Choosing the best hosting provider is by far the most important aspect to build a website. Your site’s SEO, user experience and ultimately your website’s success all rely on which hosting service provider you use.
When you are first starting out, it can be an overwhelming task to choose the best WordPress hosting service due to hundreds of companies to choose from. Even if you narrow down the list by looking for popular ones like Bluehost, HostGator, WP Engine, etc, you might still have many options to choose from.
So, to help you choose the best hosting services for your website, we have compared and contrast 3 of the most popular hosting providers in terms of their key features, pros and cons, pricing, load time, uptime and supports. At the end of the blog, you can get a clear view of which of these hosting service providers can be the best one for your WordPress website.
With that being said, let’s get started with the comparison and find out which is the best WordPress hosting provider:
Bluehost
- Average Load Time: 689ms
- Average Uptime: 99.99%
- Support: 9/10
Overview:
Bluehost is one of the most popular hosting service provider officially recommended by WordPress.org. It offers wide varieties of centric hosting plans for WordPress, such as shared hosting, managed hosting and WooCommerce hosting. Along with the WordPress centric option, it also provides shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting services to their users.
Key Features:
- 1 Click WordPress Installation
- Single Click Upgrade to VPS or Dedicated Server
- Enhanced cPanel
- VPS Based
- Standard Performance
- Free SSL Certificate Included
Pros:
- The introductory pricing of Bluehost is quite reasonable for startups.
- A free domain name for a year is included
- The plan comes with a CDN and SSL certificate
- Most of the plans include unlimited disk storage, email addresses and bandwidth
- The enhanced cPanel is really easy to use and offers fast access feature
- eCommerce features are good with multiple shopping carts and SSL security
Cons:
- The renewable rate of Bluehost is higher than average
- Site migrations are not free
Pricing:
- Basic: $3.95/month
- Plus: $5.95/month
- Choice: 5.95/month
Learn more about: Bluehost- Best Web WordPress Hosting Providers
HostGator
- Average Load Time: 691ms
- Average Uptime: 99.96%
- Support: 10/10
Overview:
HostGator is one of the most popular hosting providers on the market. It was founded in 2002 and is currently powering over 8 million+ websites around the world. It offers varieties of hosting options, including WordPress cloud hosting. The WordPress cloud hosting is specially optimized hosting services for WordPress websites. It speeds up your hosting performance 2.5 times faster than a shared hosting platform.
Key Features:
- Simple WordPress Cloud Interface
- Supercharged Speed – Global CDN Included
- Advanced Security
- Seamless Scalability
- Easy to Use cPanel
- Quick Transfer Service and Installation
Pros:
- Each plan comes with access to global CDN and a free SSL certificate
- Flexible billing periods with both monthly and yearly payments
- Free migration service with all new accounts and no extra cost up to 30 days of signing up
Cons:
- No free domain available
- High renewable cost
Pricing:
- Starter Plan: $5.95/month
- Standard Plan: $7.95/month
- Business Plan: $9.95/month
Learn more about: HostGator – Fastest WordPress Hosting
WP Engine
- Average Load Time: 592ms
- Average Uptime: 99.99%
- Support: 9/10
Overview:
WP Engine is a leading hosting service provider that offers best managed hosting solutions for WordPress. It provides everything you need to keep your WordPress website highly scalable, speedy and secure. The service includes one-click WordPress staging and restore, built in CDN, enhanced security direct SFTP, etc.
Key Features:
- One Click Restore Point
- Reliable and Superb Support
- Firewall Protection
- Evercache for Massive Scalability and Super Speed
- Single Click SSL Certificate
- CDN Ready
Pros:
- Well optimized for WordPress users
- Site staging included as a standard feature
- Automated site migration plugin for easy migration
- Malware scanning and firewall protection is included in every hosting plan
- Unlimited monthly data transfer
Cons:
- Quite expensive compared to other hosting service providers
- Traffic and storage caps for each hosting plan
- No domain registration option
- Many plugins are needed to be disallowed because they might conflict with or duplicate WP Engine’s feature
Pricing:
- Startup: $35/month
- Growth: $155/month
- Scale: $290/month
Learn more about: WP Engine – Managed Hosting for WordPress
Wrapping Up
At this point, we are pretty sure you have already got the key performance difference between these 3 hosting service providers. For beginners, Bluehost is the best choice as it comes with varieties of hosting plans. When you start out, you can choose the hosting service at the price that costs just $3.95/month. WP Engine, on the other hand, is one of the best-managed WordPress hosting solution available on the market. It comes with superb features and support to easily optimize your WordPress hosting. While for HostGator, you will have excellent customer support and a very flexible pricing plan with yearly and monthly basis.
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