Simon Jones
Being the industry leader of websites on the internet, WordPress has a massive claim on powering over 60 million websites. It is such a popular website and blog building tool as it has been created for the beginner all the way up to the most experienced web developers.
With it being so beginner-friendly, you do not need any coding experience to create your own website. There are so many WordPress communities and developers out there willing to lend a hand.
Being a beginner to WordPress hosting, shared hosting is the most popular hosting package to start with, and we will give you a comprehensive overview of 10 hosting providers UK users can benefit from.
In our article, we will be discussing the best WordPress hosting UK providers. We will be breaking down in details all the hosting companies that we recommend.
So let’s get onto finding the best WordPress hosting for UK users!
Best WordPress Hosting UK Guide 2021
While most hosting providers will offer basic shared hosting, some premium hosting companies, such as WP Engine, Kinsta, Flywheel, and Cloudways offer managed WordPress hosting in their packages.
Managed hosting is more expensive than basic shared hosting. However, in this article we will include all of the hosting providers’ uptime percentages, page speed, free features, affordability, customer support, and review for you to compare and find the best one suited to your needs.
Siteground Best overall WordPress Host
Bluehost #2 Rated WordPress host
Kinsta Best Managed WordPress Hosting
Flywheel Best WordPress Hosting for Developers
WP-Engine Great WordPress FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
Cloudways Best Cloud WordPress Hosting
Hostinger Best Cheap WordPress Host
A2 Hosting Great for WordPress Hosting For Small Sites
Hostgator Best WordPress Hosting for Beginners
How We Choose the Best WordPress Hosting Companies
Choosing the best WordPress hosting is by far the most important aspect of building a website. Your search engine ranking (SEO), user experience, and ultimately your website’s success relies on the hosting provider you use. Our list of best WordPress hosting companies was compiled using our comprehensive research process. To determine our ratings, each web host was tested and analysed based on the following criteria:
Let’s take a look in more detail of the Best WordPress Web Hosting Companies, and for some extra tips on how to choose the best one for you!
The Best WordPress UK Web Hosting Providers
#1. Siteground – Best Overall WordPress Host
Siteground Pros
Siteground Cons
Siteground is also one of the 3 hosting sites recommended by WordPress.org, so their servers are all WordPress optimised for the best performance your website will need.
Siteground Key Features
Siteground makes users WordPress journey an easy and stress-free process by having their account management system be incredibly self-explanatory and user-friendly. If you ever get stuck, their 24/7 customer support is readily on standby, and the option to watch tutorials will help put your mind at ease.
Siteground has impressive uptime and load time, and they work hard to improve their site speed and performance continuously. They also include free email, which is a great bonus to have and will allow you to have the freedom to create as many email accounts as you need for your website or business.
Siteground Pricing
Sitegrounds StartUp plan is a great choice for beginners or small businesses with features for 10,000 monthly visitors, 10GB storage, a free SSL Certificate, and daily backups.
StartUp: from £2.99 per month – 12 month plan
GrowBig: from £4.99 per month – 12 month plan
GoGeek: from £9.99 per month – 12 month plan
All plans come with a free SSL certificate, free CDN, free email, daily backups and a 30 day money back guarantee.
#2. Bluehost – Best for Beginners
Bluehost Pros
Bluehost Cons
Boasting the title of being recommended by WordPress.org since 2005, Bluehost often comes across as one of the most well-known hosting platforms when combined with creating a WordPress website.
Bluehost Key Features
Their cPanel has an easy-to-use interface with all the tools required for you to manage your website. Bluehost has a beginner- friendly website builder, a great tool for small businesses and newcomers to build their own website.
Bluehost has 24/7 customer support available to help you through the website building process and experts for anything WordPress related. Bluehost’s uptime and load times are undeniably fast and make them a competitive hosting provider that you will find nearing the top of most web hosting list reviews.
Bluehost Pricing
A great entry-level hosting provider to use, Bluehost’s WordPress plan comes with great features such as a free SSL Certificate, domain name, and their handy automatic installation of WordPress once you’ve opened an account.
Basic: from £2.96 per month – 36 month plan
Plus: from £4.45 per month – 36 month plan
Choice Plus: from £5.20 per month – 36 month plan
All plans come with a free SSL certificate, free domain name, free CDN and a 30 day money back guarantee.
#3. Kinsta – Best Managed WordPress Host
Kinsta Pros
Kinsta Cons
Kinsta Key Features
Kinsta, similarly to WP Engine, also offers premium Managed WordPress Hosting only. Used by enterprise style websites such as TripAdvisor, Buffer, and Ubisoft, Kinsta offers everything they need, ranging from automatic scaling to state of the art security for customer’s data.
They take advantage of cloud-based servers and use Google servers located around the world to optimise your website to load effortlessly and quickly. Kinsta’s security features are top-notch, to say the least, providing hardware firewalls, constant updates and fixes, and with their hack fix guarantee on all hosting plans, makes security breaches basically zero.
Their easy-to-use control panel interface makes navigating the management for your website a breeze. Even though automated management means you will rarely need to even worry about any issues to be solved. Kinsta’s 24/7 customer support is available to contact through the MyKinsta dashboard and is full of WordPress developers ready to help you.
Kinsta Pricing
Starter: from £22.42 per month – Pay yearly and get 2 months free
Pro: from £44.84 per month – Pay yearly and get 2 months free
Business: from £74.73 per month – Pay yearly and get 2 months free
Enterprise: from £448.40 per month – Pay yearly and get 2 months free
All plans come with a free premium migrations, automatic back-ups, free CDN and a 30 day money back guarantee.
#4. Flywheel – Best for Developers
Flywheel Pros
Flywheel Cons
Flywheel Key Features
Having recently partnered with Google Cloud Platform, Flywheel has become a true cloud hosting platform. With the upgraded infrastructure, they have achieved faster loading times and a more stable hosting environment. They are a unique hosting platform, with one feature that allows you to create private demo websites.
This can be a great feature to anyone hosting sites for clients as it gives them access to see the development and design work you have done. Access to your WordPress website can be found in the WordPress dashboard, where you have the ability to change any privacy modes or use the backup tools or caching settings.
Flywheel Pricing
Flywheel’s ‘Tiny’ plan can be ideal for smaller and simple installs for a true beginner to hosting, allowing you to get a feel for managed web hosting without spending a fortune.
Tiny: from £9.57 per month – Pay yearly and get 2 months free
Starter: from £18.40 per month – Pay yearly and get 2 months free
Freelance: from £70.65 per month – Pay yearly and get 2 months free
Agency: from £178.09 per month – Pay yearly and get 2 months free
All plans come with a free migrations, nightly back-ups, free CDN, genesis framework + 30 Studiopress themes.
#5. WP Engine – Great for Large Business
WP Engine Pros
WP Engine Cons
WP Engine Key Features
You may have been casually reading and have come to our WP Engine summary, seen the price, and said, “whaaaaaat?” WP Engine is very different from the other hosting providers, as they only offer ‘Managed WordPress Hosting”.
This ultimately means they manage your website for you, which helps businesses who want to be less hands on with the technical side of web hosting. While they may not be the first choice for a complete novice to web hosting, they offer some incredible features and statistics.
WP Engine only caters to WordPress websites and creates ultimate optimisation using their EverCache plugin, claiming the sites they host run 4-6 times faster than their competitors. WP Engine has a propriety control panel, instead of the standard cPanel or Plesk options that come with most hosting providers. The interface is well organised for ease of use and access to all the tools required for your website.
WP Engine Pricing
WPEngine offers four pricing plans, starting from £20 per month moving up to a custom pricing plan that suits your needs.
Startup: from £20.00 per month – Paid yearly with 2 months free
Growth: from £75.00 per month – Paid yearly with 2 months free
Scale: from £189.00 per month – Paid yearly with 2 months free
All plans come with free site migration, automated SSL certificates, global CDN, daily genesis framework and 30 day money back guarantee.
#6. Cloudways – Best WordPress Cloud Host
Cloudways Pros
Cloudways Cons
Cloudways Key Features
As their name suggests, Cloudways is a cloud-based hosting platform and specializes in managed WordPress hosting. Their reliable uptime and fast load times use cutting-edge technology to optimise website speed. Cloudways data centers are all over the world, so no matter where your website visitors are located, your site will be delivered to them with quality loading times and speed through the cloud network.
24/7 customer and technical support are available by phone, email, or live chat, and they also have a free trial for 3 days to test their platform. Cloudways Console is their easy-to-use management control panel, which allows you to monitor your server and scale any resources for your website you may or may not be using.
Cloudways Pricing
Cloudways offers an incredible pay as you go billing system, so you only pay for what you used in the month previous.
Digital Ocean: from £7.47 per month – Pay as you go billing
Linode: from £8.97 per month – Pay as you go billing
VULTR: from £8.22 per month – Pay as you go billing
AWS: from £27.28 per month – Pay as you go billing
Google Cloud: from £25.12 per month – Pay as you go billing
All plans come with a free SSL certificate, free migration, CDN add-on and automated back-ups.
#7. Hostinger – Best Cheap WordPress Host
Hostinger Pros
Hostinger Cons
Hostinger Key Features
Hostinger has made a name for themselves as being one of the cheapest hosting providers on the market. Don’t be mistaken, though, and put it in the ‘cheap and nasty’ category because their load times are surprisingly fast. While the uptime isn’t quite as competitive as other hosting providers, Hostinger is the ideal hosting site for beginners.
They are optimised for WordPress websites and provide all the features needed for a startup website, such as a free SSL Certificate, easy website builder, 24/7 customer support, and the 1 click WordPress install option. While the Single WordPress plan only offers a free domain name with a 48 monthly plan, the price difference to the next plan of ‘WordPress Starter’ is still very affordable and comes with some extra features that could benefit you and your website.
Hostinger Pricing
Single WordPress: from £1.49 per month – 48 month plan
WordPress Starter: from £1.99 per month – 48 month plan
Business WordPress: from £3.99 per month – 48 month plan
WordPress Premium: from £6.89 per month – 48 month plan
All plans come with a free SSL Certificate, free domain for a year, WordPress acceleration tool and 30 day money back guarantee.
#8. A2 Hosting – Fast WordPress Hosting
A2 Hosting Pros
A2 Hosting Cons
A2 Hosting Key Features
A2 Hosting is a great all-rounder for a beginner. With their features of 100GB storage, free SSL Certificate, and unlimited email addresses to take advantage of, then A2 Hosting is a hosting provider to consider.
Their servers are WordPress optimised for fast loading times; however, their uptime isn’t quite as reliable as some competitors, averaging 99.94%. A2 Hosting, as a provider, offers some of the fastest loading times across the board with their ‘Turbo Servers’ boasting to be 20x faster and, combined with their A2 Optimiser plugin, it’s hard to beat.
The only downside of their super-fast turbo servers is they’re only available on the more expensive plans. If you find your website growing and want to upgrade to a plan with more optimal speed, it is definitely something to consider. A2 Hosting also has an excellent 24/7 customer support team, “Guru Crew Support,” which you can connect to by phone, email, live chat, or tickets.
A2 Hosting WordPress Pricing
Startup: from £2.19 per month – 36 month plan
Drive: from £3.66 per month – 36 month plan
Turbo Boost: from £7.33 per month – 36 month plan
Turbo Max: from £11.00 per month – 36 month plan
All plans come with a free SSL Certificate, free Cloudflare CDN, free website builder and money back guarantee.
#9. Hostagtor – Great WordPress for Beginners
Hostgator Pros
Hostgator Cons
Hostgator Key Features
Hostgator’s WordPress hosting packages are hosted on their cloud servers, optimising strong uptime, and load time. Their managed WordPress hosting plans are designed for the ultimate WordPress site and cater to having faster page loading times, protection against WordPress- specific attacks, and automatic updates.
Hostgator has a great range of features for a beginner to hosting a WordPress website; with their easy 1-click install, your WordPress site will be up and running before you know it. Providing a free SSL Certificate, domain name, combined with unmetered storage, and automated daily 1GB backups, these will be some of the basic features you will need for your website.
Hostgator has an easy-to-use Control Panel for their WordPress hosting website builder and 24/7 expert customer support to answer any questions or fix any problems you may have encountered. With access to data centers worldwide, Hostgator is a knowledgeable and reliable hosting provider for WordPress websites.
Hostgator Pricing
Starter Plan: from £4.38 per month – 36 month plan
Standard Plan: from £5.85 per month – 36 month plan
Business Plan: from £7.32 per month – 36 month plan
All plans come with free SSL certificate, free domain name, free email and money back guarantee.
So What Exactly is WordPress?
WordPress is software where you can create websites on the internet, and combined with web hosting and having a domain; you can run your website, edit content, and create new pages or posts.
WordPress is an open-sourced content management system (CMS) and is software that anyone can use and modify for free. It is the most popular way to create a website or blog, and believe it or not, one in four websites you visit are usually WordPress websites.
For the non-tech-savvy beginner, as most of us start like, a CMS is a tool that makes managing the important aspects of your website simple, and you don’t even have to be a wizard in programming to build your own website!
The types of websites you can create are endless, ranging from business websites, blogs, eCommerce sites, and even portfolios, and WordPress is a great tool to get those online business dreams up and running.
WordPress is extremely versatile and allows your website to be viewed correctly on all types of devices, such as desktop, laptop, phone, and tablets.
As a beginner to WordPress, you will need to know the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
While it may not sound like an issue, then there is a bit of a variation between the two. WordPress.org is the free, self-hosted software you will be able to install and use with the web host of your choice.
It means you can create a website that is 100% yours, and you have a lot more control and flexibility over the management and design of your website.
WordPress.com is a commercialised platform designed for people who would rather someone else deal with the creation and technical side of their website.
Your website will be built on WordPress.org software, and WordPress.com will host your site resulting in you losing a lot of flexibility and options in creating your website.
Long story short, WordPress.org is the way to go for more creative freedom and an affordable way to build your website how you want it.
Setting up WordPress is relatively easy these days as most web hosting companies take care of the installation and provide you with a simple one-click install to access your WordPress website, linked with your domain and server.
From there, you can have a fully functioning website up and running in 15 minutes; it is that simple. You will be able to design your website with the thousands of themes WordPress provides and add any plugins you will require on your website.
WordPress is a great software option to create your website on, and hosting providers who specialise in WordPress hosting will have all the knowledge and WordPress experts to help you if you ever get stuck with creating your website or have any questions.
Perfect for the beginner blogger or startup business with excellent flexibility to create your dream website.
What Can I Do With WordPress?
Originally a program used to make blogs, WordPress has come a long way in recent times and powers over 34% of the internet’s websites. A few examples of the websites WordPress can be used to make are:
The list is never-ending as WordPress is so versatile and easy to use, so there is no need to have to hire website designers or find developers to create your website.
It’s a beginner-friendly program that makes creating an online presence achievable and can be used by individuals, businesses, and everyone in between.
When it comes to the creation and design of your website, you will have access to ‘themes’. Themes will be the designs that change how your website will look, with WordPress having 5,000 free theme options to choose from!
You want to find a theme that you can customise, is aesthetically pleasing, and, of course, reflects your business or your personal style.
WordPress themes come in templates and stylesheets and are categorised to help you find the perfect style for your website, blog, business, or eCommerce store, for example.
‘Plugins’ are essentially your websites ‘apps’, much like on your iPhone or Android phone. They provide the functionality to your website without having to know how to use code.
Plugins create extensions and custom features on your WordPress website, such as contact forms, social sharing buttons, etc.
With nearly 50,000 plugins available to WordPress users, they can be easily accessed and installed on your plugin page and searching for the plugin you want to use.
Plugins can provide security for your website, optimize pages for search ranking in Google, and allow you to have eCommerce features.
Factors to Consider When Choosing a WordPress Host
The Different Types of WordPress Hosting Explained
Best WordPress Host UK Conclusion
Who is the Best WordPress Web Hosting UK Provider?
That’s a wrap on the Best UK WordPress Hosting Providers of 2020. We’ve given you all the information you need to get you well on your way to getting that website of yours online.
All the hosting providers are excellent choices, and all cater to slightly different website needs.
Find one you feel will give you the best experience and allow your website to flourish. WordPress is such a versatile software and has so many uses and ways to make websites extremely creative, professional, or minimalistic.
It’s extremely hard to come up with just one overall pick for the Best WordPress UK Web Host Provider... so we have chosen two!
One for those on a budget and one for those who wish to spend a little more….
Our Best Overall Budget WordPress Host!
and….
Our Best Overall Premium WordPress Host!
FAQ’s
