For 90% of people looking to create their own website, using a hosting provider is the best option.
Creating and hosting a website from scratch means either having an excellent knowledge of coding or employing someone with excellent coding knowledge (not to mention security issues).
While hosting your own website can create exceptional results, it’s an expensive way for the average person to develop and host a website that just isn’t necessary. Unless you have unique requirements, a website hosting platform is the way forward.
The problem is, if you search for a “website hosting provider” online, you’ll get over 91 million results. That’s a lot of options.
So, what is a website hosting platform? How can you choose a provider for your website? What is the best website hosting service? Which is the most affordable and which is worth the extra spend?
We’ve broken down everything you need to know about the top website hosting platforms for 2022.
How To Pick The Best Website Hosting Platform For You
A website hosting platform or hosting service is an online software service that allows anyone to create and maintain a website. It’s how people find your website online.
These hosting services also offer security features and data storage so your website is safe, up-to-date and you can make changes whenever you like.
You first need to consider what you are looking for from your hosting service. If you want to set up a blog, you’ll have different requirements from someone setting up an eCommerce shop.
You might want to be able to access more than one site, have your own domain name or need a considerable amount of storage. Some people find looking at stats crucial, so the more, the better. For others, stats are less important, so there is no point in paying for data that you just won’t use.
Of course, price is a crucial factor for many people.
Before choosing your host provider, make a list of what you want and what you are willing to pay. This will help guide you and ensure that, in the end, you’re happy with your host platform.
Once you know what your want, check out the list below of our favourite website hosting platforms.
The Ultimate List Of Website Hosting Services
** Best Overall **
Cloudways
If you want a flexible, bespoke service for an affordable price, Cloudways come top of the list.
Unlike other hosting services, Cloudways doesn’t have its own servers. Instead, it uses different data centres such as Google Cloud, Linode, DigitalOcean and Amazon AWS, which offers increased flexibility of use and incredible speeds.
It offers a range of fully customisable features, making it easy to create your perfect website, manage multiple sites, and add plugins and apps. All the tools are user-friendly, so it has some of the shortest setup times of any hosting platform.
Cloudways offers Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates, Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) authentication for added security. If you want to host an eCommerce site, Cloudways has some of the best security in the business.
It isn’t the cheapest option with prices starting from $10 a month and going up to over $1,00, but you only pay for what you actually use, so it’s worth the extra spend. The only real downside is that a domain name isn’t free with basic plans, so you will have to buy your own elsewhere.
Unlike some other services, Cloudways offers testing options before the site goes live, so if you’re building from scratch or want to try something new but don’t want to risk the public seeing it, Cloudways has you covered.
Alternative Website Hosting Providers
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is a less well-known hosting site but offers a flexible range of services. It has unmetered bandwidth and is known for providing super-fast speeds. It is super reliable with almost no downtime with very few issues.
The servers are monitored 24/7 to stop issues, keep your site safe from hackers, and provide excellent stats. A2 Hosting had a range of well-developed tools to make editing your site and adding content super easy. A2 isn’t WordPress exclusive, although it can host WordPress sites and Magneto, Joomla, OpenCart and more.
There is a range of plans, and you can migrate an existing site across for free. The excellent thing about A2 Hosting is that unlike other sites, which offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, with A2, you can get your money back at any time.
Bluehost
Bluehost is another top-rated website hosting platform. Like many other platforms, it offers a range of servers depending on what you need. It’s officially endorsed by WordPress, so the number of features, flexibility and services for WordPress sites are excellent.
There is a brilliantly affordable basic plan for entry-level websites without much customisation, from just $2.75 per month. Additional security and backup options are available but cost a little extra. Another potential cost to consider is the migration cost; this isn’t free, unlike other services.
Bluehost offers a reasonable 50GB disk space, free SSL, unmetered bandwidth, a free domain name and a 24/7 support service (although this can sometimes be slow!). The customer service has an impressive average wait time of under five minutes, so although it’s unlikely you’ll need support, it’s easy to get if you do.
Flywheel
Flywheel could be perfect for you if you love WordPress as it is a WordPress-only platform. It has a full range of features, and like Cloudways, the experience is fully-managed, so it’s easy to use and understand no matter how limited your knowledge of IT is.
It is limited to WordPress, and its plans can be pricey if your site stores a lot of data. It is also limited to a 5GB disk space. However, it offers free site migration and has exceptional security and performance data reviews, so you can get behind the scenes and see what’s working and what isn’t.
Part of Flywheel’s popularity is its simplified dashboard. If you get overwhelmed trying to work out what’s what, Flywheel is very easy to understand. The excellent support service can handle any issue you may run into.
So, while it isn’t that sophisticated and is limited in terms of features, Flywheel is one of the best for basic hosting on WordPress.
GoDaddy
With 82 million domains, GoDaddy is the most popular hosting platform for a good reason. If you want a basic service, it has a free plan that is surprisingly good and includes a free business email for a year.
It offers unmetered bandwidth, 100GB of disk space, free domain name, 24/7 support services, and excellent security monitoring. Its dedicated servers are designed to host websites that see a high volume of traffic and need super-fast speeds.
You are limited to one website making it less appropriate for people who would like several sites on one server, but it has a wide range of functions. You’ll pay extra for a custom feature, but GoDaddy can offer it to you for a fairly reasonable price if you need it.
GoDaddy has a fantastic range of tutorial videos to help you get to grips with hosting platforms if you don’t know where to start.
GreenGeeks
If being environmentally friendly is one of your worries, GreenGeeks is the hosting platform for you. It’s shocking, but experts believe web hosting platforms contribute more CO2 to the environment than the airline industry. But GreenGeeks partners with environmentally-friendly energy producers to minimise its impact.
It comes with everything you need for consistently good entry-level hosting. It has no downtime, 24-hour support, unmetered disk space, offers a free domain name and even has daily backups.
Prices start from a reasonable $2.49 per month, and there are several plans to choose from.
However, compared to a hosting platform like Cloudways, which is fully managed, it can get a bit technical and overwhelming if you do not know about hosting. The plans are also less flexible than Cloudways, so you might pay for some features you don’t use.
Conclusion
Picking the right website hosting service for you can be intimidating, and it isn’t always easy. But it’s worth spending some time to get it right. After all, this service is responsible for looking after your website.
But don’t panic; most hosting platforms offer a 30-day money-back guarantee and free migration, so you can try a few until you find the one that’s right for you.
