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Building a website is an exciting prospect, but getting started can be intimidating. Fortunately, the best web hosting services make this undertaking relatively simple. PCMag can also help streamline your search. We’ve been testing web hosting services for more than 10 years and update our reviews regularly as services add or remove features. HostGator wins our Editors’ Choice for its excellent shared hosting plans, making it ideal for smaller projects. Larger businesses should consider Liquid Web, another Editors’ Choice winner, due to its robust VPS plans and managed hosting. Likewise, you should take a look at Bluehost for WordPress website building or DreamHost for the flexibility and scalability that cloud-based hosting offers. We’ve selected 11 web hosting services for this list, all of which are excellent in their own ways. Read on to see our top picks, followed by the key factors to consider when shopping for web hosting.
Overview: Top Picks Based on Our Testing
A2 Web Hosting
Liquid Web Hosting
HostGator Web Hosting
Bluehost Web Hosting
InMotion Web Hosting
DreamHost Web Hosting
AccuWeb Hosting
Hostwinds Web Hosting
WP Engine Web Hosting
Hostinger Web Hosting
Ionos Web Hosting
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- RELATED:
- Best Shared Web Hosting
- Best VPS Web Hosting
- Best Dedicated Web Hosting
- Best Cloud Web Hosting
Best Customer Service
A2 Web Hosting
- Robust hosting packages, particularly WordPress
- Excellent customer service
- Terrific uptime
- Good money-back refund plan
- Lacks Windows server options
- Relatively expensive
When shopping for web hosting, a strong foundation makes a good first impression. A2 Hosting offers just that with robust hosting packages, excellent uptime, and superb WordPress plans. In addition, the company has an incredibly helpful customer service team that quickly addresses your problems or questions.
If you have WordPress in mind, and don’t mind utilizing Linux-based servers, A2 is a host you should scope out first. Its plans include highly optimized environments specifically designed for WordPress, plus managed options that deliver 24-hour support and supervision.
Best for Managed Web Hosting
Liquid Web Hosting
- Robust dedicated, VPS, cloud, and reseller packages
- Prorated VPS plans
- Powerful, high-end server specs
- Terrific customer service
- Excellent uptime in testing
- Lacks shared hosting plans
- Expensive, with few refund options
There's serious muscle behind LiquidWeb's wide range of cloud, dedicated, VPS, WordPress, and reseller server packages. It lacks a low-cost, shared hosting tier, making this web host more appealing to larger businesses rather than smaller ones. Despite that limitation, you can expect white-glove treatment with LiquidWeb's packages, so your web hosting needs will be handled with exceptional care and attention.
LiquidWeb offers premium hosting, at a premium price point. The host provides excellent, managed, enterprise-class service, with the muscle to power the website of your dreams. If you want powerful hosting options and impeccable, around-the-clock support, LiquidWeb is a good place to start.
Best for Shared Web Hosting
HostGator Web Hosting
- Numerous feature-rich hosting plans
- Excellent shared hosting offerings
- Good for novice webmasters
- Useful site-building software and e-commerce tools
- Helpful, 24/7 customer service
- Outstanding uptime
- Not all plans have a Windows Server option
- Some annual plans cost more than paying month by month
HostGator is a fantastic web hosting service with a varied selection, including feature-rich WordPress, VPS, dedicated, and cloud server packages. It also includes useful tools, such as the useful Web.com website builder. In a nice touch, HostGator lets you select a Windows-based server, something not offered by every web hosting service.
HostGator is best for small and midsize businesses that want to quickly build a Linux- or Windows-based website, and have room to grow. Its shared hosting packages have unlimited disk space, monthly data transfers, databases, and email addresses across the board.
Best for Building WordPress Sites
Bluehost Web Hosting
- Dependable uptime in testing
- Excellent WordPress hosting plans
- Useful WordPress site-building software
- Terrific customer service
- Easy-to-use interface
- Free site migration
- Lacks cloud hosting
- No monthly shared hosting plans
- Lack Windows-based servers
Bluehost strikes a balance between pricing and features, offering services that appeal to hobbyists and business professionals. Great uptime, WordPress-enhancing tools, e-commerce add-ons, and overall flexibility make Bluehost a web host you can count on for a rock-solid website. Its website builder delivers drag-and-drop simplicity as well, making it all the more appealing.
A massive portion of the internet is powered by WordPress (more than 40 percent!), so there's a good chance that you may go that route, too. Fortunately, Bluehost excels at WordPress hosting, offering plans that let you build nearly any website you wish. Plus, Bluehost has custom tools that make building a WordPress site an even easier affair.
Best for a Lengthy Money-Back Guarantee
InMotion Web Hosting
- Excellent uptime
- Many hosting types
- All plans offer unlimited email
- Unlimited data transfers with all Shared and WordPress plans
- Lengthy, money-back guarantee
- Easy-to-use website-building software
- Lacks Windows servers
- Not all plans have month-to-month payment options
InMotion is a top-tier web hosting provider that delivers reasonably priced shared, dedicated, VPS, and cloud hosting plans. Whether you need WordPress-specific plans or reselling options, InMotion has a well-rounded feature set that appeals to nearly every web hosting need.
This is the web host that you should check out when comparing features, as the company casts a wide hosting net. The big exception here is Windows servers, as InMotion uses Linux-based servers to host websites. InMotion also offers an excellent, 90-day money-back guarantee for shared hosting plans, which gives you plenty of time to kick the tires.
Best for Cloud Web Hosting
DreamHost Web Hosting
- Strong security features
- Extensive domain-management tools
- Excellent cloud hosting offerings
- Unlimited data transfers per month
- Generous shared hosting money-back guarantee
- Useful WordPress staging feature
- Shared Starter plan lacks email
- No telephone support
- Lacks Windows-based servers
When it comes to delivering dependable, Linux-powered servers, DreamHost ranks as one of the best services we've tested. The company offers valuable website-building tools and excellently priced hosting plans for all of your needs, including shared, VPS, and WordPress-specific servers. DreamHost also has some of the best cloud web hosting services available.
With its easy-to-use tools, DreamHost is a great host if you're new to building websites. It also offers fantastic cloud-based hosting with highly competitive rates and a feature-packed toolset that includes site-building software and unlimited data transfers.
Best for Dedicated Web Hosting
AccuWeb Hosting
- Great budget-friendly shared hosting options
- Excellent dedicated hosting plans
- Offers a choice of Linux or Windows servers
- Helpful customer service
- Limited email accounts with some plans
Fantastic web hosting plans and helpful customer service aptly describe AccuWeb's services. However, the company's excellent dedicated hosting plans make it stand out in a crowded field. In fact, its dedicated packages are so robust that they earned our Editors' Choice award. What’s more, AccuWeb has Windows Server options alongside the common Linux OS, so you have an another potential foundation for your website.
Companies seeking high-powered dedicated hosting. Dedicated plans costs more money than shared, VPS, WordPress, or cloud options, but the steeper price tag comes with storage and data transfer privileges that are second to none. If you're on the prowl for enterprise-level business hosting, AccuWeb will serve your company well.
Best for Reseller and VPS Web Hosting
Hostwinds Web Hosting
- Terrific uptime in testing
- Excellent reseller and VPS hosting plans
- Good customer service
- Minecraft server hosting
- Not every plan has a Windows server option
- Short money-back guarantee window
Shared hosting is a great starting point, but as your traffic and demands grow, so will your hosting needs. VPS is the next step up, and Hostwinds handles VPS hosting extremely well. The versatile web host also has strong reseller hosting plans for people who want to open their own hosting businesses.
Hostwinds is an appealing hosting choice for a wide range of clients, from mom-and-pop shops to big business, as its services are attractively priced and fairly robust. Give Hostwinds a try if you want to migrate your website to a beefier VPS server, or wish to sell hosting of your own.
Best for WordPress Hosting
WP Engine Web Hosting
- Terrific uptime in testing
- Outstanding customer service
- Daily backups
- Real-time threat detection
- Useful staging area
- Choice of either Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform cloud hosting
- Custom plans available
- Email isn't included with hosting plans
- Doesn't sell domains
Many web hosting services offer unique packages to compliment the highly popular CMS, and WP Engine is no different. It delivers valuable and powerful WordPress hosting options, alongside other great plans, cloud-based platform flexibility, and reliable service. For managed WordPress hosting, WP Engine is a strong contender that offers plenty of power.
If you're thinking of building a WordPress-powered site, keep WP Engine on your radar. The web host covers most of your WordPress-related bases, provided you don’t mind turning to third-parties for domain registration and emails.
Best for Customized Server Packages
Hostinger Web Hosting
- High-quality, low-cost plans
- Helpful customer service
- Terrific uptime in testing
- Optional gaming servers
- Excellent AI tools
- Includes the Hostinger Website Builder
- Lacks dedicated web hosting
- Not every plan has a Windows option
- No phone support
Gamers who want to create their own private servers. Of course, Hostinger serves non-gamers, too. The web host constantly adds features to its excellent hosting options, or improves accessibility to make those options easier to use. Check out Hostinger's customizable packages if you need a web server that requires a specific build.
Best for Large-Scale Cloud Web Hosting
Ionos Web Hosting
- Dependable uptime in testing
- Excellent cloud hosting packages
- Linux- or Windows-based servers
- Easy-to-use website creation tools
- Lacks reseller hosting plans
- Relatively sparse email options
When it comes to scale, Ionos by 1&1 is a powerhouse. The web host has many well-rounded packages, including shared, VPS, WordPress, and dedicated servers. However, its cloud hosting plans are particularly feature-rich offerings, making Ionos an Editors’ Choice pick for the subcategory.
Enterprises looking to open up shop online. Ionos’ cloud-based services are reliable and powerful, and let you easily scale server specs as your company grows.
Which Type of Web Hosting Is Best?
Web hosting services offer varying amounts of monthly data transfers, storage, email, and other features. Even how you pay (month-to-month vs. annual vs. prorated payments) can be radically different, too. So, taking time to plot exactly what your company needs for online success is essential. Many of these companies also offer reseller hosting services that let you go into business by offering hosting without spinning up your own servers.
You should also familiarize yourself with the many available web hosting tiers. You'll find shared, virtual private server (VPS), dedicated hosting, and WordPress hosting plans in your research. Each tier offers different specs and features that you should take the time to analyze. We break them down below.
What Is Shared Web Hosting?
Shared hosting is web hosting in which the provider houses multiple sites on a single server. For example, Site A shares the same server with Site B, Site C, Site D, and Site E. The upside is that the multiple sites share the server cost, so shared web hosting is generally very inexpensive. It's cheap web hosting. In fact, you can find an option for less than $10 per month. Free web hosting is an option if you're willing to make some functionality sacrifices.
You could think of the sites that share your server as your roommates; there's really not that much separating you from them. Sure, you can close the bedroom door, but they can still cause nightmares for you in the kitchen and the bathroom. In web hosting terms, all the sites share a single server's resources, so huge traffic spikes on Site A may impact the neighboring sites' performances. It's even possible that another site could take down the shared server altogether if it crashed hard enough.
What Is VPS Web Hosting?
VPS hosting is similar to shared hosting in that multiple sites share the same server, but the similarities end there. In housing terms, VPS hosting is like renting your own apartment in a larger building. You're much more isolated than in the roommate situation mentioned above; it's still possible that a neighboring apartment could annoy you, but far less likely. In web hosting terms, Site A's traffic surge won't impact Site B or Site C nearly as much. As you'd expect, VPS hosting costs more than shared hosting. Expect to pay roughly $20 to $60 per month, depending on the service.
What Is Dedicated Web Hosting?
Dedicated hosting, on the other hand, is both powerful and pricey. It's reserved for sites that require an incredible amount of server resources.
Unlike shared or VPS hosting, dedicated hosting makes your website the lone tenant on a server. To extend the housing metaphor, having a dedicated server is like owning your own home. This means that your website taps the server's full power, and pays for the privilege. If you're looking for a high-powered site—an online mansion for your business—dedicated hosting is the way to go. That said, many dedicated web hosting services task you with handling backend technical issues, much as homeowners have to manage maintenance that renters generally leave to their landlords. Dedicated hosting will set you back close to $100 per month, and that number skyrockets if you opt for high-speed servers and huge RAM and storage totals.
Many web hosting services also offer managed hosting. In this type of hosting, the web host acts as your IT department, handling a server's maintenance and upkeep. This hosting option is typically found with dedicated servers, so it's a business-centric addition. Naturally, it adds a few bucks to the hosting cost, but nothing that should break the bank if you have the resources for a dedicated server.
What Is WordPress Hosting?
WordPress hosting is for people who want to build their sites on the back of the popular WordPress content management system (CMS) from WordPress.org. This free, open-source blogging and site-building platform has multiple ways to set up shop.
You gain the most web-building functionality if you create a self-hosted site. This typically involves transferring the free WordPress CMS to the server or signing up for a web host's optimized WordPress plan. With an optimized plan, the host automatically handles backend stuff, so you don't have to worry about updating the plug-ins and CMS, and enabling automatic backups. In these instances, the WordPress environment typically comes preinstalled on the server. In most cases, this shouldn't cost much more money than a web host's shared or VPS hosting plans.
You can also host your website on WordPress.com, but that's different from the kind of hosting mentioned above. WordPress.com uses the same code from WordPress.org, but hides the server code and handles the hosting for you. In that sense, it resembles website builders. It's a simpler but less flexible and customizable way to approach WordPress hosting.
What Is Cloud Web Hosting?
Cloud hosting services use a network of virtual and physical servers to store and maintain your website. This means that your site is hosted across a multitude of servers, potentially located worldwide. As a result, cloud hosting is generally much more flexible than traditional hosting, which is limited to physical servers rented via data centers.
Cloud hosting has numerous benefits, including impressive scalability with storage and RAM resources. Speed and performance are excellent as well because cloud hosting distributes workloads across several servers. Cloud hosting services are extremely reliable, and they can provide fantastic data backup and recovery for the same reason. Cloud hosting is all over the map in terms of pricing, with some companies offering prorated payment options.
What Is the Best Web Hosting for Beginners?
If you're a web hosting novice, there are several key factors to consider when committing to a web hosting service. Many web hosts offer limited features in their starter packages and then expand the offerings (sometimes tremendously) for higher-tier plans. However, a few services, such as A2, Bluehost, and HostGator, are the best web hosting services for beginners due to their prices, feature sets, and ease of use.
Read the small print to ensure the plan you select offers what you need. If you don't want to code the site yourself, make sure that the web host you pick comes with a website builder. Many require you to pay for the builder as a separate add-on. Website builders usually don't cost a lot of money, but if you can find a web host that includes one for free, that's money in your pocket. And if it's integrated with your hosting service, you're more likely to have a smooth, supported experience.
Remember, you want a web host with 24/7 customer support—if not by phone, then at least by chat. Forums, knowledge bases, and help tickets are useful, but sometimes you just need to communicate with another human to get things ironed out as quickly as possible. That said, not all 24/7 customer support teams are equal, which we confirmed in our in-depth web hosting reviews. Ease of use and strong uptime are important, too.
If you're unsure of the hosting type your business needs, you might want to start with low-cost shared or WordPress hosting. You can always graduate to a more robust, feature-rich package like VPS hosting or dedicated hosting in the future. Unfortunately, some hosts don't offer all hosting types. Consider how much you expect to grow your website and how soon before you commit to anything longer than a one-year plan. It's worth spending the time up-front to ensure that the host you select can provide the growth you envision for your site, as switching web hosting providers midstream is not a trivial undertaking.
Once you decide your price range, you need to consider how long you'll need web hosting. If it's a short-term project—say, less than a month or two—you can typically receive a refund if you cancel your hosting within 60 days. Some companies offer 30-day money-back guarantees, and others offer 90-day guarantees. Once again, it's beneficial to do your homework.
What Is the Best Free Web Hosting?
You've come to the wrong place if you're looking for free web hosting. Our list here includes the best web hosting services overall, and they're not free. Check out the best free web hosting services for our top picks in the category.
Should You Use a Linux or Windows Server?
When it comes to server operating systems, Linux is typically the default option. Still, some hosts offer a choice of Linux or Windows. Don't let the idea of a Linux host intimidate you. Nowadays, most web hosts offer a graphical interface or a control panel to simplify server administration and website management; you click easily identifiable icons instead of tinkering with the command line.
If you have specific server-side applications requiring Windows, such as SQL Server or a custom application written in .NET, you must make sure that your potential web host offers Windows hosting. Windows hosting is often more expensive than Linux hosting, especially in the dedicated server area (you'll typically see the price difference as you explore the options before checkout). While that's not always the case, you should be aware of it as you shop around.
What Are the Differences Between Managed and Unmanaged Hosting?
There are many reasons to use managed hosting services, but convenience is at the top of the list. Managed hosting providers handle server monitoring, security, and website backups, giving your site vital firewalls, intrusion detection, and file-scanning functionality to keep it safe and up to date without your input. Managed hosting usually comes with extensive technical support, so you can contact your provider whenever you encounter a website problem.
On the other hand, unmanaged web hosting is a great option if you're comfortable handling server management duties. With unmanaged hosting, you are entirely responsible for server administration, including the initial setup and ongoing maintenance and security. This may be a tall order if you're unfamiliar with these tasks. However, if you have a strong technical background, these responsibilities also come with great flexibility. You can customize the hosting environment, such as installing a preferred control panel or security tools.
The Best Web Hosting Features for Small Businesses
When it's time to set up shop, look for a web host that offers the aforementioned dedicated servers, advanced cloud server platforms (such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud), custom server builds should you need them, and 24/7 customer support. Depending on your focus, you may want a web host that can handle pageviews or visitors that rank in the thousands or millions. Many busy hosting plans also offer an onboarding specialist who can help you get started.
If you're planning on selling a product, look for a web host that offers a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, because it encrypts the data between the customer's browser and web host to safeguard purchasing information. You're probably familiar with SSL; the green padlock appears in your web browser's address bar as you visit an online financial institution or retail outlet. A few companies toss in an SSL certificate free of charge; others may charge you roughly $100 per year for that extra security layer.
What Is Email Hosting?
If you aim to have a web presence, you must have email. It's a convenient way for potential customers and clients to send you a message, Word document, or other files. Thankfully, most web hosts include email in their hosting plans. Some web hosts offer unlimited email account creation (which is great for future growth), while others offer a finite amount. You, naturally, should want unlimited email.
That said, not all web hosts offer email. WP Engine, for example, does not. In such instances, you must sign up for email accounts from a company other than your web host. GoDaddy, for instance, sells email packages starting at $5.99 per user, per month. That might sound like a hassle, and just one more thing to keep track of, but some webmasters feel that separating your email hosting and web hosting services is smart. That way, one provider going offline won't completely bork your business.
5 Things You Need to Know About Web Hosting
What Is Web Hosting Uptime?
The aforementioned features are valuable to the web hosting experience, but none match the importance of site uptime. If your site is down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your products or services.
We've added uptime monitoring to our review process, and the results show that most web hosts do an excellent job of keeping sites up and running. Web hosts with uptime issues are heavily penalized during the review process and are unable to qualify for top ratings.
What are the Best Web Hosting Services for E-Commerce and Marketing?
In reviewing the services listed here (and many more), we learned that even though the packages are similar, they are not identical. Some are more security-focused than others, offering anti-spam and anti-malware tools at every price tier. Others offer a variety of email marketing tools. While most of the hosts we've reviewed have built-in e-commerce tools, you may want to consider using a more robust, third-party e-commerce platform, such as our Editors' Choice winners, Shopify and Wix Stores.
Finally, if you're just getting started in web hosting, make sure to check out our primers, six essential tips for building an online presence and how to register a domain name for your website.
