The Best Hosting providers are:
- InMotion – Best overall hosting provider.
- A2 Hosting – Best value for money.
- Bluehost – Best features.
- iPage – Best for customer service.
- HostGator – Best for reliability.
- HostPapa – Best RAM and storage space.
- GoDaddy – Best for extra features.
- DreamHost – Best bandwidth.
- Liquid web – Best option for service
- Siteground – Best for customer service second place
- Namecheap – Runner up for best features
- Just Host – Best cloud hosting
- Kamatera – Best servers
- Scala Hosting – Best service for hosting
- Hostinger – Runner up best overall host for VPS provider
- Media Temple – Best for hosting customer service weekend
- Hostwinds – Best for long term projects
- Fastcomet – Best for small projects
- GoDaddy – Most reliable service
- Interserver – Best extra hosting features
The Best Web Hosting providers in 2020 are:
- InMotion – Best overall hosting provider.
- A2 Hosting – Best value for money.
- Bluehost – Best features.
- iPage – Best for customer service.
- HostGator – Best for reliability.
- HostPapa – Best RAM and storage space.
- GoDaddy – Best for extra features.
- DreamHost – Best bandwidth.
- Liquid web – Best option for service
- Siteground – Best for customer service second place
- Namecheap – Runner up for best features
- Just Host – Best cloud hosting
- Kamatera – Best servers
- Scala Hosting – Best service for hosting
- Hostinger – Runner up best overall host for VPS provider
- Media Temple – Best for hosting customer service weekend
- Hostwinds – Best for long term projects
- Fastcomet – Best for small projects
- GoDaddy – Most reliable service
- Interserver – Best extra hosting features
The Best Web Hosting provider options are:
| Hosting provider | Rating | Disk space |
| InMotion – Best overall hosting provider. | 5 | 5.0 |
| A2 Hosting – Best value for money. | 4.8 | 4.3 |
| Bluehost – Best features. | 4.5 | 4.2 |
| iPage – Best for customer service. | 4.7 | 4.0 |
| HostGator – Best for reliability. | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| HostPapa – Best RAM and storage space. | 4.7 | 3.9 |
| GoDaddy – Best for extra features. | 4.8 | 4.7 |
| DreamHost – Best bandwidth. | 4.5 | 5.0 |
| Liquid web – Best option for service | 4.3 | 4.9 |
| Siteground – Best for customer service second place | 4.5 | 3.5 |
| Namecheap – Runner up for best features | 4.1 | 3.1 |
| Just Host – Best cloud hosting | 4.5 | 3.8 |
| Kamatera – Best servers | 4.3 | 3.6 |
| Scala Hosting – Best service for hosting | 4.7 | 4.6 |
| Hostinger – Runner up best overall host for VPS provider | 4.3 | 4.5 |
| Media Temple – Best for hosting customer service weekend | 4.5 | 4.4 |
| Hostwinds – Best for long term projects | 4 | 4.0 |
| Fastcomet – Best for small projects | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| GoDaddy – Most reliable service | 4.3 | 3.8 |
| Interserver – Best extra hosting features | 3.7 | 3.7 |
A good host should have the following:
- Disk Space
- Good customer service with help & support
- Good uptime
- Additional features
- Fair Pricing
Sidney Alexander - official Digitizd reviewer
This is also exactly how we test the hosts out there.
Top 6 Options for Web Hosting
Every website needs a host to keep it online. Your choice of host will have a huge impact on your experience of managing a website and your audience’s experience of using it. We have rounded up six of the best web hosts available today in a range of categories to help you find the right one for you, regardless of previous experience.
#1 Best Web Host – InMotion Hosting | Best Overall
InMotion Hosting is one of the biggest web hosting companies in the world. InMotion stands out because it offers plans that cater to bloggers, small and large businesses, or anyone who needs web hosting. InMotion is known for its reliability, stellar customer support, and a broad range of services and hosting plan options.
After pricing, a web hosts’ servers’ speeds should be the next metric you look at. InMotion stands above other web host providers because all its servers use SSD storage, which is multitudes faster than hard drives that use spinning disks.
Although websites hosting on inMotion are fast, we wanted to see who they would perform under serious load. Their shared hosting plan started slowing down after about 25 visitors but their dedicated and VPS plans did not slow down until there were thousands of visitors on our test website. Additionally, all the servers we tested had a latency of less than a second no matter where we were connecting from, which means websites hosted on this web host would perform well and be up to the standards Google sets for website load times.
InMotion offers excellent customer support with questions answered quickly and by knowledgeable staff. We were able to reach their agents through chat, phone, and by sending email tickets. In addition to the instantaneous answers we got on live chat on the phone, we also received detailed answers over emails in a few hours.
InMotion has also partnered with leading e-commerce services to make it easier to establish and run a successful e-commerce website. If you do not want to use tools like Prestashop, you can opt for their WordPress hosting plan, which gives you all the tools you need to start a WooCommerce store. The ease of integrating payment and other partners is a big plus as is the level of help you get if you get stuck anywhere along the way.
If you use Google Apps, InMotion makes it easy to connect your Google Apps to your account. In contrast to other web hosts who make you pay for these integrations, InMotion does not, and neither does it need you to configure complex settings just to get things working.
Important Points:
- All InMotion hosting servers use SSD storage which makes them lighting fast
- 90-day money-back guarantee
- Free website transfers from your current host.
- Hosting Plans: Shared, Dedicated, VPS, WordPress, Reseller, Managed
Pros
Cons
#2 Best Web Host – Bluehost | Runnerup
On paper, BlueHost has an impressive offering. They are also one of the oldest and most instantly recognizable names in the web hosting industry. But how does their service stack up under real-world conditions?
One of the most important statistics for any web hosting service is their overall uptime. All major providers now advertise uptimes of 99.9%+. Under real-world conditions, sustaining a 100% uptime over the course of a month is considered impressive. Most providers will average 99.98% or more for the month. In the case of BlueHost, a test conducted by hostingfacts.com revealed that BlueHost had hit the fabled 100% mark seven out of the last 12 months.
Another important metric for web hosts is their load speed. Google has conducted audits in the past that have revealed a significant portion of mobile websites aren’t loading anywhere near as efficiently as they should. Google gives a lot of weight to mobile optimization when determining SEO scores, a poor load speed because of a bad host will hurt a website’s visibility. In this aspect, BlueHost isn’t quite top of the pack, but it is definitely in the top 10 of all providers and is probably skimming the top 5, depending on the specific data used to compare them.
Other than performance, BlueHost is also one of the most reasonably priced hosting providers we have come across. Their introductory packages begin at just $3.95/month, which is itself a reduction from their old asking price of $7.99/month. That introductory package isn’t too shabby either, it comes with 50 GB of SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, an SSL certificate on the house, and everything else that a budding website needs to start growing. All things considered, it’s a pretty good deal.
BlueHost offers industry-standard security, which is a good thing when it comes to web hosts. Some hosts will boast about their encryption protocols, but the reality is that any modern encryption standard is going to stand up to the kind of cyber vandalism that most new websites are worried about.
BlueHost is officially recommended by WordPress, which is always good to know if you plan to build your site on the WordPress platform. BlueHost also supports a range of other integrations, apps, and other features and platforms, you will have plenty to choose from.
Important Points:
- Features: Unmetered bandwidth and storage, email accounts, free domain 1st year
- Support: 24/7 live chat
- Hosting plans: Dedicated, shared, VPS, Cloud
Pros
Cons
#3 Best Web Host – HostGator | Best Value Cloud
HostGator is another instantly recognizable name in the field of web hosting. Their shared hosting package has received an upgrade in the form of the ‘Cloud’ edition, which HostGator claims is faster and better for scaling than regular shared hosting.
HostGator Cloud comes in very strong in the key metrics. Over a period of four consecutive months, hostingfacts.com tested HostGator’s uptime and it hit 100% every time. That’s not something that you see very often, even when you test these things as part of your job. The same website also noted that, over a 24-month testing period, HostGator’s uptime dipped below that all-important 99.90% mark, the minimum uptime guarantee that most web hosts offer. What does dipping below that figure mean? In the case of HostGator, it means the user is entitled to a refund for the entire month. Overall, HostGator is one of the more reliable hosts out there and they stand by their guarantees.
The biggest benefit to HostGator’s Cloud service compared to their regular shared hosting is the speed gain. The company claims that its cloud service is up to twice as fast as regular shared servers. This claim is borne out by the data, which shows HostGator’s cloud service offering speeds that place them well within the top five fastest web hosting services available.
HostGator also benefits from excellent customer service and one of the most intuitive control panels we have seen. Organizing all your admin tools is a breeze and they even offer free cPanel migration if you need to move over from another host. Unfortunately, there are many types of websites that HostGator cannot migrate for you. If you do run into any difficulties then the customer support is fantastic, you can usually resolve your problem within a reasonable amount of time.
Important Points:
- Features: Unmetered bandwidth and storage, email accounts, free domain 1st year
- Support: 24/7 live chat
- Hosting plans: Cloud, VPS, dedicated, shared, WordPress
Pros
Cons
#4 Best Web Host – Hostinger | Cheapest Price Host
Hostinger is among the cheapest hosting providers on the market today. If you are looking to keep your costs as low as possible than Hostinger is the way to go. Don’t let the low price fool you, though. Hostinger is a well-established web hosting provider with a solid reputation and while their cheap package doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of its more expensive competitors, it still provides everything you need to get your website going.
First of all, the important stuff. Hostinger’s uptime is easily 99%+, but in the world of web hosting, even 99.65%, which is the lowest monthly uptime that we measured for Hostinger, is considered low. However, in practice, this is still a reliable figure and visitors to your website are still unlikely to have difficulty accessing it.
Important Points:
- Features: 100 GB bandwidth, 10 GB storage, website builder, 1 email account
- Support: 24/7 live chat support
- Hosting plans: VPS, shared, cloud
Pros
Cons
#5 Best Web Host – DreamHost | Pay Monthly, No Higher Renewals
DreamHost has been in the business since the mid-’90s, so you know that they know their stuff. Over the last couple of decades, DreamHost has amassed over 1.5 million websites, blogs, and online applications across the 100 countries that it is operating in. DreamHost’s current hosting service is one of the better mid-tier services out there.
Their average uptime is just below the all-important 99.95% figure, which is considered low, although it is statistically above average. It is also worth noting that DreamHost has also achieved 100% uptime for three of the last 12 months and 99.99% on three more.
However, in practical terms, this is still a reliable enough service that your website will be down for around half an hour over the course of a month. In terms of speed, DreamHost comes in just above average at 648ms over a 24-month period.
Overall, DreamHost offers a good service at an affordable price. It isn’t a pack leader in any regard, but it does everything well enough to justify its price tag. The standout feature of DreamHost is that its subscription costs don’t increase when the plan renews.
Important Points:
- Features: Unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, free domain 1st year
- Support: Ticketing and call back system
- Hosting plans: Dedicated, shared, VPS, cloud, WordPress
Pros
Cons
#6 Best Web Host – SiteGround | Best Customer Support
SiteGround is by far the best host to go with if you value comprehensive customer support. If you are choosing your very first web host then it might help you to have access to a robust customer support system. They also have an average uptime rate of 99.99%, they are one of the most reliable hosts out there.
The speeds that SiteGround offers aren’t bad, but it is a shame that they remain in the 600ms or more range. If the speeds were better, SiteGround would truly be offering the whole package. These relatively slow speeds are part of what hinders the most basic plans that SiteGround offers. Overall, we would still recommend SiteGround as the best option for beginners who are likely to need to utilize the customer support available.
Important Points:
- Features: Unmetered bandwidth, 10 GB storage, website builder, and free email
- Support: 24/7 live chat system
- Hosting plans: Shared, WordPress, Cloud, Reseller, Enterprise, and Dedicated Servers
Pros
Cons
If you are going to invest the time and money necessary to produce a professional website, you don’t want to let yourself down with an unreliable host. Take your time and look through the five hosts above to find the one offering the services and features that you need. If you are specifically looking for a VPS host then read our other guide.
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FAQs relating to best hosting providers
According to my testing Hostinger as the cheapest host that makes our best web hosting list. Their plans start from $0.99/month.
Depending on how big and complex your website is i think somewhere between $3-$10 per month. If you are starting out with your first website you should consider a cheaper option from my list of the top web hosts.
We rate Bluehost the best overall for several reasons but in reality it depends on your needs. To get a better understanding of whats on offer out there I recommend you read my guide to the top web hosts.