The Best WordPress Hosting Platforms - Tested and Reviewed

• Hot Topics
• Top Hosting Companies
• What is WordPress?
• What is Web Hosting?
• WP Hosting Requirements
• Features and Performance

When it comes to running a website today, one of the first things you will want to do is find a platform to build it on. Sure, you could learn how to code and design and build it all from scratch. But who has time for that? Besides, with WordPress, you do not need to!

In this article, we are going to help you fully understand why WordPress hosting is so useful, and what you need to know to make more informed decisions about picking up the best WP hosting platforms for your needs.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that many websites use today. Having been around for a long time now, WP is a dominant website hosting system. Incredibly easy to use and manage, this PHP and MySQL-mixed platform makes web design easy. It helps to make web development fast by putting everything into an easy, intuitive graphical user interface (GUI).

With over 33% of all websites powered by WordPress, it is a hugely common platform to use for website design. The fact it is open source and free means that using it in the web industry is now commonplace. It is strong, it is committed to development and it is improving all the time. There is a reason why, for many people, WordPress is the dominant party when it comes to making website development simpler. However, like any other website, it needs to be hosted.

What is Web Hosting?

If you wish to run a WordPress website, it needs a place to stay. A ‘home’. For a website, that home is a hosting platform. Many hosting platforms exist, which can make choosing the right one pretty tough. The hosting platform, though, does matter. Good quality hosting is fast, reliable, secure, safe, and scalable to match your ambitions. Poor quality hosting, though, is none of these things.

Web Hosting is needed as your website needs a place to stay. Basically, the WordPress files that make up your website will be stored on a server. That server then allows your website to be visible online. By searching for your website or visiting it via its URL (www dot example dot com), people can then find your website ‘at home’ – it is like the post code or address of your website.

You need hosting because, without hosting, your website cannot be seen. It cannot be developed. It cannot be used. That is why you need not only web hosting, but quality WordPress hosting!

How Do You Test for the Best Platforms?

Of course, if you intend on using WordPress, you need to host your website somewhere. We will break down what actually matters when dealing with WP hosting shortly. For now, though, just know that you need to find a website hosting platform that can allow you to host a WordPress website.

With so many to pick from, you might not be sure where to start. That is fine, we have broken down the most effective web hosting platforms based on factors including, but not limited to:

• Ease of use
• Affordability and value
• Quality of support
• Range of features
• Hosting options

This should give you enough information to make more informed choices about the kind of WP hosting that you are looking for.

WordPress Hosting Requirements

First off, when you start looking for good WordPress web hosting, the bare minimum that it should have include:

• 1-click installation - This allows for you to package and piece together the WordPress system without having to manually upload files using a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client.
• PHP version 7 or above - If you are using WordPress hosting, or considering using one, that does not have PHP version 7, you need to look around.
• MySQL version 5.6 or above - This is the same as PHP v7: if you are using or thinking about using hosting without this, look beyond this platform.
• Quality WordPress support - The last thing that you should expect, and demand of your WordPress hosting platform is that they provide you with hosting assistance. If you are unsure of anything you are doing, then the support team should be there to assist.

If you keep all of the above in mind, you should find it a bit easier to make more informed decisions. However, there is much, much more to picking good WP web hosting than simply the above. If your WordPress hosting does not provide the above, though, keep looking!

What Matters When Choosing Web Hosting?

So, when making the choice of what actually matters beyond the above, the needs can be quite subjective. We are though going to break down what we think maters most when you are making your choice.

Value and Cost

The first and most obvious thing to do is work out how much you can afford to spend on hosting. WordPress hosting can be less than $50/year, or it could be upwards of $100/month. It depends on what you need, where you wish to take your website and how specific and private you wish the hosting platform to be.

Keep that in mind, though, and you can get better value for your business. Nobody can tell you what you can and cannot afford, though. Take the time to work out what your budget can stretch to and consider starting out with a smaller plan. As time goes on, you could move to a more ambitious hosting style in the future.

Hosting Style

The next most important thing to take on is the hosting style of your WordPress host. Many people make the mistake of not properly managing hosting. They mess around and pick a hosting service that is entirely unsuited to their needs. To help you avoid making that mistake, we have broken down the three most important types of services: Shared, Dedicated and Managed hosting.

These types of hosting are among the most useful in the industry and make up the bulk of the web hosting offers you will receive. So, what matters when it comes to choosing a solid hosting type?

Just quickly, though: NEVER use free WordPress hosting. The limitations on what you can do with your website are simply too big to deal with. They are very much limited and tend to offer very little in terms of support, consistency, or reliability. It is better to pay for quality.

Shared vs Dedicated Hosting

The most common form of hosting that you might wish to try out is Shared Hosting. This has become the market staple for many people and means that your website is sharing server space with other websites. While it does mean you are limited to how big your website can be and it does limit things like loading speeds and support dedication, it does offer an affordable way for most small-to-medium sized business owners to get online in a short space of time.

It also allows for you to get the simplest and most affordable programs. If your website does grow beyond a certain size and scope in terms of visitors, though, you will likely be forced to upgrade to a Dedicated hosting platform. This is the equivalent of moving out of a rented apartment and instead into a mortgaged home.

You get far more support; you have total control over the load speed of your site, and you share no space with anyone. This means that all the server space, server features, server support and server bandwidth all belong to you. You are in total control. You will, though, pay a lot more for dedicated hosting. If you intend on running a website that is going to be for eCommerce, for example, you might wish to consider using Dedicated. Or also VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting options, but it’s again shared with others.

For most companies, though, you will find that either Shared or Dedicated WordPress Hosting will be the perfect hosting type for your needs.

Do You Need Managed Hosting?

There are times when Managed hosting might be more suitable. Managed hosting is the most effective form of hosting for hassle-free, lag-free connectivity. It is usually a bit more expensive, though, where you could be paying a considerable sum of money per month to get the managed hosting that you need.

It is the most powerful form of hosting, with everything optimised for performance, for security and for regular backups of your site. They can even help you to make the most of your website in terms of finding the right set-up, plug-ins, and add-ons for maximising performance. It comes at a cost, though, so be prepared to put your hand into your pocket if you wish to use a Managed Web Hosting service.

Features and Performance

You want to know that you are getting access to a good quality WP hosting service. This means that they should be able to provide you with a few guarantees along the way. For example, the most important factors that you need to look at outside of the hosting type alone are the following:

• The speed - Any WordPress hosting service that cannot make promises on load times are useless to you. You need to get a web hosting platform that makes it easy for your site to be optimised for faster load times. Load times could be an issue on the side of your website, but if they are hosting related then you can never solve the problem. Keep that in mind: speed counts.
• The reliability - Another important factor is just how reliable the actual server is. For example, if you are going to be using a hosting platform, it should be at least 99.94% available. This means that, across the year, it should be down for just 0.06% of the year. Any lower than this, and we recommend that you look elsewhere: many sites offer 99.99% uptime, so keep that in mind.
• The simplicity - From the moment that you hit 1-click install, you should be getting an easy and simple installation process. If the process seems upsetting or challenging in any way, then you would do well to take your time with the setup. Good quality WordPress hosting makes the 1-click setup a truly 1-click experience: make sure you pick a hosting platform that is easy to use.
• The consistency - Lastly, you want to have easy access to the back-end of your WordPress website via your hosting solution. It should make other features such as setting up relevant e-mail accounts as easy as it possibly should be.
• The security - Last but not by no means least, the best systems make it easy for you to stay safe and secure. While you need to secure your own WordPress website, good WordPress hosting offers easy access to backups, protection for your site and support to help make sure it runs to its maximum.

Customer Support

As mentioned before, the importance of customer support should never be ignored. Good quality customer service is essential when you make the choice about your WordPress host of choice. Why? Because a good customer support team allows a novice developer to get help. Most of the time, you will be left to scour forums, social media, and videos to try and find solutions to your WordPress problems. With good customer support, though, such problems would quickly become a thing of the past.

This is why accepting second best with customer support is a complete waste of time. Before you ever buy into any WordPress hosting platform, please contact their customer support. The best sites offer 24/7 live chat, so you should be able to get a good response in a few moments. Then, ask a few leading questions on their service to do with the things discussed in this article.

If the site is worth your time, they will be able to fully and clearly describe everything that you are asking for. If they are unable to give you information about any of the questions you ask, enquire as to why. Excessive privacy, secrecy or obtuseness in response should be a red flag.

Making the Right Choice

Armed with the information that you have found above; you should be much more likely to find it easy to locate the right WordPress hosting service. Take a look at our list, and you will find locating the ideal WordPress hosting platform isn’t as challenging as it might first seem.