When comparing website hosts, it doesn’t take long to realize that there are a multitude of options for a business owner to choose from. You’ve probably heard of Bluehost, GoDaddy, HostGator, and Dreamhost. So, what should you be looking for in a website host, and how do the top website hosts compare to each other?

While a single company cannot be the best at everything (taking into consideration the best price, best customer service, and best quality in products/services offered, etc.), there are several aspects of a given host that you should consider after you’ve determined your budget.

Considering you and your team, if applicable, how would you categorize your current skill level when it comes to website building? If you’re new to the process, you may prioritize support in your venture. While most website hosts offer a site builder of some sort, you may need help with integrating a variety of useful and necessary tools and apps, or figuring out an error. Another major question to ask yourself is how much traffic you think your site will initially, and sustainably, attract, as different companies and plans are capable of hosting different amounts of data—especially in what they offer regarding databases.

With that, some of the aspects and features you should compare between website hosting companies include:

  • Uptime score

This is the percentage of time that a server is considered to be “up and running” as opposed to experiencing errors and crashing or down for maintenance, whether scheduled or not. This percentage should be very high, as you don’t want frustrated customers. Between 95% and 99% is an acceptable range for a small business. Bluehost, Dreamhost, InMotion, HostGator, and GoDaddy have a 99.9% uptime, for example.

  • Ability to upgrade when needed

While every company differs in what it has to offer, each has unique features in their plans that may meet your specific needs. Some make the transition to a different plan seamless, while others have complicated pricing and plan upgrade systems. With the right web host, you won’t necessarily need a lot of skills to be able to accomplish greater things with your site – just the right support. Looking specifically at WordPress integration and what plans offer regarding WordPress support may have a huge impact on your choice here.

  • Integration with WordPress

The best web hosts offer one-click integrations with WordPress, and are even recommended by WordPress itself – Bluehost, Dreamhost, and SiteGround are the three listed on WordPress. That doesn’t mean that other web hosts can’t be used with WordPress, but it does mean these three are going to be all but made for this type of integration.

  • Signup and renewal price

Some companies offer a discount for a longer period of commitment to their products. Some offer only monthly plans and are a little more expensive because of this. Look to make sure you have an idea of any rate changes to expect after the first year, and consider whether any increase in price at that time would have a substantial impact on where you plan to be financially at that time.

  • Free trial length

If you’re not sure what features will be the most valuable to you yet, having a longer free trial may help you not only determine the company you should go with, but also the plan within that company. Many provide around 30 days, while some offer as many as 97 days with their trial length. For example, DreamHost offers 97 days, while InMotion offers 90 days, regarding those with the longer trial periods.

  • Features

This can vary from different store, cart, and checkout systems, to plugins and widgets, to photo galleries and layouts; some offer premade solutions to everything for beginners, while others allow for the freedom and creativity that more advanced users seek as they perfect their dream website. If you’re unsure about what components you would like to implement, you are free to explore during the trial periods.

  • Backups

As you don’t want to risk losing all of your hard work, looking into a host’s backup policies and systems will put your mind at ease. A daily backup should not be beyond your expectations, as many companies provide this. Hostinger, GreenGeeks, Siteground, and others offer such backups.

  • Quality of customer support

When you do experience a problem, you don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to get ahold of customer support, or re-explaining your problem many times without a solution. Having access to support around the clock, and assurances that the support members you reach out to will be capable and qualified, will help you keep your website functioning optimally. Fast and responsive customer service allows you to respond to your own clients in a fast and reliable manner. Bluehost is known for great customer service, while some others are not as quick to respond.

  • Server speed / responsiveness

Speaking of responsiveness, a slow server speed or metered services will frustrate your customers and cost you sales and loyalty in the long run. Try to estimate how much you think you will need ahead of time. If you’ve already built a large following on a social media platform, you may find you have a greater need than someone who is just beginning from scratch. Thankfully, many web hosts offer adequate server speeds with their plans. A2 Hosting specializes in speed in their lower level plans and offers a plan that uses their turbo servers which they purport are 20 times faster.

  • Disk space

Unlimited disk space is offered by some hosts like GreenGeeks, HostGator, and InMotion, on even their lower-level plans. Others offer this ulimited storage only in their higher tiers.

The Best Website Hosts for You:

The following is a list of website hosts with their main strengths for comparison. While this list is by no means exhaustive, it is certainly a great introduction to what many consider to be the best of the best, and can be useful if you are overwhelmed by the amount of choices available to you regarding a website hosting company.

1. Bluehost

At the top of the majority of the lists you’ll find about website hosts, you will see Bluehost. Bluehost is almost universally considered the best overall due to its excellent customer support, one-click integration with WordPress which is basically the king in this era of website building, and Weebly, among other tools and apps, a free domain, unmetered bandwidth, and a great price point. Bluehost is the top recommended website host for WordPress integration.

Other perks:

  • Analytics and SEO tools
  • Easy upgrade to VPS (virtual private servers) or dedicated hosting
  • cPanel control panel (which is used by some others as well
  • Offers shared, WordPress, VPS, and dedicated hosting
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
  • Knowledge center
  • cPanel site management system

2. InMotion

For a bit more of a cost but all the support and storage you need, InMotion offers a variety of packages to meet your business’ needs, a decent average amount of uptime, and of course unlimited bandwidth. Customer support is knowledgeable and available. With unlimited bandwidth in the basic plan, the next level up has the option for having two websites hosted as well as a handful of email addresses. Other plans further expand one’s options. Their 90-day guarantee is longer than most.

Other perks:

  • Shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud, reseller, and WordPress hosting made easy
  • Free SSL
  • InMotion website builder

3. HostGator

Do you have a need for dedicated server hosting? With an affordable price point and a great uptime record, HostGator provides customers unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth. It’s easy to connect with WordPress sites, which is a necessity for many businesses, and offers packages that can grow with your business.

Other perks with choosing HostGator:

  • SSL included
  • Unlimited websites
  • Offers shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud, and reseller hosting

4. Dreamhost

One of the major downsides to this very affordable option is the lack of direct, immediate customer support available – although there are ways to contact customer support, you may be waiting for a call back or an email for a while. The uptime for Dreamhost is fairly average, with only about 4 hours a year that they are down.

Other perks with choosing Dreamhost:

  • Free SSL
  • No limits on databases
  • cPanel

5. Hostinger

A very affordable option, Hostinger offers good customer support and a high uptime percentage when compared to other top website hosts. The site speed does not suffer, either. While the rates offered initially are only introductory, they are worth it for beginners who expect to expand their businesses before renewals.

Other perks with choosing:

  • SSL certificate included
  • Cloudflare protection
  • Daily backups
  • Starting plan provides one website and one MySQL database with 100GB of bandwidth
  • Small business plan provides unlimited databases, and bandwidth for up to 100 websites

6. Liquid Web

Liquid Web is like liquid gold for running a smooth web store. Providing support for a variety of products and services, this powerful web host is known for being fast and reliable and working with many other tools and apps. It is also another great choice for VPS hosting.

Other perks with choosing Liquid Webs

  • One of the most configurable plans to meet your business’ needs
  • 100% uptime guarantee
  • A long-term plan saves you extra money
  • cPanel

7. A2 Hosting

If you have very specific hosting needs, A2 Hosting offers it all – shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud, reseller, and WordPress hosting. Not all plans offer unlimited storage, but their cloud plans offer up to 450GB of storage and as much as 4TB for data transfer. It has a decent uptime percentage, but it isn’t the cheapest host out there.

Other perks with choosing A2 Hosting:

  • Offers shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud, reseller, and WordPress hosting
  • Free SSL

8. GreenGeeks

You might be wondering what green hosting is if you have considered GreenGeeks for a web host – in their case, they have made a commitment to producing three times the power the company uses and put it back into the grid using all renewable energy. With free daily backups, and unlimited storage and bandwidth, there is certainly not a lack of other reasons to consider this web host besides a potential shared value of being energy conscious. The uptime for this web host is a little on the lower side of what is usually considered acceptable, but it does offer an affordable price.

Other perks with choosing GreenGeeks:

  • Offers shared, VPS, WordPress, and reseller hosting
  • Access to a knowledge base as well as support

9. SiteGround

If you had never heard of green hosting, now you know of two companies that participate in taking web hosting companies into the future of energy conscious practices (they offer a 100% renewable energy match). With excellent customer service, daily backups, great uptime, and a recommendation from WordPress itself, they may be worth the somewhat higher pricing.

Other perks with choosing siteground:

  • Offers shared, cloud, reseller, and WordPress hosting
  • Free SSL
  • Access to knowledge base

10. GoDaddy Business Hosting

Another well-known name in the industry, GoDaddy is ideal for small businesses that need a variety of features and support, this plan might be more expensive than many of the others listed here. While they do not offer unlimited storage in their most basic plan, they do have unmetered bandwidth.

Other perks with choosing GoDaddy.:

  • SSL certificate included
  • Microsoft 365 Subscription
  • cPanel

When considering a website host, consider the needs of your business, along with the needs of your customers. Consider your top priorities and choose a company that meets these priorities. Also, realize that customers look at downtime negatively, require a secure SSL certificate in order to trust you with payment, and desire an error-free experience. Fellow workers in your small business may appreciate tools and features that allow them to do their jobs efficiently and keep the business running smoothly – especially in this age of working from remote locations. Having the right storage, bandwidth, and support is vital to keeping your site running at all times. The above list provides you with various strengths and weaknesses that will help you choose the right fit for you and your business’ success.