In the cheap web hosting market, there is a thin red line between cheap but good hosting and junk hosting. Here I present the best at low prices. And indeed, there are good hosting services and domains, at almost ridiculous prices.
That is, to get cheap and good quality web hosting, you have to know how to choose well, especially if we are talking about a hosting for a PHP application that uses a MySQL database such as WordPress, Joomla, Prestashop, Magento and the like.
If you do it badly, or you will be overpaying for a bad service that does not deserve your money, or you will end up with a service of such poor quality that shortly after having some traffic you will complicate your life with falls, slowness and other problems one day yes and another too.
I have been working with many hosting for more than a decade, so I propose two options:
- If you want to get to the point, without going into the details, simply choose one of the recommendations that I will make below. I am a client of all of them and I assure you that you will not be mistaken.
- If you want to learn how to choose the hosting that suits you best, also read calmly the post where I explain how to choose your hosting well. It is easy and, in addition, I give you a comparison based on real measurements.
Domains and Cheap Web Hosting – Summary of the Best Options
Personally, I use my websites and recommend as first options, in this order, Webempresa, SiteGround and Raiola Networks, being my favorite Webempresa, is the one who uses this blog.
These options are the best hosting at cheap prices (in the basic plans) than of all the ones I’ve tried for their good performance (speed, security, etc.) and good technical support. His good reputation is not the result of chance.
Among the somewhat more aggressive alternatives in prices I recommend STARTHOSTS. All also have a free domain and discounts for the first contract. Precisely for that reason, we decided to include it in the in-depth tests whose results you will find in the comparison below.
We were able to verify to our liking that this bad reputation is no longer justified. Although it is a step or two below as the most recommended alternatives, seeing its combination of benefits, prices and discounts, I now consider it an interesting option.
Cheap Website Hosting: How to Choose A Good One?
Let’s talk now about the second option that I proposed above: learn to choose a good hosting with your own criteria. What types of hosting are there and which one to choose? We will be practical: to address the different types of hosting and their nuances with some depth, it requires, at a minimum, an entire post dedicated to it. In fact, we have one:
But knowing that you are probably looking for a hosting to start, the reality is that we can summarize everything perfectly in four categories:
- Shared hosting: it is the low-cost option par excellence. It’s how to rent a room (your account) in a building (the server). That’s why it comes out so cheap. With a 99% chance it is what you need.
- VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting: it is an option around which there is a lot of confusion, so I treat it in a separate section a little below. But come on, it will not be the most suitable for you almost certainly.
- Cloud hosting: it is a modern concept that improves the scalability of the hosting. Let’s say it’s always good that your hosting is cloud type.
- Dedicated servers: it is a very expensive type of high-performance hosting that you will not need unless you are the owner of well-known websites like amazon or eBay.
In short, you will almost certainly need shared hosting. Here the main risk is the providers that put too many customers on their servers. An overloaded server means a web with little capacity, slow and with many falls. Cheap web hosting services are now hard to find but starthosts offer all these at insanely cheap cost.
What Features and Benefits should I look to choose?
Here I will also synthesize things in what are, in my opinion, the 7 most important points:
- Normally you will want to create your website with WordPress, Joomla, Prestashop or similar applications. For this, make sure that your hosting supports them (except specialized Windows hosting, practically all).
- A good technical support. Pay attention to me: a hosting without good support is impracticable. The problem is that it is something subjective, you will have to pull opinions and testimonies like this post to decide.
- If the support includes specialized support for applications (WordPress, etc.), even better. With this you already have help for anything that can happen to you and any questions you have with your website.
- The quality of the servers. Here the figures that providers give you in the tables, unfortunately in shared hosting they say nothing. Here you will also have to pull reviews and user testimonials.
- Disk space, number of websites supported, and number of email accounts supported. Basic plans often have limitations on these characteristics. Normally it won’t be a problem (most people will only set up a simple website without more). But make sure that in your specific case they are not lame.
- Security. The hosting you choose should offer at least daily backups, hacking protection of your website and provide you with a free SSL certificate (for a secure website with HTTPS).
- Money back. All quality hosting offers you the money back for a period. I recommend you never hire a service that does not offer this. So, if you are not satisfied, it will not be too traumatic.
Hire the Domain and Web Hosting together or separately?
You can hire the hosting and domain you can hire it with the same provider or with different providers.
It is a decision of little importance; you can be guided by these guidelines to decide:
- If you have only one website, do not complicate yourself, hire the domain and hosting together.
- The prices of the hosting and domains can come out a little cheaper sometimes if you hire it in the hosting itself, even sometimes free (the first year only, normally). But watch out for the price of renovations.
- If you are going to have at least three or four different websites, then it can compensate you to centralize the management of your domains in a single domain provider like STARTHOSTS
For example. The advantage is the independence of the hosting: you don’t need to keep the domain with them if you cancel them.
Following these guidelines, you should be right in your choice and find the service you really need. And remember that some providers do not publish their special discounts directly on their website but limit them to their online advertising campaigns and their affiliates.
