Best web hosting services in 2021

The best web hosting services are key to building your first website or your latest. Web hosts are the basis for your site online, and you'll need one of the best website builders to create one. If it's not hosted, it can't exist online, and no content will appear: like a site can't be made without website builders, web hosts are absolutely integral to your finished website functioning and being visible to customers.

For such an important element of site creation, however, choosing a web hosting provider can be challenging whether you're a beginner or have plenty of experience. This highly-competitive market, filled with providers offering multiple plans across multiple hosting types, can overwhelm you with choice.

Never fear: we're here to help guide you to the leading web hosting providers. Our top advice is to do your research before you look, as it becomes so much easier when you know what you need. Bear budgets in mind, and understand the specific types of hosting (if you weren't already aware) to make your choice easier.

Also make sure to bear website building in mind here: most leading hosts offer some of the best website builders with hosting plans. Your journey to a new site can be easier, cheaper, and less stressful if your builder and host are the same company.

Finally, evaluate the hosts you might choose in terms of security and reliability; levels of storage and bandwidth; and of customer support and maintenance. All of these factors are key to good hosting, and in ranking the best web hosting services, we took all of these into account. Read on, and find the best web host for your new site!

Our video quickly guides you through what what you need to know, and how to choose the right hosting provider

The 3 best web hosting services right now

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What are the best web hosting services?

Our pick for the best web hosting service is Hostinger, which provides the best budget hosting, high-quality features, and with virtually no flaws. Its leading elements include the excellent, native hPanel; top security integrations; the Zyro website builder; one-click Cloudflare installation; and built-in domain registration.

A new entrant to our rankings, cloud hosting provider Cloudways packages value-for-money pricing and top features across a wide range of network plans. Rounding out the top three is WP Engine, which offers top performance and advanced features for WordPress developers and those with high-level web experience.

Hostwinds, Namecheap, Liquid Web, GreenGeeks, HostGator, Bluehost, DreamHost, InMotion Hosting, and Domain.com are also worth your consideration. We've included them all thanks to their particular strengths and hosting focuses. 

Finally, Wix and Weebly are leading options if you're looking for a top-quality website builder offering hosting.

The best web hosting services available today

Hostinger has earned the trust of over 30 million users, and for us it's the best web hosting service currently available. We also found it to be the provider of the the best cloud hosting, the best VPS cloud hosting, the best WordPress hosting, the best VPS hosting, and one of the best free web hosting services (via 000webhost).

It relies on its own technology, and doesn't let third parties have a say in performance, feature management, or control. Customers can choose between three cloud, three shared, six VPS, and two email plans. It also offers cPanel, WordPress and Minecraft hosting, in addition to CyberPanel VPS hosting, and includes the Zyro website builder with all plans.

Shared hosting begins at $1.39 a month (increasing to $2.99 after renewal), covering one site with 30GB of SSD storage and 100GB bandwidth. Premium Shared Hosting is currently available for an exclusive price of $1.79, while Business Shared Hosting is $3.99 a month for 100 sites, 200GB SSD storage, and unlimited bandwidth. 

Hostinger offers great hosting services at a fraction of the price of many competitors, and the native hPanel control panel is a standout feature that we'd argue is as good as (if not better than) cPanel, the industry standard. Streamlined SSL setup, a full CloudFlare CDN integration, and other top features combine with excellent performance metrics to keep it at the top of our hosting guide.

Read our comprehensive Hostinger review and our detailed Zyro review.

*This is the annual cost of a four-year subscription. Expect to pay significantly more per year for shorter subscription terms.

Cloudways, one of the leading cloud hosting providers, offers extremely flexible, pay-as-you-go payment plans across a range of different cloud infrastructure networks. Among its top features are its strong focus on security, with dedicated firewalls and DDoS attack protection just two such elements, alongside advanced bot detection, two-factor authentication, and automatic patching.

It also offers a custom PHP app installer, automatically installing apps for WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, and other services. Its proprietary Breeze WordPress caching plugin meanwhile aims to help reduce page load times, with CDN integrations, and with code file storage.

Every plan offers users access to 24/7 real-time monitoring services covering resource usage, server health, and more. A range of other add-ons are available for extra site customization, and across all networks, its plans offer free SSL certificates, free site migrations, 24/7/365 support, unlimited app installations, and automatic backups.

Its performance is among the best we've seen, with 100% uptime during our testing period, and great average server response times too.

Cloudways’ pricing is a little complicated, due to the number of options available. You can choose from five networks: DigitalOcean, Linode, VULTR, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud. All offer different subscription options, and some are separated into Standard and Premium plans.

Hourly and monthly payments are available, but there are no long-term subscription discounts. Prices start from as low as $10 a month ($0.0139 an hour) for 1GB RAM, a one core processor, 25GB storage, and 1TB of bandwidth. You're also not locked-in to contracts, so you can cancel your subscription at any time, while a free trial offers you the chance to see what it offers before you pay.

With its powerful and highly-configurable managed cloud hosting, top-level performance, and scalable value-for-money approach to pricing, Cloudways is a strong and reliable option for those looking for hosting with more power than the standard shared hosting available.

Read our comprehensive Cloudways review.

*Significant discounts are available with longer-term subscriptions, and you may be required to pay more on renewal.

WP Engine's powerful managed WordPress hosting is aimed at developers, with automated backups, integrated development, and staging environments building on high-level performance.

While not cheap, its tools are market-leading, though it can be harder to get to grips with for first-timers. It's best suited to those with site creation or WordPress development experience aiming for scalable, flexible sites. All plans include 10 professionally-designed themes and a simple, block-based WordPress site builder, while automatic site and staging environment back-ups are simple to set up.

Each site includes development, staging, and production environments, allowing you to test changes; try out new code; upload and make live changes; and get feedback from collaborators. A built-in CDN improves performance too, while single sign-on makes using the service seamless.

Pricing-wise, WP Engine offers two plans: Managed WordPress for business sites, and eCommerce Solutions for online stores (Advanced Solutions are a third plan available for enterprises on request). Both have Startup, Professional, Growth, Scale, and Dedicated levels, with storage, bandwidth, and other elements increasing along with price.

Sites share storage and bandwidth, and on Managed WordPress Startup (starting at $25 a month), you get one site, 10GB storage, and 50GB bandwidth. Managed WordPress Scale offers 30 sites, 50GB of storage, and 500GB bandwidth for $242 a month, with monthly or annual payments accepted (the latter offers a 17% discount).

While its prices aren't the cheapest, the level of features you get with WP Engine's hosting is second-to-none for experienced WordPress site builders and developers, offering tools for scaling up sites and ensuring continued smooth performance.

Read our full WP Engine review.

Hostwinds is the master of dedicated hosting, boasting powerful configuration catering to both regular sites and high-demand, resource-draining gaming servers. It also provides shared, business, VPS (for Linux and Windows, managed and unmanaged), cloud, and dedicated hosting plans.

This highly customizable provider offers several base options you can tailor to your own needs. Even its cheapest dedicated packages come with a four-core single processor and 8GB of RAM. In fact, its range of unlimited features across its plans means it ranks as our choice for the best unlimited web hosting provider.

Additional features include specifying the number of operating systems (i.e. standard CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, or Windows Server), various RAID configuration options, and more. It also includes a Weebly builder for free; find out more in our section focused on website builders.

All plans include full server management, so you can relax and not worry about sysadmin: ideal for less tech-savvy users. It also provides server monitoring and nightly backups, and guarantees to never throttle traffic thanks to a 1Gbps network link available to all users, regardless of what bandwidth option they’ve selected.

We had a bone to pick on a couple of matters — SSL certificate installation could be clearer, and pricing could be less confusing — but excellent performance and plans more than make up for these issues.

Read our full Hostwinds review.

*We’ve listed the standard prices here. Expect to receive a discount of up to 50% for your first billing cycle.

Namecheap focuses on providing affordable services without cutting corners on quality. It certainly succeeds, as you’ll see if you purchase one of its more advanced packages across WordPress, reseller hosting, VPS, and dedicated servers. The Site Maker website builder is also available for simpler sites, on separate monthly or annual plans.

Its cheapest shared hosting plan, at only $2.88 a month ($1.18 a month for the two-year plan), doesn’t get you much — only 20GB of storage and 30 email accounts. However, it's a real bargain, and it throws in free CDN support, one domain name, and coverage for three websites.

Increase your budget limit to $4.88 a month ($1.98 a month for the two-year plan) and you’ll get access to unrestricted SSD storage, unlimited websites, and auto-backups. At $8.88 a month ($4.80 a month for the two-year plan), you’ll receive 50GB SSD, cloud storage that guarantees zero interruptions, ultimate stability, and top-notch data protection.

As well as a 99.9% uptime guarantee and above-average speeds, Namecheap is beginner-friendly, and does its best to ease you in with helpful information in its welcoming email, alongside a huge online knowledge base.

Read our detailed Namecheap review.

*This price only applies to the first year of your subscription, and renewal prices will be significantly higher.

Liquid Web does an excellent job of providing various expert managed hosting services for all types of users and requirements. These range from WordPress and email to WooCommerce, dedicated, VPS and cloud hosting, and its capabilities shine.

Take its WordPress solution as an example — you’re getting automated WordPress and plugin updates, applied first in an isolated environment to avoid any potential problems affecting you later, before being forwarded to your site.

Data centers run entirely on managed hardware and network infrastructure allow Liquid Web to provide a wide variety of powerful features. These include a professional-level virus and spam defense system, deep system monitoring, key software installation, updates, support, and free external migrations. 

Via its WordPress plugins add-on option, Liquid Web also offers you the ability to create WordPress sites. Its incredibly expedient and professional customer support is the cherry on top, and while it doesn't come cheap, good things rarely do, this provider certainly justifying the cost. 

Read our full Liquid Web review.

GreenGeeks is dedicated to eco-friendly hosting, proclaiming itself to be the “world’s #1 green energy web hosting provider”. These aren’t just empty words: its 300% energy offset scheme means that for every amperage pulled from the grid, it invests three times that in renewable energy.

That said, its offering is bland at best, but shared hosting does stand out, while it also provides WordPress, VPS, and reseller hosting. Features include unlimited resources — web storage, bandwidth, databases, and email — Cloudflare CDN integration, the Softaculous app installer, shared SSL, LSCache, nightly backups, and a free domain for a year.

Prices aren’t hefty either, with the three-year deal on its Lite packages costing only $2.49 a month, after which it increases to $10.95 a month. This plan is the best for small sites and blogs that are just getting started, as it only covers one site. 

If your needs are greater, you can pick one of two other options. Starting at $4.95 a month (increasing to $15.95 a month after the initial period), the Pro package will get you twice the performance. If you opt for Premium at $8.95 a month (which renews at $25.95 a month), you’ll get four times the power, a free dedicated IP, and a free premium SSL. 

All packages are covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee, and it provides a user-friendly Weebly website builder via separate plans starting from $2.49 a month. There's also a phone line if you need direct contact with its customer support team.

Read our detailed GreenGeeks review, and find out more about Weebly in our section on website builders.

*GreenGeeks offers monthly, annual, biannual, and triannual billing with its shared hosting products. Monthly prices decrease with longer subscription terms.

HostGator is one of the best web hosting services whose trump card has “budget” written all over it. Several plans are available for each and every pocket and project, with two shared hosting plans in particular — Hatchling and Baby — offering attractive features such as unmetered bandwidth and disk space, support for FTP and email accounts, MYSQL databases and subdomains. 

You'll also enjoy the benefits of cPanel-based website management, and $150 of Google and Bing Ads credits. Hosting comes with guarantees relating to 99.9 percent uptime and a 45-day money-back period. HostGator also offers the Gator Builder as a separate subscription, a drag-and-drop editor packaged with a free domain name, unmetered storage and bandwidth, and free SSL certificate. 

Other hosting offered includes WordPress, dedicated, VPS, and reseller packages. One main drawback HostGator is guilty of, like other budget providers, is that its cheapest plan covers only one site. Its security is not great either, especially compared to the competition. However, this is hardly a cause of alarm when the next plan up costs only a fraction more, and will hardly leave a dent in your budget. 

Read our HostGator review.

*Introductory prices are quoted, rates will increase significantly on renewal.

Bluehost offers affordable yet effective shared hosting, with a variety of plans and options to suit most businesses. However, make sure to check pricing going forward, as it's not always clear how much you'll pay on renewal.

It offers managed and unmanaged WordPress, shared, dedicated, and VPS hosting. You can also sign up for a drag-and-drop WordPress website builder, available as part of a great number of the hosting packages and on its own via two plans.

We like that there are plenty of customer support options available, on the off-chance you need help or things go wrong. An inexpensive host that doesn’t skimp too much on features, Bluehost offers consistency despite having comparatively fewer features than many others.

It also has a range of potentially useful add-ons for search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising management, making it a solid choice for those willing to pay a little more for good support. Its performance does let it down on cheaper plans, however. 

Read our full Bluehost web hosting review, and our Bluehost WordPress website builder review.

*Monthly payments aren’t available, so the monthly prices shown are derived from the price of a subscription with a one-year term. Prices will increase significantly after your initial subscription.

Dreamhost offers the full gamut of hosting packages at competitive prices, ranging from shared to VPS, managed and unmanaged WordPress, dedicated, and cloud hosting. 

With top performance, its straightforward packages are stuffed with value-adding features, and it has a strong focus on privacy and security that's not often seen as much across web hosting as it should be. However, it doesn't include any top-level marketing tools, and with all its servers US-based, it's not ideal for customers in other regions.

For email hosting, it's the top pick, with some very reasonable rates. Monthly plans cost $1.99 per mailbox, while the annual subscription will set you back just $1.67 per mailbox. Plans come with 25GB of storage, email syncing between desktop and mobile, and handy webmail software, regardless of whether you've chosen a monthly or annual subscription. 

To make sure all emails are not just spam-free, but also protected against malware and viruses, its smart anti-spam filter adapts to all new threats. What's key to note here is that every DreamHost web hosting plan, except for its Remixer Standard and the Shared Starter plan, includes email hosting for free.

If you're looking to keep everything in-house, a drag-and-drop WordPress website builder is also available from $2.59 a month. 

Read our full DreamHost review.

* Undiscounted monthly rates
** Undiscounted one-year rates

InMotion Hosting is a web hosting veteran, and it's easy to see why, as it offers a long list of features, bundles and pricing plans for every user and budget. Starting with shared hosting, it also offers WordPress, VPS, and dedicated packages.

These come with access to a dedicated team of professionals, who offer high-level support at any time. What separates InMotion from the crowd is its propensity to offer bonus features at no extra charge, including protection from DDoS attacks and malware, email spam shield, and an option for the creation of functional backups.

Hosting is powered by cPanel and Softaculous platforms, which act as its seals of quality. All of this is easily checked within a 90-day guarantee period, more than enough time in which to make up your mind. However, its performance is poor on the cheaper packages, and not much improved on more expensive plans.

You can refer friends to earn a year of free hosting, while a website builder from BoldGrid is available if you want to build and host your site together. 

Read our comprehensive InMotion Hosting review.

*After introductory offers expire

Domain.com is among the more cost-effective and reliable of the best web hosting providers, with shared hosting attracting the most attention. The Basic plan includes unlimited storage and plenty of bandwidth, albeit for only one site, starting at $3.75. There's also WordPress hosting available, also starting at as low as $3.75 a month.

Features include five FTP logins, ten databases, ecommerce solutions, and one Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate free of charge. At $6.75 a month, you can get your hands on the Deluxe option, which covers as many sites as you want, and extends the number of FTP logins and databases to 25 too.

Features include five FTP logins, ten databases, ecommerce solutions, and one Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate free of charge. At $6.75 a month, you can get your hands on the Deluxe option, which covers as many sites as you want, and extends the number of FTP logins and databases to 25 too. 

The Ultra account removes all limitations, and is available at a monthly rate of $13.75. Unlike many competitors, Domain.com only offers one, two, and three-year packages. It doesn’t differ in pricing based on the monthly price equivalent, and offers its own website builder across three plans, ranging from personal to ecommerce.

Read our detailed Domain.com review.

*Cost per month based on the annual price.

The best website builders with web hosting

Wix is a popular website builder that prides itself on its simple, intuitive yet quality, content-rich editor. It has hundreds of meticulously designed templates, in addition to already predefined sites. 

While its templates might be its most shining feature, they're hardly the only one. You also get a built-in image editor filled with various filters, and ecommerce templates. Along with the absence of transaction fees on sales, these make Wix an excellent solution for online stores and for small businesses.

Although specializing in website building, Wix offers attractive hosting plans too. Its free plan is limited in terms of storage space and bandwidth (up to 500MB each), and imposes branding on your site, but gives you a taste of what it can offer. When you’re ready for something more, you can invest in one of its paid plans.

These include Combo at $14, or the most popular, Unlimited, at $18. The latter will get you unlimited bandwidth, 10GB of storage space, the Visitor Analytics app and Site Booster app (worth $60 each), and one free domain for a year. There's even a VIP option, as well as business and ecommerce premium plans for more demanding users. 

Read our full Wix review.

Just like other hosting providers share audiences, Weebly wants to attract the same users as Wix. It aims to be more intuitive, and its powerful drag-and-drop builder allows even the least experienced users to build a site. 

More experienced users will approve of the vast template database, which turns site building into a Lego-like affair. Weebly is integrated into ecommerce giant Square's POS systems, so you can manage customers from a unified dashboard. 

In future, a pivot to Square's own ecommerce store builder is in motion, which is seeing new customers already diverted towards it. However, existing customers will continue to be supported in terms of features and functionality.

When it comes to hosting, options start with the free version, with several restrictions its only “price tag”. You’ll be limited to 500MB of storage, and be unable to remove ads from your site. If it bothers you, look to the Professional plan, which offers a glimpse of a wide range of features which Weebly hands out freely.

These include support for building your own web store with functional coupons, customer reviews and inventory management, all the way through to organizing email marketing campaigns. 

Read our Weebly review.

Web hosting FAQs

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How we review the best web hosting services

Learn more about web hosting

Find out more about the companies ranked here in our interviews with Hostinger CMO Daugirdas Jankus and Wix's Head Product Manager Michal Bignitz.

We've also compared dedicated servers vs VPS, Bluehost vs HostGator and Bluehost vs GoDaddy. Find out more about our top picks for the best anonymous hosting, the best European web hosting, and the best Minecraft server hosting if you're a gamer.