20 Excellent Web Hosting Providers: Be Smart And Choose The Right One
Searching for right hosting provider is always been a terrible headache for a web designers and developers like us. Also it’s a one of the most difficult decisions which one can made with his limited earnings. There are many things which needs to be taken cared of before making your final decisions about any hosts includes it’s reliability, technical support, customer service & billing, server & network speed, price & value for Money, and finally reputation around.
To make this search quick and easy, we made some research over the web and ended up with this list of some of the best quality web hosting providers which can help you save your time searching them online.
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to provide their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. An online website pays a web host a monthly fee for use of their server, and then uses that server to put up as many web pages as they need to promote their business.
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Excellent Web Hosting Providers
We also want to mention one horrible situation when you really going to rethink about your hosting provider. We call it Digg’s Effect. If your article appeared on the front page of big networking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon then you must’ve good idea about what we want to throw here. Most of the hosting provider unable to handle this effect properly and ended up dead or become unresponsive for several hours which can make a bad impression on your visitors.
After worked in the web business world for several years, We also had to switched from many hosts and now we had our precious stay at The Planet for quite a while.
Lets have a look at this list of best hosting providers around to give you good idea about your best available options.
01. The Planet
The Planet is the worldwide leader in IT Hosting. From dedicated servers to enterprise class managed hosting, The Planet gives you the power to choose the right combination of dedicated server technology and managed hosting services enabling you to successfully grow your businesses. It’s a Texas based hosting provider company which claims to be a number 1 dedicated server hosting provider in the world. Today they host more than 22,000 small- and medium-size businesses worldwide and more than 15.7 million Web sites with more than 48,500 servers under management.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated Server: Starting from $100
- Managed Dedicated Servers: Starting from $324
- Managed Hosting: Need To Request a Quote
- Colocation (datacenter space): Need To Request a Quote
Customer Support Rating: 5/5
02. Softlayer
SoftLayer was born in June 2005, after spending months brainstorming ideas and architectures, and looking to address all the challenges in the current hosted solutions available. SoftLayer allows each customer to customize IT solutions and keep complete control over those systems while retaining the flexibility of a month-to-month commitment. As they begin their quest to create the ultimate hosting service, the SoftLayer promise is to always focus on the customer and to deliver the best service possible.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated Server: Starting from $139
- CloudLayer™ Computing: Starting from $99
- CloudLayer™ Storage: Starting from $10
- CloudLayer™ CDN (Content Delivery Network): Starting from $45
Customer Support Rating: 4/5
03. Rackspace
Rackspace Managed Hosting was founded on the principle that Rackspace would be a different kind of company to do business with — focusing on the customer, not just technology. Clients have achieved significant business results because they realized the benefits of doing business with a specialist. They share similar stories of frustration with hosting providers failing to deliver the highly specialized services needed to manage their mission-critical hosting environments. The Rackspace Partner Program helps you focus on what you do best, growing your business.
Hosting Options
- Managed Hosting: Starting from $369
- Cloud Hosting (Mosso): Need To Request a Quote
Customer Support Rating: 5/5
04. Amazon
Since early 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has provided companies of all sizes with an infrastructure web services platform in the cloud. With AWS you can requisition compute power, storage, and other services–gaining access to a suite of elastic IT infrastructure services as your business demands them. With AWS you have the flexibility to choose whichever development platform or programming model makes the most sense for the problems you’re trying to solve. You pay only for what you use, with no up-front expenses or long-term commitments, making AWS the most cost-effective way to deliver your application to your customers and clients.
Hosting Options
- Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud): Starting from $0.10 per hour
- Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service): Starting from $$0.150 per GB
- Amazon CloudFront: Starting from $0.170 per GB
Customer Support Rating: 5/5
05. MediaTemple
Media Temple, Inc. is an industry-leading, privately held, profitable web hosting and software application services company based in Los Angeles, California. Since 1998, their company has provided businesses worldwide with reliable, professional-class network environments to host websites, email, business applications, and other rich media content.
Hosting Options
- (gs) Grid-Service: Starting from $20
- (dv) Dedicated-Virtualo: Starting from $50
- (dpv) Nitroo: Starting from $750
- (cx) Complex-Hosting: Need To Request a Quote
Customer Support Rating: 2/5
06. LiquidWeb
Formed in August of 1997, Liquid Web Inc. has distinguished itself as a leader in the web hosting market with an unwavering dedication to providing the best hosting products available. Liquid Web Inc. operates with some simple concepts in mind. First and foremost, take care of the customer. LiquidWeb hosts more than fifteen thousand clients in more than eighty countries. LiquidWeb owns its own datacenter in Lansing, Michigan. They provide VPS, Dedicated, Eterprise, E-Commerce, and UNIX hosting solutions. This review covers LiquidWeb’s VPS hosting plans.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated Servers: Starting from $149
- Expert Web Hosting: Starting from $14.95
- Virtual Private Servers: Starting from $100
Customer Support Rating: 3/5
07. Hypernia
Hypernia mainly offers you several choices of full dedicated gaming servers, each with plenty of bandwidth and 24/7 access. With their powerful servers you’ll be able to run any game you own including your favorite voice communications software! All servers come with Hypernia’s patent-pending technology powering the Free Ranked Servers program. You can run as many ranked or unranked games as you like and Hypernia supports any game that will run in a Windows environment.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated servers: Starting from $150
- Shared Web Hosting: Starting from $4.99
Customer Support Rating: 4/5
08. Inetu
INetU Managed Hosting provides managed dedicated servers, load balancing and database clustering for mission-critical Web sites on the FreeBSD, Redhat Linux and Windows platforms.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated Servers: Need To Request a Quote
- Managed Exchange Hosting: Need To Request a Quote
Customer Support Rating: 3/5
09. Peer1
PEER 1 offers co-located and dedicated servers to over 10,000 customers worldwide. Started in 1999, PEER 1 has situated in 12 cities across the United States and Canada. PEER 1 has created two series of scalable dedicated hosting plans, depending on whether you prefer Intel or AMD processors, each of which comes with top of the line hardware and more than ample storage and bandwidth capacities. On top of that, PEER 1 offers a selection of numerous highly useful add-ons and VIP level managed services to help make your online presence as successful as it is effortless.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated Hosting: Starting from $75
- Managed Hosting: Starting from $189
- Co-location Hosting: Need To Request a Quote
Customer Support Rating: 3/5
10. Aplus
Aplus Hosting is an extremely well established web hosting company. Set up in 1992 they now operate as hosts for half a million domains from over 200,000 webmasters. They also have 4,000 dedicated server customers and have designed 3,000 websites in the past three years. As far as established web hosting and design companies go, you would be hard pressed to find one that has been around longer than Aplus.net. However, being established for a long period of time doesn’t necessarily mean they have everything to offer their customers or that they provide the customer service that webmasters demand.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated Servers: Starting from $45
- Managed Hosting: Starting from $29.95
- Low Cost Web Hosting: Starting from $4.46
Customer Support Rating: 2/5
11. iWeb
Founded in October 1996 in Boisbriand, on the North Shore of Montreal under the name “Formation et Technologies Formatek ” and established in Montreal since 1998, iWeb™ Technologies Group (ITG) is one of the leading web hosts not only in Canada but also worldwide.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated Servers: Starting from $69
- Managed Hosting: Starting from $25
- Server Colocation: Starting from $69
Customer Support Rating: 3/5
12. ServerIntellect
Server Intellect was founded in 2003 and assists businesses and individuals world-wide to achieve their internet technology goals. As a provider of enterprise shared server hosting, virtual private servers and dedicated servers coupled with world class customer service, Server Intellect is now a world recognized leader in the global web hosting market.
Today, Server Intellect, a privately owned, profitable enterprise, serves thousands of customers world-wide and have achieved their goal to become a professional, world renowned company offering a great service at a reasonable price.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated Server: Starting from $219
- Virtual Dedicated Server: Starting from $149
- Virtual Server: Starting from $99
- Shared Hosting: Starting from $14.95
Customer Support Rating: 4/5
13. OVH
OVH combines a multitude of advantages in terms of hosting: whether you are looking for a professional solution or a quick, effective and easy way to build your project on the Internet. Already more than 350,000 users have been trusting them for 9 years (more than 1,500,000 domain names), helping to grow their reputation throughout Europe: today OVH is the first web hosting company in France.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated Server: Starting from £59.99
- Virtual Private Servers: Starting from £4.63
Customer Support Rating: 2/5
14. UKfast
UKFast was established in 1999 and is UK’s Best Hosting Provider for 2005 and 2006. Being awarded the best hosting provider 2006 at the ISPA’s for the second year running, UKFast.Net is hailed as the “runaway winner in the business hosting category.”
Today, UKFast operates four data centres, one in London and three in Manchester, providing web hosting, reseller programs, dedicated servers, collocation, domain name registration and high speed broadband to SME’s and PLC’s throughout the world.
Hosting Options
- Dedicated Server: Need To Request a Quote
- Managed Hosting: Need To Request a Quote
Customer Support Rating: 5/5
15. Firehost
FireHost is a Secure Web Hosting company that provides premium managed hosting solutions with enterprise level security to companies of all sizes. A privately held company based in Plano, Texas, FireHost has been delivering unmatched levels of website security, network redundancy, and bandwidth performance to clients around the world since 2002.
Hosting Options
- Secure Dedicated Server: Starting from $700
- Secure Virtual Private Server: Starting from $200
- Secure Shared Hosting: Starting from $100
Customer Support Rating: 5/5
Some More Quality Hosting Providers
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Thats quite a listing of hosts. Is it also safe to assume people who resell off of the planet are safe to use?
Nice list but I wonder why “Servint.com” company is not listed in the top 20 hosting companies?
They are very famous and seem pretty reliable to me for VPS hosting. Instead of aplus.net I would place servint.com
I would highly disagree with Aplus hosting. One of the businesses I worked for had a hell of a time with them, before they merged their host company Cedant to Aplus and even after. They’re tech support answer is always “Its not our fault, you fix it” even if its a server related issue. Plus, the DO NOT pro-rate so if you pay for a year, you better use that year cause you WILL NOT get a refund for it.
I personally prefer a hosting company that did not make this list. Its called Hostdime. I’ve been using them for my own business for the past three or so years. Only once has it taken longer than 5 mins for tech support to fix an issue and that was b/c of a failed hard drive that was still fixed immediately. Think they should be added to the list. They carry shared, reseller, vps, and dedicated hosting. They also have colocation hosting if you own your own server(s). Tech support is also US based and a very knowledgeable group of people. Another thing is they are all very nice people!
For cheap and simple, there is very few that can rival BlueHost.com. Full SimpleScripts and CPanel integration.
Thanks for the great list and the reviews. Excellent to hear about these companies. I had no idea! Personally I have had excellent experience with Enom as well as Discount ASP.net. Both have been good to me and all the clients I have referred them to.
@Brian, that’s going to depend on the host. ThePlanet is fantastic, but someone who’s reselling their services might have awful response times or just awful support.
I was surprised not to see Pair (http://pair.com) on the list. Although they’re not always the cheapest option, their service is unparalleled.
I’ve been using Surpass (same company as HostDime) for about a year now, and have been nothing but impressed so far.
Hostican has been excellent in my experience. I am more satisfied with their semi-dedicated setup than any company I’ve ever used. They have great prices on semi and VPS setups. 800hosting.com is another really good one for managed and unmanaged dedicated servers. 800 also has some very advanced clustering, and high-performance hosting ($$$ though).
We switched mainly to Colo because once you need a really good server, the hosting costs would pay for the server in about 10 months or so.
Hi Theresa,
Nice reviews and would say a lot of experience with web hosts. If a relief, I will admit that I personally never used any of these companies except theplanet. I have some smaller websites and all are hosted on shared environment and I am more then happy with the services.
Now if you notice most of these companies listed here are offering excellent dedicated servers. So I think Andres did not include any host mainly focused on shared hosting services. :)
Microsoft offers affordable domain registration/hosting services via Office Live Small Business. They use redundant hardware and software to ensure that customers websites are always functional and that data is never lost.
Cheers,
Jeff
MSFT Office Live Outreach
I use Dreamhost and they’re fantastic. No, I’m not affiliated with them in any way. It’s affordable and their customer support is excellent, even with newbie-type questions that aren’t specifically related to their hosting services. I highly recommend them.
A satisfied dreamhost customer.
We had 2 different accounts on dreamhost for 2 websites, one of them was InstantShift. And our experience was not so good. Yes probably they are the cheapest host but services and support are really not good. Server downtime is regular thing and support is unable to solve most of your problems.
Finally we moved both of the websites from there in no time.
Media Temple has been getting worse and worse. Slow or down seems to be the common themes with them. And support sometimes takes over a day to get back to you. At least their grid servers – their virtual servers were always solid but I left for Mosso (Rackspace) and have been very happy. What little support I’ve needed gets immediate attention with live chat. Moving the last of my clients off of Media Temple now…
Slicehost.com offers fantastic VPS options at the best prices I’ve seen. To top it off they have a simple to use admin interface for DNS and VPS management.
Their dynamic sizing allows you to quickly grow your VPS as you need more resources
Indeed. Slicehost.com is one of the best service provider. But it’s owned but rackspace and I think they already has been rated.
We have tried Slicehost in past and so far we never heard anything bad about them. Their features are very flexible unlike other hosts. Which makes them unique in this cut-throat competition.
what about godaddy? they are not on your list… anybody can say something about them?
My vote would have to go for http://www.vidahost.com – UK based hosting, stupidly good support, community forums, virtually no technical problems (and very accomodating when one does crop up) – I’ve got 5 or 6 sites with them, and would recommend them without a shadow of a doubt.
interesting list
I liked your site information. plz sir more useful detail web hosting submit your site.
How could you miss Surpass Hosting? It’s THE one of the best!
Thanks for the tricks and the list
Ah, this is one big discussion with many, many answer versions :)
I hosted with several smaller companies before, but now I am with WpWebHost with great support and current server handles incoming traffic very good. I would suggest WpWebHost..yes :)
This article has been shared on favSHARE.net.
I’ll cast another vote for Dreamhost. I’ve been using them for a year nnow and have been really pleased with the cost, the service, and the features.
I’m going for the cheapest hosting yet an awesome customer support!
Wow, that’s quite some list! But I believe there are more than just 20 good host around the market – as Dainis said, thiss is one big discussion with many, many answer versions.
Personally I had great experience with Hostgator, InMotion, and FatCow but that’s just me I guess (I don’t see you listing anyone of them here).
waht about wpwebhost .com , many desogn blog hosted on them .is that not good ??
I use HostGator and is without a dub the best web hosting solution. I also recommend GoDaddy services. They have great packages and you can host every type of website and also they have good prices.
I have found HostICan to be an excellent host! There support is phenomenal! Every time I have called in they have been extremely helpful and patient and they answer tickets very quickly. I have two VPS plans and have never had a problem with downtime…very fast! I am very pleased with HostICan!
I am happy to see that this article does not include anything HostGator. They are truly recommending excellent web hosts to the readers. If you go to a top 10 review site you are getting terrible providers only because the owner of the top 10 site is making money off of each person he/she refers to that company.
I don’t host web sites. But I try to give the best reviews about them as possible. And when it came to writing about HostGator, iPage.com etc.. (the Top 10 Review sites top 5) I come up with bad reviews. I Google the company names and I find a terrible amount of horrible reviews. It’s great to see an article like this. Good job instantshift!
Awesome list Anders, I’ve used quite a few of the hosts you mentioned in my time online. Another good one that you didn’t mention is FusionHost
I use them for my smaller sites and they are great. Their customer service is spot on and I have never had a problem with downtime.
First of all great post. I’m looking for VPS hosting. Can you suggest me a cost effective and at the same time robust solution?
Thanks, Cyprus.
IMHO you’ve got the right asnwre!
First of all this is really a very good post The Planet & Softlayer are really 2 big names in hosting market. We are working with Liquidweb and are very happy with the quality service and support provided by them.
Thanks for the article instantshift. My Experience with Inetu has been great. Highly recommended.
Great review and list of web hosting providers, very useful, thanks!
Get review, the number of hosting companies continues to grow and it helps to have some sort of starting point
Thanks for the article instantshift. My Experience with Inetu has been great. Highly recommended.
Theplanet.com is now redirecting to Softlayer.com, I think Softlayer has purchased that company.
my recommendation FireHost and Pier 1 and Pair that’s it. If you want the best I use all three but not after alott of testing.
With linux dedicated server, your site will run smoothly with no downtime or speed problems.
Invest in a good and powerful dedicated servers for your daily business requirements and get a powerful machine all to yourself with no shared resources.
I don’t know why many big players like Bigrock, Bluehost & Hostgator are not in your list. You can get domain name and web hosting at affordable price at bigrock.in never compromise with the quality and technical support when it comes to web hosting.