There are thousands of web hosting providers. Some hosting companies run their own data centers. Others rent virtual machines from cloud service providers. All provide some way for their customers to appear online. But choosing the web hosting service that’s right for you can prove to be quite the challenge. While you no longer need to be a programmer or an IT professional to properly configure a web presence, you do need to understand marketing and design and know how to get your message across.
We’ve spotlighted four classes of web hosting services, ranging from providers that give you a quick and easy way to build your website, all the way up to the big companies that provide full datacenter infrastructure capabilities as a service.
Standard-fare hosting providers
There are literally thousands of web host providers out there. One company, Newfold (previously known as Endurance International Group), sells web hosting under almost 100 different brands. In many ways, standard-fare web hosting is about as generic as it gets. Nearly all these web hosting providers offer shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting. Some offer the ability to resell their services. Many offer a free SSL certificate.
Be careful: Nearly all the hosting vendors in this category entice customers with a very low entry-level fee. But there are often two critical gotchas in that fee. First, the fee quoted is usually a monthly fee, but the hosting service bills by year (or even multiple years). So while you might be attracted to, say, a $3-per-month fee, you might find yourself facing a $144 bill, because you’ve been asked to prepay for four years to get the discount. Second, upon renewal, most hosting providers vastly increase the starting fee. So even though you signed up for $3 per month, you might find yourself being asked to pay up to $10 per month — times the number of months in the plan — just to keep your site operating.
We are always cautious about these sorts of hosting plans because migrating off of them can be time-consuming, costly, and difficult.
Hosting with an eye to going green
DreamHost is a full-featured hosting provider that has made an ongoing effort to reduce its environmental footprint. With LEED Platinum and EnergyStar-certified facilities, high-efficiency cooling, partnerships in clean wind programs, and a push to power their data centers from renewable energy, DreamHost is a web hosting service that looks to the future.
As far as hosting offerings themselves, DreamHost has WordPress hosting, shared hosting, virtual private servers, dedicated servers, and cloud hosting. We particularly like the fact that DreamHost has added G Suite integration into their offerings, with domain integration and Google Cloud support. The company also provides a great set of resources and guides that can help customers grow their business.
- cPanel: No, proprietary panel
- SSL: Free
- SSH: Yes
- Backups: Yes
- Money-back guarantee: 97 day
- Support: 24/7 chat, ticket, and call-back
Web hosting with an environmentally friendly approach
The “green” in the company’s name reflects the Green Geeks’ commitment to the environment. It purchases three times the energy it actually uses in wind energy credits, essentially putting energy back into the economy. The company does this through a form of renewable energy certificates, which, while complicated, means that it’s not just energy neutral, it’s actually helping fuel the green energy economy. Yes, it’s a gimmick. But it’s a good hearted gimmick that might actually help the environment.
Rather surprisingly, the low-end account provides both SSH and WP-CLI access, along with Git preinstalled. It’s also possible to customize PHP and PHP.INI, something somewhat unheard of on a bottom-end plan.
- cPanel: No, proprietary panel
- SSL: Yes
- SSH: Yes
- Backups: Yes
- Money-back guarantee: 30 day
- Support: 24/7 chat, ticket, and telephone
Hostinger is a traditional web hosting provider. You can use WordPress or configure your slice of a shared server or virtual private server with any number of Web applications. Unfortunately, on August 25, 2019, Hostinger revealed that up to 14 million users might have been impacted by a security breach. The company reset passwords for all impacted accounts.
Also: My in-depth review of Hostinger
When I did in-depth testing of Hostinger last year, I found they had properly updated most of the security components of their servers, at least to within a few months. Performance was adequate, even on their lowest end plan. Just keep in mind that when you get into the generic hosting provider category, pricing is likely to be misleading. It jumps considerably after the first year and while they advertise 99 cents per month, you’re actually going to be asked for $47.52 on checkout and more than double that when you renew.
- cPanel: Yes
- SSL: Free
- SSH: Some plans
- Backups: Some plans
- Money-back guarantee: 30 day
- Support: 24/7/365 chat
Hosting with a focus on WordPress
Bluehost fits into the category we call “standard-fare” hosting providers, in that it offers a wide range of services, ranging from basic shared hosting up to virtual private servers and dedicated machines. We’re putting them into the WordPress ecosystem category because Bluehost has a strong focus on WordPress in its offerings.
We particularly like how this hosting service segments their WordPress offerings, ranging from basic shared hosting offerings up to their higher-performance pro plan, and then on to a WooCommerce-based shopping cart solution. All solutions come with some level of backup, an Office 365 mailbox, and malware detection and removal. We also like the staging environment that Bluehost offers, allowing you to test your site and changes before deploying them publicly.
- cPanel: Yes
- SSL: Free
- SSH: Some plans
- Backups: Basic, plus more on select plans
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 chat, phone, email
The daddy of all hosting providers
I talked about GoDaddy when I surveyed email hosting providers, and here they are again in the web hosting provider space. GoDaddy has made a business of offering as wide an array of services as is possible for individuals and small businesses in need of an Internet presence.
Although most of my decade-plus experience with GoDaddy has been with domain registration, I’ve come to respect how this web host provides the key services most customers want. They’re definitely not the best at anything, but they do a good job with almost everything. Pricing is fair, customer service is reasonable, and although not 24/7, if you need a technical lead to get something accomplished, you can usually find someone with a clue (after jumping through a few hoops, of course).
- cPanel: Some plans
- SSL: Some plans
- SSH: Some plans
- Backups: Some plans
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days for annual plans, 48 hours (!) for monthly plans
- Support: 24/7/365 US-based ticket and phone
Be careful. We’re not happy that GoDaddy will only refund month-by-month plans if canceled within 48 hours of the sign-up transaction. That’s very restrictive.
Fully managed cloud and web hosting
LiquidWeb is a considerably higher-end provider than most that we list in this section. If you’re a larger small business, a departmental-size organization, or an enterprise, LiquidWeb’s managed hosting services might appeal to you.
The company provides both bare-metal and cloud-based dedicated servers. The cloud servers are technically pooled resources, but…