Web Hosting Statistics: Top 5 Web Hosting Statistics You Need to Know

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Every website needs a home, and with the growing demand to get online, hosting providers are becoming increasingly popular, too. But what is web hosting?

To put it simply, it’s the location on the internet where your website lives – connecting users to your site via a server. And it’s important to choose the right provider since your website’s host can affect everything from site speed to security.

There are two ways you can host a website: use a dedicated platform or host locally.

A hosting provider, like Bluehost, or an all-in-one hosted website solution, such as Wix, are reliable options and make it easy to get online. However, hosting locally is a lot more troublesome and hands-on, so it’s not the method we recommend for most users.

With the help of these web hosting statistics, we hope you’ll gain a greater understanding of what’s out there when it comes to hosting providers, meaning you’ll be in good shape to choose the right provider for your site.

Top 5 Web Hosting Statistics

Check out our five top web hosting statistics:

  • GoDaddy is the most popular hosting provider in the world, and within the US specifically, hosting around 52 million websites globally
  • The global web hosting industry is on track to hit $90 billion in 2023
  • In North America alone, the web hosting market was valued at $34 billion in 2022
  • Wix is the best when it comes to built-in hosting services, powering 30% of the global hosted website solution industry
  • 88% of customers choose to shop with businesses that deliver a high-performance user experience

More Information

  • Best Web Hosting Providers: GoDaddy might be the most popular hosting provider, but it comes sixth in our list of the best hosts on the market. Read our complete article to see who takes first place!

What Is The Actual Market Size of the Web Hosting Industry?

GoDaddy Hosting homepage with a button inviting visitors to explore hosting options
GoDaddy is the most popular hosting provider on the market.

The web hosting industry started decades ago – 1969 to be exact, with just four providers to choose between. A simpler time in terms of decision-making, that’s for sure! Over 50 years later, the market is now home to around 126 million providers.

As of 2022, the web hosting industry generated roughly $79 billion in revenue worldwide, and it’s on track to hit $90 billion in 2023. The need for websites won’t slow down anytime soon either, so it’s no surprise that web hosting is on track to triple its profits in the next few years. In fact, by 2028, the market is estimated to reach over $260 billion!

In North America alone, the web hosting market was valued at $34.32 billion in 2022 – the US actually has the largest market share of all territories, with Europe just behind.

But what’s driving all of this interest? The increasing number of small and medium businesses! That’s right – you.

So, how many web hosting companies are there? And who’s the most popular? Out of all hosting providers, GoDaddy is the most popular of all in terms of sheer numbers.

Of course, the data will fluctuate with time, but these are the most popular hosting providers right now:

Bar chart showing the most popular web hosting providers by number of websites (in millions) - GoDaddy sits at the top with a very sizeable chart line
As you can see, GoDaddy is the most popular hosting provider.
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There are millions of hosting providers to choose from, so it really depends on the type of web hosting you need.

Types of Hosting

Here’s a quick breakdown of the main hosting types to help you decide what’s right for your website:
  • Shared hosting: Your website shares resources, support, and a server with other sites.
  • VPS hosting: A server is divided into multiple virtual servers, meaning your website will get more resources when it’s needed.
  • Dedicated hosting: It’s in the name! Your website gets a dedicated server, along with its resources, all to itself.
  • WordPress hosting: With shared and managed options, WordPress hosting is – you guessed it – created with WordPress websites in mind, so its features and support are tailored for those sites.
  • Cloud hosting: Multiple servers connect together to share resources.
  • Reseller hosting: Like renting a house, the owner of a reseller plan can lease out the server space to third parties.
  • Built-in hosting: Plenty of website builders, such as Wix and Squarespace, have hosting bundled into your plan – a two-in-one solution.

Regarding website hosting solutions – AKA website builders with hosting built-in to your plan – Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify account for over half of the global hosted solution industry. And Wix makes up 30% of that figure!

If you want to compare some of the best web hosting providers on the market right now, take a look at our web hosting comparison chart. Find the perfect fit for you!

The Benefits of a Good Web Hosting Service

Lifecycle graphic showing 5 benefits of web hosting with a the 5 points listed to the left of the image: (1) Fast loading times, (2) Dependable performance, (3) Domain names, (4) Reliable security, & (5) Expert help and support
We highly recommend choosing a dependable web host to reap the benefits.

Fast Loading Times

One of the key benefits of a good web hosting service is reliable website speed. With a poor hosting provider, your website is more likely to face downtime and slow-to-load pages. This isn’t the only impact, though! 84% of customers would avoid shopping with a store altogether if they had a bad website experience.

Let’s face it, no one wants to buy a product with images that fail, or continue the checkout process if the page doesn’t load. And if your website doesn’t provide a positive user experience, your business could lose out on loyal customers.

Without good uptime, a small business could face an average downtime cost of up to $427 every minute. So, it’s best to choose a good web hosting service with dependable speed and uptime!

From our latest hosting research, we’d recommend IONOS for the best website speed and uptime since it came out on top when we tested both of these areas.

What is Uptime?

Uptime is the amount of time your website is running and accessible to all visitors. When hosting providers refer to uptime, it’s usually in the form of a percentage – for example, IONOS’ advertised uptime is 99.99%. No one can guarantee 100% uptime since there are plenty of factors that can affect it, from power outages to traffic spikes, but good hosting providers can get pretty close!

Dependable Performance

A high-quality host can improve not only your site speed but also your overall site performance. How well your website and pages run has an impact on your search engine rankings – with fast-loading pages and better user experiences, your website is more likely to perform well on Google.

After all, for Google, the user comes first! If a site takes up to 10 seconds to load, the bounce rate increases to 123%! If that’s the case, Google will choose to recommend faster and more dependable sites over your website.

Domain Names

Many of the top hosting providers also offer domain names – two birds, one stone! Being the most popular hosting provider, GoDaddy is unsurprisingly the world’s most popular domain registrar as well. In fact, around 78 million domains are registered with the brand, and in the US alone, GoDaddy’s domains have a market share of 20%.

Reliable Security

Another key benefit of using a good hosting provider is the layer of security it can provide for your website. We’ll discuss below how we think the importance of this benefit will continue to grow over the next few years, but it’s a feature that shouldn’t be overlooked, especially if you have employees working from home. 43% of cybercrimes committed around the world are against small and medium businesses, so making sure your web host provides an SSL certificate, DDoS protection, and automated website backups is a must.

Expert Help and Support

The final benefit we want to mention is the level of technical support you receive from a good web hosting provider. Up to 46% of people wouldn’t revisit a poor-performing website, so it’s important that you – as the website owner – have accessible support to hand in case you need to get your site out of a jam!

The best of the best should provide 24/7 support in some shape or form – in this case, we’d recommend HostGator which came top in our help and support research.

Contact page for HostGator featuring its various help channels, including a button for live chat
You can contact HostGator via live chat, phone, or email.

Predicted Web Hosting Trends

It can be hard to keep up with the latest trends or even accurately predict where a market is going successfully, especially when there are lots of moving parts or unforeseeable events thrown at you. That being said, we’ve gathered a handful of web hosting industry statistics that highlight the ongoing growth of the market.

  • Shared hosting, for starters, is expected to see a compound annual growth rate of 10% per year. As a great introduction to the world of hosting, shared hosting is always a popular and affordable choice with websites in their early stages.
  • VPS hosting, on the other hand, is expected to see the biggest spike in popularity in the coming years, with some estimating its market size will reach over $8 billion by 2026.
  • As we’ve already mentioned, the overall revenue of the web hosting industry is estimated to reach $260 billion by 2028. A real boom!
  • Experts believe interest in website security will increase over the next few years, with people putting more weight on a provider’s security features ahead of deciding if it’s the right fit for them. If it’s already an important factor for you now, we’d recommend InMotion which came out on top for security during our recent hosting research.

And the right trends are appearing at the perfect time. As we’ve discussed, VPS hosting is on the rise which is ideal for anyone worrying about website security since, with the right provider, VPS hosting is more secure than any shared hosting plan. But let’s see what the future holds!

Web Hosting Statistics: Summary

The web hosting industry is thriving and will continue to do so, especially since new websites are popping up here, there, and everywhere. A good web hosting provider is an essential piece of the puzzle if you want to run a successful, and well-performing website. Let’s recap a few of those key benefits:

  • Reliable website speed for a smooth user experience
  • Improved site performance, which means a better ranking on Google
  • Domain names included in the service
  • Enhanced security features to protect your website from harm
  • Technical support you can rely on if needed

You could either opt for the most popular hosting provider, GoDaddy, or find a website builder with hosting built-in, such as Wix or Squarespace. Ultimately, what these web hosting statistics prove is that it’s important to choose the right fit for your site, and one that can be depended upon for top-level performance.

Written by:
emma ryan author bio
Emma’s been a Senior Writer at Website Builder Expert since 2022, having first-hand experience with website builders, such as Wix and Shopify, through hands-on testing and research analysis. Her work and expertise have been featured in Digiday, TechRound, Industry Today, and Digital Information World. Specializing in writing about website builders, ecommerce platforms, and hosting providers, Emma stays in the loop of industry updates by attending conferences such as eCommerce Expo and managing Website Builder Expert’s news articles.

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