The Best Hosting Companies For A WordPress Blog
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SEO & Website Building | Website Hosts | Wordpress | 20 Comments
We love blogging. We love the WordPress blog platform.
We are not enamored by most blog hosts.
If you want to run a WordPress blog with your own domain name (which we suggest) then you’ll need to find a good website host. But it’s a hyper-competitive business, website hosting is. To cut costs most hosting companies skimp on service and reduce their reliability standards. Hosting companies generally get away with this (for a few months, anyway) because most customers make their choice of host by looking at the price and nothing else.
Do not be one of those customers. The difference between a low and high quality host is the difference between your WordPress blog being down a few minutes per month and being down hours (or days!); it is the difference being able to talk to hosting company technician on the phone and being relegated to seeking help through maddening online chat system.
A high quality website host will stand behind an uptime guarantee that’s 99.7% or better, will offer sufficient bandwidth and disk space to run your site and, perhaps most important of all, will offer responsive customer service. Many hosts are fly-by-night operations so you’ll also want a host that has been in business for several years. And, of course, you want all that for a reasonable price.
In addition to that, some qualities to look for in a hosting company specific to running a WordPress blog:
- Easy installation. On some hosts can install WordPress in a few clicks.
- Experience with WordPress. On occasion things can go wrong with a WordPress blog, either through user error or some other glitch. When that happens, trust us, you’ll save yourself time (and not a few headaches) if your host has extensive WordPress experience.
- Regular backups. Blogs tend to change a lot more than static sites. You want to use a host that will backup your blog as often as you update it.
- Multiple domains, subdomains and MySQL databases. Though your plans may be for only one site blogging can be surprisingly addictive. Look for the flexibility to expand your planned blogging activities without having to switch hosts.
- A full array of up-to-date developer tools. Many of the best WordPress themes and plugins require the latest versions of PHP and MySQL. Your host should support them, along with GD libraries, Python, Ruby (RoR) and other developer tools.
Every single one of our chosen best WordPress hosts score well on all of the above criteria. In fact, the differences between them are small. Still, Spot Cool Stuff took out our magnifying glass to ranked our top four WordPress hosts. Here they are:
#1 HostGator
Best Deal: The “baby” package, $7.95/month for unlimited domains and disk space Special Features: The best customer service and uptime for the money GO TO THEIR SITE |
There are two main reasons why HostGator tops our rankings for the best WordPress host. First, HostGator has one of the best uptimes in the industry. Second, their customer service is really phenomenal—with HostGator you can usually get a tech on the phone without spending an interminable time on hold. Plus, HostGator is a popular WordPress host. Any problem you have with your blog the chances are that the HostGator technical support has seen it several times before. Add to that a 45 day money back guarantee and tremendous script support for virtually anything you are likely to want to do with your blog and you have the #1 WordPress host.
LEARN MORE & GET YOUR HOSTGATOR ACCOUNT (with discount code)
#2 Easy CGI
Best Deal: The cheapest package; it already allows for unlimited domains Special Features: Incredibly easy WordPress installation GO TO THEIR SITE |
If you are a novice blogger, are worried about setting up your WordPress blog or simply want to make your WordPress startup process as easy as possible then Easy CGI is your ideal hosting choice. New hosting accounts with Easy CGI come with WordPress installed—with one click you can “turn on” your WordPress. Easy CGI turns accounts around quickly, so there’s probably no host where you can go from signing up to writing your first blog post as quickly. Plus, a t no extra cost, you’ll get $50 worth of Google Adwords credit, and $25 on Yahoo! Search Marketing, to advertise your new blog. That’s pretty good for a host that costs a mere $7.96 a month.
LEARN MORE & GET YOUR EASY CGI ACCOUNT
#3 Just Host
Best Deal: Happily, their cheapest package is also the best Special Features: Very cheap; one free domain for life! GO TO THEIR SITE |
Looking for the cheapest, reasonable quality host? Here it is: Just Host is one of the best value hosts around. With Just Host you’ll spend a few bucks less than HostGator per month and still get hosting for an unlimited number of domains, unlimited email addresses and unlimited SQL databases. Just Host will even provide you with a free domain for life. Installing WordPress with Just Host is almost (but not quite) as easy as it is on Easy CGI. And, like HostGator, Just Host offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee every month—if your site is down more than 43 minuets in a particular month JustHost will refund your fee for that month. (And they are not sticklers about honoring their guarantee).
So what’s the catch? Just Host does have a telephone help line. But you’ll spend more time waiting on hold for customer service than you would with HostGator. And, compared to HostGator, expect host problems with JustHost to pop up a little more frequently.
If you are serious about new new WordPress blog, we suggest HostGator. If your blog is a small side hobby, Just Host should hold you in good stead.
LEARN MORE & GET YOUR JUST HOST ACCOUNT
#4 ThinkHost
Special Features: Carbon neutral operations, automatic WordPress installer, free website tools GO TO THEIR SITE |
ThinkHost offers a high quality product. In our experience, and by all accounts, they are as reliable a host as HostGator is. Their service is comparatively good too. We also love the free website software you get when you sign up with ThinkHost and the spam filter on the email that comes complimentary with a ThinkHost package is one of the industry’s best.
On top of that, ThinkHost is the only host we know of that has a 100% (!) uptime guarantee. The problem—and this is the reason why ThinkHost slipped to #4 in our rankings—is that the guarantee calls for you to be refunded one day’s worth of hosting fees for every one hour your site is down. That sounds good until you do the math. If your site is down for 2 hours you’d be refunded a grand total of $0.51. With any of the hosts we ranked #1 through #3 you’d get a whole month’s cost refunded.
That said, ThinkHost offers something else none of the other hosts on this list does: strong environmental awareness. ThinkHost is a carbon neutral operation. Their servers run 100% on solar and wind energy. Plus they will plant a tree on your behalf!
If you want to start a Wordpress blog and do a little something for our planet at the same time ThinkHost is an excellent choice.
LEARN MORE & GET YOUR THINK HOST ACCOUNT
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Let us host your thoughts and questions in our comments section:
March 11th, 2009at 10:37 am(#)
Thanks, that must have taken a loads of work to put that together. This is a great summary.
March 13th, 2009at 1:30 pm(#)
Today we received a comment on this post that was accusatory and angry and referred to us as “morons.” Our crime? We didn’t include a hosting company called Media Temple on our list of best WordPress hosts.
We aren’t sure whether the commenter was affiliated with Media Temple or just angrily defensive of the company. But we are sure that we have no wish to give such a comment voice on our site. Spot Cool Stuff welcomes disagreement and different points of view. We also think that every topic can be discussed respectfully. If people can’t keep a modicum of politeness on a topic as innocuous as WordPress hosts then what hope is there for truly important issues such as religion strife, globalization and David Beckham?
On Media Temple, we will say this:
There are SEVERAL other good hosting companies out there beyond the four in our review and we believe Media Temple is one of them. Media Temple actually made our shortlist of the 10 companies we considered featuring. Their customer support is particularly good. In the end we didn’t include them for 3 reasons:
1) We called their sales department, told them the topic we were writing about, and asked them to give us their WordPress host sales pitch. We were not impressed by what we heard.
2) While there are some people who swear by Media Temple and had a good experience with the company we talked to too many, and read of many more online, who had a negative experience. The headline of this blog post sums up one person’s experience:
Media Temple Is Complete Crap
3) Maybe most of all, their hosting costs $20 a month. That’s a LOT more than any of our four choices. And for that extra money it doesn’t seem to us that you are getting a host that’s clearly more reliable than HostGator, or as easy to set up as EasyCGI or as environmentally friendly as ThinkHost. So we couldn’t see the logic of recommending it.
So that’s our opinion. We hope you find it valuable. We’ll understand if you don’t. Just don’t be angry at us for offering it.
March 18th, 2009at 8:43 pm(#)
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.
March 19th, 2009at 11:04 am(#)
Hi, I have signed up with Just Host, and already hosted my domain. My package is unlimited domain. I am planning to setup a blog using Wordpress, do I have to pay signup fee to Wordpress or Just Host?
March 19th, 2009at 8:57 pm(#)
MZA,
Congrats on getting your host and domain name!
WordPress is free. When you signed up with JustHost you should have gotten login info for something called “cpanel” which is like the command center for your hosting account. From your cpanel you are literally five minutes away from having your WordPress blog going. Here’s what you do:
From the main cpanel screen click on “Fantastico De Luxe,” which is an automated software installer. Then click on “WordPress” and then “New Installation” and follow the instructions from there. You’ll be creating a separate login name and password for your WordPress blog. Make sure you write that down! I took some screen shots to show you (and others) what this looks like:
INSTALL SCREEN SHOTS
Good luck. And welcome to the wonderful world of WordPress blogging.
May 3rd, 2009at 8:51 am(#)
It’s the first time I commented here and I must say you share us genuine, and quality information for bloggers! Good job.
p.s. You have a very good template for your blog. Where did you find it?
May 3rd, 2009at 10:42 pm(#)
Thanks, mssmotorrd. Spot Cool Stuff is run off of WordPress. Most of the template has been hand coded. It helps to have some good plugins too. There’s a review of the key plugins we use on our travel site at:
http://web.spotcoolstuff.com/travel-blog/best-wordpress-plugins
I’d be happy to (try to) help if you have questions on anything specific.
May 7th, 2009at 11:39 am(#)
Hi spotcoolstuff,
Seems like you are hosted at MIDPHASE, what is your recommendation for MIDPHASE hosting ?
May 12th, 2009at 7:11 pm(#)
Kalai,
We are no longer with MidPhase (or using sharing hosting at all—we’re on a virtual private server now). Our experience with MidPhase was a very rocky one, which is why they didn’t make our recommended list. MidPhase’s frontline support was absolutely dreadful and they often failed to live up to their 99.9% uptime guarantee. However, they were quick to refund a month’s fee for when they fell short of 99.9% uptime (when we asked), their managers (once you could get their attention) were super helpful, and our sense is that they’ve gotten past most of their growing pains.
We still pref our above choices. But MidPhase isn’t a horrible option.
May 16th, 2009at 6:10 pm(#)
This was EXACTLY the review I was looking for. Thanks for presenting it so clearly. I signed up with Easy CGI as you suggested and they’ve been everything you said they’d be so far. Thank you again.
May 25th, 2009at 10:26 pm(#)
Don’t quote me on this, but I’ve read somewhere that Wordpress actually recommend BlueHost as the best host for their platform. I’m not sure what they based this on, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Sire’s last blog post..The Security Of Your Photos Is Important
May 25th, 2009at 10:55 pm(#)
Hi Sire,
It isn’t an objective recommendation as much as BlueHost has an advertising relationship with WordPress.
BlueHost made our best WP host shortlist. It didn’t make the final but because, much list MediaTemple, there was no area that BlueHost was superlative. It didn’t have the lowest price, or the easiest WP setup, or the highest reliability. It did, however, score high on all three of those. For those who want to know more check out their website.
May 25th, 2009at 11:44 pm(#)
Thanks for that, it just goes to show how much you can learn via the blogging media.
Sire’s last blog post..Commonwealth Bank Of Australia Phony Phishing Email
June 1st, 2009at 12:45 am(#)
Mine is hosted with PowWeb. I haven’t encountered any moajor issues since I signed up for an account. You may try their hosting plan at PowWeb Hosting
August 1st, 2009at 6:13 am(#)
Very nice blog.Thanks for this blog.I think, it is very helpful for the users who wants to collect information about the Business Website Hosting.Really very nice blog also i liked it very much.It very helpful for users to increase their business.
January 20th, 2010at 7:48 pm(#)
Hi SpotCoolStuff. This is one of the easiest to read and digest review posts for hosting I’ve seen. Nice going!
I’m exploring moving my blog/starting a new blog on WordPress, so while it’s over a year old, it’s still helpful. And, I liked the idea of super fast up time with EasyCGI.
However, I did a little research on EasyCGI, and ran across a very unfavorable post. This came out AFTER your above post, so it may be a result of a new release that also came after your report. Found it on easycgireview.com and pasted it in below. Any thoughts on this?
” Easycgi uptime & Easycgi review for August 2009
Easy CGI Downtime, Easy CGI Problem, Easy CGI Reviews, Easy CGI Uptime No Comments »
Easycgi uptime by Easycgireview.org for August 2009: 85.5% over the internet
Easycgi Uptime: This is the last month we are monitoring the easy cgi uptime. Due to very poor service uptime for the recent months, and this month is terrible with 85.5% uptime over the internet only. We had decided to discontinue monitoring easycgi uptime statistic. 607 outage occurance happened this month, that is the worst uptime we had recorded.
Easycgi Review: Eascycgi suck! We had given up the easycgi hosting, and moved this easycgi review blog site out to other web hosting plan. Reason is as following:
* After easycgi upgrade to new platform, their windows asp plan is showing alot of error for wordpress blog website. Error appear at page header and footer section.
* We spend over 2 hours yesterday to fixed the errors, and tried to reinstall wordpress via their installcenter, failed and error still persist.
* Over the 2 hours time, there are alot of website downtime, and website are not accessible oftenly. Visiting the wordpress admin page took 10 or 20 attempts.
* contacted easycgi support to solved the problem, live chat can’t solve it on the spot, forward it to other support. And there is no answer/reply since.
* we don’t want to suffer anymore, stop wasting our time, we are moving out. Easycgi sucks!”
Thanks for any added input or thoughts you may have!
February 1st, 2010at 2:32 pm(#)
Hi Ted,
The thing about website hosts is that webmasters tend not to appreciate them when they work perfectly but get really pissed when anything goes wrong. As a result every website host — every single one of any size — has at least one review by an unhappy customer somewhere on the internet.
And with the particular review you cut & pasted, notice how this person’s problems started after an upgrade. It isn’t clear from the writing but it is very possible that the reviewer did something wrong during this upgrade. That is, the problem may have been the reviewer’s fault, not Easy CGI. And further still, this person’s site was only down for 2 hours. That’s not good, but 2 hours of downtime a month still translates into 99.7% uptime. We have no idea where the claim of only 85.5% uptime came from but we are certain that’s 100% wrong.
So, we stand by our recommendations: If uptime is paramount to you go with Host Gator. If you want solid uptime with a super-simple WordPress install Easy CGI is a great choice.
The way we look at it is: Every individual website host review has to be taken with a grain of salt.
February 6th, 2010at 5:53 am(#)
Hello,
I ended up on your site through a Twitter link to check out the two restaurants in caverns in the Caribbean. Thank you for that. I needed a reason to put the Caribbean on the bucket list besides the beach.
May I ask, do you know anything about eleven2, hostmonster and rackspace (cloud)?
I have a feeling my two blogs I’m working on will have a lot of traffic, video, photos, comments and things I have no idea of yet that might slow it down on a shared server. I feel smart just knowing what that means. I heard GoDaddy, where my empty WordPress blog s parked until Monday, dings you for getting too many users on your site at the same time. I’d rather pay extra than have to move everything again and again.
I’d also rather make a smart decision right now and not pay Rackspace’s $100/mo for maybe 4 blogs at $1200/year if I can get the same unlimited bandwidth (right?) with hostgator.
I’ve been asking for this help on Twitter and am happy that people I met at podcampAZ, including a young man named @EricJMyers, friends Social Media Club Phoenix (@smcphx) and others with WordPress experience have been insightful.
It means a lot that you pointed out the ad alliance with WordPress and the information on Media Temple. Media Temple was recommended by someone who’s likely an affiliate. Hey, if we find a host we like, why wouldn’t we want to become an affiliate?
If you get a chance to answer soon, and I know I’m writing this on a Saturday, it will be so beneficial.
I like the honesty and the variety of categories on your site. Thanks. Keep the coolstuff scoops comin!
Sincerely,
@RoseannHiggins
Phoenix, Arizona
February 6th, 2010at 6:04 am(#)
PS Thank you for demonstrating how to explain removing/moderating an offensive comment. I thought it was fair and you went into detail, which required man-hours on your end.
As a new blogger on two topics, one on dating and matchmaking, I want to keep the conversation from deteriorating, while ensuring the blog enables people to share valuable insights that are positive and painful or sensitive, if they will help others.
March 4th, 2010at 9:33 pm(#)
Roseann,
I honestly don’t know enough about eleven2 and rackspace to comment on them. Host Monster is in that category of hosts that is perfectly good but not superlative in any way.
For what it is worth, Spot Cool Stuff has a cloud host with VPS.NET that we are happy with. They don’t have unlimited bandwidth, but a key thing for you (and everyone else) to keep in mind is that really no one has unlimited bandwidth. Everyone has limits, it’s just that the so-called “unlimited bandwidth” hosts don’t put an exact number to them.
Also, we are working on a review of the best (in our opinion) cloud hosts. Check back for that.
Thanks again,
~ SCS