Choosing a hosting service for your WordPress site often seems like an afterthought, as most hosting companies out there seem to be providing the same services at similar prices. Especially if you are a small business and only need the basic hosting package, the difference between hosting providers become even more negligible.
However, as incredibly powerful a platform as it is, WordPress has its weaknesses, especially when it comes to site speed. There are several factors that contribute to the speed of a WordPress site including the theme you choose to use, the plugins that you install and the server that the site is being hosted.
Having worked with numerous different clients over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to build WordPress websites under different hosting providers, all the way from GoDaddy to Blue Host; iPage to Siteground and this post contains my insights from all these experiences.
Managed WordPress Accounts
In the last few years, almost all hosting companies started offering hosting accounts specifically for WordPress. Some call it ‘Managed WordPress’ account and others just call it ‘WordPress Hosting’. No matter the name, the idea is the same: providing a hosting platform that is optimized specifically for WordPress. That means the server is maintained accordingly and your WordPress software is updated regularly without you having to do anything. It also means that these platforms are designed to serve up information that is created in PHP (the coding language that WordPress uses).
Most of these services also provide server-side caching and other useful tools that come with the package when you sign up. As a result, it means less hassle for the user and better performance.
Comparison of WordPress Hosting Options
I am not going try to reinvent the wheel when comparing the different hosting providers out there, as there are already lots of amazing technical analyses done by WP Dev Shed, WP Site Care and WPBeginner that you can look through if you want to learn about it in more detail. What I am going to do here is use the simple comparison table created by codeinwp blog that I think is a great visual way to look at and compare the most prominent options out there.
Verdict
The table above compares the most well-known hosting providers out there but it is by no means an exhaustive list. There are tons of other hosting providers, some of which will also have great features for great prices.
After trying out different hosting providers both for my own website and client websites, I have come to the conclusion that Siteground is an excellent option. It offers, in my opinion, the best bang for buck without compromising the quality of service.
Once again, I would like to reiterate that the site speed and reliability does not solely depend on your hosting provider. There are several other factors that can be the subject of another post but hosting platform is a huge contributor to site speed and dependability.