The Best Shared Hosting of 2024

Hostinger is one of the best hosting companies for people starting out with a website and seeking low prices. Its beginner-friendly interface, low hosting rate, and reliable uptime make it the go-to provider for shared hosting.

Hostinger has one of the most affordable paid plans of all of the providers we’ve reviewed. And since cost is the major reason to look into shared hosting, that factor alone puts it near the top of the heap. Hostinger offers multiple shared hosting plans — from entry-level plans for beginners to small business shared hosting.

Most plans even qualify for a free domain name for the first year of service, a great addition for those just getting started. All hosting packages at Hostinger also come with a free shared SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt SSL that will provide your site with significant security. It also ensures your site follows best security practices, which Google confirms is important for proper search engine optimization (SEO).

Those who pick the Business Shared Hosting package will get free access to the CloudFlare CDN. This process helps speed up your website's loading times by housing key site files in data centers around the world. The CloudFlare CDN boasts 152 separate locations, meaning your site will always be hosted in a location physically close to your visitors.

No matter the plan you pick, Hostinger is a rock-solid option for hosting your next project at an affordable rate.

Who is Hostinger best for?

Hostinger is great for a diversity of people, though business owners may be particularly drawn to it. Small businesses and entrepreneurs will find a service with a high level of polish but affordable, with great options for scaling as your business grows.

Recent updates to Hostinger

While Hostinger has been around for over a decade, it is still committed to continuous improvement with new technology and features to meet your needs. It has recently added improved WordPress migration, making it easier to import your site from another service and update WordPress security.

Hostinger pricing

You have a good amount of choice when looking for a plan with Hostinger. One option is the Single Web Host plan for only $1.99 per month which grants you one website, 50 GB of storage, 100 GB of bandwidth, and weekly backups. The Premium plan for $2.99 per month offers double the storage, more websites, unlimited bandwidth, and a free domain. And the next tier caters to businesses and runs $3.99 per month, doubling the amount of storage and providing daily backups.

If you’re looking for a secure place to build your website, there’s much to love with SiteGround. The company has a reputation for taking security seriously, is General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant, and offers great support to all its customers.

SiteGround offers top-notch plans that would work well for almost anyone, but note all plans come with managed WordPress services by default. Furthermore, all plans include premium offerings such as enhanced performance due to up-to-date servers and SSD drives. Even shared hosting packages come with a free SSL certificate.

WordPress users can access a unique bot protection system powered by its effective artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm. When you enable this system, you will notice a considerable decrease in alerts from your WordPress security plug-ins. This system also prevents a variety of brute-force attacks on your WordPress login screen and does a great job of detecting any malicious login attempts.

SiteGround also offers many other security options, such as the SiteGround Site Scanner, which lets you know if your website is under attack. In addition, it offers antispam tools SpamExperts and Apache SpamAssassin, hotlink protection, as well as internet protocol (IP) address blocklists.

Who is SiteGround best for?

SiteGround is particularly suited to those running relatively small websites — personal websites, local and regional small businesses, and hobby or enthusiast website builders. It’s still powerful enough to handle hosting your business sites but seems particularly good for those starting out small.

Recent updates to SiteGround

SiteGround is always updating and improving its services. This includes adding features, data center facilities, and providing more services including opening a new data center in Madrid, improving the functionality of its site scanning tool, and launching a custom CDN.

SiteGround pricing

SiteGround has three main plan options which scale in price. The “StartUp” hosting account begins at $2.99 per month. If you need more than one website and are expecting higher traffic, the “GrowBig” plan may suit you better at $4.99 a month. The top tier “GoGeek” plan runs $7.99 per month and gives you even more storage and site traffic capacity. 

HostGator has something to offer everyone with its stellar uptime guarantees, unlimited bandwidth, and a range of reasonably-priced hosting options. It offers one-click installs on shared hosting plans so you can integrate WordPress or other popular apps on your site in no time.

HostGator offers unmetered bandwidth, one-click WordPress installs, email, and chat support along with a free domain name for one year with all shared hosting plans. It also throws in domain name registration at no cost. This is a great feature, especially for personal websites or smaller businesses that may see the added cost of a domain name as an additional burden when they are starting out.

Most providers charge either yearly or monthly. HostGator stands out by offering payment plans for one month, three months, six months, or yearly (up to three years in advance).

Having options is always great, but keep in mind your renewal date — when you’re first starting out you’ll get an excellent introductory rate, but by the time you need to renew your subscription the bill may be higher than you expect.

Regardless, HostGator is a solid pick, particularly if you’re looking for a more flexible payment schedule.

Who is HostGator best for?

Beginners can find a lot of value in HostGator with its easy-to-use tools and website builder, but it can scale with large businesses, too.

Recent updates to HostGator

The team at HostGator is constantly adding new features and improving its services. It recently redesigned the customer portal to make it easier to manage bill preferences and change contact information. Also, the provider added a lot of quality-of-life improvements to its website builder.

HostGator pricing

A “Hatchling” plan, which includes a single website, unmetered bandwidth, and a free domain for one year costs $2.75 per month. The next step up is the “Baby” plan, which adds up to five websites and four times the storage for only $3.50 per month. And the “Business” plan unlocked unlimited websites and storage for $5.25 each month.

DreamHost is one of the oldest and most reliable hosting services. Offering top-class hosting packages at bargain prices, it is an excellent choice for everyone from small businesses to large e-commerce websites.

DreamHost has good overall user ratings, great features, and an overall focus on quality. It offers reliable hosting servers with subscription plans that are perfect for small to midsize businesses (SMBs).

DreamHost’s ease of use and affordability make it a good option for all entrepreneurs. You can upgrade your plan and avail of more services as your business needs grow. It may not be the least expensive option on this list, but it’s easy to use and has multiple hosting options. While you may be looking for shared hosting right now, you may want to upgrade in the future, and DreamHost has plans that can grow alongside your website.

It also guarantees 100% uptime, a necessity for e-commerce websites as any time downtime can significantly impact your customer experience. DreamHost’s scalable and flexible services make it a perfect choice for e-commerce businesses. There is also a great money-back guarantee — shared hosting customers have 97 days to figure out if this is the service for them.

Who is DreamHost best for?

DreamHost is a good choice for many websites from small businesses to large e-commerce enterprises. It also has hosting plans that fit personal website builders’ needs. It’s particularly good if you’re just dipping your toes in the water with shared hosting, as you’ll have a full 97-day money-back guarantee.

Recent updates to DreamHost

DreamHost continuously works on updates and upgrades on all the services it offers, improving the hosting services offered by DreamHost. Many changes were made to the websites section of DreamHost, including a new tech stack, the ability to change domains, WordPress Migrations feature, and DNS Propagation Check to check DNS status. DreamHost also revamped its UI and redesigned the control panel.

DreamHost pricing

DreamHost’s lowest price plan is its “Shared” plan, which includes shared hosting for entry-level websites at $4.95 per month. If you outgrow this plan, there are plenty of ways to up your service at a reasonable rate of increase.

A2 Hosting is a great all-around hosting provider with a good plan for any user. It offers cheap shared hosting plans that cover everything from personal projects to larger businesses. 

There’s a lot to like about A2 Hosting, from its wide range of subscriptions to its guaranteed uptime of 99.9% or above. However, A2 has a particularly good customer service department that offers 24/7 global support through phone and live chat.

It’s not ideal to wait for the next business day when something goes wrong with your web host. A2 provides responsive 24/7 customer support to help resolve problems as rapidly as possible. The team is available via phone, live chat, and support tickets, so reach out in whatever way is best for you.

I resolved many questions without contacting support by simply checking the A2 Knowledge Base. From setup guides to cPanel configurations and information for developers, the Knowledge Base has all the information necessary to work out the most common issues.

Who is A2 Hosting best for?

A2 is a capable hosting option for bloggers, e-commerce vendors, startups, and larger businesses. It’s a good choice if you want a cheap hosting arrangement that you can upgrade later if your site needs more resources.

Recent updates to A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting has kept its offerings current, implementing some modern features and quality-of-life improvements. It upgraded the PHP support to the latest stable version, which is 8.1. A2 Hosting added new security features for all its managed WordPress plans. These security features include HackScan Protection, Reinforced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Protection, and KernelCare. It also began offering Magento support on managed VPS hosting packages in late 2021.

A2 Hosting pricing

A2’s introductory StartUp plan only costs $2.99 per month, which is a great option to get you started. If you need to upgrade, other plans give you access to unlimited storage, websites, and improved server resources.

IONOS excels in innovation, reliability, and user experience. No matter which IONOS web hosting plan you choose, you will get great features, including a free domain name for one year. But it’s the introductory rate that will probably get you through the door.

If we’re being completely honest, the best reason to pick IONOS over any of the other options on this list is the eye-catching introductory rate. A Business plan for only $1 a month is unbeatable, giving you a whole calendar year to get your website up and running for only $12. Just keep an eye on your calendar — that rate hikes up to $10 a month after your first year is up.

No matter which IONOS web hosting plan you choose, you will get great features, including a free WordPress guide and a free domain name for one year. Those just starting out can opt for one of the MyWebsite packages, which comes with free hosting, plenty of templates, and an intuitive editor that’s seamless to operate.

IONOS has also recently revamped its WordPress hosting service with a new emphasis on providing an isolated environment for increased speed and security.

Who is IONOS best for?

After extensive testing I found that IONOS is ideal for fledgling companies, providing a good balance between cost-effectiveness and dependability. Plus, it’s super easy to scale when ready.

Recent updates to IONOS

IONOS just revamped its WordPress hosting service with a new emphasis on providing an isolated environment for increased speed and security. It is also currently developing a new feature that will simplify importing pre-existing projects.

IONOS pricing

Like most services, IONOS offers a one-year introductory rate at all levels. However, unlike most of the others, the cheapest of those plans is the mid-tier “Business” plan, which is only $1 a month for the first year. You can still opt for the “Essential” plan, though you’ll pay $4 a month for less storage, websites, and hosting resources.