Website Hosting Providers

When you decide to set up a blog or a business website, the thing you have to find is the best website hosting providers your money can buy. It could be a very difficult task as there are so many options available. If you don’t have much knowledge in this area, it could be even more difficult. But fret not! I will make the job easy for you. 

Here is a list of top 5 website hosting providers with the major features they offer:

Hostgator

Light on your pocket, Hostgator Hatchling plan (starter plan) is great to get you started. The Hatchling plan is $2.64/month and it comes with a lot of features for that. 

• Unmetered bandwidth and storage space
• Free website builder
• Comes with $150 marketing credits ($100 Google Adwords and $50 Yahoo Bing)
• Free SSL
• Free website and domain transfer
• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• To customize your site there are about 4500 templates

As you opt for the higher packs, the features increase. But there are some drawbacks to Hostgator. They do not provide for site backup even in their advanced plans. You have to purchase the back up separately. Another issue is that, if you don’t want to pay in bulk for long term upfront Hostgator is quite pricey. The monthly billing costs you significantly higher than the upfront purchase for 3 years. But they do offer 45 days money-back guarantee for the hosting service. 

Bluehost

Bluehost is another pocket-friendly hosting service with a good range of features. They have gained quite a good reputation in the last 15 years. When you are starting out, they give you a free domain for the first year along with the basic plan which is from $2.95 per month.  

Features that Bluehost offers for its basic plan:

• You can host one website
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Free SSL certificate
• Add up to 5 email accounts
• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• Very easy to use
• Daily backups available
• Great customer service

Though the initial cost is affordable, as you renew it increases. From the second year, you will have to pay for your domain name as well. Another drawback is that Bluehost does not allow for free migration. If you want to add upgrades or add-ons to your website hosted in Bluehost it is going to cost. Cons apart, Bluehost is still one of the best out there. 

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is one of the most famous companies in this business. Their hosting services are a little on the costlier side but they do provide great features for it. The first-year pricing is competitive with the other hosting platforms though.

Here is what you get with the basic plan in the first year in GoDaddy: 

• One free domain name
• Free Backup
• Unlimited storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• 24/7 customer service
• Free Microsoft Office 365 Business Email for one year
• 99.9% uptime guarantee

GoDaddy’s internal speed is not that great. Also, in case your website crashes many companies restore free of cost. But GoDaddy some times cost you money for doing the same. While the 24/7 customer service through call is available, their live chat support is very limited.

In Motion

Another web hosting provider who has great plans to offer is In Motion. Their basic plan starts from $3.99 a month and comes with the following features:

• One free domain for the first year
• Very fast in functioning
• Free SSL certificate
• Site builder included
• Provides automatic backup and hack protection
• 24/7 customer support
• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• Managed WordPress hosting on all plans

They provide a 90-day money-back guarantee in case you don’t like their service. The pricing is on the costlier side of the options available and there is no option to pay monthly. You have to sign up for a year. The biggest drawback of In Motion is that it is very slow to set up. The reason is that they do manual verification. 

Hostinger

This is probably one of the cheapest options out there. In spite of the low rates, the features are still good. If you opt-in for a four-year contract, their price is as low as $0.80 per month! The following are the features they provide:

• Their average uptime is 99.98%
• Very easy to use
• Good customer service
• Security and privacy features
• Free domain
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited email and SSD storage

Hostinger does not provide you with daily backups. They don’t offer the tradition dashboard and theirs is unique. This might be a plus or a minus depending on you. 

This list is in no particular order because what works best depends on the individual person’s needs. For example, if you are simply experimenting with blogging and don’t know how far you are going to continue, it will be a waste of money if you pay for a year in the beginning itself. Before you select a hosting provider, make sure you are clear as to what you are looking for. Select the hosting that best serves your purpose.