WordPress is by far the most popular CMS (content management system) in use online today and for good reason – it’s truly one of the easiest and most effective ways to run your website.
This site uses WordPress, and in fact every site I’ve built in the last 10 years has used it as its backbone since it’s free, easy to use and offers a ton of excellent addons in the form of plugins.
When it comes to WordPress hosting, you may think it’s not too important where you buy hosting from. In reality – nothing could be further from the truth. Choosing the right web hosting service for your WordPress site is going to save you a ton of headaches in the future (trust me) and will give your site the best chance of success in terms of speed, uptime, SEO, etc.
Below I’ve compiled a list of what I believe to be the top 5 best WordPress hosting services. Under this list, you’ll find all the criteria that I believe are super important to consider when looking for a WP friendly host and should be taken into consideration before signing up.
Here’s a look at the top 5 WordPress hosting services I’ve reviewed
- Bluehost WordPress
- The #1 recommended WP hosting company according to WordPress.org
- WordPress plans starting from $2.75 up to $5.95 per month (intro pricing)
- Free domain, SSL, email, unlimited traffic, bandwidth and website backups
- → Visit Bluehost with this link to see why they’re #1 and get the best annual price
- Bluehost WordPress
- SiteGround WordPress
- Offers an excellent all-in solution with tons of features for WordPress users
- WP hosting plans start at $3.95 up to $11.95 per month (introductory price)
- Includes free professional site transfer, proprietary server caching & much more
- → Visit SiteGround with this link to get a free site transfer with a great price
- SiteGround WordPress
- Dreamhost WordPress
- Dreamhost offers a specially tailored “DreamPress” package specifically for WP
- Pricing for WP hosting ranges from $2.59 to $16.95 per month and up for top plans
- The DreamPress packages include cloud servers, SSD storage, SSL, backups & more
- → Visit Dreamhost with this link to see DreamPress features and get the lowest price
- Dreamhost WordPress
- Host Papa WordPress
- Offers an optimized WordPress hosting solution with pre-installation included
- Host Papa hosting plans for WordPress are priced from $3.95 to $12.95 a month
- Their plans include highly optimized servers for speed, automatic updates & more
- → Visit Host Papa with this link to see all their WP plan features at the best price
- Host Papa WordPress
- A2 Hosting WordPress
- A2 offers an excellent variety of WordPress hosting with some of the cheapest prices
- The plans that A2 offers start at just $1.98 per month, going up to $8.74 for top plans
- All plans include free cPanel and an anytime money back guarantee which is awesome
- → Visit A2 Hosting with this link to see all features and get the absolute lowest price
- A2 Hosting WordPress
I’ve also made this comparison table so you can see the differences between the top 5 WordPress hosting options
| WordPress Comparison → | Monthly Price | Best WP Plan | Auto Updates | Daily Backup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bluehost for WP | $2.75-$5.75 | Choice Plus | ✓ | ✓ |
| SiteGround for WP | $3.95-$11.95 | Grow Big | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dreamhost for WP | $2.59-$16.95 | DreamPress | ✓ | ✓ |
| Host Papa for WP | $3.95-$12.95 | Business | ✓ | ✓ |
| A2 Hosting for WP | $1.98-$8.74 | Turbo | ✓ | ✓ |
When it comes to WordPress – features matter a ton – make sure they’re included before you spend your money
As I mentioned at the beginning of the page I really believe that WordPress is the absolute best way to manage your website. With limitless plugins and features, these days you can pretty much accomplish anything using the WP CMS to power your sites.
That being said, it’s imperative to choose a hosting company that offers a ton of features and will give you the support you need – when you need it! The good news is, there is so much competition in the hosting space these days that pretty much every company offers a load of free features to their customers.
Some of the main features that I’d always be looking for from a hosting service if I’m planning to use them for WordPress would include:
- One-Click Installation – many hosts now (thankfully) offer a simple one-click installation process to setup WordPress. The way it works is pretty simple, you log into the backend of your hosting service, select the directory you want it installed on (most people use their homepage) and voila – they auto-create a database and set the site up.
- Automatic Updates – one of the very few downsides of WordPress is that it needs to be updated when developers release new versions of the software, or if the plugins you use need updating. This can easily be done manually via the WP backend, but it’s very useful to have it all automated via the host, the reason being that outdated sites sometimes can have security vulnerabilities which is something no one wants to deal with.
- Daily Backups – trust me when I say there is nothing more frustrating then accidentally deleting your website or having some technical mishap wipe out your hard work (if you work online long enough, this will happen to you). Having a host that provides seamless automated daily backups of your site can be an absolute live saver when things go wrong.
- Speed & Optimization – one of the biggest grips I have with certain hosts who shall go unnamed on this page is they offer slow and crappy hosting plans. It’s no secret that speed is one of the most vital factors for site success in the search engines these days. Because of this, it’s essential to use a host that offers very fast servers, ideally with their own caching.
- Reliable Uptime – this is really a no-brainer these days but you want a host that offers 99.99% uptime, meaning that their services almost never go down. The last thing you want is a potential customer coming to your website only to find it unavailable to use.
- Money Back Guarantee – this is a bit of a moot point in my opinion since most of the sites offering this are good, but I still think it’s a good metric of the confidence they have in their services. Hosts that offer an easy money back guarantee definitely know that most customers will end up enjoying their service and never using it, so it’s useful to offer.
- Friendly & Knowledge Staff – another very important piece of the choosing WP hosting pie is if the site offers excellent customer support. Whether you need to migrate a site or just want to ask a simply question, this will may a big impact on your overall experience.