It’s like having all those strangers under one house in short. (Strangers = Websites) & (House = Server)
To put it simply, it means cutting down expenses. Apart from that, it means that we need to share a server with several other website owners.
It’s a great option for novices and websites that do not expect too much traffic at the very beginning or having budget constraints.
However, we can always change the service if we need to get a better hosting package at a later stage.
On the bright side, it’s awesome for computer novices since the hosting company will set up everything for them.
Do not miss out on our special Bonus – Insight Data Before/After Changing Hosting
We will be sharing the best shared hosting options available now and giving some insight and opinions about each of them.
Check out our 14 checklists for the best web hosting for Dummies as well.
But what’s the catch of Shared Hosting?
First of all, it’s not that scary. We are just exaggerating.
But when it comes to shared hosting, we have no idea who our server-sharing partners are, which means that we might get banned because of them. Though the hosting company will screen through or might even interview their client if they are new.
But in most cases, it’s very easy to go through the screening process. In that case, we wish to avoid it at all costs.
On the other hand, our website might work slower, and it would seem that we are back in the dial-up era, which means that we will not receive any love from the search engine as well.
Website speed matters and it is a key performance for a website to do great in retaining its visitors as well.
They (Search engines particularly Google) will not serve a slow pace website to their audience too.
Also, don’t expect to get much freedom with the customization tools.
Those tools usually come with a premium price of having a dedicated hosting plan or a higher shared hosting plan.
What to consider when buying shared hosting
Yet although it’s cheap and not without its flaws, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look for the best possible offer.
If we expect to have less than 15000 monthly visitors — I’ll suggest we should go for a shared hosting service. Upgrade them in the later stage, it’s all about utilizing resources to the maximum.
In today’s connected world, waiting and slow loading site is a big disadvantage, so we first need to examine the speed of the hosting server.
The easiest way to check is to examine the seller’s domain, if their selling domain is slow, avoid it at all costs.
There is a bunch of website speed tests available, for instance, you can utilize https://tools.pingdom.com or https://gtmetrix.com.
The loading time for the domain page should be under 2 seconds as a recommendation. You can also do the ping testing, which shouldn’t be over 200ms.
Since we’re not advanced users, we need free web templates and website builders.
Make sure to check out that if you need that additional assistance in setting up your website.
Additionally, we need technical support that will always answer our problems calls and solve our needs.
Support is the most crucial element in picking a shared hosting plan as from our experience; you’ll need them for several reasons in the later stage.
Well, since we had some brief ideas of what to look for, so let’s check out some of the best options for shared hosting.
1. SiteGround
Pros:
- Quick WordPress installation
- Helpful customer support
- Everyday backups
SiteGround has been operating for 15 years from its headquarters in the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia.
To begin with, we are now hosting our website with their GrowBig plan. Also, they offer a quick and easy migration of your WordPress site.
As we have heard, the quality of customer support doesn’t decrease when someone becomes a user, although that’s often the case. Besides, we could not believe that we can get backups every day and free Cloudflare too!
Cloudflare is easy to implement if you are a novice with the CDN which is a great advantage.
Now we can sleep tight, knowing that our data is safe and sound.
But there is even more!
The SuperCacher system works hard so that a website may work even better than before. SuperCacher comes with a higher plan of GrowBig and Geeky only, does not include in the basic plan. Also, they offer a bunch of email accounts and free databases.
We can even choose the server locations, which can certainly make us fall in love if you are geo-targeted.
More details in our Siteground review.
2. iPage
Pros:
- Great prices
- MySQL databases
- Malware protection
iPage is a company that has been working for 20 years from its headquarters in Burlington, MA.
The first thing we noticed is that their advertisement is everywhere! We are not saying that this is the most important thing, but we aren’t going to complain about it.
Fortunately, this particular cheap service comes with good customer support. Whatever issue we might encounter, they can certainly fix it.
They make running a couple of websites quite easy, and they throw in MySQL databases too. Also, we got unlimited email accounts, web space, and bandwidth.
The drag-and-drop page builder comes in handy when trying to do something quickly. Also, no one will complain about the SSL certificate inclusion.
We used to be afraid of malware, but not anymore! SiteLock did wonders for many users, and it can even remove existing malware. Also, the Firewall is there to do its job.
3. Namecheap
Pros:
- Affordable prices
- Creative domain names
- Great tech support
Got no money and looking for a discount? Then look no more! The prices might be low, but they offer some high-quality service!
We had some sites hosted on NameCheap and the renewal fee is under $40 per year which is truly unbelievably cheap.
If we cannot come up with a good domain name, they can certainly lend a helping hand. Did we say that the domains are also free? We didn’t? They are!
Everyone can set up a website without much fuss, thanks to the great welcome email that was more helpful than much of the competition’s tech support. Also, they grant almost perfect connectivity — don’t nitpick, it’s still 99.9%.
We had been with NameCheap for almost 2 years and they give us no problems, not the fastest loading site but it all boils down to your requirement and budget sometimes.
Moreover, the speed numbers surprised us, especially when we consider the price point. It is no wonder that customers give them so many stars in their reviews.
We haven’t forgotten about great things such as unmetered bandwidth and access to WordPress and cPanel. But if all of this is not enough, they also offer a backup two times a week and the amazing 50 MySQL databases.
4. HostGator
Pros:
- Excellent bandwidth
- Easy to use
- Lots of choices
HostGator is one of the more familiar names in the hosting industry, and it has also partnered up with Linux and Cisco.
Although they are cheap as well, they offer a free SSL certificate and great bandwidth capacity — they can also throw in some email accounts.
Since we are all prone to messing things up, it’s good that their technical support is always there to clean up the mess.
The best is yet to come, though, since they offer a 45-day money-back guarantee. If there is something wrong with the service, or we would like to change the company, we have plenty of time to make a decision.
Also, there is something great for newbies — the FAQ can be understood by almost anyone, which makes setting up a website as smooth as butter.
5. Web Hosting Hub
Pros:
- Amazing speed
- Solid-state drives
- Migration services
They are a company that started in Virginia Beach, VA back in 2010, and they take pride in 40000 satisfied customers.
They are all about speed — just like Usain Bolt. The solid-state drives allow them to get extra speed for their users. We can report that the pages can open up to 20% faster. Not bad, not bad at all.
It seems that their customer support is pretty quick too. Whenever someone runs into a problem (it wasn’t us, we swear), they help out and resolve it immediately. When it comes to setting up a website, we just need to choose from one of the platforms. Needless to say that we dig into that as well!
The migration of websites comes in handy, especially since they can move in no time. No one even notices — it reminds us of Quicksilver. They even offer a 90-day money-back guarantee. Don’t care why, but we accept it!
6. Hostinger
Pros:
- Good uptime
- Widespread servers
- Multilingual customer support
Hostinger started working in 2004, and currently, they serve over 29 million customers.
The uptime is great — their websites are always up and running.
It’s nice when we don’t have to check that every five minutes, right?
They seem to be pretty quick too!
It perhaps has something to do with its widespread servers.
Moreover, they are so good that it would be unfair to others to compare them to Hostinger!
Also, the customer support is great, and it’s even multilingual. Yes, there are languages besides English.
Lazy people all over the world appreciate free website builders. Why overthink when we can use a great template? Besides, the control panel is pretty user-friendly. It’s good that we don’t need a magnifier to see the icons.
Before you head over to our Hostinger review, they offer a standard 30-day money-back guarantee.
7. inmotion
Pros:
- Speed
- Excellent protection
- User-friendly
They have worked for years to earn a good reputation, and they always aim to provide users with the best possible service.
First of all, don’t be scared off by the word ‘business.’ Although their packages bear that name, they will serve even average users or individuals.
Their uptime is great, which means that we don’t need to worry that our website will be off the grid. Also, their servers are faster than most of the competitors, let’s not worry about the server speed on this.
We also like that all the information is laid out in front of us, so we do not need to read the small print. We heard that technical support is top-notch, so we can always count on them.
Besides, we can also get DDoS protection and free automatic backups.
The cPanel makes the job of managing the website a piece of cake, and we certainly will not complain about the 90-day money-back guarantee.
8. GoDaddy
Pros:
- Great uptime
- Amazing speed
- Free website builders
GoDaddy is an American company with its headquarters based in Arizona that has over 17 million clients.
They claimed to have an uptime of 99.9% — don’t worry, it seems legit to me. Their user base speaks about reliability as well.
Since we are crazy about SEO optimization, we were ecstatic when we saw how fast-paced their websites were. We can forget about complaints from visitors, which means a possible spike in the number of hits.
Also, we heard that they offer more hosting capacity if there’s a sudden surge of bandwidth or visits and that it works perfectly. The economy package seems like the obvious choice as they offer 100 GB of storage.
But we recommend you go for unlimited storage and unlimited everything for just a fraction of the additional cost.
Moreover, we got a website builder for free, which made the job much easier. Also, they even offered us to contact some professionals if we run into a problem.
9. Dreamhost
Pros:
- 97-day money-back guarantee
- Make up the lost up-time
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
Dreamhost has been operating since 1996, and it is based in Los Angeles, California. Also, they have more than 400.000 customers and 1.5 million active websites.
Bad uptime is bad for business. However, that’s not the case with Dreamhost. We like that they are better than the others.
We don’t know why, but we certainly will not complain about the 97-day money-back guarantee. They seem to be very comfortable with themselves about refunding.
Also, whenever the website is down, even for an hour, they will refund it by giving users a 24h free service. Compliment them for giving back clients of their losses.
Their panel is user-friendly, and WordPress setup is a breeze.
10. GreenGeeks
Pros:
- Excellent up-time
- High-quality customer support
- Overnight backups
GreenGeeks have been up and running for more than ten years, and currently, they are operating 300,000 websites.
We must say that their uptime is pretty impressive, and they’re certainly not lying about it. Customer support is great too, and we can say that they’ve managed to exceed everyone’s expectations.
Among all these perks, they also offer a connection with Cloudflare, which is great for SEO optimization — yes, we’re in love with it. It also helps that it’s completely free.
Despite the SSH access, we can also get free overnight backups. We do not care when they happen, as long as everything stays where it should be. Also, for every overly cautious user, they offer a password or SpamAssassin protection, and it seems they’re into the environment, which explains the name of the company.
Comparison Table of 10 Shared Hosting
| Host | *Best Price | Website Hosted | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Siteground | $3.95/mo | 1 | 10GB |
| iPage | $1.99/mo | unlimited | unlimited |
| Namecheap | $2.88/mo | 3 | 20GB |
| Hostgator | $2.75/mo | 1 | unlimited |
| Web Hosting Hub | $4.99/mo | 2 | unlimited |
| Hostinger | $1.45/mo | 1 | 10GB |
| inmotion | $6.39/mo | 2 | unlimited |
| GoDaddy | $4.00/mo | 1 | 100GB |
| DreamHost | $2.95/mo | 1 | unlimited |
| GreenGeeks | $2.95/mo | unlimited | unlimited |
*Please be noted that all the best price listed above is introductory or special pricing when signing up. Prices will reflect the normal rate after the renewal of the hosting plan.
All the features listed above are based on their own respective best price plan. A glance through so you can summarize which shared hosting provider suits your requirement or need the most.
We won’t go into details on support or up-time as those are the standard and basic requirements for the industry. If they can’t compete on the basic requirement, they certainly won’t be in business by today.
A quick summary of all of the top 10 shared hosting providers above provides excellent customer support as in instant live chat or ticketing system response. Most of them claimed to have 99.9% up-time.
The differences come in the customization of their services. For instance, I like the SG Optimizer and SuperCacher functions from Siteground very much.
We Speak Highly of:
We had just moved our hosting with them (GrowBig Plan). Experiencing a much faster and greater joy in managing our website. Check out the inside story of our hosting changing log book here.