The 14 Best Web Hosting Companies
Which Web Hosting Service is the Best?
Having a website is a necessity for anyone who wants to communicate with a regional, national, or global audience. Whether it's a website for brand awareness, eCommerce, media, services, writing, or a hobby, every site needs to be hosted somewhere. Since the web began, thousands of hosting companies have arisen, flourished, and disappeared. How do you know which companies available today will be around as long as you plan to have your website online? And, how do you know what features to look for?
For starters, be aware of your budget and what hosting companies charge. Don't be lured in by apparently low-priced plans without first reading the fine print. Many companies attract website owners with seemingly impossibly low fees only to jack up the rate at the time the hosting plan is renewed. Some offer a single rate regardless of the billing period. Others offer discounts based on whether you pay monthly, yearly or multiple years in advance. Yet others offer more advanced capabilities depending on the size and needs of your website and audience.
Wednesday, March 22nd
2023 Web Hosting Company Reviews
ScalaHosting
ScalaHosting has the best of everything for its customers: good pricing, features, and customer service plus effective security protocols and software to detect and stop malicious behavior before your website is ruined. For advanced users who need more power, there's an intuitive pricing tool to help get just the right amount of bang for the buck. ScalaHosting has very positive reviews and therefore we rank it the highest of all the hosting providers we evaluated.
A2 Hosting
A2 is a solid hosting choice with a longstanding reputation for caring about its customers and their success. They've been around a while and aren't going away anytime soon. We found their prices for the value to be entirely reasonable. With the exception of one pattern of issues, we can give A2 a very high ranking among web hosting services.
Liquid Web
LiquidWeb is a sophisticated hosting service that caters to small, medium, and large businesses that are already acquainted with web hosting and want to start out on the right foot. It's not impossible for entry-level website owners to handle, but they will need some hand holding from the responsive and helpful support team. Given their high user ratings and accredited "A+" rating with the Better Business Bureau, we can recommend LiquidWeb to company owners ready to start doing business on the web.
DreamHost
DreamHost has a ton of features for people who are well-versed in hosting but doesn't leave the novices behind in their quest for a great place to host their websites. If you need professional services, DreamHost also has you covered on pretty much every front. It's a great host, despite some confusing pricing and a little uptime problem over the last 3 years.
Host Papa
HostPapa provides an even split between value and service. They have a mobile-responsive website builder tool for entry-level website owners and, for the more advanced or self-sufficient, they offer managed WordPress, optimized WordPress, and VPS hosting. Reviews among customers are decent, so we recommend that you give them a try. If there's something you don't like, there's always the 30-day money-back guarantee. Just be sure to read the fine print.
GoDaddy
GoDaddy has a lot of offerings for both new and veteran website owners. Before signing up, it's important to compare plans, understand the renewal rates and features, and ask the GoDaddy sales team for help configuring what you'll need for your specific website. There are easier hosting options to try first, so don't feel the need to default to GoDaddy just because it's a popular company.
Pantheon
Pantheon is the fastest, most secure, and most powerful WordPress and Drupal hosting service available. But with that power comes a big learning curve and a need for investing time, energy, and money into your organization to learn how to operate it correctly. The benefits can be immense, but Pantheon could also have made it easier to get those benefits.
Hostinger
Hostinger has a number of hosting plans with generous options and lots of help getting started with your website. The pricing is pretty reasonable as well. It's a good hosting option for the money, but just be aware of the slower-than-desirable server load time and an unaccredited Better Business Bureau rating.
One
One is a just-okay website hosting company with a good enough introductory rate to give them a try. There aren't enough positive reviews to rate it higher than average, though, so you'll want to look at other options - either instead of One altogether or near the one-year mark when your introductory rate will disappear.
Host Gator
HostGator has certainly been around a long time. They have low-cost plans if you're willing to pay for 3 years of service in advance, and helpful features such as free SSL and free domains. But if you're looking for top-notch customer support and reliable hosting, it's not going to be optimal for your needs.
Bluehost
Bluehost has a lot of website customers and, therefore, the name recognition to keep itself afloat as a hosting company. It's been around quite a long time but is lacking in sufficient data centers. Good customer service also seems to be in short supply at Bluehost, which is why we recommend looking into alternatives instead.
iPage
iPage's long-lasting status as a hosting provider since 1998 with over a million websites is an example of how those factors are not a guarantee that a service will be fit for your needs. Users of iPage are evenly divided between loving and hating it. With numerous complaints about performance, usability, and customer satisfaction, we cannot recommend iPage's web hosting at this time.
Interserver
In an unfortunate reversal for InterServer, a company we had previously rated as our highest-ranked choice, we couldn't complete our review of its pricing and ease of use because of pricing details being hidden behind a broken signup paywall. Therefore, we're recommending you stay away from InterServer and look at other options.
Network Solutions
With Network Solutions' storied history as the world's oldest hosting company, you would think it would have the best customer experience possible in a crowded hosting market. That assumption would be incorrect, however, as it has the worst customer reviews of all of the hosting companies we've reviewed. It's a good idea to completely avoid Network Solutions in your search for great web hosting.
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When considering features, make a list of what you really need, what would be good to have, and what isn't very necessary. For example, do you need a plethora of themes to choose from in a do-it-yourself direction, or would you rather have a web designer create a custom design for you? Do you need a high-availability, supercharged dedicated server or just a bit of space on a shared server? Do you plan to develop your own code or do you need a professional developer for that? If you don't have a domain, will the host sell you one? If you do have a domain, how hard is it for the host to transfer it and also migrate your existing site? If you need email, eCommerce, advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO), be sure to list those as well.
Something people almost never think about is security and performance. Most like to assume that all hosts are secure and provide fast page load speeds. But that isn't always the case! This is especially a problem when a host charges very low prices for marginally capable plans. Those services are not likely to be secure or fast. Beware of shared hosting, which means your site is among hundreds or even thousands of others housed on the same server. In a shared server, when someone else's site is compromised or has a problem, it puts your site at risk.
Finally, look at a hosting company's reputation. This is not just about how many years they have in business. It's a combination of longevity, how they treat customers, how many complaints are logged, and how many of those complaints are directly answered by a representative of the company. Ask other website owners, web designers, and developers if they like or dislike a hosting company you're considering. Most of them will be able to share good and bad stories about any hosting company.
When evaluating your list and narrowing down your choices, consider these factors:
- Features. Which features does the web host offer and do you need all the features or just some of them?
- Cost. How are the hosting costs structured? Will there be monthly subscription cost hikes after a certain period of time?
- Reputation. What are people saying about the web host online? Is the web host going to shut down or change names soon, and are they engaging in shady practices that can hurt your brand?
- Security. How many security incidents has the web hosting company experienced? Are there widespread complaints of site outages? If so, how quickly and to what extent were those issues addressed?
- Performance. Are websites generally faster or slower on one web hosting service compared to its competitors? Does the web host offer plans that handle increasing numbers of visitors or sudden traffic spikes with more ease?
- Customer Service. If you experience problems with your website, what are the contact options for getting support, and how responsive are they? Are support representatives courteous and helpful, or are they rude and condescending? How long does it take to fix problems?
TopConsumerReviews.com has created a list of the most popular or prominent website hosting providers to guide you in your research. We hope this information makes it easier for you to choose the best web host for your business that will make your website engaging, performant, affordable, and secure.
Web Hosting Company FAQ
- Fast Time to First Byte (the time it takes for the web server to deliver the first byte of data in a request)
- Free SSL certificates that automatically renew
- Focus on security and performance so that an attack or spike in traffic on another unrelated site on the same server will not adversely affect your site
- Included Content Delivery Network (CDN) to duplicate your content closer to the geographical location of your visitors for faster content delivery
- High availability (typically 99.99% uptime) so that you have as little downtime as possible
- Backup and restore capabilities, preferably included at no additional cost
- Maintenance package if your site uses a content management service like WordPress
- Easy access to support via chat, email, and phone in case of problems or questions
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