8 Best Shared Hosting Services – Get Your Site Online Today
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In our research, the best hosting provider for shared plans is HostGator with an overall shared hosting score of 4.7 out of 5. HostGator comes with a 45-day money back guarantee for new users and unlimited storage space and bandwidth.
Our runner up is Bluehost with an overall shared hosting score of 4.5 out of 5. Bluehost offers a great array of hosting types, along with really competitive prices, and from our market analysis is one of the most trusted hosts by users online.
Shared hosting is great for small businesses and small websites that are getting themselves off the ground. Shared hosting keeps your costs low, but also limits your resources. If you’re already getting a lot of traffic, and need some high sitespeed, we recommend going for a VPS or dedicated plan instead.
Plenty of hosting providers out there offer shared plans, so let’s look at the cream of the crop:
8 Best Shared Hosting Services
We tested 27 hosting providers to evaluate them in terms of price, performance, features, help and support, and more so we can make the most useful recommendations to our readers.
Our rigorous testing process means these products have been scored and rated in five main categories of investigation and 30 subcategories. In total, we cover 282 areas of investigation – and we go through this process for every type of hosting the provider has to offer!
Our main testing categories for hosting providers are:
- Price: the cost associated with the hosting services provided by a hosting provider, such as subscription plans, pricing tiers, and any additional fees or charges.
- Performance: the speed, reliability, and overall performance of a hosting provider’s servers. It encompasses factors such as server uptime and response time.
- Features: the specific functionalities and capabilities provided by a hosting provider, including storage space, bandwidth allocation, and server location.
- Help and Support: the assistance and resources available to users when they encounter issues or need guidance, e.g. tutorials and email or chat support.
- Market Analysis / Customer Score: the assessment of the hosting provider’s position and reputation in the market.
The Website Builder Guide product testing process
This article will break down each of these top providers, and reveal which one best meets your shared hosting needs. You’ll find out about the pros and cons of each provider, as well as how much they cost. We’ll also introduce some other noteworthy providers, and share with you our top tips for choosing a shared hosting service.
Sharing is caring, so let’s get started!
Further Information
Best Shared Hosting Services Side-by-Side Comparison
Before we delve into the nitty gritty of our top hosting providers in the world of shared plans, there’s a handy comparison chart to get a quick look at their features.
BEST IN TEST | |||||||
HostGator | Bluehost | DreamHost | iPage | Hostinger | InMotion | IONOS | GreenGeeks |
Starting from $4.95 | Starting from $2.95 | Starting from $2.95 | Starting from $1.99 | Starting from
$2.49 + 3 months free (with the 48-month plan) | Starting from $3.49 | Starting from $0.50 | Starting from $2.49 |
Uptime 99.99% | Uptime 99.98% | Uptime 100% | Uptime 99.94% | Uptime 99.99% | Uptime 99.98% | Uptime 99.99% | Uptime 99.98% |
Money-back guarantee 45 days | Money-back guarantee 30 days | Money-back guarantee 97 days | Money-back guarantee 30 days | Money-back guarantee 30 days | Money-back guarantee 90 days | Money-back guarantee 30 days | Money-back guarantee 30 days |
Free backups | Free backups | Free backups | Free backups | Free backups | Free backups | Free backups | Free backups |
Free domain | Free domain | Free domain | Free domain | Free domain | Free domain | Free domain | Free domain |
Storage space Unmetered | Storage space 10GB – Unlimited | Storage space 50GB – Unlimited | Storage space Unlimited | Storage space 30GB – 200GB | Storage space 75GB – Unlimited | Storage space 25GB – Unlimited | Storage space 50GB – Unlimited |
Bandwidth Unmetered | Bandwidth Unmetered | Bandwidth Unmetered | Bandwidth Unmetered | Bandwidth 100GB – Unmetered | Bandwidth Unlimited | Bandwidth Unlimited | Bandwidth Unmetered |
RAM 700MB – 128GB | RAM 2GB – 16GB | RAM 1GB – 16GB | RAM 1GB – 8GB | RAM 768MB – 16GB | RAM 4GB – 64GB | RAM 512MB – 12GB | RAM 2GB – 8GB |
Visit HostGator | Visit Bluehost | Visit DreamHost | Visit iPage | Visit Hostinger | Visit InMotion | Visit IONOS | View GreenGeeks |
In the table above, you can see the key features of each provider side by side. All prices shown are promotional offers for new users. Hosting companies almost always offer these deals for new customers, and they’re prices worth making the most of!
Disk space is the amount of data storage you have for your website on the shared server. This makes it an extremely important feature, as you need enough disk space to hold all of your website’s content (such as images, files, and web pages).
Uptime is the amount of time a server is “up” and running. This shows how often your site will be up and accessible online, rather than down because of an unreliable server. 100% uptime is incredibly rare. HostGator’s 99.90% is pretty impressive, putting it in the middle of all the providers we’ve tested.
Amount of sites refers, unsurprisingly, to the number of websites you can host on your shared hosting plan! Most providers offer one or two sites on their lowest plans, but if you need more than that, then you’ll need to upgrade to unlock unlimited sites.
Monthly number of visitors shows you how many visitors your site will be able to handle as part of your shared hosting plan. Different shared plans have different limits, and if your traffic exceeds this amount, then your site will slow down – or even crash.
By the end of this article you’ll know which hosting provider is best for you, based on our in-depth expert research.
Further Information
- Want to compare hosting providers side by side? See our Web Hosting Services Comparison Chart for an in-depth look!
- Read our review of the Best Cheap Web Hosting Providers to see how these providers’ prices compare
- Is shared hosting really right for you? Find out in our comparison of Shared Hosting vs VPS Hosting
#1 HostGator
Best Overall Shared Hosting Provider
HostGator
Best Overall Shared Hosting Provider
- Best help and support
- 99.90% uptime
- Weekly automated backups
Paid Plans: $3.95 - $159.99 / month
Pros
- Unlimited domains
- Highest performance score
- 45 day money-back guarantee
Cons
- High renewal rates
- Poor server response time
HostGator is a big name in the hosting world, and for good reason! It’s the best all-round shared hosting provider on the market, and this high quality service shows in its shared hosting plans. HostGator has an overall shared score of 4.7 out of 5, soaring above the competition. It also scores the best help and support rating of 4.8 out of 5 for its shared plans, due to its great knowledge base, community center, and 24/7 phone and live chat service.
All three of HostGator’s shared hosting plans provide you with top of the range features, including easy one-click installation, unmetered bandwidth, and a free SSL certificate. Add the decent uptime score of 99.9%, and this shared provider is looking like a solid choice!
HostGator’s Hatchling plan is the cheapest at $3.95 per month (paid annually), giving you basic tools and a free domain for the first year, and unlimited subdomains. The Baby plan is the next level up, costing $5.00 per month, and unlocks unlimited parked domains. The most advanced plan is the Business plan at $7.25 per month – this gives you more technical features, such as a free dedicated IP, CDN, and free search engine optimization (SEO) tools.
All HostGator plans also come with a 45 day money-back guarantee, so you can try it and see if it is the provider for you.
Further Information
- Find out more in our in-depth HostGator Review
- See how HostGator does in our detailed comparisons:
- Discover if HostGator is the right choice for you in our review of the Best Web Hosting for Small Business
#2 Bluehost
Most Trusted By Online Users
Bluehost
Most Trusted By Online Users
- Best market score
- 99.98% uptime
- Good prices
Paid Plans: $1.99 - $119.99 / month
Pros
- Free SSL
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 30 day money-back guarantee
Cons
- No backups
- On the more expensive side
Bluehost offers a lot of handy features such as domain privacy, but it could offer better value for money compared to its competitors. Still, it’s right up there in terms of its popularity, with the highest 4.9 out of 5 score for the shared market analysis category – making Bluehost most trusted by online users. It is also snapping at HostGator’s heels with a respectable 99.98% uptime score.
Where Bluehost falls is its lack of extras. The cheapest plan doesn’t include regular backups, you need to pay an extra $149.99 for migrations, and it doesn’t have a help and support community center.
The Basic plan is at a great price of $2.95 per month, you will still get all the shared hosting features to support a basic site, including one domain, 10GB SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, and SSL security.
At $4.95 per month, the Plus plan is only $2 more, but it massively increases your limits. You get 20GB storage, as well as unlimited parked and sub domains, $200 in marketing offers, and a spam expert.
Bluehost recommends its Choice Plus plan. This costs $5.45 per month for a years payment, and you get daily automatic backups, 40GB of storage, with the added bonus of domain privacy.
The Pro plan costs $13.95 per month, and is the perfect choice if your site needs a boost. It gives you more power than the three other plans, as it comes with advanced features, including a high performance server.
Bluehost is also the number one recommended hosting provider by WordPress, so if you’ve got a small WordPress site, this could be the shared hosting service for you.
Further Information
- Read our full Bluehost Review for more details
- Do you have a WordPress site? Read our review of the Best WordPress Hosting Providers
- See why Bluehost is the number one Photography Website Hosting Provider
- Find out about costs in our Bluehost Pricing Review
- See how Bluehost compares to its competitors in our in-depth reviews:
#3 DreamHost
Best for Cheap Shared Plans
DreamHost
Cheapest Shared Plans
- Best for a budget
- 100% uptime
- Good for WordPress
Paid Plans: $2.95 - $379 / month
Pros
- Free SSL
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 97 day money-back guarantee!
Cons
- Not as scalable
- No phone support
DreamHost offers a solid range of shared hosting features, including a huge 100% uptime, and is one of the hosting providers recommended by WordPress.
It’s not the strongest in terms of help and support, but with a 97-day money back guarantee and very affordable prices, you can’t argue with DreamHost’s value for money. Gaining a top score for it’s shared price, of 4.4 out of 5 – DreamHost is ideal for websites on a budget.
Compared to Bluehost, both start at $2.95 per month (for a year) but DreamHost’s renewal price is $6.99, which is fantastic compared to Bluehost’s $7.99 renewal rate.
DreamHost’s Shared Starter plan costs $2.95 per month. It gives you one website, a free domain, unlimited traffic, 50GB of storage, a free SSL certificate, and a whopping 100% uptime guarantee. WordPress also comes pre-installed, saving you time and effort.
The Shared Unlimited plan is an upgrade costing $2.95 per month. Yes, you read that right, the unlimited plan is also $2.95 per month for the year! This comes with everything from the Starter plan, and unlocks unlimited storage, unlimited websites, and unlimited emails tailored to your domain. The renewal rate does come in at $12.99 per month once the year is finished though.
The features you get for these prices mean that DreamHost wins the appealing title of ‘provider with best value for money’.
#4 iPage
Best for Small Websites
iPage
Best for Small Websites On a Budget
- Simple provider
- 99.9% uptime
- Good help and support
Paid Plans: $2.99 / month
Pros
- Good performance
- Unmetered bandwidth & storage
- 30 day money-back guarantee!
Cons
- Not as scalable
- No VPS or dedicated plans
- No email support
If you’re not a fan of lots of options, iPage offers just one shared plan – its Go Plan – that covers a lot of great bases. It’s good value, too, scoring 4.2 out of 5 in our price testing. For $2.99 per month (when paid yearly), you get 99.9% uptime, unlimited storage and bandwidth, a free SSL, and a free domain for the first year.
You’ll also get amazing customer service – iPage has a great score of 3.8 out of 5 for its shared hosting help and support. It also came in joint third place out of twelve providers for its performance!
Where iPage falls a bit short was for features, iPage doesn’t have VPS or dedicated plans, meaning if you decide you’d like to scale up your website to handle more traffic – you’ll need a different provider. But if you’re running a small website and want something quick and simple, iPage may be for you.
Further Information
- Learn more in our full iPage Review
- Compare it against the overall best provider Bluehost – see how it fairs in Bluehost vs iPage
#5 Hostinger
Best for Backups
Hostinger
Best for Backups
- Good for backups
- 99.99% uptime
- Lacks help and support
Paid Plans: $2.99 - $109.99 / month
Pros
- Good data center locations
- Free SSL
- 30 day money-back guarantee!
Cons
- No phone support
- Low performance score
- No 24/7 help and support
Hostinger’s main appeal is its automated backups. You get an automated weekly backup on Hostinger’s cheapest shared hosting plan. Automated backups mean it’s not on you to save versions of your site if something goes wrong, whereas Bluehost’s cheapest plan doesn’t provide backups.
You can pick up the cheapest shared hosting plan for $7.99/month (as a renewal rate). Hostinger also has a really nice spread of data centers across the world, which gives the best chance of global audiences getting good load speeds.
What you get on Hostinger’s cheapest plan is a free SSL, weekly automated backups, 100GB SSD storage, and unlimited bandwidth. It also comes with a free migration, and excellent uptime of 99.99%.
Although Hostinger’s shared plans are a textbook example of ‘you get what you pay for’. Its features aren’t as generous – there are lower caps on storage, for example – and help and support is pretty sparse, with no phone support on offer. Hostinger also has the lowest performance of any provider on this list, which means your site is likely to be out of action for more time than with an alternative.
All in all, a good option if you’re after a low-budget option for a small site, but not one we’d recommend for businesses or high traffic sites.
Further Information
- Read our full Hostinger Review for details on plans, features, and more.
#6 InMotion
Best for Robust Security
InMotion
Best for Robust Security
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 99.98% uptime
- Expensive renewal rates
Paid Plans: $3.49 - $539.99 / month
Pros
- Free expert migration
- Free SSL and malware protection
- Good features
Cons
- Only cPanel
- No money-back guarantee on cheapest plan
- Poor site speed
InMotion scores 3.9 out of 5 overall for shared hosting. It offers some incredibly good security features including an SSL certificate and hack, malware, and DDoS protection. The cheapest shared plan also offers free expert migration with no downtime, 99.98% uptime, 100GB of storage, and unlimited bandwidth. This makes it ideal for photography websites – having come top of the competition in our photography website category.
InMotion offers three shared hosting plans: Core (exclusively for WBE users), Launch, Power, and Pro. All four plans provide marketing tools, a free security suite, and free SSL security. Despite this, it scores poorly for value for money, with a low 2.4 out of 5 rating – making it the lowest value option on this list!
Core plan is the cheapest but most basic at $3.29 per month, when paid yearly. The $6.99 per month Power plan is InMotion’s top seller, giving you six websites and double the performance. The Pro plan is the most advanced at $14.99 per month, providing unlimited websites, pro level support, and performance which is four times better than the Launch plan.
Further Information
- Find out more in our InMotion Hosting Review
- Discover how InMotion performs against the top competitor in our in-depth comparison: InMotion vs Bluehost
#7 IONOS
Best for Sitespeed
IONOS
Best for Sitespeed
- Fantastic features
- 99.99% uptime
- Good for larger websites
Paid Plans: $0.5 - $35 / month
Pros
- Expert plan optimized for high traffic
- Best sitespeed
- Good features
Cons
- Quoted migrations
- No live chat support
Are you looking for fast site speeds, quick loading, and high uptime? IONOS has it all, and really great features as well – getting a whopping shared plan feature score of 4.6 out of 5.
IONOS has three shared hosting plans: Essential, Business, and Expert. The Essential plan starts at $4 per month (yearly), and then renews at $6 per month. On that plan you get one website, just 10GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL, and free domain for a year.
IONOS recommend its Business plan that starts at an amazing $1 per month (12 month plan), but be aware that it does renew at a pricier $10 per month after your first year. But it does offer unlimited storage, and unlimited websites.
Then the Expert plan starts at $8.00 per month, which is optimized for website performance, allowing for up to 500 visitors per minute. Plus it comes with extra security features like malware protection, a CDN (content delivery network), and some extra analytics tools. Overall IONOS scores 4 out of 5 for value, so you get decent bang for your buck along with its cheap discounts.
Further Information
- Find out more in our detailed 1 & 1 Ionos Review
#8 GreenGeeks
Most Eco-Friendly Hosting Provider
GreenGeeks
Most Eco-Friendly Hosting Provider
- Green hosting
- 99.9% uptime
- More expensive
Paid Plans: $2.95 - $109.95 / month
Pros
- Offsetting carbon footprint by 300%
- Free nightly backups
- Unlimited bandwidth
Cons
- No community center support
- Bottom 3 for price in most categories
The hosting industry is a surprisingly polluting one, and GreenGeeks is on a mission to put that right – one site at a time. By buying Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), GreenGeeks offsets its carbon footprint by 300% through investing in eco-friendly energy sources. It also offers entirely free site migration, without caveats.
GreenGeeks also has the highest shared plan feature score of 4.8 out of 5, offering free nightly backups, 24/7 network monitoring, a free SSL, and a free domain for the first year.
All in all, GreenGeeks is a good, reliable hosting provider, with features that match those of the providers higher in this ranking. There are, however, a few things that hold it back from taking the top spots.
First up, it’s a little pricey. Strip back the discounts, and you’re left with a price range of $10.95 – $25.95/month, meaning a more significant start price than the majority of providers on this list. The other major ‘con’ is only getting one free backup per month – others will cost you $25 a time, which isn’t ideal for any website with regularly-changing content.
Further Information
- Discover what experts think in this GreenGeeks Review
- See how GreenGeeks matches up against Bluehost in Bluehost vs GreenGeeks
Shared Hosting Pricing Comparison
In the graph below you can compare the lowest prices of the very best shared hosting providers. Although DreamHost, Bluehost and GreenGeeks have the cheapest starting prices, HostGator combines impressive performance with fairly good prices making it the best shared hosting provider.
How Do You Choose a Shared Hosting Service?
If none of the hosting services in our list immediately jumped out at you, you might be wondering just how you’re meant to choose. It’s easy to be befuddled by all the free features being waved in front of your nose.
Your choice will totally depend on your specific needs, but here are our three top things to look for in a shared hosting provider:
- Uptime – it’s come up a lot so far, and for good reason! You want a hosting service with a high uptime percentage. Your website won’t flourish if the server is down all the time. You don’t paint a masterpiece, lock it in a dark room, and wonder why nobody is buying it!
- Value for money – how much are you paying, and how much will you be getting for your money? Shop around and compare different providers – start by looking at Bluehost – as it’s got the best overall hosting score of 4.8 out of 5!
- Disk space and bandwidth – disk space is how much data you can store on your web server, while bandwidth is how much data can be transferred between your server and your website. How much you need of these will depend on how large your website is (you’ll need more disk space for lots of content), and how much traffic your site gets (you’ll need more bandwidth to cope with more traffic).
Uptime, value for money, and disk space and bandwidth are important, no matter the purpose of your site or your technical ability.
Help and support is always worth looking into as well, but is more subjective – make sure there are help options in place which you’re happy and confident using if things ever did go wrong.
For those of you with a WordPress website, make sure you look at the provider’s WordPress integration. Bluehost and DreamHost are the best shared hosting services for WordPress users.
If you’re finding the amount of free add-ons confusing, narrow it down to the most important factors for you. Three major ones to look out for are free domains, free backups, and money back guarantees.
More Information
- Common Web Hosting Problems: Keep these common problems in mind when choosing your hosting provider
Best Shared Hosting Services: Summary
This article has dived into the eight best shared hosting services on the market. We’ve covered the hosting basics, and outlined our shared hosting winner, HostGator – thanks to its incredible help and support and reasonable prices. We hope we’ve helped you explore the pros, cons, and prices of each shared hosting provider, and passed on our top tips on how to choose the best one for you.
8 Best Shared Hosting Services: Recap
Remember to look out for the essentials – uptime, value for money, and disk space and bandwidth – as well as the features tailored to your specific needs, such as support options or a free domain.
Your shared plan is ready, and your virtual housemates are waiting – so sign up and get hosting today!
Website Builder Guide aims to provide you with honest data. That’s why we conduct our own research and obtain direct, personal insight.
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