower if compared with higher performance web hosting such as Hostinger at 797 millisecond versus 143 milliseconds.
The website builder is intuitive and easy for first-time users with drag-and-drop options and manual entries. The company offers a free domain for a year for the cheapest tier as well as a 30-day money-back guarantee and unlimited storage.
The downside of Ionos, however, is that pricing isn’t transparent. Pricing starts at $4 (sometimes it can go down to $0.50 per month), but it goes over $10 monthly when renewed.
Why we chose it: Ionos offers fast and efficient customer support, free domain for a year, and intuitive website builder tools. Read the Ionos review to learn more about its pricing and features.
- Easy website builder option
- Free domain
- Excellent customer support
- Average speed lower if compared to its competitors
- No free website transfer
- Pricing isn’t transparent
Pricing: Ionos offers three main types of hosting plans: shared hosting, dedicated hosting and VPS.
Shared hosting: There are three options within shared hosting: Essential, Business, and Expert. The Essential plan starts at $4 per month and prices can go up to $16 monthly for the Expert tier. Essential plan is good for one website, while others for unlimited websites. Storage starts at 10GB and all plans include professional email and domain for a year.
Dedicated hosting: Four options for dedicated hosting: A8i SSD, L-16 SSD, XL-32 SSD, and XL-64 SSD. The entry-level plan starts at $5/month for 6 months, then goes to $65/month. All plans offer unlimited traffic capabilities, site scans, and a free domain.
VPS hosting: VPS hosting sub plans are four: VPS S, VPS M, VPS L, and VPS XL. VPS S starts at $2 monthly, with 512 MB RAM, and storage of 10GB SSD. They come with dedicated resources and unlimited traffic.
Methodology for the Best Web Hosting Sites
To help you choose the best web hosting site for your small business, we’ve used five different criteria:
- Performance: Average website load speed, uptime, downtime, stress, and overall website performance.
- Customer Support: It’s essential, especially for beginners, to have responsive and efficient customer support in many forms, such as phone support, live chat, and email.
- Pricing: Depending on the web hosting type, pricing can vary. Cheap web hosting providers aren’t always the best, or they may offer slower performance.
- Storage: Whether you’re a freelancer or run an ecommerce shop, it’s crucial to know how much room you’ll have to upload important files, videos, and images.
- Hosting plans: All companies we’ve analyzed offer entry-level plans but vary in features, capabilities, and pricing.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Best Web Hosting Sites
We’ve listed some of the most common questions about web hosting alternatives here.
Bottom Line on the Best Web Hosting Sites
Choosing the best web hosting site for your website can be daunting, especially if this is your first time building your website. Hostinger is our top pick out of all the web hosting sites because it’s easy to use, it’s affordable and it provides a high performance website to its users, even on entry-level plans.
Camila Santiago is a content writer and strategist specializing in health and wellness, but she also has a foot in technology. She’s an eclectic writer, so she’s written various articles across the financial technology realm and wellbeing. Besides, Camila is a yoga teacher, she’s been in 35+ countries and speaks 5 languages. She also has a background in Business and Marketing.
