So you want to create your own self hosted website, blog or online store with WordPress? I’ve personally reviewed and tested 18+ different web hosts for speed, uptime, and ease of use. I’m going to breakdown what I’ve found to be the 10 best WordPress hosting options for 2022.
This web hosting guide is based on uptime, website load speed, cost, customer reviews and myself and my teams own experience actually using this web host to create a website. I’ll also take into consideration the unique selling points of each web host and their respective price points.
These are my top choices for different use cases:
Bluehost
Bluehost is the #1 recommended web host for WordPress. Ideal for anyone looking to create a high traffic blog.
SiteGround
The best web host for running WooCommerce and WordPress due to their high quality infrastructure.
Hostinger
The best budget option. A solid choice if you’re price sensitive but still want quality support and technology.
What to look for in a web host?
With a web host you want to know how much bandwidth you get as well as storage. A lot of companies will simply say “unlimited” on the purchase page but this is simply not true. Always ask the web host first for clarification.
Next, you want to pay close attention to renewal fees. A lot of web hosts offer great introduction rates for the first contract, but then massively increase after. Last you want to pay attention to down time and response time. A web host with a fast response time means your website will load more quickly.
How to pick the right web host YOU
What kind of website do you want to make? That will largely influence what type of hosting company you should be looking at. How much traffic are you currently getting or are you just starting out? Are you looking to start a blog, personal website or something more complicated like an online store?
What are the best web hosts for WordPress?
The best web hosting services that made this list all provide dependable website speed, security features, uptime, simplicity of use of your account, an easy 1 click install of WordPress, an SSL certificate and all the best integration possibilities for your site.
- Bluehost
- SiteGround
- Hostinger
- WPX Hosting
- Nexcess
- Namehero
- Host Gator
- A2 Hosting
- Cloud Ways
- Kinsta
Bluehost – The #1 recommended web host for WordPress
Since 1996, Blue Host has been providing reliable hosting for millions of websites. Blue Host is your safe, name brand choice. They are the #1 recommended web host by WordPress and provide all the tools, support and guidance you need for creating a website.
They’re a highly dependable service with a 99.99 percent uptime. The average load time is less than half a second so as long as you design your blog correctly site speed won’t be an issue. I used a few simple plugins to improve my test blogs speed to 100 on my WordPress website and their Choice Plus plan.
One of the most appealing aspects for me was their compatibility with Cloudflare, a content delivery network (CDN). This CDN protects against DDoS assaults as well as fraudulent traffic from a variety of sources.
A CDN also improves site performance by allowing you to store your web assets on their worldwide servers. This service cuts down the time it takes to pull information from your server based on the visitor’s location.
If you’re new to creating websites and blogging, Bluehost is an excellent web host. I’ve created a quite a few video tutorials using Bluehost and highly recommend them for anyone looking to start a high traffic blog. I personally like their Choice Plus plan because it gives you the technology needed to start and grow a blog.
Pros:
- A safe and reliable choice for web hosting. Millions of people trust them and they are recommended by WordPress. They also offer a an excellent introductory rate and a fair renewal rate.
- Integration with Cloudflare for added speed and security.
- Your SSL is installed and managed for you.
Cons:
- Bluehost customer service is mediocre. They are helpful for beginner level questions when it comes to getting your site setup.
Bluehost
Good hosting at an affordable price. Beginner friendly and incredibly easy to launch your own WordPress website in minutes.
Want more? Checkout my detailed Bluehost review.
SiteGround – The best web host for WooCommerce
SiteGround is one of only three recommended web hosts by WordPress and for good reason. They constantly out perform the competition with regards to speed and up-time. This is essential for building a profitable blog, website or online store because Google has publicly stated that your website needs to load in under three seconds.
I particularly like them for running a WooCommerce powered website because of their technical infrastructure that is optimized for WooCommerce. With any online store you site must load quick and be responsive. Otherwise your visitors are going to bounce.
SiteGround also provides unique in-house WordPress speed and security solutions to make your site as fast and secure as possible. They offer automatic upgrades, built-in WP caching and a CDN. Last, they are one of the few companies offering location specific hosting with 3 data centers in USA, Europe, and Asia.
If load time, speed, and the most up to date infrastructure for ecommerce websites is important to you, SiteGround is your web host.
Pros:
- Fast, reliable web hosting. Excellent customer service and you can get a 70.% discount on your purchase.
- Advanced features perfect for ecommerce websites like a CDN, in-house WP caching and multiple data centers.
Cons:
- Very expensive after the introduction rate. They are a web host for high traffic, profitable websites but provide a great introduction rate to allow beginners to launch their websites and get started.
- They provide a free SSL but it could be an easier process to setup than the way it currently works
SiteGround
Excellent technical infrastructure that’s perfect for ecommerce websites and some of the best support around.
View my in-depth SiteGround review.
Hostinger – Best budget web host
Hostinger has some of the cheapest, quality web hosting available if you’re willing to pay for 4 years in advanced. Right now, you can secure single shared hosting (one website) for around $80 for 4 years or multiple websites for around $150 (use coupon code webpro at checkout).
Hostinger is an overall fantastic webhost to begin learning WordPress and other technical skills. You can learn to create free WordPress sites, custom emails and learn to code and experiment with PHP, FTP, cPanel, and MySQL without having to spend extra money .
They have a highly experienced 24/7 multilingual (20+ language) Customer Success Team that can typically resolve issues in less than two minutes through live chat. They’re also one of the quickest web hosting companies, with an average page load time of under 200 milliseconds and a 99.9 percent availability guarantee.
Hostinger offers a free WordPress site with 1-click installation, allowing you to launch your blog in minutes. They also have their own website builder called Zyro which is a structured builder and has hundreds of templates. Please note this is a separate service. You do get a free trial if a website builder is more your speed.
Last is hPanel, which is Hostinger’s custom and intuitive dashboard. The layout is simple and straightforward, exactly what you need for a website. They’re also offer a free domain name with your purchase of select hosting accounts and provide one free SSL certificate.
Pros:
- The best price and performance around. For the quality and speed of the hosting you get combined with their price point, Hostinger is hard to beat if price is important to you.
- You can get a hosting account for years at a fraction of the cost of other web hosts.
Cons:
- You get one SSL certificate. So if you want to have two websites you’ll need to purchase an additional cert. All other web hosts provide SSL certs for free. However, you can try reaching out to Hostinger and seeing if they will give you a free SSL cert or two via their support channels.
Hostinger
The best affordable web host providing fast hosting at a great price.
Checkout our comprehensive Hostinger review.
WPX Hosting – Best managed WordPress blog web host
WPX Hosting is one of the best web hosts for high traffic websites. With the tools and support required to handle high traffic websites, WPX hosting is quite affordable given the quality of the web hosting they provide as well as the superior support.
With WPX you get a streamlined user experience from start to finish as well as free migration of all your websites. That means you can start your website with another, cheaper web host and move over to WPX when you start getting enough traffic to warrant the move.
In addition, WPX Hosting backs up your website every day as part of their service, keeping these backup files on a separate server for extra security. The back ups are for up to 28 days, which is longer than most hosts. With only a few mouse clicks, you may restore any backup.
You also have access to website staging which is incredibly useful for making and testing changes. Staging simply means you can make changes to your site in a staging environment and then when ready you’re ready to merge the test version to the live version you can do so at the click of a button.
Last, WPX Hosting is a managed WordPress host. That means their support is responsive, professional and incredibly helpful,
Pros:
- Simply one of the best, fastest and most reliable web hosts for established websites. Free migration, excellent support and great hosting.
- You get access to a staging environment which is very helpful when updating to a new or different theme or you’re wanting to test out some sort of change.
Cons:
- WPX Hosting has advanced caching to make your website fast. However, this is not always optimal for a WooCommerce WordPress store.
WPX Hosting
The best managed WordPress host. Advanced features for high traffic websites offering free migration from another web host.
Nexcess – The best managed host for WooCommerce
While WPX is strictly focused on WordPress blogs (and hence why the rank higher on my list), Nexcess is all encompassing managed web host for all different types of platforms including Magento, WordPress blogs and WooCommerce websites.
Nexcess is a fully managed WordPress hosting company with over 500,000 customers. That means they take care of all updates, security and any additional tasks you need simply through their chat support. They also host Magento websites and have a unique selling point as being a more ecommerce focused managed web host.
Neexcess is an excellent choice for ecommerce websites since it offers everything you’ll need to manage dynamic sites. Even with the basic plan, you get 2TB bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, image compression on the fly, PHP 7 compatibility, and so on.
Furthermore, all of their plans come with free WordPress migrations. So you can have your website moved over fast and efficiently without getting bogged down in technical details. Like all hosts, they also offer a simple, 1 click install of WordPress so you don’t need any technical skills for creating websites.
Last, if you have any questions their customer service is always available by live chat at all times of the day and night. They also provide visual regression testing to ensure that system upgrades do not harm your code structure or functionalities and you can also access staging environments for your own use.
Namehero – The best reseller web host
Name Hero provides some outstanding cloud hosting for WordPress and offers up some of the best reseller hosting packages around. They are an excellent choice if you’re looking to create a blog, online store, personal website and so forth.
Where they shine from my use of their service is the reseller hosting aspect. Reseller hosting is where you “resell” a web hosts services as your own at a slight markup. It’s a lucrative business model for anyone building websites for clients as it allows you to create a passive income source.
Their reseller packages start at allowing 40 client websites up to 100 client websites with their top tier plan. All reseller packages come with Litespeed technology and WHMCS automation which handles the billing and provisioning of your account resources.
What makes them better and different? They offer easy to use, easy to setup cloud hosting without the marketing hype. With true cloud hosting with SSD storage, Namehero provides reliable, fast and scalable web hosting. They are the choice of tech savvy professionals looking for good cloud hosting for cheap.
Pros:
- A reliable web host for all types of websites. From blogs, personal website to online stores.
- Simply the best reseller hosting packages I’ve found.
- WHMCS automation is essential if you’re serious about reseller hosting.
Cons:
- Their navigation on the backend could be better as it’s not beginner friendly. If you’re an experienced blogger you’ll have no issue.
Host Gator – The best affiliate marketing host
Host Gator is a good shared web host that offers very low introduction rates, a free domain name for the first year and an SSL certificate. With well over 9 million websites hosted through their data centers, Host Gator is big name brand in the industry.
The average server uptime is 99.98%, which is greater than the industry norm of 99.94%. But to be honest they are not exactly known for their speeds. I found my test websites for my tutorials I’ve made with them to load at around 1.5 seconds.
Host Gator makes web development easy with different platforms like a simple drag-and-drop website builder and a beginner friendly installation of WordPress. They also offer unlimited domains to your account and they will assist you with free migrations within the first 30 days of signing up.
HostGator like all host on the list provides round-the-clock assistance for customers through live chat, email, and phone, with good response times. They have three primary services, including Hatchling, Baby, and Business. Dedicated IP addresses and SEO tools are available at higher tiers of service.
Where Host Gator shines however is their affiliate program which is run through Impact Radius. Host Gator provides their affiliates with special coupon codes which are perfect for YouTube tutorials because they not only give credit to the affiliate for the sale, they also do provide a genuine above and beyond purchase discount.
Pros:
- Good hosting, great affiliate program with their coupon code system.
Cons:
- Their hosting speeds are average compared to other hosts.
A2 Hosting – An excellent Bluehost alternative
A2 Hosting can be best described as a solid Bluehost alternative. Some out there are contrarian and don’t want to follow the crowd. If that’s you, take a look at A2 Hosting. After the introduction rate, their renewal rates are slightly less than Bluehost, (though not as cheap as Hostinger or HostPapa).
They offer a broad range of affordable services for hosting any type of website, not just WordPress. Their most basic plan allows only one website but their mid range plans provide fast, effective web hosting for blogs and various types of websites.
They are also one of the few web hosts that offer a competitive reseller hosting plan. While most web hosts have abandoned their resellers, A2 Hosting and Namehero have some great packages.
Last, A2 Hosting on their more expensive “turbo” plan provides some very fast hosting at a reasonable rate. You could always start off with one of their budget plans then upgrade your account as your website grows.
Pros:
- Excellent shared hosting and their renewal prices are fair. They also offer free website migration.
Cons:
- Their startup plan allows for one website which is pretty useless.
Cloudways – High Performance, Managed Cloud Hosting
Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that is optimized for WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, Laravel and Custom PHP. Unlike their competitors, Cloudways gives their customers full choice in choosing their infrastructure provider from any of our partners (Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, Digital Ocean, Vultr, Linode).
The advantage of this is that it allows you to deploy your website on the provider of your choice while getting the same amazing experience. Cloudways has a low priced starter plan but is more geared for large, established websites.
If you’re looking for a fast, premium web host for your fast growing WordPress website take a look at Cloudways.
Pros:
- Fast, professionally managed web hosting. Can deploy hosting for specific apps, online stores powered by Magento or WordPress, assign team members, manage projects and manage a server. Advanced cloud hosting for growing business at it’s finest.
Cons:
- Can be a bit confusing for new users to get up and running with Cloudways as they are a proper cloud host.
Kinsta – Managed host for high traffic WordPress websites
Kinsta is an expensive managed web host. They provide some of the fastest, most responsive and secure hosting. With an expertly trained staff ready to assist any technical issue you have as well as an outstanding custom CDN where you get your choice of data center, Kinsta is an enterprise hosting solution for business.
If you’re running a large e-commerce website powered by WordPress and WOO Commerce or you need a proper staging area to tweek and deploy apps. Kinsta is a fast, reliable and secure web host with excellent support.
In 2013, Kinsta set out to build the world’s finest WordPress platform. Their main objective is to collaborate with WordPress specialists and create hosting that meets industry standards in terms of speed, security, and stability.
The interface is simple, and everything you need to know about your website is accessible through a dashboard. You can view many sites at once, get analytics reports, manage users, and see your resource usage with this dashboard:
Kinsta’s Basic Plan is $30 a month ($25 if paid annually) and includes one WordPress install, 25,000 visits per month roughly, free SSL and CDN, and 5 GB of disk space.
If you’re hosting a bigger portfolio of websites that requires increased hosting capacity as your business expands, there are ten different tiers to choose from. These different tiers extend the amount of websites you can have on your account as well as the SSD storage, and monthly visits.
All of our plans include free unlimited migrations, daily automated backups, manual backup points, 24/7 assistance, and a white-labeled cache plugin to help with your sites overall performance. Overall, Kinsta is a good choice if you’re serious about WordPress performance and security.
Pros:
- Outstanding hosting with a lot of advanced features complicated, high traffic websites need.
- In house, white label cache plugin for better speed.
- High quality support.
- Managed everything, all you have to do is focus on growing your website.
Cons:
- Kinsta is very expensive as they are a managed web host.
WordPress hosting FAQ
Let me address some of the most commonly asked questions when it comes to creating a WordPress website with a shared web host.
What is WordPress and why do I need a host?
WordPress is a content management system, a script you install completely for free on a host. A content management system allows you to publish content, blog posts, pictures, videos and other multi-media without needing to code.
WordPress.com has different plans, I thought it was free!
WordPress.com is a website builder that incorporates the WordPress CMS and web hosting under one plan. Instead of getting your own shared host and then installing WordPress, WordPress.com allows you to easily create a WordPress website without installing anything.
However, WordPress.com is very expensive and limiting and should be avoided if you’re serious about building an online business with WordPress.
What’s the difference between a server and a host?
A server is a computer that houses and manages files on a network, whereas a host is an entity that provides the technology for server files to be viewed on a computer.
How much does it cost to host a website?
Hosting is cheap when just getting started. Most hosts offer what is called a shared hosting plan which is where you rent a small piece of the resources of a very powerful computer. In addition, it’s a common industry practice to offer low introduction rates.
As such, you can typically secure web hosting for the first year for under $10 a month. This does not include your domain name which is separate.
Can I upgrade my hosting later?
Yes absolutely. There is no need to over spend when getting started as all hosting services allow you to upgrade (or downgrade) your plan at any time. You may either do it yourself your hosting account dashboard or contact support for assistance.
Can I get a domain name for free?
A lot of web hosts offer a “free” domain name with purchase of a shared hosting plan. The catch is that it is only free for the first year and then after you’ll be paying more in renewal fees than you would if you had just gotten your domain at a domain name registrar. Learn more on how to register a domain name.
The Best Web Hosting For WordPress Conclusion
With WordPress hosting you have a lot of great options depending if you’re a new WordPress user or you run an established website or e-commerce store. For most new users looking to start a blog or website with WordPress I suggest going with Bluehost.
If you’re wanting to launch an ecommerce website powered by WordPress and WooCommerce I then suggest checking out SiteGround.
