Best WordPress Hosting Providers (and Worst) in 2023

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I understand how precious your time is, so here’s a straight-to-the-point and no-fluff guide on the best WordPress hosting providers available.

We’ll go over some WordPress hosts that are actually fast, reliable, and secure. Let’s get started, shall we?

Contents

Disclosure: You should always assume that pretty much every link on this site is an affiliate link, and if you click it and buy something you like, I’ll earn some money to help me buy a DeLorean, build a time machine, and travel back to the 90s so I can watch Hey Arnold! and eat Dunkaroos again.

TL;DR – Best WordPress Hosting

For those of you who just want to know what I recommend and don’t feel like reading anything else, here it is:

  • NameHero – favorite cheap WordPress host. It has Litespeed web servers, friendly and knowledgeable support, and good security via Imunify360. (my review)
  • Cloudways – favorite managed host for those who are getting decent traffic, making some money, and can stretch their budget to $10-13 per month. If you’re serious about your business, you can use Cloudways with either Vultr High Frequency (faster) or Digital Ocean (more stable). (my review)
  • Kinsta – for those who don’t want to have to worry about anything at all. This is where my main fitness site is hosted. They have great speeds, top-notch support, and good security. They even fix your site for free if it gets hacked. (my review)

Best Shared Hosting Providers

On shared hosts, your site is hosted on a server with other sites. This means that you’ll share resources like bandwidth and storage with others, which is typically why they’re so cheap.

Another downside is that if a site on your same server gets hacked, yours could be vulnerable as well.

These types of hosts can be good for those who are just testing a new business. But if you’re making some money already, jumping on a managed WordPress host might be a wiser choice.

That being said, here are a few good shared hosting providers:

  • NameHero – this is actually where this site is hosted. They have great speeds and use LiteSpeed web servers, which is the main reason I decided to try them and have kept this site with them. They also offer security through Imunify360 and Cloudflare with Railgun, which is not included in the regular free Cloudflare plan. (my review)
  • A2 Hosting – another good shared host. They offer LiteSpeed but only on their more expensive plans.
  • SiteGround – I personally think SiteGround is a bit overpriced for what they offer, especially when it’s time to renew your plan. But they still have good speeds. You’ll find some people that love them and some that really, really hate them. Their support is a hit or miss.
  • Guru – great for those looking for a host in the UK. They also use LiteSpeed web servers.

Best Managed WordPress Hosting Providers

Managed hosting can come in different forms, such as VPS and dedicated hosting.

The main benefits of using a managed WordPress host is that they keep their servers updated to the latest versions of PHP and MySQL, have faster speeds, offer better server-side security, and better support.

Those of you who are serious about your business should definitely consider using a managed WordPress host.

Here are some good ones:

  • Cloudways – this is one host that actually lives up to the hype. They’re fairly priced and offer great speeds. You can use it with Vultr High Frequency (HF) or Digital Ocean (DO). Vultr HF might give you better speeds, but some people have experienced some downtimes with it. DO will be more stable. Again, both are solid options and will cost only $10-13 per month.
  • Kinsta – this is where my main fitness site is hosted and they’re one of the fastest hosts I’ve tried. They use Google Cloud Platform and also offer high security, top-notch support, and free hack fix. They’ve even offered to help me with issues not related to their hosting or WordPress.
  • GridPane – this one a great option for developers who know what they’re doing. If you’re a beginner, you might want to skip this one.
  • Closte – one of the fastest hosts I’ve tried. They use LiteSpeed web servers and the Google Cloud Platform. Their support is somewhat non-existent, though. Some say they’re kind of rude, but I just think they come off as that because English isn’t their native language. Another thing about Closte is that they’re pay-as-you-go, so if you don’t know how to optimize your site to consume fewer resources, you might end up with a high bill. If you’re purely after site speed and don’t rely much on support, Closte might be what you’re looking for. However, if you’re not a techie person, I would pass on this one as well.
  • Rocket.net – this is one host that I haven’t tried but have heard great feedback from people I trust. They are a bit pricey, but they actually include Cloudflare Enterprise on all their plans, so that’s crazy good. They were also founded in 2020, so they’re still pretty new. It’s up to you if you want to try them.
  • WP Engine – this is an extremely popular web host. They’re beginner-friendly and offer okay speeds. You can use it if you want, but I would personally go why any of the other options I mentioned.

Underperforming WordPress Hosts

Lastly, we’ll take a look at hosts you’d probably not want anything to do with.

These hosts aren’t really on the hosting business, but the money business.

Their target audience is basically newbies who don’t know what they’re doing and just buy whatever some random affiliate told them to.

They basically profit from people’s mistakes. Once you realize how bad they are, you’ll just leave and make room for other newbies.

  • Bluehost – advertised everywhere and probably one of the worst ones available. They have a very good affiliate program, which is why it’s promoted so aggressively. Their loading times are super slow and some of their support reps don’t know what they’re doing (they’re friendly, but that doesn’t mean they’re good at their jobs). They lure beginners with their “low prices” but then hit them with a ton of upsells. Just don’t do Bluehost, okay?
  • HostGator – slow speeds and several complaints about downtimes.
  • GoDaddy – pretty bad loading times and several horror stories of them aggressively upselling people expensive stuff.
NameHero Comment 9
  • Hostinger – slow and not so good customer service. They’ve also been banned from several Facebook groups for spamming with their products.
  • IONOS by 1&1 – just skip this one, okay?
  • Namecheap – great for registering and hosting your domain name, but that’s about it. Their web hosting service is pretty slow.
  • BigScoots – slow and plenty of downtime, same issues as HostGator.
  • DreamHost – nope. Also slow and frequent downtimes.

I’m pretty sure the affiliates promoting these companies wouldn’t recommend them to you if you were a close friend.

They only recommend them because they don’t know you and probably never will. They have no problem taking advantage of random strangers.

Don’t worry, though. I’m not an eggplant.

What to Look for in a Host

  • Fast speeds – let’s face it. The reason you’re even reading this post is that you’re trying to find a fast web host.
  • Good uptime – the last thing you want is your website going down every month. Or even worse, have it go down during a sale you’re running.
  • Good security – for most of you reading this, your website is your business. You put countless hours into writing and promoting content, setting up products, and other things. You may also store customers’ data. Could you imagine getting hacked and losing everything? Pretty terrible, huh? While there are some security plugins out there, this is something that should be handled on the server-side, not a plugin.
  • Fairly priced – obviously, you want to find something that you can comfortably afford.

What Not to Look for in a Host

  • Free SSL – almost every host offers this for free, so don’t let this be a selling point.
  • Free domain name – hosts that offer free domain names tend to charge like $12/year for privacy protection, so you aren’t really getting a better deal. In fact, you’ll end up spending more because the price often triples upon renewal. For example, Bluehost gives you a free domain for the first year but charges you $24/year thereafter + $12/year for privacy protection. You can get it cheaper at $8-12 per year with free privacy protection forever from Namecheap or Google Domains. Besides, it’s good practice to keep your domain name separate from your hosting provider.
  • Unlimited everything – some cheap shared hosting providers boast about giving users unlimited everything, but that’s not technically true. Once you start consuming too many resources, these hosting companies throttle your website (slow it down) and force you to upgrade plans or change hosting providers to open up space for other newbies who’ll hopefully not consume too many resources and fall for their upsells. Some companies also kick you out for being a resource hog.
  • Free Cloudflare – lol, Cloudflare has a free plan available to everyone, so no need to use a host just because they offer Cloudflare integration. Some hosts, however, offer other premium Cloudflare features. For example, NameHero customers get Railgun included in all their plans.

To Conclude

Your hosting provider will have a great impact on your site speed and security. So make sure that you choose a good one, okay?

Have questions? Feel free to leave them below or ask in the new Facebook group.

Chris

Christian Coulson

Christian is an industrial engineer who's used his knowledge and experience to grow 7Sigma Physiques—his fitness coaching business and blog with thousands of monthly readers.

Comments

  1. Very informative post, I wish I had stumbled upon it before I chose a host. You are right, beginners usually choose Bluehost because its affiliate program is so powerful. I guess if there is anything worse than choosing Bluehost that would be choosing GoDaddy, lol!

    Reply
  2. I totally agree, choosing the right blog hosting is super important, and sad to say people who are at that level in their blog probably aren’t as familiar as these should be. They go with the cheap option and regret it later.

    Reply

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