The definition of “best” depends on your unique situation.
There are tons of great sites with lots of good information, I am going to present you with three recommendations so that you do not get caught in the analysis-by-paralysis situation.
Intro
Assuming that you are looking to publish a blog to start making money online, you must first understand few industry jargons:
- Shared Hosting
- WordPress Hosting
- Managed WordPress Hosting
- VPS
- Cloud Hosting
Shared Hosting
Usually costing around $5-7 per month, this is the most basic form of hosting. Most people who are just starting out choose this option because it is cheap. Not the best option as your website traffic grows (roughly around 5,000 visitors per month) because your account “shares” server resources with hundreds of other similar accounts on the same physical server. That means if there are resource-intensive websites on the same server, your website will most likely suffer slow downs.
Don’t fall for “cloud” share hosting as that means absolutely nothing. Shared hosting is exactly what it says: SHARED RESOURCES.
WordPress Hosting
WordPress hosting is just a re-badged form of shared hosting.
The only difference is that, unlike shared hosting where you can install other CMS applications (i.e. Joomla or Drupal), WordPress hosting comes with WordPress pre-installed for newbies. It has identical performance characteristics as the shared hosting.
Managed WordPress Hosting
Costs around $30-$40 per month, a Managed WordPress Hosting takes one step further (than WordPress Hosting) by providing all updates and maintenance to WordPress core files, WordPress theme, and plugins.
Performance tends to be better than WordPress Hosting because each WordPress sites are in their own silo/container. You are most likely restricted to themes and plugins that are evaluated by the provider.
VPS
Virtual Private Server (VPS) comes in managed and unmanaged versions. Managed VPS runs around $60-80 and Un-managed VPS runs around $20-30 per month.
The benefit of a VPS is that it has dedicated resources for your specific account so you are not impacted by other accounts that may be in your “neighborhood”.
The cost is highly variable, depending on the actual server configuration like the number of CPU cores, memory, and storage space.
Both unmanaged and managed VPS require highly technical skills so I do not recommend this option to any beginners.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud Hosting also comes with managed and unmanaged versions like VPS hosting.
Unlike VPS, where your account is located on a specific server in a data center, a cloud hosting account is provisioned using multiple servers across multiple data centers.
Unmanaged cloud hosting infrastructure provider are Digital Ocean, VULTR, Amazon AWS, Linode, and Google.
Managed cloud hosting companies overlay their user interfaces over these infrastructure providers. Two most well-known managed cloud hosting companies are Rocket.net and Cloudways.
Cost can range anywhere from $30-$100 per month, depending on server configuration.
Which hosting option is best for you
Don’t over think it. As a newbie, you should be focusing on your content foremost.
Moving a WordPress account from one hosting provider to another is not as difficult as it used to be (and some even provide a free service to move your files).
Website traffic is below 3k visitors per month
Choose a simple shared hosting or WordPress hosting service.
- NameHero- PLUS CLOUD, $5.18, direct link, not affiliated
Website traffic is between 3k-15k visitors per month
Once your website traffic exceeds 3,000 visitors per month, you want to use a more robust provider for a faster website.
- NameHero – TURBO CLOUD, $9.98 (1 year contract), direct link, not affiliated
Website traffic between 15k-40k per month
With this kind of website traffic, you can sign up for an ad-network like Ezoic (10k per month) or Mediavine (50k per month) to generate a “passive income”.
- Cloudways – VULTR High Frequency, $26 per month, 2GB Ram, 1 CPU core, 64GB storage, 2TB bandwidth (direct link, not affiliated)
Website traffic above 40k per month
If you are using an ad-network that is not Ezoic, use:
- Rocket.net – PRO, $60, 20GB Storage, 1M visitors (direct link, not affiliated)
- You can install up to three WordPress sites under this plan but for maximum performance
Other Plans
- Grid Pane – enterprise use; their cheapest plan is $500 (direct link)
- RunCloud – DOES NOT INCLUDE hosting; it provides server management and dashboard, PRO, $12.50 per month, (direct link)
- NameHero – shared hosting;
- ChemiCloud – shared hosting; $6.89 for 12 months, WordPress Turbo
- MechaniWeb – Semi Dedicated Prime, $17.33 for 12 months, (direct link)
- Scala Hosting – ENTRY WP CLOUD, $19.95 for 12 months, guaranteed CPU & RAM, 50GB storage, unlimited websites (direct link)
- A2 Hosting – shared hosting; TURBO for $6.99 for 12 months;
RunCloud.io
RunCloud is unique in that it offers server management tools for cloud infrastructure providers like VULTR, Digital Ocean, etc.
That means you will have to pay two separate chages:
- RunCloud – approximately $6 for one site
- Cloud Infrastructure – VULTR high frequency computing; approximately $15 for 1 vCPU, 2GB memory, adn 50GB Storage
So that comes out to $21 vs a similar offering from Cloudways for $24. For that amount of cost difference, I would choose Cloudways.
Final Thoughts
When choosing a hosting company, there are lots of gotchas that you don’t see until you actually use them.
Pay a special attention to review sites that are recommending large hosting companies as they may be compensated to do so.
Lastly, please note that if you use EZOIC ad network, you should not use Rocket.net as they are incompatible.