As a beginner, you might rush to prioritize costs or hosting features while choosing the best web hosting service for your business. It’s fairly easy to oversee the importance of location on the reliability of your website. However, it’s the first thing you should analyze in your decision-making.
In general, Canada is a country known for good Internet speeds. However, that doesn’t mean good performance for your site by default. Essentially, your website reliability and speed depend on your web host and its servers.
Nowadays, you might find browsing through all web hosts to find the perfect fit for your needs overwhelming since the number of web hosting and registration options can be bewildering. But worry not; HostAdvice professionals are at your service! We’ve analyzed all major web hosts within the area to deliver you the best web hosting services in Canada. The following findings are based on independent expert studies backed by thousands of user reviews. But if you don’t have the time to read our full guide, here’s a shortcut to the results.
Short on Time? Check Our Top 10 Canadian Web Hosting Providers
- FastComet – Best Canadian Host Overall
- Verpex – Best Shared Hosting in Canada
- HostPapa – Best VPS Hosting in Canada
- HostArmada – Fastest Web Hosting Provider in Canada
- Kamatera – Best Canadian-Owned Web Host
- ChemiCloud – Cheapest Web Hosting in Canada
- Cloudways – Best Cloud Hosting in Canada
- Webdock – Best WordPress Hosting in Canada
- Kinsta – Best Managed WordPress Hosting in Canada
- GreenGeeks – Best Web Hosting for Small Business in Canada
How Do We Rank and How You Should Choose Your Best Web Hosting in Canada?
- Server Availability15%
- Speed and Uptime9%
- Security Features3%
- Hosting Essentials10%
- Ease of Use3%
- Customer Support10%
- Integrations/Compatibility4%
- Scalability Options8%
- Plans & Pricing8%
- User Reviews30%
There’s no point in paying for a premium service only to realize that you cannot take advantage of it. That’s why you need to perform a thorough analysis or let experts perform this work for you.
It’s not practical for you to sign up for each Canadian web hosting service you find. But we did exactly that. HostAdvice professionals bought web hosting plans as regular customers to do first-hand performance, speed, and uptime testing. We also test the customer support responsiveness and their skill, knowledge, and friendliness.
At HostAdvice, we hire web hosting professionals, people with extensive skill and knowledge who can grant an objective and unbiased review of a web host’s quality. In addition, we focus on continually improving our processes, technologies, and ‘ways of doing things,’ all to provide you with the most accurate review possible and help you select the best website hosting in Canada.
We perform independent and category-specific testing of dozens of providers. To choose the best web hosting in Canada, we’ve first selected the providers offering services in this area. The prerequisite to qualify on this list is for the web host to have servers in Canada. But it doesn’t end there.
Here are all the factors we have considered in selecting the top 10 web hosting services in Canada:
- Server Availability (15%): The server location affects your website speed, SEO ranking, and customer satisfaction. If you want better performance, you need to select a server closer to your target audience. This way, you’ll reduce latency and increase the chances for a customer to stay on your site or purchase your products. Ideally, if you serve the Canadian market, it would be best to select a web host with servers in the country (Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Oakville, Verdun, Vancouver, Laval, Parksville, etc.). However, you can also do well with a decent, nearby server in the US or a CDN (Content Delivery Network).
- Speed and Uptime (9%): In addition to a server located in Canada, you should also consider the company’s hardware. For instance, SSDs are much faster than HDDs; some web hosts utilize caching technologies while others don’t, and so on. Here, you should also check the web host’s uptime guarantee and its performance in practice. There’s no point pursuing your analysis if the company cannot keep your site up and running. Avoid anything below 99.95% average uptime, and opt for anything closer to 100%.
- Security Features (3%): Speed, uptime, and security are the “holy trinity” in web hosting. Security vulnerabilities are all around, so finding a web hosting service that takes security seriously and performs malware scans and removals is necessary. It would be best to consider physical data center protection as well, WAF, the backup system in place, account isolation, SSL certificates, etc.
- Hosting Essentials (10%): The more features you are to get for free, the merrier. You’ll want to consider a Canadian web host that offers an all-in-one package with all needed essentials. You don’t want to be paying extra for anything and everything, right? Look out for a free domain name/transfer, professional email account, free SSL certificate, a user-friendly control panel, 1-click installs, a website builder, automated backups, sufficient storage space, and bandwidth. Also, how many websites are allowed? How many addon domains can you add to a single account?
- Ease of Use (3%): Even if you are a first-time user, the Canadian web host should enable you to get around easily; you should be able to navigate the control panel with 1-click installs and CMSs like WordPress. The cPanel is the most popular alternative, even though it’s not the only one. This user-friendly interface allows you to perform all administrative tasks without coding. It handles configuration and installs in the fastest possible way. At this point, you should also consider whether you’ll get a Website Builder included for free to develop your site, automation options, upgrades, and installs. The best web hosting services in Canada will also migrate/transfer your site for free or at least offer some assistance.
- Customer Support (10%): Experienced technicians should be online and available to assist you if anything goes wrong 24/7. You should be able to reach these agents via several channels, including live chat, email, or phone. A local phone number availability is also a huge plus because it prevents excessive charges for cross-border calls. Furthermore, it would be best to get extensive documentation, a rich knowledge base, tutorials, and videos for self-help.
- Integrations/Compatibility (4%): Does the web host support Linux and Windows operating systems? Also, what about app integration? Can you choose from hundreds of applications and CMSs, such as WordPress, Joomla, or Magento, for a 1-click install or not?
- Scalability Options (8%): What type of web hosting does the Canadian web host offer? In addition, how easy is it to scale? Ideally, you should be able to choose from shared, VPS, WordPress, dedicated, and cloud hosting. Also, the web host should allow you to upgrade your plan and resources on-demand without downtime instantly.
- Plans & Pricing (8%): Essentially, it’s not about finding the best cheap web hosting in Canada but the most cost-effective one. Different companies have different budgets, and you’ll always encounter a trade-off between price and quality. However, you should draw a clear line to what you can sacrifice. For instance, you might settle for less storage and bandwidth capacity, but you should never trade reliability and performance for a lower price. Consider introductory vs. renewal rates, freebies included, and the refund policy (acting as an additional protection layer). Also, does the web host offer pricing in Canadian dollars? It would be much easier for you if you kept all your expenses in one currency during tax season.
- User Reviews (30%): Finally, check the web host’s reputation. While everything might look good on paper, the reality might be different. We heavily rely on user reviews, and so should you. Consider past incidents, awards, and reliable forums.
What Is Web Hosting in Canada, And Who Is It For?
Web hosting refers to the service responsible for housing, serving, and maintaining your files. Your web host makes your content accessible to everyone worldwide. Naturally, web hosting in Canada refers to the same service focused on that particular market.
Local servers (in Canada or the region) ensure your Canadian customers will experience less latency and thus enjoy the fastest possible speeds when visiting your site.
Keep in mind that every additional second your website takes to load costs you. Google recommends a loading time of two seconds if you want a quick answer. However, the company itself aims at half-a-second load time, meaning the faster your site is, the better. Start from yourself; you don’t like waiting around for a page to open, or worse yet, not to load at all, right? The same thing applies to everyone. We live at a fast pace. Thus, a slow-loading website can cost you losing customers, profits, and even SEO rankings (even the engines hate slow speeds).
The best web hosting in Canada will provide a data center in a Canadian city. Another great alternative is a more powerful web server in the area (North America) that can compensate for the more significant distance and still deliver lightning-fast results.
These services are the best fit for anyone looking to build a market presence in Canada or a target audience in the same region.
A CDN, aka Content Delivery Network, will store your files on a distributed network of servers around the globe and serve those files from the location nearest your site’s visitors. In turn, it reduced latency and wait times.
The Best Web Hosting Services in Canada Of 2022 (Bought and Tested):
Personally, I find FastComet to be your smartest bet when opting for the best web hosting services in Canada. The company offers global coverage with multiple server locations and a variety of high-quality plans and packages topped with extensive efforts to keep its customers happy.
- Overall Score: 4.8
- Server Location: 4.9
- Reliability: 4.8
- Features: 4.8
- Customer Support: 4.9
- Pricing: 4.7
FastComet offers web hosting, cloud VPS hosting, dedicated CPU servers, WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, and OpenCart integrations, domains, SSL certificates, a Site Builder, DDoS protection, offsite backup, free migration, and more. Whatever your demands, this provider can deliver!
Research Findings
Server Location: FastComet has a data center in Toronto, Canada, with a capacity for over 3,000 servers that opened in June 2019. Apart from it, you can choose from ten other locations worldwide.
Reliability: All FastComet packages come with 99.9% website availability, excluding maintenance, up to 70% better performance with Free CDN, NVMe SSD, AMD EPYC CPU, and WordPress LiteSpeed Cache (LSCWP).
Features: Whichever FastComet service you choose, you’ll get the popular cPanel, website security with Imunify360, free SSL certificate, daily malware scans, WAF, DDoS protection, website, and server monitoring, daily and weekly backups, free website migration, and more.
Customer Support: You’ll benefit from top-rated 24/7/365 multi-level expert technical support to resolve your issues. With FastComet’s fully managed services, you’ll also get a setup and an optimized hosting environment adjusted to your specific website needs at no extra cost.
Pricing: FastComet’s plans start at $2.95 for a single website, 15GB SSD space, and a 45-day money-back guarantee on the shared hosting plans.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- A global network built for web hosting (servers in Toronto + 200 CDN Anycast access points)
- Feature-packed deals at affordable prices / free bundled services
- Outstanding support 24/7 via several channels (mail, ticket, chat, and call)
Cons:
- No free domain names (you get a free domain transfer only)
- Limited storage space (35GB SSD on the most expensive shared hosting plan)
Verpex is a fully managed hosting environment optimized for running your sites. I recommend it to anyone willing to take the hands-off approach and, at the same time, benefit from the scalability of the cloud. I find Verpex to deliver the most flexible plans at the cheapest possible prices.
- Overall Score: 4.9
- Server Location: 4.9
- Reliability: 4.9
- Features: 5.0
- Customer Support: 4.9
- Pricing: 4.9
With Verpex, you can expect the fastest yet more affordable shared hosting plans on the cloud. Its offers are excellent for startups, bloggers, and even established businesses and resellers. The best part about it is the astonishing ease of use, suitable for everyone, regardless of their web hosting experience and skill.
Research Findings
Server Location: Verpex will choose the best underlying network for your website in the location you choose to host in, meaning you can have your server running on various cloud providers within seconds. More precisely, you can choose from nine server locations, including Canada.
Reliability: With Verpex, you’ll get a 99.99% uptime guarantee on the higher-end plans (and a minimum of 99.5% on the cheapest offer), SSD storage, and solid website speed (8128 kb) and loading time (1.8 seconds).
Features: As a Verpex customer, you’ll enjoy marvelous cPanel-powered cloud web hosting with free domain, SSL certificates, routine daily backups, free site migrations, email features, developer tools, databases, etc.
Customer Support: Verpex professionals are available to help you reach your goals 24/7. You can reach its world-class support with 99.9% support case resolution via live chat, phone, email, and tickets, or use its Knowledgebase for self-help.
Pricing: You can save 50% as a new customer with shared hosting plans starting at $0.83 per month for one website, 1GB SSD disk space, 1GB memory, one vCPU, one email, and two daily backups, infinite databases, and domain aliases.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Multiple worldwide locations are available (including CA)
- Affordable shared hosting plans with lots of freebies and no overselling (domain, SSL, website migration)
- Robust cloud infrastructure with no latency
Cons:
- Low uptime guarantee in the cheapest shared hosting plan (99.50%)
- Prices increase on renewal (even with the standard rates, Verpex is one of the most reasonable offers on the market)
HostPapa is one of the best privately-owned Canadian web hosting companies based in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. It allows you to host your website locally and pay in Canadian dollars to facilitate your calculations. Moreover, HostPapa is an eco-friendly company. And while it offers various services, what stands out to me is its VPS hosting packages.
- Overall Score: 4.4
- Server Location: 4.9
- Reliability: 4.5
- Features: 4.4
- Customer Support: 4.5
- Pricing: 3.9
HostPapa is the best VPS hosting in Canada, offering instant VPS provisioning on blacklist-free IPs, scalable on‑demand computing resources, as well as easy-to-use cPanel and root‑level access through your VPS manager.
Research Findings
Server Location: HostPapa has 102 servers distributed worldwide, including Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto. The company is also based in Canada, with offices within the country.
Reliability: You’ll benefit from enhanced SSD servers with lightning-fast speeds, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and the freedom to upgrade your VPS whenever you need.
Features: Even the cheapest HostPapa VPS plan comes with root-level access, two IP addresses, unlimited domains, SolusVM VPS panel, free VPS migration, Let’s Encrypt SSL, Softaculous with 1-click installs for over 400 free apps, wholesale domains, and private nameservers.
Customer Support: As a HostPapa customer, you will get round-the-clock support from its PapaSquad VPS experts; 24/7 email support, live telephone, and live chat support in multiple languages.
Pricing: HostPapa’s starting price for its VPS hosting is $19.99 per month for 4CPU cores, 2GB memory, 60GB SSD storage, and 1TB transfer, along with all the essential features and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Renews at the same price (you’ll benefit from the initial discount forever)
- Limitless growth (unlimited domains and websites, on-demand scaling, eCommerce optimization)
- Many extras included (premium root access capabilities, a free domain reseller account, and powerful apps in one click)
Cons:
- Pretty limited self-managed VPS plans (no backups, expert support, migration assistance)
- Expensive entry-level plans (the cheapest, self-managed, monthly VPS plan costs $49.99/mo; you have to sign up for 36 months to get the best deal of $19.99/mo)
Are you looking for fast connectivity and unmatched availability? I have the perfect solution for you, and it’s HostArmada. The web host delivers a cloud SSD-based platform for optimal uptime and speed, high-speed connectivity, and fascinating network performance!
- Overall Score: 5.0
- Server Location: 5.0
- Reliability: 5.0
- Features: 5.0
- Customer Support: 5.0
- Pricing: 4.9
HostArmada utilizes the best-in-class hardware, state-of-the-art cloud platform, KVM virtualization, and SSD storage, thus delivering 7 Gbps+ Network Out Speed. Choose from cloud WordPress, cloud shared, reseller, VPS, dedicated CPU server hosting, and more. Either way, its managed web hosting solutions will bring success to your upcoming mission.
Research Findings
Server Location: HostArmada is perfect for websites accessed from Central Canada and USA East Coast. The company has a data center in Toronto, Ontario, among its nine data centers on four continents.
Reliability: HostArmada utilizes cutting-edge cloud technology that provides outstanding reliability and redundancy. As its customer, you’ll benefit from lightning-fast website speeds, an intuitive caching mechanism, web security you can rely on, guaranteed stability, and uptime of 99.9%.
Features: Free SSL for all websites, website migration, web server caches, cPanel control panel, daily backups, unlimited email accounts, unlimited subdomains, free drag and drop website builder, 1-click WordPress, malware scan and removal, WAF and IP firewalls are only a small portion of all you can get with the best website hosting in Canada.
Customer Support: Whatever obstacles or issues you might be facing, HostArmada’s technical support from certified experts will be available to answer live chat and phone immediately and respond to your tickets within ten minutes of submission.
Pricing: HostArmada offers frequent discounts and excellent deals, with its shared and WordPress hosting plans starting at $2.99 per month for 1 Website, 15GB SSD storage, 2 Cores CPU, and 2GB RAM backed by a 45-day money-back guarantee.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- State-of-the-art cloud platform with fast and redundant SSD storage and 99.9% uptime
- A limited number of clients per server (allowing for low server load and optimal website performance)
- Superior caching and loading speed features (Nginx/LiteSpeed servers, web server cache, HTTP protocol, Memcached, APC, OPCache, Cloudflare, etc.)
Cons:
- Pricey standard rates (fortunately, HostArmada offers frequent promotions)
I’ve been a fan of Kamatera for a while now. I’ve purchased plans from this company, and I’ve been fully content with what I got. And honestly, what’s not to love? As a customer, you’ll get to host your website on a remarkable cloud infrastructure and pay only for what you use; no upfront costs or commitment!
- Overall Score: 4.9
- Server Location: 5.0
- Reliability: 5.0
- Features: 4.9
- Customer Support: 4.9
- Pricing: 4.8
Kamatera offers cloud servers, cloud block storage, private cloud network, cloud load balancer, cloud firewall, and managed cloud. The best part about its services is the possibility for instant scaling, up to a cluster of 104-core, 512GB RAM servers.
Research Findings
Server Location: Kamatera operates 13 global data centers with thousands of servers worldwide, including Toronto, Canada.
Reliability: As a Kamatera customer, you’ll be able to scale up or down depending on your website needs and traffic, enjoy high levels of privacy and security, and 99.95% guaranteed uptime with no single point of failure.
Features: Server setup in less than 1 minute, no hardware maintenance, a low total cost of ownership (TCO), simple backup and monitoring, proprietary API, unlimited databases and storage, etc.
Customer Support: You’ll benefit from tailored customer service and support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even without the managed support addition. Better yet, even, Kamatera’s skilled and dedicated operators deliver unrivaled response time.
Pricing: Kamatera allows you to start with a 30-day free trial. After this period, you can pay hourly by the minute or monthly and only for what you use; $0.005 per hour or $4 for the whole month.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- A geolocation cloud infrastructure with 13 data centers worldwide (including CA)
- Install, reinstall and upgrade to any operating system you wish
- No setup fee, investment, servers hardware, or infrastructure management fee
Cons:
- Mainly aimed toward enterprise-level customers
- Focuses exclusively on VPS hosting (no lower-end alternatives, such as shared hosting)
You wouldn’t pay $10 for a coffee if you could get the same one in the shop across the street for $2.50, right? Well, the same applies to web hosting, meaning you should always strive to get the best value for your money. In this regard, I recommend ChemiCloud as the best cheap web hosting in Canada.
- Overall Score: 5.0
- Server Location: 4.8
- Reliability: 5.0
- Features: 5.0
- Customer Support: 5.0
- Pricing: 5.0
ChemiCloud offers various affordable hosting plans, including shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS, and reseller plans. You can start as low as $4.48 per month on a shared hosting plan and quickly grow your business on a budget!
Research Findings
Server Location: ChemiCloud utilizes 11 data centers globally, including Toronto, Canada. However, you can only get cloud VPS products in this location. Otherwise, you need to choose from three other locations within the US and combine them with the free Cloudflare CDN.
Reliability: Its cloud VPS hosting is based on LiteSpeed servers and industry-leading AMD EPYC processors that are super-fast. You’ll also benefit from 99.99% uptime commitment, dedicated resources, proactive monitoring, and immediate upgrades without downtime.
Features: Fully managed cloud VPS plans with a free cPanel license, free Let’s Encrypt SSL, free migrations, free remote backups, dedicated IP address, brute-force protection, WAF, unlimited email accounts, additional email and developer tools, and extras.
Customer Support: You’ll get struggle-free support when you need it. You can forget about wait times and solve your issues quickly with ChemiCloud’s Happiness Engineers available 24/7.
Pricing: The cheapest cloud VPS hosting plan starts at $59.96 per month for 2 CPU, 4GB RAM, 80GB SSD, and 4TB bandwidth. You can pay monthly, semiannually, annually, or biennially, backed with a 15-day refund policy which is quite a lot for a VPS.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Worldwide server locations for fast connectivity and low latency with 99.99% uptime
- Powerful add-ons (cPanel license, LiteSpeed license, CloudLinux, Immunify360, and JetBackup)
- Incredible price-to-value ratio with a money-back guarantee on all plans
Cons:
- The data center in Toronto, Canada, is limited to cloud VPS products (fortunately, you can use the cheap shared hosting plans with the CDN included for free)
ChemiCloud allows you to get your site up and running on a shared hosting plan for less than five dollars a month. Worry not; its CDN will compensate for any latency your worldwide audience might experience. More importantly, you can quickly upgrade to a cloud VPS and benefit from additional resources and capabilities. Check out its various pricing options today!
Nothing compares to the flexibility and versatility of the cloud. If you agree, I highly suggest checking Cloudways’ offer. The provider is very different from any other, enabling you to choose to host your site with one of the top five IaaS providers (DigitalOcean, Amazon AWS, Google Compute Engine, Linode, and Vultr).
- Overall Score: 4.6
- Server Location: 4.9
- Reliability: 4.7
- Features: 4.5
- Customer Support: 4.6
- Pricing: 4.5
Cloudways is a Montreal web host offering a superior managed cloud hosting platform with auto-healing servers, an intuitive control panel, unique features, unlimited apps, support for all PHP versions, optimized stack, Cloudflare CDN, 24/7 real-time monitoring, managed security, and more!
Research Findings
Server Location: Cloudways’ Infrastructure Partners offer over 65 data center locations to help you reach your target audience, including Montreal, Paris, and Toronto, Canada.
Reliability: You can expect an uptime of 99.9% (in practice, it’s close to 100%). The Cloudflare Enterprise add-on, tiered cache, advanced image, and mobile optimization further reduce latency, load time, and bandwidth costs, ensuring the fastest possible content delivery globally.
Features: Cloudways adds free SSL, free migration, unlimited application installation, team management, dedicated firewalls, 24/7 real-time monitoring, automated backups, staging environment, advanced-cache optimization, regular security patching, SSH and SFTP access, and more to the base IaaS offers.
Customer Support: You’ll also get 24/7 customer support using live chat, tickets, or through the fill-up forms where you can request a call, inquire about sales, and become a partner. In addition, you can use the Knowledgebase and Platform Status Page for self-help.
Pricing: Cloudways offers flexible and transparent pricing based on the pay-as-you-go model. You don’t have to commit to a contract. Instead, you can pay hourly or monthly, starting at $12 per month for 1GB RAM, 1 CPU, 25GB storage, and 1TB bandwidth.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Straightforward and easy-to-use managed services with 24/7 customer support
- Dozens of server locations around the world, including three in Canada
- Five different cloud hosting platforms to choose from for the best possible performance
Cons:
- No free domain or email included
- The traditional cPanel control panel is not available
- A bit more complex than standard shared hosting plans
With Cloudways, you can set up your website and go live in minutes. You’ll then enjoy fast performance, ironclad security, and seamless scalability. So, what are you waiting for? Check out the best web hosting in Canada on the cloud!
It might be weird; even though Webdock doesn’t offer standard WordPress hosting packages, I still recommend it as the best WordPress hosting in Canada. Why? It’s because of its robust data center in Montreal.
- Overall Score: 4.8
- Server Location: 4.9
- Reliability: 4.8
- Features: 4.7
- Customer Support: 4.9
- Pricing: 4.9
Furthermore, it’s pretty convenient to set up the CMS using the auto-installer (note for the more tech-savvy users: you can also set it up manually). But if you are a beginner, you can leave everything as given because the provider does an excellent job with the setup!
Research Findings
Server Location: With Webdock, you can choose from three server locations on three different continents, including one in Montreal, Canada, North America.
Reliability: Webdock utilizes Containerized VPS Servers powered by LXD. Its customers also enjoy high hardware limits, incredible speed and performance, and instant scaling without any downtime whatsoever.
Features: You can expect many free goods included with Webdock, such as its awesome control panel, free SSL certificates, free transactional emailing, free email forwarding, lots of free backups and server snapshots, root access, dedicated IPs, DDoS protection, high baseline security, etc.
Customer Support: Webdock professionals will continuously monitor your server and notify you of anomalous activity. They will help troubleshoot configuration and fix server issues. You can reach these operators 24/7. In addition, you can set up a custom SLA for full server management.
Pricing: The cheapest VPS instance in Montreal, Canada, costs a single euro per month for 3GB storage, 1 CPU Thread, 512 MiB memory, and 100 Mbit/s-Port bandwidth. The prices are fixed and will never increase on renewal.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Simple WordPress setup (auto-installer and manual setup available)
- Affordable prices with access to many tools for free (SSL, DDoS protection, backups)
- Built-in scaling for the optimal performance and robust security
Cons:
- No Windows support (Webdock works exclusively with Ubuntu, AlmaLinux, CentOS, and Debian)
- No cPanel implementations (fortunately, the Webdock control panel is also easy to navigate)
- No other web hosting solutions except for VPS instances
When it comes to WordPress, Kinsta takes things to another level. I can say it’s the best premium Canadian WordPress host for all sites that mean business, including online shops, agencies, and enterprises.
- Overall Score: 4.9
- Server Location: 5.0
- Reliability: 5.0
- Features: 4.9
- Customer Support: 4.9
- Pricing: 4.8
With Kinsta, you can see improvements of 30% to 200% in performance thanks to Google’s C2 machines with the highest-end CPUs and global availability. The company will also monitor your sites every two minutes for uptime and add many WordPress-specific features to its bundled plans.
Research Findings
Server Location: Kinsta is powered by the Google Cloud platform, offering you 34 data centers worldwide, including Montreal and Toronto, along with a free CDN spanning over 200 cities in over 100 countries.
Reliability: With Kinsta, you’ll enjoy an SLA-backed 99.9% uptime guarantee, fast and secure sites with enterprise-level Cloudflare integration, SSH access, PHP 8.0 support, HTTP/3 support, automatic database optimization, white-labeled cache plugin, performance monitoring tool, and more.
Features: You’ll also get free enterprise-level DDoS protection, automatic SSL certificates, wildcard support, a built-in APM tool, automatic daily backups, hack and malware removal, a custom Kinsta admin dashboard, multi-user environment, and staging areas as part of the offer.
Customer Support: Kinsta offers you the best in class WordPress support in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. You can reach the staff 24/7 via email, phone, or social media or use its self-help articles.
Pricing: You can begin with the cheapest managed WordPress hosting plan for one website, 25,000 visits, and 10GB of disk space for $35 per month. Kinsta offers one of the most flexible plans in the industry with no fixed-term contracts, easy scalability, and instant prorated refunds. You’ll get two months for free if you pay a year upfront.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Super-fast, reliable managed WordPress hosting, powered by Google Cloud Platform
- WordPress-optimized plans with valuable features (custom dashboard, multi-user environment, staging areas)
- Optional add-ons for any plan (Redis, Nginx reverse proxy, external backup, extra backups, disk space add-on)
Cons:
- Overage prices for when you hit your resource limits (visits overage, disk space overage, CDN overage)
- Limited to WordPress with no email hosting
- More expensive than its competitors (yet, worth the price)
I suggest GreenGeeks for all small business owners looking for the fastest, most secure, and eco-friendly Canadian web host. It’s the easiest way to support green energy and positively impact the environment, especially if that’s your company’s vision.
- Overall Score: 3.9
- Server Location: 4.2
- Reliability: 4.0
- Features: 3.9
- Customer Support: 3.9
- Pricing: 3.7
GreenGeeks is the ideal choice for any Canadian business or blog, offering shared, WordPress, WooCommerce, VPS, and reseller hosting. As a customer, you’ll benefit from its scalable infrastructure, powerful, reliable technologies and hardware, and ‘everything unlimited’ – data transfer, domains, MySQL databases, sub & parked domains, cPanel & Softaculous, and more!
Research Findings
Server Location: GreenGeeks has a few data centers in strategic locations worldwide, including Toronto and Montreal, CA.
Reliability: You can expect a stable hosting platform with Solid State RAID-10 Storage Arrays for fast page loads and maximum redundancy, the latest in speed tech (LiteSpeed, LSCache, MariaDB, HTTP/2, PHP7, and free CDN), and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Features: All GreenGeeks web hosting plans come with an unmetered transfer, free SSL certificate, free domain name for the first year, free nightly backup, free CDN, managed WordPress, unlimited databases, multi-user access, custom security rules & zero-day vulnerability fixes, account isolation, and proactive monitoring.
Customer Support: GreenGeeks’ professionals have years of experience and are available to assist you by chat, ticket, or phone 24/7.
Pricing: With GreekGeeks, you can start with a risk-free web hosting plan suitable for a single website, standard performance, and 50GB of web space, backed with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Built-in scalability to seamlessly upgrade your plan
- Hundreds of features are included to power your website (professional email, drag and drop website builder, developer extras)
- Eco-friendly solution with 300% match with renewable energy
Cons:
- Renewal rates jump up to 2-3 times
- A bit clunky backend
Ranking comparison between the Top Providers
Should You Go Global or Pick a Canadian Web Host?
Any business relies on traffic to survive. Entrepreneurs and marketers invest countless hours and thousands of dollars to increase website traffic. But unfortunately, improving the speed of their website is the last issue on their mind. Most of them, however, are unaware that a sluggish website is like a leaky pipe with a dozen cracks.
Several factors influence the performance of your website, but latency is perhaps the most critical. The question is, why does latency matter?
Now, onto the solution. The rule of thumb is that the closer the server is to the user, the quicker the site will load. When someone enters the URL of your website into their browser, their search engine must make a request to your website’s server, which takes time. This time rises as the user’s distance from your server grows. As a result, if your website is hosted in Malaysia and your users come from Canada, the latency will be quite significant.
To load a webpage, web browsers must download every single file, such as graphics, that comprise the online page. The latency increases the time it takes to upload and show a file. The size of the file and the latency between both the server and the user both affect download time. So, latency will have a more significant impact on your website as it grows in size.
You’re probably wondering, does it make perfect sense for you to host your website in the nation you live in? And while the question is straightforward, the answer is far more complex, relying on a variety of circumstances.
The key question you must ask yourself before deciding is the following: “Are most of my site visitors from the same nation”? Even better, if you have one, have a peek at your analytics dashboard.
But there’s another interesting scenario. What happens if you are a global company serving people from different parts of the world? That’s when you’ll need to consider a Content Delivery Network (CDN). And worry not; the best web hosting for small business in Canada will grant you this feature free of charge!
Benefits of Web Hosting in Canada
Here are a few factors to consider while determining whether or not to host in Canada, regardless if you are choosing your rookie host or relocating from where you are now.
- Google Search and Data Center Location – If a web host runs your website in a Canadian data center, you may be able to rank higher in Canadian search results. While there are many different perspectives on this topic, almost everyone will acknowledge the server location is one of many criteria in Google’s algorithm. If you are pursuing Canadian users, hosting with a firm offering Canadian data centers is the best-case scenario.
- The Potential of The .ca Domain – Your domain name is one of the few things you pick when creating your website or company brand for the first time on the Internet. Websites can now finish in .com, .ca, .net, and a variety of additional extensions, with .ca obviously being the ending for Canada. Educational websites may use the.edu suffix, whereas government websites often use the.gov suffix. If your company only serves Canadians, registering a .ca name makes more sense than anything else. This may be extremely beneficial for organizations that wish to market their business in the Canadian consumer sector, companies that are moving their brand into Canada, or individuals who also have a Canadian fanbase or client base.
- Price Competition – Deciding to host your site in Canada instead of another nation may result in lower website hosting prices – or at least lower charges for the very same power and information in another country. The Canadian hosting business, like others, is competitive, with hosts sometimes giving significant discounts to entice new clients. Using the best cheap web hosting in Canada, which charges in Canadian dollars, eliminates the risk of currency exchange swings.
- The Legal Advantages of Canadian Web Hosting – Canadian website hosting services may be less expensive and safer than your present provider, but there are additional legal advantages that may make it a good decision. Sites hosted in Canada are subject to Canadian data privacy legislation, which may benefit you or your business. But if you’re a Canadian company gathering client data, it is usually best to retain that data on Canadian soil. You want to be sure you’re following Canadian data security and privacy rules. You do not want your Canadian information held in another nation if it isn’t necessary. If your traffic, customers, and data are all Canadian, go with a Canadian host who retains your info in a Canadian computer system.
- Reliability - Hosting firms in Canada use the most up-to-date and contemporary hardware, as well as fail-safes, backups, and all recovery methods to provide a seamless experience. Regular backups guarantee total reliability in the case of an electricity outage, cyber attack, or any other type of mistake that may interrupt the operation of a website, server, or network infrastructure for the correct supply of a hosting service.
- Tech Support - People in Canada appreciate good phone help available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The best web hosting services in Canada often have experienced experts with the necessary skills to address all customer demands whenever the need arises.
Top Hosting Types for Canadian Businesses
The majority of the best web hosting in Canada falls into one of five categories: Virtual Private Server (VPS), shared hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated hosting, or reseller. Let’s go through each type of hosting package in-depth to help you determine which of these solutions would work best for your business needs.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is undoubtedly the most affordable choice, and with this form of hosting, you’re effectively leasing space that you share with other websites. The disadvantage of acquiring such low-cost hosting is that it is the least effective hosting choice.
Shared hosting operates because most websites receive little traffic, sharing common server resources without experiencing performance issues.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is one alternative that has grown in popularity over the years. It is similar to a VPS, but the main distinction would be that the server is dispersed over many devices rather than having a fixed physical address. For the user, this implies that loading times are extremely fast and that scaling is simple.
You may increase or add resources immediately if you want more speed or storage capacity. Ultimately, this is a fantastic alternative for commercial websites.
VPS Hosting
The best VPS hosting in Canada will be the next definite upgrade from shared hosting, and it costs a little more but has a better capability. Even though you do not have to spend for your own server, a VPS host performs similarly to one and gives you complete management.
However, this complicates the setup and administration procedure compared to a shared hosting plan. It’s generally accepted that VPS hosting is the middle ground between a shared and a dedicated hosting environment.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is the route to go if you want the finest of the best. As the name implies, you have a complete server to yourself, and its sole purpose is to keep your site running properly.
It is the most powerful choice, but it is also the most complicated to establish and administer, as well as the most expensive.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller web hosting in Canada is an offshoot rather than a distinct form of web hosting. With this solution, one party holds the server, while another offers to host as though they controlled the server.
Resellers frequently buy in bulk and obtain a large number of high-capacity servers. They then distribute pieces to particular sites. If you choose this route, you will require a lot of technical expertise.
Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing the Best Website Hosting in Canada
There are several ways to sabotage the process of selecting a decent web host, so here are the four most prevalent that I observe. Don’t hold it against yourself; this is not something taught in school. Or perhaps they teach it, but you were dozing in the back seat.
Mistake #1: Choosing A Platform Other Than WordPress
The simple line is that no matter what type of website you want to construct – eCommerce, blogging, or a newspaper website – WordPress is the most user-friendly option available and includes a built-in flourishing developer community and educators.
Before the introduction of CMS systems such as WordPress, website design was limited to those who could wrap their heads and hands around HTML code. Building and creating a substantial website was not something that could be completed in a single weekend. Now, things have changed; WordPress has indeed revolutionized the market, and you can easily grasp the benefits of this CMS.
Mistake #2: Choosing The Cheapest Host Available
You may add more items to the list of abominations when it refers to underside web hosting (some of them are genuinely free). They will aggressively upsell you. True, you obtain free storage space, but you will get little if anything until you pay more money.
Do you require extra storage or bandwidth? It’s time to modernize. Do you need backups and a control panel? You’re going to have to upgrade. Do you know what you’ve been doing and need to chat with somebody? Tech assistance is an additional expense.
You get the picture. The primary argument is that the free product you receive is nearly useless. You must pay more for function. Occasionally, a LOT more.
Mistake #3: Paying for SSL Certificates
This one is brief and to the point. If you’re considering purchasing an SSL certificate, don’t. Legitimate hosts will provide it for free. Well, at least a basic version, and you can upgrade from there. And keep in mind that you will surely need it since Google has already begun degrading search engine ranks for individuals who do not have one.
Mistake #4: Ignoring the Fine Print in Your Hosting Contract
When a novice domain name owner goes online to choose a web host for the first time, the first things they check for are the typical suspects for price comparison – bandwidth and disk storage capacity. The fact is that these limits were no longer relevant around two decades ago.
That’s a hyperbole, but you should be aware that a seismic shift in the structure of websites is taking place, and the criteria hosts use to entice unwary newcomers aren’t the ones that actually count.
Here’s the truth. As the design changes from static to dynamically produced pages continue, you’re likely to come against a trio of constraints that have nothing to do with storage capacity or bandwidth well before you reach those plan limits. I am talking about CPU use, RAM utilization, and database connections.
Many web providers, including some of the best and cheapest, impose restrictions on these parameters specified within the fine print, usually underneath the heading “resources.”
Best Web Hosting Services in Canada: Final Recommendations
If you run a company that serves consumers in Canada, it sounds reasonable to host your site on a server in or near Canada because the majority of your clients will come from the same area. Well, that’s unless you serve the global market. If that’s the case, you need to pair your web hosting with a CDN, eliminating any latency and customer dissatisfaction.
As you can see, several options are available for the best web hosting services in Canada. However, each provider is unique and provides a different package to the consumer, suggesting you should take your time and strive to discover something that perfectly meets your demands.
Whether you opt for the best website hosting in Canada for your startup or a well-established brand, eCommerce store, the best cheap email hosting in Canada, or simply something on a budget, make sure to read the fine print. Also, rely on someone with more experience for recommendations, especially if you are a newbie in web hosting.
Whether it’s us at HostAdvice or one of our qualified competitors, always check a reliable and unbiased review before you spend a fortune on web hosting services!