Web Hosting for WordPress - The Definitive Guide for WordPress Owners

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) on the web. More than a quarter of all websites have WordPress installed, and it's not hard to see why: It's easy to use and setup, flexible enough for any type of site you might want to build, and free! But with so many people using WordPress comes an increased demand in web hosting for WordPress.

This article will provide you with everything you need to know about web hosting for WordPress while also helping you choose a solid solution based on your needs.

Types of web hosting for WordPress websites

Some types of web hosting for WordPress include:

Shared Web Hosting
Cloud Web Hosting
Dedicated Web Hosting
Semi-Dedicated Web Hosting
Managed WordPress Hosting
VPS (virtual private server) web hosting

With that being said, let's get started by going through each of the web hosting options for WordPress.

Table of Contents

Types of web hosting for WordPress websites
Shared web hosting for WordPress
Cloud Web Hosting for WordPress
Dedicated web hosting for WordPress
Semi-Dedicated Web Hosting
Managed WordPress hosting
VPS hosting for WordPress
Summary: Choosing the best web hosting plan for WordPress

Shared web hosting for WordPress

What is shared web hosting?

Shared web hosting is the most popular type of web hosting for WordPress with a majority of websites on this service.

The advantages of using shared web hosting are the low price (usually starting from $60/year or lesser), having a web server that is shared with dozens of other customers and it can also be an excellent solution for small businesses.

Besides that, it is easy to set up, scalable and it can be enough to host your website if you don't have huge traffic. Currently, there are thousands of providers on this service but not all provide great quality as some offer performance below what one would expect.

However, there are some disadvantages of using shared web hosting such as the lack of control on how much resources you'll get or not being able to customize anything at all (such as installing themes).

The advantages include:

easy to set up
scalable
low price and affordable pricing, starting from just $60/year with unlimited bandwidth and disk space
great solution for small businesses

The disadvantages include:

lack of control on what resources you get
not being able to customize anything at all

When to use shared hosting for WordPress?

Shared hosting is excellent when you are a small business or freelancer with no more than three sites. It is also an excellent choice if your site does not have any high traffic, has low load and is fairly simple in nature.

The disadvantages include:

the lack of control on what resources you get
not being able to customize anything at all. It is also limited in terms of scalability and it can't be scaled when your site grows bigger.

How much should I pay for shared hosting services?

The price for shared hosting services varies a lot. Generally, you should be able to find a decent shared hosting service for WordPress under $60 a year. There are also cheaper ones (like dirt cheap) which could costs you under $20 a year which we strictly do not encourage.

The best shared hosting service for WordPress

Personally, we recommend Bluehost if you are looking for cheap shared hosting for WordPress. With under $5 per month, you can't go wrong with it!

Plus, it comes with 1-click WordPress installation and money back guarantee!

Try Bluehost today!

Cloud Web Hosting for WordPress

What is cloud web hosting?

In recent months, cloud web hosting had been a popular option and widely used by many hosting companies around the world. To make it easier to understand, cloud web hosting is the most popular type of dedicated web hosting for WordPress. It provides a number of benefits such as:

scalability
control over your hardware resources

Overall, cloud web hosting offers superior performance over typical shared web hosting plans.

Advantages using cloud web hosting for WordPress:

better hosting security
higher server throughput/performance
lower latency
more efficient use of server resources (CPU, memory)
increased reliability and uptime

Disadvantage using cloud web hosting:

higher cost compared to shared hosting
more complex setup

When should I use cloud web hosting?

If you are running a large website that needs to have the best performance possible, it's worth considering investing in cloud web hosting. This is especially true if your site has grown significantly and causing scalability issues with shared hosting.

Another reason might be for those who want full control of their hardware resources or wish to avoid having any downtime due to hardware failure, power interruption and other disasters.

Cloud web hosting is also a good option for those who are using WordPress as their content management system (CMS) because they can get the peace of mind that their site will be backed up by superior data storage services, highly secure environment with protection against malware intrusion and hacker attacks.

If your website is experiencing high levels of traffic and you are seeing some performance issues, it's worth considering investing in cloud web hosting. This is especially true if your site has grown significantly and causing scalability issues with shared hosting.

How much should I pay for cloud web hosting?

To many surprise, the cost of cloud web hosting is often rather similar to shared web hosting. In this case, you are expected to pay a few dollars extra from what you are paying for shared hosting.

On average, a basic cloud web hosting costs anywhere from $10 - $15 for the most basic features.

Investing into cloud web hosting can be great for a number of reasons. One is that it offers more storage space and bandwidth, so the website owner can store files on their own servers instead of relying on one shared server with other websites. Another benefit to consider is that many providers offer 24/hour live customer support in order to help you resolve any issues.

In short, you shouldn't go 'cheap' when it comes to searching for the best web hosting solution for WordPress.

Which is the best cloud hosting for WordPress?

There are only two web hosting companies when it comes to our minds when we say "cheap cloud hosting for WordPress" — Bluehost and Siteground.

Both are great with pricing and performance ... you can't go wrong here.

Get Bluehost discount

Get Siteground discount

Dedicated web hosting for WordPress

What is a dedicated web hosting service?

A dedicated web hosting service is a term that refers to your own server. This can be an entire machine or just one virtual private server (VPS). Dedicated web hosting has been described as the ultimate solution for larger and high-traffic websites that have a greater need for processing power and memory from their web host than standard shared web hosting.

This means that you are not sharing the resources with anyone else and have complete control over it, as well-as what software runs on there. You also get more power in terms of CPU, RAM and hard drive space.

The price for dedicated web hosting is about $100-$300 a month (depends on the plan). The good thing with this type of web hosting service is that you can apply your own operating system onto it as well as any software that you want to install. You have more control when compared to shared web hosting, which is one of the reasons why it has higher price.

Advantages of using dedicated web hosting:

You have full control of the web server
Have an operating system and software that you can choose to install on your own. For example, if you are a developer or designer, you may not want WordPress as the only option available for installation.

The disadvantages of using dedicated web hosting:

Higher monthly costs when compared with shared web hosting
Requires the server to be physically near your location which means you need more space and power for it. In some cases, this can increase monthly costs because of usage and cooling requirements

Dedicated web hosting is perfect if:

You are a developer or designer who wants to build their own website using customized CMS
You are an eCommerce company that would like to upload your own shopping cart and customize the website through a CMS.
Your site is in heavy demand, has high traffic or needs more resources than cloud hosting can offer

When to use a dedicated hosting for WordPress?

If you have a website that is in heavy demand, has high traffic or needs more resources than the cloud hosting can offer.

Dedicated web hosting is perfect if:

You are a developer or designer who wants to build their own website using customized CMS
You are an ecommerce company that would like to upload your own shopping cart and customize the website through a CMS.
Your site is in heavy demand, has high traffic or needs more resources than cloud hosting can offer
You want to avoid the hassle of configuring and maintaining a server yourself.

Dedicated web hosting is not recommended if:

Your site needs significant resources but doesn't have high traffic or demand, it's better off with shared web hosting
You have a small site that doesn't require significant resources.

How much should I pay for dedicated hosting for WordPress?

Dedicated web hosting for WordPress can be quite expensive, on average costing about $100 per month.

Of course, you can get cheaper dedicated hosting for WordPress if you sign up for quarterly or yearly plans. On average, you should get anywhere from 15 to 25% discount for dedicated hosting plans when you sign up for annual plans.

Which is the best dedicated hosting for WordPress?

If you are residing in Asia, you should look for Exabytes and if you are looking for more datacenters and choices, WP Engine is an excellent choice to work with.

Semi-Dedicated Web Hosting

What is semi-dedicated web hosting for WordPress?

This is web hosting for WordPress that offers more resources than shared web hosting but less than dedicated web hosting.

Semi-dedicated web hosts typically offer between 100 to 200GB of storage space and up to 40% performance increase when compared to traditional shared web hostinng services like Bluehost or HostGator.

The benefits of semi-dedicated hosting for WordPress is that it usually comes with a dedicated IP address and more disk space. This means your website will have fewer restrictions and better performance overall.

Semi-dedicated web hosting also provides the flexibility to scale up resources as needed throughout your site's lifetime, which may not be possible with shared web hosting.

The most common types of semi-dedicated web hosting for WordPress include a SATA disk, SSD disk and NVMe drive. The type of storage you choose will depend on your needs or desired performance level.

Storage is measured in gigabytes (GB). A typical site would need around 16 GB but it can vary depending on the number of web pages and size of video or image files.

Semi-dedicated hosting is a costlier option but it does come with some advantages, such as dedicated IP address, better security settings, greater scalability and more control over how your website operates.

The advantages of using semi-dedicated web hosting for WordPress:

Semi-dedicated web hosting offers faster loading and better performance than shared web hosting.
This is a great solution for new websites with higher traffic, or sites that are growing in popularity.
Semi-dedicated web hosting has better features and customer service than shared web hosting services.

The disadvantages of using semi-dedicated web hosting for WordPress:

The cost of this type of service starts at $30/month and is available to those who need a higher level of service or are looking for more storage space.
Some semi-dedicated web hosts tend not to offer customer support 24/seven, so if you have an issue that needs immediate attention, it will take extra time on your part to reach someone.

When to use a semi-dedicated hosting for WordPress?

You should consider using semi-dedicated hosting when your website is growing in popularity and/or has a higher traffic.

This type of web hosting for WordPress will be much better suited to your needs, as it is designed more specifically with this use case in mind. Generally, semi-dedicated hosting offers more server performance and guaranteed server resources.

In return, it makes your WordPress website loads faster and giving you better overall performance.

When choosing web hosting for WordPress, it is important to consider your budget and the amount of traffic you want or need. If you have a limited budget but require more server resources, then semi-dedicated hosting will be perfect for your needs.

Semi-dedicated hosting is an excellent if you are looking for an upgrade from shared hosting and more performance for your website.

How much should I pay for semi-dedicated hosting for WordPress?

Generally, you can expect to pay around $35-$50 per month for semi-dedicated hosting.

Semi-dedicated hosting is often considered affordable web hosting especially for growing websites with moderate to high traffic.

The best semi-dedicated web hosting services are:

WPEngine, which offers many features such as unlimited storage space and bandwidth for $35-$80 per month depending on the package chosen.
Siteground is also great with high customer service at an affordable price of $30-$50 per month.
One crucial thing to note about semi-dedicated hosting is that it offers more resources than shared web hosting and could be a better choice for a growing website.

Managed WordPress hosting

What is managed WordPress hosting?

Managed WordPress hosting is web hosting service that offers managed solutions for webmasters to operate their website through the entire life cycle. This includes server management, performance and security, upgrades and updates etc.

With managed WordPress hosting, you are getting a dedicated environment (server) that is optimized specially for WordPress. WordPress is a heavy resource CMS and thus, a dedicated and optimized server allows your website to load faster.

Advantages of using managed WordPress hosting:

Reduced site downtime
Increased speed and performance of the website
Automatic updates
Server management for smoother experience. All you need to do is focus on your content quality (content) and marketing strategies.

Disadvantages of using managed WordPress hosting:

The managed WordPress hosting might be more expensive than shared web hosting, but it is worth it if we take into consideration the benefits.
Higher upfront costs
Limited number of web hosting providers will provide managed WordPress hosting, so you might have to do a little research before investing in it.

When to use a managed WordPress hosting solution?

Managed WordPress hosting is a good solution for any website owner who wants to run their own WordPress site on the server without having to manage it themselves. It's also great if you are not technical and want someone else take care of your web infrastructure or just need more resources than shared web hosting can provide.

There are many managed solutions available in the market that offers flexibiity and customization. In the comparison table below, we show a few managed WordPress hosting providers and their pricing plans for you to compare:

A few of the best managed WordPress hosting solutions are:

How much should I be paying for managed WordPress hosting?

The average cost for managed hosting can range from $25 to more than $200 per month. The price of the service is highly dependent on how many resources are needed, and additional features required by the customer such as a staging environment or support team access.

It's important that you find out what your needs are before signing up for a managed WordPress hosting solution.

Plus, it is important to understand that no two managed WordPress hosting are similar. They offer different features and pricing structures.

So, make sure to compare the hosting plans of different providers before signing up with any one provider.

It is important that you find out what your needs are before signing up for a managed WordPress hosting solution?

Plus, it is important to understand that no two managed WordPress hosting solutions are similar. For example, Kinsta hosting offers complete VPS solution for all plans and WP Engine offers shared and dedicated VPS solution based on the plans you sign up for.

VPS hosting for WordPress

What is VPS Hosting?

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting can be defined as web hosting on a separate physical server.

VPS hosting is often offered as an alternative to shared web hosting or dedicated web hosting because it offers more flexibility and customization options in terms of resources allocated, security, access permissions etc. VPS also allows for better performance due to the fact that there are fewer other users sharing its resources with you.

These days, VPS hosting is offered by many web hosting providers including:

On a personal note, I recommend using Bluehost as it is one of the best VPS for value if you are looking to have datacentres in the United States. If you are looking to have datacentres in Asia, both HostWithLove and Exabytes offer the best VPS solutions.

Advantages using VPS hosting for WordPress:

You have more control over your web hosting
More performance and scalability due to less resource contention
Lesser risk of downtime due to having a higher degree of system uptime.

Disadvantages using VPS hosting for WordPress:

Higher upfront cost than shared web hosting solutions like Bluehost or HostWithLove.
Require some level of server management skills.
Higher maintenance cost when compared to shared web hosting solutions.

When should I use a VPS hosting solution for WordPress?

If you have a lot of traffic on your website and need more resources to scale up. Also, if you want to run multiple websites from the same web hosting account, you might want to get a VPS solution for better overall performance.

In other words, you get all the benefits of shared web hosting plus more performance and scalability (which is important for growing websites). At the same time, VPS solutions are not shared with others. Therefore, there is no risk of downtime due to a higher degree system uptime on your VPS server.

How much should I pay for VPS hosting solution?

It is really hard to recommend specific pricing detail as VPS hosting solution prices vary based on the vendor, monthly data transfer and other factors. A good start would be about $35 per month for a low-end WordPress server with limited resources.

If you are looking for a reliable VPS hosting solution, here are some great services I would recommend anytime of the day:

Summary: Choosing the best web hosting plan for WordPress

In the end, web hosting for WordPress is a very important decision and worth to invest as it will help you make your website alive. Just like choosing any other service provider or product, doing some research before signing up is crucial. With this article, we hope that you have a clearer understanding of different types of web hosting for WordPress.

Siteground Alternatives: Low, Mid and High Budget WordPress Hosting | WP Maven

What are the best SiteGround alternatives? There are many reasons why you are looking for web hosting alternatives to SiteGround. The costly SiteGround renewal pricing, limited hosting resources and maybe, unparalleled hosting performance as compared to other web hosting services.

We understood the frustrations because every month, we have clients reaching out to us with SiteGround hosting — either performing website migration or finding alternatives to SiteGround hosting.

In the next few moments, we are going to run through (with you) our list of SiteGround alternatives that you can't go wrong with. No matter how big or small your budget is, or how much performance you require, we have them covered in this post.

Table of Contents

Is SiteGround really that bad?
The best Siteground alternatives for 2020
Summary of the best Siteground alternatives

Is SiteGround really that bad?

Siteground Review — *~Is SiteGround a bad web host?*

One of the biggest misconceptions is SiteGround is not good or SiteGround is not worth the money. The truth is, SiteGround is a pretty decent shared WordPress hosting service.

Here's how SiteGround pricing structure looks like:

Siteground Pricing Siteground Alternatives — *~SiteGround WordPress hosting pricing*

As you can see, the entry level to SiteGround is really low and we recommend SiteGround to anyone who has a small blog/website that doesn't require much resources.

The entry level for SiteGround WordPress hosting is $6.99 per month for a single website with under 10,000 visits a month. The pricing structure is rather decent especially when it uses Google Cloud Platform (GCP) as their backbone and comes with inbuilt cache plugin. You can check out more about the SiteGround features right here.

SiteGround often 'goes bad' when it comes to renewal or when you are running a heavy traffic WordPress site. The renewal fee for SiteGround is often twice or more than the first year's price — this is a huge problem especially for bloggers and small website owners. An increase of 10 to 20% is rather decent but a 100% (or more) increase is definitely a huge problem.

If you are feeling what we are feeling, let's dive in to learn more on SiteGround alternatives.

The best Siteground alternatives for 2020

Throughout the years, we had tested a wide range of web hosting companies and we had found our favorite SiteGround alternatives based on your budget. So, here goes!

Low BudgetMid BudgetHigh Budget

For us, low budget web hosting services are often under the $15 per month price tag. Our favorite low budget SiteGround alternatives are:

Among the shared hosting plans above, FlyWheel hosting is the priciest of all simply because it is a managed WordPress hosting. For only $13 per month, that's a lot of firepower and hosting features you can get with FlyWheel!

If you are looking anywhere between $15 to $50 per month, welcome to the mid budget SiteGround alternatives. Most of the time, your website is generating at least 50,000 traffic in a month and is making a decent amount of money from your website.

Our favorite mid-budget web hosting solutions are:

It is important to note that both RunCloud and Cloudways are pretty much hosting control panels integrated with VPS.

Enterprise-grade and high volume websites require high budget web hosting. If you are generating over 100,000 traffic a month, there's absolutely no harm (as a matter of fact, it is compulsory) to invest into better web hosting solutions.

Higher budget web hosting solutions often offer more performance, security, support and scalability. Here's the list of the best high budget WordPress hosting solutions:

On average, a high budget WordPress hosting solution starts around $100 per month. And if you are generating over 100,000 traffic a month, you are definitely earning more than $100 a month from the website!

Summary of the best Siteground alternatives

Until date, there is not a single hosting solution that is a one-size-fits-all. The best Siteground alternative is always the one that fits your needs. To easier define your needs, it is best to define the number of web traffic your website is generating, the amount of space you need from a web hosting solution.

Also, do not forget that another critical option is the hosting support you will get. Typically, a managed WordPress hosting solution will provide more support, performance, scalability and security as compared to shared hosting plans.

Gridpane vs RunCloud: Which is the best hosting control panel?

Gridpane vs RunCloud. Which is the best WordPress control panel? If this is what you are looking for, we have some good news for you. Over the past 3 weeks, we had been testing both Gridpane and RunCloud extensively to answer all the dying questions about both of these awesome hosting control panels.

In the next few moments, we are going to dive deep into both Gridpane and RunCloud, and we certainly hope you will be able to find some true answers here!

Table of Contents

What is a hosting control panel?
Introducing, Gridpane vs RunCloud Review
Gridpane Review
1. What are the advantages using Gridpane?
2. What are the disadvantages using Gridpane?
RunCloud review
1. What are the advantages using RunCloud?
2. What are the disadvantages using RunCloud?
Gridpane vs RunCloud: Comparing two awesome tools
Gridpane vs RunCloud: Which is a faster WordPress hosting control panel?
Summary: Which is the best hosting control panel for WordPress?

What is a hosting control panel?

~cPanel is a popular hosting control panel

One of the biggest misconception about hosting control panels is hosting control panels offer hosting services. A hosting control panel is a tool that allows you to manage all aspects of a hosting service. It allows you to do most of the complex system management in hosting as well as simple ones such as creating email accounts, adding domains and checking the bandwidth usage.

cPanel and Plesk are two great examples for general hosting control panels and while these are great tools, you might find them rather limitating especially when you would require more control.

Introducing, Gridpane vs RunCloud Review

Gridpane vs RunCloud Which is Better — *~Gridpane vs RunCloud comparison review*

When it comes to custom WordPress hosting control panel, both Gridpane and RunCloud are household names for website owners, WordPress agencies and freelancers alike.

RunCloud
Gridpane

RunCloud is a PHP Cloud Server Management Panel that integrates perfectly well with various frameworks including WordPress, Laravel, Joomla and Yii Framework.

Apart from that, it is also important to note that RunCloud is a Malaysian based company that had made to the limelight.

Gridpane is a WordPress control panel and when they launched, they were the first of its kind. The advanced hosting control panel makes deploying, optimizing and hardening any WordPress site a breeze.

If you are looking for a dedicated hosting control panel for WordPress CMS, Gridpane is a solid choice that you can't go wrong with.

Gridpane Review

This Gridpane review is rather similar to the one we published recently, Gridpane vs RunCloud vs Closte vs Kinsta which we recommend you to check it out.

On the surface, Gridpane is not really made for website owners. It is a hosting control panel that you can use to manage hundreds if not thousands of WordPress sites under one roof and instead of paying through your nose through 3rd party WordPress hosting solutions.

What are the advantages using Gridpane?

Fully tuned NGINX with FastCGI
Premium plugins and themes
Latest versions for PHP, MySQL and Redis
Staging and SSL capabilities
Advanced security and server hardening features
Unlimited server management

Built-in Slack notifications
Secure SSH keyed access by default
Robust Linux, NGINX, MySQL, PHP (LEMP) stack
Remote third-party backups
Dedicated live chat support and well-equipped knowledge base

Let's take a look at Gridpane's backend system.

What are the disadvantages using Gridpane?

Let's be honest here. There is no such thing as a perfect product and Gridpane has its weakness too. Based on our team's experience, the biggest disadvantage of using Gridpane is the customer support.

Now, make no mistake. We are decently happy with their customer support level but there are things they could certainly do better.

For example, some customer support teams are very fast in pointing you to the articles in the knowledge base. Sure, these articles could be well-written but at times, having human touches such as helping out instantly goes a long way in making one's day and even building a strong satisfaction level. This is a known challenges that Gridpane faces and you can also see more users are more keen to post for help on their Facebook Group (for community support) instead of going through the support live chat.

Aside from that, Gridpane pricing is also rather steep, especially for their range. This is because while the entry level (Pro plan) is nicely capped at $30 per month, the developer plan is $100 per month which is a huge jump for many. You would most likely benefit much from the developer plan because it is comes with additional features including server security which is crucial.

RunCloud review

We were rather hardcore Gridpane fans until we use RunCloud ourselves. To be honest, we know that there are many features of RunCloud but RunCloud can be rather complicated for beginners. For starters, RunCloud is great when you can write command codes. If you can't, the support team is there to assist (minus the communication time in between).

On the surface, RunCloud is very geared towards usability (the backend dashboard is beautifully crafted and the UI/UX is very pleasing). Under the hood, RunCloud offers one of the largest and most complex hosting control panel known to mankind.

What are the advantages using RunCloud?

Ability to manage web servers under one roof
Using confusing command lines is not required
Multiple stacks setup including LEMP and LAMP
Easily white label and customize for clients
Very supportive customer support team

Time saving applications and integrations
Notification via Slack, Telegram or email
Powerful server hardening features
Easy to use backend system
Complex and complete settings for nearly every hosting needs
Affordable pricing structures

Let's take a look at RunCloud backend system.

What are the disadvantages using RunCloud?

We are not going to lie to you. We feel in love (again) right after using RunCloud. But this RunCloud review is all about honesty and real comparison, so here goes.

For starters, RunCloud can be fairly complicated especially for beginners. Their dashboard is well-arranged with beautiful UI/UX. However, there are many options and can be rather challenging especially for first-time users.

Apart from the complex settings, it is important to understand that RunCloud is not a completely dedicated hosting control panel for WordPress. In other words, the development for RunCloud may not be entirely focused on WordPress.

Gridpane vs RunCloud: Comparing two awesome tools

There is no denial that both Gridpane and RunCloud are great hosting control panel tools. If you need some powerful comparisons, we hope you find this information useful.

Gridpane	RunCloud
Hosting control panel dedicated for WordPress	Hosting control panel not dedicated for WordPress
Bundles feature helps to speed up WordPress installation	WordPress Canvas helps to speed up WordPress installation
Limited number of team members for developer plans and above (10 slots per Developer plan), and additional charges apply	Unlimited number of team members at no extra cost
Single VPS provider API per account	Multiple VPS provider APIs per account
Developer plan starts at $100 per month with white labeling starts from $1,000 per month.	Highest tier starts at $37.5 per month and custom tier is available (by contacting support)
Priority support via live chat and non essential support via email	Support via emails only
Gridpane offers 14 days free trial	RunCloud offers 5 days free trial
No yearly plan discounts for Gridpane	RunCloud offers annual discounts

Gridpane vs RunCloud: Which is a faster WordPress hosting control panel?

Last but not least, speed is something that we are fairly sensitive about.

So, is Gridpane faster than RunCloud?

The answer is "They are both on par." Take a look at the speed tests we did to compare both Gridpane and RunCloud.

On the left, it is Gridpane's score while the right is RunCloud's. Gridpane scored 473 ms and RunCloud scored 615 ms, both with full Redis cache turned on.

If you want to count on math, Gridpane loads around 30% faster (142 ms). We decided not to conclude that Gridpane is faster than RunCloud based on numbers since both of them are loading well below the 1 second mark.

Summary: Which is the best hosting control panel for WordPress?

Both Gridpane and RunCloud are excellent choices and you can't go wrong with either one of them. If we have to choose, we decided that RunCloud is the best option for us simply because they have better customer support, easier pricing structures and offers tons of different application frameworks that we could use at the same time.

The Best Hosting Control Panel ...

RunCloud.io

There is no doubt that Gridpane is easier to use (beginner friendly) but RunCloud offers power, performance, customer support and excellent pricing that beats Gridpane anytime of the day.

Try RunCloud.io for 5 days free

WordPress Hosting Control Panel: Top 3 Tools for Server Management

You read about shared web hosting and then managed WordPress hosting. But, what is a WordPress hosting control panel?

The definition of a hosting control panel is "A tool that allows you to manage all aspects of a hosting service. It allows you to do most of the complex system admin processes in just a few clicks from the admin interface. You can even do advanced tasks such as server migrations, web server switching etc. in just a few clicks."

A WordPress hosting control panel allows you to do exactly the above, but only for WordPress CMS. Here's the thing: WordPress hosting control panels are not usually popular among normal website owners.

Why?

This is because by default, WordPress hosting control panel software are generally expensive and require some level of expertise. In the hands of a professional, WordPress hosting control panel could be an excellent choice for blazing-fast websites and highly secured websites.

What are the features of a WordPress hosting control panel?

No two hosting control panels are similar and here are the general features that you can expect:

Provision of virtual private servers (VPS)
Free Let's Encrypt SSL's
Site cloning/migrations

One click staging sites
6G & ModSec 3 + WAF
Backups and rollbacks

Top WordPress hosting control panels this year

So, which are the best WordPress hosting control panel services that you should consider using?

We work with quite a few WordPress hosting control panels and here are our top favorites:

GRIDPANE.COM

GridPane calls themselves the world's first WordPress hosting control panel. In simpler terms, GridPane allows serious WordPress professionals to provision their own servers with all the features of managed WordPress hosting at a fraction of the cost.

When it comes to dedicated WordPress support, Gridpane is very decent and offers one of the best WordPress hosting control panel services in the market. With three different pricing structure, Gridpane is an excellent choice for freelance WordPress developers and WordPress agencies managing both small and large scale projects.

RUNCLOUD.IO

Runcloud is a PHP cloud server control panel that support Digital Ocean, Linode, AWS, Vultr, Azure and other custom VPS. The availability of Git deployment webhook and easy control panel makes it one of the most preferred hosting control panels for WordPress users.

It is important to note that Runcloud offers more than hosting control panel for WordPress but to a wide range of other CMS and PHP.

CLOUDWAYS.COM

Last but not least, Cloudways is a popular hosting control panel that is often used by bloggers and website owners who want to have hassle-free server management. Cloudways integrates with a wide range of VPS and with its affordable pricing, you can't go wrong with Cloudways.

Our Recommended WordPress Hosting Control Panel Solution

At WP Maven, we work with WordPress a lot and we can't help but focus on hosting control panel solutions that have a strong focus in WordPress. That's also the reason why we use Gridpane to manage VPS for our client's behalf.

If you are looking for a cheaper hosting control panel solution, Cloudways is an excellent choice too.

Bluehost Review 2020: A Web Hosting Comparison Like No Other

Bluehost is the most popular web hosting service and just like any other web hosting companies, it has a fair share of positive and negative reviews. As a matter of fact, you probably come across more less-appealing Bluehost review blog posts on the first page of Google! At WP Maven, we use do have clients who use Bluehost as their hosting provider and we do have more than a dozen encounters with Bluehost on a very personal end.

We want to make this Bluehost review different from most of the ones that you can find on the Internet—through in-depth review, features, the good and the bad of what Bluehost offers.

Without further delay, let's dive deep into our own hosting review, Bluehost.

Table Of Contents

Part 1: What is Bluehost?
Part 2: What type of web hosting does Bluehost offer?
Part 3: What features that Bluehost web hosting offers?
Part 4: Is Bluehost a good web host?
Part 5: Is Bluehost good for beginners?
Part 6: How much does it cost to host a website on Bluehost?
Part 7: Why is Bluehost so cheap?
- Is overselling a bad thing in web hosting?
Part 8: Is Bluehost the best for WordPress?
Recap on Bluehost Review 2020
- The world's most popular web hosting service at affordable prices

Part 1: What is Bluehost?

Bluehost is a web hosting company owned by Endurance International Group (also known as EIG). It is one of the 20 largest web hosts, collectively hosting well over 2 million domains. The company operates its servers in-house in a 50,000 square feet facility in Provo, Utah. According to Wikipedia, Bluehost employs over 750 people in its Utah facility.

Bluehost is a popular website hosting provider that offers both affordable web hosting service (for small websites) and enterprise-level hosting frameworks for large/heavy traffic websites.

Part 2: What type of web hosting does Bluehost offer?

Bluehost offers a wide range of hosting services including:

Shared hosting
Fully-managed WordPress hosting
eCommerce hosting
VPS hosting
Dedicated hosting

Apart from that, Bluehost also offers related services such as:

Email hosting
Domain name registration
Live WordPress support
Custom website design and digital marketing services

Part 3: What features that Bluehost web hosting offers?

As this Bluehost review is mainly on the review on Bluehost hosting solution, we will be putting more emphasis on web hosting, as compared to other services.

When it comes to Bluehost hosting features, the features vary based on the hosting plan that you are currently subscribed to. For example, eCommerce hosting features may vary as compared to WordPress hosting.

Nonetheless, here's the breakdown for each Bluehost web hosting services.

How's the experience with this blue hosting service?

With Bluehost, you never have to worry about your website being slow even when there is a lot of traffic. Their 24/7 expert support is always there to help when you need it by phone, email, or live chat. They are rated #1 in web hosting for small businesses.

Click here to learn more

(i) Bluehost Shared Hosting Plans

Shared hosting is a common Bluehost hosting solution. It is easy to use, useable for all major CMS, easy to setup, email hosting services and support that you need.

There are 4 common plans when it comes to Bluehost shared hosting. Let's take a look below.

(a) Shared Hosting Basic

1 website
50 GB SSD Storage
Unmetered Bandwidth
Free SSL Certificate

Standard Performance
1 Included Domain
5 Parked Domains
25 Subdomains

Summary: If you are just starting a blog, the Bluehost Basic web hosting plan is an excellent choice to start with. This shared hosting solution starts at $3.95 per month and is the lowest entry-level shared hosting plan.

(b) Shared Hosting Plus

Unlimited Websites
Unlimited SSD Storage
Unmetered Bandwidth
Complimentary SSL Certificate
Standard Performance

Unlimited Domains
Unlimited Parked Domains
Unlimited Subdomains
Spam Experts
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days

Summary: The Plus plan is best when you are hosting more than one website (Bluehost Plus shared hosting plan offers unlimited website hosting). With pricing starts at $5.95 per month, it comes with Spam Experts (for email delivery), free domain name and Microsoft 365 Mailbox (trial) too.

(c) Shared Hosting Choice Plus

Unlimited Websites
Unlimited SSD Storage
Unmetered Bandwidth
Complimentary SSL Certificate
Standard Performance
Unlimited Domains

Unlimited Parked Domains
Unlimited Subdomains
Spam Experts
Domain Privacy + Protection
Site Backup - CodeGuard Basic
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days

Summary: Bluehost Choice Plus is the next available tier when it comes to affordable shared hosting services. Apart from all the features in the Plus plan, this shared hosting plan comes with domain privacy and automatic site backup. For only $1 extra from the Plus plan ($6.95 per month), both of these additional features are extremely important when it comes to website security and server daily backups.

(d) Shared Hosting Pro

Unlimited Websites
Unlimited SSD Storage
Unmetered Bandwidth
Complimentary SSL Certificate
High Performance
Unlimited Domains
Unlimited Parked Domains

Unlimited Subdomains
2 Spam Experts
Domain Privacy + Protection
Site Backup - CodeGuard Basic
Dedicated IP
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days

Summary: Last but not least, Bluehost Pro plan is best for website owners who are seriously in having powerful web hosting servers (for faster loading speed, more cron jobs, etc.). Websites hosted on the Pro plan will enjoy 300,000 file count and are deployed with fewer users per server than the standard shared servers, allowing for greater compute resource availability per user. Another plus point of the Pro plan is the dedicated IP and therefore, you can rest assured that you are not getting bad hosting neighbours who might abuse the IP usage (indirectly affecting your domain score).

(ii) Bluehost WordPress Hosting Plans

Bluehost shared WordPress hosting helps you to set up your WordPress site fast, easy and securing the website in minutes, not hours (and without any technical help).

The hosting plans below are dedicated to the WordPress CMS only and unlike the normal shared hosting plans, Bluehost shared hosting plans for WordPress comes with:

Automatic WordPress Installation. Upon creation of your WordPress Hosting plan, Bluehost automatically installs the latest and most secure version of WordPress.

Automatic WordPress Updates. We keep your WordPress Hosting plan secure even after account creation by keeping your account up to date every day.

Secure Configuration of Login Credentials. Upon the creation of your WordPress Hosting account, your login credentials are changed from the standard WordPress admin/password to something of your choice.

Get Verified on Google My Business. List your local business online to quickly connect with customers in your area. Allow them to see your location and your hours of operation on Google Maps.

Hundreds of Free And Premium WordPress Themes. Free and premium themes are available from the moment you create your account. Find the WordPress theme that best represents you and your unique talents. Installation is fast and easy, and switching themes can be completed in seconds.

Dedicated for WordPress. Designed with you in mind, Bluehost provides everything you need to create and manage a WordPress website. Enjoy powerful website management tools, automatic WordPress installation, and 24/7 expert support all at a price that fits any budget.

Bluehost shared WordPress hosting solutions are available in three different plans.

(a) WordPress Hosting Basic

1 Website
Free SSL Certificate
50 GB SSD Storage
Free Domain for 1 Year

5 Parked Domains
25 Subdomains
$200 Marketing Credit

Summary: If you are looking for an entry-level web host that offers dedicated WordPress support, the Basic plan is the best for you. 50 GB SSD storage is very generous, especially for a single website. The free SSL certificate and unmetered bandwidth make hosting WordPress on Bluehost a worry-free thing for you.

(b) WordPress Hosting Plus

Unlimited Websites
Complimentary SSL Certificate
Unmetered SSD Storage
Free Domain for 1 Year

Unlimited Parked Domains
Unlimited Subdomains
$200 Marketing Credit
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days

Summary: The Plus plan is good if you’re looking for unlimited websites, customer support, SSL certificate, email accounts and WordPress hosting all under one roof. Plus, having $200 marketing credits and 30 days of Microsoft 365 mailbox are also great features/perks.

(c) WordPress Hosting Choice Plus

Unlimited Websites
Complimentary SSL Certificate
Unmetered SSD Storage
Free Domain for 1 Year
Unlimited Parked Domains

Unlimited Subdomains
$200 Marketing Credit
CodeGuard Basic Backup
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days

Summary: If you are looking for unlimited everything, Bluehost Choice Plus plan offers great features and services, including massive storage space, powerful server and daily backups.

(iii) Bluehost Managed WordPress Hosting

WP Pro by Bluehost allows you to quickly build and grow the perfect WordPress website with some serious firepower (features) including:

All-in-on marketing centre and dashboard
SEO, email marketing and social media tools included
Optimized performance for blazing site speeds
Unlimited everything (websites, domains, subdomains, web storage and traffic limits)
Staging environment

~Introduction to WP Pro by Bluehost

WP Pro is different from typical Bluehost shared hosting because this is a dedicated WordPress hosting solution. Everything you need to create an engaging WordPress website is available in this plan—making them an easy to use solution for busy website owners.

WP Pro comes in three distinctive plans which are:

Build
Grow
Scale

(a) WP Pro Build

All the basics you need for starting a professional WordPress website
Jetpack Site Analytics (Basic)
Marketing Center
100+ Free WordPress Themes

Daily Scheduled Backups
Malware Detection and Removal
Domain Privacy + Protection
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days

Summary: We recently helped a client to migrate over to the WP Pro Build plan and to be honest, we were very amazed at how intuitive the dashboard was and the website loading speed. If you are looking for a managed WordPress hosting plan with great features, this is the plan for you. WP Pro Build plan starts at $19.95 per month.

(b) WP Pro Grow

Everything you need to build an audience for your WordPress website
Jetpack Premium included
Business Review Tools
Bluehost SEO Tools
Jetpack Ads Integration
10GB Video Compression

Marketing Center
100+ Free WordPress Themes
Daily Scheduled Backups
Malware Detection and Removal
Domain Privacy + Protection
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Blue Sky Ticket Support

Summary: Bluehost WP Pro Grow plan is where the true power for managed WordPress hosting. The availability of enterprise-grade website tools help you build better WordPress sites without spending additional money for plugins and without any coding skills. Plus, you will have access to Blue Sky ticket support at no additional cost. In other words, get all the assistance you need with design, functionality or general questions from real WordPress experts 24/7. WP Pro Grow plan starts at $29.95 per month.

24/7 Managed WordPress Hosting Support

Bluehost supports millions of websites worldwide. Let our experts help you effectively build, grow, and manage your managed WordPress website. Get started now!

(c) WP Pro Scale

Advanced features for running an eCommerce WordPress website
Jetpack Premium included
Business Review Tools
Bluehost SEO Tools
Jetpack Ads Integration
10GB Video Compression

Blue Sky Ticket Support
Marketing Center
100+ Free WordPress Themes
Daily Scheduled Backups
Malware Detection and Removal
Domain Privacy + Protection
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days

Summary: Bluehost WP Pro Scale plan is an excellent choice for hosting your eCommerce stores and heavy traffic WordPress sites. With PayPal integration and Elastic Search, we find that Bluehost offers powerful, easy to use and highly affordable to the wallet. Most shared hosting plans do not offer additional higher tier support but with WP Pro Scale plan, you get everything under one roof. WP Pro Scale plan starts at $49.95 per month.

(iv) Bluehost WooCommerce Hosting

Just like many other hosting companies, Bluehost offers dedicated hosting environment for WooCommerce stores including secure payment gateways, fully customizable online stores and easy to use (hassle-free) set up processes.

Other perks and advantages of using Bluehost WooCommerce hosting are:

30 day money back guarantee
Availability of easy to use themes
Multiple safe and secured payment gateways

There are three pricing plans for Bluehost WooCommerce hosting.

(a) WooCommerce Hosting Starter

1 Online Store
100 GB SSD Storage
Storefront Theme Installed
Complimentary SSL certificate

Domain Privacy + Protection
Free Setup Call
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days

Summary: If you are looking for an easy to use WooCommerce hosting, you can't go wrong with Bluehost. This plan is excellent for beginners and with the pricing of $6.95 per month, you are definitely not going to break the bank anytime soon!

(b) WooCommerce Hosting Plus

Unlimited Online Stores
Unmetered SSD Storage
Storefront Theme Installed
Free SSL

Free Setup Call
CodeGuard Backup Basic
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days
Domain Privacy + Protection

Summary: This shared hosting plan comes with automatic backups which are important for your website (instead of manual backup). This plan starts at $8.95 per month, which is really affordable.

(c) WooCommerce Hosting Pro

Unlimited Online Stores
Unmetered SSD Storage
Storefront Theme Installed
Free Setup Call
CodeGuard Backup Basic

Free SSL
Domain Privacy + Protection
Bluehost SEO Tools Start
1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox - Free 30 Days

Summary: This hosting plan is the most high powered option if you are looking to build and manage an online store (or several online stores) like a professional. With unlimited everything and premium SEO tools, you are well on your way to creating online stores that both Google and website visitors would love!

(v) Bluehost VPS Hosting

Next in this Bluehost review is their VPS hosting. Bluehost virtual private servers are built using SSD storage which increases the power, flexibility and control for your websites.

Here are some interesting features of Bluehost VPS hosting:

Free domain name for the 1st year
30 day money back guarantee, no matter what reason
24/7 stellar support
Advanced multi-server management solutions
Access control for better security

Domain Privacy + Protection
File management
Additional resources in just a few clicks
Availability of SiteLock (defend your websites against attacks and malware by detecting and fixing vulnerabilities and threats before they cause problems)

Bluehost VPS hosting comes in three plans as below.

(a) VPS Hosting Standard

2 Cores
30 GB SSD Storage
2 GB RAM
1 TB Bandwidth
1 IP Address

Summary: For only $19.99 per month, you can have a fully managed VPS server that offers you significantly powerful hosting services as compared to typically shared hosting plans. This is indeed an awesome entry-level VPS solution at a very cheap rate.

(b) VPS Hosting Enhanced

2 Cores
60 GB SSD Storage
4 GB RAM
2 TB Bandwidth
2 IP Addresses

Summary: This VPS plan starts at $29.99 per month and this is by far a very powerful hosting plan that gives you power, performance and all the flexibility you need to create a business online.

(c) VPS Hosting Ultimate

4 Cores
120 GB SSD Storage
8 GB RAM
3 TB Bandwidth
2 IP Addresses

Summary: If you are searching for a powerful VPS hosting service, Bluehost Ultimate plan is the best for both money (cost) and performance. The 4 cores and 8 GB RAM give you ample of server performance that would power your busy website even when you are trending on the front page of Reddit.

(vi) Bluehost Dedicated Hosting

High-performance hosting, enterprise-level hosting or custom hosting framework. Welcome to the true power of Bluehost dedicated hosting solutions. Regardless you are looking for performance, security, absolutely control or all of them, Bluehost dedicated hosting solutions can create custom approaches for you to have the hosting service of your choice.

Apart from having servers that are tuned for optimum performance and dedicated solutions powered by an industry-leading, robust platform, here are some features that you will get only with Bluehost dedicated hosting plans:

Free domain name for 1st year
Free SSL certificate
30 day money back guarantee
Unmanaged dedicated server hosting
Improved cPanel

Multi-server management
Domain Privacy + Protection
SiteLock
Spam Protection
Dedicated customer service support on standby 24/7

Introduction

What are dedicated hosting benefits?

Control, privacy, and guaranteed resources are the primary benefits of both VPS hosting and Dedicated hosting. However dedicated servers are not shared with any other users, so the performance of a Dedicated server customer's website is stable and predictable. Customers with high traffic websites are often the best fit for Dedicated hosting.

Comparison

What is the difference between VPS vs Dedicated hosting?

Users of VPS hosting have allocated resources just like Dedicated hosting users, however, the number of available resources on VPS servers may still not be what a website needs. For example, VPS servers often start at 2GB of RAM, whereas Dedicated servers often start with at least 4GB of RAM available. In short, Dedicated hosting allows for the same full customization and control of a VPS server, but with even more horsepower.

Bluehost dedicated hosting plans come in three different plans to suit your needs.

(a) Dedicated Hosting Standard

4 cores @ 2.3 GHz
500GB (Mirrored) Storage
4 GB RAM
5 TB Bandwidth
3 IP Addresses

Summary: With pricing starts at $79.99 per month, Bluehost offers a rather standard pricing structure with superior performance.

(b) Dedicated Hosting Enhanced

4 cores @ 2.5 GHz
1TB (Mirrored) Storage
8 GB RAM
10 TB Bandwidth
4 IP Addresses

Summary: This dedicated hosting plan offers a lot of firepower with 4 cores and 8 GB RAM. At only $99.99 per month, this is one of the most popular dedicated hosting plans on Bluehost.

(c) Dedicated Hosting Premium

4 cores @ 3.3 GHz
1TB (Mirrored) Storage
16 GB RAM
15 TB Bandwidth
5 IP Addresses

Summary: Finally, the mother of all dedicated hosting solutions is the Premium plan. At $119.99 per month, this dedicated hosting offers a very powerful dedicated hosting environment for the heaviest-traffic websites.

Part 4: Is Bluehost a good web host?

Now, with that being said, let's dive deep into the review with understanding if Bluehost is a good web host. The term "good" varies a lot depending on the individual. For us, a good web host means that they are a reliable web hosting company, comes with good customer support with live chat and other web hosting perks such as unlimited email accounts, free SSL certificate, free domain name and 30 day money back guarantee.

Does Bluehost offers any of the above?

The answer is "Yes!"

Each hosting package that you sign up with Bluehost comes with all of the above and higher plans also comes with domain privacy and unmetered bandwidth.

Bluehost scores highly in the ease of use category and excellent web hosting service with multiple web hosting plans to fit your needs—from shares hosting to hosting WordPress websites.

Part 5: Is Bluehost good for beginners?

How about beginners? Is Bluehost an excellent catch for beginners?

The answer is "Yes".

Most of the entry-level packages such as the basic shared hosting package come with all the tools beginners would need to start a website quickly.

The key points that make Bluehost stand out from the crowd are the live chat service and customer support, unmetered bandwidth and unlimited email address. These are very important features that a web host can offer in terms of support and service for beginners.

Apart from the above, Bluehost is a hosting provider that offers cheap web hosting service with domain privacy addons if you get on higher hosting plan. The basic plan that Bluehost offers is sufficient for small blogs and websites.

Last not least, you can easily use Bluehost without having to worry if Bluehost is not right for you (down the road). This is because all Bluehost shared hosting plans come with money back guarantee—which is really, really good in the case where you find Bluehost hosting is not something you are looking at.

Part 6: How much does it cost to host a website on Bluehost?

In this Bluehost review, we had come into a conclusion that Bluehost comes with different plans to fit different type of website requirements and budget. The lowest plan is the basic shared hosting plan starts at $3.95 per month for both basic shared hosting (all CMS) including WordPress.

If you are looking for fully managed WordPress hosting or much higher specs such as VPS or dedicated hosting, plan starts at $19.99 per month onwards.

Part 7: Why is Bluehost so cheap?

Bluehost is a hosting provider that provides many hosting features for both WordPress site and non-WordPress CMS. They are able to sell hosting at low prices because they oversell their web hosting space.

What is overselling a web hosting server?

Overselling is when a hosting company sells more disk space and bandwidth on a server than actually exists. For example, a server hard drive is 80GB and has 1200GB of bandwidth. The hosting company has a look around and decides to offer plans with 2GB of disk space and 40GB bandwidth.

Is overselling a bad thing in web hosting?

Well, this is a tough question. For starters, we know a handful of web hosting providers that oversell web hosting but they manage the entire business strategy very well. This means that they keep track of the server performance to ensure that all websites hosted on the server are getting enough resources.

But yes, there are also web hosting providers who care more on profit than customer service or support. This is a bad thing and could lead to your website loading slower or taking a longer time to process a specific task.

Based on our personal experience with Bluehost, Bluehost does a decent job in overselling their web servers (hey, the hosting industry is a tough industry) and at times, they do drop the ball.

If you are hosted on Bluehost and noticed a significant drop in processing power or your website takes a longer time to respond to actions (such as loading speed), feel free to reach out to the support to seek for clarification. If you are able to share your experience with some statistics/facts, their support team would offer you to migrate to the next available server.

Part 8: Is Bluehost the best for WordPress?

Which Bluehost Hosting Plan Is Best — *~Which Bluehost hosting plan is best for me?*

Now, what if you are using WordPress and looking for the best WordPress hosting company? Bluehost, in our personal opinion, is a great hosting company for WordPress CMS.

Money back guarantee, live customer service/support, daily backups and unlimited email address are just some perks that are too good to ignore. Plus, hosting at Bluehost also means that you get ample of storage space, a domain name for free for the first year and complimentary SSL certificate — which are good to save some money!

If you are looking to host your WordPress site on Bluehost, I recommend you to go with WP Pro. Bluehost WP Pro is a fully-managed WP hosting service that offer handles all the challenging parts about hosting a WordPress site. With a customized and optimized WordPress server, your WP site will load faster and more efficiently.

Most WP web hosts charge more than what Bluehost does and make no mistake—more expensive doesn't mean that it is better!

When it comes to WP hosting, Bluehost makes it easy for you to start your own website with many state-of-the-art security features, dedicated control panel, unlimited bandwidth and technical support to build and grow your WP site.

Recap on Bluehost Review 2020

Before we wrap up this Bluehost review 2020, it is important to note that we are an active customer on Bluehost. This is one of those hosting companies that offer very affordable shared hosting, dedicated and VPS hosting plans that you can start with very minimal technical knowledge.

We totally understand that the price of web hosting is very important especially for beginners and small website owners. Bluehost pricing for hosting packages is by far the most affordable ones in the market for both new accounts and renewal rates/renewal price.

While Bluehost has its own pros and cons, we can't help but to constantly recommend Bluehost to those who are serious in getting great support and solid web hosting with a lower price point.

Why you don't you get started with Bluehost today and decide for yourself?

The world's most popular web hosting service at affordable prices

Try Bluehost today and get unparalleled support from true WordPress experts at a fraction of the cost.

Start Right Here

How To Save Hosting Bandwidth (And Potentially Save Hundreds Of Dollars Monthly)?

If you are running a heavy traffic WordPress site, one of the occasions that you may always encounter is hitting the hosting bandwidth. While this shows that your website is doing good (in terms of traffic), you may be hit with a higher-than-usual hosting bill. And this is going to burn a hole in your pocket.

Example Of Overages In Hosting Traffic — *~Example of overages in hosting bill*

For some reasons, we experienced some traffic peaks in a two months period and we were caught off guard with the hosting bill. It is not the price that shocked us, but it made us think that hitting hosting bandwidth could lead to some challenges especially for small website owners.

So, how do you save hosting bandwidth and potentially saves up hundreds of dollars each month?

Table of Content

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Step by step guide to preserve hosting bandwidth and avoid overages

We had been using WordPress since 2004 and we have a fair share of WordPress hosting experiences not only with this site but with hundreds of clients' sites. The following are some of the best ways to save hosting bandwidth that we use.

Reduce the upload size

One of the most common mistakes done by many WordPress site owners is uploading unoptimized files directly to WordPress.

Yes, WordPress CMS will scale down the images but this happens only when the images are in use.

So, how to reduce the upload size effectively?

How To Reduce Hosting Bandwidth By Reducing Upload Size — *~Reducing upload size helps to reduce hosting bandwidth*

If you are uploading images to WordPress, it is recommended to optimize the images before uploading them to WordPress. Optimized images help to improve website loading speed and reduce bounce rate at the same time. We love using TinyPNG to optimize images in PNG format, while JPEG compression for JPEG formats.

We also install ShortPixel or Imagify for WordPress websites that we manage for our clients to further optimize the images on the fly.

If you are uploading PDF files, you can also optimize PDF by reducing the size using online PDF compressor such as ILovePDF.com.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) service

A CDN serves more than just security and faster loading speed for websites. Using a CDN, you can easily reduce the hosting bandwidth and avoid overages to your hosting bill.

There are many free and paid CDN services that you can use such as Cloudflare. The free plan comes with bandwidth saving features as it serves static files directly from the cache instead of loading from your server.

Reduce Hosting And Server Bandwidth Using WordPress CDN — *~Using a CDN for your WordPress site can reduce hosting and server bandwidth*

As the data is not requested or pulled from your hosting server, there is minimal or no bandwidth usage at all for that specific task.

Here's a screenshot of one of the websites that we manage.

Cloudflare CDN How To Reduce Hosting Bandwidth Usage And avoid Overages — *~A CDN helps to reduce server bandwidth usage*

In the past 7 days, 12 GB worth of data cached via Cloudflare and this can be an enormous saving for your web hosting account.

Disable file hotlinks

A hotlinking takes place when someone embeds content (images, music, videos, and documents mostly) from your site in another site with the direct file URL.

Effectively, the other site is stealing bandwidth and generating unnecessary traffic hits on your website consuming your hosting resources.

Prevent Hotlinking In WordPress To Reduce Hosting Bandwidth — *~Hotlinking prevention can save bandwidth*

If you want to save hosting bandwidth, we recommend you to enable hotlink protection to prevents other websites from directly linking to files on your WordPress website.

How to enable hotlink protection in WordPress?

If you are using Cloudflare for CDN and security, you can easily enable hotlink protection from your Cloudflare control panel. By default, Cloudflare enables the hotlink protection for all new account created recently.

If you are not using Cloudflare, security plugins such as iThemes security plugin come with hotlink protection.

Do you know that hotlink protection is also very effective in avoiding DDoS and malicious attacks on WordPress websites?

Compression and optimization helps to save server bandwidth

The process of optimizing your CSS, HTML and JS on WordPress doesn't only make your site loads faster, it helps to reduce server bandwidth too.

These files are often big in size and they load automatically for each website visitor.

Enable WordPress Compression To Reduce Server Bandwidth — *~Reduce bandwidth usage with compression and optimization in WordPress*

Optimizing these files will make them smaller in size and directly reduce the size of the page load. If you are using WordPress, installing a WordPress cache plugin will help you perform all the optimization in just a few clicks (no coding skills required).

Looking for the best speed optimization plugin?

We use WP Rocket and we cannot recommend it enough. This is by far the best plugin when it comes to optimizing CSS, HTML and JS files in just a few clicks.

Get our custom WP Rocket settings

Gzip compression for WordPress

What is Gzip compression?

Gzip is a form of data compression — it takes a chunk of data and makes it smaller. The original data can be restored by un-zipping the compressed file.

It is relevant to web apps and web sites because the HTTP protocol includes the ability to gzip data that is being sent.

Enable Gzip compression to save hosting bandwidth — *~Gzip compression is important for WordPress websites*

This means that when it is in use, your bandwidth costs for serving the site will be lower because people visiting the site will be downloading file that has been made smaller files.

Most WordPress cache plugins come with Gzip compression feature, including WP Rocket (check it out here).

Summary

Saving and reducing hosting bandwidth is critical (for finances) especially when you are using a hosting plan that comes with limits. By using the above methods, you will be able to reduce hosting and server bandwidth effectively, while making your website loads faster.

5 Top WooCommerce Hosting Solutions That You Can't Go Wrong With (Cheapest and Fastest)

Are you looking for the best and fastest WooCommerce hosting to create your online store? Choosing the best hosting provider is one of the most important decision you’ll make for your eCommerce business.

A normal shared hosting solution may not always be a good choice when it comes to WooCommerce. This WordPress eCommerce platform requires more resources, SSL certificate and more PHP workers as compared to a typical blog or static website.

In this guide, we will go through some of the fastest WooCommerce hosting solutions (web host) for your online store.

To make the process easier, we have also hand-picked the best WooCommerce hosting providers.

These are the top eCommerce hosting companies that consistently rank high due to their quality, performance, and excellent customer support.

Yes, these are the fastest WooCommerce hosting solution for 2020 (and beyond).

If you are looking for the fastest hosting for WooCommerce websites, you don't have to look any further.

WP Maven had been an established WordPress agency in Malaysia that had helped 200+ users in Malaysia alone with their websites. With the years of experience with hosting services, we truly understand the importance of choosing the best and fastest WooCommerce hosting for an eCommerce startup. Our goal is to offer insights on things you need to consider when choosing a WooCommerce hosting solution.

What is WooCommerce hosting (and why it matters)?

To host an online store with WooCommerce, you need an optimized hosting solution equipped to handle WooCommerce stores out of the box.

WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is used by millions of small and large businesses all over the world. As it runs on WordPress CMS, so you will obviously need a hosting provider that supports WordPress.

Apart from that, you will also need a domain name (such as wpmaven.net) and an SSL certificate to accept online payment. You will also need the back-end servers to be optimized for WooCommerce for better performance.

As your online store grows, you will need to consider how to handle traffic with no downtime.

Do you know that #WooCommerce powers at least 5 million online stores worldwide in 2020?

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Scalability is the key as migrating to new WooCommerce hosting is tedious and oftentimes challenging.

A reliable and great WooCommerce hosting solution will most likely offer you these that you will not get with a typical shared WordPress hosting account. Using a WooCommerce specific hosting also opens doors to getting professional support from staff trained to deal with WooCommerce websites on a daily basis.

What are the advantages of using a WooCommerce hosting solutions?

WooCommerce Ready – WooCommerce hosting companies offer pre-installed WooCommerce with a ready to use design to go with.
High Performance – Speed is not just important for user experience but also for SEO. WooCommerce hosting platforms offer faster load times for smoother eCommerce transactions.
Hosting Features – Apart from WooCommerce specific features, you get all the usual hosting features like unmetered bandwidth, huge disk space, email accounts, and more.

Security – Most WooCommerce hosting plans come with SSL certificate. This adds a security layer around data transferring from customer’s browser to your website.
WooCommerce Support – We all need help now and then. With WooCommerce hosting you get help from actual WooCommerce experts via email, live chat, or phone.
Dedicated WooCommerce Backup – Nightly backups and offsite backup storage are two powerful reasons to use WooCommerce hosting solutions.

What are the disadvantages of using WooCommerce hosting solutions?

Price – Prices for WooCommerce hosting plans are slightly higher than average shared WordPress hosting plans.
Pre-Installed Software – Some advanced users may want to install WooCommerce on their own. Pre-installed software may also include WooCommerce ready designs and bonus extensions that some users may not need.
Maintenance – Not all WooCommerce hosting plans offer automatic updates. You will still need to set up automated backups and install updates.

Disadvantages Of WooCommerce Hosting — *~Disadvantages of using WooCommerce*

Now that you have looked at the pros and cons of WooCommerce hosting, you are probably still wondering if its the right solution for you?

Do I really need a WooCommerce hosting solution?

If you are just starting your first online store, you don't require a WooCommerce hosting solution. Instead, you should opt for a cheaper hosting solution, such as shared WordPress hosting.

We recommend using Bluehost, they are one of the officially recommended WordPress hosting companies.

On the other hand, if you are a small business with the intention to open a fully functional online store, then you would be better off with WooCommerce hosting.

This is simply because choosing the right WooCommerce hosting will save you a lot of time especially with the technical side of installing and setting up WordPress and WooCommerce.

Time is money. You will be more productive managing your business (and paying for WooCommerce hosting) instead of trying to figure things out.

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As a business owner, your time is money and there is absolutely no reason for you to 'crack' your mind with website hosting when you should more on growing your business.

When you decide to go through a hassle-free route with a WooCommerce hosting plan, you will have a blazing fast online store ready to go with no technical skills required.

More importantly, there's an army of professional WooCommerce support team on standby and at your service.

If you want to start selling quickly, then the cost of WooCommerce hosting makes more sense and is easily justifiable.

With that being said, the below are the list of the best WooCommerce hosting with speed in mind. These are hosting plans that offer excellent performance, superior infrastructure, and knowledgeable support. We give each of them a perfect 5 out of 5-star rating.

Carry on reading below to discover the fastest WooCommerce hosting providers.

SiteGround

SiteGround is one of the top-rated hosting company in the WooCommerce community. They provide unique in-house performance optimization and security which is why they’re an officially recommended WooCommerce hosting provider.

How fast is WooCommerce with SiteGround WooCommerce hosting?

The answer is fast ... like really fast. Take a look at the results from our recent SiteGround performance test.

Speed Test WooCommerce Hosting SiteGround Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~WooCommerce takes 649 ms to complete load on SiteGround server*

We tested from a server in Dallas, Texas using Pingdom Tools. The WooCommerce site loads 95% faster than most websites, which is incredible.

How does SiteGround WooCommerce hosting perform with peak traffic?

Next, we tested with Load Impact to test on the server performance under stress. We started with 1 active website visitor and gradually built up to 100 unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.

Load Impact Test On SiteGround Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~Siteground WooCommerce hosting performs exceptionally well with Load Impact*

In this chart, the blue line indicates the number of active virtual users on the site. On the other hand, the green line is the server load time. SiteGround performed rather consistent until the point where the website hits 50 users. Thanks to the advanced technology in SiteGround, it quickly recovered and page load time remained steadily low even with more users.

How does SiteGround score with the Bitcatcha test?

Bitcatcha is used to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations.

Server response time is often used to gauge the hosting server performance as it provides more accurate results instead of the complete load of the website.

Bitcatcha Test On SiteGround Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~SiteGround's response time performs moderately across the globe*

Overall, SiteGround performed with flying colours in the United States and all other locations except in Japan. This is because the server location that we have chosen for the test WooCommerce site is located in the US. If your audience is in Asia, then you can ask SiteGround to move you to their Asia-Pacific servers to solve this issue.

Is SiteGround a good WooCommerce hosting solution?

We found SiteGround to be a great option for WooCommerce hosting for startups (beginners with online stores) because their support is incredibly helpful. SiteGround also offers optimized and managed WooCommerce hosting solutions with just a fraction of the price compared to the rest.

Advantages of SiteGround WooCommerce hosting

Officially recommended by WordPress and WooCommerce
Best WordPress support, good uptime, fast speed, and free SSL certificate
Free website migration

Disadvantages of SiteGround WooCommerce hosting

SiteGround doesn't offer free domain
SiteGround GoGeek plan for WooCommerce hosting is slightly expensive

SiteGround Fully Managed WooCommerce Hosting

If you are looking for a hands-off WooCommerce hosting that doesn't burn a hole in your pocket, SiteGround is definitely the only option you need to consider.

Get SiteGround (for only $3.95/mo)

Bluehost

Bluehost is one of the largest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WooCommerce hosting provider.

Bluehost is often considered one of the best WooCommerce hosting in 2020 because it offers multiple perks including free domain and transfer.

Bluehost WooCommerce Hosting Solution — *~Bluehost WooCommerce hosting solution*

How fast is WooCommerce with Bluehost WooCommerce hosting?

Again, we loaded up a test WooCommerce website on Bluehost and tested on Pingdom Tools. Here is the result:

Speed Test WooCommerce Hosting Bluehost Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~Bluehost performs moderately well with a full load that takes 1.2 second*

As you can see above, Bluehost was able to load the WooCommerce site under 2 seconds. On average, it is 85% faster than most websites. We are very happy with the performance of Bluehost as the test site wasn’t using any caching plugins or performance optimization tips.

How does SiteGround WooCommerce hosting perform with peak traffic?

Here's how it looks like:

Load Impact Test On Bluehost Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~Bluehost WooCommer hosting stays stable throughout the website load test*

In this chart, the blue line indicates the number of active virtual users on the site, and the green line is the server load time. The result shows that Bluehost servers were able to remain stable throughout the test even at peak traffic.

How does Bluehost score with the Bitcatcha test?

Bitcatcha is used to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations.

Server response time is often used to gauge the hosting server performance as it provides more accurate results instead of the complete load of the website.

Bitcatcha Test On Bluehost Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~Bluehost performs well in US region, while average in other regions*

Results show that the response time was rather good (35 ms) with traffic generating from the United States. The response time in other locations was a little bit higher but it is still under a second.

If your target customers are in the United States, then using Bluehost would hugely benefit your WooCommerce store.

Is Bluehost great for WooCommerce hosting?

Based on our tests, Bluehost is an excellent choice when it comes to fast WooCommerce hosting solution. A huge plus point is it is very stable even with traffic spikes.

Advantages of Bluehost hosting

Bluehost offers 50% off WooCommerce hosting
Perks such as free domain name
Free 1-click SSL certificate
Pre-installed WooCommerce platform

Disadvantages of Bluehost hosting

Bluehost support can be slow at times
Some servers are slower due to overselling

Bluehost Shared Hosting for WooCommerce

Bluehost is by far one of the most affordable WooCommerce hosting solutions that you can't go wrong with. Free domains, site migration and SSL certificates are excellent perks hosting with Bluehost.

Get Bluehost (for only $6.95/mo)

WP Engine

Make no mistake. WP Engine is one of the leading managed WordPress and managed WooCommerce hosting solution in the industry.

They offer in-house performance optimization, managed updates. 1-click staging environment, and superior live chat support.

WP Engine WooCommerce Hosting Solution — *~WP Engine superior WooCommerce hosting solution*

How fast is WooCommerce with WP Engine WooCommerce hosting?

Here are the results from the WP Engine performance test using Pingdom Tools:

Speed Test WooCommerce Hosting WP Engine Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~WooCommerce website hosted on WP Engine loads insanely fast*

As you can see, the test site loads fairly fast (582 ms) from a server in New York City. That's is 96% faster than most sites. At the same time, it is important to note that there was no performance optimization done to the site during the test.

How does WP Engine score with Load Impact test?

We started with 1 active website visitor and gradually built up to 100 unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.

Load Impact Test On WP Engine Fastest WooCommerce Hosting

The green line represents page load time and the blue line represents the number of users on the site. As you can see, our test site performed really well up to 80 users, after that it started to slow down.

Overall, WP Engine server performance remained rather stable throughout the test.

How does WP Engine score with the Bitcatcha test?

Bitcatcha is used to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations.

Server response time is often used to gauge the hosting server performance as it provides more accurate results instead of the complete load of the website.

Bitcatcha Test On WP Engine Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~WP Engine server performs exceptionally well and scoring an A on Bitcatcha*

Not surprising, WP Engine scores an A with its server performance. As the test server is located in the United States, both the US (W) and US (E) score well under 70 ms while showing decent response time in all other regions around the world.

Is WP Engine the fastest WooCommerce hosting solution?

Based on the tests that we had conducted, the answer is a resounding "yes". We concluded that WP Engine is definitely one of the best options for managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting.

Advantages using WP Engine WooCommerce hosting

Optimized for WordPress and WooCommerce with a stable managed hosting platform
1-click staging environment, free SSL, and integrated support to add CDN service as an addon
Excellent customer support and a custom hosting control panel
Automatic nightly backups

Disadvantages using WP Engine WooCommerce hosting

Hosting plans are slightly higher for a starter WooCommerce store, but totally worth the money (investment) for zero downtime and hassle

WP Engine Fully Managed WooCommerce Hosting

When it comes to superior performance, WP Engine is pretty much unmatchable. It gives you the tools and remote support that you needed to grow your online store to new heights (while keeping it safe from hackers).

Get WP Engine (for only $25/mo)

Liquid Web

Liquid Web has long been in the managed WooCommerce hosting solution. They offer multiple levels of WooCommerce hosting plans including VPS, cloud sites, managed, and dedicated plans with 24/7 support.

Liquid Web is also a household brand when it comes to WooCommerce hosting solutions.

Liquid Web WooCommerce Hosting Plans — *~Liquid Web WooCommerce hosting*

How fast is WooCommerce with Liquid Web hosting?

Here are the test results from Liquid Web performance test with Pingdom Tools:

Speed Test WooCommerce Hosting Liquid Web Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~Liquid Web WooCommerce hosting is also blazing fast*

Just like most of Liquid Web's alternatives, it performs well under one second from a server in San Jose, California. Based on the stats, it loads 91% faster than any other test sites.

How does Liquid Web score with Load Impact test?

We started with 1 active website visitor and gradually built up to 100 unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.

Load Impact Test On Liquid Web Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~Liquid Web remains stable through the website load test*

The blue line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the green line is the server load time. Liquid Web servers remain stable and serving at its top performance even as traffic spikes (which is a good thing).

How does Liquid Web score with the Bitcatcha test?

Bitcatcha is used to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations.

Server response time is often used to gauge the hosting server performance as it provides more accurate results instead of the complete load of the website.

Bitcatcha Test On Liquid Web Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~Overall response time for Liquid Web is on a very positive note*

In our test, the WooCommerce site hosted on Liquid Web is very responsive, under a second. The response time is the most responsive in the United States.

How good is Liquid Web for a WooCommerce hosting solution?

Liquid Web is no doubt one of the most powerful and reliable WooCommerce hosting companies that offer enormous features, especially when building an online store.

They had been in the business for years and they certainly have the infrastructure to make your WooCommerce store loads amazingly fast.

Advantages using Liquid Web WooCommerce hosting

Powerful managed cloud hosting that is incredibly fast
Fully managed servers, SSL included, excellent support
Easy to scale as your business grows (excellent for enterprises)
Automatic daily backups

Disadvantages using Liquid Web WooCommerce hosting

Liquid Web hosting plans are not the cheapest in town

Liquid Web Fully Managed WooCommerce Hosting

You can't go wrong with Liquid Web hosting. They are the experts in the field that ensure that your online store is always performing at its peak state.

Get Liquid Web (for only $19/mo)

HostGator

Last but not least, HostGator is one of our first web hosting companies that we had used (that's like over 10 years ago). HostGator is popular and they host over 8 million domains worldwide.

HostGator is not only popular with WooCommerce hosting, but also with shared web hosting, managed hosting, VPS and dedicated hosting for high traffic websites.

HostGator WooCommerce Hosting Plans — *~HostGator WooCommerce hosting plans*

How fast is WooCommerce with Hostgator hosting?

Here are the results from our test using HostGator (based on Pingdom Tools):

Speed Test WooCommerce Hosting HostGator Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~Speed test results with Hostgator shows that it's servers are really powerful and high performance*

Hosting a WooCommerce online store with HostGator is rather decent. The website was able to load under a second (691 ms to be exact) tested from a server in Dallas, Texas.

According to Pingdom Tools, the stats show that the site is approximately 94% faster than most sites. A plus point is that we did not use any caching plugin or performance optimization plugins during the test—so the results were truly amazing.

How does HostGator score with Load Impact test?

We started with 1 active website visitor and gradually built up to 100 unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.

Load Impact Test On HostGator Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~Load Impact test on HostGator hosting*

The blue line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the green line is the server load time. HostGator servers remain stable and serving at its top performance until it hits 80 concurrent users before it starts to slow down.

As we are using HostGator shared hosting plan for this test, it is quite common for shared hosting environments to experience a drop after a given number of visitors. This is because the server resources are shared between other websites that are hosted on the same server.

As your online store grows, you would need to consider upgrading to bigger hosting plans such as VPS or managed hosting solutions.

How does HostGator score with the Bitcatcha test?

Bitcatcha is used to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations.

Server response time is often used to gauge the hosting server performance as it provides more accurate results instead of the complete load of the website.

Bitcatcha Test On HostGator Fastest WooCommerce Hosting — *~Overall, Hostgator performs well when the visitors are located near the datacenter*

In our test, WooCommerce site hosted on HostGator is very responsive, under a second. The response time is the most responsive in the United States while the performance drops in other regions further from US.

How good is HostGator for a WooCommerce hosting solution?

HostGator is decently fast for a WooCommerce store setup. It is affordable and more importantly, scaling with HostGator is very easy too.

Advantages of using HostGator hosting

Fast and reliable hosting with good support
Free WooCommerce migration service
Excellent hosting plans for all website sizes
HostGator offers free domain for yearly plans

Disadvantages of using HostGator hosting

Renewal fees for HostGator are higher than most of its competitors

HostGator Shared Hosting for WooCommerce

Affordability and scalability are two things that HostGator excels in. If you are planning to start your first online store, you can't go wrong with HostGator.

Get HostGator (for only $2.75/mo)

Fastest WooCommerce Hosting 2020 (Quick Recap)

Now that you have compared all the recommended WooComemrce hosting, it is time to decide which is the best and fastest WooCommerce hosting for your online business.

To make it easier, we have created a table with a side-by-side feature list, so you can easily compare the best WooCommerce hosting companies.

Hosting	Hosting Type	Speed (full Load)	Pricing	Free Domain	Free SSL	1-Click Install
SiteGround	Shared / Semi-Managed	649 ms	$3.95/mo	No	Yes	Yes
Bluehost	Shared	1.24 s	$6.95/mo	Yes	Yes	Yes
WP Engine	Managed	582 ms	$25/mo	No	Yes	No
Liquid Web	Managed	901 ms	$19/mo	No	Yes	Yes
HostGator	Shared	691 ms	$2.75/mo	Yes	Yes	Yes

If you are looking to start an online store with the lowest budget possible, Bluehost is your best option. Their WooCommerce hosting plans are affordable, include free domain and free SSL for $6.95 per month. By far, Bluehost offers the best value compared to any WooCommerce hosting in the market.

If you have a mid-to-large eCommerce store, then you should go with WP Engine because they offer a completely hassle-free experience, high performance hosting servers and 24/7 live chat support. While the cost is slightly higher, it’s worth the investment.

Overall, you can’t go wrong with any of the best WooCommerce hosting companies that we have compared above. All of them offer blazing fast servers, great uptime, excellent support, and different hosting plans to cater for different budgets.

Popular WooCommerce Hosting FAQs

Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about WooCommerce hosting:

WooCommerce hosting
Installing WooCommerce
Free WooCommerce hosting
Costing
Domain name
Domain + Hosting
Addons
No. of visits
Backups
Changing hosts

Do I need WooCommerce hosting to start an online store?

If you are building an online store with WooCommerce, then you’ll need WooCommerce hosting. Hosting is the place where all your website’s files are stored. Every website and online store uses a hosting provider.

Can I install WooCommerce on my shared WordPress hosting account?

Yes, you can. However, most shared WordPress hosting plans are designed to cater to the needs of small business, blog and personal websites.

WooCommerce is a transactional app that needs more resources particularly when you have more than a hundred customers on your website any given time.

This is why we recommend you to get a WooCommerce hosting plan so that you can run your online store without any downtime and at faster speeds.

Are there any free WooCommerce hosting providers?

None that we are aware of. Even if you find a free WooCommerce hosting, we will strongly recommend that you stay away from them.

In most cases, these free hosting providers put advertisements on your website. They may even distribute malware to your customers.

Last but not least, they can shut down your website at any time without any notification. Avoid anyone who offers to give you free hosting, especially if you are serious about your site.

How much does it cost to build an online store with WooCommerce?

The total cost of your WooCommerce store is calculated based on hosting costs, domain name and SSL certificate. The cost of maintaining your online store grows as your business grows.

We had published a comprehensive tutorial on starting a blog using WordPress which we recommend you to take a look at.

I already purchased a domain. Can I use it with my WooCommerce hosting?

Yes, you can. Once you purchase a domain name, you are free to use it with any hosting company. All you need to do is go to your domain settings and point its DNS to your WooCommerce hosting company.

Each of our top WooCommerce hosting companies has step by step instructions on how to do that. If you have challenges,

Do I need to buy domain and WooCommerce hosting from same company?

No, you don’t. You can buy a domain name from one company and WooCommerce hosting from another.

However, it does help to get them from the same company as you will not have to change DNS settings, and you will be able to manage your domain and hosting under the same dashboard.

If you are a beginner, you can get help with DNS settings by contacting your hosting support.

Do I need to buy any addons when signing up for WooCommerce hosting?

During the sign up process, some hosting companies will offer to sell you add-on services. You can safely uncheck them as they would add to the cost of your hosting bill.

Later on, if you feel you need one of these add-on services, then you can simply add them to your hosting plan from your account dashboard.

It is always important to understand what the upsells are and how they could possibly assist in your online store. Most of the time, you do not require the 'full package' unless you are running a high traffic online store.

How many customers can these WooCommerce hosting companies handle?

All hosting companies in our best WooCommerce hosting list handle millions of pageviews every day. They are all equipped to handle smaller stores as well as large online stores even during peak holiday shopping traffic.

The traffic your site can handle largely depends on the plan you choose. With shared WooCommerce hosting solutions such as Bluehost, SiteGround, and HostGator, your website will be able to handle 1,000 – 5,000 visitors a day with proper speed optimization.

With managed hosting providers, you should be able to handle as much traffic as you need because their team would automatically scale your account as needed.

Do WooCommerce hosting companies keep backups of my site?

When it comes to backup, most of them do. However, the number and the frequency of backup varies depending on the hosting package that you are subscribing to.

For example, managed WooCommerce hosting often offers nightly backups while shared hosting would often times be either weekly or monthly.

We don’t recommend relying on your hosting company’s backups. Instead, it is always recommended to create your own backups by using a WordPress backup plugin.

Can I change my WooCommerce hosting later?

Yes, you can totally change your WooCommerce hosting company at any time if you are unhappy with them.

Some WooCommerce hosting companies offer free migration services that you can utilize with minimum downtime. You can also move your website on your own, see our guide on how to move a WordPress site to a new host.

What are the fastest WooCommerce hosting companies in your opinion?

All the above are great WooCommerce hosting solutions. For us, our top three choices for the fastest WooCommerce hosting are:

HOSTGATOR

Best overall in terms of performance, price, and features. Not to mention free domains and SSL.

Get HostGator

WP Engine

Best for large eCommerce sites who need top-notch performance, support, and scalability in a few clicks.

Get WP Engine

Liquid Web

Best WooCommerce hosting for growing businesses that comes with high performance servers and support.

Get Liquid Web

We hope that this guide helped you find the best and fastest WooCommerce hosting for your online store.

If you have a WooCommerce hosting question that we didn’t cover, then please reach out to us using our contact form. One of our team members will respond back within 24 hours.

12 Powerful Signs You Are Not Ready To Upgrade Your Hosting Plan

Should I upgrade my hosting plan? When is the best time to upgrade my hosting plan?

As website owners, these are some of the common questions we asked ourselves. In this article, we will discuss the signs that you are NOT ready to upgrade your hosting plan.

Why?

These signs will help you remove all the guesswork — and getting you ready to upgrade to new hosting plans or save money altogether. We hope you find this article useful and do share this article with your peers!

12 powerful signs that you are NOT ready to upgrade your web hosting plan.

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1. Low web traffic

If your website is not generating enough traffic, there is absolutely no point to upgrade to the next hosting plan. Sure, subscribing to a powerful web hosting plan is definitely an ego boost, but it is really not worth the money.

Plus, low website traffic means that you will underutilize the web hosting servers. While most web hosting companies would be happy, your wallet (and financials) wouldn't!

Low Web Traffic Signs Not To Upgrade Web Hosting Plan — *~Do not upgrade hosting plan if you have low web traffic*

How do determine if my website has a low web traffic?

The term "low website traffic" varies depending on the website owners and personal preferences. For us, a website generating under 50,000 traffic a month is considered low traffic.

2. Website loads under 1.5 seconds

Website Loading Speed Signs Not To Upgrade Web Hosting Plan

A slow-loading website typically takes more than 1.5 seconds to load. If your website is taking a long time to load, it might be a sign to upgrade your hosting plan.

We are speed geeks — and we know that you are probably one of us too. Most of the time, we see our clients decide to upgrade their hosting plan for faster speed (more CPU and memory).

However, do you know that you don't need a website that loads fast? The definition of website loading speed varies from person to person. Some consider TTFB (time to first byte) and others consider full website loading speed as the core reason.

If you are confused on this, the best way is to determine your overall website loading speed. You do not need an upgrade if your website is loading under 1.5 seconds.

How to make my WordPress loads faster?

Install a cache plugin
Setup WordPress cache plugin correctly (this is how we configure WP Rocket cache plugin correctly)
Reduce and uninstall useless WordPress plugins
Use a bloat free WordPress theme (we recommend Thrive Themes Builder or Oxygen Builder)
Use CDN services such as Cloudflare

3. Unable to afford a higher hosting plan

Expensive Hosting Services Signs Not To Upgrade Web Hosting Plan — *~If you cannot afford a new web host, it is best to stick to the current one (or find for alternatives)*

This may sound 'dumb' for many, but unable to afford a higher hosting plan is exactly the reason why you shouldn't upgrade your web hosting.

There is no point having an expensive web hosting plan only when you have to work extra hard to reach the break even point (your website overhead = website earning).

Let's say you hit the threshold and you need to upgrade (no matter what). Here are some tips to help you find the best web hosting for your money:

Use only reliable web hosting solution (to cut cost in migration fees and downtime)
Look out for web hosting solutions that offer an all-in-one solution (such as SiteGround offering inbuilt cache—so no premium cache plugin required)
Look for other hosting alternatives if you are unable to afford the desired option
Consider quarterly, annual and bi-annual plans for more discounts

You don't need a better hosting plan (seriously)

For some WordPress owners, upgrading to a new hosting plan would means breaking the bank. Lucky for you, you probably don't need an upgrade, at least for now.

Based on personal experience, most website owners underutilize the hosting plan (hey, this is proof that hosting companies oversell their servers). The best way to overcome this is to check your current hosting plan and go into details such as the number of domains allowed, bandwidth and server space.

You don't need to go into the details such as the number of cores and RAM because these are only useful for heavy traffic websites.

4. Problems with hosting downtimes?

Are you experiencing downtimes with your current web host? If the answer is "no", you shouldn't worry much about getting a hosting upgrade.

A website down can caused by several issues, including:

Limited PHP workers
Limited bandwidth
Weak or under performing web hosting servers
Traffic spikes
DDoS attacks or hacking attempts
Incompatibility caused by themes or plugins

No Hosting Downtime Signs Not To Upgrade Web Hosting Plan — *~A good web host with keep downtime to the minimum*

One thing to remember is that every web hosting solutions will experience downtime ... at least once a year. This is absolutely normal and no one is perfect.

When your website is down, speak to the hosting support and try to get a solution from it. Most of the time, they wouldn't recommend upgrading your hosting plan unless you had hit the limits one too many times.

How to effectively manage your downtime?

Downtime happens and there's nothing much we can do about it. If you are worried of downtime, you might want to consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) such as Cloudflare to manage your website.

For example, Cloudflare Always Online feature that caches a static version of your pages in case your server goes offline. Of course, Cloudflare will not server the entire website details but a limited copy of it. At the very least, the basic are there and this will not impact your Google rankings or your visitor's user experience.

5. Server-level security patches

Website Security Signs Not To Upgrade Web Hosting Plan — *~Reliable web host with perform countless security patching to keep your site safe*

Most web hosting solutions that we come across and use offer security patches when a vulnerability is discovered. If your web hosting company is doing the security patches on the back to keep your website safe, you know that you are in good hands.

And you don't require a hosting upgrade.

How to keep your WordPress website safe?

We hate to break this to you, but the responsibility of your website security lies on your shoulders (along with the web hosting company). As you determine what is installed on your site, you need to make sure that you stay on top of things.

If you are using a shared hosting and thinking of upgrading your hosting plan, you might want to hold that idea off for a little.

Instead, installing security plugins such as iThemes Security would help you harden your WordPress site. Here is our standard WordPress security checklist that we use at WP Maven.

6. Managing hosting disk space allowance

Hosting Space Is Sufficient Signs Not To Upgrade My Hosting Plan — *~If your hosting space is sufficient, upgrading to a new web host is not a need*

How much space does your web hosting offers? In most cases, it is more than enough for your website to load and run on a daily basis without any hiccups.

Most WordPress websites can run on the lowest hosting space ... unless you are having a photography block or you are not optimizing your images before uploading to WordPress.

How to keep your web hosting disk space usage under control?

We use WP Rocket to clean our database on a daily basis. There are also tools such as Advanced Database Cleaner plugin which you can use to further clean your database. However, make sure that you keep a copy of the files just in case you accidentally deleted the wrong files.

Also, don't forget to optimize images before uploading to WordPress. This step helps you to reduce the image size, as well as keeping your hosting space within the given allowance.

7. Overboard in the hosting bandwidth

Hosting Bandwidth Is Sufficient Signs Not To Upgrade My Hosting Plan — *~Does your current web host offers you sufficient hosting bandwidth?*

Visitors viewing your content or downloading files isn’t the only thing that can eat up website bandwidth. Today, a lot of organizations will build and promote web-based apps and other online programs.

Are you constantly hitting the bandwidth limit on your WordPress hosting?

If the answer is "yes", that's the sign that you need a hosting plan upgrade. If not, you probably don't need a web hosting upgrade (at least for now).

How to keep web hosting bandwidth low?

This happened to us more than once. We are using a managed hosting solution from Kinsta with a rather decent amount of bandwidth. However, it does happen when we hit our max and are billed for additional usages.

The easiest way to keep your web hosting bandwidth low (and not upgrading your hosting plan) is to use server files over a CDN. Here's an example of one of the clients' websites that we manage.

Save Bandwidth With Cloudflare Signs Not To Upgrade Your Hosting Plan — *~Cloudflare had help that particular website in saving over 32GB of bandwidth in a month*

8. Are you paying for hosting addons?

If you are using a managed WordPress hosting like us, it is quite common that these hosting plans come with some level of addons, including overhead traffic.

For example, you might be required to pay $1 for every 1,000 web traffic once you had hit your traffic quota for the month.

Paying a couple of bucks each month on top of your web hosting plan is absolutely fine especially when the traffic is merely temporary (as upgrading hosting is not a priority).

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In this case, you might see a big jump in traffic if you are amp-ing up your marketing efforts with paid advertisement or being visible on the front page of Reddit.

How to reduce hosting overheads and avoid upgrading to bigger hosting plans?

Use CDN to reduce usages
Avoid purchasing addons (such as SSL certificate) and replace with Let's Encrypt which offers free SSL
Maximize the number of domains allowed within a hosting account (assuming that all of these are low traffic websites)

Affordable web hosting with a fraction of the price

We don't believe in charging you an arm and leg for excellent WordPress hosting.

CHECK OUR PRICING (AND COMPARE)

9. Hosting companies that give you room for growth

Room For Growing Website Signs Not To Upgrade My Hosting Plan — *~Flexibility and growth is hosting environment is crucial for website success*

We said this a dozen times now. The web hosting company that you choose should be there for you, during both thick and thin moments. In other words, the ability to upgrade or downgrade should be available for you during the times that you truly needs.

Again, most large web hosting companies do allow upgrades and downgrades when you are fulfilling certain criteria. For example, you will not get a refund if you pay upfront a year. However, the balance money from the downgrade will be converted into credits for you to use at a later time.

Learn how to ask nicely for free hosting perks

Web hosting business is a super competitive and challenging one. On one hand, we have a massive, truckload of hosting competitors that are breathing down our neck. On another corner, we have hosting customers that we need to make them happy (so they stay longer).

Customer Service Signs You Don — *~Treat people right and others will treat you right too*

At WP Maven, we don't mind going overboard with our services (for free when others charge) because we understand that if the request comes in nicely, we felt good about helping out.

If you are thinking of upgrading your hosting plan just to get help, try these.

Learn how to ask nicely and speak to the customer support team. They are human just like us—and if you catch them on a good mood day, you are going to get a lot of help without paying a single cent!

Most web hosting support provides help with petty server stuff including installing subdomain and trying to help you install SSL certificate.

10. Leverage the additional domains quota

One of the main reasons to upgrade a hosting plan is because you had used up all the domain quota. If you have not, this is a sign that you doesn't need an upgrade, at least for now.

Did you know?

Most of the time, most web hosting solution provides domain parking features. If the domain is an inactive one, parking the domain in your hosting account could save you some money in the long run.

11. Do I really need server access?

Server Access Signs Not To Upgrade My Hosting Plan — *~Most website owners do not need advanced access to the hosting server*

One of the reasons to upgrade the hosting plan is to gain certain server access. Some cheap web hosting solutions do not include this feature and if you are running a reseller hosting service, you probably need an upgrade!

Here's the thing.

Unless you really need server access, most basic web hosting solution offers SSH, FTP and SFTP which are rather sufficient for every day usage. So, no upgrading of hosting plan is required.

12. Unsure the type of hosting required

What Type Of Hosting Plans I Need Signs Not To Upgrade My Hosting Plan — *~Knowing the type of hosting solution you need is an important step for every website owner*

Last but not least, this is really scary. Take a look around in Facebook Groups pertaining to web hosting. There is a huge majority of website owners who do not understand the usage of web hosting. To be exact, they have no idea which web hosting solution that they should go for.

Instead of upgrading to the next hosting plan, we suggest you to sit down and decide on the exact needs for a web hosting solution. This will help you understand more on web hosting and the type of web hosting solutions you should be getting.

How many types of web hosting services are out there?

Some golden rules for web hosting are (we love preaching these):

Shared web hosting. Best for small websites, blogs and low traffic sites. We recommend starting with Bluehost (+/- $4 per month) or SiteGround (+/- $11 per month).
WooCommerce hosting. Best for websites running WooCommerce. Here are our recommended WooCommerce hosting solutions (more than one).
Managed WordPress hosting. Best for WordPress sites that are generating over 50,000 traffic a month. This solution also comes with better server performance, improved security features and CDN services. We recommend Kinsta hosting because they are just so awesome (seriously).
Virtual Private Server (VPS). Best for sites that require heavy resources, heavy traffic and burst performance. GridPane + Vultr High Frequency are our favorite option here.

Summary: More reasons not to upgrade your web hosting plans?

Don't get us wrong. We love upgrading hosting plans because it shows that we are doing right with our website—more traffic, more sales and more resources. However, not everyone requires an upgrade for their web hosting.

Before you decide to upgrade your web hosting plan, we recommend you to follow the above steps to determine if the upgrade is necessary. After all, you might be able to save hundreds if not thousands of dollars by not upgrading, especially when you are using good web hosting services!

5 Shocking Factors That Make A Web Hosting Company Great

We strongly believe that a web hosting company should be your partner-in-crime. Without a reliable web hosting solution, your website will always be down and inaccessible to the public. A reliable web hosting solution will be there for you, during low periods and during those traffic spikes.

So, what makes a web hosting great? What makes a web hosting reliable?

Table Of Contents

GridPane vs RunCloud vs Closte vs Kinsta
- Which is the most reliable and best web hosting solution for YOU?
ACCOMMODATE
SOLUTION
SCALE

GridPane vs RunCloud vs Closte vs Kinsta

Which is the most reliable and best web hosting solution for YOU?

COMPARE THEM HERE

Speed Performance

When it comes to finding a great web host, speed and performance play huge roles — the differences between 1 and 200 ms is huge. What makes a web hosting great is that it is able to perform at its peak during both low and high times.

As a WordPress site owner, you had heard many 'horror' stories of how their website tanked right after a massive traffic spike. Not only you bound to lose traffic, you are losing money for every second the website is down.

Yes, that is bad.

For us, a speed difference of 0.5 seconds means a lot for our website visitors. They don't get paid visiting our website, but they are looking for information to solve their problems with WordPress.

With a fast web host, we can ensure that our website is loading at its peak 24/7.

Amazon found that for every 100ms of latency, it costs them 1% in sales.

Click to Tweet

What Makes A Web Hosting Solution Great — ~*We work hard to ensure that our website loads blazing fast*

This is why we run at least three speed tests each day to ensure that our site is loading at a speed that we are truly pleased.

Great Support Team

What makes a web hosting great? A support team that is always smiling 'virtually'!

Web hosting support is critical. Creating and offering one or more means of communication channels will ensure that the client (that's you) have almost instant access to help when needed.

This is important because the Internet is a mean place. There is no place for inaccessible websites.

Let's take Kinsta support (screenshot on the right) as an example.

From time to time, we will reach out to them for some advice (okay, no one is perfect) and each time they will respond in an awesome way. This time, Nikola ended the conversion with a GIF.

~*A snapshot of our conversion with Kinsta support*

Let's be honest. How often do you see things like this?

If you want to know more about Kinsta, here's our review on Kinsta Hosting or you can head over directly to their website to learn more (Kinsta.com).

Excellent customer support goes a long way. Never underestimate the power of support, especially when in dear times when you needed them the most.
Editorial Team @ WP Maven

The Type Of Web Hosting Solution

Shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting or VPS. The type of web hosting solution that you choose will indirectly determine how good the web hosting company really is.

For example, one of the most common mistakes that we often see in the WordPress hosting space is "paying for beer pricing but expecting hosting performance of a wine pricing".

Sure, web hosting companies have responsibilities to ensure that we pay what we get but through numerous cases, we know exactly how many times that truly happen.

Choose a web hosting that fits your need

You pay what you get. Therefore, always go for a web hosting solution that fits your website needs (not the pricing needs).

Web Hosting Uptime

Do you know that there are differences between a 99.9% SLA to 99% SLA? (SLA = Service Level Agreement).

Comparison	99.9% SLA	99% SLA
'Acceptable' downtime per year	8.76 hours	87.6 hours (3.65 days)
'Acceptable' downtime per month	43.8 minutes	7.3 hours

~Number of hours of downtime allowed before compensation

Based on the table above, a 99.9% SLA represents 8.76 hours of downtime (at most) per year (approx. 43.8 minutes per month) while a 99% SLA represents 87.6 hours of downtime (at most) per year (approx. 7.3 hours per month).

While this is at the worst case scenario, large eCommerce websites or high traffic websites are going to experience massive loss in revenue during a downtime.

What makes a web host great? High uptime with proven track record, plus having a SLA is a bonus!

Scalability (With A Human Touch)

Our 5th ranking on how to determine if a web host is a great one is scalability. As a WordPress agency, we engage with a large group of entrepreneurs and startups using WordPress CMS. They come to us for a wide range of WordPress solutions and one of the most common ones are having issues being 'shutdown' by their web hosting partners.

Now, why would any web hosting partners want to shutdown a WordPress site?

Honestly, one of the main reason is because the WordPress site is taking up too much resources (especially in a shared hosting environment) and that is affecting others.

Sure, the problem lies within the website owner (yup, our clients) but there are quite a few cases where we found out that it is not entirely their issue.

Human Touch In Customer Service Makes Web Hosting Great — ~*A warm customer service makes big problems felt small*

Here's why.

Most website owners are not website savvy people. They are average Joe's or Jane's who are busy running their day to day business. Oftentimes, they install a whole lot of WordPress themes and plugins without actually checking the scripts and the codes. This leads to the website is taking up more resources in running PHP codes (for example) than they actually do.

Therefore, here are 3 things a great web hosting company will do.

ACCOMMODATE

The support team goes into action and try to solve the website problem(s) without adding any cost to the client and making them happy at the same time.

Win Ratio: 100%

SOLUTION

The support team offers realistic hosting solutions such as upgrading CPU, RAM or moving to a higher hosting package based on the requirements.

Upsell Opportunity: 85%

SCALE

Help web hosting clients to scale their online business by working on upgrading or giving a timeframe for the clients to solve the issue.

Longer Terms Clients: 100%

In the web hosting business, it is not about how good the hosting product is ... it is all about the customer support that the company can render to the end users.

Yes, there are some things that are just too time-consuming but if the web hosting company can overcome that, they are going to get multiple long term clients without doing any marketing efforts.

Summary: How To Determine If The Web Hosting Is Great?

The 5 steps above are simple things you can do today to determine if the web hosting is great.

Always remember that the best web hosting providers will go all-out to help you while the subpar ones will do that (too) but with a fee.

At the same time, we recommend you to try yourself and decide because reviews on the Internet could be slightly biased!

3 Steps To Install A Subdomain In Another Server [Beginner Friendly Guide]

How do you install a subdomain on another server without affecting your primary domain and hosting? This was one of the smartest questions that were thrown at us during our last WordPress meetup. In today's WordPress tutorial, we are going to show you exactly on how to install a subdomain in another server (how to install a WordPress subdomain in another web hosting).

Why Do I Need To Install A Subdomain In Another Server?

How To Setup A Subdomain And Install WordPress — *Easy steps to setup a subdomain and install WordPress*

There are several reasons you want to do this. For example, it may be a staging area or a non-productive WordPress site. You don't want to increase the load in your current hosting server or simply, you want to try out new configuration. Or maybe, your current web hosting had hit the limits and you can no longer add new domains into your account.

Either way, installing a subdomain in another web hosting account is a good move if you want to keep it separate from your primary account.

How To Install A WordPress Subdomain In Another Hosting Server?

Lucky for you, installing a subdomain in another hosting server is easy. There are 3 steps that you need to take.

Create a new account in your hosting server
Add / modify the A record on your primary server
Install WordPress CMS for your subdomain

Step 1: Create a new account in your hosting server

Create A New Account In WHM How To Install Subdomain In Another Hosting Server — *Create a new account in WHM*

For this example, we are creating a demo install for easier understanding. We use HostWithLove reseller cPanel shared web hosting solution. The process of adding a new subdomain to your account wouldn't take more than 30 seconds.

The domain name should be {subdomain}.{domainname}. For example, we are working on our WordPress membership site, members.wpmaven.net.

Step 2: Install WordPress To The New Subdomain

Install WordPress In Subdomain How To Install Subdomain In Another Hosting Server — *Using 1-click WordPress installer to install WordPress CMS*

Next, head over to 1-click installer option to install WordPress. Some web hosting solutions such as HostWithLove and BlueHost offers 1-click WordPress solution which is time-saving.

Step 3: Add / modify A record

Now, go back to your primary hosting server. Search for the DNS Manager and add the A record to point to the subdomain hosting server.

Not sure what is your server IP address? Contact your web host and they will be happy to provide it to you (make sure you don't share it with the world, thou).

We use Kinsta DNS and this is how it looks like. Other web hosting solutions have DNS Manager but it may look different.

DNS propagation would take anywhere from an hour to 48 hours to propagate properly. If you are seeing an add looking landing page such as the below, it means that you had not install WordPress CMS properly.

WordPress Not Installed Properly DNS How To Install Subdomain In Another Hosting Server — *Reinstall WordPress CMS if you see this*

Summary: Creating A New Subdomain In Another Hosting

The process of creating a new subdomain in another hosting server and with WordPress installed is rather easy. We hope that you find this tutorial useful and please share this with your friends!

Need help? Reach out to us today by clicking here.