8 Best Shared Hosting Services – Get Your Site Online Today

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In our research, the best hosting provider for shared plans is HostGator with an overall shared hosting score of 4.7 out of 5. HostGator comes with a 45-day money back guarantee for new users and unlimited storage space and bandwidth.

Our runner up is Bluehost with an overall shared hosting score of 4.5 out of 5. Bluehost offers a great array of hosting types, along with really competitive prices, and from our market analysis is one of the most trusted hosts by users online.

Shared hosting is great for small businesses and small websites that are getting themselves off the ground. Shared hosting keeps your costs low, but also limits your resources. If you’re already getting a lot of traffic, and need some high sitespeed, we recommend going for a VPS or dedicated plan instead.

Shared hosting is the cheapest way to host your website. This type of hosting sees you and other users share one server to run your separate websites. You all get a bit of that server to use, keeping costs nice and low!

The downside of shared hosting is the limit on your resources. Think of it just like living in a shared house – you each have your own room, but you’re still sharing dish soap, and toilet paper. If one of your housemates has tons of people round and uses up all those things, then there’s none left for you!

For your website, that means you’ll end up with slower site speeds – or even crashes – if another site uses up too much of your shared resources. This can happen if the other site gets a sudden surge in site traffic.

Shared hosting is best for one-page and static sites. Think blogs, or business sites which don’t need much on-site interaction (those that take bookings over the phone, for example, rather than through a webpage).

It’s not a scalable hosting choice, so it’s not right for you if you need high quality content like large image galleries, or if you need to sell online. For that, we recommend VPS hosting or dedicated instead.

Plenty of hosting providers out there offer shared plans, so let’s look at the cream of the crop:

We tested 27 hosting providers to evaluate them in terms of price, performance, features, help and support, and more so we can make the most useful recommendations to our readers.

Our rigorous testing process means these products have been scored and rated in five main categories of investigation and 30 subcategories. In total, we cover 282 areas of investigation – and we go through this process for every type of hosting the provider has to offer!

Our main testing categories for hosting providers are:

  • Price: the cost associated with the hosting services provided by a hosting provider, such as subscription plans, pricing tiers, and any additional fees or charges.
  • Performance: the speed, reliability, and overall performance of a hosting provider’s servers. It encompasses factors such as server uptime and response time.
  • Features: the specific functionalities and capabilities provided by a hosting provider, including storage space, bandwidth allocation, and server location.
  • Help and Support: the assistance and resources available to users when they encounter issues or need guidance, e.g. tutorials and email or chat support.
  • Market Analysis / Customer Score: the assessment of the hosting provider’s position and reputation in the market.

The Website Builder Expert product testing process

Website Builder Expert Product Testing Process diagram

This article will break down each of these top providers, and reveal which one best meets your shared hosting needs. You’ll find out about the pros and cons of each provider, as well as how much they cost. We’ll also introduce some other noteworthy providers, and share with you our top tips for choosing a shared hosting service.

Sharing is caring, so let’s get started!

Further Information

Best Shared Hosting Services Side-by-Side Comparison

Before we delve into the nitty gritty of our top hosting providers in the world of shared plans, there’s a handy comparison chart to get a quick look at their features.

Swipe right to see more
0 out of 0

HostGator

Bluehost

DreamHost

iPage

Hostinger

InMotion

IONOS

GreenGeeks

Starting from

$4.95

Starting from

$2.95

Starting from

$2.95

Starting from

$1.99

Starting from

$2.99

$2.49 + 3 months free (with the 48-month plan)

Starting from

$3.49

Starting from

$0.50

Starting from

$2.49

Uptime

99.99%

Uptime

99.98%

Uptime

100%

Uptime

99.94%

Uptime

99.99%

Uptime

99.98%

Uptime

99.99%

Uptime

99.98%

Money-back guarantee

45 days

Money-back guarantee

30 days

Money-back guarantee

97 days

Money-back guarantee

30 days

Money-back guarantee

30 days

Money-back guarantee

90 days

Money-back guarantee

30 days

Money-back guarantee

30 days

Free backups
Free backups
Free backups
Free backups
Free backups
Free backups
Free backups
Free backups
Free domain
Free domain
Free domain
Free domain
Free domain
Free domain
Free domain
Free domain
Storage space

Unmetered

Storage space

10GB – Unlimited

Storage space

50GB – Unlimited

Storage space

Unlimited

Storage space

30GB – 200GB

Storage space

75GB – Unlimited

Storage space

25GB – Unlimited

Storage space

50GB – Unlimited

Bandwidth

Unmetered

Bandwidth

Unmetered

Bandwidth

Unmetered

Bandwidth

Unmetered

Bandwidth

100GB – Unmetered

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Bandwidth

Unmetered

RAM

700MB – 128GB

RAM

2GB – 16GB

RAM

1GB – 16GB

RAM

1GB – 8GB

RAM

768MB – 16GB

RAM

4GB – 64GB

RAM

512MB – 12GB

RAM

2GB – 8GB

Visit HostGator Visit Bluehost Visit DreamHost Visit iPage Visit Hostinger Visit InMotion Visit IONOS View GreenGeeks

In the table above, you can see the key features of each provider side by side. All prices shown are promotional offers for new users. Hosting companies almost always offer these deals for new customers, and they’re prices worth making the most of!

Prices will renew at a higher rate once the promotional period is over. Promotional periods usually last between one and three years, but it varies massively between providers, so it’s always worth checking.

Disk space is the amount of data storage you have for your website on the shared server. This makes it an extremely important feature, as you need enough disk space to hold all of your website’s content (such as images, files, and web pages).

Uptime is the amount of time a server is “up” and running. This shows how often your site will be up and accessible online, rather than down because of an unreliable server. 100% uptime is incredibly rare. HostGator’s 99.90% is pretty impressive, putting it in the middle of all the providers we’ve tested.

Amount of sites refers, unsurprisingly, to the number of websites you can host on your shared hosting plan! Most providers offer one or two sites on their lowest plans, but if you need more than that, then you’ll need to upgrade to unlock unlimited sites.

Monthly number of visitors shows you how many visitors your site will be able to handle as part of your shared hosting plan. Different shared plans have different limits, and if your traffic exceeds this amount, then your site will slow down – or even crash.

By the end of this article you’ll know which hosting provider is best for you, based on our in-depth expert research.

Further Information

#1 HostGator

Best Overall Shared Hosting Provider

Editor's Choice

HostGator

Best Overall Shared Hosting Provider

Excellent

4.7

out of 5
  • Best help and support
  • 99.90% uptime
  • Weekly automated backups

Paid Plans: $3.95 - $159.99 / month

Pros

  • icon yes svg Unlimited domains
  • icon yes svg Highest performance score
  • icon yes svg 45 day money-back guarantee

Cons

  • icon no svg High renewal rates
  • icon no svg Poor server response time
Read Review

HostGator is a big name in the hosting world, and for good reason! It’s the best all-round shared hosting provider on the market, and this high quality service shows in its shared hosting plans. HostGator has an overall shared score of 4.7 out of 5, soaring above the competition. It also scores the best help and support rating of 4.8 out of 5 for its shared plans, due to its great knowledge base, community center, and 24/7 phone and live chat service.

All three of HostGator’s shared hosting plans provide you with top of the range features, including easy one-click installation, unmetered bandwidth, and a free SSL certificate. Add the decent uptime score of 99.9%, and this shared provider is looking like a solid choice!

HostGator’s Hatchling plan is the cheapest at $3.95 per month (paid annually), giving you basic tools and a free domain for the first year, and unlimited subdomains. The Baby plan is the next level up, costing $5.00 per month, and unlocks unlimited parked domains. The most advanced plan is the Business plan at $7.25 per month – this gives you more technical features, such as a free dedicated IP, CDN, and free search engine optimization (SEO) tools.

All HostGator plans also come with a 45 day money-back guarantee, so you can try it and see if it is the provider for you.

Three HostGator plans showing prices and features
HostGator offers the very best shared hosting. Its focus on ease and affordability makes it an attractive choice!

Further Information

#2 Bluehost

Most Trusted By Online Users

People's Choice

Bluehost

Most Trusted By Online Users

Excellent

4.5

out of 5
  • Best market score
  • 99.98% uptime
  • Good prices

Paid Plans: $1.99 - $119.99 / month

Pros

  • icon yes svg Free SSL
  • icon yes svg Unmetered bandwidth
  • icon yes svg 30 day money-back guarantee

Cons

  • icon no svg No backups
  • icon no svg On the more expensive side
Read Review

Bluehost offers a lot of handy features such as domain privacy, but it could offer better value for money compared to its competitors. Still, it’s right up there in terms of its popularity, with the highest 4.9 out of 5 score for the shared market analysis category – making Bluehost most trusted by online users. It is also snapping at HostGator’s heels with a respectable 99.98% uptime score.

Where Bluehost falls is its lack of extras. The cheapest plan doesn’t include regular backups, you need to pay an extra $149.99 for migrations, and it doesn’t have a help and support community center.

The Basic plan is at a great price of $2.95 per month, you will still get all the shared hosting features to support a basic site, including one domain, 10GB SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, and SSL security.

At $4.95 per month, the Plus plan is only $2 more, but it massively increases your limits. You get 20GB storage, as well as unlimited parked and sub domains, $200 in marketing offers, and a spam expert.

Bluehost recommends its Choice Plus plan. This costs $5.45 per month for a years payment,  and you get daily automatic backups, 40GB of storage, with the added bonus of domain privacy.

The Pro plan costs $13.95 per month, and is the perfect choice if your site needs a boost. It gives you more power than the three other plans, as it comes with advanced features, including a high performance server.

Bluehost is also the number one recommended hosting provider by WordPress, so if you’ve got a small WordPress site, this could be the shared hosting service for you.

Four pricing plans offered by Bluehost
Bluehost has four shared hosting plans which come with a range of built-in features and optional extras.

Further Information

#3 DreamHost

Best for Cheap Shared Plans

Best Value For Money

DreamHost

Cheapest Shared Plans

Excellent

4.5

out of 5
  • Best for a budget
  • 100% uptime
  • Good for WordPress

Paid Plans: $2.95 - $379 / month

Pros

  • icon yes svg Free SSL
  • icon yes svg Unmetered bandwidth
  • icon yes svg 97 day money-back guarantee!

Cons

  • icon no svg Not as scalable
  • icon no svg No phone support
Read Review

DreamHost offers a solid range of shared hosting features, including a huge 100% uptime, and is one of the hosting providers recommended by WordPress.

It’s not the strongest in terms of help and support, but with a 97-day money back guarantee and very affordable prices, you can’t argue with DreamHost’s value for money. Gaining a top score for it’s shared price, of 4.4 out of 5 – DreamHost is ideal for websites on a budget.

Compared to Bluehost, both start at $2.95 per month (for a year) but DreamHost’s renewal price is $6.99, which is fantastic compared to Bluehost’s $7.99 renewal rate.

DreamHost’s Shared Starter plan costs $2.95 per month. It gives you one website, a free domain, unlimited traffic, 50GB of storage, a free SSL certificate, and a whopping 100% uptime guarantee. WordPress also comes pre-installed, saving you time and effort.

The Shared Unlimited plan is an upgrade costing $2.95 per month. Yes, you read that right, the unlimited plan is also $2.95 per month for the year! This comes with everything from the Starter plan, and unlocks unlimited storage, unlimited websites, and unlimited emails tailored to your domain. The renewal rate does come in at $12.99 per month once the year is finished though.

The features you get for these prices mean that DreamHost wins the appealing title of ‘provider with best value for money’.

Features and prices for DreamHost's Shared Starter and Shared Unlimited annual hosting plans
DreamHost's two plans offer great value for money!

#4 iPage

Best for Small Websites

iPage

Best for Small Websites On a Budget

Very Good

4.3

out of 5
  • Simple provider
  • 99.9% uptime
  • Good help and support

Paid Plans: $2.99 / month

Pros

  • icon yes svg Good performance
  • icon yes svg Unmetered bandwidth & storage
  • icon yes svg 30 day money-back guarantee!

Cons

  • icon no svg Not as scalable
  • icon no svg No VPS or dedicated plans
  • icon no svg No email support
Read Review

If you’re not a fan of lots of options, iPage offers just one shared plan – its Go Plan – that covers a lot of great bases. It’s good value, too, scoring 4.2 out of 5 in our price testing. For $2.99 per month (when paid yearly), you get 99.9% uptime, unlimited storage and bandwidth, a free SSL, and a free domain for the first year.

You’ll also get amazing customer service – iPage has a great score of 3.8 out of 5 for its shared hosting help and support. It also came in joint third place out of twelve providers for its performance!

Where iPage falls a bit short was for features, iPage doesn’t have VPS or dedicated plans, meaning if you decide you’d like to scale up your website to handle more traffic – you’ll need a different provider. But if you’re running a small website and want something quick and simple, iPage may be for you.

iPage's sign up page for its $1.99 Go Plan with a pink signup button
With only one plan at $2.99 per month for 12 months, it takes the work out of deciding what plan to go for!

Further Information

#5 Hostinger

Best for Backups

Hostinger

Best for Backups

Very Good

4

out of 5
  • Good for backups
  • 99.99% uptime
  • Lacks help and support

Paid Plans: $2.99 - $109.99 / month

Pros

  • icon yes svg Good data center locations
  • icon yes svg Free SSL
  • icon yes svg 30 day money-back guarantee!

Cons

  • icon no svg No phone support
  • icon no svg Low performance score
  • icon no svg No 24/7 help and support
Read Review

Hostinger’s main appeal is its automated backups. You get an automated weekly backup on Hostinger’s cheapest shared hosting plan. Automated backups mean it’s not on you to save versions of your site if something goes wrong, whereas Bluehost’s cheapest plan doesn’t provide backups.

You can pick up the cheapest shared hosting plan for $7.99/month (as a renewal rate). Hostinger also has a really nice spread of data centers across the world, which gives the best chance of global audiences getting good load speeds.

What you get on Hostinger’s cheapest plan is a free SSL, weekly automated backups, 100GB SSD storage, and unlimited bandwidth. It also comes with a free migration, and excellent uptime of 99.99%.

Although Hostinger’s shared plans are a textbook example of ‘you get what you pay for’. Its features aren’t as generous – there are lower caps on storage, for example – and help and support is pretty sparse, with no phone support on offer. Hostinger also has the lowest performance of any provider on this list, which means your site is likely to be out of action for more time than with an alternative.

All in all, a good option if you’re after a low-budget option for a small site, but not one we’d recommend for businesses or high traffic sites.

Further Information

#6 InMotion

Best for Robust Security

InMotion

Best for Robust Security

Very Good

3.9

out of 5
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • 99.98% uptime
  • Expensive renewal rates

Paid Plans: $3.49 - $539.99 / month

Pros

  • icon yes svg Free expert migration
  • icon yes svg Free SSL and malware protection
  • icon yes svg Good features

Cons

  • icon no svg Only cPanel
  • icon no svg No money-back guarantee on cheapest plan
  • icon no svg Poor site speed
Read Review

InMotion scores 3.9 out of 5 overall for shared hosting. It offers some incredibly good security features including an SSL certificate and hack, malware, and DDoS protection. The cheapest shared plan also offers free expert migration with no downtime, 99.98% uptime, 100GB of storage, and unlimited bandwidth. This makes it ideal for photography websites – having come top of the competition in our photography website category.

InMotion offers three shared hosting plans: Core (exclusively for WBE users), Launch, Power, and Pro. All four plans provide marketing tools, a free security suite, and free SSL security. Despite this, it scores poorly for value for money, with a low 2.4 out of 5 rating – making it the lowest value option on this list!

Core plan is the cheapest but most basic at $3.29 per month, when paid yearly. The $6.99 per month Power plan is InMotion’s top seller, giving you six websites and double the performance. The Pro plan is the most advanced at $14.99 per month, providing unlimited websites, pro level support, and performance which is four times better than the Launch plan.

InMotion's four annual pricing plans
InMotion offers four shared plans, and also one month to three years which changes the prices too.

Further Information

#7 IONOS

Best for Sitespeed

IONOS

Best for Sitespeed

Good

3.8

out of 5
  • Fantastic features
  • 99.99% uptime
  • Good for larger websites

Paid Plans: $0.5 - $35 / month

Pros

  • icon yes svg Expert plan optimized for high traffic
  • icon yes svg Best sitespeed
  • icon yes svg Good features

Cons

  • icon no svg Quoted migrations
  • icon no svg No live chat support
Read Review

Are you looking for fast site speeds, quick loading, and high uptime? IONOS has it all, and really great features as well – getting a whopping shared plan feature score of 4.6 out of 5.

IONOS has three shared hosting plans: Essential, Business, and Expert. The Essential plan starts at $4 per month (yearly), and then renews at $6 per month. On that plan you get one website, just 10GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL, and free domain for a year.

IONOS recommend its Business plan that starts at an amazing $1 per month (12 month plan), but be aware that it does renew at a pricier $10 per month after your first year. But it does offer unlimited storage, and unlimited websites.

Then the Expert plan starts at $8.00 per month, which is optimized for website performance, allowing for up to 500 visitors per minute. Plus it comes with extra security features like malware protection, a CDN (content delivery network), and some extra analytics tools. Overall IONOS scores 4 out of 5 for value, so you get decent bang for your buck along with its cheap discounts.

1&1 IONOS' three shared price plans: Essential plan, Business plan, and Expert plan
Choose from three options with Ionos, but remember to check the renewal prices!

Further Information

#8 GreenGeeks

Most Eco-Friendly Hosting Provider

GreenGeeks

Most Eco-Friendly Hosting Provider

Good

3.7

out of 5
  • Green hosting
  • 99.9% uptime
  • More expensive

Paid Plans: $2.95 - $109.95 / month

Pros

  • icon yes svg Offsetting carbon footprint by 300%
  • icon yes svg Free nightly backups
  • icon yes svg Unlimited bandwidth

Cons

  • icon no svg No community center support
  • icon no svg Bottom 3 for price in most categories
Read Review

The hosting industry is a surprisingly polluting one, and GreenGeeks is on a mission to put that right – one site at a time. By buying Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), GreenGeeks offsets its carbon footprint by 300% through investing in eco-friendly energy sources. It also offers entirely free site migration, without caveats.

GreenGeeks also has the highest shared plan feature score of 4.8 out of 5, offering free nightly backups, 24/7 network monitoring, a free SSL, and a free domain for the first year.

All in all, GreenGeeks is a good, reliable hosting provider, with features that match those of the providers higher in this ranking. There are, however, a few things that hold it back from taking the top spots.

First up, it’s a little pricey. Strip back the discounts, and you’re left with a price range of $10.95 – $25.95/month, meaning a more significant start price than the majority of providers on this list. The other major ‘con’ is only getting one free backup per month – others will cost you $25 a time, which isn’t ideal for any website with regularly-changing content.

GreenGeeks' three plans: Lite plan, Pro plan, and Premium plan

Further Information

Shared Hosting Pricing Comparison

In the graph below you can compare the lowest prices of the very best shared hosting providers. Although DreamHost, Bluehost and GreenGeeks have the cheapest starting prices, HostGator combines impressive performance with fairly good prices making it the best shared hosting provider.

Comparison chart for the cheapest shared prices
Although HostGator is second to last for highest price, it offers the best overall shared plans.

How Do You Choose a Shared Hosting Service?

If none of the hosting services in our list immediately jumped out at you, you might be wondering just how you’re meant to choose. It’s easy to be befuddled by all the free features being waved in front of your nose.

Your choice will totally depend on your specific needs, but here are our three top things to look for in a shared hosting provider:

  • Uptime – it’s come up a lot so far, and for good reason! You want a hosting service with a high uptime percentage. Your website won’t flourish if the server is down all the time. You don’t paint a masterpiece, lock it in a dark room, and wonder why nobody is buying it!
  • Value for money – how much are you paying, and how much will you be getting for your money? Shop around and compare different providers – start by looking at Bluehost – as it’s got the best overall hosting score of 4.8 out of 5!
  • Disk space and bandwidth – disk space is how much data you can store on your web server, while bandwidth is how much data can be transferred between your server and your website. How much you need of these will depend on how large your website is (you’ll need more disk space for lots of content), and how much traffic your site gets (you’ll need more bandwidth to cope with more traffic).

Uptime, value for money, and disk space and bandwidth are important, no matter the purpose of your site or your technical ability.

Help and support is always worth looking into as well, but is more subjective – make sure there are help options in place which you’re happy and confident using if things ever did go wrong.

For those of you with a WordPress website, make sure you look at the provider’s WordPress integration. Bluehost and DreamHost are the best shared hosting services for WordPress users.

If you’re finding the amount of free add-ons confusing, narrow it down to the most important factors for you. Three major ones to look out for are free domains, free backups, and money back guarantees.

More Information

Best Shared Hosting Services: Summary

This article has dived into the eight best shared hosting services on the market. We’ve covered the hosting basics, and outlined our shared hosting winner, HostGator – thanks to its incredible help and support and reasonable prices. We hope we’ve helped you explore the pros, cons, and prices of each shared hosting provider, and passed on our top tips on how to choose the best one for you.

Remember to look out for the essentials – uptime, value for money, and disk space and bandwidth – as well as the features tailored to your specific needs, such as support options or a free domain.

Your shared plan is ready, and your virtual housemates are waiting – so sign up and get hosting today!


Website Builder Expert aims to provide you with honest data. That’s why we conduct our own research and obtain direct, personal insight.
Written by:
Lucy Carney is a Content Manager at Website Builder Expert, specializing in website building, ecommerce, and digital marketing. Previously working as a Writer and then Senior Writer on the brand, Lucy has 6 years of hands-on experience testing web building platforms including Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify. Lucy is passionate about using her knowledge to help small business owners build their online presence and achieve their goals. She’s reported on industry trends over the years, attended events such as the eCommerce Expo, and advised readers directly with over 400 comment replies on the site to date. Her work has also featured on other online publications such as the Shopify Partners Blog, Usability Geek, Serpstat, and Open Source, and has over 100 articles published on the Website Builder Expert blog.
Researched by:
natasha_willett
I love to understand human behavior and the cognitive biases that drive us to do what we do. For over nine years I have worked as a mixed method researcher – research using a mix of numerical data and personal experiences – across a range of sectors, from insurance and policy development to finally arriving at Website Builder Expert five years ago. Fascinated by consumer decision-making, I meticulously built our leading ranking methodology to explore where providers like Wix sit within a competitive industry and what value they truly bring to our audience.
As a member of the Market Research Society, I’m an advocate for high ethical, commercial, and methodological best practices. All of this combines to give you the most ethical recommendations based on real data.

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