Dig in to find out which firm is going to be the best WordPress hosting match for your individual needs:
- In a hurry? The best hosting companies in a nutshell
- What makes the best WordPress host + why
- How we do our performance tests for WordPress hosts
- The individual reviews:
SiteGround, A2 Hosting, WP Engine, Kinsta, Bluehost, DreamHost, InMotion, HostGator, GoDaddy, GreenGeeks, Flywheel - The verdict – which is best
What makes a host great + why
When it comes to the WordPress hosting space, there are some things that you just must know:
Also, you can check out our live stats page featuring the current performance data for a shortlist of the very top hosting selections for WordPress.
THE OVERALL RANKINGS
Host | Price (monthly) | Sites | Traffic (monthly) | More |
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | $5.95 | unlimited | ~ 25,000 visits | View Details |
![]() | $14.00 | 1 | ~ 5,000 visits | View Details |
![]() | $2.95 | 1 | unmetered | View Details |
![]() | $25.00 | 1 | ~ 25,000 visits | View Details |
Host | Price (monthly) | Sites | Traffic (monthly) | More |
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | $2.59 | 1 | unmetered | View Details |
![]() | $2.95 | 1 | unmetered | View Details |
![]() | $3.95 | 1 | ~ 10,000 visits | View Details |
![]() | $3.92 | 1 | unmetered | View Details |
Host | Price (monthly) | Sites | Ease of use | More |
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | $14.00 | 1 | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | View Details |
![]() | $2.95 | 1 | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | View Details |
![]() | $3.95 | 1 | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | View Details |
Host | Price (monthly) | Sites | Traffic (monthly) | More |
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | $11.95 | unlimited | ~ 100,000 visits | View Details |
![]() | $83.33 | 5 | ~ 100,000 visits | View Details |
![]() | $95.83 | 5 | ~ 100,000 visits | View Details |
10+ OF THE BEST WORDPRESS HOSTING PROVIDERS COMPARED (IN FULL)
1. SiteGround (www.SiteGround.com)
Best overall WordPress host ($3.95/mo)
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 e-commerce 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 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.)
Uptime and response times
Responses in the range of 500ms (over a three-month period) are more than you can hope for with many of the other hosts in the market, and the uptime record is nothing short of great.
Loading times (six month average)
Not surprisingly, since we’re hosting our test SiteGround site on a European server, it performed particularly well from Stockholm. Melbourne, on the other hand, was a bit underwhelming.
New York: 1.16s | Stockholm: 0.75s | Melbourne: 2.98s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Dublin, Ireland
There were superb times on a geographically close test server, but we experienced more variance with different locales.
Online reputation
- SiteGround rated 4.6 / 5 by users in our hosting survey.
- 93% of users will extend their hosting subscription when it’s up for renewal.
- SiteGround support rated 4.7 / 5 by users.
2. Flywheel (getflywheel.com)
Great entry-level managed WordPress host ($14/mo)
Feature-wise, there’s nothing missing with Flywheel, and you can expect great performance as well (more on which in a minute). The $14 / month plan allows you to host one WordPress website, and you can handle up to 5,000 visitors monthly (250GB 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.
Uptime and response times
The response time is also nothing to complain about. Times in the range of 452.67ms are more than enough to make sure that your visitors will have a good experience browsing the site.
Loading times
Flywheel gives you multiple server locations to choose from: New York, San Francisco, Toronto (Canada), London (UK), Frankfurt (Germany), Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Singapore.
Ideally, choose the one near to your target audience. The load times have been excellent (except from Australia, but even that is acceptable) – anything below or around the 1 second mark is great.
New York: 0.74s | Stockholm: 1.11s | Melbourne: 2.09s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Ashburn, US.
The numbers Flywheel has managed to score here are above impressive. They’re quite exceptional, actually! Both the minimum and maximum response times are in the sub 10ms range, which is the best result of this whole comparison.
3. Bluehost (www.Bluehost.com)
Most cost-effective WordPress hosting ($2.95/mo)
One immediate point to note is that Bluehost is the only alternative on the list that doesn’t offer a monthly package. Twelve month commitments are the minimum, though that is offset somewhat by a strong money back guarantee policy that I have personally invoked without issue.
WordPress installation
In addition to the standard cPanel options in place, Bluehost’s one-click WordPress installations are handled by a service called MojoMarketplace.
The MojoMarketplace interface for installing WordPress left a lot to be desired. It was possible to install multiple instances accidentally, and overall feedback on what was happening at any given point was inconsistent and confusing. (For instance, when we look at Bluehost vs SiteGround, the latter gives you WordPress installs in just a few clicks.)
On the plus side, this gave us an instant opportunity to talk to support!
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.
Uptime and response times
On the response times side, there’s an increase around the beginning of August, and it sticks around, effectively increasing the response time average to 803.62ms.
Loading times (six month average)
Load times reported via Pingdom were broadly respectable but showed the sort of variance often expected in a shared hosting environment.
New York: 2.05s | Amsterdam: 2.87s | Melbourne: 2.62s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Palo Alto
The variance our initial Pingdom tests suggested seemed to be confirmed here with occasional spikes up over four seconds as load increased. Far from what we’d expect from a firm aspiring to offer the best hosting for WordPress.
Online reputation
- Bluehost reliability ranked 3.4 / 5 by users.
- 23.7% of Bluehost’s customers are first-timers to web hosting.
- Bluehost is the first hosting platform ever recommended by WordPress.org.
4. Kinsta (www.Kinsta.com)
Best performance among managed hosting ($25/mo)
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.
(We have a separate review of Kinsta here.)
WordPress installation
As you’re setting up your account, you can tell Kinsta to install WordPress for you. All you need to do is tick one box.
Customer support
Kinsta offers 24/7 chat and ticket support. 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.
Uptime and response times
The response times are perhaps even more impressive. The 376.14ms average over a three-month period isn’t something you see every day with other hosts.
Loading times (six month average)
The loading times are okay across the board – sitting at around the 1 second mark, except for connections from Australia, which could be better.
New York: 0.82s | Frankfurt: 1.06s | Sydney: 2.03s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Ashburn
The response times are very impressive, but this has to be due (at least partly) to the close proximity of the connecting servers.
Online reputation
- Rated 4.8 / 5 overall by our survey respondents.
- Rated 4.3 / 5 for “value for money” by our survey respondents.
- Rated 4.8 / 5 for “WordPress optimization” by our survey respondents.
5. WPEngine (www.WPEngine.com)
Most popular managed hosting ($23.33/mo)
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 pan).
Overall, 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’ve had with the support team has been nothing but positive (helped us get the test site going after solving a billing issue).
Uptime and response times
The truly impressive thing, however, is their average response time. Over the last three months, it’s at 186.29ms. We literally couldn’t have asked for anything more.
Loading times (six month average)
WP Engine shows consistent performance when accessing the site from all over the globe, with only slight differences here and there.
New York: 0.76s | Stockholm: 1.01s | Melbourne: 1.23s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Portland, OR
Incredibly good performance across the whole spectrum. The number of concurrent user connections had little impact on the results, and the times speak for themselves.
Online reputation
- 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 (the top rank among the best WordPress hosting firms here).
6. DreamHost (www.DreamHost.com)
WordPress-endorsed hosting ($2.59/mo)
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.
Uptime and response times
The response times are also pretty impressive. The current average is at 345.63ms.
Loading times (six month average)
DreamHost load times were impressively stable across locations and went into an early lead in terms of US response times.
New York: 1.47s | Stockholm: 1.96s | Melbourne: 2.63s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Palo Alto
DreamHost stayed impressively solid throughout our test with just a small range of variance, but there was little evidence of the performance boost promised by SSD disks.
Online reputation
- DreamHost rated 4.3 / 5 by users in 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.
7. A2Hosting (www.A2Hosting.com)
Great out-the-box performance ($3.92/mo)
The company has more than 10 years 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.
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.
Uptime and response times
The response time could have been better, with the average over the last three months at 1.1s. The alarming detail here is that the response time has been on the rise continuously, which you can see in the following graph.
Loading times (six month average)
A2 Hosting gives you three main server locations to choose from: Michigan, Amsterdam, and Singapore. The loading times are okay, but they could be better. To improve the performance, A2 lets you integrate your server with CloudFlare Free CDN.
New York: 1.56s | Stockholm: 2.44s | Melbourne: 3.88s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Ashburn, US.
A2 Hosting’s ability to withstand load is pretty good and surely puts it up there among the best WordPress hosting platforms in this segment. The results are a bit worse the more load we put on the server, though.
8. InMotion Hosting (www.InMotionHosting.com)
Best for multiple sites ($3.99/mo)
The great thing about it is that you get SSD disk space without any additional fees (SSDs are known for their superior performance compared to the other hard disk technologies). Also, you can have 2 websites on this plan, and you get a free SSL certificate.
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. Really cool.
Uptime and response times
When it comes to the average response times, the inconsistencies have straightened out over time and are quite okay now. The three-month average is at 546.61ms.
Loading times (six month average)
InMotion shows good performance near the sever location and also reasonably good results for Europe and Australia. This isn’t the fastest WordPress host on this list, but surely nothing we’d call uncomfortable.
New York: 0.51s | Stockholm: 0.91s | Melbourne: 2.11s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Portland, OR
InMotion’s performance is very good in the mid range of load, but there are some hiccups at the beginning (when there are only 6 active users) and at the end (with 24 users). For the most part, the performance remains steady. Overall, more than enough for normal usage and server load.
9. HostGator (www.HostGator.com)
One of the most popular mainstream hosts ($5.95/mo)
Signup with HostGator was straightforward and we were soon logged into a pretty traditional cPanel setup on the backend without incident.
WordPress installation
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 providers, but we got there in the end. (E.g. when comparing HostGator vs. Bluehost, the support chat is much easier to access with the latter.)
Uptime and response times
When it comes to the response times, they’re stable, but could be a bit better. Currently, the three-month average is at 583.51ms.
Loading times (six month average)
The load times are kind of all over the place. There are some good results here, but you can come across a holdup quite frequently as well. Surely not the top performing host on this list.
New York: 1.61s | Stockholm: 1.97s | Melbourne: 2.18s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Palo Alto
There’s some jumping around here in terms of load impact times, but overall, the results are okay. Tests from servers in other geographical locations were slower but the consistency remained impressive.
Online reputation
- HostGator rated 3.9 / 5 by users when asked how happy they were with the value they’re getting for their money.
- HostGator rated 4.1 / 5 on reliability .
- 74% of users will extend their hosting subscription when it’s up for renewal.
10. GoDaddy (www.GoDaddy.com)
Biggest market share for hosting ($4.90/mo)
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 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.
Uptime and response times
As for the response times, they’re really impressive. The average response time across a three-month period is at 161.73ms, which is on par with the other far more expensive hosts on this list.
Loading times (six month average)
GoDaddy impressed instantly with consistently strong US and European load times.
New York: 0.87s | Amsterdam: 1.49s | Melbourne: 1.83s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Palo Alto
As with HostGator, GoDaddy got down under one second and stayed there. Their performance in other tests wasn’t quite as consistent admittedly, but the numbers posted here are impressive.
Online reputation
- GoDaddy is the biggest hosting company on this list.
- 78% of GoDaddy customers are likely to extend their hosting subscription.
- GoDaddy’s reliability ranked at 3.8 / 5.
11. GreenGeeks (www.GreenGeeks.com)
Best green-powered hosting ($3.95/mo)
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.
Uptime and response times
As for the response times, there is a slight increase over the last weeks, which has brought up the three-month average to the level of 510.54ms.
Loading times (six month average)
Since the server location is in the EU, you can expect the loading times to be good for the European market. When it comes to the US, the load times are very satisfactory as well, with not too much delay. Australia is a bit under-performing.
New York: 1.16s | Stockholm: 0.77s | Melbourne: 3.00s |
Load impact test (multiple requests to site)
Testing machine location: Ashburn, USA
Those results are slightly inconsistent, and tend to go up and down randomly as the number of concurrent users grows. However, the number still don’t rise to a deal-breaking level, so they’re still acceptable.
The overall verdict
So who wins the battle to become the best WordPress hosting overall?
That’s a tough question, but:
- Upon reflection, we would lean away from Bluehost on the grounds of a clunky backend interface, comparatively poor WordPress installation tools, slightly erratic performance and inflexible long-term contract requirements.
- DreamHost, though more than respectable across their service offering and performance, didn’t do enough for us to justify the price differential in their offering.
- Both HostGator and GoDaddy had slightly different plus and minus points, but none were ultimately persuasive enough to pick out a clear winner. We were impressed with their price point, setup process, backend and performance though.
- On the managed hosting side, WP Engine has proven to deliver a really good performance, and it should be more than enough to handle any new or growing WordPress site.
- (Oh, and there are also some free WordPress hosting options available on the web that we haven’t talked about here, but we’d generally not advise you to entrust them with any website built for any business purpose. As the old rule of the internet says, “if you’re not paying for the product you’re using, then you’re the product.”)
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:
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:
- provide a framework to distinguish between high-profile providers, and
- use their overall offerings as a sensible reference point if you are comparing with other hosting services in the market.
We’d love to hear more about your experience in finding the best WordPress host in the comments below. Get in touch!
* This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and then purchase the product, we’ll receive a small fee. No worries though, you’ll still pay the standard amount so there’s no cost on your part.