5 Absolute Best Web Hosting For Beginners (2023)

The best web hosting for beginners is the best option for newbies just learning how to host their websites. It's overwhelming to decide the hosting provider to sign up with when you don't know much about web hosting.

When choosing the best web hosting provider for beginners, it's important to choose the simplest one, with an easy-to-navigate control panel, freebies like an SSL certificate, affordable pricing, and reliable customer service.

How to Choose Beginner-Friendly Web Hosting?

If you've never tried web hosting before, choosing the best one might be hard. Here are some factors to consider when choosing the ideal hosting provider for your website.

User-Friendly Interface

You should first consider if the hosting service comes with a user-friendly interface. Starter website owners need an intuitive interface, whether it’s with a cPanel or a custom-made panel. This makes it suitable for those without hosting experience.

Customer Service

Even if the hosting platform is easy to use, it's helpful to have reliable customer service. Beginners usually have many questions, and issues with onboarding or managing your site might arise. So, the hosting service should come with 24/7 customer support and knowledgeable agents.

Hosting Performance

Don't only focus on ease of use; the web hosting provider should offer great performance. This includes impressive loading and response times and a reliable uptime of 99.9%. The web host should have speed-enhancing features like a CDN.

Extra Features

Choosing a beginner-friendly hosting service with other essential features for running a website is important. This includes an SSL certificate, a free domain, automated backups, and more.

Affordable Pricing

Beginners don't want to start with a costly web hosting service. You can always choose higher plans later, but choosing a hosting provider with affordable plans is better. Most of the hosts on our list come with cheap plans that offer good value for your money.

Best Web Hosting for Beginners

After detailed research, we’ve compiled the top five web hosting services for beginners.

1. Bluehost
2. SiteGround 
3. Hostinger
4. DreamHost
5. HostGator

1. Bluehost

Best Overall Hosting for Beginners

Bluehost is your best introduction to the world of hosting, as it comes with feature-packed plans and an intuitive, easy-to-navigate interface. Beginners have all they need to get started with website hosting, like free email hosting and 24/7 customer support, and the hosting plans are affordable and designed with all the essentials.

You get a free domain, free SSL for the first year, and a free CDN from the shared hosting plans. Bluehost provides 24/7 customer service and custom themes for designing your website, and from the Plus plan, you get unlimited websites. Aside from shared hosting, Bluehost offers dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, and WordPress hosting.

Key Features

• Bluehost Website Wizard: When you first sign up for Bluehost and choose a payment plan, you get a wizard that will guide you through the onboarding process. With the wizard, you get instructions on how to set up your website in a few minutes. This helps beginners set up their websites quickly. 
• Resource Protection on Shared Hosting: The shared hosting plans on Bluehost come with resource protection. This ensures your website gets all the resources it needs while using a shared server, offering quality performance.
• Bluehost Maestro: The web host features cPanel with a custom dashboard that is easy to navigate for beginners. This dashboard allows you to manage all your WordPress websites from a single place.
• Automatic Installations and Updates: If you're using WordPress hosting on Bluehost, you can benefit from the automatic software updates that maintain your site performance and security. It also includes a one-click installer for creating additional sites and using third-party apps.

Pricing

Bluehost offers affordable pricing, as expected from a beginner-friendly host. The pricing plans are cheaper when you pay the first time, with discounts of up to 73%. But, it auto-renews at the regular price. The plans are on a 12-month basis, but you can choose to pay for 36 months.

There are four pricing plans for shared hosting on Bluehost. They include:

• Basic: $2.95 per month.
• Plus: $5.45 per month.
• Choice Plus: $5.45 per month.
• Pro: $13.95 per month.

We recommend the Plus plan for beginners, as it offers unlimited websites and other freebies but isn't as expensive as Choice Plus. You can always upgrade to the Choice Plus when handling more traffic.

Pros

• It features a simple setup wizard for easy onboarding.
• Custom hosting dashboard for managing multiple sites in one place.
• Free email hosting to create your email accounts.
• Free SSL certificate, domain, and CDN from the cheapest plan.
• Round-the-clock customer support with a well-trained team.

Cons

• Constant upsells on the system.
• The website speed is not as fast as other web hosts offer.

2. SiteGround

Best for WordPress Sites

SiteGround is the best choice for hosting a WordPress website, and it offers impressive speed with Google Cloud infrastructure, a free CDN, and a SuperCacher. If you're just starting with a WordPress site or need WordPress-friendly shared hosting, SiteGround is ideal, as it allows easy website management.

This beginner-friendly web hosting provider offers WordPress installation, managed automatic updates, the WP Starter wizard, expert support, and other WordPress enhancements in all the shared hosting plans. You can also go directly for the WordPress plans, as they cost the same as the shared hosting.

Key Features

• Easy to Start from Scratch or Transfer: If you don’t have a website yet, you can start building one with SiteGround, as the web host offers WordPress, Weebly, and many other apps. There is also a seamless transfer from your existing host to SiteGround, as it offers a free WordPress migration plugin and free email migration, but professional site migration costs as low as $30.
• Optimized for Third-Party Apps: With SiteGround, beginners can install different kinds of CMS and CRM applications. It is compatible with a wide range of apps based on PHP and MySQL, like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.
• Free and Unlimited Features: From the Startup plan on SiteGround, you get unmetered traffic, free SSL, free email, free CDN, free email migrator, and unlimited databases. The higher plans also offer unlimited websites along with other freebies.
• Easy Management with Site Tools: SiteGround has a custom control panel called Site Tools, and this makes it easy for beginners to manage their databases, emails, and DNS zones, upload files, park domains, and more. A Client Area offers access to hosting accounts, domains, and other important services.

Pricing

SiteGround offers the same pricing plans on shared and WordPress hosting, but of course, the offerings of each plan will be different. There is an introductory discount of 73%, but after the first month, it renews at the normal price. The plans also come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, ideal for beginners who want to test the web host first.

Here are the hosting plans for SiteGround:

• Startup: $3.99 per month.
• GrowBig: $6.69 per month.
• GoGeek: $10.69 per month.

The GrowBig plan is recommended for beginners because it has unlimited websites and more resources, giving you room to grow. It also features useful tools like on-demand backup copies and site staging.

Pros

• Managed WordPress hosting features in shared plans for beginners.
• Free and unlimited resources in all the plans.
• Free website transfer for WordPress sites.
• Compatible with CMS and CRM applications.
• Built on Google Cloud infrastructure for impressive performance.

Cons

• Non-WordPress website transfer costs $30.

3. Hostinger

Best Budget Option

Hostinger is one of the well-known web hosting providers, popular for their very cheap yet valuable plans. Beginners on a budget will enjoy using this web host because it comes with all you need to get started, including free website migration, a custom-made control panel, and free and unlimited resources.

Despite being affordable, Hostinger has all the power your website needs to function. Hostinger is based on a self-healing infrastructure, SSD servers, LiteSpeed technology, HTTP/3, IPv6, and unmetered bandwidth, starting from the Premium plan, giving you room for traffic growth.

Key Features

• Easy Onboarding and Use: Rather than the cPanel, Hostinger comes with an hPanel, which is very easy to use and multilingual. You don't have to be a professional, as the intuitive interface makes it easy to start and even offers free migration.
• Top-notch Security: All the hosting plans on Hostinger come with unlimited free SSL certificates. The plans include DDoS protection, automatic updates, CloudLinux, LVE containerized environment, and automated website backups for complete security.
• WordPress-Friendly Features: Even if you're paying for shared hosting, Hostinger offers a complete solution with one-click WordPress installation, expert support, and automatic updates. It also features WordPress staging that allows you to make a copy of your website and try out different content and layout types.
• Global Data Centers: Hostinger features data centers worldwide, so you can always enjoy speed regardless of where you are. The web hosting provider has data centers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Lithuania, Singapore, India, Brazil, and the USA, so simply choose the one nearest to you and change the location at any time.

Pricing

Hostinger comes with highly affordable hosting plans that appeal to beginners on a budget. The introductory price discounts are as high as 80%, and the renewal prices are affordable too. All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. They also come with free, unlimited, and unmetered features.

The pricing plans include the following:

• Single Web Hosting: $1.99 monthly ($3.99 when you renew).
• Premium Web Hosting: $2.99 monthly ($6.99 when you renew).
• Business Web Hosting: $3.99 monthly ($8.99 when you renew).

It’s advisable to go for Premium Web Hosting as a beginner, as this allows you to host up to 100 websites. The plan comes with a free domain, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited free SSL, and free email hosting.

Pros

• Impressive performance with global data centers.
• Focuses on security with a free SSL certificate.
• Custom control panel for easy use.
• Offers free migration from your old web hosting.
• WordPress-friendly features are available in the shared hosting plans.

Cons

• Customer service takes a long time to respond.

4. DreamHost 

Best for Flexible Pricing

DreamHost is a well-known web hosting provider for beginners, with convenient shared hosting and cheap plans. The host comes with a beginner-friendly control panel, an inbuilt WordPress site builder, and feature-packed plans; plus, WordPress recommends it.

One of the highlights of DreamHost is the flexible pricing plans, as you can pay monthly with no commitment, yearly, or every three years. The plans also come with a 97-day money-back guarantee, so you can test the host for longer before you decide to stick to it.

Key Features

• Automatic Backups and Updates: When using DreamHost for your WordPress site, you can benefit from automatic WordPress software updates. It also provides automatic website security updates, so your data is kept safe.
• Custom Hosting Dashboard: Like a few other web hosts, DreamHost has a customized dashboard. Beginners can easily manage their website on DreamHost with a responsive interface and helpful tutorials.
• Free and Unlimited Features: On the DreamHost shared hosting plans, beginners will get free domain registration, a free SSL certificate, free professional email addresses, and free privacy protection. Its packages also come with unlimited storage and unlimited traffic.
• 100% Uptime Guarantee: DreamHost provides its users with a 100% uptime guarantee, so your website is always running without downtime. The hosting service provides constant monitoring, redundant cooling, and emergency generators to keep the website running.

Pricing

DreamHost provides flexible pricing on its shared hosting plans, although there are only two options. You can choose to pay monthly, yearly, or every three years, and while the yearly plan is more affordable, the monthly plan comes with no commitment. The plans also come with free and unlimited resources.

The pricing plans on DreamHost are as follows:

• Shared Starter: $2.95 per month on the yearly plan ($4.95 on the monthly plan).
• Shared Unlimited: $2.95 per month on the yearly plan ($8.95 on the monthly plan).

As a beginner, you can choose one of the plans depending on whether you’re hosting a single site or unlimited websites. It’s advisable to choose Shared Unlimited as it is still highly affordable and comes with scalable resources.

Pros

• Flexible pricing with discounts on the plans.
• Features a custom-made dashboard for easy use.
• Automatic backups to keep your data safe.
• Includes a WordPress website builder and one-click installer.
• The hosting service is powered by Solid State Drives (SSDs).

Cons

• There are only a few CMS installations available.

5. HostGator

Best for Small Businesses

HostGator is the final option on our list, popular for its highly affordable and valuable shared hosting plans. The web hosting company uses the traditional cPanel and features a native user interface that makes onboarding easy.

There are freebies in the hosting plans that will give you more value for your money, and it is WordPress-friendly. HostGator also has a 99.9% uptime guarantee to ensure that your website is always running with little downtime and above-average loading times.

Key Features

• Free and Unlimited Essentials: HostGator comes with a free SSL certificate, free domain registration, and free one-click installations. The web host also comes with unmetered bandwidth, so it can handle website traffic as it increases.
• Multiple One-Click Installs: Aside from WordPress, HostGator allows you to install CMS, CRM, and other kinds of apps with the push of a button. Some of the apps include Magento, Drupal, Joomla, and phpBB.
• Automated Daily Backups: When hosting your website with HostGator, you can enjoy daily automated backups. You can restore your website data with a single click.
• Reliable Site Security: HostGator will give you a Positive SSL certificate to protect your data and increase the legitimacy of your website. It also partners with SiteLock to protect your data and remove malware.

Pricing

HostGator comes with highly affordable pricing plans, especially with introductory discounts of up to 73%. There are freebies on every plan to give you more value for your money.

Here are the shared hosting plans from HostGator:

• Hatchling Plan: $2.75 per month.
• Baby Plan: $3.50 per month.
• Business Plan: $5.25 per month.

As a beginner, it's advisable to choose the Baby Plan, which comes with 73% off for the first time. You can host up to five websites, and it comes with unmetered bandwidth and free email. It also offers phone and chat support, with a free domain for one year.

Pros

• Free and unlimited resources on all the hosting plans.
• Features multiple applications for one-click installs.
• Unmetered bandwidth on all the plans.
• Ideal for online stores with eCommerce tools.
• Round-the-clock customer service with quick response.

Cons

• Renewal pricing is much more expensive.

FAQs

What is the Easiest Web Hosting Provider for Beginners?

With our complete guide, you have all you need to know about the easiest web hosting providers that beginners can use. We considered the ease of use, performance, speed and uptime, customer service, and affordability of the pricing plans when compiling this list.

Here are some resources to help you as you enter the world of web hosting:

• What is Web Hosting? Beginner’s Guide
• How to Host a Website
• Bluehost Reviews
• Bluehost vs. SiteGround: Which is Better Value for Money?

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