We already know how to choose and where to register domain for your WordPress website. I explained that earlier in article Domain for your website. Now I would like to describe how to select right hosting for WordPress website.
First step that we have to do is to check WordPress minimum requirements page. As we can see, to run latest version of WordPress our hosting must have couple things:
- PHP version 5.2.4 or greater
- MySQL version 5.0 or greater
To tell the truth it is not strong requirements. At present time almost (but not all) hosting providers meet them. We can choose any hosting company randomly and get appropriate provider with probability 97% or even more. So we need more criteria to choose right hosting for our WordPress website. Below I’ll give you some advices on what to pay attention.
- Operating system that is used on server. Hosting can be Linux-based (*nix-based) and Windows-based. Actually for you as for WordPress website owner, it doesn’t matter under which operating system server runs – in most cases you will not see the difference in WordPress functionality. But I recommend you to use Linux-based hosting. The reason is simple. Linux is an open source operating system and it has huge community around it. As for me it means that Linux-based server is more reliable, secure and fast because hundreds of thousands of professionals work under its optimization. Examples of Linux-based hosting: Hostgator, Hostmonster, Bluehost. Examples of Windows-based hosting: Hostexcellence, GoDaddy, WinHost.
- Type of hosting: shared, VPS, dedicated. Shared hosting (virtual hosting) is a hosting where many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet. Each website is located in its own “folder” on the server, to keep it separate from other sites. This is the cheapest type of hosting. Prices vary between $1 and $10. For the beginning I recommend to use shared hosting. It is optimal if total number of daily page views is not more than 40000. VPS hosting and dedicated hosting provide separate virtual (VPS) or physical (dedicated) server that is good for large projects.
- Available disk space. By itself WordPress doesn’t require too much space. 100Mb is quite enough for average text blog. BUT! If you plan to write articles with images, upload some photo albums, video or any other heavy content and files, it is better to choose hosting provider with unlimited disk space.
- Bandwidth. This parameter tells you how many gigabytes/month can be transferred between host and visitors’ computers. Let’s count a little bit. For example, you have article with 10 images. Size of each image is 100Kb. The total “weight” of the page is around 1Mb. Let’s imagine that you have 1000 readers per day. It means that every day your host will transfer 1Gb of data, that is 30 Gb/month. If you have many articles this number will be much more. So I recommend choosing hosting with unlimited bandwidth.
- Control Panel. Almost every hosting has control panel. It’s kind of dashboard that allows to manage our hosting. With its help we can create/edit databases, browse file system, manage e-mail accounts, backup/restore website and do many other things. If we talking about Linux-based hosting, the most popular and easy-to-use control panel is cPanel. This is my choice.
- Uptime and reliability. This is really important parameter measured in percent. The closer uptime to 100%, the better. Most hosting providers state value 99.9%. Sometime it is true, sometimes it is not. I had experience with some cheap ($1/month) hosting. They announced 99.9% uptime, but the real one was around 98%, that means my site was down half an hour every day. Then I moved to more reliable provider (Hostgator) and my website was down 15 minutes per month.
- Price. The price can be indirect indicator of hosting quality. As I said prices vary between $1 and $10 (per month). Cheap hosting (< $3/month) usually uses old hardware and hosts thousands of websites on one server (otherwise it would be unprofitable company). As a result we get overloaded server and low uptime value. So I don’t recommend using cheap hosting. The optimal prices – $3 … $7 per month.
Above I’ve listed criteria for choosing optimal hosting for WordPress website. These are not all parameters that we can review before purchasing hosting, but most important ones.
Also I would like to suggest some hosting providers I experienced by myself and I can assure you that they are optimal for WordPress websites. (I tried dozens hostings and selected two of them for my projects.)
Hostgator (http://www.hostgator.com/). They provide unlimited disk space and bandwidth. You also can attach unlimited number of websites to single hosting account that makes multiple website management more convenient. Also in my own rating Hostgator is most reliable hosting. Last year I had a chance to host WordPress website with them. It was average size website with over 4000 unique visitors per day. I moved one to Hostgator because my previous hosting provider blocked me due high server load. For Hostgator 4000 UV/month was not a problem. Website worked well. If you decide to start working with Hostgator, use this coupon code and get 25% off: WPSTUFF25OFF.
Hostmonster (http://www.hostmonster.com/). Another good hosting provider with unlimited disk space and bandwidth. As well as Hostgator they have cPanel and allow you to host many websites within single account. WordPress Stuff website is hosted with them. Last year their uptime value was 99.94% (really good value).
And one more sweet feature. Both hosting providers have an option to install WordPress within couple clicks directly from cPanel.
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