Every website needs web hosting. However, almost every website owner struggles to answer these questions – Which is the best web hosting for a website? What is the most used web host? Which is the safest web hosting?
So, here are four simple steps to help you find the right web host.
The ideal web host will support the platforms or website-building applications you require and give your site the proper amount of storage, speed, and dependability.
So, make a list of such questions before taking your pick: what are your plans for your website? Do you have to handle online payments? Are you making a visual gallery or a blog?
Make sure to choose a web host that truly suits your unique demands because one that works for someone else might not be the best fit for you.
You need to figure out – if you wish to use a DIY website builder or if you wish to build your website from scratch. Several website builders, such as Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, Shopify, and Blogger, provide web hosting services.
On the other hand, if you’re creating a completely unique website or utilizing a particular website builder that doesn’t include hosting, like WordPress, you can choose a web host that doesn’t include website building. In this case, you can utilize their own hosting provider, Bluehost, or the WordPress tool to publish your site to your own server.
Depending on your demands, there are different qualities to look for in a web server and website builder. Use the list below to choose the criteria that are most important to you.
Pricing: Make sure to look at the renewal rates and additional costs or obligations aside from the signup fees.
Customer support: Do you feel at ease using chat, phone, or email support at a given time, or do you feel the requirement for 24*7 customer support?
Customization: Will you be able to create, customize and update the site as you’d like?
Cancellation policy: Find out if there is any fine if you cancel the services midway.
Requirements: Check for features you might desire or need in the future, such as payments, OTP verification, a dynamic contact page, and more.
Ease of use: Consider if you or a web specialist will handle most of the site management, such as changing the site’s content.
Ease of setup: Know how fast you can get your new site online.
Top five best web hosting services in the USA
Ionos
Ionos provides managed and unmanaged WordPress hosting and shared, VPS, and dedicated plans. To better assist customers in determining which hosting plan is suitable for them, the company also offers customized plans for smaller and larger businesses. International clients will find Ionos a fantastic option because it provides customer care lines for 14 different nations.
Pros:
Extensive security features, including backups
Unlimited traffic, so no need to scale up plans to handle additional traffic
99.99 percent uptime guarantee
Cons:
Website builder costs extra
Plan prices increase, sometimes by huge margins
Security features
Ionos provides good security. Malware scans, DDoS safeguards, and SSL certificates are all included in Ionos’ security plans. Some plans also assist in fixing any harm that malware may have done to your website.
Each subscription also includes a regular backup schedule of at least once every 24 hours, with a 20-day retention period for all backups. Therefore, customers will always have access to their data even if one data center is down by a cyberattack.
Uptime
Ionos offers a better uptime guarantee than the majority of other web hosting services. Ionos’ uptime clocks at 99.99 percent. Your website and services will continue to function even if Ionos’ data center loses power, thanks to the battery-operated power supply and backup generators.
Customer support
Ionos’ customer support is always available by phone or chat. Additionally, Ionos provides a personal consultant who will serve as your main point of contact if you require assistance with your website.
Ionos clients have more options for getting assistance than those of some other hosting companies thanks to a personal adviser and phone numbers for several support centers around the world.
Other features
Ionos provides a status page to inform users when services are unavailable or undergoing maintenance. The page also notifies users of any scheduled maintenance and notifies the times when services are interrupted and restored.
Pricing
The starting price for Ionos is the lowest among all web hosting services, but the cost skyrockets once the contract renews. That means Ionos is an excellent starting point for web hosting, but if pricing is your top priority, it might not be the ideal long-term web hosting service for your website.
Here is the starting price of each service:
Shared hosting: $0.50 a month.
VPS hosting: $2 a month.
Dedicated server hosting: $45 a month.
WordPress hosting: $0.50 a month.
2. GreenGeeks
Customers who care more about the environment may find GreenGeeks a clear choice because of its pledge to offset its energy usage. Also, GreenGeeks offers shared, VPS, dedicated WordPress, and reseller hosting plans. Each plan also comes with a website builder so you won’t have to start from scratch when creating your website.
In addition, some GreenGeeks plans provide limitless bandwidth and storage. Prices are a little pricey in comparison to other plans, though.
Pros:
Offers a wide variety of plans
Features website builder
Produces three times the amount of wind energy it uses
Cons:
Phone support isn’t active 24*7
The prices of some plans are high
Security features
To safeguard your site, each plan comes with many security features like SSL certificates, DDoS defenses, daily backups, virus cleanups, and more.
Uptime
GreenGeeks also offers a 99.9 percent uptime.
Customer support
While other services check servers every 30 seconds or one minute, GreenGeeks claims to check its servers every 10 seconds for any abnormalities. This action implies that if your website experiences any problems, GreenGeeks may already be working to fix them before you get in touch with them.
GreenGeeks also offers phone service from 9 a.m. to midnight, and chat support 24*7.
Other features
In addition to planting a tree for every hosting account, GreenGeeks uses renewable energy sources to produce three times as much energy as it consumes. The International Energy Agency estimates that data centers produce roughly 0.3 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, making GreenGeeks a web hosting choice that pays back.
Pricing
GreenGeeks demands a three-year commitment that is fully paid upfront. Other contracts are offered at a higher monthly cost but require full payment upfront as well.
Here is the starting price of each service:
Shared hosting: $3 a month.
VPS hosting: $40 a month.
Dedicated server hosting: $169 a month.
WordPress hosting: $3 a month.
Reseller hosting: $20 a month.
3. A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting offers tier-based options within each plan for shared, VPS, dedicated, WordPress, reseller, Joomla and cloud hosting. For instance, shared hosting provides packages referred to as Startup, Drive, Turbo Boost, and Turbo Max.
With these extra plans, consumers have more options to pick from that better suit their needs and enable them to develop their businesses as necessary. However, even the least expensive plans demand a three-year contract.
24*7 ‘Guru Crew’ customer support by chat, email and phone
Free site migration when coming from another service
Servers are physically secure on site
Cons:
The lowest prices require three-year contracts
Some plans don’t justify higher prices
Security features
A2 Hosting provides security features like an SSL certificate, twin firewalls, virus scanning, and brute force resistance.
Each subscription includes DDoS defenses that can identify DDoS attacks as soon as they take place. The Patchman advanced security tool, which typically costs about $25 per month, is also included.
Uptime
A2 Hosting promises an uptime of 99.9%. The industry standard for uptime is 99.9%, which means your website won’t be unavailable for more than nine hours a year.
Customer support
A2 Hosting stands out for its dedication to customer service. The ‘Guru Crew’ at A2 is accessible 24*7 by phone, email, or chat. A2 Hosting also has a sizable Knowledge Base to assist you to build and expand your site if you prefer to solve a problem on your own.
Other features
A2 Hosting offers free site migration if you want to change web hosting companies. This is a good deal since the average cost of a site migration in 2022 is between $300 and $500.
Pricing
A2 Hosting’s pricing appears to be ordinary at first glance, but even the lowest prices require a three-year commitment. Due to this long-term commitment, you might have to use this service for a considerable amount of time to save money.
Here is the starting price of each service:
Shared hosting: $3 a month.
Unmanaged VPS hosting: $5 a month.
Managed VPS hosting: $40 a month.
Unmanaged dedicated server hosting: $106 a month.
Managed dedicated server hosting: $156 a month.
WordPress hosting: $12 a month.
Reseller hosting: $19 a month.
4. HostGator
HostGator offers tiered shared, VPS, dedicated, WordPress, and reseller hosting plans. Every plan includes unlimited bandwidth and storage space, allowing you to upload as much material as you’d like to your website. As a result, it’s a fantastic choice for anyone who frequently uses videos, photos, or animated page components.
HostGator also offers a database of walkthroughs and tutorials that make it simple to launch and manage a website. If you already have a website, you can move it for free to HostGator.
Pros:
Unlimited bandwidth and disk space
Free site and domain transfers
45-day money-back guarantee
Cons:
Restoring data from backups costs extra
Security features
HostGator provides free SSL certificates, DDoS defenses, and scheduled backups. After the backups are taken, HostGator scans the files to check for malicious codes and quarantines them.
Uptime
HostGator guarantees industry-standard 99.9% uptime. Customers of shared and reseller hosting are eligible for a one-month refund if their uptime falls short of that promise.
Customers of VPS and dedicated hosting, however, won’t be eligible for a refund if their uptime expectations aren’t satisfied. Instead, based on how long the server was offline, those clients get a prorated credit.
Customer support
HostGator customer service representatives are available on phone, chat, or email around-the-clock. Customers can also find articles, instructions, and video tutorials in their database.
Other features
HostGator offers a 45-day money-back guarantee that is longer than the majority of other web hosting services.
Price
HostGator is slightly more expensive than other web hosting services because back access is subscription based.
Here is the starting price of each service:
Shared hosting: $2.75 a month.
VPS hosting: $24 a month.
Dedicated hosting: $90 a month.
WordPress hosting: $6 a month.
Reseller hosting: $20 a month.
5. Accu Web Hosting
AccuWeb Hosting offers shared, VPS, dedicated, WordPress, reseller, and various other cloud hosting choices. Plans for cloud-shared and cloud VPS hosting are also available.
Customers can select which of AccuWeb Hosting’s international data centers they want to host their data. This means that you can choose to have your data in a different data center if you predict that most of your traffic will originate from outside the US and want to make your website load faster for those users.
Pros:
Global data centers
Cloud hosting offers 100 percent hardware uptime
Free site migration
Cons:
No unlimited data options on most plans
Customer support phone service is not available 24*7
Security features
Each plan from AccuWeb Hosting comes with a free SSL certificate, free antivirus software, and free daily backups. Additionally, a malware removal security tool is also available.
Uptime
Although AccuWeb Hosting offers a remarkable 99.99 percent uptime guarantee, its cloud hosting services provide 100% hardware uptime.
Customer support
Customer care is available via phone very occasionally. However, customers can chat and submit tickets at any time. Despite having data centers all over the world, the current phone service is only based in the US and Canada and is available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Other features
AccuWeb Hosting gives you unlimited domains regardless of the plan you choose, in contrast to other providers that have limits on the number of domains an account can have.
In addition, other services place a cap on the number of email accounts you have in your basic plan. However, AccuWeb Hosting offers 150 business email accounts even in your basic plan.
Pricing
Mid-level plans from AccuWeb Hosting, like VPS plans, are less expensive than other services. However, certain plans, like shared plans for example, are slightly more expensive than other services. The cost balances out if you select a shared plan but want to upgrade to a VPS plan.
The hosting provider you select will probably be a long-term partner for you. So, to choose the web hosting solution that best meets your demands, carefully consider each option.
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FAQs
What is web hosting?
Data storage on a server or cluster of servers is known as web hosting. Think of a website as a piece of art. Web hosting is similar to a gallery where your art can be stored for others to examine. That art needs to be hosted somewhere so people can see it.
What are the basic types of hosting?
There are three common types of web hosting: shared, virtual private server, and dedicated hosting.
What is a site migration? Can I do that myself?
Moving an existing website from one web hosting provider to another is site migration. You can migrate your site manually, but if done incorrectly, you risk losing both traffic and content. So, it might be wise to let an expert handle the migration.
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Ankit is a writer and editor who has contributed his expertise to Govt of India, Reebok, Abbott, TimesPro, Chitale Bandhu, InsideAIML, Kolte Patil Dev., etc.
