WordPress beginners typically don’t have much web traffic at first, so they often focus on other features. However, as their websites become popular, they will experience a spike in web traffic. This spike can be permanent, especially when a brand remains popular, or temporary during sales seasons and other special events.
Our web host experts have conducted extensive research and testing to determine the top ten high-traffic WordPress hosting providers. We sorted these hosting providers based on critical factors such as hosting performance, features, ease of use, customer support, and pricing. We also included additional parameters to highlight some unique characteristics of each provider.
Key Points to Consider When Choosing/Key Takeaways
When selecting a high-quality, high-traffic WordPress hosting provider, you should look for five qualities. These are:
- Reliability: You must ensure that your website will be fully operational. The best hosting providers offer between 99.95% to 99.99% uptime guarantee.
- Security: Choose a WordPress hosting provider with robust security features to secure your website.
- Technical customer support: You need to make sure that your chosen web host offers helpful, friendly, and accurate technical customer support.
- Cost-effectiveness: Don’t be swayed by low fees and huge discounts. Compare the price and features of a WordPress hosting package and choose the one that offers more value for your money.
- Ease of use: Even if you are a developer, you will experience better performance with a user-friendly WordPress host provider.
The Best High Traffic Hosting WordPress Services of 2023 (Bought and Tested)
- Overall score: 5
- Features: 5
- Support: 5
- User Friendly: 5
- Pricing: 5
- Reliability: 5
Overall score – 5: HostArmada allows you to seamlessly host high-traffic websites without performance lag. They also offer robust website security, optimized SSD cloud storage, and an enhanced WordPress hosting experience.
Features – 5: You get a lot of great features from HostArmada. The key features include one-click WordPress installation, free WP install and transfer, daily backups, LiteSpeed web server, CDN, free domain transfer, caching, and free domain registration for the first year.
Support – 5: HostArmada’s technical support team is available round the clock. You can contact them via phone, email, and live chat. You can also troubleshoot your hosting issues using the WordPress tutorials from HostArmada.
User Friendly – 5: Everything you need for a smooth WordPress hosting experience is in the client dashboard and control panel. You also have optimized WordPress features such as a Softaculous 1-click installer to make hosting as easy as possible.
Pricing – 5: HostArmada’s WordPress hosting plans are affordable. You can choose a monthly, yearly, biannually, or triennial contract. They also offer a 45-day money-back guarantee. Beginners can start with their cheapest hosting plan for less than $3/mo (three-year contract). The package features 15 GB SSD storage, 2 Cores CPU, 2 GB RAM, and supports only one website.
Reliability – 5: HostArmada guarantees an uptime of 99.99%. You also get top-tier performance thanks to their SSD cloud hosting and low client-server ratio. They also offer server locations in the United Kingdom, the U.S., Canada, Australia, Germany, India, and Singapore.
Additional parameter – All round excellent WordPress hosting: HostArmada is our overall best high-traffic WordPress hosting provider for many reasons. First, they offer sufficient resources to handle permanent or temporary web traffic spikes. Secondly, thanks to their combination of LiteSpeed cache, Memcached cache, cloud SSD platform, and Brotli compression, they can deliver blazingly fast website speeds and data transfer. They also offer top-tier website security with AI machine learning. These excellent features come at a low price, and you get excellent customer support on each plan.
HostArmada is famous for its excellent SSD cloud-based WordPress hosting plans that offer free resources such as SSL certificates, cPanel, web server caches, daily backups, and website migrations.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- A low number of clients per server
- Free SSL for all domains and subdomains
- Cloud SSD technology for 99% uptime
- Round-the-clock, helpful customer support
- Managed WordPress hosting at a low price
- Data centers across nine different locations for better speeds
Cons:
- High renewal rates
- Some features are only available on higher-priced plans.
- Overall score: 4.9
- Features: 5
- Support: 5
- User Friendly: 5
- Pricing: 4.5
- Reliability: 5
Overall score – 4.9: Each FastComet customer has PHP 8.1 to run their WordPress website and other impressive features like automatic WordPress installation, cPanel, and Softaculous. They also offer an easy-to-navigate dashboard and super helpful customer service.
Features – 5: There is an impressive lineup of hosting features. These features include 1-click WordPress installation, rocket booster, Let’s Encrypt, client control area, cPanel/WHM, web application firewall, multiple server locations, Cloudflare CDN caching, free daily backups, and malware scans and reports.
Support – 5: You can get live chat support when you need it. You can also contact customer support via email, phone, and ticketing system. Alternatively, you can peruse the over 3,000 tutorial pages to find helpful guides to resolve your hosting issues.
User Friendly – 5: FastComet offers an easily accessible cPanel area and supports 29 different languages. They also simplify WordPress hosting activities into one-click processes.
Pricing – 4.5: We recommend FastComet to anyone on a limited budget who doesn’t want to sacrifice speed and security for affordable pricing. FastComet cheap WP hosting starts at $1.99/mo and features 15 GB SSD Space, 2 CPU Cores, and 2 GB RAM.
Reliability – 5: FastComet offers an impressive uptime guarantee of 99.9%. They also provide excellent website speed and performance through their integrated WP solutions, RocketBooster and Cloudflare CDN. Their SSD-only cloud servers will ensure that your site maintains top performance during traffic spikes.
Additional parameter – Enhanced speed and security: Besides their low starting prices and tons of WP hosting features, FastComet offers fantastic website speed and security. Their managed hosting plan is optimized to ensure your website performs at elite levels. You also get up-to-date PHP 8.1 for your website and multiple data locations.
FastComet is famous for its fully optioned SSD-only storage for WordPress hosting, robust security features, and fast website speeds.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Incredible loading speeds and website performance
- Free daily backups, website migrations, and domain transfer
- Solid server uptime guarantee
- 45-day money-back guarantee
- Multiple data center locations worldwide
- Managed WordPress hosting with easy-to-use cPanel
Cons:
- Higher renewal fees
- Some features are limited to higher-priced plans
- Overall score: 4.8
- Features: 5
- Support: 5
- User Friendly: 5
- Pricing: 4.5
- Reliability: 4.5
Overall score – 4.8: UltaHost makes it to our list for many reasons. It deploys super fast servers, provides scalability options, and offers competitively priced plans. However, its star feature for this roundup is its customer support.
Features – 5: You get a lot of excellent features from UltaHost. These features include SSD-only servers, free domain transfer, free SSL certificate, free daily backups, malware scan, RocketBooster, Cloudflare CDN, and other security solutions.
Support – 5: Enjoy one of the best customer support in the hosting industry from UltaHost. You can access super responsive and helpful human support via phone, email, and ticketing systems. If you want to DIY, you can get assistance from the knowledge base and FAQ section.
User Friendly – 5: UltaHost offers a super friendly dashboard and cPanel. You can find everything in the client area, including billing, domains, support, and website security. You can access the website in multiple languages, including English, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, Georgian, Indonesian, Arabic, and Hindi. Ultahost is perfect for both beginners and experienced pros of different languages.
Pricing – 4.5: You can choose to pay for your WordPress hosting monthly or annually. All the plans are affordable, with great features like unlimited bandwidth, free daily backups, free SSL certificate(s), and free 30-day money-back. The most budget-friendly plan costs $2.90/mo and hosts one website. Its features include ~10,000 visits monthly, 30 GB NVMe SSD storage, cPanel, free WordPress manager, one email account, WordPress acceleration, WP-CLI, and two databases.
Reliability – 4.5: Get the best website performance and blazing website speed with Ultahost’s state-of-the-art data center facility. You can choose from any five servers in Canada, the U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands to deliver maximum speed to your web visitors. This web host offers a 100% uptime guarantee.
Additional parameter – Responsive customer support team: Ultahost has one of the best customer support teams in the hosting business. You can reach the team for a prompt response via phone, ticketing, and email. All of these are available from the top menu. You can even access support when you are not logged in.
Ultahost is famous for its fast hosting speed, excellent customer support, and affordable hosting solutions.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Excellent reliability and uptime
- Advanced security solutions
- Free cPanel, domain, daily backups, website migration
- Transparent and affordable pricing
- Excellent customer support
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons:
- Lacks a transparent uptime guarantee (advertises 99%, 99.9%, and 100% on different pages)
- No free domain transfers on the monthly plans
- Overall score: 4.7
- Features: 5
- Support: 5
- User Friendly:4.5
- Pricing: 4.5
- Reliability: 4.5
Overall score – 4.7: Cloudways takes high-traffic WordPress hosting to another level with their fully optimized and expert-managed WP hosting solutions. Their customer base includes hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses, individuals, and agencies worldwide.
Features – 5: With Cloudways, you get fully optimized servers for WordPress hosting. The managed WordPress hosting plans include one-click operations, website monitoring, cloning, and backup and restore. You also get scaling options to help you seamlessly handle moments of high traffic.
Support – 5: Customer support is top-notch. You get 24/7 expert help, a knowledge base, and an active community forum where you can ask questions and interact. You can also get a Premium support add-on for your enterprise.
User Friendly – 4.5: Cloudways offers one-click operations for every task, from setting up your hosting environment to backing up your website files.
Pricing – 4.5: Cloudways offers super flexible and affordable plans. You can host multiple WordPress sites and increase or reduce your hosting resources. If you are a newbie with a small website, you should know their cheapest plan costs $10/mo and features 1 GB Ram, one core processor, 25 GB storage, and 1 TB bandwidth.
Reliability – 4.5: Your website will perform excellently round the clock thanks to SSD servers, updated PHP versions, built-in cache, Cloudways CDN, breeze plugin, and other top-tier hosting tools. You will also benefit from the optimized stack, dedicated firewalls, SSLs, login, and database security, IP whitelisting, and more!
Additional parameter – Top-tier managed WordPress hosting: Cloudways offers the best managed WordPress hosting solution. Their expert team handles all server-related issues, leaving you to focus on your business with peace of mind. However, if you are looking for developer tools, you have a collection of Apache, NGINX, PHP-FPM, and the option between MySQL and MariaDB databases.
Cloudways is famous for its expertly managed WordPress hosting stipulation and optimized stack for developers.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- High-performance servers with vertical scaling
- SSD hosting, built-in cache, and free CDN
- Your choice of 5 popular cloud providers
- Optimized stack with Apache, PHP-FPM, and MariaDB
- Support for the latest PHP versions
- Over 60 worldwide data center locations
Cons:
- Many features come as paid add-ons
- No access to Plesk or cPanel
- Overall score: 4.6
- Features: 5
- Support: 4.5
- User Friendly: 4.5
- Pricing: 4.5
- Reliability: 4.5
Overall score – 4.6: Inmotion Hosting is our top recommendation for businesses looking to balance pricing with hosting features. You get the best WordPress hosting offerings, such as free themes, premium plugins, unlimited features, and award-winning support without breaking the bank.
Features – 5: This web host offers a full array of features that include unlimited NVMe SSD storage, updated versions of PHP, free CDN, unlimited bandwidth, automatic backups, hack and malware protection, security suite, and marketing tools.
Support – 4.5: You can contact a helpful WordPress hosting support agent via live chat and phone through the support center.
User Friendly – 4.5: All Inmotion Hosting customers enjoy a simple-to-use dashboard to manage their websites. You also get help from technical engineers to manage your WordPress hosting and your websites.
Pricing – 4.5: Inmotion Hosting isn’t cheap, but with its wide array of features, it offers more value than other providers on the market. For instance, the most inexpensive package costs $3.99/mo (renews at $11.49/mo). It features support for two websites, 100 GB NVMe SSD, a security suite, unlimited bandwidth, free lifetime SSL, ten email addresses, and marketing tools. They also offer a 90-day money-back guarantee.
Reliability – 4.5: Inmotion’s 100% uptime guarantee assures you of excellent round-the-clock performance. You also get Max Speed Zone fast website speeds, real-time reports on network and server status, and a choice between the West Coast and East Coast data center location.
Additional parameter – Best for businesses: Businesses would love Inmotion Hosting as it allows them to save costs while enjoying top-tier features. All the plans come with unique features, premium plugins and themes, advanced caching, and $150 advertising credits.
Inmotion is famous for offering the best value in WordPress hosting with updated plans and award-winning customer support
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- 90-day money-back guarantee
- Pre-installed WordPress
- Live chat for instant queries and solutions
- Free Premium Website Builder
- Unlimited data, SSD storage, and bandwidth
- Free website migration with zero downtime
Cons:
- No Service Level Agreement
- Not the cheapest WordPress hosting provider
- Overall score: 4.5
- Features: 4.5
- Support: 4.5
- User Friendly: 4.5
- Pricing: 4.5
- Reliability: 4.5
Overall score – 4.5: IONOS allows you to host high-traffic WordPress websites by giving you total freedom. You can adjust the resources allocated to your website or switch to a new plan entirely without disrupting website performance.
Features – 4.5: This web host offers a free domain and SSL certification along with excellent offerings such as jetpack backup, auto-updates, SSH access, WP-CLI, and DDoS and malware protection.
Support – 4.5: Customer support at IONOS is available 24/7 via phone and email. They can help you diagnose and resolve any WordPress hosting issue.
User Friendly – 4.5: With IONOS’s fully managed WordPress hosting solutions, you don’t need any technical skills. Simply subscribe to your plan and let their hosting experts do all the hard work. If you want to make some modifications, you can do so with their user-friendly cPanel with WordPress features.
Pricing – 4.5: IONOS offers scalable WordPress hosting packages starting at $0.50. The starter plan costs $3/mo and features a free domain, 25 GB SSD storage, 2 MariaDB databases, and auto-update.
Reliability – 4.5: Your website on IONOS will load fast, thanks to the provider’s high-speed server. They also offer an excellent 99.97% uptime guarantee, SSH access for safe remote operation, and a caching plugin for faster loading.
Additional parameter – Scalability: One great advantage that IONOS has over other WordPress providers is its scalability. This provider allows you to downgrade or upgrade your plans with ease. This flexibility is great for businesses that experience seasonal spikes in web traffic.
IONOS is famous for its cheap WordPress hosting, packed quality resources, and scalability services.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Unlimited traffic and fast website speed
- Unlimited secure file transfer protocol
- Supports multiple website hosting
- All-in-one WordPress packages at low prices
- Multiple data center locations
- Money-back guarantee
Cons:
- Backup is a paid add-on
- No live chat on the landing page
- Overall score: 4.4
- Features: 4.5
- Support: 4.5
- User Friendly: 4.5
- Pricing: 4
- Reliability: 4.5
Overall score – 4.4: A2 Hosting offers excellent features such as super-fast loading speeds and fantastic server performance. Although their services aren’t cheap, they deliver a great enough performance to be worth their price tag.
Features – 4.5: Some of the excellent features from A2 Hosting include managed WordPress update and patching, A2 optimized plugin, LiteSpeed web server, on and offsite premium backup, SEO tools, search engine indexing management, WP-CLI, website stats, and optimized WordPress hosting with pre-configured performance and security boosts.
Support – 4.5: All A2 Hosting customers enjoy round-the-clock in-house expert support called Guru Crew Support. The Guru Crew will also perform Cloudfront Integration and website migration for free.
User Friendly – 4.5: A2 Hosting offers managed hosting solutions. Anyone can host their WordPress website and expect superb performance without knowing the technical details of WordPress hosting. The experts at A2 Hosting will secure and manage the hosting environment to protect your website.
Pricing – 4: The price tag of A2 Managed WordPress turbo plans is not exactly cheap, but with their super fast server performance, we believe the price is worth it. The most budget-friendly package for hosting one website starts at $11.99 and features 50 GB SSD storage and a free SSL certificate. You save more when you subscribe for an extended contract.
Reliability – 4.5: This WordPress host promises 20x server speed and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. During our testing, we were impressed by the blazing speeds. If you want a fast-loading WordPress website without having to worry about performance, then this is the web host for you.
Additional parameter – Ease of setup: For a provider that offers 20x server speed, you would expect to perform a series of configurations. A2 Hosting eliminates the need for that with their auto setup feature. The plans come with preinstalled WordPress, complete with the best settings for fast speed and solid website security. The support team will help you migrate your website for free if you switch providers.
A2 hosting is famous for its turbo servers, fully managed WordPress hosting service and a super helpful customer support team.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Spam protection and Hackscan protection
- Unlimited SSD storage and bandwidth quota
- Reliable 99.99% uptime guarantee
- Free Cloudflare CDN and A2-optimized caching
- 20x page loading speeds
- Anytime money-back policy
Cons:
- No drag-and-drop website builder
- High pricing and renewal rates
- Overall score: 4.3
- Features: 4.5
- Support: 4
- User Friendly: 4
- Pricing: 4.5
- Reliability: 4.5
Overall score – 4.3: If you want to customize your server to your configuration, you should get your hosting solution from Kamatera. Kamatera provides easy-to-configure WordPress VPS hosting solutions, an enterprise-grade infrastructure, and flexible pricing.
Features – 4.5: Kamatera offers many enterprise-grade services, such as customizable cloud solutions, a user-configured hosting environment, proactive firewall management, and load balancers.
Support – 4: You can access online human support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, via live chat and phone.
User Friendly – 4: You can easily configure your server environment when you sign up for a plan. If you want more resources, Kamatera allows you to upgrade your package based on your needs.
Pricing – 4.5: Kamatera allows you to pay hourly or monthly. You also get 30 days to use the hosting solution for free. The most budget-friendly VPS hosting configuration comes with one CPU, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB storage, 5,000 GB bandwidth, and 1 Public IP, costing only $4/mo. You can cancel anytime if you are not satisfied.
Reliability – 4.5: With Kamatera’s top-tier hosting infrastructure, you can expect round-the-clock excellent server performance. They offer consistent 99.95% guaranteed uptime and data center locations in North America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Additional parameter – Server configuration: The configuration feature makes Kamatera great for high-traffic sites. You can configure your hosting environment to have the exact CPU, RAM, storage, and bandwidth you need for your website. Alternatively, you can take advantage of their pay-as-you-go cloud hosting solution.
Kamatera has the best options for server-level customization for WordPress websites.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Allows users to scale resources on servers
- Full cloud-based infrastructure
- Flexible plans and customization
- High-end WordPress hosting
- 13 data centers worldwide
- Pay-as-you-go solution
Cons:
- Slightly pricier hosting plans
- Slight learning curve
- Overall score: 4.2
- Features: 4
- Support: 4
- User Friendly: 4.5
- Pricing: 4.5
- Reliability: 4
Overall score – 4.2: Bluehost is one of the WordPress recommended hosts due to its excellent WordPress hosting solution. Very few providers can compete with Bluehost regarding optimized WordPress hosting.
Features – 4: Some of the features from Bluehost include a vast themes library, a beginner-friendly dashboard, powerful plugins, automated backups, optional SSL certificates, and a free domain name for the first year.
Support – 4: You get round-the-clock support from Bluehost customer service. You can reach them any day of the week for assistance on any WordPress-related issue based on your website’s design or functionality. If you require more support and are willing to pay extra, they have paid support add-ons.
User Friendly – 4.5: All WordPress hosting plans from Bluehost come with preinstalled WordPress. They also carry out automatic updates so you can have a stress-free WordPress hosting experience.
Pricing – 4.5: Bluehost offers multiple payment options. You can choose to pay annually or every three years. The plans start at $2.95 per month for a single website and feature 10 GB SSD storage, which is ideal for blogs and small websites.
Reliability – 4: With Bluehost’s WordPress hosting, your web visitors will experience fast website speed and performance. All the WordPress hosting packages from Bluehost include free CDN for no latency.
Additional parameter – Feature-packed WordPress hosting: Bluehost WordPress hosting packages have many features designed to meet your hosting needs. With decades of hosting experience, Bluehost has fine-tuned its hosting solution to meet the needs of beginners and developers. Little wonder it is one of the providers that WordPress.org recommends.
Bluehost is famous for its WordPress hosting solution for beginners and official recommendation from WordPress.org
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Official WordPress recommendation
- Affordable pricing
- Unlimited customization options
- Open-source leader for almost two decades
- Super friendly and knowledgeable customer support
- Easy step-by-step setup
Cons:
- No uptime guarantee
- No monthly billing (you have to commit for at least a year)
- Overall score: 4.2
- Features: 4
- Support: 4
- User Friendly: 4
- Pricing: 5
- Reliability: 4
Overall score – 4.2: If you are an individual or enterprise with a low budget for WordPress hosting, then Verpex has the best WordPress hosting packages for your needs. With Verpex, you don’t have to sacrifice quality for low prices.
Features – 4: Despite its low fees, Verpex still offers features that rival some of the most expensive providers. These features include a free domain, daily backups, free SSL certificates, WP-CLI, developer tools, and advanced security solutions.
Support – 4: Verpex’s customer support team can help you resolve any WordPress hosting issues in your hosting environment and on your website. They will also help you migrate your website, troubleshoot, tackle tricky PHP issues, and answer all your WordPress questions.
User Friendly – 4: Verpex makes WordPress hosting simple and stress-free. You can use the in-house website builder to create stunning, mobile-responsive WordPress websites in a few minutes. They also offer an instant setup, so you don’t have to sweat when installing your WordPress CMS.
Pricing – 5: Pricing is Verpex’s start feature. With only $0.50/mo, you will get hosting for one website that includes 10 GB Bandwidth, 1 GB SSD disk Space, free SSL certificates, and a 45-day money-back guarantee.
Reliability – 4: Verpex utilizes perfectly configured servers around the globe to keep your site up and running, with few or no downtimes or bugs. Their comprehensive WordPress-optimized hosting solutions operate on LiteSpeed web servers to ensure blazing fast speeds.
Additional parameter – Affordability: Verpex offers the most affordable WordPress hosting plans for all websites, including blogs and business websites. They also offer instant scaling to allow you to meet your web traffic needs. Add that to their numerous freebies, and you get the best WordPress hosting provider for those on a low budget.
Verpex is better known for its affordable prices, scalability features, super fast servers, and numerous freebies.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Very affordable pricing
- 24/7/365 expert WordPress hosting support
- 99.99% uptime guarantee
- Free domain transfer/registration
- Free SSL certification
- Free cPanel
Cons:
- High renewal plans
- 99.50% uptime on the basic WordPress hosting plan
Best High Traffic WordPress Hosting Services: Final Recommendations
The best high-traffic WordPress hosting service is any one that allows you to seamlessly manage your website during traffic spikes. These spikes can happen temporarily during sales seasons or permanently due to your website’s growth and popularity. The right provider in this regard will help you save your hosting resources to meet rising web traffic.
The top WordPress provider for high-traffic websites is HostArmada. We choose HostArmada because it performs well in all areas. However, as you can tell from the article, other equally good WordPress hosting providers are available for high-traffic websites. So, if you are looking for a certain quality, you can go through the list to see what works best for you.
Using them is the best way to know the right provider for your website. You can narrow our list to the best two or three web hosts and try them out. All the providers listed here either offer free trials or money-back guarantees. So as long as you exit before the end of the trial period, you won’t lose any money while testing them.
Ranking comparison between the Top Providers
How Do We Rank, And How Should You Choose Your High-Traffic WordPress Hosting?
At HostAdvice, we apply a rigorous review and testing procedure to make the best recommendation to our readers. Some critical factors in our selection criteria for this rundown of high-traffic WordPress hosting providers are performance and reliability, customer support, and affordability.
If you believe your website will experience high traffic now or in the future, you need a reliable WordPress provider to keep your website stable during those moments. Most WordPress providers claim they can handle high-traffic websites, so choosing one can be challenging.
Our hosting experts ignored the hype and marketing campaigns and did deep research. The result is this lineup of the top 10 high-traffic WordPress hosting providers, their features, performance rating, and other qualities that make them stand out.
Here is a quick look at some factors we considered when making this list.
- Scalability: The most crucial factor for hosting high-traffic websites is scalability. We checked to ensure that the providers allow you to get more hosting resources either temporarily or for long-term usage.
- Hosting resources: Although it is possible to scale, most providers require you to start with a predefined amount of hosting resources. These resources include storage space, bandwidth, CPU, and RAM. We examined the basic plans most beginners should use to see if they offer sufficient resources for hosting at least one WordPress website.
- Customer support: We focus primarily on providers whose customer support team is knowledgeable on WordPress-related hosting issues. We also offer extra points to web hosts that provide 24/7 live chat with a hosting expert. Other available channels include ticketing, email, and phone support.
- Ease of use: Even if you are a techie user, WordPress hosting is more accessible when the client dashboard is straightforward to use. We love it when a provider tailors their dashboard for all users regardless of their level of technical knowledge. We also appreciate one-click installs and upgrades as they make web hosting stress-free and faster.
- Hosting features: To stay competitive, many web hosts offer free features on most plans. Features include free domain transfer and registration, free cPanel, SSL certificate, DDoS protection, and malware scan. Some providers advertise unlimited offerings like unlimited storage. However, you should know that all features have limits. You should read the fine print or contact customer support for extra information.
- Performance and reliability: Your WordPress hosting provider should be able to offer a guarantee of 99.95% uptime and above. It would also be great if they offered a data center location close to your target audience. Other factors like SSD drives, fast-loading servers, and CDN can dramatically improve your website speed and performance.
- Money-back guarantee: What happens if you are unhappy with the hosting solution? Do you get a refund? Most quality providers offer money-back guarantees ranging from 7 days to as many as 97 days. The longer the duration, the better, but don’t wait until the period expires before asking for a refund. Carry out your test, check the features that apply to you, and decide whether you want to stay or leave.
- Pricing: We understand that cost might be an issue for some, but we recommend that you screen providers based on their features and performance before considering the cost. With this method, you won’t be sacrificing quality for low prices. You should also know that the starting price only applies to your first payment regardless of whether you subscribe to a monthly or yearly contract. When that payment ends, you may have to pay higher renewal fees.
- Other factors: We consider other factors like user reviews, brand reputation, awards, establishment date, and recent upgrades to give us a picture of a provider’s expected performance in the long term.
What Is High Traffic WordPress Hosting, And Who Is It For?
High-traffic WordPress hosting is any WordPress hosting solution optimized for handling high traffic. The key features of this type of WP hosting and scalability potential and server performance. The last thing you want to happen when your website experiences web traffic spikes is a breakdown in performance.
Whether you are just starting a website or switching providers, if you experience traffic spikes now or in the future, you need a provider that can handle that. Of course, you should also look for other features like cost-effectiveness and customer support. However, if the provider doesn’t allow you to scale your hosting to accommodate increased web visitors, you should give it a hard pass.
Generally speaking, everyone would benefit from high-traffic WP hosting since growth is a natural event. As your brand grows, you expect your website traffic to increase. However, certain websites need high-traffic WP solutions from day one. These types of websites include:
- Ecommerce stores
- High-traffic blogging sites
- Websites dedicated to fundraisers
- Growing business ideas
- Online startups
How to Choose the Best High Traffic WordPress Hosting Provider
There are thousands of WP web hosts claiming to offer the best hosting solutions. We have helped you narrow the list to the top ten, but ultimately, you can only use one hosting provider.
Choosing the best high-traffic WordPress host requires some time and effort. Careful consideration will save you time and money in the long run. The two fundamental factors to consider are your hosting needs and budget.
Other factors include hardware components, performance, and user reviews. To help you make the right decision, we have provided a brief explanation of each element to look out for:
- Hardware Components: You need enough resources (RAM, CPU, storage space, and bandwidth) for your website to work optimally. The quality of hosting resources you need depends on the nature of your website.
- Performance: WordPress hosting plans generally offer impressive performance. To get more out of this solution, choose a WordPress provider with at least a 99.95% uptime guarantee, SSD storage, and quick loading times.
- User-friendliness: We recommend that you choose a fully managed WordPress plan. The experts will address all the technical aspects, leaving you to focus on growing your business.
- Extra features: The extra features you need depend on your case. If you are switching websites, free migration might be necessary. Free domain registration can be a deal breaker if you are just starting. Other features to consider are LiteSpeed web servers, global CDN, and real-time malware scanning and patching.
- Pricing: When you’ve found providers that satisfy all the above criteria, you should select the best one for your budget. When picking a provider, you should consider the starting and renewal prices, and the cost of any paid add-ons you require.
Managed vs. Unmanaged WordPress Hosting: Which One Should You Choose?
We believe that choosing between managed or unmanaged WordPress hosting is a matter of flexibility, time, and technical expertise.
We recommend managed WordPress hosting as it makes web hosting faster and hassle-free. However, we realize that there are people who will get more value out of an unmanaged WordPress hosting plan.
Here is a brief explainer of both types of WordPress hosting and which would be best for your needs.
- Managed WordPress Hosting: Managed WordPress hosting removes the stress of managing your WordPress site. The hosting provider is responsible for all technical events and site management, including security, backups, website uptime, updates, and scalability. Most managed WP hosting plans offer pre-installed WordPress and updates, WP engine speed tests, premium DNS, smart monitoring tools, DDoS protection, and premium security features. Additionally, you get constant updates and consistent performance. The only drawback is that managed WordPress hosting can cost as much as five times the price of unmanaged WordPress hosting.
- Unmanaged WordPress Hosting: Unmanaged WordPress hosting requires you to handle all the technical and site maintenance. It is the most popular type of WordPress hosting plan and also the cheapest. Since you are responsible for your hosting, you must maintain and optimize your WordPress website on your own. You also have to harden your website defense to fend off threats. These tasks might seem complicated, but they are easy to learn and implement if you have time to understand them. Furthermore, you will have total control of your hosting environment. For experienced users, this translates into optimized loading times, reliable backups, and a customized hosting environment.
Which Should You Go For?
If you don’t have the time to manage your WordPress website, sign up for a managed WordPress hosting plan. The cost might seem high, but it is not too much for your peace of mind. On the other hand, if you want more control and are willing to get busy with website maintenance, then an unmanaged hosting plan is for you. We strongly recommend that you don’t decide solely based on price. Unmanaged hosting can cost you more in the long run, so focus on what works best for you.