Best WordPress Hosting Providers Compared [By the Numbers]

Dig in to find out which firm is going to be the best WordPress hosting match for your individual needs:

How to best consume this WordPress hosting comparison

This comparison goes from general to detailed.

What it means is that we start by giving you our honest recommendations first on what we think are the best hosting sites for WordPress, and then get into the specifics of why we’ve made those recommendations + the data behind them.

In a hurry? Here are the best WordPress hosting companies in a nutshell

Generally, there are four main hosts that we recommend to 95% of our users/customers/friends/everybody.

Each of them is slightly different and will cater to a slightly different kind of user:

WP Engine 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, e-commerce 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 ($11.95 / mo.) – also a managed hosting plan, and also a quality one.

…

If you’re in a hurry, you can stop here and go straight to one of the above four recommended WordPress hosts. But if you want to dive a bit deeper into the topic of best website hosting, with each paragraph you will learn more about:

• the performance scores that you can expect from each hosting solution on this list,
• the ratings that each of the hosts has gotten in the hosting survey,
• the load that each of those hosts can withstand should your website experience a spike in traffic,
• the ins and outs of the WordPress hosting industry, and much more.

What makes a host great + why

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.

So if you really wanted to find out 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:

Most popular / top WordPress hosting package components

Aka. what you get when you buy WordPress hosting + what matters and what doesn’t.

Like their cousins in the ISP and mobile phone provider space, even the best web hosting sites are often far too fond of blind-siding consumers with an overload of options and information in the hopes of forcing a sale.

An example here from the milder end of the spectrum would be the HostGator shared WordPress hosting comparison page »»

• Cost per month: Even the best hosting companies have a nasty habit of quoting the cheapest of all possible prices as the standard monthly price. To simplify matters, we’re taking the bare-bones, entry-level package from each provider and listing monthly fees at 12-month and 36-month contract durations, so you can compare like with like.
• Space: The amount of physical storage space listed as being available on the server.
• Bandwidth: The amount of traffic it can handle per month. Be aware from the outset that “Unlimited” will nearly always mean “Unlimited subject to certain terms and conditions”; just as with space, check your provider’s terms. DreamHost have admirably clear guidelines in this respect.
• Sites: The number of websites you are allowed to run on the package.
• Domains: Any free domain registrations on offer.
• Marketing options: Any significant marketing incentives, such as free Google Adwords or Facebook advertising vouchers.

As we walk through each package, we’ll point out other relevant features on offer on a case by case basis.

THE OVERALL RANKINGS

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.

The initial signup with this WordPress hosting plan was simple and to the point. The backend impressed as well, with its presentation of a carefully considered initial set of options.

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.

Customer support

SiteGround offers what they call “unmatched” support, 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.)

Not surprisingly, the only install on the list hosted on a European server performed particularly well from Amsterdam. Melbourne, on the other hand, was thoroughly underwhelming.

Testing machine location: Dublin, Ireland

Minimum response time: 0.46s

Maximum response time: 0.87s

There were superb times on a geographically close test server, but we experienced more variance with different locales.

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.

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.

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.

Testing machine location: Washington, D.C.

Minimum response time: 0.83s

Maximum response time: 2.75s

InMotion’s performance is good up until the 10 concurrent users mark, at which point it takes a slight dip, but then restores around 20 concurrent users and stays somewhat level up until even 50 users. Overall, more than enough for normal usage and server load.

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.

A2 Hosting gives you three main server locations to choose from: Michigan, Amsterdam, and Singapore. But to make performance even better, they let you integrate your server with CloudFlare Free CDN.

Testing machine location: Ashburn, US.

Minimum response time: 0.23s

Maximum response time: 0.29s

A2 Hosting’s ability to withstand load is pretty impressive and surely puts it up there among the best WordPress hosting platforms in the market. There’s very little difference no matter if the site is hit with just one visit or 20 concurrent ones.

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).

WP Engine shows great performance when accessing the site from a New York server (even though New York and California are properly away). European connections are also really good. Lastly, Melbourne connections get a bit lower performance.

Testing machine location: New York

Minimum response time: 0.21s

Maximum response time: 0.36s

Really good performance across the whole spectrum. The number of concurrent user connections had little impact on the results.

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.

Load times reported via Pingdom were broadly respectable but showed the sort of variance often expected in a shared hosting environment.

Testing machine location: Palo Alto

Minimum response time: 0.62s

Maximum response time: 4.9s

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.

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 load times were impressively stable across locations and went into an early lead in terms of US response times.

Testing machine location: Palo Alto

Minimum response time: 1.24s

Maximum response time: 1.68s

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.

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.)

Again, the initial load times were more than respectable across territories.

Testing machine location: Palo Alto

Minimum response time: 0.78s

Maximum response time: 0.89s 

There’s a clear difference here in terms of both overall speed and consistency, firmly under the one second barrier and staying there. Tests from servers in other geographical locations were slower but the consistency remained impressive.

Despite their formerly less than stellar user interface reputation, signing up to GoDaddy went without a hitch. One time I spoke to a GoDaddy customer representative at WordCamp London 2015, and it was clear that they’ve put a lot of work into the front-end to possibly become the best WordPress hosting out there.

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.

GoDaddy impressed instantly with consistently strong US and European load times.

Testing machine location: Palo Alto

Minimum response time: 0.63s

Maximum response time: 0.83s

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.

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:

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.

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