7 Best Shared Hosting Services – Get Your Site Online Today

In our research, the best hosting provider for shared plans is HostGator with an overall shared hosting score of 4.7 out of 5. HostGator comes with a 45-day money back guarantee for new users and unlimited storage space and bandwidth.

Shared hosting is great for small businesses and small websites that are getting themselves off the ground. Shared hosting keeps your costs low, but also limits your resources. If you’re already getting a lot of traffic, and need some high site speed, we recommend going for a VPS or dedicated plan instead.

Best Shared Hosting Services Side-by-Side Comparison

Before we delve into the nitty gritty of our top hosting providers in the world of shared plans, there’s a handy hosting comparison chart to get a quick look at their features:

In the table above, you can see the key features of each provider side by side. All prices shown are promotional offers for new users. Hosting companies almost always offer these deals for new customers, and they’re prices worth making the most of!

By the end of this article you’ll know which hosting provider is best for you, based on our in-depth expert research.

Further Information

• Want to compare hosting providers side by side? See our Web Hosting Services Comparison Chart for an in-depth look!
• Read our review of the Best Cheap Web Hosting Providers to see how these providers’ prices compare
• Is shared hosting really right for you? Find out in our comparison of Shared Hosting vs VPS Hosting

#1. HostGator: Best Overall Shared Hosting Provider

HostGator is a big name in the hosting world, and for good reason! It’s the best all-round shared hosting provider on the market, and this high quality service shows in its shared hosting plans. HostGator has an overall shared score of 4.7 out of 5, soaring above the competition. It also scores the best help and support rating of 4.8 out of 5 for its shared plans, due to its great knowledge base, community center, and 24/7 phone and live chat service.

All four of HostGator’s shared hosting plans provide you with top of the range features, including easy one-click installation, unmetered bandwidth, and a free SSL certificate. Add the decent uptime score of 99.9%, and this shared provider is looking like a solid choice!

HostGator’s Hatchling plan is the cheapest at $3.75 per month (36-month term), giving you basic tools and a free domain for the first year, and unlimited subdomains. The Baby plan is the next level up, costing $4.50 per month, and unlocks unlimited parked domains. The next plan is the Business plan at $6.25 per month – this gives you more technical features, such as a free dedicated IP, CDN, and free search engine optimization (SEO) tools. The most advanced plan is the Pro plan at $13.95 per month, which includes up to 100 websites, 100GB storage, and the capacity to accommodate a high volume of traffic.

All HostGator plans also come with a 45 day money-back guarantee, so you can try it and see if it is the provider for you.

Further Information

• Find out more in our in-depth HostGator Review
• See how HostGator does in our detailed comparisons:
  • HostGator vs GoDaddy
  • SiteGround vs HostGator
  • Bluehost vs HostGator
• Discover if HostGator is the right choice for you in our review of the Best Web Hosting for Small Business

#2. Bluehost: Most Trusted by Online Users

Bluehost offers a lot of handy features such as domain privacy, but it could offer better value for money compared to its competitors. Still, it’s right up there in terms of its popularity, with the highest 4.9 out of 5 score for the shared market analysis category – making Bluehost most trusted by online users. It is also snapping at HostGator’s heels with a respectable 99.98% uptime score.

Where Bluehost falls is its lack of extras. The cheapest plan doesn’t include regular backups, you need to pay an extra $149.99 for migrations, and it doesn’t have a help and support community center.

The Starter plan is at a great price of $3.99 per month (36-month term). You’ll still get all the shared hosting features to support a basic site, including one domain, 10GB SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, and SSL security.

At $6.99 per month, the Business plan is only a few dollars more, but it massively increases your limits. You get 50GB storage, up to 50 websites, and domain privacy included for the first year.

The eCommerce Essentials plan costs $14.99 per month, and is the perfect choice if your site needs to sell online. It gives you more power than the two other plans, as it comes with advanced features, including a high performance server.

And, if you need more CPU power, you can choose from an additional four “High Performance” shared hosting plans, ranging from $9.99 to $23.99 per month (36-month term).

Bluehost is also the number one recommended hosting provider by WordPress, so if you’ve got a small WordPress site, this could be the shared hosting service for you.

Further Information

• Read our full Bluehost Review for more details
• Do you have a WordPress site? Read our review of the Best WordPress Hosting Providers 
• See why Bluehost is the number one Photography Website Hosting Provider
• Find out about costs in our Bluehost Pricing Review
• See how Bluehost compares to its competitors in our in-depth reviews:
  • InMotion vs Bluehost 
  • SiteGround vs Bluehost
  • Bluehost vs Hostgator
  • Bluehost vs GoDaddy Hosting

#3. DreamHost: Best for Cheap Shared Plans

DreamHost offers a solid range of shared hosting features, including a huge 100% uptime, and is one of the hosting providers recommended by WordPress.

It’s not the strongest in terms of help and support, but with a 97-day money back guarantee and very affordable prices, you can’t argue with DreamHost’s value for money. Gaining a top score for it’s shared price, of 4.4 out of 5 – DreamHost is ideal for websites on a budget.

DreamHost’s Web Hosting Launch plan costs $2.99 per month. It gives you 25 websites, a free domain, 25GB of storage, unlimited free SSL certificates, daily backups, and a whopping 100% uptime guarantee. WordPress also comes pre-installed, saving you time and effort.

The Web Hosting Growth plan is an upgrade costing $3.99 per month. This comes with everything from the Launch plan, and unlocks 50 websites and 50GB of storage. The renewal rate does come in at $12.99 per month once the year is finished though.

The most advanced plan, Web Hosting Scale, will set you back $9.99 per month (for a 36-month term). This includes up to 100 websites and 100GB of storage, making it a great option for larger websites.

The features you get for these prices mean that DreamHost wins the appealing title of ‘provider with best value for money’.

#4. Hostinger: Best for Backups

Hostinger’s main appeal is its automated backups. You get an automated weekly backup on Hostinger’s cheapest shared hosting plan. Automated backups mean it’s not on you to save versions of your site if something goes wrong, whereas Bluehost’s cheapest plan doesn’t provide backups.

You can pick up the cheapest shared hosting plan for just $2.49/month for a 48-month erm. And even after that promotional period is over, you can pick up a plan for a reasonable $10.99/month (as a renewal rate). Hostinger also has a really nice spread of data centers across the world, which gives the best chance of global audiences getting good load speeds.

What you get on Hostinger’s cheapest plan is up to 25 websites, free SSL, weekly automated backups, 26GB SSD storage, and unlimited bandwidth. It also comes with a free migration, and excellent uptime of 99.99%.

Although Hostinger’s shared plans are a textbook example of ‘you get what you pay for’. Its features aren’t as generous – there are lower caps on storage, for example – and help and support is pretty sparse, with no phone support on offer. Hostinger also has the lowest performance of any provider on this list, which means your site is likely to be out of action for more time than with an alternative.

All in all, a good option if you’re after a low-budget option for a small site, but not one we’d recommend for businesses or high traffic sites.

Further Information

• Read our full Hostinger Review for details on plans, features, and more.

#5. InMotion: Best for Robust Security

InMotion scores 3.9 out of 5 overall for shared hosting. It offers some incredibly good security features including an SSL certificate and hack, malware, and DDoS protection. The cheapest shared plan also offers free expert migration with no downtime, 99.98% uptime, 100GB of storage, and unlimited bandwidth. This makes it ideal for photography websites – having come top of the competition in our photography website category.

InMotion offers four shared hosting plans: Core, Launch, Power, and Pro. All four plans provide marketing tools, a free security suite, and free SSL security. Despite this, it scores poorly for value for money, with a low 2.4 out of 5 rating – making it the lowest value option on this list!

The Core plan is the cheapest but most basic at $2.99 per month, when paid yearly. The $4.79 per month Power plan is InMotion’s top seller, giving you 10 websites and double the performance. The Pro plan is the most advanced at $10.79 per month, providing 40 websites, pro level support, and performance which is four times better than the Launch plan.

Further Information

• Find out more in our InMotion Hosting Review
• Discover how InMotion performs against the top competitor in our in-depth comparison: InMotion vs Bluehost

#6. IONOS: Best for Site Speed

Are you looking for fast site speeds, quick loading, and high uptime? IONOS has it all, and really great features as well – getting a whopping shared plan feature score of 4.6 out of 5.

IONOS has four shared hosting plans: Essential, Starter, Plus, and Ultimate. The Essential plan starts at $4 per month (for six months, then $6 for the remaining six months), and then renews at $8 per month. On that plan you get one website, just 10GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL, and free domain for a year.

IONOS recommend its Plus plan that starts at an amazing $1 per month (for the first six months of a 12-month plan), but be aware that it does renew at a pricier $14 per month after your first year. But it does offer unlimited storage and unlimited websites.

Then the Ultimate plan starts at $15 per month, which is optimized for website performance. Plus it comes with extra security features like malware protection, a CDN (content delivery network), and some extra analytics tools. Overall IONOS scores 4 out of 5 for value, so you get decent bang for your buck along with its cheap discounts.

Further Information

• Find out more in our detailed IONOS Review

#7. GreenGeeks: Most Eco-Friendly Provider

The hosting industry is a surprisingly polluting one, and GreenGeeks is on a mission to put that right – one site at a time. By buying Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), GreenGeeks offsets its carbon footprint by 300% through investing in eco-friendly energy sources. It also offers entirely free site migration, without caveats.

GreenGeeks also has the highest shared plan feature score of 4.8 out of 5, offering free nightly backups, 24/7 network monitoring, a free SSL, and a free domain for the first year.

All in all, GreenGeeks is a good, reliable hosting provider, with features that match those of the providers higher in this ranking. There are, however, a few things that hold it back from taking the top spots.

First up, it’s a little pricey. Strip back the discounts, and you’re left with a price range of $12.95-$29.95/month. Initially, you can get its three shared hosting plans for $2.95 to $8.95 per month. The other major ‘con’ is only getting one free backup per month – others will cost you $25 a time, which isn’t ideal for any website with regularly-changing content.

Further Information

• Discover what experts think in this GreenGeeks Review
• See how GreenGeeks matches up against Bluehost in Bluehost vs GreenGeeks

How Do You Choose a Shared Hosting Service?

If none of the web hosting services in our list immediately jumped out at you, you might be wondering just how you’re meant to choose. It’s easy to be befuddled by all the free features being waved in front of your nose.

Your choice will totally depend on your specific needs, but here are our three top things to look for in a shared hosting provider:

• Uptime – it’s come up a lot so far, and for good reason! You want a hosting service with a high uptime percentage. Your website won’t flourish if the server is down all the time. You don’t paint a masterpiece, lock it in a dark room, and wonder why nobody is buying it!
• Value for money – how much are you paying, and how much will you be getting for your money? Shop around and compare different providers – start by looking at DreamHost, as it offers the best value for money on the market. If you just want to keep costs low, then check out Bluehost – as it’s got the best overall hosting score of 4.8 out of 5!
• Disk space and bandwidth – disk space is how much data you can store on your web server, while bandwidth is how much data can be transferred between your server and your website. How much you need of these will depend on how large your website is (you’ll need more disk space for lots of content), and how much traffic your site gets (you’ll need more bandwidth to cope with more traffic).

Uptime, value for money, and disk space and bandwidth are important, no matter the purpose of your site or your technical ability.

Help and support is always worth looking into as well, but is more subjective – make sure there are help options in place which you’re happy and confident using if things ever did go wrong.

For those of you with a WordPress website, make sure you look at the provider’s WordPress integration. Bluehost and DreamHost are the best shared hosting services for WordPress users.

If you’re finding the amount of free add-ons confusing, narrow it down to the most important factors for you. Three major ones to look out for are free domains, free backups, and money back guarantees. More Information

• Common Web Hosting Problems: Keep these common problems in mind when choosing your hosting provider

Best Shared Hosting Services: Summary

This article has dived into the eight best shared hosting services on the market. We’ve covered the hosting basics, and outlined our shared hosting winner, HostGator – thanks to its incredible help and support and reasonable prices. We hope we’ve helped you explore the pros, cons, and prices of each shared hosting provider, and passed on our top tips on how to choose the best one for you. Remember to look out for the essentials – uptime, value for money, and disk space and bandwidth – as well as the features tailored to your specific needs, such as support options or a free domain.

Your shared plan is ready, and your virtual housemates are waiting – so sign up and get hosting today!

Written By

Lucy Carney

Lucy Carney is a Content Manager at Website Builder Expert, specializing in website building, ecommerce, and digital marketing. Previously working as a Writer and then Senior Writer on the brand, Lucy has had six years of hands-on experience testing leading web building platforms including Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify, creating demo sites such as Wix-built Lucy’s Cupcakes to aid readers’ decisions.

Lucy is passionate about using her knowledge to help small business owners build their online presence and achieve their goals in growing online. She uses her in-depth industry knowledge and hands-on experience to edit, fact-check, and proofread the content that you read on Website Builder Expert, to ensure it’s as accurate and helpful as possible.

While on the brand, she’s reported on industry trends over the years, attended events such as the eCommerce Expo, and advised readers directly with over 400 comment replies on the site to date. Her work has also featured on other online publications such as the Shopify Partners Blog, Usability Geek, Serpstat, and Open Source, and has over 100 articles published on the Website Builder Expert blog.

You can read Lucy’s articles below, or connect with her on LinkedIn.Linkedin: Lucy Carney

Email: lucy@websitebuilderexpert.com

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Reviewed By

Natasha Willett Lead Researcher

Natasha brings her expert credentials – a BSc, Ma, and MMRS – to Website Builder Expert. Natasha has qualifications in Advanced Statistical Analysis, MRS certificate in Market Research, Brand, Finding the Story in the Data, and Big Data: Measuring and Predicting Human Behaviour. These have allowed her to carefully analyze over 64 providers across website builders, ecommerce web builders, and hosting.

Natasha began building websites when studying sports science, originally using Weebly to create websites to help students learn in a more interactive way. During her first week at Website Builder Expert, she realized that website builders would become important in giving business owners full control over their websites. She began creating a rigorous methodology of research that centered around testing providers and products against a large set of mixed criteria turned into quantitative findings, comparing value for money, design, ease of use, and more. All to provide the most honest and objective insights rather than just looking at their claimed features.

In five years at Website Builder Expert, Natasha has attended multiple expos in her field, including ESOMAR, MRS, eCommerce Expo, Ad World, Digital Customer Engagement Summit, and IMRG, just to name a few. Natasha has also worked alongside website builders directly to share her research with them, so that they might improve their products for users.

She’s clocked an impressive 9,600 hours of product research and testing, pulling data from multiple sources and providing the Website Builder Expert team with the scores and product details they need to give you the best recommendations to succeed online.

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