11 Best BuddyPress Hosting Services (Feb. 2024)

BuddyPress is a social networking distribution of WordPress that includes user profiles, groups, instant messaging, and other connectivity features. Hosting for BuddyPress has the same basic requirements as WP core, with the additional functionality provided by open-source plugins.

BuddyPress allows WordPress developers to save time in building websites by customizing the social networking functionality at the theme level with templates, custom CSS, and JavaScript. The BuddyPress distro is compatible with most other WordPress plugins for flexible use in apps.

BuddyPress is a WordPress distribution managed by Automattic, the parent company of the CMS. Automattic also produces WooCommerce and other plugins for WordPress, which have been adopted by a wide range of groups, from enterprises to small businesses. Read on for our recommendations of the best BuddyPress hosting services.

Bluehost is Automattic’s top choice for BuddyPress hosting, and its managed WordPress platform includes a free Cloudflare CDN account. Developers can install BuddyPress with bbPress to add forums to the community or create subdomain testing environments for code.

Available Plans at Bluehost:

Basic Plan:	$2.95 monthly — 1 Website + 10 GB of SSD Storage & Chat Support
Choice Plus Plan:	$5.45 monthly — 3 Websites + 40 GB SSD Storage & Backups
Online Store Plan:	$9.95 monthly — 3 Websites + 40 GB SSD Storage & Data Analytics
Pro Plan:	$13.95 monthly — 5 Websites + 100 GB SSD Storage & Phone Support

Bluehost recommends using the Be Social theme with BuddyPress to optimize the display and add Facebook commenting features to your communities. All new accounts include a free domain name registration at Bluehost and guaranteed privacy for the WHOIS records.

A2 Hosting tops the list of BuddyPress web hosting companies due to its extensive support for the distribution at prices that start at only $2.99 per month for a single site. BuddyPress developers are provided with tools like Elementor, Divi, BeaverBuilder, and BoldGrid.

A2Hosting.com

Monthly Starting Price $2.99

• Preinstalled WordPress with optimized plugin
• 24/7/365 support via chat, email, and phone
• Free and easy site migration
• 99.9% uptime commitment
• Get started on A2 Hosting now »

BUDDYPRESS
RATING

4.9

★★★★★

Available Plans at A2 Hosting:

Startup Plan:	$2.99 monthly — 100 GB SSD Storage + Free Site Migration
Drive Plan:	$5.99 monthly — Unlimited Websites, SSD Storage, & Backups
Turbo Boost Servers:	$6.99 monthly — 20x Faster Servers + Unlimited NVMe SSD Storage
Turbo Max Servers:	$14.99 monthly — 20x Faster Servers + 5x More Server Resources

A2 Hosting will pre-install BuddyPress with an optimized runtime environment for WordPress. The LAMP server environment is administered through cPanel, the most widely used solution in shared web hosting. A2 Hosting experts manage platform security so you can focus on running your BuddyPress forum.

SiteGround offers a one-click WordPress installation option where you can easily add the BuddyPress plugin set through the administration section. In case you have any issues or questions, SiteGround provides a collection of easy-to-use tutorials and guides for installation.

Available Plans at SiteGround:

Startup Plan:	$2.99 monthly — 1 Website + 10 GB Storage & Unmetered Traffic
GrowBig Plan:	$4.99 monthly — Unlimited Websites + 20 GB Storage & Backups
GoGeek Plan:	$7.99 monthly — Unlimited Websites + 40 GB Storage & Migration

SiteGround customers receive free domain name registration, SSL certificates for all listed domains, and developer tools like WP-CLI pre-installed for managing WordPress with a command line interface. The platform includes integrated caching and a free CDN option.

Hostinger is a popular budget hosting option for customers looking to get the maximum resources for the cost of their monthly hosting plan. You won’t find many cheaper offers online. All of Hostinger’s plans include a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth, and an email server.

Available Plans at Hostinger:

Premium Plan:	$2.49 monthly — 100 Websites + 100 GB SSD Storage & Domain
Business Plan:	$3.69 monthly — 100 Websites + 200 GB NVMe SSD Storage & CDN
Cloud Startup Plan:	$8.99 monthly — 300 Websites + 200 GB NVMe Storage & IP Address

BuddyPress hosting is cheap and easy at Hostinger. You can install WordPress on any registered domain name or subdomain address, and the installer will create the MySQL database for you. You can add the BuddyPress plugin and support hundreds of WordPress sites online.

Every WordPress hosting plan at InMotion Hosting includes a free domain name registration, SSL certificates for every domain, and NVMe SSD storage capacity. Developers can also host code written in Python, ASP.NET, Ruby, and Node.js using InMotion Hosting’s shared hardware.

Available Plans at InMotion Hosting:

WP Core Plan:	$3.29 monthly — 2 Websites + 100 GB NVMe Storage & Backups
WP Launch Plan:	$8.99 monthly — 25 Websites + Unlimited NVMe Storage & Caching
WP Power Servers:	$6.75 monthly — Unlimited Websites & NVMe Storage + 30x Speeds
WP Pro Servers:	$12.75 monthly — Unlimited Websites & NVMe Storage + 40x Speeds

If you have a high-traffic BuddyPress website, consider the i-Platform at InMotion Hosting to run your production apps on VPS with fixed resource allocation. The i-Platform managed plans range from $7 to $21 per month with Apache, NGINX, Redis, and dedicated PHP workers.

DreamHost is one of the oldest and most well-respected retail web hosting companies offering shared LAMP servers to clients for WordPress hosting. Its managed DreamPress distribution competes with WP Engine as a fully optimized runtime environment for the CMS.

Available Plans at DreamHost:

WordPress Plans:	From $2.59 monthly — Cheap & Easy-to-Use + Free Domain Name
DreamPress Plans:	Starting at $16.95 monthly — Optimized Distro + Website Caching
VPS WordPress:	From $10 monthly — Virtual Private Server Solutions that Scale

DreamHost makes it easy to install and maintain a BuddyPress site over time. Customers get a free domain name, unlimited email addresses, SSL certificates, and other perks with every plan. DreamHost WP plans offer the expertise of its data center engineers at a lower price than DIY.

HostGator is another of the stalwarts in the industry, with more than 20 years of service and millions of domains published. HostGator offers three WordPress hosting plans with the CMS pre-installed. You will have to add the BuddyPress package through the WP Admin section of the installation.

Available Plans at HostGator:

Baby Plan:	$4.50 monthly — 2 Websites + 20 GB SSD Storage + Cloudflare CDN
Business Plan:	$6.25 monthly — 3 Websites + 40 GB SSD Storage + Daily Backups
Pro Plan:	$13.95 monthly — 5 Websites + 100 GB SSD Storage + 5 vCPUs

HostGator includes a free domain for the plan’s first year, free SSL certificates for every domain, and unmetered bandwidth. The free Cloudflare CDN offer, anti-malware scanning, and domain privacy are standard on every HostGator WordPress plan with cPanel administration.

Cloudways has a unique system that allows anyone to run BuddyPress sites on AWS, Google Cloud, or DigitalOcean servers. Cloudways provides each client with a virtual machine (VM) where WordPress operates according to fixed hardware allocations for RAM, CPUs, and storage.

Available Plans at Cloudways:

DigitalOcean Plan:	$14 monthly — 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU Core + 25 GB NVMe Storage
AWS Plan:	$38.56 monthly — 2 GB RAM, 2 vCPU Core + 20 GB NVMe Storage
Google Cloud Plan:	$37.45 monthly — 1.75 GB RAM, 1 CPU Core + 20 GB NVMe Storage

The Cloudways WordPress plans support 35 data centers with an optimized runtime stack for BuddyPress sites, including caching and Cloudflare CDN options. Cloudways offers servers with seamless vertical scaling, dedicated firewalls, and NVMe storage capacity.

IONOS offers managed and unmanaged WordPress hosting plans at equivalent pricing, where customers can install BuddyPress as a plugin. This allows developers to take advantage of the low prices on IONOS hardware and managed cloud services.

Available Plans at IONOS:

Start Plan:	$4.50 monthly — 1 Site + 25 GB SSD Storage & 9 GB RAM
Grow Plan:	$5.50 monthly — 1 Site + 50 GB SSD Storage & 15 GB RAM
Boost Plan:	$11 monthly — 1 Site + 75 GB SSD Storage & 20 GB RAM

In comparison, most web hosting companies with VPS plans charge much higher prices for configurations with the level of RAM that IONOS provides. This will give your website a performance advantage over other solutions that should assist Google PageSpeed scores.

HostArmada’s cloud hosting plans for WordPress publishers include the PicoSpace theme which is compatible with BuddyPress and WooCommerce. Developers can add any web builder framework of their choice to build sites. HostArmada offers free SSL, caching, and daily backups.

Available Plans at HostArmada:

Start Dock Plan:	$2.49 monthly — NGINX Servers + 2 GB RAM & 15 GB SSD Storage
Web Warp Plan:	$4.11 monthly — NGINX Servers + 4 GB RAM & 30 GB SSD Storage
Speed Reaper Plan:	$4.94 monthly — LiteSpeed Servers + 6 GB RAM & 40 GB Storage

The Start Dock plan at HostArmada will only support one site and has a two-CPU allocation, while the Web Warp plan supports unlimited domains and is a great deal. The choice here is between NGINX and LiteSpeed servers with BuddyPress. The Speed Reaper plan has six CPUs in total.

Liquid Web now uses Nexcess for managed WordPress hosting plans that include scalability for up to 250 high-traffic WordPress sites. If you are looking to run BuddyPress in an optimized cloud hardware environment, Liquid Web’s managed WordPress plans are top-of-the-line.

Available Plans at Liquid Web:

SPARK Plan:	$20 monthly — 1 Site + 5 GB Storage & 2 TB Bandwidth
MAKER Plan:	$47.85 monthly — 3 Sites + 25 GB Storage & 15 PHP Workers
DESIGNER Plan:	$54 monthly — 5 Sites + 60 GB Storage & 20 PHP Workers

Liquid Web maintains a curated list of WordPress plugins on its managed cloud plans with dedicated and autoscaled PHP workers for BuddyPress. Enterprise sites can scale up to 60 dedicated and 70 autoscaled workers for the fastest processing of user I/O requests.

BuddyPress hosting involves the deployment of a specialized social networking distribution of WordPress on shared, VPS, dedicated, or cloud servers.

WordPress will run on Windows or Linux with Apache, IIS, NGINX, LiteSpeed, and other web server frameworks. The code is written primarily in PHP and requires a MySQL-compatible database to install the script.

Web hosting companies offer shared hosting with cPanel, virtual private server (VPS) plans with isolated environments for full-stack development, managed WordPress plans where the script is pre-installed and updated, and provide optimized runtime environments for the script and database. There are also options for systems administration and integrated caching.

The plans provided by A2 Hosting are the best for BuddyPress developers as they also include a suite of template builders for WordPress and a free WordPress theme. Most web hosting companies only provide a pre-installed or one-click WordPress installation where you must add the BuddyPress theme from a professional marketplace or open-source design team.

You can easily extend a WordPress website with the BuddyPress plugin suite and a BuddyPress WordPress theme. Ensure your web host provides these (instead of buying from the download market) to save the most on the plan’s cost.

A curated WordPress plugin suite is also helpful to developers when building a social network with community plugins. The BuddyPress docs are available online to learn more about the distro.

Automattic has released BuddyPress under open-source licensing terms, making it free for commercial or non-commercial purposes. There is no actual cost for the software. You can build a community website with BuddyPress that’s easy to manage on a cheap WordPress VPS or shared hosting plan. The cost should be from $3 to $12 per month.

When building a social network, the developer cost is much higher than the hosting cost. This encourages the use of professional themes and builder templates in DIY design. You can customize activity streams, user profiles, and online community plugins to the requirements of any group for information and discussion with a WordPress site and BuddyPress.

WordPress security at the web host should be a significant concern, although most companies have a good reputation here. Security breaches can cost more than development to businesses running a WordPress site with the best BuddyPress plugins pre-tested by the developers.

Most self-publishers and small businesses can publish their websites easily with WordPress on shared hosting plans without needing a dedicated server. The main feature of VPS hosting plans is that you get an isolated environment for full-stack customization.

You can run NGINX, Apache, or LiteSpeed servers with different databases and caching utilities to make BuddyPress websites perform at peak rates on the hardware. The approach of managed WordPress plans is to save publishers the time and effort of DIY VPS configurations with a complete PaaS solution.

Shared Servers

A web hosting service that supports WordPress on shared servers can install BuddyPress in just a few clicks. Many shared server frameworks are optimized for WordPress hosting with the best BuddyPress themes found on the download market.

The social login and BuddyPress registration options must be configured manually with developer knowledge. However, this is a low-code method of building a social network for a WordPress BuddyPress website.

Cloud Servers

If you have a high-traffic WordPress or BuddyPress website in production, cloud servers are a great upgrade, allowing sites to scale elastically with their user demand. This is frequently used by mobile apps running WordPress or sites with BuddyPress featured members who are influencers with a large following.

WooCommerce hosting is also compatible with BuddyPress, so using those cloud servers to build a BuddyPress community with WordPress social login is possible. Bitnami offers a full-stack WordPress profile for containers.

Virtual Private Servers

Suppose you run support forums with bbPress or a community site. In that case, a VPS plan will dedicate more resources to your app in production than is usually available on shared hosting plans.

Managed VPS plans are easiest, as the web hosting company provides and maintains the data center engineering over time with security upgrades. Unmanaged VPS plans are best when you need extensive customization for full-stack development requirements in programming. Consider a VPS plan for high-traffic social networking sites.

Dedicated Servers

Most WordPress publishers do not require a dedicated server or can get equivalent configurations at lower prices on VPS plans. The biggest demand for dedicated servers is in businesses that require the physical isolation of hardware.

Businesses that typically require a dedicated server have switched to cloud servers to maintain more control over elastic scalability. Some multi-user blogs and eCommerce sites may find it affordable to use dedicated servers for the fastest response times. However, CDN caching will usually benchmark faster at capacity than dedicated servers that fail most frequently at peak usage rates.

In summary, whether or not your BuddyPress site needs shared, VPS, cloud, or dedicated hosting should depend on your website’s traffic in production. The requirements of the WordPress dashboard are met by all of the web hosts listed above and are recommended for community site building with BuddyPress. You still need some developer skills to put it together.

A stock BuddyPress installation will give any organization a good, well-tested, open-source codebase to build a social network at no cost. Yet, it also takes quite a bit of developer time to set it up. Ensure every feature you need for the group operations or application functionality is installed. Don’t install a feature unless you absolutely need it to save on web server resources. A host with a free theme and site builder can save you an extra $50 on downloads.

A BuddyPress site with many simultaneous users will require an upgrade from shared to VPS hosting. WordPress is built to scale with caching on the web server and through a content delivery network (CDN) for the fastest speeds. There has been some debate between Apache, NGINX, and LiteSpeed servers for WordPress performance speeds where benchmarks still favor Apache. LiteSpeed with Redis and Varnish Cache may be an even faster configuration.

Use subdomains to test your code on different web server configurations for the best performance for BuddyPress themes and community websites. The best practice for team development is to set up version control through Git for the PHP and JavaScript programmers working on a project. Make sure your web host is up to date on the latest versions of PHP, MariaDB, and SSL certificates to keep your BuddyPress site secure and user data safe.