A web Hosting, or Hosting, is a service provided by a company in which a physical location is offered to customers for them to store their web pages and files. Very much like a landlord, a hosting company rents physical space on their servers so as to allow webpages to be viewed on the internet.
As with anything in life, you have people and companies who are ethical and proficient at the jobs and services that they offer, and there is also those that are not. Below, in no particular order, are what I think the best WordPress Hosting services on the market today.
1. BlueHost
Features and Pros:
- BlueHost possesses over 60 1-Click installation scripts including WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Roundcube, Zen Cart, phpBB, and Concrete5
- Uses Weebly – a powerful site creator with videos and pictures
- Receive $100 for Google advertising when you sign up
- Unlimited space to store your webpages
- Unlimited bandwidth and email
- Anytime money back guarantee
- Among the top 20 largest web hosts available today
- Hosts over 1.9 million domains worldwide
- Users avail of a premium customer service – average hold time is less than thirty seconds
- No setup fee and domain registration is free for the first year
Cons:
- Limited in the number of niche features and power tools available
- Not enough sales and service guarantees compared to other hosting companies
- In terms of fixing any hosting problems, BlueHost does not have a reported uptime or an SLA
2. HostGator
Features and Pros:
- Supplies customers with unlimited emails and auto backups
- Free 1-click WordPress quick install
- 500+ custom themes and your own domain
- $100 credit for Google advertising
- Has a 99% SLA – ultimate reliability. If your website is down for longer than the SLA then you will receive a one month credit
- One of the leading hosting companies and probably the most famous
- Provides services for over 400,000 subscribers with its 12,000 servers
- According to a June 2008 survey taken by HostGator, over 90% of subscribers reported being satisfied with the service being provided
- HostGator offers 24/7 phone, email and chat support, and online forums with over 500 video tutorials and nearly 700 help articles
Cons:
- Definitely marketed and geared towards bigger websites with more traffic, though this doesn’t take anything away from the services that HostGator delivers to small businesses
3. Ipower
Features and Pros:
- iPower is capable of building instant blogs and galleries
- Open-Xchange webmail
- Unlimited disk space and bandwidth
- Currently viewed as the leading web hosting company on the market
- Over a million subscribers to date
- Great record of reliability and ease of use
- Conduct monthly surveys and focus groups so they can better understand and help their customers
- Their data centres are 100% wind powered
- 100$ in advertising credit offered to new members for Facebook, Google and Yahoo
- Standard array of blogging and site building tools
Cons:
- Glitches and bugs have been known to occur whilst using the service
- No unlimited emails, though the 2,5000 offered is probably sufficient for most businesses
- Customer service is not at the same standard as some other hosting companies
4. MyHosting
Features and Pros:
- Free web-based site builder
- Unlimited domains can be owned by any one subscriber
- Excellent spam filter and anti-virus protection
- Possesses web servers which are highly secure and are connected to tier-1 service providers and fibre-optic networks
- Best used for personal use or for small to medium sized businesses
- Provides service to 50,000 web hosting customers across 170 countries
- Emphasis placed on customer support and 100% uptime guarantee
- Offers 24/7 technical support over the phone, email, Twitter, live chat, Wiki pages and forums
- Their dual data centres are located within Equinix and Earthlink Enterprise Date Centres in Toronto and Rochester, NY
Cons:
- Do not provide dedicated servers
- Not as suitable for large businesses as other available hosting companies
5. FlyWheel
Features and Pros:
- Hosting service built specifically for designers and agencies
- A beautiful and powerful service
- Flywheel allows users to focus on designing and building great websites
- Friendly and helpful staff provide good customer feedback. Phone support and ticketing support available
- One-click restore service available
- Aim of this hosting service is to make life easier for the workflow of multi-person projects and clients
Cons:
- Tailored towards designers so wouldn’t be suitable for everybody
- One of the smaller hosting companies on the market
- No email hosting available
- No chat support available
6. WpEngine
Features and Pros:
- Hosting company that specialises in one niche – WordPress hosting
- Unlimited data transfer
- 10 GB base capacity with unlimited expansion
- Full refund available after the trial period of 60 days
- WPEngine is run by very talented and professional people who help you in any way that they can
- Company has a strict No-Overselling-Policy and in case of sudden traffic spikes or unplanned server outages, your web traffic will be automatically rerouted to other servers
Cons:
- No email hosting service
- Only runs on WordPress so you would have to look elsewhere if your site runs on another platform
7. PressAble
Features and Pros:
- Dedicated to making WordPress hosting easy, fast, and as reliable at scale
- Organisations of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies use Pressable’s Content Publishing Platform to share branded content with millions of viewers everyday
- Reliable hosting for businesses and developers everywhere
- Seamless integrated backup utility
- Only hosting company that includes free Gravity Forms in their packages
- Offers one click MX settings configuration tool
- Recently lowered the number of monthly page views but increased the number of websites that a customer can host with them in their base package
Cons:
- There is a lack of Multisite support
- Doesn’t have 1-click restore
8. TrafficPlanet Hosting
Features and Pros:
- Performance focused with fast page loading times
- Fast and effective support
- Great pricing compared to competitors
- Built to power large ecommerce websites which makes running WordPress easy
- Unlike some hosing companies, TP supports emails
- User friendly interface with everything being one click away
- Can support other content management systems, not just WordPress
- Customers get a free use of the Heat Map Tracker tool on all their TP hosted sites
Cons:
- Interface lacks features though more features are being added all the time
9. iPage
Feature and Pros:
- Free domain and full design wizard
- Free drag and drop WordPress builder
- Offers a range of services that are designed to get your web page up and running in just minutes
- Unlimited space and bandwidth
- Daily spam scan and backups
- Free site analytics software
- Comprised of two interconnected data centres located in Boston, Ma
- iPage is very environmentally conscious – their data centres are completely powered by wind, and for every kilowatt hour of electricity that they use, they purchase twice that amount of Renewable Energy Certificates
- Possesses a quick starter guide and tutorials for beginners to make their own web page
- Site builder has over 100 templates to choose from, and more always being added
- Scripts and applications provided are easy to use
Cons:
- might not suit medium to large sized businesses as they focus on smaller ones
10. Web.com
Features and Pros:
- 30 day money back guarantee
- 300 GBs worth of space
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 24/7 customer support available via phone and email
- One of the best priced web hosting service available today
- Unlimited domains offered
- Best suited for customers who would like to consolidate their independent marketing/design and hosting needs into one service
- 25-unlimited FTP accounts
- 25 MySQL databases
- Contains webmail, spam and virus protection, auto-responders, and more
- Password protected directories
- Website builder
- Firewall protection
- Free shopping cart
- Credit card Payment Gateway and PayPal
- All hosting options are shared and come with free domain registration
Cons:
- Can at times be less than specific about details of its features
- Control panel is difficult to navigate
- While prices are reasonable, it does cost extra if you want to add domain expiration protection and/or mobile optimization
11. Netsol
Features and Pros:
- Suits first-time users perfectly
- 30 days money back guarantee
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Full 24/7 customer support – ticket support
- 300 GB unlimited disk space
- Enter domains offered
- 25 unlimited FTP account
- MySQL databases
- Proprietary control panel
- Webmail, POP3/IMAP email addresses, forwarding, auto –responders
- 9% uptime (for Linux)
- Google, Bing and Yahoo marketing tools and offers
- Website builder
- Catch all-email
- Plesk control panel and Virtuozzo Containers available
- Premium package offers a selection of favourite Plesk add-ons like spam protection, ColdFusion support, additional apps, etc.
Cons:
- SEO tools only available in some of the plans
- Cancellation of your subscription outside the 30 day money back guarantee comes with stiff fees
12. Godaddy
Features and Pros:
- The world’s top domain registrar
- Supplies services to 12 million customers over 57 million domains
- 100 GB unlimited disk space
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Enter domains offered
- Enter FTP accounts
- Enter MySQL database offered
- Quality control panel
- 100 to 1000 email account available
- 9% uptime guarantee
- $200 marketing credits and 10+ Fotolia Phone credits available
- Website builder
- 1-click installation of GoDaddy’s library of 4.1 million applications and scripts
- Enter website state tools available
- Enter SEO tools available
- 45 day money back guarantee
- DDoS protection supplied
Cons:
- On the whole, a very formidable and seemingly impregnable hosting service. Has faced public condemnation in the recent past over its 2011 support of SOPA and its advertising campaigns which many find sexist
- Controversial but top class!
13. FatCow
Details and Pros:
- FatCow’s main aim is to facilitate the realization of its customers’ creative and commercial visions by offering top-of-the-line resources and dedicated customer service
- Well suited for e-Commerce ventures
- Operated entirely by wind energy
- Unlimited disk space and bandwidth
- Unlimited domains
- FTP accounts available
- Unlimited MySQL databases
- vDesk Control Panel
- Unlimited POP Email boxes with webmail, spam filtering and newsletter manager
- 98% uptime guarantee
- $200 marketing credits upon subscription
- Website builder
- Suitable for WordPress, Joomla and phpBB
- 30 day money back guarantee
- Other features include ShopSite online store, PayPal integration and more e-Commerce
- Customer support available 24/7
Cons:
- If you cancel your service after the 30 days then you will have to pay a fee for the otherwise free domain registration
14. Register.com
Features and Pros:
- Remarkable growth over the past few years
- Has amassed 2.5 million domains in the past decade and joined the ranks of Web.com in 2010
- Received widespread recognition for its add-on SEO and marketing features
- Also known for its success in integrating social media into its customer support apparatus
- 300 GB unlimited disk space
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 1 domain offered upon subscription
- 25 unlimited FTP databases
- MySQL databases available
- Add-on email available
- 99% uptime
- Marketing and bonus features include – WordPress, Easy Site Wizard building tool, Web Stats tool, Site Promoter SEO tool, Easy Store Maker
Cons:
- Its largely minimalist plans for Unix and Windows fall solidly into the “no-frills” category
- Does not offer a control panel when building a site
15. JustHost
Features and Benefits:
- When signing up to JustHost you receive a free domain name and instant install for this domain
- Offers unlimited memory storage for your website
- Unlimited email accounts available
- Receive $100 credit for Google advertising when you sign up
- Inexpensive shared hosting plans
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Excellent customer service – they aim to respond to tickets within one hour. 24/7 support.
- JustHost is suited for either small businesses that are looking to share hosting, or web customers seeking multiple IP addresses.
- Cancellations get full refunds and even get to keep their free domain name
Cons:
- This company only provides Linux and WordPress hosting, not Windows, though this shouldn’t really be an issue for most users
- Still a relatively young hosting compared to ones that have been around for many years
As you have probably determined from my review, there are any number of WordPress hosting companies out there – all which offer different types of services. The main thing that a person needs to determine when they are deciding which service to subscribe to, is what they actually need from said service.
Whether it be for personal use, or for an international company, there are plenty of choices out there. My advice is to first figure what you want in terms of a service and then do your homework as to what is available. This should stand you in good stead when choosing a hosting company.
