Whether you want to start a blog or manage your business’s website, you’re going to need website hosting. If you’re like most people, you don’t want to buy a web server and manage it yourself, so you’re looking into shared hosting. Unfortunately, there are SO many to choose from it’s enough to make your head spin.
As a digital agency, we’ve got a LOT of experience with shared web hosting providers. Let’s see if we can’t help make your decision a little easier.
3 Things to Keep in Mind
Before we get into specifics, here are just three things worth keeping in mind when choosing your shared web hosting provider.
- Easy In. Hard Out.
Obviously, hosts make it very easy to begin working with them, but if you want to cancel your account or move to another provider, you wouldn’t believe the hoops they’ll make you jump through. It can literally take weeks. - Size DOES Matter.
Not disc space as much as the size of the hosting company. Too big and the one-on-one customer service will suffer. Too small and the hosting service will be inadequate. As with most things, you’re looking for the Goldilocks size. - You Can ALWAYS Upgrade!
Don’t let them talk you into their super-premium package right off the bat. You can always upgrade later, but they will almost never let you downgrade (see #1).
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Founded in ’98 and based in LA, Media Temple’s business model really caters to demanding hosting environments. This is NOT for your grandmother’s blog. If you’re building something that might be simple today and a monster tomorrow, Media Temple is a great company to work with right from the beginning.
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(MT) PROS:
- Powerful hosting packages
- Lots of available features/upgrades
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(MT) CONS:
- Difficult to use admin interface
- A little pricy if you don’t need the power
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Founded just a few years after Media Temple, HostGater is a smaller company based in Houston, Texas. They’ve really got a small-business feel to their customer service with big-business performance from their server infrastructure.
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HostGater PROS:
- GREAT Customer Service/Support
- Affordable & Scalable
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HostGater CONS:
- Complicated admin interface (cPanel)
- Hosting packages vary wildly
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Love them or hate them, GoDaddy is anything but vanilla. They strive to make web hosting accessible to everyone. In doing so, there are some limitations that drive professional developers up a wall and make this really more the host for your grandmother or the DIYer.
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GoDaddy PROS:
- Super-Easy Admin Interface
- Affordable Hosting Packages
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GoDaddy CONS:
- They nickel-and-dime on EVERYTHING
- They will always try to sell you something else
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Years ago, this German-born company was our preferred shared hosting provider, but since their IPO, not so much. They still offer the easy administration on par with GoDaddy, but without all the nickel-and-dime stuff. The catch? They are NO FUN to work with (putting it gently).
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1&1 PROS:
- Super-Easy Admin Interface
- No Nickel & Dime stuff
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1&1 CONS:
- Customer support is awful
- Billing system forever causes issues
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And Then?
So, there are literally HUNDREDS of other shared hosting providers out there, but hopefully this gives you a starting point. If you want to add to our list, comment the host’s name, link and give us a few PROs & CONs below.