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1. InMotionHosting.com

InMotion review

Monthly Starting Price $2.29

  • High-quality hosting, no matter the format
  • FREE SSD storage packs 20x the performance
  • FREE SSL certificate and 24/7 support
  • 1-click installs for WordPress and popular CMSes
  • Get started with FREE website transfer service
  • Get started on InMotion Hosting now.

SHARED
RATING
4.8 ★★★★★ Our Review

InMotion: Our Expert's Review

PJ Fancher (HostingAdvice.com): InMotion Hosting offers an excellent business-class shared hosting plan — with a price tag lower than several other budget hosts. For the IT crowd in the audience, you’ll appreciate SSH access, as well as support for PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python, WP-CLI, and other popular languages. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
90 days 100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD FREE (1 year) 5 minutes

2. HostGator.com

HostGator review

Monthly Starting Price $2.64

  • Get 74% off monthly pricing
  • A perfect blend of price and performance
  • Intuitive control panel with 1-click CMS installs
  • Unlimited everything — from domains to databases
  • Around-the-clock expert support
  • Get started on HostGator now.

SHARED
RATING
4.6 ★★★★★ Our Review

HostGator: Our Expert's Review

Ryan Frankel (HostingAdvice.com): HostGator is a great compromise between performance and price. The company offers unlimited emails, MySQL databases, disk space, and bandwidth, plus one-click installs of popular open-source projects, in addition to a 99. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 10 GB SSD - 40 GB SSD FREE (1 year) 4 minutes

3. SiteGround.com

SiteGround review

Monthly Starting Price $2.99

  • FREE CDN, email, and daily backups
  • Hassle-free website and email migrations
  • Unlimited traffic, databases, and email
  • Industry-leading customer support response times
  • HostingAdvice readers get 86% off
  • Get started on SiteGround now.

SHARED
RATING
4.6 ★★★★★ Our Review

SiteGround: Our Expert's Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): Providing hosting with the perfect balance of technological innovation and superior customer support, SiteGround offers a range of affordable hosting services to meet your needs. In addition to the expected cheap web hosting perks — a free website builder and unlimited bandwidth — the company specializes in custom-built tools to deliver strong and positive user experiences. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 10 GB SSD - 40 GB SSD New or Transfer 6 minutes

4. Bluehost.com

Bluehost review

Monthly Starting Price $2.95

  • Known for high-performance, low-cost hosting
  • FREE website builder with 1,000s of templates
  • Endorsed by the WordPress.org team as a top host
  • FREE SSL certificate and CDN acceleration
  • Usually $7.99/mo, but our visitors pay $2.95/mo
  • Get started on Bluehost now.

SHARED
RATING
4.5 ★★★★★ Our Review

Bluehost: Our Expert's Review

Ryan Frankel (HostingAdvice.com): Bluehost pricing is about as competitive as the industry offers. Sign up for a shared hosting plan for as little as $2.95 per month, and WordPress hosting packages are consistently priced; a VPS plan starts at around $31.99 per month; and the dedicated hosting rates are as little as $91.98 per month. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 10 GB SSD - 100 GB SSD FREE (1 year) 5 minutes

5. IONOS.com

1&1 IONOS review

Monthly Starting Price $1.00

  • Unlimited everything, from storage to websites
  • Modern hardware compatible with 100s of apps
  • FREE SSL, email, and domain registration
  • Personal consultant for customized support
  • Pay just $12 for 1 year of hosting
  • Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.

SHARED
RATING
4.4 ★★★★ Our Review

1&1 IONOS: Our Expert's Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): If budget is the main factor on your mind when searching for your next web host, search no more. 1&1 IONOS has an impressive range of robust web hosting and website building packages for what may be the best price we've ever seen in the world of hosting. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 10 GB - Unlimited FREE (1 year) 4 minutes

6. Hostinger.com

Hostinger review

Monthly Starting Price $2.49

  • Affordable hosting on cutting-edge hardware
  • FREE website builder or managed WordPress
  • Unlimited bandwidth and free SSL certificates
  • Malware scanner and CloudFlare DDoS protection
  • Upgrade for staging and caching tools
  • Get started on Hostinger now.

SHARED
RATING
4.3 ★★★★ Our Review

Hostinger: Our Expert's Review

Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com): As the shared hosting market becomes increasingly saturated, unlimited storage, bandwidth, and email accounts have become surprisingly average. Hostinger, however, extends the routine, expected metrics to greater lengths — the number of websites, databases, FTP users, subdomains, and parked domains are all unrestricted for most customers. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 50 GB SSD - 200 GB SSD FREE (1 year) 3 minutes

7. GreenGeeks.com

GreenGeeks review

Monthly Starting Price $2.95

  • Fast, reliable shared hosting for business or blogs
  • FREE website migration and website builder
  • Easily install popular apps such as WordPress
  • Unlimited domains and email accounts
  • 99.9% uptime and 24/7 expert support
  • Get started on GreenGeeks now.

SHARED
RATING
4.0 ★★★★ Our Review

GreenGeeks: Our Expert's Review

Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com): Perfect for small business owners, bloggers, or web developers, GreenGeeks offers an impressive blend of features that appeal to all types of site owners. More experienced customers will appreciate the unlimited domain names, SSD RAID-10 storage, and unmetered data transfers, along with nightly backups and built-in caching programs. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 50 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD FREE (1 year) 4 minutes

Review Breakdown

It's clear by now the best shared web hosting services tout a balance of low cost and unlimited resources, including email, domains, storage, and customer support. After reviewing the top shared hosts for WordPress, Linux, eCommerce, and more, we compiled a handy-dandy summary table with our findings. We encourage you to consider cost, website builder services, and support options, in addition to our experts' ratings, when choosing the best shared hosting provider for your next project.

Here are the best shared hosting reviews of 2024:

2024's Best Shared Hosting
Rank Web Host Price Domain Expert Rating
1 InMotion $2.29 FREE (1 year) ★★★★★ 4.8
2 HostGator $2.64 FREE (1 year) ★★★★★ 4.6
3 SiteGround $2.99 New or Transfer ★★★★★ 4.6
4 Bluehost $2.95 FREE (1 year) ★★★★★ 4.5
5 1&1 IONOS $1.00 FREE (1 year) ★★★★ 4.4
6 Hostinger $2.49 FREE (1 year) ★★★★ 4.3
7 GreenGeeks $2.95 FREE (1 year) ★★★★ 4.0

Looking for something other than shared hosting?

Cheap Web Hosting

Cheap Web Hosting

If price is your top deciding factor when choosing a web host, check out our recommendations for cheap web hosting plans. Our reviews cover the cheapest hosts with the most budget-friendly features. See all reviews »

Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated Server Hosting

Looking for a dedicated server to host your website? Choosing the right host can make all the difference. See what our team discovered when comparing the various dedicated hosting options. See all reviews »

VPS Hosting

VPS Hosting

While not a good solution for beginners, virtual private servers offer ideal computing resources and scalability for those who are comfortable managing advanced settings. Check out our reviews of the top VPS options. See all reviews »

WordPress Hosting

WordPress Hosting

If WordPress is your platform of choice, you'll want to read about our experiences installing and maintaining WP with various hosts before deciding on a hosting plan. See which one has our highest recommendation. See all reviews »

Website Builder

Website Builder

Want your own website but don't know where to start? These services enable you to build your own site, without any coding or programming knowledge required. Be on the web in no time — and at a super-low price! See all reviews »

Features of the Best Shared Hosting Providers (Cheap, cPanel, Linux, SSDs, etc.)

Laura Bernheim
Laura Bernheim,
Contributing Expert

As personal websites and technical expertise have become more refined, so has the taste for the shared hosting provider keeping everything online. In the beginning, many site owners crave the equivalent of hosting fast food: something cheap, with name recognition, served with fries, a drink, and a toy — everything I need, all on one tray.

As the hosting customer gains more expertise, their palate becomes more sophisticated and discerning. Speedy solid-state drives, ultra-helpful support teams, and that second or third nine after the decimal point when describing reliability and uptime guarantees stand out more and more.

As with food, finding the right hosting meal is all about finding the balance between the nutritional elements you want and how much you’re willing to pay. We’ve targeted some of the biggest shared hosting differentiators and highlighted the providers with the best services for whatever you’re craving.

Standard Features of the Top Shared Hosting Services

A deep affinity for fast food is by no means bad — just because it’s at the lower end of the fine dining spectrum doesn’t mean you should go without. The same goes for web hosting: Even the most basic plans come with some pretty amazing standard flavors and features. Here’s what you can typically expect from most shared hosting packages:

  • Free domain
  • Unlimited domains, email hosting, databases, storage, and traffic
  • User-friendly control panels
  • WYSIWYG website builders and one-click CMS installs
  • Modern hardware and software support (Linux OS, SSD servers, etc.)
  • Ecommerce options (Magento/PrestaShop support, PayPal integration, etc.)
  • Free marketing and SEO tools
  • 24/7/365 expert support

To start figuring out what to order, you’ll want to take stock of the menu and what you’re hungry for. What’s your budget? Are you looking to blog or start an online store? Is this a pet project or something you want to grow to reach a large crowd? How much help do you need to get a site online?

Cheapest Shared Hosting Services

Who doesn’t like ordering off the value menu? Don’t let a low price tag fool you into thinking a host’s services are necessarily subpar. Since web hosting providers can put hundreds or even thousands of customers on a single shared server, cheap hosting plans include extra features without raising prices. Here are some of the perks you’ll commonly see when signing up with an affordable web host:

  • Free domain name registration
  • Free website builder
  • Free paid advertising credits
  • Costs less than $5/month

When it comes to a reputable and affordable shared hosting provider, Bluehost is among the best in the business — combining low cost with modern hardware configurations and reliability. The biggest deal of the industry, however, falls to iPage. Boasting excellent features and performance, iPage excels at a price point that is hard to beat.

Best cPanel Shared Hosting Services

Hosting providers give their customers a control panel to simplify account management and provide access to several helpful tools. The most popular option, cPanel streamlines the hosting experience for both beginners and more experienced users. Be sure to look out for these options when looking for a shared hosting plan with cPanel:

  • Free cPanel license
  • 1-click software installs
  • SSH and phpMyAdmin access

You’ll most often find cPanel on Linux shared hosting, and few are better than Bluehost. The company’s custom cPanel interface unlocks one-click installations of popular content management systems, email setup, and domain management.

Best Plesk Shared Hosting Plans

Another control panel option, Plesk is most commonly associated with Windows hosting plans. Boasting a sleek, modern interface, Plesk gives users the same powerful tools for managing your hosting account, websites, files, applications, and email accounts. If you want to explore shared hosting options with Plesk, look out for the following:

  • Free Plesk license
  • 1-click software installs
  • SSH and phpMyAdmin access

We appreciate GoDaddy’s industry-leading load times and how the company gives customers a choice between cPanel and Plesk. Already the world’s top domain registrar, GoDaddy is a shared web host tailored for usability and support at unbelievably low prices.

Best Linux Shared Hosting Providers

Although many novice customers won’t notice a difference, the operating system installed on your shared server can affect performance, security, pricing, and technical features. Linux plans tend to be cheaper because the platform and much of its supporting software programs are created and maintained by open-source communities. Linux has inspired several other operating systems, so keep an eye out for these features:

  • Linux operating system (CentOS is most popular for shared servers)
  • Linux-friendly software support (Apache, PHP, MySQL, etc.)

You’ll want to choose a Linux shared hosting package especially if you expect to use a popular content management system such as WordPress or Drupal. Given how involved they are with the WordPress website hosting community, Bluehost is an easy recommendation for Linux hosting.

Best Shared Hosting for WordPress, Magento, or Other Popular Platforms

One of the most frequently used perks of shared hosting is the one-click installations of the internet’s most popular programs. Add content management systems, ecommerce tools, forums, and more in seconds by signing up for a shared host that offers:

  • One-click installations for WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal, PrestaShop, and other programs
  • Hosting unlimited sites on a single account
  • Integrated caching features for added performance
  • CMS-specific support (BONUS: Team maintains the core/plugins)

Most hosts provide easy access to WordPress and similar programs, but some of our favorite providers go a step further. Bluehost actively contributes to WordPress, while SiteGround optimizes performance by including three layers of caching. For those customers needing more help getting started with WordPress, InMotion Hosting created its own site builder, BoldGrid.

Fastest Shared Hosting (SSD Shared Hosts)

No matter the goals for your website, you don’t want your visitors to gather dust while waiting for your pages to load. You’ll see these words if a shared hosting provider wants to brag about being optimized for speed and performance:

  • Solid-state drives (SSDs)
  • Free CDN
  • Caching features

Consistently one of the fastest hosts in the game, InMotion Hosting boasts top-notch SSDs that will load your website up to 20 times faster than the regular hard drives you’ll get with other shared hosting providers. What’s more, the company offers a 90-day money-back guarantee to give you ample time to test putting the pedal to the metal.

Cheap Shared Hosting With Website Builders

New customers getting started with their first website might understandably be intimidated by coding or content management systems. Drag-and-drop website builders provide a pain-free experience by simplifying site creation into a code-free, what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface. Here’s what to look for:

  • Free drag-and-drop website builder
  • One-click software installs for WordPress/CMS website building
  • 1,000s of free and paid templates

We love when hosting providers craft their own site building solutions to meet the specific needs of their customers. The one-of-a-kind BoldGrid is the first builder to harness the power of WordPress, while iPage’s WebsiteBuilder provides hundreds of templates for creating a stunning responsive look.

Why “Free Shared Hosting” Didn’t Make The Cut

Trust us — a quality shared web hosting package is worth the investment. The best hosts reinvest your money into upgrading infrastructure, adding services, and hiring more support agents. Free hosting plans put your website on slow servers and won’t pick up the phone when you have a question. Save yourself the trouble by starting with an affordable host right off the bat.

The Best Shared Web Hosting Companies Welcome Beginners

Classy restaurants commonly station a host or hostess at the front door to welcome prospective patrons and answer any questions they might have about the menu before they come inside for a table. Hosting companies employ similar tactics by welcoming new customers with discounts and extra features. Figure out what features you’re craving, find the best deal, and watch yourself quickly become a hosting connoisseur!

About The Author

Laura has spent more than 12 years crafting engaging and award-winning articles that share the passion behind organizations' products, people, and innovations. As a long-time HostingAdvice contributing expert, she combines a reputation for producing quality content with rich technical expertise to show experienced developers how to capitalize on emerging technologies and find better ways to work with established platforms. A professional journalist, Laura has contributed to The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, the Sun Sentinel, and the world's top hosting providers.
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Laura Bernheim