Articles About Hosting

All WordPress websites need to be hosted somewhere on the internet. Choosing the right WordPress web host is one of the most important decisions you can make that will affect how easy it is to maintain your website.

There are various types of WordPress hosting provider for you to choose from:

Shared WordPress web hosting

This is the cheapest type of web hosting and involves choosing one of the standard packages available from most hosting companies.

Basic shared hosting is the cheapest option and there are loads of companies offering it. Popular examples include 1and1 Internet, GoDaddy, Bluehost, TSO Host, Heart Internet etc. We recommend SiteGround or HostArmada as the best WordPress web hosts in this category.

Downsides

• Security - while all hosts take security seriously, using basic shared hosting means that if another site on the same server is compromised then your site is at risk too. Your site is only as secure as the other sites you’re sharing with. You have no control over this.
• Backups & restores - some shared hosts have pretty good backup services nowadays. However most of them make it very difficult to restore to a previous backup. This means that if anything goes wrong and you want to roll back, you’ll need some technical expertise to do so.
• Performance - if you have a very simple WordPress website with a basic theme and no resource-hungry plugins such as membership or e-commerce, then you might get away with basic shared hosting. Most WordPress websites have some level of complexity and if yours does, there’s a risk that it will grind to a halt with basic shared hosting. You can try to cover for basic hosting by installing performance measures such as caching plugins. But it’s much better to choose a host that is built for performance, and where you’re not competing for resources with thousands of other sites.
• Scalability - if you have a huge spike in traffic or your website is running any particularly resource-intensive processes then there’s a risk that it could crash the server. This can lead to downtime for you and the other sites on your server. The same can happen the other way round - if another site on your server causes problems then it could cause downtime for you. Most shared hosts make promises about guaranteed uptime. However, the nature of this type of shared hosting means there’s a higher risk of downtime.
• Support - the support from basic shared hosts varies, and some is very good. Sadly, a lot of companies outsource their support. It can be hard to get through to an expert when there’s a problem with your website.

VPS or dedicated server

If you want full control over your hosting then it might be tempting to get a VPS or dedicated server. A dedicated server is when you have an entire server just for your website. VPS stands for ‘Virtual Private Server’. It gives you a dedicated section of a larger server which is essentially just for you.

For example, HostArmada offer a range of cloud VPS and dedicated hosting for WordPress websites.

With a VPS or dedicated server, you’re not competing for resources with other websites. You have full control over your server setup. While dedicated servers are usually very expensive, lower cost VPS’ are available so this option doesn’t have to be expensive.
However I would advise against this setup for most WordPress website owners. By definition, if you were the sort of person who would benefit, then you wouldn't be reading this article!

Disadvantages

• Technical expertise needed - Even ‘managed’ VPS’ and servers require some level of technical know-how. An unmanaged VPS or server is only suitable if you’re VERY technically savvy and want to spend a lot of time managing your server, doing server software updates etc. There are ‘managed’ servers and VPS’ but in my experience, they are rarely fully managed - for example, you might have to tell your hosting company when you want them to install software updates to things like your PHP version. This isn’t appropriate unless you’re a techie and know what to ask for.
• Scalability - A VPS or dedicated server is more scalable than basic shared hosting. This is because you’re not competing for resources with other sites. However, there’s still a limit on what it can do because you only have access to your dedicated environment. If your site’s resource usage or visitor numbers exceed what your environment can cope with, then you can still get server crashes and downtime.
• Support - Depending on whether you opt for a managed or unmanaged environment, there will be less support with this option. If your VPS or server is unmanaged then you will be completely on your own - completely inappropriate if you’re not a server expert.

Managed WordPress hosting

In the last 5 years, managed WordPress hosting has become hugely popular. This is hosting designed specifically for running WordPress. I would recommend managed WordPress web hosting for any non-techies.

All managed WordPress hosts are different and before signing up, I recommend checking that they provide everything I’m going to discuss in this next section. Kinsta (our recommended host) definitely provide all these things, and other managed WordPress web hosts will provide most of them.

Advantages

• Easy backups & rollbacks - most managed WordPress web hosts have excellent systems for backups and rollbacks. You can log into your hosting account and take an instant snapshot of your website, or access one of the backups that they have automatically created for you. There’s usually a one-click option to restore your website to any of the backups in the list. This is an absolute life-saver if anything ever goes wrong. For example, if something breaks after a software update or if your website gets hacked.
• Free staging site - Most managed WordPress web hosts offer free staging sites. A staging site is a duplicate of your live site where you can make changes without affecting the live site. The best hosts let you instantly create a staging site based on your live site. You can make changes on the staging site and copy the changes to your live site when you’re happy. This is a fantastic tool that lets you experiment with any changes and test software updates. All without risking any downtime on your live site.
• Lightning fast performance - Managed WordPress hosts are much, much faster than standard shared hosts. They can also be faster than a VPS or dedicated server. This is because you need to do a lot of work to fine-tune a dedicated environment. This is done for you with managed WordPress hosting. Managed hosts are built for performance from the ground up. They’ve been fully optimised to provide the best possible environment for running a WordPress website.
  We regularly migrate our clients’ websites to a managed WordPress web host. We see huge performance improvements literally every time. Last week I migrated a site and simply switching hosts improved the page load time of the homepage from 6.54 to 0.82 seconds. Choosing the right WordPress web host can make a huge difference to the speed of your site.

Value for money

This deserves its own section, as lots of people think that managed WordPress web hosting is expensive.

Managed hosting isn’t as cheap as basic shared hosting or some VPS’. However, I think the value for money is much better and it can save you money in the long run. You can get managed hosting for $30 or less per month. This really isn’t very expensive given the advanced functionality you get for this price, performance enhancements, expert support etc. With a cheap shared host, you might save money on hosting. But you'll have to pay a lot if your website gets hacked or if you need to roll back to a previous backup. With managed WordPress web hosting, you might pay a bit more per month but you’re likely to get things like rollbacks and hack fixes for free.

Which type of WordPress web host to use?

As a WordPress agency, we give our clients a choice of basic shared hosting (provided through SiteGround) and premium managed WordPress hosting (provided through Kinsta).

SiteGround are pretty good, but our clients who choose the cheaper option generally don’t save any money. This is because they have to pay us to manually do things like hack fixes and rollbacks. All of which are free with managed WordPress web hosting. To be honest, SiteGround are great but to be honest, using their systems are a pain compared to Kinsta's premium managed WordPress hosting services.

Kinsta provide all the important features we've listed earlier that you can expect from a managed WordPress host. They're powered by Google Cloud Platform which guarantees blazing fast site speed. Security is also handled as a priority; auto-backups, malware scanning, hack fix guarantee and SSL integration are just a few examples. Staging, migrations, choosing a data center and accessing traffic and bandwidth analytics are all made easy through their custom-made site management platform, MyKinsta. Kinsta is your go-to if you're seeking peace of mind and smooth running of your WordPress site.

We used to use WP Engine, another managed WordPress host. We switched from WP Engine to Kinsta in 2018 because WP Engine no longer offer the superior performance or quality of service that they used to. Our websites run noticeably faster - both in the front end and the WordPress admin - on Kinsta compared to WP Engine. If you're trying to choose between WP Engine or Kinsta, then I'd definitely recommend Kinsta these days.

As a non-techie who wants to maintain your website, please don’t scrimp on hosting - go for a reputable managed WordPress host and you’re likely to save money - and a lot of headaches - in the long run.

Choosing the right WordPress web hosting company makes a huge difference to how easy your website is to maintain. It’s one of the most important steps you can take to setting things up so that you can maintain your own WordPress site. If your hosting company offers the right tools and will take care of the server maintenance behind the scenes, you have a much better chance of being able to manage your website without any technical expertise.

I have been trialling different WordPress web hosts in a quest to find the fastest WordPress hosting. This has led to some interesting results, with dramatic differences between WP Engine, SiteGround and TSO Host.

WordPress web hosts tested

I tested the speed of the same WordPress website on 3 popular web hosts:

• TSO Host's UK Cloud Hosting - this hosting company were very highly regarded when we started working with them a couple of years ago. Although they offer low-cost web hosting, they offer 'Ultimate Cloud Hosting' which was quite revolutionary when it was first launched - bridging the gap between standard shared hosting and cloud-based hosting. However if you look under the covers then you will discover that most shared hosts now work in a similar way nowadays. I included TSO Host in my testing because I have suspected that they are not as fast as they claim, but wanted to see some proof.
• SiteGround Shared Hosting - we have heard a lot of good things about SiteGround recently. They are rapidly emerging as a popular host for basic but high quality and fast WordPress web hosting.
• WP Engine Personal Plan - a managed WordPress web host based in America, but with servers in the UK as well as the US. At $29+ per month, they're not a cheap option. However they claim to make up for it by ensuring that your WordPress site is optimised within an inch of its life. They also offer benefits such as built-in caching and one-click backups and restores.

Fastest WordPress hosting - the proof

I tested the same website on WP Engine, SiteGround and TSO Host and was amazed at the difference in speed:

• WP Engine - 1.5 seconds
• SiteGround - 2.83 seconds
• TSO Host - 8.06 seconds

The above tests were conducted using the Pingdom website speed tool. I ran each test several times to make sure the results were accurate and consistent. For example 8 seconds was about average for TSO Host, but I also saw results as slow as 12 seconds!

As you can see, WP Engine is the fastest WordPress host by quite a long way. And it's not just about speed - the Performance Grade is far higher than the other two companies, indicating better quality overall. All of this will impress Google and boost your SEO.

With WP Engine, the Page Size is significantly smaller than with the other hosts. Since I was testing the same web page on all 3 hosts, this shows how well WP Engine are optimising and compressing your site.

SiteGround comes in at a very respectable second place. Although it's not lightning-fast like WP Engine, the results are pretty good.

It's worth noting a few details about my tests, which make WP Engine and SiteGround look even better:

• The website I was testing is complex and runs a big theme and several major WordPress plugins (e-commerce, events, membership). The results will be much faster for more lightweight websites - for example, we recently designed a very lightweight WordPress website which is hosted on WP Engine and loads in less than 0.25 seconds!
• I was testing a website on WP Engine's personal plan without the CDN activated, as this costs extra. If you pay for their CDN (content delivery network) then this will make your WordPress website even faster.
• I was testing on a new SiteGround account which was mostly using their default features. If you spend some extra time configuring their caching settings, CDN etc. then your website will run faster with SiteGround.

Are there any faster WordPress hosts that you haven't tested?

I would say probably not (but please let me know if you disagree!).

In this article, I have only tested 3 hosting companies. I couldn't possibly test every web host, and my intention was to provide a quick but helpful comparison of 3 popular companies that provide different types of hosting.

The fastest web hosts tend to be managed WordPress hosts as they have put the most resources into optimising their servers specifically for WordPress. WP Engine is the most popular managed web host and I think they have done a great job. Other hosts such as Page.ly and Flywheel are also pretty fast - however I prefer WP Engine because they have better round the clock support which is important as we're based in the UK whereas they are in the US. I have compared the speed of websites on WP Engine and Flywheel and WP Engine is slightly faster and has a higher performance rating.

My recommendations

My first recommendation is pretty obvious: don't use TSO Host if you care about speed and performance (and you should care about this)!

Whether to use SiteGround or WP Engine is a more difficult decision and depends on your priorities.

If you're on a budget then SiteGround are a very valid option - definitely worth looking at.

If speed is your top priority then I'd strongly recommend WP Engine - they have successfully created the optimum environment for fast WordPress hosting and your website will benefit from fast page load times and improved SEO as a result. Personally, I think that $29 per month is more than reasonable for what you get. Comparing WP Engine's prices with a basic shared host is like comparing a Mini with a Porsche - you get what you pay for.

Please note: There are affiliate links in this article. However we only recommend companies that we have tested ourselves and genuinely recommend.