Nothing is more important than choosing the right hosting provider for your website. Making the wrong choice can result in disaster and also wasted time and money. In this article, we’re going to briefly go over some of the best hosting platforms available today, as well as list their pros and cons.

1. Bluehost

This company has first founded in 1996 and has been around forever. They’re known for their highly dependable service, and if you’re a beginner building your first website, then Bluehost comes highly recommended. With more than 2 million customers, this is a platform on which you can rely.

Pros:

• Extremely fast servers mean your site loads quickly. Unlike other cheap hosting platforms, this one provides you with decent load speeds.
• Wide variety of plans and packages to suit your needs. This company offers an enormous range of plans and packages.
• Affordable for big and small budgets (the cheapest package starts at only a few dollars per month and includes a free domain name.)

Cons:

• No website builder or web development tools. Using this provider means you’ll have to build your site from scratch or pay someone to do it. This can be a problem for beginners.
• High renewal price. While getting started is cheap, prices go up quickly. This means you may end up having to cancel your plan.
• Multiple upsells. This platform will pressure you into upgrading your plan, and this can become irritating. They may also pressure you into purchasing third-party products.

2. NameCheap

This company has also been around forever and has a fantastic reputation. Starting off as a domain name registrar, they have now expanded their offerings into hosting and other services. They’re also known as one of the world’s biggest domain name registrars, with more than 11 million names currently registered.

Pros:

• Easy to use interface and dashboard. This is perfect for people who have difficulty with technology.
• With NameCheap, you can also register your domain name. This makes it simple to choose a name for your website and setup hosting at the same time. It only takes a few clicks to purchase both.
• Most domains are relatively cheap, which is great if you don’t have a lot of money to invest in your first website.

Cons:

• Expensive to transfer your website. Namecheap charges a fee for website migration, and this can be a drawback for some people.
• According to users, their choice of domains names can be limited. For example, some international domains are not available.
• Confusing layout. Users have also described their dashboard as difficult to use. This is something we definitely agree with.

3. Dreamhost

DreamHost has long been affiliated with WordPress, which is why we recommend it for beginners. In case you don’t know, WordPress is one of the world’s biggest blogging platforms and also one of the easiest ways to build your own website. While this platform only has 400,000 users, this is mostly because their services at aimed at people building non-commercial websites, i.e., blogs.

Pros:

• Fully integrated with WordPress. DreamHost also provides you with a drag and drop website builder.
• For people who are already using WordPress, this platform also performs free plugin migrations, which can be extremely useful.
• Money-back guarantee. Believe it or not, DreamHost offers a three-month 100% money-back guarantee, something which is considered a rarity in the hosting world.

Cons:

• Slightly pricier. On average, this platform charges far more than other hosting providers. That being said, the additional tools and features more than makeup for it.
• Basic plans lack certain features. For example, if you want an email address, you’ll have to pay extra. This can become a problem if you’re running a business website.
• Customer support is limited. If you’re on the basic plan, you don’t get access to phone support. The can make customer support is extremely slow and laborious.

4. SiteGround

SiteGround is a newer company that mostly focuses on cloud hosting. They’re also said to be particularly good for websites involved in eCommerce. With more than 500 employees and 2 million customers, this looks like a highly reputable company.

Pros:

• Custom dashboard. Most hosting providers still use cPanel, which has a steep learning curve for newbies. Instead, SiteGround has its own easy-to-use custom interface.
• Solid-state drives. This company uses SSDs. These are essentially an advanced type of hard drive that can greatly increase the speed at which your website loads (something which is extremely important for Google SEO.)
• Google Cloud. Speaking of Google, SiteGround has now moved its data centers over to Google Cloud, which is known for its incredibly fast network and load times.

Cons:

• Speed issues. Because this platform is cloud-based, there may occasionally be issues with speed. For this reason, SiteGround isn’t recommended for enterprise-level businesses.
• This hosting company is also known for using bait and switch tactics. While the first month of hosting is relatively cheap, this price quickly goes up and may become unaffordable for some people.
• Limited space. Customers on the startup plan get access to a measly 10GB of hard drive space. This can become a problem if your site is rapidly growing.

5. GreenGeeks

This hosting platform is completely different from anything else on our list. The difference is that they provide environmentally friendly web hosting. While this may or may not be true (and probably won’t matter to some people), the real question is this: are they any good? As it turns out, while they might not be the best hosting company, they certainly do provide great value for money. In fact, this company was actually voted as the best hosting company in 2020.

Pros:

• Eco friendly. GreenGeeks is carbon neutral. If you’re someone who cares about the environment and about things like global warming, then this is a major plus.
• This platform is surprisingly cheap, considering that they’re “green.” Starter plans cost only a few dollars per month and don’t get much more expensive than that.
• Time-based discounts. The company also offers generous discounts for people who subscribe for longer.

Cons:

• Poor support. The customer support on this platform is absolutely terrible. It’s difficult to get in touch with them, plus there’s no phone support. In addition to this, customer support only operates during office hours.
• Packages can be confusing. This platform offers a number of tiers and packages. To be honest, we found these extremely confusing and had difficulty telling them apart.
• Misleading guarantee. This company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee but only offers a partial refund which can be a negative for some people.

Conclusion

Selecting your hosting platform is the first step when setting up a new website. It’s critically important that you make the right choice. Choosing the wrong provider means your site will not function at an optimal level. Not only that, you’ll end up spending far more money than you have to. Stick to this list of platforms, and you should find a provider which gives you value for money and helps to get your site up and to run.