WordPress Review

Alexandra Anderson

By: Alexandra Anderson

Alexandra Anderson

Alexandra is a web marketer, Agile Product Owner, and die-hard wordsmith who's contributed to HostingAdvice, InMotion Hosting, HostGator, and other prominent hosting and technology blogs, as well as Forbes. She has a master's degree in information technology from Virginia Tech and more than 10 years of experience building websites, advising on web and mobile app design, and crafting content that engages and converts. Her primary subject matter expertise spans WordPress, UX design, Agile project management, and, of course, web hosting.

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Editor: Lillian Castro

Lillian Castro

Lillian brings more than 30 years of editing and journalism experience to our team. She has written and edited for major news organizations, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the New York Times, and she previously served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Florida. Today, she edits HostingAdvice content for clarity, accuracy, and reader engagement.

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OVERALL RATING 4.7 / 5.0
★★★★★
Features5.0 / 5.0
Ease of Use4.6 / 5.0
Pricing5.0 / 5.0
Reliability & Support4.5 / 5.0
Discount for Our Users See Deals

Powering almost half of the websites online today, WordPress remains a trusted and robust platform for designing, launching, and managing your web presence. We recommend the software to both first-timers and veterans, but you'll need a host to run it. InMotion Hosting is the perfect partner, whether you're looking for a shared, virtual, or dedicated server.

Category Ratings

We had one of our resident hosting experts, Alexandra Anderson, sign up for a WordPress account and take it for a spin. Below are Alexandra’s ratings of the WordPress experience, broken down by the types of hosting WordPress offers.

If you decide to go with WordPress, you may get a discount by using our link to sign up. While we often make commissions on purchases made through our links, this had no bearing on Alexandra’s review.

Here’s what Alexandra found in reviewing WordPress:

Disclosure: When you sign up through links on our site, we often earn referral fees from partners. For more information, see our ad disclosure and review policy.

WordPress's Overall Rating (4.7 / 5.0)

Best Overall Rating

4.7
★★★★★

Price:

Setup Time:

Alexandra Anderson

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com):

WordPress, the best blogging platform and content management system in the world, powers the online presence of brands such as Disney, Sony, and Spotify.

Rookie website owners can turn toward WordPress.com for a limited version of the browser-based publishing system that lets them stretch their website design wings. But many of the top hosting providers make the software even easier to access by offering single-click installations for WordPress (which can also be downloaded from WordPress.org).

As a WordPress hosting front-runner, InMotion Hosting will preinstall the platform for you at checkout. Once the platform is successfully set up, site owners can begin browsing the theme marketplace, and preview site content before publishing to the web.

Find the perfect theme, incorporate any plugins you'd like to extend your site's functionality, and begin drafting your first post! Whether you're building a blog or an online store — hosting on a shared server or your very own VPS — you can have a new WordPress site online in less than an hour.

It only has to take a few minutes, but we're no strangers to perfectionism. You'll have the support of the open-source community in your corner, as the WordPress core code is actively maintained by a team of all-star contributing developers. And just about any question you could imagine having has probably been asked and answered somewhere on the web.

Whether you're looking for shared, cloud-based, or dedicated server WordPress hosting, we recommend InMotion. Throughout our review of the WordPress platform, we'll use InMotion's pricing, storage allowances, uptime rates, and support standards to illustrate the ease and excellence of building a website with WordPress and a WP-friendly host.

Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)
Setup Time
5 minutes
WordPress's Cheap Hosting (4.6 / 5.0)

Cheap Rating

4.6
★★★★★

Price:

Setup Time:

WordPress hosting is incredibly cost-competitive. The software itself is free, and most shared hosts offer WordPress packages in the $2- to $5-per-month ballpark.

It's easy to get started, as hosts will often offer single-click installations for WordPress, and then you can begin browsing the thousands of themes available in the Appearance section of the WordPress dashboard. Customize to your heart's desire, click "Publish," and voila! You've got yourself a self-hosted WordPress website.

Whether you're looking to build an online presence for your brick-and-mortar or a blog for your interior design musings, WordPress is the ideal space in which to spread your website-building wings.

The additional free resources you'll have at your fingertips include plugins (add-on software that extends the functionality of the WordPress platform), ecommerce tools, and features to optimize your website for online search.

By partnering with a cheap shared hosting provider, you'll get more than shared space on a server. To remain cost-competitive, most hosts include additional freebies such as a complimentary domain name registration, unlimited storage and email, and a few hundred dollars' worth of paid search marketing credits.

InMotion Hosting does all of the above, which is one of the many reasons we recommend the host as a true value offering in WordPress hosting. Get started today and enjoy free SSD storage, one-click installations for other WordPress-compatible tools, and business-class hardware at an ultra-affordable monthly rate.

  • #1 site-building software is FREE
  • Install in 1 click with top hosts
  • FREE themes to customize your WordPress site
  • Works for eCommerce, blogging, galleries, and personal sites
  • Trusted by millions of website owners
  • Get started on WordPress with InMotion Hosting.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)
Setup Time
5 minutes
WordPress's Dedicated Hosting (4.9 / 5.0)

Dedicated Rating

4.9
★★★★★

Price:

Setup Time:

If you're a mid-sized to large-scale online business, or if security and compliance are of utmost concern, you may be considering a dedicated server for your hosting needs.

Dedicated resources come at a premium, but leading WordPress host InMotion makes it worth your while. Should you opt for one of InMotion's dedicated hosting plans for WordPress, the team will download and install the software for you.

Begin writing your site from scratch or get a jumpstart on design with a professional-looking theme. Either way, the end result will be blazing-fast page load speeds backed by an always-on uptime guarantee (99.999%). InMotion Hosting dedicated servers feature SSD storage, rebootless kernel updates, full root access, and around-the-clock server monitoring.

Plans include plenty of RAM, IP addresses, storage, and processing power, so your WordPress site is equipped to scale alongside your business.

WordPress is a robust, comprehensive platform for designing, deploying, and maintaining an exquisite and performant online presence, and it has a loyal community of contributing developers and avid users to show for it. Follow the forums, confide in the WordPress Codex, and spend some time getting to know the nuances of this incredible interface. You won't be disappointed.

  • Robust blogging platform meets resource-capable dedicated servers
  • Ideal for fast-growing sites and enterprise
  • InMotion guarantees 99.99% uptime for your WordPress site
  • 1-click software installation for WordPress
  • FREE SSD storage
  • Get started on WordPress with InMotion Hosting.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
1 TB SSD - 3.2 TB SSD
Domain Name
New or Transfer
Setup Time
5 minutes
WordPress's VPS Hosting (4.9 / 5.0)

VPS Rating

4.9
★★★★★

Price:

Setup Time:

Virtual private servers yield the utmost flexibility at a cost-effective price point. Some of the most performant and popular websites in the world are powered by VPS hosting, and the same can be said of the WordPress platform.

From the New York Post and Fortune.com to Spotify and Beyonce.com, millions of websites run on WordPress. HostingAdvice is backed by a virtual server and managed via the WordPress platform. It's a match made in hosting heaven.

For your VPS and cloud hosting needs, we recommend InMotion Hosting for WordPress. The company touts enterprise-grade hardware, and solid-state drives come standard, accelerating performance with up to 20x faster page loads.

With your choice of datacenter locations, East or West Coast, InMotion delivers all the flexibility, performance, and security the VPS niche can offer. Once your virtual server is provisioned and WordPress is installed, you can choose to write your HTML from scratch or take a head start with one of thousands of themes.

Extend your site's functionality with plugins for ecommerce, page caching, comment moderation, and other essentials for a modern web presence. Backed by an active, open-source developer community, the WordPress interface is easy to befriend, and just about any question you have about bugs or updates has probably been answered in the Codex or community forums.

  • Instantly provision your VPS and install WordPress with 1 click
  • SSD speed gives your WordPress site a performance boost
  • WordPress is trusted as the #1 site builder platform
  • InMotion is trusted as the #1 WordPress VPS host
  • Tons of support available via your host and online forums
  • Get started on WordPress with InMotion Hosting.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
90 GB SSD - 360 GB SSD
Domain Name
New or Transfer
Setup Time
5 minutes
WordPress's WordPress Hosting (5.0 / 5.0)

WordPress Rating

5.0
★★★★★

Price:

Setup Time:

Good news, website owners: The software that powers upward of 40% of websites is free and open for public enjoyment and customization. WordPress is ready for download at WordPress.org, and the team is actively maintaining its core code.

As long as you stay current with your WP software versions and install plugins with caution, the site-building possibilities and benefits of WordPress are seemingly endless.

It should come as no surprise that many of the web's most trusted hosts have zeroed in on the popularity of WordPress, offering single-click installations for the software and WordPress-specific optimizations for performance, security, and support.

Once you get up and running with a WordPress host, you can choose from thousands of free and paid themes — premade website templates that expedite your site design process, allowing you to skip to the content and customization.

For a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) experience, we recommend installing BoldGrid, a site builder tool that layers on top of the WordPress platform to create a drag-and-drop site builder environment. InMotion will install BoldGrid for you at checkout as well, making WordPress setup a non-issue.

Incorporating additional plugins, apps, and scripts extends the robust functionality of the WordPress interface. From calendar widgets to page caching for performance, there's essentially a plugin for every WordPress need.

Integrating payment processing tools, such as Shopify and PayPal, converts your traditional site into a transaction-ready virtual marketplace. Cultivate a following with commenting apps, like Disqus, and link your social media accounts.

What's more, WordPress hosts often throw in free paid search advertising credits to help you kickstart your marketing efforts. WordPress remains the most popular platform for building a beautiful online presence from scratch. It's relied on by hosting novices and seasoned developers alike, and we're confident the software, matched with InMotion Hosting hardware, will deliver everything you need to establish and grow your next website.

Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)
Setup Time
5 minutes
WordPress's Website Builder (4.8 / 5.0)

Website Builder Rating

4.8
★★★★★

Price:

Setup Time:

While WordPress is technically blogging software, it's been called a website builder, a content management system, and even an ecommerce platform — basically, a website-building multitool.

Because it's open-sourced, the core code can be adapted to meet virtually any website need, and the wealth of plugins and WP-friendly apps built by third-party developers makes this platform a go-to for website owners around the world.

For added site-building functionality, we recommend downloading and installing BoldGrid, which functions on top of the WP interface to act as a drag-and-drop content management system. This is especially useful for first-time site owners or nervous hosting newbies.

Basically, BoldGrid takes away the one dig against WordPress, its semi-steep learning curve, by transforming the backend environment into a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) website editor.

Best of all, both WordPress and BoldGrid are 100% free, and the InMotion Hosting team will set up the platforms for you at checkout. Once WordPress is installed and configured, you can begin designing one of two ways: Upload your own HTML files and style sheets and continue customizing in the backend, or choose from a library of thousands of premade website themes.

Paired with the abundance of plugins for extensibility, the WordPress interface brings utmost flexibility from a site construction and customization point of view.

  • Intuitive, drag-and-drop site builder BoldGrid sits atop WordPress
  • Developed and supported by the InMotion Hosting team
  • Responsive themes so your WP site looks good on any device
  • FREE to download WordPress software
  • SEO-friendly end result
  • Get started on BoldGrid for WordPress now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)
Setup Time
5 minutes

Features

(5.0 / 5.0)

World-Leading Interface for Blogging & Content

  • WordPress remains the #1 platform for blogging, but the software has been bastardized into a content management system, lumped in with the likes of Joomla and Drupal and used to maintain virtually any type of web content.
  • Trusted by some of the web's most famous sites, WordPress can be used to create blogs, vlogs, online stores, and professional or personal-use websites of any scale.
  • Once you get to know the backend environment, WordPress lets you quickly and intuitively draft and publish posts, pages, menus, and headers. Anything can be customized via the sidebar — from user permissions to theme settings.

Support from Leading Hosting Providers

  • Typically, we review hosting options based on storage, uptime rates, bandwidth, and support, as well as cost and design features. It's important to note that WordPress software is a self-hosted option, meaning you can download the software for free, but you have to pay for the hosting benefits of a third-party provider.
  • Fortunately, many of the best web hosts make WordPress readily available with single-click installations of the software. InMotion will even install WordPress for you at checkout.
  • By partnering with a WP-savvy host, you can benefit from up to unlimited disk space, a free domain for your new site, and assistance with migration, WP updates, and server monitoring.

Themes & Plugins Extend Functionality

  • Thousands of free and premium themes are available at WordPress.org, as well as third-party sites, to help non-coders create a professional-looking online presence.
  • BoldGrid, a one-of-a-kind, drag-and-drop design tool built by the InMotion team, puts a WYSIWYG twist on the legacy WordPress environment for easy site design and deployment.
  • If there's something you'd like to finagle, and you can't figure out how to do so within the WordPress backend, chances are there's a plugin for that! By integrating leading apps and scripts, such as Shopify, Woocommerce, and PayPal, your website or blog can be transformed into a fully functioning online store.

Benefits of the Open-Source Community

  • The WordPress platform is built and maintained by the WordPress.org team and is completely open-sourced, meaning users can customize it any way they like.
  • More than 30 experienced developers actively work on updating and maintaining the WordPress Core code, but hundreds of thousands of webmasters and dev folks work with the software on a daily basis and have contributed their expertise in forums and FAQs.
  • While open-source has its disadvantages, including susceptibility to security vulnerabilities (mostly caused by human error), the pros far outweigh the cons. Take advantage of the wealth of WP programming knowledge found online and through your web host.

Ease of Use

(4.6 / 5.0)
Clean & Customizable Dashboard
WordPress Review
Plethora of Themes & Plugins
WordPress Review
BoldGrid Eases Learning Curve
WordPress Review

The ease of use of the WordPress backend is a controversial topic. Some accuse the software of a steep learning curve, while others praise it for its intuitiveness and wealth of resources for newcomers. Our takeaway: As with anything else, if it's worth it, you'll put in the time to make it happen. The WordPress platform's functionality potential is seemingly limitless. You just have to befriend the interface and its quirks.

Pricing

(5.0 / 5.0)

WP Core Plan

WP Launch Plan

WP Power Plan

WordPress boasts the most attractive price tag there is: FREE. The software that needs no introduction can be found at WordPress.org, downloaded, and installed for $0. HOWEVER, you do have to pay for some sort of hosting if you want the website you design using WordPress to ever see the light of the virtual day. For the best value in WordPress hosting, we recommend InMotion Hosting plans. For less than $5 per month, the InMotion hosting team will install the software, help you migrate an existing WordPress site to InMotion servers, and back up your new site automatically. You benefit from SSD speed, 99.99% uptime, and ultra-reliable support for a monthly fee that's less than the cost of your daily latte.

Reliability & Support

(4.5 / 5.0)

Typically, the verdict of this section boils down to the reliability of the hardware and the support of the team. Since this is software we're talking about, WordPress puts a spin on this review round. The WordPress platform itself is very reliable, though the open-sourced code puts the software at risk of falling prey to bugs and other holes in security. For the most part, it's user error that's to blame. When things go wrong for a WordPress site, nine times out of 10 it's due to one of two things: The site owner didn't update the WordPress Core regularly or a buggy plugin got in the way. Keep your software versions current and only download plugins from credible sources (read the reviews!), and you should be golden. For everything else, there's your hosting provider. InMotion Hosting touts some of the best support in the world, with around-the-clock security monitoring, automatic site backups, and a 99.99% uptime guarantee to ensure your WordPress site is protected and almost always online.

WordPress Includes:

Community Forums, the WordPress Codex, and Third-Party Plugins for Added Security

Does Not Include

Phone or Email Support, an Uptime Guarantee, Automatic Backups, Automatic Software Updates, or Server Monitoring (but a good WordPress host will!)

Other Hosts vs. WordPress

Wondering how WordPress stacks up againt other web hosting services? See our host-vs-host reviews below and compare them side by side.

WordPress vs. Web.com

Web design is crucial to a website’s success.

See full comparison »
Web.com vs. WordPress

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
Web.com vs. WordPress

Overall Rating

★★★★ 4.3/5.0

WordPress vs. WP Engine

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system for several reasons — it’s free, easy to use, and flexible enough to be leveraged for various site types.

See full comparison »
WordPress vs. WP Engine

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
WordPress vs. WP Engine

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

WordPress vs. HostGator

HostGator and WordPress are well-known players in the hosting industry, but they each offer a different suite of services.

See full comparison »
HostGator vs. WordPress

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
HostGator vs. WordPress

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

WordPress vs. Shopify

Calling all eCommerce site owners: Shopify offers the world’s most popular online platform for selling goods.

See full comparison »
WordPress vs Shopify

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
WordPress vs Shopify

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

WordPress vs. Wix

In this match, WordPress and Wix duke it out for the title of “best host.

See full comparison »
WordPress vs Wix

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
WordPress vs Wix

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

WordPress vs. GoDaddy

King Kong versus Godzilla — We put the two most popular web service providers toe-to-toe in a battle to see which would emerge victoriously.

See full comparison »
WordPress vs GoDaddy

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
WordPress vs GoDaddy

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0

WordPress vs. iPage

Web hosting has come a long way since computer mainframes, where on-premise servers took some serious cash and square footage.

See full comparison »
WordPress vs. iPage

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
WordPress vs. iPage

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

WordPress vs. Bluehost

The gloves are off between Bluehost and WordPress.

See full comparison »
WordPress vs. Bluehost

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
WordPress vs. Bluehost

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

WordPress vs. BoldGrid

So which one do you think is best?

See full comparison »
BoldGrid vs WordPress

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
BoldGrid vs WordPress

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

WordPress vs. Weebly

Weebly and WordPress are wonderfully talented in their own respective ways.

See full comparison »
Weebly vs WordPress

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
Weebly vs WordPress

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

WordPress vs. SiteGround

SiteGround has an incredible reputation for its WordPress hosting, but is it better than the makers of WordPress themselves?

See full comparison »
SiteGround vs. WordPress

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0
SiteGround vs. WordPress

Overall Rating

★★★★★ 5.0/5.0

WordPress is the winner
6 out of 11 times.

The Rundown

Alexandra Anderson

Alexandra Anderson

Hosting Expert:

Here's a rundown of what WordPress hosting with InMotion has to offer

Trusted by millions of web novices and veterans around the world, WordPress remains my #1 recommendation if you're looking for a comprehensive platform to build, customize, and maintain a stellar website. With the software preinstalled for you at checkout, InMotion Hosting ushers customers into the wonderful world of WordPress web hosting with utmost confidence and 99.99% uptime guaranteed. If you're new to the WordPress interface, we recommend employing InMotion's BoldGrid, the drag-and-drop site-building platform that sits atop WordPress, bringing WYSIWYG simplicity to ease the WP learning curve.

WordPress review

Overall Rating

4.7 / 5.0
★★★★★

About The Author

Alexandra Anderson’s interest in website administration was sparked in her teens, priming her for a fast-paced career in managing, building, and contributing to online brands, including HostingAdvice, Forbes, and the blogs of prominent hosting providers. She brings firsthand experience reviewing web hosts, perfecting website design, optimizing content, and walking site owners through the steps that add up to a successful online presence. With a master's degree in information technology from Virginia Tech, she combines her extensive writing experience and technical understanding to unpack some of the most complex topics that daunt novice website owners, as well as the subjects that excite veteran technologists within the HostingAdvice readership.
Alexandra Anderson
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