Best Web Hosting Companies for 2024 (No. 1 is our favourite) Best Web Hosting Companies for 2021 (No. 1 is our favourite) - Hostingpill

Best Web Hosting Companies for 2024 (No. 1 is our favourite)

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BlueHost

Based on our extensive testing and experience, the best web hosting is BlueHost.

From the title, you may think: What does Best Web Hosting really mean?

  • Is it affordable pricing?
  • Is it a 99.9% uptime guarantee?
  • Or is it great security and customer support?

Our answer: A bit of everything

There are so many web hosting services out there that choosing is risky. You can find a web host that is very inexpensive, but does a terrible job keeping your site up.

You may also find an expensive web hosting package that looks like it will provide premium service, but doesn’t have the features you need.

No need to worry:

We have tried and tested over 100 web hosting services, (and counting) have helped 2,158+ bloggers and businesses select their suitable choice of hosting service.

Based on that experience, and taking into account crucial factors like performance, price, features, support, and more, we’ve found five great hosts stand at the top.

Best Web Hosting Services

Without further ado, let’s dive into a detailed review of each Web hosting.

1. Bluehost (Best Overall)

bluehost homepage

Bluehost Pros
  • Uptime has been excellent lately.
  • Generally good allocation of resources.
  • Bluehost is very easy to use, and is great for beginners.
  • Uniquely good customer support.
Bluehost Cons
  • Uptime was a tad poorer prior to a year, and response times aren’t special.
  • Yes, features and resources are overall good, but some things could be added to the second or third tier, in my opinion, to keep up feature-heavy competitors.
Why we recommend Bluehost?

Of all the names on this list, Bluehost is likely the most popular.

It’s one of the most popular hosts around, in the big leagues of hosting: around since 2003, Bluehost powers over 2 million websites and has hundreds of support staff ready to go.

I see Bluehost’s main appeal in being an overall great web host that is user-friendly. It performs well, its pricing is overall standard, and it has great ease of use and customer support.bluehost plan

Although the storage space isn’t unlimited, as it is with GreenGeeks, I’d like to remind you of the aforementioned apartment analogy: if everyone on a shared hosting account decided to use up as much storage as they possibly could because it’s “unlimited,” the whole shared hosting platform wouldn’t work.

So yeah, Bluehost does limit you technically, but practically speaking the storage allowances are quite generous, especially for an entry level account. Plus, it’s SSD storage, not HD storage.

Besides that, you get unmetered bandwidth, basic SSL, an included domain, some parked domains, and one website. Higher tiers get more of everything, plus marketing offers and some site backup.

These features are honestly generous enough for most users, even if it doesn’t look so impressive on paper. Having said that, I do think Bluehost could be a little more generous to keep up with some of its smaller competitors, like GreenGeeks (which is coming up next!).

For example, including backups or more websites for entry level accounts would be nice.

Something Bluehost does especially well is user-friendliness. While all the hosts on this list are fundamentally easy to use, Bluehost is particularly strong here.

The website builder is intuitive and Bluehost is confident enough with it that you can try it for free on their website.

The overall layout and account management is very streamlined and easy to use. The customer support is excellent: representatives are very helpful and the knowledge base is expansive.bluehost support resources

As far as uptime goes, Bluehost isn’t number one. However, throughout 2018-2019 Bluehost was usually at 99.99% or 100% uptime.

Unfortunately, some months were poorer:

bluehost old uptime

But more recently, Bluehost has been better. Take a look at the last year:bluehost uptime

That’s nearly 99.99% over the course of a whole YEAR straight. That means that the uptime has been VERY consistently high lately.

Unfortunately, the response times aren’t as good as the uptime, historically or recently. They’re not super slow, but about average or on the higher side of average.

For being an overall great host with decent pricing, good performance, solid features, and great ease of use and support, Bluehost has earned our first place on our GoDaddy Alternatives.

On the off chance that if you’re already on the other side with GoDaddy then we have a comprehensive guide that’ll get you over from GoDaddy to BlueHost easily.

Still curious about Bluehost? We’ve got you covered.

2. GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks homepage

GreenGeeks Pros
  • Great performance
  • Good introductory/first-term prices
  • Great features
  • In particular, good security
  • Easy to use and solid customer support
  • Eco-friendly
GreenGeeks Cons
  • Renewal prices are on the higher side
  • Knowledge base could be a bit more extensive
Why we recommend GreenGeeks?

GreenGeeks is easily one of the most unique hosting companies around. As you might expect from the name, a lot of its identity comes from its eco-friendliness:

For every amp that GreenGeeks pulls from the grid, it matches 3x that amount in renewable energy through an environmental foundation. That’s why it’s “300% green hosting.”

But on top of that, it’s also just one of the best web hosts out there right now.

So let’s check out what GreenGeeks’ web hosting plans offer:

greengeeks plans

Before getting into the features, a quick word on price:

The big prices listed are great for what’s offered, there’s no doubt about that. They’re about in-line with the normal discounted hosting prices, but the plans offer more than most.

However, it’s worth noting that the renewal prices are a bit higher than average, starting at $11 a month.  Luckily, it’s still within the norm of a higher renewal price, and well-proportioned to what’s on offer.

Okay, let’s talk features:

The resources are obviously pretty nice—unmetered bandwidth, and unlimited storage, email, and databases from the first tier onwards, with the second tier onwards also allowing unlimited websites.

On top of that, the entry level option also has a couple features that enhance performance:

CDN is included for free, which means your site will load quickly for visitors all over the world. Meanwhile, LSCache will also help your pages load even faster.

And when you get to the second and third tiers, performance is significantly boosted.

Also, while GreenGeeks is generally beginner-friendly, it’s also got developer-friendly features: multiple PHP versions, free SSH and secure FTP access, Perl and Python support, and more.

Importantly, the security is pretty good, with all of these thrown in for consideration:

greengeeks-security

And in addition to the features listed above, GreenGeeks support will also clean up your site for free, if it’s hacked or infected with malware. Taken together, all of this is impressive:

Security on normal web hosting plans tends not to be very good. Although VPS and dedicated servers will usually have the best security, it’s nice to see GreenGeeks up the ante on security, as web hosting is the most realistic option for many small businesses.

Meanwhile, the ease of use is top-notch and customer support is great as well. GreenGeeks provides several nice features towards ease of use, including a website builder, an easy-to-use dashboard, and a one-click installer, plus free website migration if you’re coming from another host.

The knowledge base is overall pretty good, though it could be a bit more extensive. Representatives are great, and can be accessed through ticket/email, live chat, and phone.

But is GreenGeeks good with its hosting performance, the thing that’s absolutely key for making sure your site stays up?

Just look at the last 3 months of uptime on our test site:

greengeeks uptime

That’s incredible. 99.99% uptime over the course of three months means that it’s functionally perfect. The performance has been similarly consistent over the course of the last year, aside from a single drop almost a year ago.

On top of that, the response time has consistently been faster than average. So all together, GreenGeeks’ performance has been excellent.

And taken together with everything else, it’s hard to see what GreenGeeks does wrong. It might not be an ideal budget host, but aside from that, it’s well-priced for what’s offered—and a lot is offered.

Still want to know more? You can check out our full GreenGeeks review for an in-depth breakdown of the company’s offering overall, and an even longer uptime record.

3. TMDHosting

TMDhosting homapage

TMDHosting Pros
  • Great speeds, consistently
  • Choice of Linux or Windows based hosting
  • Low renewal/regular prices
  • Pretty good feature set, especially Weebly’s website builder.
  • Detailed tutorials for a range of open source software and content management systems.
TMDHosting Cons
  • Uptime suffers a bit
  • Knowledge base is weak, as it’s basically a forum and thus less organized, and with less official input.
Why we recommend TMDHosting?

If you like to pay attention to underdog and lesser-known hosting companies, you’ll want to pay extra-close attention to this one.

TMDHosting has built a strong reputation, and since its founding in 2007, it’s received many impressive accolades.

TMDHosting is also a bit unique for its focus on hosting open-source software. It’s been credited by several content management systems (CMS) for being a great host through the years.

But now? Let’s take a look.

The first thing you might notice is that TMDHosting offers both Linux and Windows-based options. This is less common for shared web hosting, but it’s a welcome choice.

Windows hosting is a bit more expensive, but proportionately has more generous features. To keep things simple, I’ll focus on the Linux shared hosting.

TMDhoating plan

The promotional/first-term prices are pretty normal. Good, but normal. But take a look at those regular prices:

They’re noticeably cheaper than most regular prices. So in the long term. TMDHosting is actually cheaper than many competing hosts.

And as for the features:

TMDhosting features

They’re pretty generous, as neither storage nor bandwidth has caps at any tier.

Most of the other stuff is basic at the first tier, but the money-back guarantee is longer (which shows confidence on TMDHosting’s part) and basic caching speeds things up.

But the Weebly website builder is great. Several options here include their own website builders for free.

That’s great, but many hosting companies’ native website builders are a bit sub-par. Weebly is a company wholly dedicated to making a great website builder. So its inclusion here is extra impressive.

Anyway, the second and third tiers are also impressive for adding performance-enhancing features.

Lastly, the shared plans come with free daily backups, and are more isolated than traditional shared hosting.

So just looking at prices and features, TMD looks excellent.

But let’s take a look at the performance. We’ve been testing TMD Hosting since early 2019 (full details here).

Through half of 2019, TMD’s month-to-month uptime was kind of shoddy. Three months were well-below 99.9% uptime.

But the last year has been a bit better:

TMDhosting uptime

Typically, most days will be at 100%, but then a few days will consistently fall below the 99.9% mark.

The last three months, for example, has averaged 99.92%.

So that’s not ideal. But there IS good news:

The response times have been GREAT. In fact, they have been, without fail, among the lowest of all the hosts we’ve tested, and have been so consistently since early 2019.

You can check out our full analysis of TMDHosting here if this caught your eye.

4. DreamHost

dreamhost homepage

DreamHost Pros
  • Uptime guarantee will credit you for downtime
  • For the most part, good uptime
  • Flexible pricing allows for monthly payments instead of commitments for a year or 3 years
  • Very WordPress friendly, especially for beginners: WordPress is pre-installed, a free migration plugin is included, and a WP website builder is included for free
  • Also, automatic backups for WordPress sites
  • One of the longest money-back guarantees I’ve seen, at 97 days
DreamHost Cons
  • Email isn’t free for the first tier
  • Uses a custom control panel instead of the more common cPanel, which may throw off some users (but this is a very minor point)
  • Only two pricing plans, which isn’t as good if you want to have a lot of options
  • In general, while DreamHost is great if you want cheap hosting for WordPress, it’s more ordinary when it comes to general shared hosting
  • Downtime is rare but CAN be pretty bad when it happens
Why we recommend DreamHost?

DreamHost is another major name in the world of web hosting, for good reason.

As you can see from the picture above, DreamHost powers over 1.5 MILLION websites—putting it in the big leagues of shared web hosting, along with Bluehost and GoDaddy.

DreamHost is overall solid for those who want an affordable, high-performing web host with solid features.

Just so we’re clear, these are the basic features and prices we’re looking at:dreamhost plan

People looking into WordPress will feel right at home. DreamHost is 2nd place in our Best Wordpress Hosting Services. Like Bluehost, DreamHost is one of the three major hosts that WordPress.Org itself recommends.

As you can see, DreamHost has quite a few features designed to make things easier for WordPress users—such as a free migration plugin for people using WordPress on a previous host, a free site builder for WordPress, and pre-installation of WordPress.

On top of that, DreamHost has decent pricing, in the general range of what most web hosts offer but a bit on the lower side.

And as an added bonus, DreamHost has monthly payment plans for those who don’t want to commit to a year up-front.

As far as performance goes, DreamHost is pretty good. They guarantee 100% uptime and will credit you for certain amounts of downtime.

But DreamHost’s ACTUAL uptime? A little more complicated. Check it out:

dreamhost 12 months uptime

Usually DreamHost does indeed offer 100% uptime. But there was one day in February and a day in January that threw off our average..

There was also one day in late August where uptime dipped to about 96%. But aside from those days, almost EVERY day has been at 100%.

So, DreamHost still has pretty solid uptime. As you’d guess, days like that are rare.

You can see our full DreamHost uptime stats here. And you can read my full evaluation of DreamHost here for more overall information.

5. A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting homepage

A2 Hosting Pros
  • Consistently good uptime
  • Perhaps the best feature set of all the items here
  • First-term prices are decent, making the features even more impressive
  • Good customer support: representatives are responsive and helpful, and knowledge base has good articles for getting started
A2 Hosting Cons
  • Renewal/regular prices are on the higher side of average
  • Doesn’t cater as strongly to ease of use or simplicity as some other options here
  • Domains not included for free, and if you purchase them on A2, they’re more expensive than usual anyway
Why we recommend A2 Hosting?

A2 Hosting isn’t a super famous host, but it’s got a well-established reputation in the hosting industry, and it’s been around for a little while (2001).

It offers a range of hosting products, but its shared hosting is especially good.

There are four web hosting options offered by A2:

A2 Hosting plan

The price range is pretty standard, but a bit higher at regular rates/upon renewal.

The resources and features are pretty impressive. For example, just the first plan gets 100GB of storage—that’s a lot for just one website at a few bucks a month.

But there’s more. ALL tiers (including the first tier) comes with all this:A2 Hosting features

That’s pretty good. To be specific, website staging (which lets you create a clone site to experiment with big changes) is usually for advanced plans.

Additionally, CloudFlare CDN (boosting performance), choice of data center location, and a website builder—all included for free—are great adds. All these features make the first tier loaded.

But the remaining tiers have even more features:

The second plan onwards has free automatic backups, plus no limits on storage or sites. Plus this:

A2 Hosting growth features

Meanwhile, the third and fourth tier get another extra set of features:A2 Hosting turbo features

And that’s on top of the basic features/resource upgrades that come with the plans, which I already showed you.

So A2 is absolutely loaded with features, more than most hosts, and the cost is only a bit higher than a lot of the competition long term. And about the same at first buy!

Performance is key now.

We’ve been testing out A2 Hosting for a long time. Some months in 2017-2018 had sub-average uptime (the lower side of 99.9%).

But it’s been a long time since such issues have come up.

In particular, the last year has been pretty good:

A2 Hosting uptime

And the last three months have been even better, at 99.984% uptime.

That’s a pretty strong uptime record, and the best part is that it’s from consistently good uptime.

Some other hosts (including some options here) might not have bad average uptime over a long period, but they fluctuate with some days having a lot of downtime.

The speed isn’t fantastic, but it’s decent. And, while it fluctuates some, it’s relatively consistent overall.

So not only is the performance good, but you can rely on it.

You can check out our A2 hosting test site for uptime records that go as far back as July 2017, or our A2 review for a holistic look at the company.

6. GoDaddy

GoDaddy homepageYou probably know this, but GoDaddy is a big name in the hosting (and domain) world.

GoDaddy Pros
  • Very good uptime over the course of two years.
  • Similarly good speeds.
  • Promotional prices are low (when they happen)
  • Ability to purchase more resources as needed
  • choice of Windows or Linux hosting
GoDaddy Cons
  • Non-promotional prices are higher than average for the first term.
  • A lot of upselling, pushiness to buy add-ons
  • GoDaddy’s live chat is often busy
  • Some included free features renew at cost after the first term
  • Especially: SSL not included for free at first two tiers, and renews at cost for the third tier
Why we recommend GoDaddy?

In fact, it’s almost certainly the biggest hosting company on this list. To put a number on it, GoDaddy services over 20 MILLION customers.

That’s a level above the other big names here (Bluehost and HostGator).

Yet GoDaddy is also infamous for untransparent pricing and a very corporate approach. That’s also what holds it back on this list.

But it’s been so successful for a reason...it’s good. Check out our full breakdown of GoDaddy here for more on that.

Anyway, let’s look at the web hosting plans:GoDaddy plan

The first-term prices are higher than average. But the renewal prices are overall normal (if a bit higher than average as well).

However, GoDaddy frequently has big promotions that drop the prices to dirt-cheap levels for the first term.

As for the features...the resources are pretty generous. 100GB of storage (SSD by the way) is more than enough for the vast majority of people hosting just one website, and it only gets higher after that.

A cool feature is that you can easily buy more resources—not just storage, but also CPU or RAM—very easily as you need to.

But aside from the good news on resources, that’s about it for features.

Yes, you get a domain with annual plans, but it renews at cost after the first year. To be fair, that’s a common deal. But it renews at a higher cost than average.

Plus, the email has only 5GB of storage and is free for the first year only, but renews at cost.

The SSL? The feature that’s crucial to having a trustworthy site, which is included for free in almost all hosting plans? It’s not included for free for the first two tiers, and renews at cost for the third tier.

Also, GoDaddy is constantly upselling. You’re always pushed to purchase add-ons or higher-priced packages.

The website builder is one of those add-ons. Sometimes GoDaddy will even include it for free (for a year) during promotions.

It’s great when hosting companies include their own website builders for free. But many of them are sub-par compared to the popular website building software.

GoDaddy is a bit different. It’s a big company, and has invested into its website builder to be a more mainstream offering.

You can check out our investigation of GoDaddy’s website builder here for more info. But the short version is that yes, it’s pretty good.

But overall, GoDaddy is on the weaker side for features and price.

As for the uptime:

We’ve been measuring GoDaddy through a test site for two years (starting August 2018).

During that time, GoDaddy basically always had great performance. Most months have at least 99.99% uptime, and it’s rare when they don’t.

Overall GoDaddy has done well for the last year. But some instances of downtime have lowered the average:

godaddy uptime

Most of the time, it’s 100%, but there are consistently days just over 99.9% that lower the average.

In the last three months, however, uptime has been closer to 99.98%, which is good.

Not to mention, the response times have also consistently been low since we started measuring.

So overall, while not perfect, GoDaddy is a pretty good performer and has been such for two years.

7. HostGator

HostGator homepage

HostGator Pros
  • Overall, good uptime, particularly recently
  • Generally good features (including a website builder, unlimited email, etc)
  • Generous resources
  • Lower starting prices and lower renewal prices compared to competitors
  • Solid customer support (both representatives and knowledge base)
HostGator Cons
  • Slower response times
  • May be a bit risky for highly important sites/projects that need excellent uptime
  • Some upselling and add-ons that can be frustrating and build cost
Why we recommend HostGator?

HostGator is a very well-established name in the hosting industry. It claims to have hosted over 8 MILLION domains and has hundreds of employees, putting it in the big leagues.

HostGator’s plans are mostly low-cost, and have generous resources:HostGator plan

The main impetus to upgrade would be for more domains, and/or stronger SSL and a dedicated IP.

HostGator has a decent set of features available for all plans:HostGator features

So proportionately to price, HostGator definitely seems to be on top of things.

And on that note, HostGator has both lower starting prices AND renews at a lower cost than many of its competitors (though you’d have to commit for a long period of time to get those lower prices).

Anyway HostGator seems pretty solid thus far. The key factor now is performance.

Over the last year, HostGator has overall done well:

HostGator uptime

It’s been keeping its uptime guarantee of 99.9%. In fact, most of the time it’s easily at 100% uptime or pretty close—there were just a few days where uptime dipped to the lower side of 99.9% that took down the average.

If you look at the last 3 months in particular, it’s pretty good:HostGator 3months uptime

Unfortunately, the response times are on the slower side both overall and recently.

You can check out fully detailed uptime records for our HostGator test site here, going all the way back three years.

Also, you can read our HostGator review for a full run-down of the hosting company.

8. TurnKey Internet

TurnKey Internet homepage

TurnKey Internet Pros
  • Very good uptime, especially lately
  • Consistently great speeds
  • Choice of Windows or Linux hosting
  • Good three-year prices and yearly prices
  • Generous resources
  • Independently owns its data center, which is also a green data center
TurnKey Internet Cons
  • Domain name not included
  • Not loaded with features compared to some options here.
  • Particularly, not a lot of features that would appeal to beginners.
  • Knowledge base/informational support a bit limited
Why we recommend TurnKey Internet?

TurnKey’s a less famous host, but it’s been around for quite a while—since 1999, in fact.

Its history is also a little unusual. Unlike just about all the other names here, TurnKey didn’t start as a host.

It first was a consultant for ISPs, and then transitioned to hosting. But its transition has resulted in a pretty impressive hosting company.

TurnKey gives you a choice of Linux hosting (which comes with cPanel) or Windows hosting (which comes with the Plesk control panel).

As is usually the case, the Windows hosting is more expensive:

TurnKey Internet plan

These are pretty friendly to developers and those hosting more dynamic projects.

As for the Linux plans:TurnKey Internet cpanel hosting plan

There are just two options, and they’re pretty low-priced but with generous resources.

However, the price tag for those Linux plans only applies to a three-year pre-payment. This is often the case with hosts.

BUT: even if you pay on a yearly or monthly basis, the prices are still good. This is for the first tier:

TurnKey Internet billing cycle 1

The month-to-month price is pretty standard, but just 5 bucks a month for a year of service is still on the lower side.

So all in all these prices are still good even when you don’t buy three years in bulk.

Moreover, the Windows plans do not have this same disconnect. The price tags shown for Windows here are what you pay month-to-month. If you pay on a yearly basis, it’s marginally cheaper:TurnKey Internet billing cycle 2

So all in all it’s a well-priced set-up.

The features available tend to be more about resources and support for various scripts.

That’s great, but it does matter a little less to people looking for an “easy” and simple host (such people may want website builders included, for example).

But ultimately, the cheapest plan (Linux) can support up to 10 domains and doesn’t cap storage, which is a lot better than most hosts. That’s great value. Uptime will make or break TurnKey now:

So let’s examine the performance. TurnKey’s uptime, over the course of a year, is pretty impressive:TurnKey Internet uptime 12months

There was basically one day with poor uptime, but other than that, it’s been 100% almost every day with minimal exceptions.

To prove it, take a look at the last 3 months, which have a nearly perfect uptime score:TurnKey Internet 3 months uptime

And the speed? The average response time is among the lowest we’ve seen of the hosting companies we’ve measured.

We’ve been measuring TurnKey since March 2019, and the performance was a bit worse in the middle part of 2019. A couple months were below 99.95%, but not much.

But that hasn’t been an issue for a while, with performance overall looking quite strong (especially lately).

Let’s get to a summary of the pros and cons. But if you’re already really curious, you may as well learn some more about TurnKey with our full review of it.

9. InterServer

interserver homepage

InterServer Pros
  • Very good performance for the last year
  • One-size-fits-all price means great features proportionate to price
  • No exaggerated renewal prices
  • Specifically, good default features for site security
  • Solid customer support
  • Shared servers run just 50% of capacity, allowing for growth. This is less common for shared servers.
  • Good uptime and response times RECENTLY.
InterServer Cons
  • Domain is not free, though it is cheap at $1.99
  • While I personally like the single pricing plan, some people may want more options
  • Spottier record on uptime and response times longer term (mostly before August 2019).
Why we recommend Interserver?

InterServer isn’t the most famous web host, but it’s still pretty well known. And it should be:

InterServer has been around since 1999 and has managed to uphold a solid reputation the whole time.

On price, InterServer is very simple. Most web hosts, as you’ve probably noticed by now, offer quite a few tiered options. The features and performance increase the more you pay.

Additionally, each pricing tier typically renews at a higher rate after the first term, and the low price advertised is dependent on you signing up for a certain period of time.

With InterServer, there is precisely ONE web hosting package. Ordinarily it’s $4 a month if you commit to 3 years, or $5 per month regularly. As you can see, there is a discount at the time of writing.

This is a one-size-fits-all hosting package, which makes sense given its features (more on that in a sec).

It’s still a good deal for the price, though. $4-$5 a month is a tad higher than the cheapest entry-level hosting, but it’s cheaper than high-tiered hosting with other companies.

Proportionately speaking, it’s a great price. So let’s get into what it offers:

One of the best things about InterServer is that it offers a lot of features. I mean, just take a look at these basics:

interserver features

Some of these you probably expect, like free migration, SSL, and SSD storage.

But you also get a free website builder, and email isn’t even limited for the first tier. Heck, storage isn’t even limited.

Plus, InterServer’s default security features—known as Intershield Protection—go above the norm for shared hosting:

interserver intershield security

They also have something called “Inter-Insurance,” which means they’ll clean up hacked or infected accounts—especially WordPress sites—for free.

That’s part of InterServer’s generally great customer support. It’s a feature in itself.

Finally, one of the more unique and nice points about InterServer is its resource allocation. I already told you that you’re getting unlimited SSD storage. But this is why:

interserver server capacity

Spacing out customers on shared plans like this is less common, because of course it’s less profitable. It makes more sense to cram low-consuming customers together.

But by making sure each server is running at half-capacity, InterServer lets its customers make the most of shared hosting—with other companies, they’d be forced to upgrade to a higher plan if they consumed too many resources.

Now, at this point InterServer probably sounds like the undisputed first option. Not so fast:

One of the things that keeps InterServer from moving up higher on this list is performance, a crucial component.

We’ve been testing InterServer for a while. The newer results are better, but some of the older results still affect the evaluation.

These are the older results, from about a year ago:

interserver old uptime

As you can see, about a year ago uptime COULD be great, but it was often frequently pretty low. Anything below 99.95% is on the poorer side of average, with May and March of 2019 standing out.

Also, response times were quite slow in late summer 2019.

These are newer results:

interserver uptime

As you can see, the response times have been very fast.

And the uptime has been closer to 99.99% or 100% month to month (99.977% uptime is pretty decent over the course of a whole year).

The uptime and response times have been good for the last year, but earlier in 2019 things have been spottier.

You can view our full uptime records here, spanning more than a year and up until the present.

Anyway, that’s the deal with InterServer’s performance.

Ultimately InterServer is a great bargain for many looking for affordable hosting that provides good features and still performs very well.

But if your absolute bottom line is having performance as close to perfect as possible, something else on this list may be better.

You can read more about InterServer here if you’re still unsure.

10. BigScoots

BigScoots homepage

BigScoots Pros
  • High uptime guarantee
  • Flexible pricing, which is particularly good for those who’d prefer to pay monthly or yearly
  • Generally solid features
  • Although bandwidth is capped at each tier, it’s a generous allowance relative to price
  • Very easy interface and highly qualified support staff that can handle a range of problems
  • Managed WordPress plans on shared servers available in addition to the main web hosting options
  • 45-day money back guarantee is longer than the typical 30 days
BigScoots Cons
  • Storage limits are a bit low, especially per price
  • Price on the higher side relative to standard web hosting packages
  • First tier doesn’t come with a free domain
  • Overall, probably not as cost-effective for people who can confidently manage their website with standard web hosting
Why we recommend BigScoots?

BigScoots is a fairly unique hosting company; it offers managed hosting only. But unlike most managed-only hosting providers, BigScoots also offers web hosting, not just dedicated or VPS hosting.

Let’s start looking at those web hosting plans. BigScoots offers more flexible pricing than most hosting companies, so let’s focus on the prices first:

There are three tiers: 105CC, 155CC, and Turbo Diesel. They can be paid at monthly, annually, or two-year intervals:

bigscoots-price

Now, at first glance, you might find these a bit pricey. Compared to standard web hosting, they might be, but remember that these are MANAGED web hosting plans.

And managed hosting almost always included a significant price increase. Because you’re paying extra for ease of use and customer support.

With that taken into account, these prices are not big increases from the standard web hosting price range. In fact, it’s impressive how close these are to “normal” web hosting prices, despite being managed.

But we can’t really evaluate price fully without talking about the features, so let’s look at what those numbers will get you:

bigscoots-plan

The gist of the feature list is that it’s a mixed record:

On one hand, allowing up to 5 domains for the first tier alone is pretty unusual, and most sites limit the entry-level plans to one site only. So that’s a nice, unique feature.

In addition, allowing all tiers to get free daily backups, unlimited databases, mailboxes, and DDoS protection is great, and good value.

Plus, allowing a free domain registration for the second and third tiers is a nice bonus, though it’s a bit unusual to not make that available for the first tier. The dedicated IP is a nice feature as well.

But the resource allocations are where things get a bit more complicated:

First, placing a clear cap on bandwidth for each tier is unusual. But does that mean BigScoots is cheaping out on bandwidth?

Not at all:

Although most hosts claim to offer “unlimited” or “unmetered” bandwidth on shared hosting plans, the reality is that almost all web hosting plans come with limited bandwidth. These are usually informal limits.

So if you exceed them, there may not be an overage fee, but you may be asked—or forced—to upgrade your plan. After all, shared web hosting wouldn’t work if everyone sharing a server used as much bandwidth as possible.

So placing a bandwidth allowance isn’t that big of a deal, despite how it looks. The bigger issue is the number:

And on that note, BigScoots is still doing fine. 100GB is plenty of bandwidth for an entry-level plan. In fact, many hosting providers with “unlimited” or “unmetered” bandwidth may ask their first-tier users to upgrade if they use more than just 30 GB of bandwidth.

So being realistic, the bandwidth allowances are plenty for web hosting plans. The bigger issue is the storage, though:

Frankly, this is a larger weakness of the plans. 5GB of storage isn’t that much:

A standard (un-managed), entry level web hosting plan will usually offer AT LEAST 10GB of storage on the low side, with many hosts offering up to 50GB or simply not capping storage. This often will cost less than BigScoots’ plans as well.

So relative to competing web hosts, 5GB is kind of low, and comes at a higher price too. That’s true for the second and third tiers as well, and if you’re managing multiple websites, it might seem a bit limited.

However, it’s also common for managed hosting plans to limit storage. So it’s not a huge deal.

And that leads us to the next point: what does the “managed” part of these packages entail? How good is the ease of use and customer support?

For starters, just about everything you need taken care of can be handled by BigScoots’ staff. That includes:

Handling site migrations; handling software or CMS installations; offering recommendations; fixing broken plugins; setting up email accounts; setting up SSL; and just generally being always available to help with site issues.

The support staff are highly trained and qualified. The general approach of BigScoots is to prioritize quality of support staff over quantity, which is great for managed hosting:

bigscoots-plan

To make things even smoother, BigScoots’ interface is designed to make things as easy as possible.

So all you really need to do is manage your website. That’s a nice change from standard web hosting, which is easy compared to other forms of hosting, but still requires users to do a lot of work on their own.

BigScoots is also impressive on the level of its hosting infrastructure. BigScoots is one of the increasingly rare hosting companies that manages its own data centers:

bigscoots-infrastructure

Even independent hosting companies often pay third parties to operate data centers. Independently-run data centers does not necessarily mean the security is better, but it does mean the common pitfalls of data centers run by third parties are avoided:

For example, transparency. Having just Big Scoots running things makes the hosting a lot simpler and more trustworthy. Plus, their set-up looks good, with on-site security and high redundancy in case things go wrong.

As for performance, BigScoots makes a high guarantee:

bigscoots-uptime

Most hosts offer an uptime guarantee, but that guarantee is usually 99.9%, with the higher end being 99.95%. Although it sounds small, there’s a BIG difference between 99.9% uptime and 99.99% uptime over the course of just a month.

In addition, BigScoots guarantees 100% power and network uptime. So performance-wise, it’s all set.

So all-in-all, BigScoots is a pretty great web hosting option, though it may not be for everyone. If anyone is looking for hassle-free web hosting that’s still affordable, BigScoots is the best of both worlds.

But if you’re just looking for affordable web hosting, and you’re comfortable with the responsibilities that come with regular (un-managed) web hosting, then BigScoots is probably not super cost-effective for you, as you can find more affordable hosting with better resources and even features.

If you’re curious about BigScoots, you can check out our in-depth review here.

Are other kinds of web hosting better for me?

If you’ve been reading this article ‘till now, and had the sneaking suspicion that none of these are the best option for you or your business…

You MAY be right. Web hosting is great for a lot of people, which is why it’s so popular, but there are other types of hosting.

Best web hosting for small businesses:

Let’s start with web hosting for businesses. Now basically, this is still shared web hosting. And regular shared hosting can and IS used by businesses often.

But, many hosts offer web hosting that’s better for businesses. And many hosts offer special web hosting plans for businesses—take Hostwinds for example.

The main benefit is that you get a better compromise: more resources, better performance, but still the cost-effectiveness and ease of web hosting. To see more, check out my list of the best web hosting for businesses.

Some of those options:

Best WordPress hosting providers:

Another type of hosting that overlaps with shared hosting is WordPress hosting.

Some WordPress hosting is basically shared web hosting with extra features. Some WordPress hosting is VPS or cloud hosting—more money, but also better security and performance.

The short version is that WordPress hosting can refer to different types of hosting, with the underlying component being, of course, that the packages are optimized for WordPress.

So if you really want a good host for WordPress in general, some of the options on this list are good—but there are still others out there, and they’re worth looking into.

Here are some of the best WordPress hosting providers, at a glance:

Best Drupal hosting providers:

WordPress is the most popular content management system, or CMS, around, which is why you’ve heard of it already.

But there ARE other content management systems that are very powerful. Drupal is one such CMS: it’s also open-source and can be used on most hosts.

However, Drupal is oriented towards more advanced site management. As such, some hosts are better suited for Drupal.

Here are some of those best hosts:

Best Magento hosting providers:

Another popular CMS is Magento. Magento is for managing ecommerce sites, and is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms in the world.

A key point here, of course, is that you can have an ecommerce site with any of the web hosts listed here, or WordPress or even Drupal.

But Magento is for those who want to take the management of their ecommerce site to the next level, in which the whole CMS is about online business. Naturally, some hosts are better for Magento.

Best Moodle hosting providers:

And if you’re trying to build an educational site, you can use more than a simple but expensive course-builder—there’s even a CMS just for flexibly building educational sites.

For that, you’ll need to use Moodle, and hosts that are especially great for Moodle.

Here are some of the best hosts for Moodle:

Best cloud hosting providers:

Now aside from hosts that are good for certain popular CMS software, you can search for a provider based on the technical nature of the hosting itself.

Of course, there’s also cloud hosting. Cloud hosting essentially gives you a DEDICATED slice of server resources, through virtual servers linked together.

Because your resources are private, you can use them more freely without worrying about affecting the overall server. And they’re more secure.

But one of the best things about cloud hosting is that it's scalable: because you’re not as limited by physical hardware, you can start with a smaller amount of higher-quality resources and then scale up to larger and larger amounts as your site grows.

It’s naturally more expensive than regular web hosting, but much less expensive than dedicated hosting.

Here are some great cloud hosting providers:

Best dedicated hosting providers:

On that note: dedicated hosts are great if you have a larger business and need the most premium hosting you can get your hands on.

Dedicated servers are what they sound like: they’re entire servers dedicated solely to the paying customer, and shared with no one else.

But be careful: even if you’re willing to pay up for premium service, you want to make sure you’re investing in the best dedicated server for you.

At a glance, here are some of the best providers of dedicated servers:

Best PHP hosting providers:

Now, aside from looking at different types of hosting, or at hosts that are better for certain content management systems, you can look at hosts that are better at certain types of languages.

PHP is a very powerful scripting language used to build some of the most visited sites in the world, and certain hosts provide great features and support for developing sites in PHP.

Some of the best providers of PHP hosting are right here:

Best Java hosting providers:

Alternatively, you can look at hosts that are great for Java. Java is one of the most popular web development languages aside from PHP, and is often used as an alternative to it. It’s especially good for interactive content and mobile apps.

You guessed it. Here are some of the best hosts for Java:

Best ASP.NET hosting providers:

Lastly, there’s ASP.NET. It’s not exactly a language, but a web application framework (that uses the .NET language) and especially great for dynamic projects.

ASP.NET hosting is a little more niche, but there definitely are hosts better suited for it than others, and even hosts that are great for ASP.NET hosting specifically.

Some of those hosts:

Clearly, there are a ton of different kinds of hosting out there—but if all of these sounded too overwhelming for you, then you probably should return your attention to shared web hosting.

It can still provide the best combination of affordability and functionality, and that’s why it’s the most sought-after type of hosting plan.

Best HIPAA hosting:

If your website will be handling (U.S.) healthcare information at all, you can’t just have any old hosting.

You can’t just slip by with “more secure” hosting, either.

No, you need to have hosting that’s compliant with HIPAA, which is the regulations for how healthcare information is handled digitally.

HIPAA-compliant hosting is niche, so you can’t just get it from any web host.

Luckily, I’ve investigated the best HIPAA-compliant hosting providers: you can view the full list of the best here. These are the best 3:

Best Joomla hosting:

If you want to run your site with a powerful content management system, you have plenty of options.

But you might not want a CMS that’s too easy, like WordPress, or one that’s too hard, like Drupal.

Joomla is a great intermediary CMS: it’s got a manageable learning curve for the less familiar, is easy for those with experience, and allows for powerful site management.

You can check out my list of the best Joomla hosting here. And for your convenience, here are the 3 best companies for hosting Joomla:

Best Node.js hosting:

For those who want to host dynamic projects, apps, and websites, it’s worth looking into Node.js hosting.

Node.js is a runtime environment for JavaScript. It’s lightweight, fast, stable, and widely used. Plus, if you already work in web development, it’s not too hard to learn how to use.

Node.js ticks off so many boxes that it’s become popular among many high-profile corporations, like GoDaddy, Netflix, Walmart, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and more.

So here’s my full list of the best Node.js hosting providers, and here’re the top 3 of those providers to save you time:

Best ecommerce hosting:

Everyone wants hosting for their website. And do they all want hosting for hobby sites?

A few, sure. But a huge portion of them want hosting for their BUSINESS.

And that means finding hosts that can support transactions, the possibility of scaling up, and can perform well. Not to mention hosts that are friendly towards ecommerce software or include their own built-in.

If you’re going to host a site for business, it’s super important you find the best one. Because if your host causes website issues, that can translate directly to lost sales, and bad customer experiences.

So if you want to find the best ecommerce hosting, check out my full list of the top 10 providers. Until then, here’re the top 3:

Best Wiki hosting:

Wanting to host a wiki is far from common.

But it’s an established tradition (of a sorts), and one that can prove incredibly useful in certain areas—whether that’s for hobbyists or the workplace.

But as it’s rarer to seek wiki hosting, you can expect that a normal list of the best web hosting may not be a perfect fit.

Some hosts prioritize support for Wiki management software, or are high performers that can accommodate wiki software without a hitch.

So, check out a full accounting of the best wiki hosting providers here. As a preview, these are the 3 best:

And on that note…

What’s the best hosting for my country?

While this article is mostly relevant everywhere, it should go without saying that it can’t be perfectly accurate for everyone.

In particular, where you live may have some variation. Some local hosting providers could offer deals and performance better than more mainstream, global providers, for example.

Or, even global providers could be uniquely better in your country than others.

So let’s check out of the best web hosting in a few countries.

Best web hosting in India:

India has tons of internet users, and an increasingly robust hosting industry stepping up to support them.

The best hosting in India includes a mix of Indian hosts and global providers that have special offerings for Indian businesses and websites.

Check out my full review of India’s 12 best web hosting companies here. Otherwise, here are the top 3:

Best web hosting in Australia:

Australia has a relatively unique topography, as countries go. Remember, Australia is not just a country—it’s a continent!

Given its massive size, it’s not surprising that many people live in coastal metro areas and that much of the country is sparsely populated.

This also means running a high performing Australian site can be a bit tricky: you want to make sure your site can perform well for people living in areas with spotty internet.

So you can read a detailed list of Australia’s best web hosting here, but here are some of the best, to save you time:

Best web hosting in Canada:

Canada has a similarly unique topography as Australia: it’s a huge country, the world’s second biggest, with most of the population in denser metro areas, and others more spread out.

But despite internet performance varying by area, Canada has a robust population of internet users…and a large number of hosting providers.

So on the one hand, you need to find a host that can perform well for Canadian users, but you also have to cut through the options to find a host that’s good for you.

Here’s the full list of Canada’s best hosting providers. But to be quick, here are the top options to check out:

How to choose the best web hosting service?

Despite the info-dump on the other types of web hosting up there, even just normal web hosting has a wide range.

You can see some of it from the items covered: some prioritize WordPress more. Others prioritize simplicity. And others are better at features.

What we prioritize while reviewing a hosting service are the following paradigms:

Pricing and Features

Budget while selecting a hosting service is essential to your motive. The features usually go hand-in-hand to what you pay.

There’s also the theory that if you pay more, you get more but there’s also a difference between what you want and what you require.

Ease of Use

Newcomers are always welcome in the hosting community but innovation happens so fast that the learning curve keeps getting steeper. Which is why we test to find out how the average guy figures things out.

Security

An underrated aspect of a hosting service. Most companies get it done with an SSL. Others offer an entirely custom solution. After all, you need to know what works best for you.

Customer Support

When you get tired of figuring stuff out yourself or get into some kind of trouble, customer support is your best chance. Whether it is guides, chat or email support, it can be measured.

If you’re brand-new or a hobbyist, it may be worth prioritizing “ease of use features” like website builders, site metrics, etc.

And if your bottom line is cost, go for whatever host is cheapest but has decent uptime. You can install WordPress on it for free, or another CMS, and manage a site with little extra payment.

If you need more advice, I recommend you read our guide to how we review web hosting companies—there’s a lot of good overlap that will help you choose.

Recap: The Best Web Hosting for 2022

Although finding the best web hosting might have been daunting at first, hopefully this list helped simplify things.

It should go without saying that you need to do your own research on which host is best for you.

And while I stand by this ranking as a good OVERALL ranking, it’s not going to be the best fit for everyone.

Some of you may prioritize the low cost of feature sets on InterServer or DreamHost. Others may like the simplicity and effectiveness of Bluehost, and so on, and so on.

As this list stands now, I think it’s a pretty good start. All these hosts are great web hosting options, but each has their own strengths.

Bluehost is probably the best simple-but-reliable host: pricing and features are okay, performance is very good, and it excels with user-friendliness and customer support.

GreenGeeks is a unique host that has just ONE plan with a ton of features. It’s also a great all-rounder, but especially good for the bargain or value customer.

You can try all of these for at least thirty days, and in some cases longer—so don’t wait. Happy hosting!

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