In the rapidly growing digital world, a good web host is an essential part of any website’s success. That’s where shared hosting comes in – it’s one of the most popular and affordable hosting types for people that are just starting out online. It’s a cheap and cheerful way to get your website on the internet without having to worry about running a server farm.
But with so many choices available – how do you know which shared hosting provider to go with? The wrong choice could potentially mean slow websites, security vulnerabilities or even downtime all of which can impact your website negatively.
That’s why it’s important to choose a shared hosting provider that is not only within your budget but also caters to your website specific needs. In this article, we will share the Top 10 Best Shared Hosting Providers for 2020 that you can use to host your blog. If you are looking for cheap hosting or the best option for WordPress, we have got you covered.
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Shared hosting is a typical kind of web hosting in which multiple websites are hosted on a single server. In other words, all the websites share the server’s resources like CPU, RAM, and disk space. It’s pocket-friendly so individuals, bloggers, and small businesses can get their web presence started without spending too much.
In shared hosting, the hosting provider takes care of server maintenance, security, and software updates. Users generally access their websites through a user-friendly control panel that simplifies their life managing their site. No high-level technical knowledge is required to use shared hosting services. This makes shared hosting suitable for everyone, from novices to experienced webmasters.
It’s preferred by many website owners due to the several benefits it comes with.
Affordability: One of the greatest advantages is how cost-effective it is. Shared hosting plans tend to be the least expensive and you can have your website live within minutes, without having to break the bank.
Ease of Use: Managing your site is easy with user-friendly control panels and one-click installations for popular applications such as WordPress. This makes shared hosting perfect for beginners in the world of affiliate marketing and SEO.
Maintenance and Support: You don’t have to worry about server maintenance, security updates, or the need for technical support with shared hosting. That’s all taken care of by the web hosting company. This allows you to focus on creating content and growing your website without being distracted by issues related to server management.
Scalability: Although shared hosting is recommended for smaller websites that don’t demand too much in terms of bandwidth or storage space, most web hosting companies will be happy to help you upgrade your plan as your traffic increases. If you decide that you need more resources than what shared hosting can offer, you can easily switch over to a VPS or dedicated server without experiencing long periods of downtime.
Reliable Performance: Trustworthy shared hosting providers guarantee high uptime and reliable performance. SSD storage, optimized server setup will help to load your website faster which is very important for SEO optimization and user experience.
SEO Friendly: Shared hosting usually consists of particular features that are required in SEO like high reliability uptime, fast loading speed and built-in tools etc., helping you to increase your website search engine rank.
Ideal for Affiliate Marketing: If you’re running an affiliate marketing website, shared hosting provides the necessary resources to handle traffic and transactions efficiently. It offers a balanced environment where your site can perform well without excessive costs.
Community and Resources: Many shared hosting providers offer extensive knowledge bases, tutorials, and community forums. These resources are invaluable for learning about web hosting, SEO strategies, and effective affiliate marketing techniques.
It is a wise decision to make for the people who are starting their online journey, as it is cost effective, easy to use, and delivers solid performance which is a perfect fit for building and growing your website in 2024.
There are certain important features you need to look at before selecting a shared hosting provider. These features can greatly impact your website performance and user experience as a whole. Here are the crucial aspects you should ensure.
Uptime and Reliability: One of the most important thing to look for in a shared hosting is their server uptime. Uptime refers to the amount of time that your website is up and running, available to visitors without any problems. A reliable shared host should not have an uptime guarantee less than 99.9%. It’s also good to get as much information on how reliable the host is, research and see how long their sites typically went down for during previous outages.
Speed and Performance: Website speed is important for user satisfaction as well as SEO optimization. You need fast loading times to help keep visitors as well as rank higher on the search engine. For shared hosting, make sure the provider uses optimized server setup, SSD storage and CDN integration for fast and consistent performance. Going with a provider that has multiple data centers worldwide will also improve speed since latency is reduced for users in different regions.
Customer Support: You’ll need customer support at some point or another, so the provider you choose needs to offer 24/7 support via multiple channels like live chat, phone and email. Having a good knowledge base, video tutorials and a community forum can be real time savers too both in solving problems and learning more about hosting.
Pricing and Value for Money: Cost often determines the shared hosting provider users choose but make sure you aren’t compromising too much for a few pennies. Shop around pricing plans with other providers to ensure that you are getting the best value. For example, see if a free domain, SSL certificate, or access to a one click WordPress installation is included.
Also pay close attention to any renewal costs as these can be higher than your original sign up fee.
Security Features: Many of us are aware of the importance of site security in this era of cyber warfare. The question is, does your shared hosting provider feel the same way? Probably not. The reality is many web hosts slack when it comes to providing their users with adequate security features. To ensure maximum safety and protect you from hackers or other cyber criminals, a shared host needs to have safe and secure surroundings for all their users.
- SSL Certificates – Reason being, SSL certificates have become a mandatory requirement even for SEO purposes.
- DDoS Protection – This alone can save your website hundreds if not thousands in downtime. Over 82% websites get attacked daily!
- Firewalls – Firewalls on every server ensures that breaches or cracks are virtually impossible.
- Malware Scans & Removal – Is there anything more frustrating than finding out your site has been unknowingly infected with malware and seeing everything being deleted before your eyes?
- Automated Backups – (with easy restore) including files/database at least once a day.
Secure Server Environment
To help you with that, we’re going to go over several of the most important features you should look for in a shared hosting service. By looking at these criteria, you’ll be able to find a host that works for you and your site – no matter if you’re starting a blog, running an online store, or doing affiliate marketing. Let’s get started!
Shared hosting is popular among small businesses and beginners for several reasons, including the following.
Cost-Effectiveness: One of the main reasons why shared hosting is so popular with small businesses and beginners is because it’s cheap. Shared hosting plans are usually the cheapest option out there, which helps explain why it’s such a common choice for those who are just setting out on their online adventure.
By paying a small monthly fee, you can have your website hosted without the need to make an investment (that could be risky) in one of the more advanced web hosting solutions available such as VPS Hosting or Cloud Hosting. This then leaves you with more money to put into other important aspects of your business (such as some SEO or affiliate marketing efforts!).
Ease of Use: If you’re new to web hosting, shared hosting provides a simple and easy way to launch a website. Most shared hosting providers offer user-friendly control panels (like cPanel) that make the process of managing your website simple.
Features such as one-click WordPress installations, website builders, and automatic updates can all help to take the headache out of website management for newbie’s with little or no technical know-how. This is also an excellent option for those who are just starting out and don’t want to develop a large presence on the Internet right from the start.
Scalability: While shared hosting is an ideal choice for small business and new websites its scalability options a can grow with your business. Most web hosts provide the option to easily upgrade your hosting plan as your website traffic and resource requirement increases, allowing you to start out with a basic shared hosting plan and move up to more robust solutions such as VPS Hosting, or Cloud Hosting Providers as your business grows.
This not only allows for easy transitions into more advanced hosting solutions but also ensures that you never have to deal with the hassle of migrating, which can be both time-consuming and tedious when dealing with an established website.
In short, shared not only provides all the necessary features required for launching, and managing a website it also provides a worry-free solution for anyone looking to establishing their online presence without breaking the bank.
Certainly! Here’s the complete content with Overview, Key Features, Pros and Cons, and Pricing for each provider:
BlueHost
Bluehost is a top rated website hosting company and comes highly recommended. It is also endorsed by WordPress themselves and is the perfect fit for starting out online as they provide an incredibly easy website setup (perfect for beginners or small businesses) and an intuitive user interface to manage your website which you will inevitably find yourself doing whether you are starting a blog, an online business or an eCommerce store.
On top of all this, Bluehost boasts strong customer support that’s available 24/7 to ensure that if anything should go wrong or you have any questions they are on hand immediately to get things fixed fast. With their shared hosting (a standard website hosting plan) you get everything need to power your growth online, including unmetered bandwidth and storage. Bluehost’s dedication to security can be seen from the inclusion of a free SSL certificate which adds that extra layer of security and builds trust with potential customers visiting your site.
You can also check out our BlueHost Review for more information.
Key Features:
- Free domain for the first year
- One-click WordPress installation
- User-friendly control panel
- 24/7 customer support
- Unmetered bandwidth and storage
- Free SSL certificate
Pros & Cons:
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Pricing: Bluehost’s shared hosting plans are competitively priced, starting at $2.95 per month with introductory offers. This rate includes essential features to support website creation and management.
HostGator
HostGator is a well-known hosting provider that provides reliable and budget-friendly shared hosting. With over a decade in the industry, HostGator offers several plans for different needs – from personal blogs to small business sites. HostGator is known for its performance and scalability, and the provider’s easy-to-use interface makes it a breeze to manage your website!
HostGator prides itself on its reliability with a 99.9% uptime guarantee so your site will be live and running almost all of the time. Plus, if you ever run into any issues, HostGator’s support staff is available 24/7 to assist you – perfect for users wanting good performance and support with their hosting provider.
Key Features:
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free website builder
- One-click installs for CMSs
- Free website transfer
- 24/7 customer support
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
Pros & Cons:
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Pricing: HostGator’s shared hosting plans start at $2.75 per month with special introductory rates. This pricing includes a range of features designed to help users effectively manage and grow their websites.
SiteGround
SiteGround is well-known for their superior customer service and fast, secure shared hosting. SiteGround is a company that’s all about reliability and innovation. Founded in 2004 by a few university friends, SiteGround has since grown to a highly regarded brand and host of more than 500,000 domains.
SiteGround takes advantage of technology to design specifically for speed and stability. Also, their infrastructure can withstand high volumes of traffic.
First-time website owners will appreciate the user-friendly interface and helpful support resources SiteGround offers. Users with technical backgrounds will enjoy the extra features that come standard. But really anyone could benefit from the amazing uptime guarantee!
Regardless of previous experience or intended use, you’ll be hard-pressed to find another host as devoted to making your site both stable and speedy.
Key Features:
- Free daily backups
- One-click WordPress installation
- Managed updates and security
- Free CDN and SSL certificate
- High-performance caching
- 24/7 customer support
Pros & Cons:
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Pricing: SiteGround’s shared hosting plans start at $3.99 per month with promotional pricing. This plan includes features designed to ensure reliable performance and high levels of customer support.
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is one of the fastest shared hosting providers in the market. They are not only fast, but also very reliable. Their support is awesome and they have variety of plans to suit any website you want to create, from small (low traffic) or big (high traffic). All their plans come with free SSD storage to make your site load faster, A2’s Turbo Servers that can make sites load up to 20x faster as well as a free content delivery network making for a global reach.
The web host has been around since 2001 so far server uptimes have remained stable (note that no server has an actual 100% uptime) and response times minimal.
Key Features:
- SSD storage for faster performance
- Free site migration
- One-click WordPress installation
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
- Turbo plans for enhanced speed
- 24/7 customer support
Pros and Cons:
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Pricing: A2 Hosting’s shared hosting plans start at $2.99 per month with introductory pricing. This rate includes essential features aimed at enhancing website speed and performance.
InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting is a popular choice for those who are looking for reliable and feature-rich shared hosting plans. The company puts performance and support at the front line of their product offering, catering to all types of websites from personal blogs to small business sites. In fact, InMotion Hosting provides some of the highest uptime guarantees in the industry as well as an incredible infrastructure that keeps your site online and snappy.
In their quest for customer delight, InMotion Hosting has left no stones unturned providing lots of support options such as 24/7 assistance and plenty of troubleshooting & optimization material. On top of this, you’ll get cool features like free website transfer and secure architecture with expandable shared hosting plans. Its trustworthiness and customer service ethos bring many users searching for shared hosting on board.
Key Features:
- Free domain for the first year
- Free website migration
- SSD storage for enhanced performance
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 24/7 customer support
- 90-day money-back guarantee
Pros and Cons:
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Pricing: InMotion Hosting’s shared hosting plans start at $2.99 per month with introductory offers. This pricing includes a range of features aimed at providing high performance and excellent support.
DreamHost
DreamHost is a well-known brand in the shared hosting space, with unique features that make it worth a look. The company’s shared hosting is based on Debian Linux and targets budget users. It bills its 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.
As mentioned earlier, DreamHost came in at just about 19 cents cheaper per month than our cheapest ad-free host, Hostinger or $1.08 for the first year. Its basic shared hosting plan offers unlimited storage and bandwidth (for up to six domains). While other providers limit disk space, databases, and email accounts, DreamHost offers its customers an all-around good deal.
Key Features:
- Free domain with annual plans
- Unlimited traffic and storage
- One-click WordPress installation
- Free SSL certificate
- 24/7 customer support
- 97-day money-back guarantee
Pros and Cons:
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Pricing: DreamHost’s shared hosting plans start at $2.59 per month with special introductory rates. This rate includes essential features designed to ensure reliable performance and solid customer support.
Hostinger
Hostinger is a no-brainer for those who want to spend the least possible while still getting a quality range of features for their website. And we really do mean quality – Hostinger may be cheap, but it cuts absolutely no corners when it comes to features, with a choice of hosting infrastructures or caching thanks to the competition’s best and latest technology.
Hostinger has embraced more cutting-edge technologies like SSD storage and a Global CDN network to make websites perform 30% faster than other hosts. Their hosting management console is intuitive and can be accessed through mobiles as well which is cool if you need to make changes on the go. And should you need help or run into any issues, Hostinger’s world-class Hero support team is available 24/7 via live chat.
Key Features:
- Free website builder
- 24/7 customer support
- SSD storage for better speed
- One-click WordPress installation
- Free SSL certificate
- Daily backups
Pros and Cons:
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Pricing: Hostinger’s shared hosting plans start at $1.99 per month with introductory offers. This competitive pricing includes essential features designed to provide a solid hosting experience at a low cost.
iPage
iPage is a budget-friendly shared hosting provider. Unlike some other affordable hosts, though, iPage doesn’t cut corners by excluding necessary features or functionality. For example, you’ll get unlimited storage and a free domain with your account.
In fact, iPage has made its name by focusing on value and ease of use. It’s a great choice if you’re just starting out in the world of web hosting.
It’s not difficult to see why we think so highly of iPage either. Their services are reliable enough for nearly all users—from individual bloggers to small- and medium-sized business owners.
Not to mention our readers can take advantage of an exclusive offer (just $1.99 per month) on iPage’s plans through this link.
Key Features:
- Free domain for the first year
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth
- Free website builder
- One-click WordPress installation
- 24/7 customer support
- Free SSL certificate
Pros and Cons:
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Pricing: iPage’s shared hosting plans start at $1.99 per month with promotional pricing. This rate includes a range of features aimed at providing a reliable hosting experience at a very low cost.
GoDaddy
GoDaddy is one of the most familiar names in hosting, thanks to its massive marketing engine and domain registration services. The company offers a full spectrum of hosting solutions for small businesses, individuals, and enterprises alike, plus domain registration. In fact, GoDaddy.com is the largest domain name registrar in the world, hosting over 60 million domains. Additionally, GoDaddy is a publicly traded company headquartered in Scottsdale Arizona with facilities across North America (as well as Europe and Asia).
What makes GoDaddy so appealing for personal users and business owners is the inclusion of an all-in-one control panel that covers you for just about everything under the web-hosting sun including email, databases (200MB on entry-level Personal plan), storage space (10GB for Economy through to unlimited on Deluxe and Ultimate plans) along with your domain name/web site registration.
Key Features:
- Free domain with annual plans
- One-click WordPress installation
- 24/7 customer support
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth
- Free SSL certificate
- Website backup and restore
Pros and Cons:
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Pricing: GoDaddy’s shared hosting plans start at $2.99 per month with introductory offers. This pricing includes essential features and access to a wide range of additional services.
Namecheap
Namecheap is a popular hosting provider known for providing inexpensive shared hosting and exceptional customer support. Primarily, Namecheap gained popularity as a domain registrar, but today it offers a broad range of hosting services too, including Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, Reseller Hosting and Dedicated Servers suitable for personal website and blog hosting too smaller enterprise businesses. They offer cheap pricing for all type of hosting.
You’ll also get a free website migration with Shared hosting Plan along with an easy to use control panel and 24/7 expert technical support. All shared hosting plans come with industry standard 30 days money back guarantee, so you can test their service risk-free. Namecheap is well-known in the industry for providing the best value and customer support that you need when it comes to finding the right web host along with your domain.
Key Features:
- Free website builder
- Free domain for the first year
- Unmetered bandwidth
- One-click WordPress installation
- Free SSL certificate
- 24/7 customer support
Pros and Cons:
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Pricing: Namecheap’s shared hosting plans start at $1.58 per month with special promotional rates. This competitive pricing includes essential features designed to provide a reliable and cost-effective hosting solution.
When selecting the best shared hosting provider, consider these key factors to match your specific needs:
- Evaluate Hosting Features: Determine what features are essential for your website, such as storage space, bandwidth, and compatibility with content management systems like WordPress. Choose a provider that offers the resources and features you need to run your website efficiently.
- Check Customer Reviews and Ratings: Look for feedback from current and past users to gauge the provider’s reliability, customer service quality, and overall performance. Reviews can provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each provider.
- Consider Trial Periods and Money-Back Guarantees: Take advantage of trial periods and money-back guarantees to test the hosting service. This allows you to evaluate the provider’s performance and support without a long-term commitment.
Conclusion
Choosing the right shared hosting provider is crucial for your website’s performance and growth. By assessing the features, support, and pricing of top providers, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your needs. Providers like Bluehost, HostGator, and SiteGround offer a range of options to suit various requirements, from cost-effectiveness to robust features. Prioritize what’s important for your website and ensure the provider you choose can meet those needs effectively.
If shared hosting doesn’t meet your needs, consider upgrading to one of the best cloud hosting services such as Contabo, DigitalOcean, or Linode. These providers offer scalable, high-performance solutions designed to accommodate growing websites and applications, providing the flexibility and power that shared hosting might lack.
We also have shared Contabo Coupon Codes, Digitalocean Promo Codes & Linode Promo Codes by which you can get discount on signup.
FAQs
Shared hosting means multiple websites share the same server resources, making it a cost-effective option. Unlike VPS or dedicated hosting, where resources are allocated exclusively, shared hosting distributes server resources among several users.
Shared hosting can be secure if the provider implements strong security measures like SSL certificates, regular backups, and malware protection. However, since resources are shared, there’s a risk if another site on the same server is compromised.
Yes, most hosting providers offer options to upgrade from shared hosting to more advanced plans such as VPS or dedicated hosting as your website grows. This allows you to scale your resources according to your needs.
The traffic a shared hosting plan can handle varies by provider and plan. It is generally suitable for small to medium-sized websites, but high-traffic sites might require more robust hosting solutions like VPS or dedicated hosting.
If you outgrow your shared hosting plan, you can typically upgrade to a higher plan or switch to a different hosting type. Most providers offer seamless migration options to ensure a smooth transition.