(Shared) Hosted Services

Hosts

SiteGround

  • Prices are reasonable, starting at $3.95/mo. (for first yr.) and then renewing at $9.95/mo.
  • Their most impressive offering is the GoGeek for $14.95/mo. (second year, $29.95/mo.).
  • Known for their great customer service (and my personal experience confirms this).
  • Once one moves up to cloud services, things get a bit pricey. I’ve been informed that their first level cloud service is actually a step down from the above mentioned GoGeek. It should only be used if one’s site requires more control (e.g., sys admin privileges).

A Small Orange

  • Offers high quality hosting for reasonable prices but with lower limits on things like storage and bandwidth. For $10/mo. you can get 15 GB storage and 150 GB bandwidth.
  • Their VPS hosting starts at $20/mo. for 30 GB storage with 1 GB RAM and 500 GB bandwidth.
  • They have an attractive managed option for $45/mo. which includes 2 GB RAM, 30 GB storage, and 1 TB bandwidth.
  • They also offer attractive and reasonably priced business hosting, which is similar to shared but stronger.

GoDaddy

  • GoDaddy has traditionally had a somewhat sketchy, exploitative reputation. This seems to be changing under new leadership and it appears GoDaddy is looking to become a serious option for individuals and businesses.
  • Shared hosting begins at $4.99/mo. ($6.99/mo.) and includes 100 GB storage and unlimited bandwidth.
  • They offer windows shared hosting starting at the same price and with similar features.
  • They also offer WordPress specific hosting starting at the same price and using a SSD hard drive with bandwidth for 25,000 visitors.
  • All of the above are for one website only, higher plans included the ability to host more sites.

Bluehost

  • I used to be a big Bluehost fan when it was under Matt Heaton, but once it was acquired things seemed to go downhill and I had a horrendous experience when they first launched the VPS service and moved away from them.
  • That said, they do appear to be moving in a more positive direction…though it is going to take a lot to gain people’s trust back. When I attend WCUS 2015 in Philly there were several hosting vendors and Bluehost’s rather large table was almost always the least occupied.
  • Shared hosting starts at $3.95/mo. ($7.99/mo.) and hosts one website with 50 GB storage and unlimited bandwidth. At the higher end they offer for $14.95/mo. ($23.99/mo.) an account that can host unlimited sites, unmetered storage and bandwidth, and is “high performance”.
  • They’ve recently launched a Cloud Sites offering which is only marginally more expensive than shared hosting and which they claim is significantly faster. Pricing starts at $5.95/mo. ($7.99/mo.) for 1 website, 100 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth, 2 GB RAM, 2 CPU.
  • The medium cloud site looks particularly impressive – $8.95/mo. ($12.99/mo.) gets you unlimited sites, bandwidth, and storage along with 4 GB of RAM and 4 CPUs. It is worth noting that there is no mention that I saw of SSD being used for hard drives, which may explain the lower pricing.
  • They have reasonably priced WordPress optimized hosting starting at $12.49/mo. ($24.99/mo.) which claims to be able to server 100 million visits/mo. It also includes 30 GB of storage, SiteLock Pro and CD, and 2 GB of RAM.

MediaTemple

  • Offers shared hosting on “the grid” – e.g., a cloud. Pricing starts at $30/mo. and includes 20 GB SSD, 1 TB bandwidth, and 2000 GPU compute.
  • They also offer WordPress specific hosting starting at $20/mo. which includes 30 GB SSD and 400k/mo. visitors.

DreamHost

  • Pricing for shared begins at $10.95/mo., or can be prepaid annually ($9.95/mo.) or bi-annually ($8.95/mo.). Includes unlimited storage and bandwidth.
  • They also offer Managed WordPress hosting called “DreamPress 2” and running $24.95/mo. or $19.95 if prepaid annually. This package includes 30 GB SSD, 2.1 million/mo. visitors, and is hosted on a VPS with the DB hosted on a separate VPS.
  • They also offer cloud storage starting at $10/mo.

Arvixe

  • Hosting starts at $4/mo. for unlimited storage and bandwidth. Windows based hosting at $5/mo.

1&1

  • Pricing seems reasonable, offers shared, WordPress, and performance hosting options, prices start at $0.99/mo. ($6.99/mo.) and offer lots of bandwidth.

Midphase

  • Offers shared and WordPress hosting. Pricing is fairly reasonable, WP is reasonable but base package provides 25k/mo. visitors.

HostPapa

  • Shared hosting starts at $2.95/mo. ($5.99/mo.), offers standard features.

justhost

  • Not particularly impressed.

ixwebhosting

  • Offers fairly standard shared hosting at standard pricing. Cloud hosting is available but I couldn’t find any pricing.

site5

  • I’ve used these folks in the past – they offer solid services and I always had a great support experience.
  • I did suffer a few minor outages due to DDoS attacks against Site5 and the UI is a little less than optimal, but, I really don’t want to sound negative – it is a solid service.
  • Offers standard and cloud hosting at reasonable prices.

Web Hosting Hub

  • Reasonably priced, robust shared plans, pricing  starts at $4.99/mo. ($8.99/mo.)

InMotion Hosting

  • Standard features and pricing.

Hostway

  • Standard features and pricing.

GreenGeeks

  • Standard features, pricing starts at $3.96/mo. ($9.95/mo.) for shared.
  • Also offers WordPress hosting.

LaughingSquid

  • Offers general hosting but the focus is on WordPress. Pricing starts at $4/mo. for 1 GB storage, 30 GB bandwidth, and 500 compute cycles.

LiquidWeb

  • Spoke to some reps. at WCUS 2015, they indicated that their biggest distinguishing factor is the quality of their support.
  • Shared pricing starts at $14.95/mo. and includes 5 GB SSD and 240 GB bandwidth.
  • They also offer WordPress hosting starting st $139/mo. and supporting unlimited visitors.

West Host

  • One of the hosts recommend by Joost de Valk.
  • Shared hosting starts at $2/mo. ($4/mo.) for 50 GB storage and 1 TB bandwidth.
  • They also offer cloud hosting starting at $50/mo. and including 1.2 GHz dedicated CPU, 1128 MB RAM, 20 GB storage, and 500 GB bandwidth.

FatCow

  • Not particularly impressed by their offering.

iPage

  • Not particularly impressed by their offering.

HostGator

  • Reputation is not good, see Chris Lema’s article listed below.

WordPress Specific

  • WP Engine
  • Synthesis
    • Recommended by Joost de Valk.
    • Starts at $47/mo. which includes 1 GB RAM, 20 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth, and an ability to handle 10k visitors/day.

Further Reading / Bibliography

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