I’ve been building websites professionally since 1995 and started when the web was young a few years before that. Web hosting has come a long way since then and even more so when you look at all the options available today.
Trying to find a website host can feel daunting. There are so many choices. To make it even more confusing, several of the biggest web hosting companies are actually owned by the same parent company.
During my career I have hosted websites with Bluehost, Hostgator, GreenGeeks, a bunch of free hosting platforms from back-in-the-day. and even built my own server/computer and put it on my home DSL line. Through all of this experience, my recommendations come down to two different companies.
My #1 Web Hosting Choice: GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks is currently my provider of choice for many reasons. First, they offer the standard Cpanel dashboard all of the major companies do. But unlike many of the other companies, their technical support has been able to answer my questions or concerns the first time, rather than me getting frustrated.
In addition, they have their own control panel to help you manage your SSL certificates. You can also delegate access to your account by adding them to the main GreenGeeks dashboard with ease.
Their Ecosite Pro and Premium plans offer unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth. Pricing starts at a base rate for at least a year and then increases to the normal annual rate after that. These two plans also offer unlimited websites, or multi hosting, on the same account so you can have different websites and domain names on the same account.
Most of the tutorials I will feature on this blog will be done either on a local machine or through one of my websites on GreenGeeks. I currently have several accounts with them and can’t recommend them enough.
View complete pricing and sign by clicking on the banner below.
Runners Up: Bluehost and Hostgator
Bluehost
Both Bluehost and Hostgator are owned by the same parent company, Endurance International Group. Bluehost is a popular platform promoted by a lot of bloggers and influencers. This is for a couple of reasons. First, Bluehost is a very good hosting provider. But the second reason is they also have a very nice affiliate program, so influencers can make more money referring people to Bluehost than most other web hosting providers. Even though I know Bluehost is a great company, I have had some problems with them over the years.
This very website was hosted with Bluehost in 2009. I canceled a little while later and then tried to set it up again in 2019. Unfortunately, when you cancel with Bluehost, it appears as though they never fully delete your information from their servers. When I tried to return, we ended up with a lot of trouble trying to reactivate a canceled domain. Bluehost told me this:
“To be honest we are having some technical difficulties this morning which is why this has been such a process. When an account is closed with BlueHost, the profile still remains with our system, when a new account is created for a domain that was once with BlueHost, the process of creating the account is a little different than using a new domain.”
This little difference prevented me from getting the website up at all, so I ended up canceling. Still, they are a powerhouse of a web hosting company.
Find out more about Bluehost by clicking on the banner below:
Hostgator
Of all the web hosting companies I have had over the years, I was with Hostgator the longest. They have great uptime (most web hosts do these days) and their Cpanel was easy to use. If you are only going to be working on one website/domain, then their cheapest option of web hosting will probably be good for your needs.
They also offer other plans that will let you host unlimited websites on a single domain, similar to GreenGeeks. When I was building websites for other clients, I actually used their Reseller plan. The Reseller plan will give each of your websites their own Cpanel account and allow you to give your clients access to only their account. If you host multiple domains on one account without a reseller plan, there is only one control panel.
If you want a lower-priced option to get started, Hostgator is definitely a good option.
Find out more about Hostgator by clicking on the banner below:
