Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the most popular type of hosting, used by a huge number of websites. It's cheap, easy to setup, and start a website. You can install WordPress on it, or any other software you need, and you're done.

So what is the best option at the moment?

DreamHost has a huge sale right now, on its best, Shared Unlimited plan. One year of hosting with a free domain name for $35.40.

1. DreamHost

DreamHost

DreamHost is one of the largest, independently owned web hosting companies. Founded around 25 years ago, it now hosts over 1.5 million websites. It supports monthly payments and it has the best prices on its two shared hosting plans.

Shared Starter: supports hosting of one website, Unlimited traffic, Fast SSD Storage and Free SSL Certificate for $4.95 per month.

Shared Unlimited: adds Hosting of Unlimited Websites (with Free SSL certificates), Unlimited SSD Storage and Unlimited Email addresses, for $8.95 per month. There's a huge sale right now (end of April 2021) on an annual plan, $35.40 for a 12 month plan.

All yearly plans include a free domain name.

2. A2 hosting

A2 hosting

A2 Hosting is an independently owned company, started in 2001 in Ann Arbor, Michigan (A2 stands for Ann Arbor). It's one of the fastest shared hosting providers, with data centers around the world.

It offers four shared hosting plans, all of which include very fast SSD storage, Free SSL, PHP 7, SSH access, and a choice of global servers where you can host your website. All of the A2 Hosting plans include:

STARTUP plan supports 1 website, 100 GB Disk Space and Unlimited Data Transfer for $10.99 per month.

DRIVE plan adds the ability to host Unlimited Websites on the same plan and Unlimited Disk Space for $12.99 per month.

There are two additional, even larger shared hosting plans, but the first two provide the best value for the price.

The prices above are for monthly payments. There are additional discounts available if you choose to pay yearly.

3. Namecheap

Namecheap

Namecheap is one of the largest domain name registrars, also started offering hosting in 2007. It has three shared hosting plans. All of them include:

Stellar: you can host up to 3 domain names (websites), it includes 20 GB SSD Disk Space, 30 Email Accounts and 50 MySQL Databases for $33.88/year. There's a 46% discount for the 1st year, so you can get it for $18.44/year.

Stellar Plus: adds Hosting of Unlimited Websites, Unmetered SSD, Unlimited Email Accounts and AutoBackup for $57.88/year. There's a 55% discount for the 1st year, so you can get it for $26.16/year.

Stellar Business: adds Cloud Storage (Evenly-distributed server loads, Data Replication and Zero Interruptions) for $104.88/year. There's a 45% discount for the 1st year, so you can get it for $57.88/year.

Domain names are not included for free with web hosting. There are some bundles, but for example, discounted .COM domains are available with Stellar Plus and Stellar Business plans only. If you want to use it with the cheapest Stellar plan, it's best to purchase a domain name separately, and connect it later with web hosting.

All of the Namecheap's hosting plans include the Softaculous Apps Marketplace. This includes over 100 free Apps like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, Zen Cart, Cube Cart, SMF, photo gallery and other software.

SSL certificates from Namecheap are free for the first year and get automatically installed and are secured for up to 50 websites. The SSL renewal rate is 50% off the second year ($4.44) and renews at a standard rate ($8.88) on the third year.

If you want to use free Let's Encrypt certificates instead, you can use SSL For Free to generate the LetsEncrypt certificates and then install them using cPanel. The downside is that you have to renew each one manually every three months.

What is shared hosting?

Shared hosting is a type of hosting where a single physical server hosts multiple websites. They all share the same server resources, like processor and RAM. The cheap price and ease of use are the main reasons for why it's the most popular. It's best for small to medium websites, like personal sites, blogs, portfolios and small business sites. It also usually includes free email hosting, and a free domain name on annual plans.