Choosing the right hosting for your WordPress website is very important. Your website’s health will rely on the hosting provider your use.
But how do you know which one is the best WordPress host?
There’s so many to choose from: Bluehost, SiteGround, HostGator… etc.
I tested out 7 most popular “WordPress” hosting providers and checked their uptime over a period of 12 months.
Full disclosure: I earn a commission if you end up purchasing any of the web hosting services listed on this site through my referral links. This helps me to keep WebsiteSetup up-to-date. Thanks for your support.
P.S. I cannot guarantee you will get similar uptime or speed to your website as this varies on several different factors such as the hosting package you choose, your site size and the number of visitors your website gets.
5 Best WordPress Hosting Services
Let’s jump to the best hosting providers first, then move down the list to see which ones you should avoid. Without further ado, here are the 10 best web hosts for WordPress:
1. Bluehost (www.Bluehost.com)
Bluehost is a popular hosting service among small business owners and bloggers. Hence the reason, I’m recommending Bluehost for people who want to create their website using WordPress.
They’re hosting more than 2 million websites and they belong to EIG who also owns HostGator.
How did Bluehost compare? Turns out quite good:
Their last 12-month average uptime is >99.99% and load time is 406ms. This means they’re the most reliable web hosting with only 1 hour of downtime per year. Surely a strong top 1 host.
BlueHost has 24/7 customer service available for any questions you may have regarding website setup. They’re not cheap, though. Prices start at $2.75 per month, but they throw in a free domain name (for 1-year) plus site migration for new accounts, too.
2. HostGator Cloud (www.HostGator.com)
According to their website, they host more than 10 million domains making them one of the most popular web hosting providers on the planet (next to GoDaddy).HostGator was founded back in 2003 by Brent Oxley and later sold to Endurance International Group (EIG).
And for a reason!
Their last 10-month average load time is 421ms and uptime 99.97%. Not bad, in, over the past 12 months they were offline for only 3 hours. Plus, they were the third fastest web hosting service, only beaten by A2 Hosting (with a lower avg. uptime).
To give you a better overview of HostGator Cloud performance, take a look at the graph below (last 10 months):
Keep in mind that this isn’t a regular, HostGator shared hosting option. It’s the new and improved cloud hosting. They come with a pricey cost – $13.99/mo, but they’re currently discounted to $2.99/mo if you decide to buy 1 month or 6-month plan. After that, it renews to the regular price.
3. SiteGround (www.SiteGround.com)
In terms of uptime, SiteGround maintained an average uptime of 99.99% followed by a solid (not the best) load time of 714ms.In this example, the “Start-Up Plan” (cheapest) is being used to monitor uptime and average load time.
We also tested out their customer support by connecting with their live chat and asked several questions to evaluate their support team. They were friendly and helpful, answering questions quickly.
Additionally, SiteGround offers free transfers for existing website and they’re officially recommended by WordPress.
4. A2 Hosting (www.A2Hosting.com)
Note from editor: We’ve put A2 Hosting here because they had the best load time. If we only take a look at their uptime, they wouldn’t be listed as #4th.
A2 Hosting is quite new in the WordPress hosting niche (founded in 2001). They became more popular only lately.
They claim to be 20x faster than their competitors. Somehow, they managed to achieve faster load time than SiteGround or HostGator.
They averaged 392ms in a period of 12 months. That is basically instant page loading, making impatient people happy because they won’t have to wait for pages to load. A2 Hosting implements caching, which stores data in a visitor’s browser, so they won’t have to request information from your website every time someone tries to access it.
Unfortunately, their uptime has slipped over the past few months to an average of 99.91% (currently 8 hours of downtime over a period of 12 months).
A2 offers 24/7 customer support through their live chat, email, phone, and ticketing systems. I checked this out by contacting their live support and they responded instantly with easy-to-understand responses.
5. Site5 Hosting (www.Site5.com)
Site5, founded in 1999 by Matt Lightner (and later sold to EIG) promises the best web hosting for serious web designers.
After testing them for 12 months, Site5 delivered below average site load time of 704ms:
Their uptime isn’t anything spectacular. In fact, similarly to iPage, their avg. uptime over a period of 12 months is also 99.98% (ranked #6th).
They do provide good support through live chat, email, and phone support in case you have questions, along with a 90-day money back guarantee if you’d like to try them out anyway.
Site5 offers 3 pricing plans. The first, “hostBasic” is $6.95 per month, which allows you to have one website and free migrations. The second plan, “hostPro+Turbo” is $11.95 per month, which offers 24/7 live chat support, free migrations, and a free dedicated IP. The last plan, “hostPro” comes at $8.95 and offers unlimited websites and free migrations.