When it comes to WordPress Hosting, there are many options available. It is quite easy to meet the minimum requirements of WordPress (PHP 7.0 and MySQL 5.6) hence making WordPress the most popular content management system in the World powering over 75 million websites in 2018. With many WordPress hosting options today, it can be better to know all your options and measure the pros against the cons before you make your WordPress Hosting decision.
Prices of these many options can range from single digits to triple digits per month. Quality of the servers can also range from bad to award-winning. Lower quality can send readers away in seconds and higher quality can make the same reader a life-long paying customer. Higher quality hosting can improve the load time and up-time of your WordPress site, that will not only satisfy your readers, but also will improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), site authority, and conversions.
Hosting plans also offer a range of features. Some just offer storage space and bandwidth where another may offer free SSLs as well as other add-ons such as email and backups. Most make it super easy to upgrade and downgrade the plans anytime you wish. Some will even migrate your website from a different host to their servers for you. Some plans come with free domain names for at least the first year and you wont be able to move it to a different host during that year.
Typically, the more expensive the plan is, the higher the quality of service and more resources will be available to your website. However, you dont need to buy the most expensive. You just need to understand your requirements and find the plan that fits YOU. Here, we review the most common WordPress hosting plans in 2019 including free, shared, managed, VPS, and dedicated.
1. Free WordPress Hosting
A few companies offer FREE WordPress hosting. However, they only allow for very littlel storage and bandwidth so there’s no room for growth unless you switch to a paying plan. Also, they usually include their own ads or links to their websites to help pay for the cost.
Another free option is WordPress.com. The biggest limitation here is that it doesn’t allow you to use plugins, you can only use the few themes they provide. And.. yes, there will be ads on your website promoting WordPress.com. Most annoyinly, this option adds ‘WordPress’ to your URL which in most cases is a deal breaker. You can upgrade, but you’re still limited.
Free hosting is not ideal for any type of business website. I recommend avoiding free hosting considering the low features, low resources, and almost non-existant support.
2. Shared WordPress Hosting
Shared WordPress hosting is the most popular type of hosting. Many websites share the same server including storage and resources. When one site on the server gets a lot of traffic, all other websites on that server will have fewer resources they can use. Most include a cPanel and many include email. Many plans allow you to have more than one website.
Shared hosting is the most affordable and is a great choice for getting started. Most hosts include a one-click install for WordPress, so it is very easy to get your website up and running quickly. When you need to upgrade a specific site, you can have your host move your site to a different server. Most move it for free.
Most do claim to offer unlimited storage and resources, but in reality, they still have usage restrictions and you’ll need to upgrade if you get more traffic or use more storage than they like. Some will oversell their capabilities in hopes that the website won’t get a log of traffic.
These shared WordPress hosting plans are ideal for small businesses and blogs. You can start with minimul resources and upgrade easily as your site grows.
3. Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed WordPress hosting plans have WordPress pre-installed. They are already optimized for performance and the host handlyes security, maintanance, backups, support, etc. These plans can only host WordPress websites.
Plans are available for any size website. As expected, they do run more expensive that shared hosting. Many include extra features such as a staging site, speed optimizations, and free licenses to professional tools. Some even include free Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and WordPress theme builders.
Managed WordPress hosting is ideal for anyone that doesn’t want to handle website management and can afford to pay the extra cost. It’s the easiest way to run a WordPress website. Plans might be out of reach for beginning websites.
4. VPS WordPress Hosting
A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a hosting plan that provides a slice, or a partition, of a server as private space just for your website. The server is still shared with other customers, but each sutomer has a dedicated amount of space and resources. VPS servers have fewer websites on them and each has their own privacy. In other words, what happens to one doesn’t affect the others. It has almost the same level of control as a dedicated private server.
VPS is offred as bothe managed and unmananged plans, and they are more expeensive thatn shared hosting. With managed plans, the host handles the server upgrades and provides support. With unmanaged plans, you’re responsible for all server management.
VPS hosting is a great choice for mid-size businesses and growing websites and blogs that get a log of traffic or need a log of storage space.
5. Dedicated WordPress Hosting
With dedicated WordPress hosting, your website is on its own server. This seperate server is NOT shared by anyone else, so all of the server’s resources are yours to use.
They are available with managed and unmanaged plans. With unmanaged, you have complete control over the operating system, software, and hardware. This requires a server administrator. With managed plans, this is taken care of by the host. They also provide support, server monitoring, and updates.
Dedicated servers are expensive and are only needed by very large websites that get millions of visitors. Most large and well-known websites on the Internet use dedicated servers. Many even use more than one.
Final thoughts..
That is our quick look at the different types of WordPress hosting that are available. When choosing hosting consider what you need for your WordPress website. There is no reason to buy a larger hosting plan than you really need.
If your website is a brochure that only a few clients need to see, then you won’t need hosting that support millions of visitors per month with unlimited storage. On the other hand, if you’re uploading hundreds of photos per week and making thousands of transactions, you can’t use shared hosting since the volume of traffic will affect all other webistes on the server.
Consider the speed you want, how you want to handle security and maintanance, the level of support you want, etc. Keep in mind that unlimited doesn’t mean unlimited and that extra service do cost extra. Decide what you need and then purchase the right plan for your website.
So, what type of WordPress Hosting do you prefer? Let us know in the comments.
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