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The Pain-Free WordPress Hosting Guide for Every Budget (Updated for 2022)

Web hosting is one of the key performance indicators of every successful site you interact with. Finding the best WordPress hosting provider for your unique needs can boost your SEO rank, increase visibility, and generate more revenue. There are many unique types of WordPress hosting including:

  • VPS (Virtual Private Server)
  • Shared Hosting
  • Dedicated
  • Managed
  • Free

The Migragency technical resource team & I have spent some time discussing the best WordPress hosting providers for different levels of professionals. Together, we are experienced in nearly all mainstream hosting provider. We have a good understanding of what makes a good host great and we hope to be a useful resource for those searching for the best hosting provider to fill their needs.

Table of Contents

Understanding Hosting Types

There are many different types of WordPress hosting providers with unique capabilities and constraints. Understanding these distinctions will give you the information you need to make the right decision for your WordPress website.

Free WordPress Hosting

If its too good to be true, it most likely is. Although there are free hosting options available, nearly all of them have some sort of condition or catch. Cheap WordPress hosting is often times a bad idea for all scales of websites. Some hosting resellers may approach you with a WordPress hosting environment in exchange for ad space on your site or a testimonial, but its hard to validate these offers. These individuals could shut down their service at any moment without warning. If at all possible, avoid these types of services.

Luckily for those looking for ultra-affordable hosting, there are some more options available (including some coupons) below.

WordPress VPS (Virtual Private Server)

Virtual Private Server (VPS) uses virtualization to allocate dedicated (virtual) server resources to fulfil your individual needs. Since your server is virialized, you are technically sharing resources but VPS gives you comparable privacy to a dedicated server with the ability to allocate more resources as you scale. This is a great option for small/medium sized businesses, high traffic websites, and developers.

Best Managed VPS Providers:

  • Our Recommendation: Cloudways: Our recommended managed VPS hosting option for those looking for unmatched flexibility and service.
  • Another Great Option: Liquid Web: A big player in the hosting industry. They offer a solid VPS service for a great price.

Managed vs Unmanaged VPS

A managed VPS is great for those looking for the benefits of a VPS without the need for significant technical knowledge. The VPS provider will upgrade, and maintain your server so that you treat it like a more simple hosting configuration. If you do not choose a managed VPS provider, you will have to manage and maintain the server yourself. The ladder option is great for technical users and developers.

system administrator Provider support to a group WordPress hosting servers.
A System Administrator Providing Support to a group of Dedicated Servers.

Dedicated Server WordPress Hosting

Dedicated servers are a completely physical server that you lease or purchase. Most providers offer server leasing with some datacenters offer space for rent where you can install your own physical hardware. This option gives you virtually unlimited flexibility in terms of hardware choice but you will need to physically and digitally manage every aspect of your server. Most websites that employ dedicated servers also employ system administrators to maintain their servers. For this reason, we do not recommend dedicated servers to those just starting out or with limited technical knowledge/resources. The highest traffic websites, blogs and stores use clusters of dedicated servers to serve content efficiently with excellent flexibility.

Managed WordPress Hosting

Managed WordPress hosting offloads much of the management, support and maintenance of WordPress websites to the hosting provider. This makes managing a large or small number of sites very easy. Depending on the exact hosting provider, they will enhance your website performance, provide enhanced security configuration, and provide backups. Many managed hosting providers billed per-site and offer a completely pain-free experience for a higher month-to-month cost. Under this paradigm, each site will be hosted on a shared server with the managed hosting provider providing extra features to increase the performance, security and ease of use. If you are an agency, managed providers are a great option to get started hosting for your clients.

Managed WordPress hosting is easily the best option for established blogs, businesses and beginner agencies. We highly recommend the following for your Managed WordPress Hosting Needs:

  • Our Recommendation: WP Engine is a world-class managed hosting provider. This is our recommended option for those needing the best possible managed hosting experience.
  • Best Value: SiteGround is a great option for those looking for an affordable managed hosting option.
  • If you need WordPress migration help, check out our pricing here.

Shared WordPress Hosting

Shared WordPress hosting is an interesting subject. On one hand, it is similar to managed WordPress hosting in that websites are hosted on shared servers. This reduces the cost and allows these providers to come in at a very low cost. On the other hand, shared hosting provider do not offer the advanced support and features that managed providers offer. Moreover, these providers have a bad reputation for loading way too many sites on a underpowered servers. Avoid these providers if possible.

WordPress Hosting Recommendations

Best WordPress Hosting for High Budgets

VPS is the best option for those with high-traffic websites, blogs and stores. Since VPS are virtualized, resources can be reallocated to scale up or scale down your operations. This makes VPS a compelling option for those driving large numbers of users.

Fastest WordPress Hosting for High Budgets

Best WordPress Hosting for Mid-Range Budgets (Small/Medium Business)

Managed hosting providers offer a compelling feature-set at a price that is affordable for existing businesses. Most offer 24/7 support and enterprise options for those looking to scale in the future.

Best Managed WordPress Hosting

Best WordPress Hosting for Low Budgets

For those with low budgets, we still reccomend managed hosting providers as the pricing for a managed hosting plan is similar to a Netflix subscription. This will also give you the much needed flexibility to upgrade to a more advanced plan in the future as your needs change.

Cheapest Managed WordPress Hosting

Web Agencies & Web Developers

For Web Agencies/developers that are hosting multiple client sites with reccomend VPS as it offers scalability and the ability to spin up virtual servers remotely. This gives you virtually unlimited upgrade options. Flexibility is a double-edged sword so make sure you don’t over allocate resources when you don’t need them.

Best WordPress Hosting for Agencies

Conclusion: Know Your Options

With so many different WordPress hosting options at virtually every price point, its important to understand that you only get what you pay for. If something is too good to be true, it usually is. This list includes recommendations that members of our team selected based on performance, support and security. Whatever option you choose, we thank you for supporting WordPress and the open-source movement. Have a great day, week and year!

If you have other questions regarding your WordPress website, feel free to contact us at [email protected]

Disclaimer: When you purchase a plan from one of our recommended service providers, we may receive a small commission. Migragency does not accept money for disingenuous recommendations or reviews.