Do you ever wish that someone else maintained your sites for you so that you can focus on creating other sites? Web hosts are internet hosting services that host websites for clients. They offer facilities that will preserve and maintain a site. They even provide facilities in which clients can create sites, saving a lot of time and energy. Web hosts ensure your sites are accessible on the World Wide Web.
You may wonder, “Well, why should I care?” Hosting services hold great importance when it comes to the need for assistance. Web hosts provide technical support, security, improved site performance, SEO, fast response, etc. This assistance provided by hosts can speed up your work, increasing productivity!
In this blog, I will be discussing with you four very popular hosting services of 2024. Namely, Bluehost, Hostinger, HostGator, and SiteGround.
Criteria for Evaluating Hosting Services
While evaluating hosting services, there are three major factors you should consider:
- Average uptime (and reliability)
- Page load time
- Customer Support
Performance of Hosting Providers & Their Impact on Website Speed and User Experience
We will discuss four major hosting services, as mentioned in the introduction of this blog.
Bluehost
Bluehost has integrated SSD storage across all hosting plans. This ensures that data is stored on the drives at high speed. This web host also has increased reliability, fast loading times, and smooth performance.
Hostinger
Hostinger uses LiteSpeed Web Server (LSWS) for better speed and performance.
HostGator
This host server has a good website structure (83%), and a performance of 98%.
SiteGround
SiteGround developed a custom ultrafast PH setup that has lower memory usage. This makes web pages 30% faster on average.
Customer Support Options and Responsiveness
Bluehost
This server is available to take phone calls from customers from 7 A.M. to 12 A.M EST, Monday through Friday. It also accepts emails and offers FAQs (find answers to your questions).
It has an uptime of 99.63% and an average response time of 971 ms according to cybernews.com.
Hostinger
This web host is not fond of phone calls because they want to avoid any inconveniences that would cause their customers to stay on hold for a long time. They instead, provide their email. If you log in on their website, you can have live chats with their team for assistance.
Hostinger’s response time is just 479 ms, according to the same website I mentioned for Bluehost.
HostGator
HostGator provides a toll-free number, a local number, and an international number. They also offer live chat support and email.
This web host’s response time is up to 525 ms. (Source of information: cybernews.com)
SiteGround
SiteGround offers a phone number, email, chat, and tickets for customer service.
According to cybernews.com, SiteGround’s response time is just 311 ms!
Pricing Models & Value for Money Offered
Bluehost
Cheapest: $2.95 – $13.95 per month
Most expensive: $99.99 – $ 139.99 per month
Hostinger
Cheapest: $1.99 – $3.99 per month + free domain with its Premium shared plan (48-month plan)
Most expensive: $3.49 – $77.99 per month (1 year plan)
HostGator
This web host offers three shared hosting plans:
- Hatchling plan: the introductory offer is $3.95, and renews at $9.99 per month
- Baby plan: $5.00, renews at $14.99 per month
- Business plan: $7.25, renews at $18.99 per month
SiteGround
Below are three (yearly) shared hosting plans offered by SiteGround.
- StartUp: $2.99 per month
- GrowBig: $4.99 per month
- GoGeek: $7.99 per month
However, all of these plans eventually renew. One example is that the $2.99 plan will renew at $14.99. The good part is that these yearly plans save you 80% each month!
Let’s Wrap it up!
We talked about four of the best web hosts of 2024! We learned the importance of these hosts and discussed the criteria for evaluating the services. We talked about the performance speed and examined customer service options and responsiveness of the four web hosts. At the end, we looked at the prices that each host provided.
Always, always, always, learn as much as you can about web hosts before purchasing. Whether it be from YouTube videos, Google, AI, or these blog posts, find a credible source as begin learning!