There is only a handful of top wordpress webhosting providers in the hosting niche for popular blog software wordpress and then there is a big list of small hosting companies.
Below we have compared the 2018 prices for webhosting and also sorted out features of the most popular hosting providers with the best price and plans – Post Updated 17/05/2020
All of these blog/website hosting providers in this list provide support for wordpress blogging software. [checkout our current special deal for Hosting + Free Domain names in 2020 ]
With the release of Word Press 4 which is is now available,more and more people are using the word press blogging platform . It is also becoming increasingly popular with small businesses and corporate companies and eCommerce stores , due to the agility of this CMS to be a proper website as well as a blog or online store.
In fact wordpress is so flexible, all you need is a good word press theme to dress up this website CMS to become a Photography website , or change it into a news magazine. You can check out my more detailed ultimate guide to creating a wordpress website which is here
Word-press hosting for websites and Blogs
WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time and most hosting providers provide this website software for free when you purchase their hosting plan, So you dont have to buy it separately or go through a long process installing it yourself . WordPress is also knows as a CMS content management system.
You would have to buy a hosting plan if you want to start a website and you will also need a domain name. There are free platforms like Blogger and Tumblr but they do not give you the freedom to customise your blog as you please and they have the authority to delete your blog at any time if you have violated any of their terms and conditions.
Word press is so easy to manage and use that many small businesses and corporations are switching to this format for their websites in increasing numbers. The “Wall street Journal, Ford , Techcrunch, ebay and boing boing are among some well known names that are jumping on the word press bandwagon to promote their stuff to the internet.
How to get a wordpress blog up and running ?
To sum it up quickly, i can say
It’s Easy As…
- Find a Web Host and sign up to a hosting provider with WordPress.
- Download & Install WordPress with their 1 click install. Done. Feel like a rock star.
- Or Read the Documentation and become a WordPress expert yourself, impress your friends.
But one of the basic things you will always need to start a blog is hosting for your blog or website and so below i have given a detailed comparison of popular and reputed hosting providers from which you can decide which one is suitable for you.
A full comparison of required features and price are given below.
Price and Feature Comparison for top blog and website hosting companies
A comparison chart between some top us WordPress hosts. Most of these hosts also cater or provide access to other popular website software like JOOMLA, DRUPAL, MAGENTO and more.
Rank | Hosting Co. | Features | Price |
1 | Hostmonster![]() |
|
$3.95 month |
2 | Bluehost![]() |
|
Price: $7.99 Now $3.49 a month |
3 | Hostgator![]() |
Now 20% off! |
20% off Now @ $4.95 a month |
4 | Dreamhost![]() |
|
Price: $4.95 MonthUse promo code startwebsite to get discount of $60 (Will differ based on hosting package period you buy for) |
5 | Godaddy![]() |
|
Price: Deluxe plan 50% sale $1 to 4.99 Month (normally$9.99 month) |
6 | Bomerang Hosting![]() |
|
Sale $6.99 Month (normally$9.99 month) |
7 | Yahoo Small Business![]() |
|
$5.99 a month |
8 | Ipage Hosting comparison![]() 2.25/mo! * Regular price $9.99Green web hosting powered by 100% wind energyLow price and easy sign-up |
|
$2.25 |
If you are looking to host a wordpress blog there can be a bit of confusion, as there are two popular services and websites with the name wordpress( www.wordpress.com and www.wordpress.org ) I get this question all the time… from bloggers, entrepreneurs, small business owners
What is difference between hosting with wordpress.org and wordpress.com ?
[ The difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org ]
According to the figures from the top blogging software website wordPress.com, there are currently over sixty million WordPress-based websites or blogs in the world. Half of them are hosted on WordPress.com and the rest on other platforms.
About 100,000 new WordPress websites are created every day. In relation to difference between wordpress.com and .org – the WordPress.com website hosts the site on their servers ( so its a free blog service like blogger.com), so you don’t really need a hosting account.
However there are limitation as any free service and your blog can be banned at any time if it goes against one of their hundreds of policies that you should be aware off.
I know this is a risk you will take with “free blogging services” has happened to me with two major blog services and they didn’t have the courtesy to tell me why they banned my blog and i didn’t know why it was banned as well.
Cons of wordpress.com free blogging service
- WordPress.com provides a limited amount of space and customization options.
- WordPress.com does not allow you to include advertisements of any kind.
- Your blog is at risk of being banned if you inadvertently break on of their rules
WordPress.org is the website that provides the software for wordpress. This wordpress software is available free from wordpress.org and can download it and use it for free.
However as most hosting companies already have a 1 clickinstall in their hosting account for this free software , tehre is no real need to download it , if your buy a hosting account with one of the hosting providers.
WordPress as a self hosted blog
As a wordpress blog with a hosting account is called a self hosted blog , and you have paid for your own hosting , you are free to customise the wordpress as you wish to your needs. and then install on a separate web host (or ISP).
Advantages of Self hosted wordpress blog
- You can have your own customised domain.
- NO banning of your blog.
- You can customise the look of your blog
- You can install which plugins you like
- You can upgrade services through your hosting provider if more needs arise
Extra information you can consider before making a final choice of webhost service provider
How to Pick a Good Web Hosting Service
What is cpanel ?
Cpanel – Most WordPress blog hosting companies provides a cpanel which make sit much easier to navigate the inner bits of where your blog resides.
In the cpanel which is the backend of you blog admin area , you can create ftp accounts to transfer files directly to your website, change passwords and update the software, but a lot of these tasks can also be done via login through the blog interface (http://www.yourblog.com/wp-admin).
Script library & windows Vs linux hosting
This is no biggie, both Windows hosting and linux hosting does the job, though most providers have linux hosting and they do a good job. Script library is of importance if you think you will start a forum , or a email list , or a subscription blog .
Many hosting service providers provide an array of easy script installs via their backend like forums , blogs, email list software.
International Hosting-Providers
Personally I believe there is not much more to consider, with the exception of obvious time delays for support when choosing a hosting provider in another country vs. US hosting as US hosting is mostly cheaper and you will always get a lot of USA traffic (irrespective of which country you are based in) making US a good choice for hosting.
I have already discussed why I prefer US hosting to other countries hosting earlier ,but I do wish to stay transparent and give people who still wish to explore other options like a local hosting choice, so here are a few popular hosting solutions from CANADA, UK, South Africa , India, Europe, South America and more..
CANADA HOSTING PROVIDERS
Canadian web hosting is a growing force to be reckoned with, with many new webhosting providers recently hitting the market. We have listed a few Canadian based hosting-companies with affordable prices below.
Bandwidth: Unlimited
Disk Space: Unlimited
Addon Domain: Unlimited
Free Domain: Yes
Servers in Toronto, Canada
Price:$3.95 a month ( which is comparable with US hosting prices)
WebHostingCanada web hosting – the name says it all! Web Hosting Canada is proudly Canadian. They have fast servers based in Montreal, Quebec and Canadian technical support – in both official Canadian languages.
Price $7.95 a month (Canadian Dollars)
Vancouver-based Canadian Web Hosting is 100% Canadian owned and operated. A solid featureset and three package options (including a spacious business plan) are backed by a 60-day money-back guarantee.
Price $7.95 a month (Canadian Dollars)
UK Hosting & European hosting
Some of the European hosting is also mainly UK hosting with clook.uk, evohosting, pacwebhosting, icdsoft being some popular hosts being mentioned around forums. Let me know if you have a favourite one that has worked well for you
Clook.uk(clook.net)
Prices start from £5 pounds a month to £260 pounds a month and they support word press. Uptime is fantastic and the service is good and better than what I have experienced with other hosts
India hosting Companies
India has hundreds of cheap hosting companies and so we have listed yahoo for now which is a reliable host and will add more to this list soon
Yahoo Small Business Hostingplan Starter
Unlimited Web Hosting & Domain (supports wordpress blogging and 99.9 % uptime)
- No hidden costs: truly unlimited hosting
- Easy-to-use site builder
- Unlimited web pages
Price: 250 Rupees a month ( xe.com)
South Africa hosting companies
Some popular companies in south Africa are Cybersmart hosting, Ample hosting, Elite host and hostking and there are still many more good ones we will cover later
Cybersmart
It’s the cheapest out there. You just need to pay for a domain.
Not recommended for a business website that attracts heavy traffic but for a private site or blog there’s nothing wrong with it except for maybe being a little bit slower than the other packages.
Pricing: They got packages tarting with free Pick package to blue package to aqua package . The Blue basic package starts at R18 (rand) to Aqua R98 (rand)
More details here – https://www.cybersmart.co.za/hosting.cgi
Hostking – Price R9
You get a free domain (what else you want) and you can only host one website( not good) with which you get 10 email addresses(good). The 500 MB should be enough for most small websites and you also get unlimited bandwidth.
It’s ideal for a small website where you pay less than R10 a month and have your domain included in the price.(can’t go wrong)
More technical info…..
Where are the datacenters Located.
Many big companies like google, Microsoft their major data centres in different countries but they basically use their datacentres or servers for their own use.
Datacentres if used by a hosting company and is based can be a benefit to you based on where the datacentre is and where you are..if you want more speedy loading times for your website for your local area or country. But if you are getting traffic from all over the world this is not important at all and you could just choose a cheap US host or then a cheap host from any country.
Microsoft’s has their mirror server in Hong Kong one datacenter….which is called HKNET… Australia bandwidth not bad at all, i can boost it like 600kb/s and USA more than 500kb/s with multithreading.
Some of huge data-centres that we believe are the largest found anywhere- range between 400,000 and 1.1 million square feet. Here are some of them
Range International Information Hub
Langfang, China
6.3 Million Sq. Ft.
Switch SuperNAP
Las Vegas, Nevada
2.2 Million Sq. Ft
Utah Data Center
Bluffdale, Utah
1+ Million Sq. Ft.
Lakeside Technology
Chicago
1.1 Million Sq. Ft
QTS Metro Data Center
Atlanta
970,000 Sq. Ft.
I hope i have provided enough information for you to choose and pick a suitable webhosting service and good luck to you – Dont wait – take action now _start a blog today!
DOWNLOAD :
BONUS COMPARISON GUIDE in PDF FORMAT –The Essential Word press Hosting Provider Comparison guide for 2015