Shared/Budget Web Hosting
| SiteGround
Unlimited space and bandwidth. Unlimited domains with their Plus plan. Provides cPanel, weekly backups. Outstanding performance and security. 24/7 support by phone, chat and ticketing. 1-click software installations and automatic updates. Annual plans start at $3.95/month. Add $4/month for Plus plan, includes unlimited domains and 2x CPU.View site | Full review |
InMotion Hosting
InMotion’s shared web hosting is optimised for WordPress. Their lowest-end plan (Launch) supports 2 accounts, 6 domains, and 25 subdomains. Unlimited disk space, and transfers across the board, plus complimentary data backup and restore (up to 10GB). Annual plans start from $5.95/month.View site |
Bluehost
Unlimited disk storage, transfers and domain hosting. Provides cPanel, free domain name for 1 year (renewal costs $13.99/year), simple site deployment, e-commerce support (shared SSL, shopping carts, etc.). Annual plans start from $6.95/month; reduced to $4.95/month on a 3 year plan.View site |
| Web Hosting Hub
Unlimited space, bandwidth and domains. Includes cPanel. Great tech support. Provides domain transfer assistance for $25/domain, automated secure backups for $1/month, shared SSL certificate. Annual plans start at $6.95/month for 1 year; reduced to $4.95/month on a 3 year plan.View site |
WebHostingPad
Unlimited space, bandwidth and domains. Includes cPanel. Great tech support. SSL and SSH available only with their Power Plan Plus. Annual basic web hosting plans start at $3.99/month for 1 year; reduced to $1.99/month on a 4 year plan.View site |
Site5
Unlimited space and bandwidth. Unlimited domains available through mid and top-tier plans. Nightly server backups, dedicated IP with top-tier plan, custom control panel based on cPanel, server location options in every major continent. Annual plans start from $5.95/month.View site |
| JustHost
Unlimited storage, transfers, domains, subdomains. Free domain registration/transfer. Based on Linux, provides cPanel, 1-click script installs, help/ticket scripts. Monthly web hosting plans start from $8.95/month plus setup and domain fees. Annual plans start from $4.95/month, drops to $3.25 with a 3-year plan. “Anytime money back guarantee”, will refund any remainder for the term after account cancellation.View site |
FatCow
Unlimited storage, transfers, domains and subdomains. 1-click WordPress, Joomla installs. 100% wind-powered, load-balancing platform. 24/7 support. Annual plans start a $3.67/month for 12 months, down to $3.15/month for 24 and 36 month plans.View site |
Hostmonster
Specialises in shared web hosting based on Linux. Unlimited space, transfers and domains. Options for SSL and e-commerce solutions, one-click site setup for forums and popular blogging platforms. Annual plans start from $6.95/month.View site |
Virtual Private Server Web Hosting
| InMotion Hosting
Regarded as one of the best web hosting VPS providers. Their lowest-end plan (VPS-1000) provides 40GB of disk space, 512MB of dedicated memory (burstable to 1GB during traffic spikes), 750GB of premium transfers (free excess bandwidth at regular speed), cPanel, free backup for sites under 10GB, unlimited domains. Annual plans start from $29.95/month.View site |
MediaTemple
A crowd favourite. MediaTemple’s Dedicated Virtual (dv) plan offers affordable, fast, uncomplicated virtual private servers with varying levels of scalability. Plans start with 1GB of memory (new!), 30GB of storage, and 1TB of transfers; all the way to 32GB of memory, 600GB of storage and 3TB of transfers. Annual plans start from $50/month (or $500/year).View site |
Linode
Run a VPS with your choice of Linux distro. Linode offers kernel and root access, dedicated IP address, 6 data centers in US, Europe and Asia Pacific; managed by Linode Manager. Their lowest-end plan, Linode 512 offers 512MB RAM, 24GB storage, 2TB (new!) transfers at $19.95/month, with 10% and 15% discounts for 12 and 24 month plans respectively.View site |
Dedicated Hosting
| InMotion Hosting
The best dedicated server in their class. Provides both affordable and commercial class dedicated servers. Minimum 2x160GB disk space (new!), 2GB memory, 4TB premium transfers, unlimited domains, 5 dedicated IP addresses. Free cPanel, 24/7 support, impressive 2 hour hardware replacement to reduce downtime. RAID 1 is only available with the Elite plan. Annual plans start from $119.95/month.View site |
Rackspace
A luxury for those who can afford it. Rackspace is a well respected web hosting service. Dedicated hosting plans start from $789/month; for that, you’ll receive a quad-core processor, 8GB RAM, 2x 146GB 15K SAS hard drive (RAID 1), 2TB bandwidth, dedicated Cisco ASA firewall.View site |
MediaTemple
MediaTemple recently refreshed their line of Nitro servers and now feature powerful 16-core (HT) Intel Xeon 2.13 Ghz processors, 64GB RAM (new!), 8x 300GB 10K SAS hard drives (RAID 10), 3TB bandwidth, Parallel Plesk, Cent OS. (dpv) Nitro is essentially a single tenant dedicated server, with the scalability of virtualisation. Existing MediaTemple customers on their Dedicated Virtual (dv) plan can automatically migrate to (dpv) Nitro effortlessly. Plans start at $2500/month (or $25000/year, discounted).View site |
| SingleHop
SingleHop boasts 24-hour technical support, your own dedicated account team and a 90 minute hardware replacement time. They offer a variety of plans, from affordable single processor servers in multiple configurations starting from $149/month, to advanced dual and quad processor servers starting at $821/month.View site |
Disclaimer: MakeUseOf is not responsible for any damage and/or data loss
that might result from use of any of the above mentioned web hosting services.
Hide 30 Comments
I looked several times to make sure I didn’t overlook something, but I can’t find the best web hosting company ever on your list… http://www.hostgator.com! I have been hosting with HostGator for many years and have never had anything but a fantastic experience with them. The definitely deserve a place on your list!
I would personally veto that – I even spent a few months moving a couple of hundred sites off hostgator servers because they were so bad.
I can’t say enough good things about Linode. Their rebuild options/StackScripts are great, support is very responsive, and their remote AJAX shell comes in super handy when I’m somewhere that has SSH connections blocked.
Very nice and to the point info. Before this I only knew the JustHost.com.
A bit more depth would be nice, maybe which to choose of Shared, VPS, Dedicated then more detailed comparisons within each category.
One thing I’d say, more broadly applicable than just this topic, is that individual endorsements of any product or service are unreliable unless supported by some experience. What happens when things go wrong? Technical support but also admin. A real life example: I got a dedicated server at WebFusion, the sales guy offered an incentive: he said if we set up automatic payment, they’d take the first month payment to ensure that works OK but the second month would be free. Second month was charged for and the accounts dept don’t respond to our enquiries. That earns them a black mark. In the past I’ve had some very good tech support from them, then again there have been occasions when front-line tech support has said “not our problem” and I’ve had to prove to them it is before they escalate it to someone competent. So it’s a case of “better the devil you know”.
Other factors to put into the calculation are cost and the level of your own knowledge – if they try to fob you off with a poor tech support response will you know…
I’m very wary of people who say “provider XXX is great, I’ve never had a problem”. You only really find out if XXX are any good when you do have a problem.
Where is PaaS in all of this? I have jumped into cloud almost entirely now.
Just some quick feedback, We use Webhostinghub and LOVE them! Can’t recommend them enough, fast service, no server overloads/bandwidth restrictions, unlimited add-on domains & databases (we currently have over 35 databases ranging from WordPress, Tweetnest, Webring, and various others; over 18 active add-on domains on ONE hosting account)… their customer and technical support are TOP NOTCH! Having previously been with Godaddy, Fatcow, 1&1, and HostsSo (ugh THE WORST)… We are very PROUD to call Webhostinghub the hosting solution our website and all of our sister/client websites!
I’ve really enjoyed hosting with HostGator. Good prices, good features and I’ve found the support very responsive. I prefer good support to low price, on anything.
WebhostingPad ripped me for almost a hundred bucks a few years back so I don’t think it belongs in this list.
I’m using NearlyFreeSpeech.net and love it. Not for newbies, though.
Very surprising that two of the better known web hosting company worldwide is missing : GoDaddy and HostGator.
Lol – GoDaddy is cheap, thats all. They’re not in any way what most people would consider a “good host”. Buy your domains there, host elsewhere. Sites I’ve hosted on GoDaddy have been the biggest ball-ache ever; and slow as hell.
http://www.hostgator.com! It is excellent. InMotion Hosting
What about reviewing the best hosts by geographic region? Many of my clients feel more comfortable hosting files within Canada. For those clients, I regularly go with CanadianWebHosting.com due to their top-notch service, great features and competitive pricing (I am not a CWH employee – just a happy customer for several years).
I would completely agree with the posts that HostGator should be on the list. We use it for a school website/email/mailing lists/calendar/Moodle and receive fantastic service, performance, and features.
I know of a user that had a website hack recently via the calendar installer and HostGator immediately cleaned the infection and recommended preventative measures. Another website on Bluehost had the same hack and Bluehost told the end user they were on their own to clean up the infection.
HostGator over Bluehost hands down!
Another consideration is that some of the hosting providers are overseas, whereas HostGator is US based (Texas). So Buy American!
I am using hostgator, thier cost, support and service is excellent. but sad to see its not on the list.
No hostgator or LiquidWeb?
I like Bluehost. Glad to see they made your list. Their customer service has been very good. They are helpful.
For Australian Web Hosting, I strongly recommend Web24 or VentraIP:
http://www.web24.com.au/
https://ventraip.com.au/
Good to see list of hosts and their plans quickly. Helpful.
its unfortunate that most of these plans doesn’t include the hosting costs for a Java/.net based site. Whatever the rates are displayed above are for regular HTML/Blog/PHP hosting, but not for Java based ones. And when we contact them, there will be an extra amount in case of Java than the amount displayed at their home page.
So It would be helpful if a list of hosting sites are placed in one page for Java/.net/Scala based websites.
Please add hostgator to the list. That’s the best!
Please Add Godaddy.com and Vodahost.com
There’s a hosting company called Publinets.net offering a 10-year plan for just $50 bucks, who can top that? http://www.publinets.net
My lord how could you leave out http://x10hosting.com/? The free package at x10 gives you 1 gig disc space, 1 parked domain, 2 subdomains, 4 sql databases, 10 email accounts, free .mx domain (doesn’t count toward the cap), a ton of softalicious scripts for, blogs, crm, inventory, you name it. Best of all NO ADS of any kind!
The only draw backs I’ve seen is that you have to log into your cpanel once every 30 days or your account gets suspended, no asp.net, and it is sometimes a little sluggish. But come on man it’s FREE!!
Ever heard of “you get what you pay for”?
Excellent choices, all. I agree with them all. The key here is -no- registrar based hosting at the shared hosting level and more management and support than just being handed off a virtual partition from some already rented dedicated server.
As a fan of makeuseof I red this article and after comparing all services i wanted to signup for webhostingpad.com . the whole process went fine but one day after registration they sent us a form in which they asked us to give them our account number, card holder name and expiration date with few more information.
This was my first time which i faced that some one is asking banking details in email.
Hopefully makeuseof authors know that this is a real company and they have not listed this just by seeing their website.
Although they have not charged us because of the transaction but the act of asking banking details through email is absolutely unprofessional and usually frauds and hackers do it.
Hello Fawad, following our email conversation, I’d just like to state here for public record that credit card verification is common practice in suspicious cases. If you require further information, please contact WebHostingPad.
Thanks for your comment.
@jxn for your reference i did a search on Google and copy pasted few quotes along with their links.
“Do not reveal financial or personal information about yourself in emails .
Do not respond to emails requesting for personal or financial information.”
http://security4web.org/page.php?id=24
“If you received an email asking for your credit card details, delete it. Never respond to such emails, even if they seem to be official from your bank”
http://www.immihelp.com/newcomer/credit-card-safety-tips.html
“Never send your credit card number by email.”
http://www.wikihow.com/Use-a-Credit-Card-Online
“Do not give your personal, credit card or online account details to a caller on the phone unless you made the call, or to anyone in an email (even if the caller seems legitimate and has given you most of your account and address details)”
https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/scams/banking-and-credit-card-scams/credit-card-scams
I know you are not spamming, you have not charged us a single penny , but your system needs rework.
Instead asking financial details in email which is usually job of spammers you can ask for it in a web form.