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In today’s digital era, if you own a business or just have something to sell, you will need a website. And to successfully run a website, you will need a good web hosting provider to ensure that it manages online traffic and that it is visible to your customers.
Apart from that, you need to make sure that it is fast, usable, and lives up to modern standards. A good web hosting platform incorporates your website with all of these factors and more.
As an aspiring web developer, it is also very useful to utilize the best hosting solutions for your clients, and even for your own web developer portfolio websites. Over the years while learning web development, and through freelancing, I have learned what to look for when it comes to hosting providers.
Below are five of the best options for web hosting solutions for 2021, based on what you might need for your specific application. I will cover features, value for your money, and the best uses that each could be used for.
Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the most popular hosting platforms available, and for good reason. Its user base is huge because of its incredible affordability, value for money, excellent performance, and user-friendliness. It is also one of the three hosting systems, which WordPress recommends to its users.
The usability of Bluehost sets it apart from all other hosting services. You can get started creating a website easily with Bluehost, regardless of your experience in web hosting. It is very user-friendly, comprehensible, and easy to navigate.
Moreover, it uses a C-panel, i.e., a web hosting control panel, which includes plenty of integration options for the users. For example, it helps you integrate your website with auto-email responders, track marketing metrics and applications that bill automatically.
By using Bluehost to manage your websites, you can incorporate any of the additional apps, plug-ins, and features that are included with your hosting plan. This helps make your website look more modern to the users and helps to make their experience on your website more enjoyable and simple.
Performance is one of the most important aspects of a good web hosting service. In terms of performance, Bluehost offers its users a loading time of 2.89 seconds, which is an incredible time in comparison to other hosting services.
Furthermore, Bluehost is also one of the best in regards to uptime. In addition, it also offers users other accessibilities that make it incredibly worth its value. Regardless of what hosting plan you pick on this platform, they all provide you with a free domain, five free email accounts, and a free SSL certificate.
One of the best things about Bluehost, and the main reason why I personally recommend this platform to everyone, is that they include a one-click installation of WordPress and other CMS features. This makes it incredibly useful for users to create a WordPress website, even when they have no experience.
Aspiring web developers can thrive when using this service since it provides you with a ready-made checklist of your website, and you can set up a new WordPress website and install a theme very quickly. When freelancing, it is very important to get the clients website up and running as fast as possible because time is money.
By equipping yourself with Bluehost, you can easily launch a WordPress website with a brand new domain within a couple of minutes. I have easily created over 50 WordPress websites for clients using Bluehost as my go-to hosting platform. If you are looking for the best value for your money, you cant go wrong with Bluehost.
Out of all the other hosting companies, Bluehost may have the best customer support. Their support team is available any time of the day, helping users with technical issues and customer support. The pricing plans of Bluehost are also one of the cheapest in the market, right now you can get started from as little as $2.99/month. So if you want to get started with Bluehost today, you can do that here: Bluehost Hosting Sign Up.
EDIT: Bluehost is having a two-day spring sale that ends after March 30th, 2021. This is a great deal on any of the shared hosting plans. You can get the 12 month Basic package($2.95/month) for a $35.40 cart value and that includes a free domain for the first year and an SSL certificate.*
Hostgator
Even if you aren’t into web development, you probably have heard of Hostgator hosting. Like Bluehost, they also offer some impressive features at a great price. HostGator comes stocked with website options such as free emails and domains. I would definitely say that they are a close second if you are looking for good hosting options on a budget.
It also offers plenty WordPress support and features, and along with themes and templates, you can choose a style for your website that suits what you need. They also offer mobile-responsive designs that help make your website mobile-friendly.
Another great benefit of using this platform is that it offers you free website migration and domain transfers. This helps you transfer any of your existing websites to the HostGator platform. Whether you want to set up a CMS or upload your website files, Hostgator will help you easily get up and running without breaking the bank.
It also offers the user one-click scalability; what this means is that you can increase the website’s capacity depending on the traffic on your website. So from the beginning of getting your business going all the way to scaling up to when your website is booming, they have everything you need to keep up with the competition.
They also offer digital marketing tools such as help with SEO and keywords, as well as promoting your business with one of the many online advertising platforms such as Google Adwords and Facebook Ads. If you would like to get started with Hostgator, you can sign up here: Hostgator Sign Up
Namecheap
Namecheap is a one-stop solution, where you can purchase domains, email hosting, web hosting, and many other tools. It allows people to start their website, brand, or business and to grow and learn at an affordable prices. Namecheap is most popular for its domains. This is because they offer the largest variety of domains in the entire world.
As the name suggests, Namecheap is also one of the cheaper hosting platforms like Bluehost. Furthermore, their easy-to-use control panel and design make them attractive to the users. They also have a very good private email hosting service, in which you get two months of free private email purchase.
Along with hosting and domains, one tool I really found useful was the Namecheap free logo maker app on their website. I actually started designing the logo for my brand using this tool. They also have other branding tools such as a site maker and a business card creator.
Namecheap also has a few different Managed WordPress hosting plans as well. Though pretty much all of these platforms offer WordPress support, Namecheap has the advantage of having very competitive prices.
You can sign up for Namecheap here: Namecheap Sign Up
Liquid Web
With Liquid Web hosting service, you get amazing web speed and uptime performance to your website; moreover, they are a very reliable hosting provider and offer a very intuitive backend system to the users.
While the last 3 platforms have been the best options for the value, Liquid Web & WP Engine are for users who need performance and don’t mind paying a little more for a high quality service.
Some users find the backend system much easier to navigate than the control panel. Another big plus of Liquid Web is that it has eight server locations in four different countries for you to manage your website. This greatly increases your website speed if you are hosting it in different countries.
Like other web hosting services, Liquid Web also provides free migration. Apart from the basic pros, this platform offers many upscale features not available with cheaper hosts.
Liquid Web is known for their quality and speed, and their VPS hosting packages. While more expensive than other platforms, when you want more security, higher load speeds, and scalability. To learn more about their VPS and Cloud hosting services, follow the link below. If you are interested in signing up for Liquid Web, you can do that here as well: Liquid Web Sign Up
WP Engine
When it comes to a hosting service for WordPress that provides excellent performance, WP Engine is the Lamborghini of hosting platforms. They have an emphatic reputation among different enterprises, developers, and marketers. Furthermore, it also offers top-of-the-line security measures for your website.
This hosting service is full of great features, incredible plug-ins and offers seamless transitions and installations. However, if you are on a budget, WP engine may not be the best hosting server for you. It is significantly more expensive than most host providers, but in this case, you definitely get what you pay for.
It has four hosting plans that serve your particular needs and requirements in terms of web creation and security. If you have a full scale business and want the best features and service, WP Engine is your top choice.
These plans include startup, growth, scale, and custom. For beginners, the startup plan is the obvious choice. It supports platforms such as a small blog or a single website. Moreover, WP Engine only supports WordPress websites.
WP Engine also is the creator of StudioPress WordPress themes, one of the biggest, and most used themes in the market. They offer Premium WordPress themes along with their top tier hosting platform.
Despite its amazing functionality, you can find some of the same features of the WP Engine on other hosting platforms at a lower price. However, if you are willing to pay extra for performance, security, and a solid web-hosting platform, then WP Engine is for you. To get started and sign up with WP Engine, sign up here: WP Engine Sign Up.
Conclusion
Now that you have a better idea of the best hosting platforms, you can make a more efficient decision in choosing between what the best option is for your business. Make sure that you pick one that fulfills your needs at the most reasonable price as possible. I hope this article helps everyone, and if it was useful to you please leave a comment and subscribe to the Level Up Dev Blog as well as the Level Up Dev YouTube channel.
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