Best Web Hosting Uk
Welcome to the CNET 2019 directory of web hosting providers. In this directory, we'll look at a few of the best website hosting providers like Bluehost, Hostgator, A2Hosting, Hostinger, Dreamhost, InMotion Hosting, and more. In this evaluation, we're featuring commercial hosting providers who offer WordPress, Shared Hosting, VPS and many more hosting products and variety of monthly and annual plans.
Read more: The best website builders for 2019
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Let's look at each of the vendors below in a little more depth.
Bluehost
- Free SSD and Free SSL
- Free Domain Name
- 24/7 Support
- 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
If you're a WordPress user, Bluehost is definitely a provider to consider. While its managed WordPress hosting is a little more pricey than basic shared hosting, the company has both specific WordPress and WooCommerce hosting plans available (along with management support). It also offers a site migration service for an additional fee.
The company got bonus points for its policy of performing regular daily backups, even on the lowest-priced shared hosting accounts. It lost points because its promotional price on the low-cost shared hosting does go up after the promotional period. That said, Bluehost also gained points for offering 24-7 phone support and SSH access for certain plans.
Hostgator
- Shared hosting starting at $2.75 /mo.
- WordPress hosting starting at $5.95 /mo.
- Reseller hosting starting at $19.95 /mo.
- VPS hosting starting at $19.95 /mo.
- Dedicated servers starting at $119 /mo.
- Cloud hosting starting at $4.95 /mo.
HostGator is a full-service hosting company, with plans for almost any need. Whether you're starting out and need a very basic shared site, or need to be able to operate your own machine dedicated solely to your company, HostGator has a service that can help.
We like how HostGator not only allows more sophisticated site builders to customize their dedicated or virtual server, but also to choose Linux or Windows hosting. While HostGator doesn't support SSDs on all plans, many of its servers can be equipped with the faster drives.
HostGator gained points for uptime monitoring and regular backups, along with free cPanel or Plesk. We liked that SSH is available for the more technically inclined site operators and that dedicated IP addresses could be purchased. We did take points off because it's sometimes difficult to tell what the price is once promotional plans run their course. That said, with a generous 45-day money back guarantee, there's a solution for almost everyone at HostGator.
InMotion Hosting
- Shared hosting starting at $3.99 /mo.
- WordPress hosting starting at $4.99 /mo.
- Reseller hosting starting at $13.99 /mo.
- VPS hosting starting at $19.99 /mo.
- Dedicated servers starting at $99.99 /mo.
InMotion is our top-rated hosting providers. We particularly like that the company offers free backups and SSH access, even on their lower-end plans. WordPress support with integrated WP-CLI is also available.
Here are some of the reasons the company gets a top rating. They offer an all-SSD infrastructure. They have 24-7 telephone support in addition to the ticket/email/chat support options. They offer a basic site migration, in that they'll unpack a site saved from another cPanel instance. They offer free SSL and free malware detection.
Rounding out the wins, InMotion offers a full 90-day money-back guarantee. On top of that, here's a special money-saving hint. In a chat session confirming pricing and offerings, the operator offered me some special prices and deals that reduced the published price by a few bucks. I was also told that while promotional pricing does go up at the end of the offer period, if you contact customer service, InMotion has a 'loyal customer discount' that may bring the price back down.
Dreamhost
- Shared hosting starting at $2.59 /mo.
- WordPress hosting starting at $2.59 /mo.
- VPS hosting starting at $15 /mo
- Dedicated servers starting at $149 /mo.
- Cloud hosting starting at $4.50 /mo.
Dreamhost holds a special place in my heart. The company, in addition to its commercial services, offers a free shared website to nonprofits. They provided a free website to a nonprofit I was affiliated with, which at the time, was a huge help for the cause. That offering is still available to 501(c)(3) nonprofits to this day.
Beyond that, Dreamhost is a 5-of-5 hosting company for many reasons. They operate their own control panel, which is convenient and easy to understand. While phone support isn't available 24-7, they are responsive to chat and tickets. The company uses superfast SSDs for all their storage, has a free SSL certificate (for more secured web browsing), and provides SSH access for those plans that are intended for more technical users.
There are two other factors that led to the nearly perfect score earned by Dreamhost. First, the company's pricing is pretty transparent. There are no hidden gotchas in the rates. Plus -- and this is the best we've seen across all our hosting providers -- Dreamhost provides a 97-day money back guarantee. There's quite literally zero risk in giving them a try.
Hostinger
- Shared hosting starting at $0.80/mo.
- WordPress hosting starting at $0.80/mo.
- VPS hosting starting at $3.95/mo.
- Cloud hosting starting at $7.45/mo.
Hostinger, a hosting provider based out of Lithuania, boasts it signs up a new client every five seconds. With 29 million users in 178 countries and subsidiaries in the US, Indonesia, and Brazil, the company has been in operation since 2004.
Hostinger has a nice selection of plans, all of which can be optimized for WordPress. We particularly liked that even the least expensive plans offered some level of SSH access for those who need it. The company gained points for its offering of SSD performance, dedicated IP, and regular backups for some plans.
What sets the company apart is their first-year hosting price of less than a buck a month. The company's least expensive plan is a startlingly-low 80 cents a month. This is the least expensive hosting program we've seen, although the price does go up after that first year. In fact, most of the company's plans increase after their promotional price expires.
Hostinger offers a 30-day money back guarantee with wording we wish more providers would use: 'If for any reason you decide not to continue with Hostinger, we will offer a full refund on your purchase, no questions asked.' If you have any
questions, the company has support chat lines available 24/7.
iPage
- Shared hosting starting at $1.99 /mo.
- WordPress hosting starting at $3.75 /mo.
- VPS hosting starting at $19.99 /mo.
- Dedicated servers starting at $119.99 /mo.
Probably the first thing most folks will notice about iPage is the incredibly low price for shared hosting service. At less than two bucks a month for the 36-month plan, you can buy three full years of hosting for under $75, a jaw-dropping deal no matter how you look at it.
Yes, that price will go up after your 36 months are over, but can you blame them? The company does not claim to offer unlimited bandwidth, but low-end hosting plans generally don't require a tremendous amount of traffic capacity. If you do sustain a big surge, contact the company and they'll work with you.
The company now includes a bunch of freebies, even in their lowest-priced plans. They offer $100 in ad credits both for Google and Bing, along with free SiteLock web security.
We like how iPage offers 24-7 telephone support and a 30-day guarantee on top of its ridiculously low price. If you're on a budget and want to try out Web hosting, we haven't found a better starting price than what iPage is offering.
A2 Hosting
- Shared hosting starting at $3.92/mo.
- WordPress hosting starting at $3.92/mo.
- Reseller hosting starting at $13.19/mo.
- VPS hosting starting at $5/mo.
- Dedicated servers starting at $99.59/mo.
A2 Hosting does a lot of things right. They offer Linux and Windows-based servers, SSD, caching, CDN, and SSL for all plans. While some plans offer uptime monitoring and regular backups, all plans offer malware scanning and automatic patching and updates.
The company offers a managed hosting service called HostGuard. Subscribers of this service have access to a 24/7/365 'Guru Crew' support team that manages network, hardware, software, and security. Managed hosting for WordPress customers begins at $11.99/mo, and for VPS customers at $32.99/mo.
The company offers solid plans with a good selection of features. The one area we're concerned about is how they present their offers. Like many hosting providers, their published pricing is a bit misleading. You're not getting hosting for $3.92/mo unless you pay nearly $150 for two years of service. Renewals are generally at a higher rate, although a salesperson we spoke to advised you ask for a 'loyalty discount.'
It shouldn't come as any surprise that, like other hosting providers, A2 Hosting's unlimited plans aren't actually unlimited. They expect you to use their service like 'similarly situated customers.' This is like being on a highway. If everyone is going a few miles above the speed limit, you're probably okay, but if you're barreling down the fast lane past everyone else, you're probably going to be asked to slow down.
The company offers a solid 30-day money back guarantee they call an 'Anytime' money back guarantee. Yeah...kind of. You can ask for your money back at any time, but after your first 30 days, how much you get back will depend on a painfully complex pro-rating system.
But, again, operationally they're quite strong. 24/7/365 support is available not only by chat and email, but by phone. They offer free site migrations with some dedicated attention paid to making a transfer as smooth as possible. And, if you're willing to go for one of the higher-end plans, the company has put some serious attention into performance and caching.
MochaHost
- Shared starting at $1.95/mo.
- WordPresss starting at $2.48/mo.
- Reseller starting at $2.48/mo.
- VPS starting at $9.87/mo.
- Cloud starting at $19/mo.
As dedicated coffee fans, we love the name MochaHost. But if an inspired name was all the company had to offer, they wouldn't have earned a coveted 4.5 out of 5 rating. The only reason MochaHost didn't score a perfect 5-out-of-5 was because some of their lower plans don't include SSD storage.
The company has a wide range of offerings, but by far, the stand-out feature MochaHost provides is a 180-day money-back guarantee. That's the best we've seen so far, and it removed just about all of the risk from any hosting experience.
Overall, we were impressed with how customer-centric the company's offerings are. For example, unlike some of the hosting providers we've profiled (and deducted points from), MochaHost's published prices don't balloon once you've settled in with their service. They have a lifetime price-lock guarantee.
They got other customer-centric bonuses for 24/7 support, including 24/7 toll-free callback phone support, free domain name and SSL certificates for as long as you remain a MochaHost customer, a website builder with 500 free templates (and a service that will custom-design your site if you need), a site migration service. In addition, all plans are e-commerce ready and come with free shopping cart software.
For the more enterprise-oriented customers, they offer a full range of VPS and cloud hosting, along with serious Java Tomcat hosting, including shared and private JVMs, as well as Java VPS offerings. With a company named MochaHost, you'd expect some quality Java support and they have it. So brew yourself a cuppa, open a browser window, and give MochaHost a spin. You have half a year to make up your mind, so if it turns out MochaHost really isn't your cup of tea, they'll understand.
Web Hosting Hub
- Shared hosting starting at $4.99 /mo.
- WordPress hosting starting at $4.99 /mo.
Web Hosting Hub has an entry-level starting price, but some surprisingly valuable benefits for such a low-price entrant.
In particular, Web Hosting Hub uses BoldGrid as a site builder. BoldGrid is actually an add-on to WordPress, so there's no lock-in. This overcomes the major problem of most site builders: you're locked into that host and that tool, often requiring you to completely rebuild your site if you want to expand. By using a WordPress-based solution, all of the rather considerable power of WordPress is available for future expansion.
We liked how Web Hosting Hub describes its new customer process. They tell new customers, 'We walk you through setting up your account in a personal on-boarding call.' The company has a few other wins as well. They offer an all-SSD infrastructure, automatic vulnerability patches and a custom firewall, SSH access for certain plans, free site migration and an excellent 90-day money-back guarantee.
Web Hosting Pad
- Shared hosting starting at $1.99 /mo.
- WordPress hosting starting at $2.99 /mo.
- VPS hosting starting at $29.95 /mo.
Web Hosting Pad has a strong international presence. The company has servers in US, Hong Kong, Mainland China and Korea, and you can specify which server and location you want when you sign up.
In terms of what many vendors call unlimited service, Web Hosting Pad's terms of service indicate that their definition of unlimited is what they call 'incremental.' Basically, as you need more capability, they want to discuss that with you, both to help you get the most out of their services, and to make sure you're using their systems without abusing them.
The company's entry-point pricing is extremely low, and while this will buy you up to three years of very low-cost hosting, do be aware that its post-promotion price will increase substantially, putting its subsequent year pricing more in line with the rest of its competitors. That said, we liked its 24-7 phone support, SSD support on some plans, and 30-day money-back guarantee.
SiteGround
- Shared hosting starting at $3.95/mo
- WordPress hosting starting at $3.95/mo
- Reseller server starting at $3.50/mo
- Cloud hosting starting at $80.00/mo
SiteGround sits in the middle ground between a consumer web hosting provider and those who cater to enterprise solutions. If you've got a small business with more complex web needs than a typical small business, SiteGround is an ideal solution.
Although offerings start as low as $3.95 per month, we particularly like the company's GoGeek plan, which is chock full of useful features, including access to a staging server and one-click Git repo creation.
There's a lot to like about SiteGround, but the company did lose some points due to its policy of more than doubling your hosting costs after the first year. The company calls it a first-year discount, but that's in very tiny, light gray print.
On the plus side, SiteGround offers free automatic daily backups, access to the Cloudflare CDN, high-performance SSDs for all plans, unlimited email accounts, and integration of the free LetsEncrypt SSL certificate into sites. The company does limit bandwidth and storage, but even those who claim to offer so-called unlimited bandwidth and storage really have some limits in their terms of service.
Sadly, there is a bit of a 'gotcha' to the free automatic backup service. If you're paying $3.95 a month (for the first year of hosting, then $9.95 a month), you don't get restores for free. Each restore, no matter how small or large, will cost you $19.95. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, the company has to pay salaries to tech support reps who can handle panicking customers. On the other hand, it seems kind of mean-spirited to hit someone when they're down with an added fee. That said, getting your data back – at any price – is priceless.
SiteGround is very proactive about protecting their customers' security. They have a dedicated security team that writes necessary patches and web firewall rules that help mitigate zero-day vulnerabilities. They also use an AI-based system to monitor and apply fixes to all their servers dynamically.
Finally, the company offers an entire tier of custom enterprise services. So, if you do GrowBig (as their mid-tier plan is named), you'll be able to stay with the company no matter how big you get.
1&1 IONOS
- Shared hosting starting at $1/mo.
- WordPress hosting starting at $1/mo.
- VPS hosting starting at $5/mo.
- Dedicated server starting at $70/mo.
- Cloud hosting starting at $10/mo.
1&1 IONOS provides a wide range of hosting services, along with a full e-commerce stack, domain name registration, Office 365 solutions, and online marketing programs.
The company also offers higher-end Windows and Linux servers, available with Plesk and cPanel respectively. We were very intrigued to see that the company offers low-end Atom-based dedicated servers as well as the more traditional Xeon-based machines. One great resource for those doing some basic experimentation, or site development, is that they have a free, three-month trial for one of their lightly-equipped Atom servers.
Best Web Hosting Companies In India
The company does loose some points for its hefty price increase after the first year for most plans, although we do commend 1&1 for making that price increase clear, visible, and easy to understand on their site.
At the very bottom of their home page is a link called 'show fineprints.' Clicking it expands out a list of details on the restrictions and renewal pricing for many of their promotions. We liked that this level of detail was easily available to consumers.
Good phone, email, and chat tech support, along with SSD-based hosting for faster performance, and a free SSL certificate round out the offerings, and earn 1&1 Hosting it's well-deserved 4.6 out of five.
Lunarpages
- Shared hosting starting at $3.95/mo.
- Reseller hosting starting at $19.95/mo.
- Cloud hosting starting at $44.95/mo.
- Dedicated servers starting at $99/mo.
Established back in 1998, Lunarpages operates three state-of-the-art data centers. Equipped with multiple GigE fiber connections to the internet backbone, the company built out seismically-braced racks and cabinets, fully-redundant Liebert HVAC cooling systems, a diesel generator that can run for weeks, and a pre-action dry pipe fire suppression system.
All of this infrastructure has been built out to support the a wide range of hosting services. The family-owned company gains points for understanding the importance of transaction security by offering free AutoSSL and Let's Encrypt SSL encryption for its plans. While the company offers sophisticated services for technically strong clients, it also has a Weebly web builder option to get you up and running quickly.
Some plans offer SSD performance, and while there's no uptime monitoring provided, the company also gained a nod for its offering of both Linux and Windows plans.
For the technically-inclined, SSH access is available for a $2/mo upcharge, as is a dedicated IP address. The company allows for backup through its various dashboards and permits customers to build scripts to automate the backup process. While the company doesn't automatically perform malware scans, you can request one if desired.
BigCommerce
- Standard plan starting at $29.95 /mo.
- Plus plan starting at $79.95 /mo.
- Pro plan starting at $249.95 /mo.
BigCommerce is a bit different from our other hosting plans in that it's a SaaS (software-as-a-service) provider instead of an IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) provider. In other words, rather than renting space on a virtual machine where you setup and configure your own site, BigCommerce provides you with an app you login to that creates and online store.
So instead of worrying about servers and hosting applications, SSH and cPanel, you're going to be paying more attention to the business applications you can integrate with, the selling channels you use, and the products and inventory you spotlight.
The key benefit is that, out of the box, you are able to host securely, drive traffic, convert visitors, accept payments, and ship and fulfill orders. There's even an API so that if you do scale and need special integrations unique to your business, you can make it happen.
Service price varies a lot. There are really two factors: how much you pay per transaction and the features offered. All plans charge $0.30 per transaction plus a percentage.
At the lowest end, you'll be paying 2.9 percent of the amount you charge. Bumping up to the Plus plan gets you a lowered 2.5 percent of the transaction fee and adds Google customer reviews, the ability for customers to filter their product searches, and custom SSL (a security certificate you may have already purchased).
The Pro plan is costly, but you get a lot. First, you share considerably less of each transaction's cost, down to 2.2 percent. Then, on top of the Plus plan features, you get even more customized filtering, price lists, unlimited API calls, can have sales up to $400K per month, and get premium account services.
If your hosting needs lean towards setting up an online store first and foremost, give BigCommerce a look.
GreenGeeks
- Shared hosting starting at $3.95 /mo.
- WordPress hosting starting at $3.95 /mo.
- Reseller hosting starting at $19.95 /mo.
- VPS hosting starting at $39.95 /mo.
- Dedicated servers starting at $160 /mo.
Website Hosting Services
If you've ever been worried about the tremendous amount of power large data centers consume, you might want to sign up with Green Geeks. The 'green' in the company's name reflects the Green Geeks' commitment to the environment. It purchases three times the energy it actually uses in wind energy credits, essentially putting energy back into the economy. The company does this through a form of renewable energy certificates, which, while a bit complicated, means that it's not just energy neutral, i's actually helping fuel the green energy economy.
Just because it's green doesn't mean it limits your power to do what you need with your websites. Rather surprisingly, its low-end account provides both SSH and WP-CLI (useful for automated WordPress deployments) access, along with Git preinstalled. It's also possible to customize PHP and PHP.INI, a capability unheard of on a low-end plan.
The company gained additional points for its all-SSD infrastructure, 24-7 phone support, 30-day money-back guarantee, free site migration and malware detection. The only concern we had is that after your discounted purchase period expires, basic shared hosting jumps to $9.95 per month.
Glowhost
- Shared hosting starting at/mo $4.95
- Reseller hosting starting at/mo $24.95
- Elastic Sites hosting starting at/mo $13.49
- Semi-dedicated servers starting at/mo $49.99
- Managed dedicated servers starting at/mo $129.00
- Cloud VPS hosting starting at/mo $79.00
- Enterprise cloud hosting starting at/mo $199.00
GlowHost offers a wide variety of plans for those with very different hosting needs. We were particularly impressed with their media hosting plans, which include offerings for FFmpeg, SHOUTcast, and podcast hosting.
The company doesn't list a virtual private server offering, but they bill their Elastic Sites service as a VPS alternative, offering the ease of use of a simple shared hosting plan and the performance and scalability of a VPS. GlowHost also offers a number of different cloud hosting plans, with special attention to providing enterprise-grade services.
GlowHost picked up major points for their 91-day money-back guarantee. They were six days short of DreamHost's 97-day guarantee, but with these numbers, who's quibbling over a few days? The company also picked up points for their 24/7/365 phone support option and free cPanel offering for most plans. The company operates 18 datacenters worldwide. Finally, the company gains major points by driving all its hosting services with wind power.
When shopping for a hosting service, keep a few things in mind.
Big price jump after promo period
Many services offer a low 'starting price,' but require you to prepay for two or three years of service to get that price. After the promotional period, the renewal price for some services can be two, three, or even four times the initial promotional pricing. While the initial deal might be incredible, the cost of transferring your site (or paying the added fee) in a couple of years may be something to consider.
What 'unlimited' really means
Many services offer so-called unlimited or unmetered service for whatever amount of bandwidth, disk storage and sites you use. It's important to understand that most terms of service actually do limit the definition of 'unlimited' to what's considered reasonable use. The bottom line is simple: if you're building a pretty basic website, unlimited means you don't need to worry. But if you're trying to do something excessive (or illegal, immoral or fattening), the fine print in the terms of service will trigger, and you'll either be asked to spend more or go elsewhere.
Watch out for page builders
Almost all the services offer some sort of page builder that makes it easy to drag and drop to build your page. These are great for getting started, but they often lock you into the service. Most page builders are proprietary to the service, or don't create HTML that's portable enough to be easily moved to another service if you decide it's necessary.
Migration services are great, mostly
Migration or transfer services are often free or offered at a reasonable fee. These services help move your existing site to the new hosting provider. They can save a huge amount of hassle. Just remember that the migration process is often automated, and may fit in with the host's processes and needs rather than yours. Not everything may migrate, and you may find the organization of the newly migrated site makes for harder maintenance in the long run.
Keep those concepts in mind as you shop for a hosting service. Our hosting service rankings are based on nearly 40 factors including quality of support, guarantee, availability of security services, performance architecture, and promotional pricing.
More information about website hosting
You may also find other hosting services more appropriate depending on your needs. Hosting services such as cloud hosting, e-commerce hosting, reseller hosting and WordPress hosting are providing customers with a lot of flexibility.
Cloud hostingis a great option if you want to make sure you have a lot of storage space and allows you to utilize cloud computing to do so. There are many advantages to selecting cloud hosting, such as guaranteed server resources, redundant data storage and unlimited website growth.
E-commerce hostingis a popular option for many online businesses. In addition to providing customers with ecommerce functionality, many web-hosting service providers are also capable of providing you with a web server to host your website, along with an email server and other standard web-hosting features.
Reseller hostingis ideal for users who are interested in using his or her allotted hard drive space and bandwidth to host websites on behalf of third-parties. To do this, the reseller will need to purchase the host's services wholesale and then sell them to customers separately for a potential profit at retail prices.
WordPress hostingis an ideal platform for customers who are interested in creating a custom-built website. WordPress is popular among customers because it lets you build a professional custom website using a variety of templates, plug-ins and widgets.
What about after picking a provider?
Once you choose your provider, it's time for you to open an account with the monthly plan that fits your needs. If you still have questions about which plan is suitable for you, call their customer support staff and have them assist you through the registration process. Companies will generally charge a credit card on a monthly basis, however, some companies will also offer discounts for paying a yearly payment at once.
After selecting a provider, it's highly recommended that you test your internet speed to ensure that the data is being processed in a timely manner. You can take the Internet Speed Testto instantly assess your current Upload and Download internet speeds.
How to speed up your website? Finding the fastest hosting provider?
People often think that a web host is the main cause of a slow website but, this is often not the case. When picking a provider, it's important for find a hosting provider that is close to your users and has a good amount of RAM and fast CPU power. Beyond that, it's often the way the website is set up that slows it down for users. To ensure that your website speed is optimal for users you need to make sure you pay attention to the following:
- Minimize HTTP requests to the server. This means that we limit the amount of request that are required to download the page
- Enable server caching. WIth server caching, after content has been download, the content is stored locally to allow faster access of the content and a reduction of strain on your web server.
- Enable compression of larger files. Compression reduces the bandwidth of your files, resulting in a lower HTTP response.
- Remove code bloat. Remove any unnecessary code or plugins.
- Optimize images. This will reduce overall page size.
There are many other ways to increase website speed but, these are the items that will have the biggest impact.
What if I can't find my questions here?
Many of your questions can be answered in our CNET Forums. If you're still seeking additional answers, then you may find more helpful information in our database of web hosting articles.
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