Tired of the same old web hosting problems? Your site is down, your customers are complaining and you cannot access your own website? This happens every day with people like you. The problem is bad web hosting choices.
Here’s the list of the web hosts we have reviewed.
Setting up and managing a website with Bluehost is a breeze. The enhanced cPanel makes it dead simple to complete any task. With many tiers of hosting, they can support even the most demanding websites.
If you are ready to pay up for premium business hosting, Inmotion should be on your list. Secure, fast servers and awesome support make the perfect match for real serious businesses.
A2Hosting is our choice of host and their servers power hostingmanual.net. They are blazing fast and based on our long relationship with them, they are also reliable. You have to pay a little more for all this though.
GreenGeeks is an excellent green web host. While regular prices start at $9.95, you can occasionally grab a great deal (right now $2.95 holiday promo). They offer a 30-day money back guarantee (minus setup and domain fees).
If you are on a real budget and want to get the best value for your money, iPage is a hit. They don’t offer cPanel, rather use their in-house control panel. It’s just as easy to use and gets the job done.
Siteground is not the cheapest host you can find, but it’s one of the best value for money in the industry. It’s built on cPanel, one of the earliest adapters of free SSL certificates, and can handle a lot of traffic and websites.
I am personally hosting 10+ websites with Dreamhost. They won’t suspend your account if you run out of resources. Your services will be restarted and that’s all. Probably not a good experience for your users but better than seeing a “Suspended” page.
Looking for more than shared web hosting? TMD provides the full spectrum of hosting services including cloud and dedicated hosting. Their data centers are top-notch so your data will be safe and accessible.
We at Hosting Manual are a bit “Hostgator-sceptics”. Don’t get me wrong, they provide standard services, but nothing more. Support is ok, but not great. There are better companies in this list.
There are times when you need a web host in a specific country. In our case we had a project that needed to be based in Canada. Hostpapa is a well-rounded web host with everything we needed.
WebHostingHub took simplicity to the next level. They offer 3 hosting plans at great prices. If you are worried about the move from your current web host, they offer free migration to all new customers.
These reviews are based only on the shared hosting plans. We don’t take into account all the VPS, Dedicated and Cloud plans since they are generally more expensive (and less interesting to a general audience) and would make comparison between companies impossible.
Your website is stored on a server. The server belongs to the web hosting company.
It’s a computer that’s connected to the internet. Each time someone types in your domain name in their browser, that computer serves your website files to the visitor’s browser.
Read: Make a Website on a Budget in 5 Minutes or Less
One server can store more than one websites and route the visitor’s requests to the right website’s files. That’s not necessarily shared hosting.
Shared hosting is when a server stores multiple websites and those websites belong to different people. Your web host takes care of routing the requests to the right websites.
Why are they doing that?
Not many customers could afford to pay for a whole server just for themselves and to be honest, not many need it. The majority of websites can operate fine with only a fraction of a server’s resources.
Read: Publishing Your Website: Go-Live Checklist
When someone does need a whole server’s resources, it’s called dedicated hosting. In this case, only your website’s files are stored on the server, and the resources (like CPU, storage, memory, bandwidth) are used exclusively by you.
The obvious advantage here is better performance. Some specialized businesses must use dedicated servers due to data security considerations. A bank, for example, cannot risk its data to be on the same machine as someone else’s.
It’s the best of both worlds. You still share a server with other people but the number of people on the same server is limited, and the resources are segregated.
You get more resources and better performance than on shared hosting.
Cloud hosting blurs the lines between shared, dedicated and VPS hosting.
Multiple servers are connected in a pool (a cloud). Customers can select the resources they need and scale it real time.
In practice, it means that if you need an additional 10 GB of space, you can head over to your control panel and increase the size of your storage instantly. You would be billed for those additional resources proportionally.
I have created this comparison table to help you quickly see the main features of the hosting companies I have dealt with in my online career. To keep this table concise, some information (like uptime and features in detail) are left out. Check out the detailed reviews before you sign up to any of these hosts.
| Web Hosts | Review Summary | Unlimited Disk Space, Bandwidth, Databases, Domains, & Subdomains | Regular Price | Discounted Price | Money Back Guarantee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Excellent green web host. | Yes | $9.95/mo | $3.95 | 30 Days For Hosting minus setup fees, domain registration or transfer fees |
 | We host Hostingmanual.net on A2hosting. That says a lot. | Yes | $7.99/mo | $3.92/mo | Any Time for Hosting |
 | The go-to cPanel web hosting service. Can be scaled. | Yes | $7.99/mo | $3.95/mo | 30 Days / Prorated after 30 days Full for Hosting (minus domain fees, addons) |
 | A green web host with lots of bonuses. | Yes | 98/yr | 49/yr | 30 days Only for Hosting Only if paid by credit card $15 deducted for free domain |
 | Very popular web host with a solid service. | Yes | $6.95/mo | $5.95 $3.95 HM special | 45 Days Only for Hosting (excluding dedicated) |
 | Universal web host. Contrary to some review sites, they are quite good. | Yes | $5.99/mo | $3.95/mo | 30 Days Only for web hosting |
 | The ultimate small business web host for mission critical projects. | Yes | $6.99/mo | $2.95/mo | 90 days Only for hosting |
 | Long time favorite with unbeatable pricing. | Yes | $11.95/mo | $1.99/mo | 30 days Only for Hosting $15 deducted for free domain |
 | The new gold standard of hosting, but pricey. | Yes | $9.95/mo | $3.95/mo | 30 days Only for shared hosting |
 | A web host with the fastest support we have ever seen. | Yes | $5.85/mo | $2.85/mo | 60 Days Only for hosting |
 | Good speeds and pricing make Hub a solid choice. | Yes | $8.99/mo | $3.99/mo | 90 days Only for hosting |
This table is for informational purposes only. Service terms may change and you should always check it on the web hosts’ website.
HostingManual.net is online for over a decade. During that time a lot has changed in the hosting world, and we have learned a lot. But a couple of things stayed the same.
Some hosting companies are better than the others.
Read: 9 Web Hosting Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make
We have a service for a limited number of businesses where we manage everything related to operating a website. Thanks to that service we have access and an excellent overview of most of the mainstream hosting companies.
That’s how we started to write hosting reviews.
Our small team has built its portfolio of websites over the years, so that adds to the pool of hosting companies we have first-hand experience with.
If you check a review for any hosting company, you will see ratings all over the place. That’s because people with a negative experience are ten times more likely to write a review than people who are satisfied with what they have bought.
That’s surprising! Think of it for a moment. For every negative review, there are ten positive ones – not written.
Our hosting reports depict years of experience with each hosting company. Yours may be different for a couple of reasons:
Your experience may be different than mine, but here are the hosting companies we think are the best:
Inmotion puts limitations in place for SQL and the number of domains on one account. That means a less crowded server and better performance. If you have only one website in mind, you should go with Inmotion. If you need more, you can choose bigger plans too.
For Hosting Manual readers there is a 50% discount on all plans. It might be available for a limited time, so act fast!
Hosting Manual has been online for more than ten years. It continues to be a reliable source for people looking for information on web hosting. I have not been writing web hosting reviews during those years, but recently I have changed my mind.
I am managing a lot of small business websites as a webmaster. Different companies host them, so I have the chance to see which works and which doesn’t.
Since there are billions of websites online, it is evident that people who are thinking about putting a website of their own on the internet are interested in finding the best host for their enterprise. So, there are a lot of review sites emerging. Among those are unfortunately a considerable number of sites that are only after the affiliate commissions.
On Hosting Manual I am trying to give people a chance to see which hosting company should they tie their fortunes up with in my opinion. I am making a buck here and there by placing a couple of affiliate links on the website. That said, my recommendations are based solely on my personal experiences with the web hosts.
You do not have to click on any of my affiliate links. It’s all fine. But just to tease you a bit, you should know that many companies run limited time offers exclusive to visitors coming through affiliate links.
The question that comes up is this: how reliable are my ratings? Are they impartial and honest? Are they slanted in favor of the companies in question? In other words, am I trying to promote or sell the services of a given hosting company?
I know what you are after when you are looking for a hosting company: it’s accurate information. But it’s a fact that all bloggers who evaluate web hosting companies are bound to be subjective up to a point. I can tell you bluntly that I like these companies and I am making an honest recommendation for you.
I am a very upbeat person in general. I don’t like negativity, and I won’t put negative opinions on this website. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t seen a lot of poor service from various web hosts. On the contrary, I saw a lot! You won’t find those web hosts here.
As you read through some of my posts, you can also check the websites of the various hosting companies. Look at their different offerings, their price ranges, etc., before making up your mind to go with one rather than the other.
There is no point in playing pig in a poke and just signing up for any web hosting company regardless of their reputation. The good ones are bound to have a good reputation, and you should be looking for signing up with one of those.