8 Best Web Hosting Solutions for 2022

What is web hosting?

Websites are created using HTML, CSS, images, videos and a host of other file types to display webpages online.

The webpages that make up a website need to be stored on servers.  Servers are computers that are always on so that users can view your website at any time with no interruptions.

Without a hosting service, you would need to personally host your website by purchasing and managing hardware, storage capacity, speed, and connectivity – which is a burden most individuals and SMB’s would prefer to avoid.

For any small, medium, or large business seeking an online presence, especially in the digital world we live in today, web hosting is a necessity. They provide structured servers that are maintained and optimized to host your files and load your webpages with ease.

What are the different types of web hosting?

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Shared Hosting

Many businesses opt to use “shared hosting,” meaning their files are kept on a shared server. With a shared server, the provider is hosting a number of other websites in addition to yours. Shared hosting is a very simple, low-cost solution for many individuals and small businesses to create blogs, content sites, and directories. However, since the server is shared, your website could load slowly at times due to traffic spikes. Think of it as a city where your business is next to a sports arena. Generally, there isn’t much traffic to get into the city, but if there is a game and an unusual amount of people are trying to get into the city, the influx of traffic may cause slowdowns.

VPS Hosting

VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is similar to shared hosting as your files are kept on shared servers. However, under this system, your files are sectioned off privately and therefore are unaffected by traffic spikes to other websites on the same server. As the owner of this VPS space, you have the freedom and ability to do with it as you like. That can be a negative or positive aspect depending on your understanding of server management, technical relationships, and the ability to manage internal resources.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud Hosting is a newer solution that came on to the scene in the last decade. As with any cloud product, the value here is that your site is hosted on a collection of servers available to many users over the internet. This is a reliable solution that provides high speed and low maintenance without the technical experience required of a VPS solution. The only drawback of cloud hosting is that it is generally charged on a usage basis, so monthly costs can widely vary, which can be costly as you scale up your site.

Dedicated Hosting

For larger businesses and enterprises that require enhanced speed, security, and flexibility, dedicated hosting is a viable option. With dedicated hosting, you are basically renting your own server, which you are likely to maintain yourself. Some of the most attractive benefits include high security, considerable bandwidth, speed, and direct oversight. However, as with most solutions, dedicated hosting comes at a significant cost (server + oversight + maintenance) and only makes sense for those businesses that completely understand the cost/benefit exchange.

 

Bluehost Review

Founded in 2003, Bluehost is one of the largest and most trusted web hosting platforms on the market. With over 2 million customers, they’ve proven themselves to be excellent service providers for those who want a user-friendly solution that’s quick, reliable, and affordable.

Features

One of our favorite aspects of Bluehost is that it doesn’t require any technical expertise to build and manage sites through their customized control panel. Besides the intuitive user interface, the platform also delivers 99.99% uptime and great security features, including a free Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate.

Bluehost also enables single-click WordPress installations in addition to providing access to other Content Management Systems (CMS), like Drupal and Joomla. Besides these software tools, there are also numerous cart features that make your website ready for eCommerce Lastly, their Cloudflare Content Delivery Network (CDN) ensures faster speeds, giving you a lower bounce rate and a higher search engine ranking.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Excellent security features
• Unlimited Bandwidth
• Convenient add-ons for SEO, marketing, etc.
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• Free Domain Name for 1st Year

Cons

• Expensive renewal fees
• Expensive to migrate existing sites (starting at $150)
• Customers have had difficulties with tech support
• Windows hosting not available (all servers are Linux)
• For full security, users need to do their own daily backups

BlueHost Pricing

BlueHost Recommendation

Customers choose BlueHost because they offer unlimited domains, around the clock customer support, unlimited storage, and cheap hosting plans. With their great track record and reliable uptime, they’ve become one of the most popular hosting sites.

 

Siteground Review

From their humble beginnings in 2004, Siteground has grown from a small office in Bulgaria to over 9 locations across the globe with over 500 employees. Siteground has prided itself on being a customer-first business and excelled at growing with some of the top professionals in the industry. Today they manage over 1.8 million domains and support customers across every continent.

Features

If there’s one thing that really sets Siteground apart, it’s their customer service. With a 98% customer satisfaction rate, they clearly provide a great product accompanied by great support. Siteground’s focus is clear, they’ve built their entire product specifically catered to web hosting and have deliberately put far less investment towards domain registration and site-building tools. They also provide an excellent uptime of nearly 100% and some of the fastest speeds available.

Pros

• Industry-leading customer support
• A clear focus on web hosting
• Extremely fast loading speed
• Clear and intuitive up-to-date cPanel

Cons

• Pricey, especially after one year
• Packages and features can widely vary between cost and value
• Free domain name not included

SiteGround Pricing

SiteGround Recommendation

SiteGround’s uptime and speed performance make them a better option than most of their competitors. While they can be pricier, their transparency and friendly support make them a very popular host provider.

 

HostGator Review

Founded in 2002 by Brent Oxley, HostGator is one of the oldest and largest hosting sites out there. With an array of different hosting plans for consumers and businesses alike, HostGator is an extremely popular web hosting option due to its easy and convenient to use platform.

Features

As a well-known provider with a proven track record, HostGator offers web development, 5 different hosting plans, and domain registration. Web development features include cPanel, compatibility with site-builders like WordPress and Joomla, VPS and dedicated servers, and the ability to manage multiple domains. Some of our favorite aspects of HostGator include unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space, shared and private SSLs, and shared and private IP addresses.

Pros

• Affordable pricing
• Strong and reliable uptime
• Solid tech support
• 45-day money-back guarantee
• User-friendly for beginners

Cons

• Extra fees for add-ons
• Slow website upload speeds
• Too many promotions and upsells
• Issues with sending/receiving emails

HostGator Pricing

HostGator Recommendation

HostGator’s cheap cloud hosting options give you twice the speed and four times the resources, which gives them a leg up on other providers. The 12,000 servers that they manage make them reliable and one of the largest and well-known hosting brands on the market.

 

GoDaddy Review

With GoDaddy, you get a big-name web hosting and website building service that has over 78 million domain names under its management. With no shortage of affordable hosting packages, you’re almost guaranteed to find the right bundle to meet your personal or commercial needs. GoDaddy provides just about everything you need under one roof, including domain selection, 5 economical hosting packages, website creation, and digital marketing assistance.

Features

With a number of useful features and hosting plans, GoDaddy offers an array of tools to help your business grow and thrive. Some of those amazing features include different themes and templates for creating your websites and a drag-and-drop page editor. GoDaddy also provides credit card processing, social media linking, and contact forms, all backed by SSL security.

Pros

• The simplicity of creating a website with customizable template options
• Linux- and Windows-based hosting plans with advanced features
• Affordable prices
• 24/7 customer support and security

Cons

• Add-on features that can drive up the cost
• Somewhat difficult to navigate online help
• Slow internal speeds
• High restoration costs

GoDaddy Pricing

GoDaddy Recommendation

GoDaddy has been around for years and is one of the top known names in the field. No matter your skill level, their easy and convenient to use service can make it easier to create and host your website.

 

DreamHost Review

As one of the top solutions in web hosting, DreamHost boasts over 1.5 million customers with an impressive display of features across different hosting plans. Their hosting plans include shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, WordPress hosting, and cloud hosting. Additionally, Dreamhost provides excellent solutions for website design, domains, and email. While they aren’t the cheapest service on the market, their customers are consistently impressed with DreamHost’s reliability and performance.

Features

If there’s one feature that jumps out about DreamHost, it’s their security. They provide a free pre-installed SSL certificate accompanied by a WordPress specific firewall. In addition to their security, DreamHost offers impressive uptime, maintaining an above-average of 99.94%, and a considerable upload speed of 648ms. If that weren’t enough, in addition to WordPress, DreamHost’s plans also come with other popular website building apps like Wix and Weebly.

Pros

• 97-day money back guarantee
• Great upload speed
• SSL Security
• Impressive uptime
• Affordable renewal pricing

Cons

• No cPanel (custom solution)
• No reseller plans
• Limited live chat support
• Expensive to migrate to other sites

DreamHost Pricing

DreamHost Recommendation

With a generous unlimited storage and bandwidth policy, DreamHost is an appealing option, especially with their economical prices and solid support. Their great range of hosting options puts them right up there with some of the best hosting services.

 

Ionos by 1&1 Review

Ionos by 1&1 was one of the first web hosting solutions in Europe and has been operating for over 30 years in the online business industry. At the moment, they have over 8 million customers, making them the largest hosting company in Europe. While Ionos by 1&1 isn’t well-known in the US, they are seeking to grow their global presence by combining services with a wide array of small and mid-sized business solutions. Those services include domain registration, website building, and cloud solutions.

Features

Since combining their web hosting, applications, and server product lines with ProfitBrick, Ionos by 1&1 has nearly tripled their services. Their focus is on speed, performance, and capacity. The major difference between Ionos by 1&1 and their competitors has to do with their control panel. Most hosting services use the cPanel as opposed to Ionos’ custom control panel, which can be difficult to navigate for first-time users. Some of the services that Ionos by 1&1 excels at is cloud-based web hosting, responsive customer support, and fast server response time.

Pros

• Very affordable
• Fast server response time
• Reliable uptime at 99.9%
• Excellent customer service

Cons

• Control panel can be difficult to learn
• Challenging overall user interface
• Weak storage options

Ionos by 1&1 Pricing

Ionos by 1&1 Recommendation

Ionos by 1&1 is a reliable hosting provider because of its impressive uptime of 99.98%, anti-spam protection, and daily site backups. With the combination of useful web-creation tools and great customer support, they’ve become a viable hosting service.

 

WP Engine Review

As a web hosting provider, WP Engine claims to be a “catalyst for bringing your imagination, skills, and business to life”. They’re a WordPress specific web host that’s more performance-oriented, as opposed to the cheaper web hosting providers on the market. WP Engine partners with Google, AWS, and New Relic to optimize their technology specifically for WordPress.

Features

WP Engine is one of the top names in managed WordPress hosting because they ensure that your business’ website is secure, optimized, and loads quickly. Along with plenty of performance tracking and diagnostic options, they also offer fast and simple migrations from previous hosts, a free SSL certificate (to ensure optimal security), and support for setting up staging sites.

Pros

• Page performance test to test your site’s speed
• Optimizes your site for specific regions with GeoTarget technology
• Dedicated and expert support

Cons

• On the expensive side
• Cheaper alternatives
• Only offers dedicated servers on the custom plan

WP Engine Pricing

WP Engine Recommendation

We’ve already discussed how WP Engine isn’t cheap, but they do provide a quality hosting service for your investment. While they might be out of range for small businesses, they can provide rich WordPress features, great performance, and dependable support for medium-sized businesses and up. For those that can afford it, WP Engine is worth it.

 

Hostinger Review

Touted as “fast” web hosting, Hostinger prides themselves on simplicity, speed and affordability. Providing a number of bespoke packages and plans, including Hosting, Website Building, VPS and Domain, Hostinger is a top solution for large and small firms alike.

Hostinger offers their Web Hosting solutions in a variety of flavors such as Shared Web Hosting (for small to medium websites), Cloud Hosting (for large scale projects), Email Hosting and WordPress Hosting. Although not seen as an Enterprise solution by industry veterans, Hostinger does make for easy entry to those just entering the web hosting ecosystem. Their interface is clean and easy to use with an excellent customer support team who can help you navigate the more nuanced features.

Features

As mentioned, Hostinger has an easy to use interface backed up by an extremely helpful customer support team (although this is only available for the higher priced packages). However, with speed being their key tenant, we’ve unfortunately found that this is merely promotional as one of the main points of concern for Hostinger is their slow server speed which can ultimately hurt your page load and SEO efforts.

In regards to standard web hosting features, Hostinger delivers on a clean UI, 1-click installation and clever website building tools however if you’re seeking a more dedicated, high-speed solution, you may want to keep exploring other options.

Pros

• Easy to use cPanel rebranded as hPanel
• Clean UI
• Solid website builder

Cons

• No daily backup
• Not a dedicated server
• Problems with payment portal

Hostinger Pricing

Now that you’ve found a host, it’s time to Design Your Logo and Build Your Website!