Best WordPress hosting

Disclaimer: Unlike many article’s you’ll find on certain webmaster blogs, I’m not going to review a huge list of different WordPress hosts who provide the highest payouts for affiliates… Instead I’m going to review only five. Why? Because they are the only WordPress hosting companies that I’ve personally worked with and I’d feel comfortable referring any of my own web design clients to, and the same rule applies to the readers of our blog.

The simple fact is, a lot of WordPress hosts that are recommended by most webmaster blogs are usually flawed. Many hosts offer you the world, but in my personal experience their promises very rarely deliver. Often you’ll find that hosts are just WordPress hosting resellers or they may offer cheap WordPress hosting but the service level you receive is poor. Others have just grown far too big for their boots and have gone past caring about customer service…

Below I’m going to review 5 best WordPress hosting services that I’ve had the pleasure of working with. These are all WordPress hosts who have provided me with a great service, given me very few headaches and most importantly have provided good quality WordPress hosting for any of my own or my clients website’s.

5 Best WordPress Hosting Providers

The WordPress web hosts below fall into the medium-high and low budget level bracket. If your website is of upmost importance to your salary and your main source of income, I would definitely consider the more expensive services as opposed to the lower. Although all WordPress hosts are perfectly good providers listed on this page, you really do get what you pay for when it comes to the level of service you receive.

VISIT WWW.WPENGINE.COM

• Uptime: 100%
• Load time: 336 ms
• Support: 24/7 live chat with WordPress development experts
• Features: Automated backups with one click restore, 24/7 live support with WordPress developers, free SSL (https), staging server, automated migration, developer friendly.
• Website: www.wpengine.com

If you have read any of my other posts on the blog, it’s probably no surprise to you at all that WP Engine is at the top of my list of WordPress hosts. Running a web design agency in London you can imagine how many hosts we’ve been through over the years and honestly, not one has come close to the service we’ve received from this WordPress hosting provider.

Admittedly, WP Engine is probably not for everyone. If you’re an experimental blogger or just playing around with WordPress then this host is not for you. However, if you make your money online and your website is your business and main source of income, no other WordPress host comes close in this list to WP Engine.

WP Engine is an award-winning WordPress hosting provider who is headquartered in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 2010, WP Engine provides managed WordPress hosting for websites around the world with datacenter’s in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Germany and Taiwan.

WP Engine is extremely popular among many online business owners and bloggers who use WordPress. Why? The reasons are simple. They rarely ever suffer any performance issues, the automated backup and restore feature, one-click deploy staging servers, free SSL certificates and their unrivalled 24/7 customer support where you can get in touch with WordPress developers and server technicians who can help if a problem arises with your site.

Over the last 12 months, WP Engine boasted a 100% uptime score with 0 outages and an average page loading speed of 336ms for their shared hosting service. WP Engine’s hosting service is specifically designed and optimised for WordPress websites, so it’s no wonder they are the fastest loading host in this list and also have an unblemished uptime score.

They are not cheap though. Although, this is what you would expect from a business who is providing services of this level. The cost for their startup hosting service for 1 website is £24 month, but they are currently running a 10% discount on your first month or 3 months free if you sign up annually!!

PROS:

• 100% Uptime and performance
• 24/7 WordPress-specialised support
• Developer-friendly environment
• Automated backups and restore
• One-click install WordPress
• Free SSL certificates
• Genesis framework
• Free StudioPress themes

CONS:

• Email hosting not available
• Some plugins are banned

Click here to see if the 10% discount is still valid

VISIT WWW.KINSTA.COM

• Uptime: 99.97%
• Load time: 364 ms
• Support: 24/7 live support with WordPress technicians
• Features: Cloud-based WordPress-only hosting, auto-scaling, 20 server locations, automated backups.
• Website: www.kinsta.com

Another WordPress specific host who offers cloud-based WordPress hosting. Kinsta were founded in 2008, have 21 different server locations and put an emphasis on website performance and top-notch support.

The main feature that separates Kinsta from the majority of other managed WordPress hosting providers is that they use the Google Cloud Platform. This means that all websites hosted on Kinsta are on the same infrastructure created and maintained by Google. Snapchat, Spotify and Coca-Cola also host here, so you know you’re in good company.

The hosting provider has some really good features. I was particularly impressed with the autoscale functionality during traffic peaks where your cloud server automatically upscales to adjust to the level of traffic your website is receiving.

There are also lots of other features I like about Kinsta WordPress hosting. Automated backups, an easy to use dashboard, a huge range of plans, SSL import, very good support and one-click WordPress deployment, similar to WP Engine.

Kinsta offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and in our tests over a 12 month period they were true to their word with a 99.97% uptime and only 4 outages over that period. The hosting is also pretty rapid with an average page loading speed of 364ms.

Kinsta is another good choice for premium WordPress hosting but sites with a low volume of traffic will find it hard to justify the $30/£24 monthly cost here. This is not low-budget WordPress hosting. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, there aren’t any special offers available with this host either…

PROS:

• High uptime and performance
• Google Cloud Platform-based
• Huge range of VPS plans
• Auto scaling during peak traffic
• Choice of 21 datacenter’s
• Very developer-friendly
• Specialised WordPress support staff

CONS:

• Email hosting not available
• VPS plans only – no shared hosting
• Does not support CRON
• Some plugins are banned

You can visit Kinsta WordPress hosting here

VISIT WWW.STABLEPOINT.COM

• Uptime: 99.97%
• Load time: 351ms
• Support: 24/7 live chat
• Features: Unlimited email, 24/7 customer support, free SSL (https), free domain name.
• Website: www.stablepoint.com

Stablepoint is a relatively new WordPress Cloud hosting service that was launched in 2018, but don’t be fooled in thinking that these guys are new to the game. Stablepoint is brought to you by the founders of TSOHost, VidaHost & Speedydot and have over 12 years experience in the field.

Stablepoint provides managed WordPress cloud hosting based on top of a number of enterprise-grade cloud providers. When you sign up for Stablepoint you can choose where you want your hosting deployed on either Digital Ocean, AWS, Google Cloud, Azure or the Alicloud infrastructure.

When you sign up for Stablepoint’s WordPress hosting your new server is provisioned instantly. You can choose from 12 global data centres for your server in locations in Europe, USA, Canada, Asia or Australia. Each account is based on cPanel which comes with a one-click installer, a suite of helpful WordPress tools and advanced security features.

Stablepoint have a good performance record over the last 12 months of 99.97% uptime. In my page speed tests they also scored highly too (351ms) proving their hosting is perfect for WordPress, Woocommerce or any of its plugins.

Another feature of Stablepoint I’ve been really happy with is their UK based support. They offer live chat on the website and if your issue can’t be resolved there and then they have an easy to use escalation ticket system and any problems I’ve had have been resolved within the hour.

WordPress hosting on Stablepoint starts at £3.99 per month and the Starter plan comes with 100GB of disk space and unlimited bandwidth. You will also qualify for a free domain name, SSL and unlimited email addresses.

PROS:

• Free SSL
• Free Domain Name
• Unlimited Email Addresses
• No long contracts
• Free migration

CONS:

• Will need to be comfortable using cPanel

Click here to learn more about Stablepoint

VISIT WWW.HOSTINGER.COM

• Uptime: 99.92%
• Load time: 389ms
• Support: 24/7 live chat
• Features: Free email, 24/7 customer support, free SSL (https), free domain name on Premium and Business plans.
• Website: www.Hostinger.com

Hostinger is a large WordPress hosting company from Lithuania which has over 29 million users, collectively with its subsidiaries now in 178 different countries. The company has data centres in the USA, Asia and Europe making their WordPress hosting a truly global solution.

The site has a large library of WordPress tutorials and guides and there is a WordPress website builder which isn’t bad – beginners may find this useful though. Hostinger also offers live chat support, although my only bugbear is that sometimes it works more like a ticket system and they don’t always answer right away.

Although Hostinger is the cheapest provider in this list of WordPress hosts, when it comes to speed, the hosting service actually performs well. The host has a page loading time of 389ms, so up there with the best, but uptime is average. Over the last 12 months there were a few outages on the test site and Hostinger scored a fairly average 99.92% uptime score.

Their cheapest managed WordPress hosting plan starts at £1.99 per month, but it renews at £5.99 per month. This plan comes with 20GB of disk space and unlimited bandwidth. You will also qualify for a free domain name, SSL and up to 100 email accounts. Also if you’re not happy with the service you have 30 days to cancel and are applicable for a refund.

PROS:

• Cheap pricing
• Lots of tutorials and guides
• Free Domain Name
• Free SSL
• Free Email

CONS:

• Average uptime
• High renewal fees

Click to see if the £1.99 discount is still available

VISIT WWW.GODADDY.COM

• Uptime: 99.91%
• Load time: 454ms
• Support: 24hr phone support and chat
• Features: 1 free email address, 24/7 customer support, free domain name, automated backups.
• Website: www.godaddy.com

When we talk about domain name and hosting providers, Godaddy is pretty much a household name. The company was founded in 1997 and is known for advertising on TV and radio. It’s pretty fair to say they are one of the pioneers of the domain name and hosting world.

As you’d expect with a web host that has been around for this length of time and of this size, they are able to pass on some pretty decent discounts to their customers. However, I do believe some of these larger companies suffer with getting things 100% right in A) the customer service department and B) the quality of service, and that’s why I only recommend Godaddy as an entry level WordPress hosting company.

I’d recommend Godaddy’s managed WordPress hosting services to webmasters who have a low traffic website which is not their main source of income. I’d also advise using Godaddy if you’re looking for an entry level host but won’t sign up to Stablepoint because of a low understanding of cPanel. Godaddy’s managed hosting panel is really easy to understand so it’s perfect for beginners.

When you sign up for Godaddy’s managed hosting service your hosting will be automatically provisioned. It can take anywhere from 5-10 mins to set up and they also offer a handy migration tool which you can use to migrate your site from your current host to Godaddy which works 99% of the time.

Godaddy’s uptime performance is average with a score of 99.91% in my tests and their page speed score is a lot slower than other hosts in this list with a page load time of 454ms. Although only 100ms this can make a difference in the world of mobile search.

If you’re old school and prefer speaking with someone over the telephone for support, you will like Godaddy. They have an easy to use IVR system you can call and get routed through to the right department and their support team are really helpful and can fix most hosting issues.

Godaddy’s basic WordPress hosting plan costs £2.99 per month and you can host 1 website with 30GB disk space. You get a free domain name, 1 free business email address and automated backups. Just bear in mind if you want to accept payments on your website you will need to pay for an SSL certificate.

PROS:

• Free domain name
• 1 x free email address
• Telephone and chat support
• Automated backups and restore
• Low entry cost

CONS:

• Higher price on renewal
• Average uptime
• Slightly slower performance
• Annoying sales/account check up calls

Click here to see if the £2.99 discount is still valid

WordPress Hosting Summary

So, that was my detailed review of the top 5 WordPress hosting providers. I hope you enjoyed it and you found it helpful when choosing a WordPress web host.

Each review above is based on my personal experience with these hosting providers and I also analysed each web host’s uptime, website speed, ease of use, cost and support. I used Pingdom to analyse each web host’s performance and uptime.

I installed a fresh copy of WordPress on each host with the TwentyTwenty theme on each to ensure I got a fair reading from every page speed test that was taken and no differentiating factors such as large images or plugins could negatively affect the score.

Not only do I recommend a WordPress host with great uptime and speed, but a good support team is also very important. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably very busy with your core business, and the last thing you want to be doing is sitting on a support chat for hours or waiting on ticket replies at 24-48 hours at a time.

This is one of the reasons WP Engine and Kinsta top this list. It’s also the main reason why some of the so-called “popular’ web hosts you see advertised on others blogs are not mentioned here. I’m not going to mention any company name’s here, but you can make your own assumptions.