Take it from someone who’s been burned by hosting companies: you don’t want to skimp on thoroughly evaluating your hosting provider. Overwhelmed by hundreds of web hosting providers online, I shrugged, “This one looks the cheapest,” and purchased a yearly plan without a second thought.
Poor customer support, inaccessibility, and a migration later, I regretted not spending more time choosing a better web host.
Don’t make the same mistake I did. Put in the time to make the right web host choice in the beginning so you don’t have to deal with a headache later.
What should you even evaluate in a web host? There are several features on their pricing pages, and many of them look similar. Which criteria are important? What can you compromise on? We’ll cover all that (and more) in this article.
What should you know before evaluating web hosts?
You can’t examine the various web hosting providers accurately if you aren’t 100% clear on what you need. Here’s a quick checklist of questions to help you nail down your requirements:
- What kind of website are you building? Get clear on your website’s category — is it a portfolio or a blog? Or are you planning to run an online store? The kind of website you build determines which features are the most valuable to you in a web host.
- How much traffic do you expect your website to receive? Your expected traffic and plans to run ads will help you choose web hosts that can scale as you grow.
- What security features do you need? If you are running a site that will store a customer’s payment details or any other sensitive information, you need a web host with strong security features.
- What is your budget (now and in the future)? Your web host provider should be able to grow with you as your website’s needs evolve, without breaking the bank. Have a rough estimate of what you can spend on a web host now and in the future.
- What is your technical skill level? If you can (and want to) configure everything yourself, your web host needs will look different than someone who isn’t tech savvy and/or doesn’t prefer to handle the hosting technicalities themselves.
Once you’ve answered the above questions, you’ll be much more confident in evaluating the various web hosts in the market. You should answer the above questions even if you’re migrating your site from one host to another — it will help you pinpoint what additional services you’re looking for.
Now that you know exactly what you need, let’s get into the nitty-gritty and examine each individual factor you should vet in a web host.
10 factors to consider when choosing a web host
Here’s a comprehensive list of factors you should consider for each web host you examine:
1. Type of hosting
There are several types of web hosting — each suited to unique website sizes, traffic levels, technical skills, and budgets. Pick the right one for your needs.
- Shared hosting is when you share your server with other websites. This makes it more affordable, but slower.
- VPS hosting is when you share your server resources with other websites, but have a dedicated slice of your own. It’s more reliable and scalable than shared hosting, but it also costs more and requires technical know-how.
- Dedicated hosting is when you have a server all to yourself. Your website is fast and reliable. Plus, you have complete control over every aspect of your website, but it can be expensive, and you have to manage everything (or pay someone else to manage everything).
- Cloud hosting is when your site runs across multiple cloud servers. It’s reliable and fast, but may require setup and monitoring.
Some web hosts in the market provide all these hosting types, while others provide specialized hosting. Choose web hosts that offer the kind of hosting you need now and might need in the future.
For example, if you’re building a food blog from scratch, you might be A-OK with shared hosting in the beginning. However, as your website traffic grows, you might need to move to VPS or dedicated hosting to improve your site experience. In this scenario, look for web hosts that offer both shared and VPS hosting.
While you’re at it, it’s also worth evaluating the types of hosting at the service level.
- Unmanaged hosts provide a barebones server that you manage yourself. This means that you have to handle any updates, firewalls, backups, etc. It’s more cost-effective, but only recommended when you want a customized server setup and have in-house technical resources to manage it.
- Managed hoss handle the majority of the technical tasks, such as server setup, security, backups, and more. It often costs more than unmanaged hosting, but the peace of mind (and time saved) is worth it.
Your web host always manages shared hosting. This means the host is responsible for configuring the distribution of resources and ensuring each site is secure. If you’re opting for shared hosting, it’s especially important to evaluate the quality of your management host because you don’t have control over your website’s security and resource allocation.
You can choose between managed or unmanaged hosting in all other hosting types. However, as discussed before, unmanaged hosting is the right choice only when you need to customize the server stack and know how to do it well. For everyone else, managed hosting is the better alternative because it allows you to focus on growing your site rather than doing upkeep tasks.
Tip: If you choose WordPress.com (which offers managed WordPress hosting), your site will stay fast, secure, and online without any hassle. Your whole website management — including backups, updates, and infrastructure — is on us.
2. Pricing
Price is an important factor when it comes to choosing web hosts. You don’t want to make the mistake of thinking that the cheapest or the most expensive is the best option.
Instead of considering extremes, evaluate web hosts based on their ROI: are they providing you with all the features you need (and maybe a few additional perks) at a reasonable price?
Once you do that, the second step is reading the fine print. Many web hosting providers offer a lower price in the first year and significantly raise the prices the next year. The solution? Evaluate renewal rates to ensure you’re making the right long-term choice.
While you are at it, also look at the “perks” like website backups — they might be free for the first year only. Check their cost at the time of renewal, and consider fees for backups, SSL certificates, and migrations. Look closely at all of these factors and add up the total price you’ll pay at the time of initial purchase, as well as renewal.
Many web hosting providers also offer a money-back guarantee, but exclude fees for additional services — like setup, migration, or domain registration — from this promise. Ensure you know this before you sign up for a web host so you know what you can get back and what you can’t.
Regarding billing options, many web hosts offer significant discounts on yearly or multi-year payments. Commit to a web host for multiple years if you’re confident they are the one you want.
If you’re signing up for numerous years with a web host, research their price increase history first. Many hosts might increase their prices too much compared to their competitors after a few years.
Tip: In addition to monthly and annual plans, WordPress.com offers options to pay every two or every three years. All annual and multi-year plans offer discounted pricing, even after renewal, so you can save money while knowing your site’s long-term home on the web is secured.
3. Security
Your website is prone to viruses and malicious attacks if your web hosting provider doesn’t have strong security features. Here’s what you should look for:
Some security features — like SSL certificates — are standard across most web hosting providers. Many even offer it for free for the first year. If your website handles sensitive customer information or has significant traffic coming in, however, you need to go beyond the basics. Monitor the security features closely to ensure it matches what you need.
Tip: If you have chosen managed hosting via WordPress.com, for example, your website’s security and safety are fully accounted for. There’s brute-force protection to protect your account password, shield from DDoS attacks, automated malware removal, and a lot more. You can sleep peacefully knowing the security of your site is in good hands.
4. Speed and reliability
Your website’s performance depends on uptime and load time. Your host dictates both of those things. Look for hosts that offer a high uptime guarantee — the industry standard is 99.9% uptime or higher. You can also check your terms and conditions to understand if your web host offers compensation for downtime.
Your site’s speed is affected by various factors. For starters, if you choose shared hosting, you share your resources with other customers, which means if other servers experience too much traffic, your site might slow down. Examine how your web hosting provider configures resources in a shared hosting plan.
You also want to look for web hosts with data centers close to your audience’s location to speed up loading times. Or you could choose a web host like WordPress.com that offers a global content delivery network (CDN) with 28+ edge locations already built in.
Lastly, monitor other performance features such as SSD vs. HDD storage (SSD is faster), built-in caching mechanisms, and server response time.
Tip: WordPress.com offers 99.99% uptime (seriously). However, if your site does experience downtime (Business plan or above), you will get alerts the minute downtime is detected.
5. Storage and bandwidth
Storage is how much data you can store on your server, including website files, images, videos, emails, backups, etc. How much storage you need is unique to your website and needs. For example, someone building a one-page website (like a portfolio) might not need a large amount of storage space, but a small business expanding rapidly might.
In shared hosting, some web hosts might list “unlimited” storage, but restrict the number of files you can store under fair usage policies. Make sure you read the clause details properly to know your storage limitations.
On other hosting types, you can customize the storage you need based on the various web hosting plans. For example, WordPress.com offers 13 GB of storage in its Premium plan, while our Business and Commerce plans start at a generous 50 GB (with the option to purchase more storage).
When monitoring hosting storage plans, check if you can increase your storage without downtime and whether there are any file type restrictions.
Bandwidth is the amount of data transferred between you and your visitors. The amount of bandwidth you need depends on your average page size, monthly visitors, page views, and unexpected traffic spikes. You can use a website bandwidth calculator to determine how much bandwidth you might need.
Some web hosts — like WordPress.com — offer unrestricted bandwidth. Others might slow down your site after you exceed a certain limit. A few also charge for stretching the bandwidth. Choose a web host that can comfortably meet your bandwidth needs not just today, but in the future.
6. Customer support
Imagine you have an online store and your website is down for a few days. This isn’t just inconvenient, it’s revenue lost. Website issues are often urgent and need to be resolved quickly.
Choose a web host with reliable 24/7 support (in multiple formats), so you get the help you need instantly. Ideally, you’d want to look for live chat or phone support to get quick responses. However, you should also look at ticketing systems and promised resolution times to understand how quickly your web host will respond to larger issues that might arise.
It’s also worth checking out the support documentation of web hosting providers. Do they answer FAQs thoroughly? Do they have video guides for beginners? Is the knowledge base regularly updated? Would you be able to resolve many issues independently?
Some web hosts, however, don’t deliver on their promises. Check reviews from third-party sites like TrustPilot or G2 to understand if the web host lives up to their promises.
Tip: In addition to top-tier customer support, look for hosts that provide high-quality support documentation.
7. Ease of use
The control panel of your web hosting provider should be user-friendly. You should be able to navigate it and manage your database, emails, backups, etc. If you need assistance doing basic tasks, too, you may get frustrated and unnecessarily waste time opening your web host account.
This is, again, where an extensive knowledge library is invaluable. If your web hosting provider has laid out tutorials and blogs on building a website using their tool, you won’t be stuck trying to figure it out.
8. Migration
If you are moving your site from another web hosting provider, check if your new one offers a free migration service. For instance, if you want to move your site to WordPress.com, we provide a free migration service.
You also want to check the process of moving your website. Is it easy to import your site files? Are there any risks of losing your data? How much time does the whole process take from start to finish?
Understanding the above before migrating your site to a new web host will help make the process smoother and risk-free.
9. Integration with CMS/website builders
Most popular web hosts offer integration with popular CMS platforms and website builders like WordPress and others. You want to choose a web host that connects seamlessly to your CMS or website builder.
Many web hosts — like WordPress.com — are fine-tuned for a specific CMS (like WordPress). CMS-specific hosting offers tailored support, automated updates, and CMS-specific firewalls.
10. Additional features (like custom email, domain name, etc.)
Can you purchase your domain name, professional email address, and web host from different providers? Of course. Many web hosting companies, however, bundle them together and offer a discounted price, helping you save money and admin work.
For example, all WordPress.com sites get a free domain for one year. There are also other perks, like tons of Jetpack-powered features at no extra cost. Look at the various perks website hosts offer and choose the ones that make the most sense for you.
A web host is your site’s home
Your website host is your website’s home on the worldwide web — make the choice with careful consideration. You don’t want to pick a home that costs less but has a leaky roof.
If you don’t want the hassle of continually working to maintain your site, opt for managed hosting via WordPress.com. We ensure your website remains online, fast, and secure regardless of traffic spikes, so you can focus on growing your business on the internet carefree.
