Best Web Hosting Comparison (In Plain English)

If a website were a traditional brick and mortar business, the web host would be the land the building is on.

Web hosting companies have banks of giant computers called servers that they use to store your website’s information.

This is great news because not only are servers an expensive equipment investment, but they’re also quite large.

For even more clarification, check out this 3-minute video that breaks down just what web hosting is:

If you are a small-medium sized business or starting a blog, you will be just fine with shared web hosting.

This means that the server your website is stored on also stores other websites and thus, the cost is much lower than a virtual server or dedicated server.

If your business is larger, you may want to look into dedicated web hosting.

This means that the server your website is stored on is used for nothing else. This generally means more security and speed, but also much greater costs.

There is mid-point between shared and dedicated hosting, and it is called Virtual Private Server hosting, aka VPS.

VPS hosting still means you share your server with other websites, but you’re sharing them with fewer sites than a shared server. It is more expensive than shared hosting but less expensive than dedicated hosting.

If we think of a web host as the land that a traditional business is on, the domain would be the physical address of that business.

Sure, you could tell your customers how to find you by giving them GPS coordinates, or you could just give them your address.

Similarly, all websites have an IP address (which would be the GPS coordinates in our analogy). IP addresses look like this:

2611:1c2:4142:2130:259c:5c8f:fc10:39e8

Yikes!

Since humans are not computers and can’t remember a string of 32 numbers, we assign them easy to remember web addresses called URLs.

For example, the URL of this blog is Blogfiti.com.

According to Google, 53% of mobile users will leave your site if it doesn’t load within 3 seconds.

That same Google study also concludes that over half of all web traffic comes from mobile.

It is also no secret that Google openly acknowledges that site speed can boost you up or drag you down in its search rankings.

The take away here is that site speed should be one of your top priorities when picking out a web host.

Not necessarily, but it’s recommended.

As far as business expenses go, web hosting is pretty cheap and free web hosting will cause you more trouble than it’s worth.

See the next two FAQs about free web hosting and how much web hosting costs to make your best educated decision. 🙂

If you are creating your website for anything other than a hobby, do not use free hosting.

If you’re creating a blog that you want to look nice, be user-friendly, and eventually make money off of – do not use free web hosting. Same goes for small businesses.

Free web hosts are free for a reason.

They have extremely low limits on important features like server speed, bandwidth, and storage.

Also – their uptimes are pretty terrible.

If all of that sounds a-ok to you, you can find free hosting here:

000WebHost.com

AwardSpace.com

InfinityFree.net

Sites.Google.com

The short answer is that you should expect to spend $3 – $25/month on basic, shared web hosting.

The long answer is: how much you actually end up spending depends on many variables.

Your monthly/yearly web hosting costs will vary by web hosting service, add-on options, and how many months you pay for when you sign up.

There will also be the initial costs. Expect to spend at least $35 up to approximately $99 upfront, depending on the duration you chose (most web hosting services offer monthly, 12-month, 24-month, or 36-month options).

While it is important to take other factors into account, I understand that money can be an important part of starting a website and as such you may be looking for the cheapest host out there.

Fortunatley our winner, HostGator, not only has outstanding hosting but is also one of the most affordable options on the web.

Other budget-friendly web hosts include:

BlueHost

HostWinds

Yes, you can switch web hosting companies later if you need to.

It is important, however, that you sign up for your new host before you cancel your current hosting service or give them notice of your intent to cancel.

Without going into too much detail, if you want to make money with and scale your blog/website into a sustainable business – I highly suggest “self-hosted” WordPress wherein yes, you will need to pay for a web hosting service.

This means that you will register a domain, pay for hosting, and then install WordPress on your website.

If you need a step-by-step tutorial on how to do this, use this tutorial to walk you through exactly how to start your blog today in 3 easy steps (with screenshots & videos so it’s super easy!).

If you are signing up with WordPress.com – no, you do not need hosting (it is included in the package). Again, this comes with many limitations that will eventually stymie the growth of your business.

I know you’re getting tired of hearing this, but it depends on the hosting company and hosting package you chose.

Whether or not email is included and in which plans are covered below in the detailed web hosting comparison.

Yes, you can buy a domain name without hosting.

In many cases, it’s cheaper to purchase them together, but you can absolutely buy your domain name separate from your hosting.

If you want more information on how to set up hosting for a domain name you have already purchased, read How to Host Your Domain with HostGator, a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots that will walk you through the whole process!