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12 Best WordPress Hosting Providers of 2024 Compared and Tested

Just like you, we’re on a quest to find the best WordPress hosting available. To get there, we bought all the hosting you can see on this list and then compared it. We still maintain websites with each of these hosts, and conduct thorough testing each month – including measuring uptimes and loading times from multiple locations around the globe. Additionally, our analysis incorporates insights from a survey of over 3,400 customers of these companies.

This evaluation aims to help you pinpoint the most suitable WordPress hosting provider for your needs, based on concrete performance data and real user feedback. Let’s explore these options to find the best host for your WordPress website. 👍

THE OVERALL RANKINGS

Host Price from Average load times Uptime Traffic (mo.) Best for More
SiteGround $2.99 /mo. 1.26s (US), 0.44s (EU) 99.97% ~ 10,000 visits 🏆 best overall / potential for growth (Review)
Bluehost $2.75 /mo. 0.97s (US), 1.3s (EU) 99.98% unmetered 🏆 best overall / price-to-quality (Review)
DreamHost $2.59 /mo. 1.87s (US), 1.8s (EU) 99.78% unmetered cheap entry-level hosting (Review)
Kinsta $29.17 /mo. 0.85s (US), 1.25s (EU) 100% ~ 25,000 visits power users with traffic (Review)
Hostinger $2.24 /mo. 1.51s (US), 0.43s (EU) 100% unmetered cheap entry-level hosting (Review)
Flywheel $13.00 /mo. 1.36s (US), 0.3s (EU) 100% ~ 5,000 visits easy to use managed hosting (Review)
WP Engine $20.00 /mo. 0.69s (US), 1.65s (EU) 100% ~ 25,000 visits power users with traffic (Review)
A2 Hosting $2.99 /mo. 0.93s (US), 1.18s (EU) 99.98% unmetered cheap entry-level hosting (Review)
InMotion $2.29 /mo. 1.08s (US), 1.32s (EU) 100% unmetered hosting 2 websites cheaply (Review)
GreenGeeks $2.95 /mo. 1.68s (US), 0.62s (EU) 100% unmetered green energy hosting (Review)
HostGator $3.75 /mo. 0.67s (US), 1.84s (EU) 99.95% unmetered (Review)
GoDaddy $6.99 /mo. 0.7s (US), 0.4s (EU) 99.97% unmetered (Review)
We do our own tests 🔍Need help? 🤕

The values you see above have been compiled based on our own testing setups and websites. We have active accounts with all of the hosts we’re comparing, and we measure their performance metrics every month. Each of these websites was built to mimic a standard WordPress site with a fair volume of content, graphics, and UI elements. Learn more about how we review hosting companies here. Also, see our live hosting status page here if you want to view real-time data.

WordPress hosting can be a complicated thing, and we understand that.

So we just want you to know that we are here to support you. If you find yourself stuck while setting up your site, or have any WordPress hosting question at all, we’re here for you and we’re happy to help. Feel free to shoot us a comment or reach out via twitter.

THE BEST WORDPRESS HOSTING PROVIDERS COMPARED (IN FULL)

Here’s a complete, in-depth look at the hosting market in the WordPress space. These are the top WordPress hosting services for 2024.

If you want to learn more about 👉 what makes a host good for WordPress, click here. Or 👉 click here to skip to the verdict and find out which host comes on top.

1. SiteGround

Best overall WordPress host ($2.99/mo)

No list of best WordPress hosting could be complete without SiteGround playing a prominent role. The company has been making a name for themselves in the WordPress community for a while now. And not without a reason. Their hosting platform is strong when it comes to for-WordPress optimized servers, plus they offer managed WordPress hosting at price points that are unheard of (read: you won’t find a cheaper managed host of the same quality anywhere else).

What’s also worth pointing out is that SiteGround is one of the few officially recommended hosts by WordPress.org.

For the tests, we went for the StartUp package. Although for a generally more WordPress-optimized package, we’d recommend the GrowBig or GoGeek plan. They are a tad more expensive, but come with additional perks such as advanced caching (custom-built by SiteGround), staging, premium wildcard SSL certificates, and free PCI compliance – should you want to run an ecommerce store.

WordPress installation

Getting WordPress up and running with the built-in installer took just a few clicks. There really isn’t anything more to say here … the installation process really was as seamless as possible.

During this setup process, you also get to choose your server location. There are five data centers available – in USA, Asia and Europe.

Customer support

SiteGround offers what they call “unmatched” support (via chat, phone, tickets, social media), and it’s hard to argue with that, honestly. Apart from being able to access your account and fix any issues, the support agents are also knowledgeable about WordPress and WordPress hosting, and can help you out with a range of other issues that might not be strictly hosting-related.

In our little test, the SiteGround customer support was able to help us get a temporary URL working quickly and efficiently.

Special mention has to go out to the slickness of their customer support software and the extra mile the staff were prepared to go in offering detailed account advice and providing screenshots. (This makes it a great HostGator alternative, for instance, if you want a more refined support environment.)

SiteGround
Cost / mo. (12 months) $2.99
Cost / mo. (24 months) $7.49
Cost month-to-month $24.99
Websites 1
Space 10GB
Bandwidth 10,000 visits
Free domains Yes (first year)
Free WP installation, migration, autoupdates, free SSL and CDN, daily backups, free email, WP-CLI and SSH

Performance and uptime 𝒾

SiteGround uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
99.93%100.00% ⭐99.99%

See the live status page and historical data for SiteGround.

SiteGround loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 0.95s ⭐West Coast USA: 1.47s
Central USA: 1.35sLondon, UK: 0.40s ⭐
Paris, France: 0.48s ⭐Mumbai, India: 1.90s

Online reputation according to our hosting survey

  • Rated 8.38/10 overall by survey respondents (top-rated company) 🏆
  • Used by 4.83% of survey respondents
  • No.2 most popular host in the UK 🇬🇧
  • The most popular host in Spain 🇪🇸
  • 93% of users will extend their hosting subscription when it’s up for renewal

2. Bluehost

Top value-for-money WordPress hosting ($2.75/mo)

We went for the basic package here. As you can see, a very cheap WordPress hosting option – a shared WordPress hosting plan, to be exact.

Bluehost used to not offer a month-to-month option for a long time, but they quietly added it not too long ago. They don’t encourage it or openly advertise it, but you can choose it during the checkout process if you simply want to take them for a test drive. At the same time, you don’t need to be afraid of committing to a year with them either, because they do have a strong 30-day money back guarantee policy that I have personally invoked without issue. It is important to note that this policy does not apply for the month-to-month option (for somewhat obvious reasons) or if you pay by a method other than credit card.

WordPress installation

Bluehost’s WordPress installation can be handled via the account manager interface and the process is simple enough if you are installing WordPress on a single domain. The other very convenient thing is that if you provide your domain up front, during the hosting signup process, then Bluehost will automatically install WordPress on your behalf. You can then access the WordPress Dashboard directly via the Bluehost interface and set your WordPress admin password from there. It doesn’t get any simpler.

However, if you do run into any issues, then you can always reach out to their customer support team. Speaking of which…

Customer support

Service via chat support was fast and friendly and helped us with clearing up the initial WordPress installation problems and setting up a temporary URL to view our site.

Bluehost
Cost / mo. (12 months) $2.75
Cost / mo. (36 months) $4.95
Cost month-to-month $15.99
Websites 1
Space 50GB
Bandwidth Unmetered
Free domains Yes (first year)
Automatic WordPress installation and updates

Performance and uptime 𝒾

Bluehost uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
99.93%100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐

See the live status page and historical data for Bluehost.

Bluehost loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 1.08sWest Coast USA: 0.96s ⭐
Central USA: 0.88s ⭐London, UK: 1.35s
Paris, France: 1.24sMumbai, India: 2.25s

Online reputation according to our hosting survey

  • Rated 8.02 overall by survey respondents 👍
  • Used by 9.61% of survey respondents (top 2 result)
  • The most popular host in the US 🇺🇸
  • The most popular host in the UK 🇬🇧
  • The most popular host in Canada 🇨🇦
  • 23.7% of Bluehost’s customers are first-timers to web hosting
  • Bluehost is the first hosting platform ever recommended by WordPress.org

3. DreamHost

WordPress-endorsed hosting ($2.59/mo)

We selected the standard shared hosting package with DreamHost, which was the most expensive of the base offerings we tested. Still, a very popular WordPress website hosting in the market.

Overall account signup with this shared WordPress hosting provider was slick and painless, and I was eager to see how DreamHost’s much-touted SSD servers would perform.

WordPress installation

The one-click install options in the backend worked straight out of the gate and the interface was generally straightforward to navigate.

Customer support

We needed some help in configuring a temporary URL as a subdomain on the main DreamHost domain. Customer support was easily reachable via chat and able to help us clear the issue up quickly.

DreamHost
Cost / mo. (12 months) $2.95
Cost / mo. (36 months) $2.59
Cost month-to-month $4.95
Websites 1
Space Unmetered
Bandwidth Unmetered
Free domains Yes (first year)
Fast SSD storage, WP Website Builder

Performance and uptime 𝒾

DreamHost uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
99.40%100.00% ⭐99.95%

See the live status page and historical data for DreamHost.

DreamHost loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 3.53sWest Coast USA: 0.97s ⭐
Central USA: 1.11sLondon, UK: 1.72s
Paris, France: 1.88sMumbai, India: 3.21s

Online reputation according to our hosting survey

  • DreamHost rated 4.4 / 5 by users when asked how happy they were with the value they’re getting for their money
  • DreamHost’s user-friendliness ranked 4.2 / 5

4. Kinsta

Best performance among managed hosting ($29.17/mo)

Kinsta is a boutique hosting provider for WordPress that focuses mainly on optimized managed hosting setups. However, them being “boutique” doesn’t mean that they can’t handle the load.

In fact, Kinsta has the full power of the Google Cloud Platform behind it. They take Google’s infrastructure and make it more accessible and easier to use. Kinsta doesn’t use the traditional cPanel UI, but instead gives users a custom panel that puts focus on what’s important while hiding everything else.

The fact that this host is “managed” means that it’s Kinsta who handle every server-management-related task for you.

Another nice perk is if you’re a charity, nonprofit, or other 501(c)(3) organization, then you get an additional 15% discount on all of their WordPress hosting plans.

WordPress installation

As you’re setting up your account, you can tell Kinsta to install WordPress on your hosting account for you. All you need to do is tick one box.

Customer support

Kinsta offers 24/7 chat and ticket support in five languages. The representatives know WordPress and can help with anything you might be struggling with.

Plus, the fact that you don’t have to deal with cPanel will also reduce the number of times you need to contact support in the first place.

Kinsta
Cost / mo. (12 months) $29.17
Cost month-to-month $35
Websites 1
Space 10GB
Bandwidth 25,000 visits
Free domains No
DDoS protection, free CDN, automatic SSL certificates, wildcard support, edge caching

Performance and uptime 𝒾

Kinsta uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐

See the live status page and historical data for Kinsta.

Kinsta loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 0.69s ⭐West Coast USA: 1.23s
Central USA: 0.62s ⭐London, UK: 1.23s
Paris, France: 1.26sMumbai, India: 2.35s

Online reputation according to our hosting survey

  • Rated 4.3 / 5 for “value for money”
  • Rated 4.8 / 5 for “WordPress optimization”

5. Hostinger

Cheapest WordPress hosting on the market ($2.24/mo)

Hostinger is a very appealing option when it comes to best WordPress hosting, and their entry level pricing has a lot to do with that. At just $2.24 per month, you can build up to 100 websites and you get unlimited bandwidth. You also get up to 100 email addresses and unlimited free SSL certificates.

In addition, Hostinger has a handful of WordPress-specific features for you. These include a guided installation with a site-building wizard to speed things up, and support for WordPress multisite. This lets you build multiple websites off of the same WordPress installation. A WordPress vulnerabilities scanner and auto-updates are included in the package as well.

With WordPress running, you don’t have to do much maintenance of your own. Most things like core and plugin updates are handled by Hostinger and happen automatically. To make sure that your site runs fast, Hostinger uses LiteSpeed Cache and has it pre-configured.

For those who want to tinker under the hood, there’s a whole database of WordPress tutorials, plus you get access to WP-CLI.

WordPress installation

Hostinger offers one-click installation, so there’s not much to talk about in this department.

What’s worth mentioning, however, is that you do get to choose from eight data center locations around the world – in the US, UK, Indonesia, India, Singapore, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Lithuania.

Then, when you log into your user panel for the first time, you can also go through the site-setup wizard. You’ll get to choose from Hostinger’s collection of pre-approved themes and pick the one that suits you best.

Customer support

Hostinger offers 24/7 support. The support team is easy to contact and they will help you with general inquiries (WordPress related and otherwise). Though, you might have to wait a couple of minutes before getting a response.

Hostinger
Cost / mo. (12 months) $2.24
Cost / mo. (24 months) $2.51
Cost / mo. (48 months) $2.24
Cost month-to-month $11.99
+$4.99 setup fee
Websites 100
Space 100GB
Bandwidth Unmetered
Free domains Yes (first year)
WordPress-specific cache (LiteSpeed), DDoS protection, Cloudflare protected nameservers, malware scanner, free domain privacy protection

Performance and uptime 𝒾

Hostinger uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐99.99%

See the live status page and historical data for Hostinger.

Hostinger loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 1.16sWest Coast USA: 1.76s
Central USA: 1.61sLondon, UK: 0.35s ⭐
Paris, France: 0.51s ⭐Mumbai, India: 1.71s

6. Flywheel

Great entry-level managed WordPress host ($13.00/mo)

Flywheel presents a very enticing offer for people who want to get into managed WordPress hosting but also don’t want to spend too much on it.

Feature-wise, there’s nothing missing with Flywheel, and you can expect great performance as well (more on that in a minute). The $13.00 per month plan allows you to host one WordPress website, and you can handle up to 5,000 visitors monthly (20GB of bandwidth). You also get 5GB of disk space and free site migration. The servers run on Google Cloud Platform.

Focusing on the “managed” features specifically, Flywheel gives you things like daily backups, multisite support, staging (very cool if you want to test new things out before rolling them out to public), SFTP, plus there’s also a free SSL certificate. They also take care of your WordPress updates via the main Flywheel panel rather than letting you tinker with that from the wp-admin.

What’s really impressive is the ease of use of Flywheel’s platform and user panel. Everything is clear, easy to navigate, and you don’t need to be a server pro to perform basic tweaks or configure this or that.

WordPress installation

This literally couldn’t be easier. There are a couple of ways in which you can get WordPress installed. First, you can migrate your existing site from your previous host (for free), you can also create a new site from the Flywheel dashboard in a couple of clicks, or you can use a tool called Local by Flywheel to build a site locally (on your PC or Mac) and then export it to your live Flywheel setup.

Customer support

Live chat is available 24/7. You can also submit support tickets whenever you wish. Since Flywheel allows only WordPress websites, you can expect the support team to know their way around WordPress.

To make things even easier, there’s an extensive knowledge base with lots of helpful articles about their WordPress hosting platform.

Flywheel
Cost / mo. (12 months) $13.00
Cost month-to-month $15.00
Websites 1
Space 5GB
Bandwidth 5,000 visits / 20GB
Free domains No
Ten StudioPress themes included, free SSL, free CDN, staging sites, nightly backups, free migrations

Performance and uptime 𝒾

Flywheel uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐

See the live status page and historical data for Flywheel.

Flywheel loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 1.32sWest Coast USA: 2.39s
Central USA: 0.36s ⭐London, UK: 0.31s ⭐
Paris, France: 0.29s ⭐Mumbai, India: 0.38s ⭐

7. WP Engine

Most popular managed hosting ($20.00/mo)

As part of the entry-level plan with WP Engine, you’re allowed to have one WordPress install, and it can handle up to 25,000 visits a month, so adequate enough for most new websites.

Two notable features that stand out right away are that, during the checkout process, you are allowed to choose from five different currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD), and you’re able to select from nine different data centers where you’d like your WordPress site to be hosted. This gives WP Engine a truly global appeal and makes it a versatile option for those of you who might have a dominant target audience where you expect your website traffic to come from.

WordPress installation

The whole sign-up process with WP Engine is very straightforward, and I’m only mentioning it here because getting WordPress installed is an integral part of that initial sign-up. In other words, you don’t need to do any WordPress installing on your own, the WP Engine team takes care of that for you.

At the end of sign-up, you simply get an email with all the access credentials and important data regarding your new site.

Customer support

WP Engine offers some great support options – via helpdesk and chat (plus phone if you’re on a higher plan). The one frustrating downside is that if you have a simple question and you’re not logged in, they won’t answer you unless you give them an email address. This can feel a little annoying compared to some other WordPress hosting companies that don’t impose this requirement on you in order to chat with them.

Overall though, users report very good quality of WP Engine’s support – currently rated 4.5 / 5 by our survey respondents. And we can only confirm this, as the quick interaction we had with their support team was nothing but positive. They helped us get a test site going after solving a billing issue.

WP Engine
Cost / mo. (12 months) $20.00
Websites 1
Space 10GB
Bandwidth 25,000 visits / 50GB
Free domains No
Daily backups, free advanced security, free SSL and SSH access, StudioPress themes included

Performance and uptime 𝒾

WP Engine uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐

See the live status page and historical data for WP Engine.

WP Engine loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 0.99s ⭐West Coast USA: 0.46s ⭐
Central USA: 0.62s ⭐London, UK: 1.36s
Paris, France: 1.93sMumbai, India: 2.08s

Online reputation according to our hosting survey

  • 4.7 / 5 – that’s how users rate WP Engine’s level of WordPress optimization
  • 92% of users say they will extend their WordPress web hosting subscription with WP Engine
  • WP Engine reliability ranked 4.5 / 5 by users (top rank among the best WordPress hosting firms here)

8. A2 Hosting

Great out-the-box performance ($2.99/mo)

A2 Hosting is a relatively new player for us when looking for the best WordPress hosting. The company has been making a name for themselves in the WordPress space lately thanks to their affordable prices and very good performance (compared to other similarly priced hosts).

The company has more than a decade of experience in the hosting world, and seems to know a thing or two on how to deliver a high-quality product. Their WordPress web hosting offering is set on a couple of principles: being developer friendly, offering high security, good performance, and a WordPress-optimized environment.

They also let you pick from four data centers during the checkout process. You can choose to host your WordPress site in either one of two U.S. locations (Michigan, Arizona), a Europe location (Amsterdam), or an Asia location (Singapore). For India-based customers, you can also choose to pay in INR. Otherwise, for everyone else, the prices are in USD.

WordPress installation

All WordPress hosting accounts with A2 Hosting come with WordPress preinstalled. You can also install new instances of WordPress through Softaculous’ one-click installer.

Customer support

A2 Hosting prides itself on giving you access to “24/7/365 Guru Crew Support.” They claim to hand-pick their support team and only work with the most knowledgeable technicians.

When contacting the support, you can use live chat, email or even phone. The agents don’t disappoint when it comes to basic WordPress knowledge and, based on our quick test, they are ready to recommend some solutions even if the question you have for them isn’t entirely hosting-related.

A2 Hosting
Cost / mo. (12 months) $2.99
Cost / mo. (36 months) $3.99
Cost / mo. (24 months) $9.99
Cost month-to-month $6.99
Websites 1
Space 100GB
Bandwidth Unmetered
Free domains No
Unlimited email accounts, DDoS protection, free automatic SSL certificate, free site migration, free Anycast DNS, firewall and brute force protection

Performance and uptime 𝒾

A2 uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
100.00% ⭐99.93%100.00% ⭐

See the live status page and historical data for A2 Hosting.

A2 loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 0.70s ⭐West Coast USA: 0.94s ⭐
Central USA: 1.16sLondon, UK: 1.17s
Paris, France: 1.19sMumbai, India: 2.16s

Online reputation according to our hosting survey

  • Rated 7.87 overall by survey respondents 👍

9. InMotion Hosting

Best for multiple sites ($2.29/mo)

InMotion offers a lot of hosting options, but we wanted to look into the ones that are optimized for WordPress specifically, so we went into the “WordPress hosting” section and selected the plan called WP Core. This is the most entry-level plan.

Right from the jump, the great thing about all of InMotion’s WordPress hosting plans – even the cheapest WP Core plan – is that you get NVMe SSD disk space without any additional fees (SSDs are known for their superior performance compared to the other hard disk technologies).

On the WP Core plan that we went with, you can have up to two websites, and up to ten email addresses. If that’s not enough for you, then the next plan up – WP Launch – lets you create up to 25 websites with unlimited email addresses. All plans come with a free SSL certificate and a free domain name in your first year.

WordPress installation

Another surprise with InMotion is that you get WordPress preinstalled as part of your WP hosting package. All you need to do is tick the right checkbox during the checkout process. In other words, you don’t actually need to do handle WordPress installation on your own, it’s all being done automatically. Also, during install, you get to select your preferred “max speed zone.” There are two settings: east and west. Depending on which you choose, the site is going to be faster in some parts of the globe vs the others.

After everything is done, you’ll get the access details to your new WordPress dashboard, which is all that’s needed, honestly.

Customer support

Right after you sign up, you’ll realize that InMotion has a lot to offer in terms of support and helping you to launch your website. There are tens of different guides and tutorials on various hosting-related matters. There’s also a separate knowledge channel all dedicated to WordPress.

But that’s not all, the support chat is available 24/7. We’ve tested it by asking some domain-related questions regarding the temporary URL of the site. The person on the other end was able to solve those at first try. Nicely done.

InMotion
Cost / mo. (12 months) $2.29
Cost / mo. (24 months) $2.79
Cost month-to-month $14.99
Websites 2
Space 100GB
Bandwidth Unmetered
Free domains Yes (first year)
WordPress pre-installed, unlimited subdomains, free SSL, BoldGrid page builder for WordPress, Brotli compression, staging site

Performance and uptime 𝒾

InMotion uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐

See the live status page and historical data for InMotion.

InMotion loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 1.15sWest Coast USA: 1.02s
Central USA: 1.06sLondon, UK: 1.24s
Paris, France: 1.40sMumbai, India: 3.22s

Online reputation according to our hosting survey

  • Rated 8.00 overall by survey respondents 👍

10. HostGator

One of the most popular mainstream hosts ($3.75/mo)

We went for the Baby Plan here. It’s not the absolute cheapest plan, but it’s the cheapest managed WordPress hosting plan. The cheapest entry-level HostGator plan – Hatchling – runs for $3.75 per month, while the WordPress hosting plan we chose, goes for $4.50 per month. It’s slightly more expensive, but as you’d expect, it does come with some nice additional features for WordPress-centric users like us, and presumably, like you.

To start with, the Hatchling Plan lets you build only one website and gives you up to 10GB worth of storage. With the Baby Plan that we went with, you get double that on both fronts – two websites with 20GB of storage. If you’d like to start off super small though, then of course you’re welcome to go with the Hatchling Plan if you end up choosing HostGator as your WordPress hosting provider.

WordPress installation

Signing up with HostGator was straightforward and we were soon logged into a pretty traditional cPanel setup on the backend without incident.

Installation was also painless using the built-in cPanel WordPress installer. We did find ourselves having to update themes post-install, but that was just a matter of a few clicks.

Customer support

Again, we reached out to customer support for assistance in setting up a temporary URL. Here we hit our first minor inconvenience with a wait time of eight minutes on chat. They weren’t quite as quick to point us in the right direction as previous WordPress hosting providers, but we got there in the end. To be more specific, when comparing HostGator vs. Bluehost, the support chat is much easier to access with the latter.

HostGator
Cost / mo. (12 months) $6.00
Cost / mo. (36 months) $4.50
Cost month-to-month $13.95
Websites 2
Space 20GB
Bandwidth Unmetered
Free domains Yes (first year)
Free SSL, WordPress pre-installed, malware scanning, Cloudflare CDN, daily automatic backups

Performance and uptime 𝒾

HostGator uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐99.85%

See the live status page and historical data for HostGator.

HostGator loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 1.08sWest Coast USA: 0.55s ⭐
Central USA: 0.39s ⭐London, UK: 1.84s
Paris, France: 1.84sMumbai, India: 2.79s

Online reputation according to our hosting survey

  • Rated 7.92 overall by survey respondents 👍
  • HostGator was the third most popular host in the survey
  • The most popular host in Brazil 🇧🇷
  • 74% of users will extend their hosting subscription when it’s up for renewal

11. GoDaddy

Biggest market share for hosting ($6.99/mo)

We went for the Web Hosting Economy plan here.

Despite their formerly less than stellar user interface reputation, signing up to GoDaddy went without a hitch.

This feeling continued on into the backend, which was a modern take on cPanel and intuitively laid out – the easiest one to navigate so far in fact.

WordPress installation

WordPress installation was a snap with the built-in installer.

Customer support

GoDaddy was the only WordPress hosting provider on our list not to support the provision of temporary URLs, so we were forced to set up a standard subdomain here.

Our initial attempt to contact support via chat was less than ideal, with wait times of over 40 minutes reported, so we hit the phones instead. (E.g. when comparing GoDaddy vs. Bluehost, the chat can be accessed much quicker with Bluehost.)

Support here was superb. Extremely friendly and professional, they talked us through the subdomain options and assisted in making changes on the account itself.

This continued on in subsequent chat support tickets that were required to clear up some minor DNS snafus that emerged on the registrar side.

GoDaddy
Cost / mo. (12 months) $6.99
Cost / mo. (24 months) $8.99
Cost / mo. (36 months) $7.99
Cost month-to-month $11.99
Websites 1
Space 25GB
Bandwidth Unmetered
Free domains Yes (first year)
Automatic daily malware scan

Performance and uptime 𝒾

GoDaddy uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
100.00% ⭐99.93%99.99%

See the live status page and historical data for GoDaddy.

GoDaddy loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 0.37s ⭐West Coast USA: 0.86s ⭐
Central USA: 0.88s ⭐London, UK: 0.35s ⭐
Paris, France: 0.45s ⭐Mumbai, India: 1.78s

Online reputation according to our hosting survey

  • Rated 7.36 overall by survey respondents 👍
  • The most popular host in the survey overall 🏆
  • The most popular host in India 🇮🇳
  • Second most popular host in Canada 🇨🇦
  • Second most popular host in Australia 🇦🇺
  • Second most popular host in South Africa 🇿🇦
  • Second most popular host in Pakistan 🇵🇰
  • Third most popular host in the UK 🇬🇧

12. GreenGeeks

Best green-powered hosting ($2.95/mo)

GreenGeeks is an interesting alternative for those of us who consider themselves being environmentally-conscious. This WordPress hosting platform has been built with the principle of “maximum use” in mind, which means that the architecture makes it possible for no resources to be wasted anywhere.

Also, the company claims that for every amperage they pull from the grid, they re-invest three times that in the form of renewable energy via Bonneville Environmental Foundation.

On the WordPress side of things, GreenGeeks offers WordPress-specific plans at affordable prices, and with lots of features.

All of their servers use Solid State Drives (giving you better loading times), there’s customized caching technology, you get a free SSL certificate to use, and you can integrate your setup with Cloudflare. Here are all the details about GreenGeeks’ platform.

As a great added bonus, you also get a free domain name for a year with your setup.

WordPress installation

GreenGeeks gives you handy 1-click WordPress installs, so there’s not much you have to do by hand.

Apart from that, you also get automatic updates, which should make managing the site on an ongoing basis more hassle-free.

While setting up your account, you also get to choose from data centers in Phoenix, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal and Amsterdam.

Customer support

You can use three main support channels with GreenGeeks: email, phone, and chat. Probably the best option of the three is the live chat – available 24/7. The phone support is available during working hours.

GreenGeeks also gives you access to a knowledge base and a range of tutorials on their website.

GreenGeeks
Cost / mo. (12 months) $2.95
Cost / mo. (24 months) $11.95
Cost / mo. (36 months) $11.95
Cost month-to-month $11.95
Websites 1
Space 50GB
Bandwidth Unmetered
Free domains Yes (first year)
Unlimited databases, free nightly backups, free WordPress migration, auto updates, free SSL, free CDN, WP-CLI and SSH

Performance and uptime 𝒾

GreenGeeks uptime 📶
December 2023January 2024February 2024
100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐100.00% ⭐

See the live status page and historical data for GreenGeeks.

GreenGeeks loading times 🔃
East Coast USA: 2.12sWest Coast USA: 1.47s
Central USA: 1.46sLondon, UK: 0.57s ⭐
Paris, France: 0.66s ⭐Mumbai, India: 1.50s

So who wins the battle to become the best WordPress hosting overall?

In Olympic style – and to highlight that all of the following need to be considered the best hosting service for WordPress – we’ll hand out medals accordingly:

Launching a new website?

🥇 SiteGround // 🥈 Bluehost // 🥉 Kinsta

Also, another thing that we didn’t point out earlier is that SiteGround is very strong when it comes to their security solutions. For instance, they act very quickly whenever a new vulnerability in WordPress gets discovered and a patch needs to be released (usually done on the same day).

In other words, this is the best WordPress hosting that you can buy in 2024.

Already have a larger site with an established audience?

Do you have a larger site with an already established audience? Or maybe your site *is* your business and you can’t afford to have any problems with your host later down the road? In this case, you best look into managed WordPress hosting, and particularly: Kinsta – one of the leading managed WordPress hosting solution out there.

Kinsta allows you to host WordPress websites *only*, which means that their entire server infrastructure has been optimized to provide the best WordPress experience possible.

It’s a little more expensive, but it’s the right choice for a serious WordPress-based project (website on the rise, ecommerce store, popular online publication with a lot of traffic, and also good for developers who just want to avoid any problems in the future when working on client sites).

If you want something a bit more affordable, consider the GoGeek plan by SiteGround ($7.99 / mo.) – also a managed hosting plan, and also a quality one.

We’d like to stress that none of the WordPress hosting providers here failed any test. The overall standard was refreshingly high. Furthermore, all providers also offer a full range of more advanced hosting options if you start to outgrow the entry-level packages.

Our hope is that the information above will help you do two things: (1) provide a framework to distinguish between high-profile providers, and (2) use their overall offerings as a sensible reference point if you are comparing with other hosting services in the market.

What makes a host good for WordPress, and who to trust

When it comes to the WordPress hosting space, there are some things that you just must know:

The dirty little secret of most WordPress hosting reviews 🙊

Basically, the web is chock full of hosting recommendations and glowing reviews proclaiming this company or the other to be the best WordPress hosting around. But how do you really know who’s 100% honest with their recommendations, and why Company A is higher rated than Company B by some reviewer?

Well, you don’t.

Hosting is big business. According to the well-respected research firm Statista, the total global revenue for web hosting reached $124.8 billion dollars in 2023 and it’s projected to reach $157.9 billion in 2024. And while it’s hard to isolate the exact percentage of that made up by shared hosting, over 50% seems a reasonable guess.

Also, the next time you’re reading some breathless paean to some best WordPress hosting company, bear this in mind: they offer some of the biggest payouts in the affiliate marketing industry.

This simple fact alone is responsible for a substantial percentage of the “reviews” you’ll come across online, which are often little more than barely researched puff pieces designed solely to get you to click on an affiliate link.

Our approach is fundamentally different. We purchased real plans and performed real-world tests, and in this feature we cover every aspect of the hosting experience, from initial offer presentation and sign-up through to backend administration, WordPress installation options, customer support, and site load speed.

What you’re reading here is not some rehashed piece cobbling together a couple of existing WordPress hosting reviews, or the result of a cushy backroom deal with a hosting partner. It is the product of actual research in a live environment.

With that mini-rant out of the way, let’s get cracking!

How to find out which of the WordPress hosting platforms is best for you 🔥

Before we begin, if you’re interesting in a more specialized type of WordPress hosting, consider reading any of these guides first:

If you wanted to find out on your own where specific web hosting companies come in the race, you would have to do two things:

  1. Ask the actual users of some popular hosting platforms what their experiences are.
  2. Do some testing yourself on multiple hosts and measure the performance you’re getting.

We did both:

a) We found out what real users think of best WordPress hosting 🤓😵😃

In our point of view, you can’t really name some company the best WordPress hosting around until you’ve seen that company rated highly by real users (and a lot of them) – people who have tested the company themselves and have gotten top results out of it.

So to find out who actually comes on top according to the users, we’ve conducted the biggest WordPress hosting survey to date. That survey has taught us a lot about the nature of WordPress hosting, what people’s expectations are and who’s best at meeting them.

(If you’re interested to see the whole thing take place, click here.)

So that’s the first element in our puzzle to discover the best WordPress hosting in the market. The other element: performance tests.

b) We do monthly performance tests ourselves 📈📊📉

For each hosting firm, we signed up for their most popular or entry-level WordPress hosting plan a while back and launched a basic WordPress website on it.

We decided to go for a really stripped-down WordPress install to make comparisons as fair as possible.

Each install uses WordPress with the default theme, a pack of sample data, plus a couple of popular WordPress plugins (Contact Form 7, Wordfence, Yoast SEO) enabled.

We test each WordPress install for performance every month in the following ways:

  • UptimeRobot: Used for monitoring the uptime of our hosts.
  • WebPageTest: The homepage is loaded from a handful separate locations and the results tabulated.

The results are then updated and show up live on this post and our other hosting review posts via a shortcode mechanism. In other words, all other things aside, when you look at the performance numbers of these WordPress hosts, you’re looking at the most recent data available. For pageload, it’s the previous month, while for uptime, it’s the previous three months.

For the purposes of testing customer support, we installed each site on a temporary URL with the WordPress hosting provider, and reached out to them for assistance with how to set that up.

Disclaimer. Due to the nature of WordPress hosting, there is no magic single definitive test that will hold true under all circumstances. What we are looking for here is illustrative page load times and reasonable overall performance indicators at low usage levels. Remember that your mileage may, and probably will, vary.

We’d love to hear more about your experience in finding the best WordPress host in the comments below. Get in touch!

Karol K

42 Comments
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lucianobosco
September 21, 2018 10:53 pm

I think you forgot about support. IMO, support is even more important than performance.
I had a LOT of issues related to payments & downtimes in Hostgator. They made me loss customers, money and time. The guys in support chat know nothing, they barely solve any issues.
Finally I moved all my customer sites to Digital Ocean, which btw is not in your list. 🙁
Anyway, this is a nice article. Thanks!

Chris Fitzgerald
September 24, 2018 11:16 am
Reply to  lucianobosco

Hey, thanks for the comment. We included support as part of the review process. You can read how our experience was in each of the sections 🙂

MpowerWebSolutions
September 18, 2018 4:14 am

HostGator #8? Really? ???

Salman Patel
September 8, 2018 10:40 am

While i’ve been using Siteground and bluehost prior to that, i moved over to Speedydot. I was recommended by a friend who has been hosting with them, honestly the support, uptime and the affordability compared to Siteground was amazing. Siteground nearly charged me 200% and it was just not possible to host with them.

hamish macmillan
September 6, 2018 1:16 am

For what it’s worth I was with bluehost and unlike the author, I found the customer support terrible ( was outsourced to a large third world country where the english and the general training was dubious ). Left in disgust went over to Siteground -100% improvement in support – couldn’t be happier. A vast contrast – never ever going back to bluehost.

The Ringmania Online Ring Stor
September 2, 2018 11:50 am

A bit unfair on Greengeeks, I feel! I have been using many hosting services for around 20 years and found GG to provide the best service

Adam Connell
August 31, 2018 3:43 pm

Hey Karol!

Would love to see WPX Hosting featured in an update of this post.

I’ve been using them for a few years now. Great page load times and the support is crazy fast.

I’d be especially keen to see how they shape up against the likes of WP Engine and Dreamhost.

Sabina Ionescu
November 1, 2018 4:24 pm
Reply to  Adam Connell

Hey Adam, thanks for stopping by, we’ll surely take a look at it. Besides, they have the coolest branding 🙂

Sabina Ionescu
February 20, 2018 1:37 pm

Mey Matt, first off, let me say that I understand the mixed feelings around affiliated links. You are not the first one to raise this concern. Here’s how we stand on this:
1. Our blog is 100% focused on unbiased reviews. We work with independent writers who are choosing their own topics and tools. The affiliate links are added afterwards, as a way to sustain this blog. We do not accept any type of paid advertising, as we’ve clearly stated in our Contact page https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/contact/
2. We are transparent about the existence of affiliated links and we mention it at the end of the article “This post contains affiliate links”. Another way to prove how transparent we are about it is to publish and answer your comment 🙂

Damith
January 10, 2018 1:45 pm

Hey, Don’t spam everywhere. Anyone don’t want to buy hosting from your useless company. As you spam, we can think about the quality of your web hosting. Lol

mehedi hasan
December 4, 2017 6:47 am

thanks

Carlos Caro
November 7, 2017 7:00 pm

Thanks You for explain about best web host service! All hosting service good but I’m always like Hostgator host service.

Fagner Consorte
October 21, 2017 12:07 am

Tenho usado WordPress Multisites, primeira experiência com a Bluehost que me deu muita dor de cabeça, serviço muito ruim, perdi dados, clientes, não recomendo e nunca mais volto!
Tenho trabalhado com Siteground, está indo bem!

Akshay Verma
October 12, 2017 8:28 am

Such a great comparison. Has anybody tried Blogbing Hosting?

Michael
July 29, 2017 9:29 am

I switched to iPage once, then switched back before 30 days got a partial refund it was awful.

Razvan Saileanu
September 28, 2017 7:18 pm
Reply to  Michael

I’m with iPage right now looking to switch. Difficult to talk to, impossible to start a ticket yourself, my website always having issues, not latest version for plugins, and many other things.

inspectorINS
June 1, 2017 1:25 pm

HostGator is very good if you have only basic hosting needs. Not so long ago I find HostJedi and it turn out to be a great hosting choice for a strong dedicated servers which I really needed. Also I have some good experience with OVH, but it really depending on what you are looking for and for what you exactly need your hosting. Always search before you buy hosting, you can find some great prices and good services all around the internet!

drewhorine
May 19, 2017 7:40 pm

Actually, that’s just called providing good customer service in the 21st Century. It means companies are listening to address your concerns on your terms, wherever you happen to enjoy posting. I do not work for GoDaddy, but I have used them for a number of years doing WordPress development. I currently subscribe to 1 Ultimate Hosting package and multiple Premium Business Hosting packages. Here’s my 2 cents. Their uptime and reliability of the site itself is rock solid. Zero complaints there. The C-Panel interface is relatively easy to use, although it’s near impossible to find your name servers – which are not the same for every package you subscribe to. That’s not a problem if your domains are registered with them, but I work with clients who have already registered domains using other services. However, their email offerings are pathetically bad. You can set up as many email accounts as you want, but delivery success is notoriously unreliable. That’s worse is that there’s no indication of whether an email got through to my customer. So, I’m left wondering every time I send a message whether it was received. That’s unacceptable. I’ve had to go with third-party email services such as… Read more »

Heather Peck
May 13, 2017 12:44 am

I’ve been with HostGator for years and their customer service has gone considerably over the last couple years. I’m changing to SiteGround. I’m tired of asking them for help, pointing them to their own inadequate help pages and them still not knowing what I’m talking about, not to mention the 8 minutes I wait for them to chat and then 3 minutes from one remark to another. Its excrutiating.

devcaged
May 24, 2017 8:22 pm
Reply to  Heather Peck

I’ve used SiteGround for 3 Years. The support is still out of country and the language barrier is very frustrating at times, with my technical issues not being resolved at times.
My real cause of finally leaving them however is their deceptive charging tactics. They’ve charged me a week early for a service I did not want renewed, numerous times. I’ve turned off the renewals, but did not know of the hidden switches nested under a small link: billing -> billing settings. BTW, they have a renewal section under account where they have most services renewal status, just not the big costs… To resolve the issue, they offered me 30% off at the cost of double their competitive rate. ($15.95 instead of advertised $5.95). Sorry for being a long time customer, you should pay more.
I did like their exclusive caching and somewhat optimized for WP, but I’m seeing much better results with other competitors as of late for lower costs. The language barrier would also be a non-issue if they gave more privileges to users. Even on a cloud hosting account, they limit SSH to be useless.

Smith roy
May 8, 2017 2:32 pm

You are comparing the functions and features of Hosting provider company which is most useful and best forever. I am always thankful to you for sharing and show the comparison of these provider company.
The SageNext and Sage 50 Hosting is leading Cloud hosting for Quickbooks and Sage 50 application software which is using in business and accounting works.

Jim Colson
May 8, 2017 2:25 pm

You analyzing site is really best. These site is more reliable for word press hosting. For the business purpose if you finding the Cloud hosting provider so you have some options such as The SageNext, Sage 50 Hosting and Tax Software Hosting companies are more reliable and cost effective provider company.

datacenter1
April 8, 2017 9:22 pm

Thank you very much, good to know that posts like this generate so many different opinions and suggestions.

vikasprogrammer
April 7, 2017 10:52 am

If you want to try your hands with WordPress hosting for free trial (7 days), we offer that with CMS Launcher. Our service also provides free sub domain. Please try it and let me know.

Deepika Bisht
March 1, 2017 8:54 pm

Thanks for explain about best web host service! All hosting service good but I’m always like InMotion host service.

Conor
February 10, 2017 7:42 pm

My recommendation is RoseHosting, they offer fully managed 24/7 support, SSD Disk, free migration, free backup and many more.

Davidson
February 10, 2017 11:51 am

i m using 2co host and it is very nice

Esteban Cervi
February 9, 2017 6:09 pm

Would be great if you add Neolo to the list. We are working really hard to become a smart option in the web hosting space.

Agha zahid Ali
February 6, 2017 3:15 pm

Not free of cost.Some one who is not business man.So only want to write arrival of different topics due to writing interest then it will be free or not.Cost is not affordable.Is it free

Muhammad Faheem Usama
February 5, 2017 2:07 pm

I’ve tried GoDaddy, They always limit the resources. Inmotion hosting is good but there prices are high. I’ve moved to a new web hosting company 2cohost that are using SSD storage. Although it was risk but I was amazed by there services. Never down my website and paying only $15 for 1 year. I recommend you all to try it at least ony time.

Ozair Akhtar (Oxair Online)
February 4, 2017 2:48 pm

I am using Hostasset and I have paid only for $35 per year subscription. I would like to know if there’s any good option out there for me?

Ozair Akhtar (Oxair Online)
February 4, 2017 10:24 am

What about the Host Asset?

Agha zahid Ali
January 30, 2017 8:03 pm

I cannot afford the price.Is is free for learner.Because first to learn free.As I have interest in writing.As retired worker with small I cannot afford the price.There is any chance to you your platefarm

Pakita Ibarwengoytia
February 9, 2017 6:32 am
Reply to  Agha zahid Ali

Maybe you should try x10hosting, they offer a free site with nice features, the handicap is they have a list of allowed countries for their service so you should check if they are allowing your country.

rickytell
January 30, 2017 12:39 pm

site ground is the best.

Sherissa
January 30, 2017 8:03 am

Do test WPOven. They are great and the support has been exceptionally good.

Shahroze Nawaz
January 28, 2017 8:29 am

Cloudways is one on the TOP giving competition to the managed hosting companies with five Providers DigitalOcean, Vultr, GCE, AWS and KYUP.

Muhibul Haque
January 27, 2017 4:56 pm

Amazing collection of WordPress hosting. Thanks for great share.

Sanu Mondal
January 27, 2017 6:26 am

I am Running My Domain on Namecheep this is very good hosting site.

Heather Brown
January 17, 2017 11:32 pm

You also missed out on ecomlane, great dedicated service. Been with them for just over a year.

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