Top Web Hosts in 2021 - List of best shared, reseller, VPS, cloud, dedicated
Are you looking for a high quality web host for your website? Then you're in the right place! :)
If you're confused about who to use, or don't understand why you see the same company names over and over again on most "hosting review" sites, then I'm glad you found this site. I'd like to take a few minutes to clear up your confusion, and help you find your way to a quality company that really does care for its customers. Our top hosts list is after the preface ... which you REALLY should read! Skip to:
Preface / About Web Hosting Suggestions If you go to Google, and type in something like "best web hosts" or "top 10 web hosts," you'll likely end up with a list of affiliate splogs (spam blogs/sites). Those are sites that claim to rank hosts, but if you're knowledgeable in the field of web hosting, you know it's all fake. These splogger sites simply list the companies that pay the higest commissions. The top site is always the one with the highest payout. Many splogs go so far as to post fake glowing reviews. They don't really care about you, or the quality/integrity of their advice. Sploggers have no ethics. All they want are the affiliate dollars! We find those sites vulgar and unethical. Affiliate-driven lists are a cancer on the Internet, and to communication in general. In fact, that's why the FTC has been more involved in blogging since 2009, to combat this nuisance. Unfortunately, many of these top-paying hosts have
Unlike the fake sites, our rankings are based on actual metrics! We measure server/network performance, tech support quality/knowledge/speed, competitive pricing, and long-term reliability. This list is updated weekly; it's never old information! It's always up to date. :congrats: And now, our list of overall best hosts, in preference order... Continued... |
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Best Web Hosts / Overall Hosts These hosts have full upgrade paths, from shared to VPS/dedicated, and are highly suggested for most website owners. You can start with shared, and upgrade plans as needed. As your site grows in popularity and traffic, you'll never need to change hosts.
* Cost: The price reflects a 1-year shared hosting payment. Monthly plans may be higher; longer terms lower. Non-shared higher. * Cloud: This term is only used when the host has true failover high-availability clustered server infrastructure in use. * Semi-Dedicated: This high-resource shared hosting is also known as Enterprise, Business, or simply "premium" shared hosting. Best Unlimited Hosts Although hosts promising unlimited disk space are generally not suggested, there are a few hosts that are honest. These companies will not cut corners, throttle your connection, or heartlessly enforce hidden limits only found in their ToS/AUP. It's a great choice for shared hosting, where you need lots of space — like photos or podcasts — for low-traffic sites.
* Pricing: Best Shared Hosts New section coming soon...
* Dm = Domains: The maximum amount of domains that can be hosted for the cheapest price shown. More domains to host = higher price plans. * Space: The maximum amount of Best Semi-Dedicated Hosts New section coming soon...
* Dm = Domains: The maximum amount of domains that can be hosted for the cheapest price shown. More domains to host = higher price plans. * Space: The maximum amount of Best Reseller Hosts Reseller hosting is one of the most difficult categories to rank. In our opinion, these are all extremely excellent hosts. So regardless of who you select here, you can't go wrong. We based it on two main criteria: price ("bang for your buck") and network quality (hardware/uptime). Features like "white label" DNS and the billing panel were taken into consideration.
Best Managed VPS Hosts When it comes to VPS rankings, there's two things that matter most: the quality of the hardware/uptime, and the quality/speed of support. You want responsive systems and techs when using a VPS. The better the hardware and support, the better the host ranks here! We've tested or used dozens of VPS hosts, and these are the best of the best.
* RAM: Best Unmanaged VPS Hosts Cheap VPS, budget VPS, self-managed VPS, no support. Panels not included, but optional.
* RAM: . Best Managed Dedicated Hosts New section coming soon...
* HW: Enterprise hardware. * DDoS: Included level of DDoS protection. Best Cloud Hosts New section coming soon...
Best Windows Hosts (ASP.NET) Currently updating info...
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What Makes These Excellent Hosts? Understand that being "excellent" (or "best") takes more than a person claiming to "not have problems". More often, people simply fail to notice any, even when present and chronic. There is science, facts, and truths that make a host "excellent" -- it's not just random opinion. These hosts have proven themselves to be reliable both in terms of tech support quality, and server uptime. If you want to use some of the best hosts in the industry then consider one of these hosts. In addition to our experience with these companies, being listed on this page requires that certain strict criteria be met: Professional skills.
Why Trust Our Rankings/Reviews vs. Others Online ? The Digital FAQ was established more than a decade ago with the purpose of helping consumers (and professionals) understand the complexities of digital media. This site exists because we're tired of seeing consumers misled, mistreated, or outright lied to by large companies with deep pockets. The web hosting industry is especially bad -- the majority of hosts are either (A) high-paying lousy megahosts, or (B) wanna-be kiddie hosts. Quality hosts are sadly a minority that is easily overlooked by consumers, because they've not wasted their money on expensive ads and from paying high bounties for name recognition. So again, the hosts listed here are NOT in any way influenced by advertising/referral dollars, unlike other sites! In fact, either:
The Bottom Line There's nothing worse than having a bad web host when you rely on the Internet for income or entertainment. It's often the difference between success and failure of your endeavor. There's absolutely no reason that you need to use shoddy hosts. You can find hosts that choose to spend their money on customer service, educated/skilled techs, and quality hardware -- as opposed to those who drop money on Super Bowl commercials, national magazine ads, and buying out their competitors. Thanks for reading. I hope this information has helped you. ... Now go get a quality host! [x2x] Disclaimer If one of our suggested hosts has an affiliate program, great, we join it, and the funds are used to support the costs of maintaining this site. If not, oh well, good is good, and they still get our suggestion. A few splog owners have contacted us, crying that we're hypocrites by having some links that earn small affiliate payments ($20 average), yet deriding their spammy sites for doing the same. Sorry, but it's NOT the same -- it's not even close. Our list is based on quality of hosts, not their payouts. If this list was based on payouts alone, it would recommend high-paying ($100+) lousy operations like HostGator, Bluehost, IXWebHosting, 1&1, etc. Notice that our #1 overall suggestion, EuroVPS, had no affiliate program for years; now it pays a puny $5. Continued... |
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The updates and discussion posts have been moved here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/web-...g-reviews.html Reply there, if needed. Or better yet, started a new conversation in the main web hosting forum. We'll be glad to give customized advice, and help you select the best hosting for your situation. Trivia: This was done to reduce load time for this page. It is a forum, after all! The conversations have been quite lengthy. Even with 2x caching, and a dedicated server, forums can really eat into resources when they get a lot of traffic and the pages are long. (Hint to all you forum owners: Get a good VPS host at minimum!) It was also the target of spam, and we don't want anybody to accidentally go to spammer hosts. Last major update to this page: January 2015. Last minor update: June 2016. As always, we work to keep this updated at least once per week! :) |
2016 Updates:
1. Godaddy is now a good host! After Parsons stepped down in 2014, new leadership in the company has turned it around. No more aggressive upsells, no more terrible in-house panels, no more frat-boy/T&A image. It's now a serious company for professional developers, business/site owners, and casual hobby bloggers. It's really nice to have an anti-EIG. 2. Welcome back, JaguarPC! Back in 2013, JaguarPC started to have issues, and we recommended users stay away starting in 2014. Downtime is bad enough, but they even started to bully web site owners. There we major changes made to the company leadership in 2015 (firings), and in 2016 have redeemed themselves. They are another anti-EIG, and a host that we had been recommended for 10+ years before their temporary removal. It's nice to have them back! 3. Goodbye, Site5 ! In March 2016, Site5 began to migrate all assets to EIG. Almost immediately, complaints started to appear online. EIG was (as usual) lying about the "upgrade", often not telling customers of server changes. In some cases, nameserver changes were made without telling the site owner, resulting in downtime -- and tech support was often unreachable for days (meaning the site was down for days). The EIG monster has destroyed another once-great host. 2015 Updates: |
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