11 Best Concrete5 Web Hosting Plans (2024)

Best Concrete5 Web Hosting

If you ask a layperson what products they think a brand called Concrete5 sells, most are likely to associate it with the cement industry. Being the overthinker I am, I would have guessed Concrete5 is a company selling grade-5 cement (while cement is graded, there’s no such thing as “grade-5”)! Also, concrete and cement aren’t the same thing, so if your interest is piqued, it’s time to hit the Google Search Engine!

Concrete5 is actually a content management system (CMS) trusted by the US Army, ITV, and SEGA. This confusion probably led the company behind Concrete5, Portland Labs, to rebrand to Concrete CMS in July 2021. Since many people still associate the platform with the name Concrete5 (it was known as Concrete5 for more than 13 years), we will refer to it as such for your convenience.

If WordPress isn’t your best mate, Concrete5 may just be the perfect alternative. Read on to learn about the best Concrete5 web hosting providers.

1. SiteGround

SiteGround is undoubtedly a pristine web host — our five-star rating confirms this. But is it a good option for Concrete5 hosting? Without question. Some of the features you should look out for when selecting a Concrete5 web host include a content delivery network (CDN), caching techniques, unlimited traffic, and unlimited bandwidth.

SiteGround.com

SiteGround Review

Monthly Starting Price $2.99

  • FREE site transfer or new site setup
  • FREE daily backups, CDN, email, and SSL
  • 24/7 expert support with no wait on phone or chat
  • Recommended by WordPress as a top host
  • Ideal for business email hosting
  • Get started on SiteGround now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 5.0 Our Review»
SiteGround: Our Expert’s Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): With an impressive breadth of overall hosting services offered, SiteGround is a leading innovator in the hosting space — from custom software solutions to premier customer support. The company offers the full range of web hosting features, including a free in-house SiteGround CDN, Site Tools with SSH access, and unlimited MySQL databases and bandwidth — not to mention prize-worthy customer support. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 10 GB SSD – 40 GB SSD FREE (1 Year) 6 minutes

SiteGround’s unlimited features are crucial to support a resource-intensive CMS like Concrete5 (or any CMS, really). Each SiteGround shared hosting plan includes support for them. The StartUp plan is most cost-effective but offers minimal SSD storage space — I recommend the GrowBig plan instead. This plan also presents a staging environment and ultrafast PHP implementation.

Unless mentioned otherwise, all web hosts that offer Softaculous web app installer support permit you to download Concrete5 in just one click.

2. Bluehost

This is a tricky one — look away, diehard WordPress fans! Bluehost is the best managed WordPress hosting provider in the industry, so it’s odd talking about its ability to support another CMS. But I guess it’s all in my head, as Bluehost is also a fantastic shared host.

Bluehost.com

Bluehost Review

Monthly Starting Price $1.99

  • Support for up to 100 websites and unlimited email hosting
  • 1-click WordPress installs and software updates
  • Support for popular shopping carts with FREE SSL
  • Up to $200 in Microsoft and Google Ad credit
  • Industry-leading hardware and uptime rates
  • Get started on Bluehost now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 4.9 Our Review»
Bluehost: Our Expert’s Review

Ryan Frankel (HostingAdvice.com): Bluehost has long been a favorite of mine in the shared and WordPress hosting spaces. The company adheres to modern standards for hardware, and its customer service resources are now backed by hosting industry titan Newfold Digital. 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

Four well-weighted shared plans greet you at Bluehost, each with a different focus. The Basic plan is for beginners and gets you up and running in a jiffy, while the Choice Plus is better for multiple website management. The Online Store plan is curated for eCommerce professionals, and the Pro plan suits high-traffic businesses. Apart from the Basic plan, all others are an enticing option for Concrete5 hosting.

3. A2 Hosting

As advertised on A2 Hosting’s website, the web hosting service is the “best Concrete CMS hosting solution,” and it’s hard to argue against it. A2 Hosting offers four Concrete5-optimized hosting plans based on shared servers. While shared hosting isn’t typically recommended for Concrete5 hosting (as you’ll learn in the FAQ section), A2 Hosting eliminates its deficiencies quite well.

A2Hosting.com

A2 Hosting Review

Monthly Starting Price $1.75

  • SSDs and TurboServer for 20x faster pageloads
  • Host unlimited websites and FREE site transfer
  • Optimized plugins and 1-click installs for WP
  • Pre-installed OPcache and Memcached caching
  • FREE HackScan with restore options
  • Get started on A2 Hosting now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 4.9 Our Review»
A2 Hosting: Our Expert’s Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): If speed and performance, partnered with support and security, are at all priorities in your web host shopping, A2 Hosting should be a leading contender. When A2 Hosting first launched in 2003, the company was focused on serving developers; A2 Hosting was among the first providers to offer PHP 5 and to support Ruby on Rails on shared servers. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 100 GB SSD – Unlimited SSD New or Transfer 5 minutes

Power-packed Turbo servers, unlimited NVMe SSD storage space, unlimited databases, performance optimization, boosted caching, and LiteSpeed web server availability characterize its top-tier Turbo Boost and Turbo Max plans. The Startup and Drive plans are sublime as well, but you can get the best for just a few more dollars.

4. InMotion Hosting

Ideal for American and European customers, InMotion Hosting is a beast of a web hosting company. It offers extensive developer support with unprecedented SSH access (shared plans rarely offer it) and one-click app installs. You can install Concrete5 through Softaculous, as mentioned earlier. Top performance, advanced layered caching, eCommerce support, and unlimited NVMe SSD storage and bandwidth characterize its shared hosting selection.

InMotionHosting.com

InMotion Review

Monthly Starting Price $1.99

  • FREE SSD drives included with all hosting plans
  • Zero-downtime website transfers and migrations
  • FREE backups, SSL, and DDoS protection
  • Choice of East Coast or West Coast datacenter
  • Multi-language support for PHP, Ruby, and Perl
  • Get started on InMotion now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 4.9 Our Review»
InMotion: Our Expert’s Review

PJ Fancher (HostingAdvice.com): Offering a wider range of services than most — including shared, dedicated, VPS, and even WordPress-specific plans — InMotion Hosting features a great combination of industry-leading hardware, always-there support, and mass scalability for all hosting needs. InMotion Hosting has ultra-modern SSD drives on its shared plans, which give an added speed boost to your site. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
90 days 100 GB SSD – Unlimited FREE (1 year) 4 minutes

A security suite comprising hack and malware protection, DDoS protection, and automatic backups is worth mentioning as well. While Concrete5 helps you proficiently manage the content side of things, you can use InMotion Hosting’s exceptional custom website builder, BoldGrid, to enhance your experience further. The Launch plan is my top pick — check it out.

5. Hostwinds

Hostwinds is one of the classiest web hosts I have covered, and I feel it’s underappreciated. Unlike several other hosts, it owns all the equipment it rents out, is future-proofed, and promises an uptime of 99.9999%. That’s a winning combination, according to me. A ridiculous abundance of features are available with each shared hosting plan.

Hostwinds.com

Hostwinds Review

Monthly Starting Price $5.24

  • 500% faster speeds via SSDs
  • LiteSpeed web server performance
  • FREE dedicated IP address
  • 99.999% uptime guarantee
  • Datacenters in Dallas and Seattle
  • Get started on Hostwinds now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 4.8 Our Review»
Hostwinds: Our Expert’s Review

Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com): Promising enterprise-grade hosting solutions for prices that appeal to small and medium businesses, Hostwinds delivers the full range of operating systems and server configurations to help customers build and grow an online presence. With hosting plans covering niches like vBulletin and Minecraft, Hostwinds attracts a customer base as mixed as the server configurations. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
3 days Unlimited SSD New or Transfer 5 minutes

While Hostwinds is higher priced than other hosts we’ve already covered, it offers exceptional quality. Some top features include unlimited bandwidth, disk space, and databases, a Weebly website builder, a dedicated IP address, nightly backups, and managed support (rare in shared hosting). You can also review its cloud server portfolio — its hourly pricing model is interesting.

6. Hostinger

Hostinger is a good ambassador for reliable web hosting. We have clarified that only select (fast) shared hosts are ideal for Concrete5 hosting, and Hostinger is among the best. Each shared plan includes incredible hosting features, though we advise steering clear of the Single plan as it doesn’t feature a free domain name. But if you’ve already bought a domain, stick to the Single plan.

Hostinger.com

Hostinger Review

Monthly Starting Price $2.24

  • 24/7/365 ticket and live chat support
  • 99.9% network uptime guarantee
  • FREE domain, site builder, backups, SSL certificate, and AI tools
  • Unlimited bandwidth, databases, and email accounts
  • Speedy NVMe SSDs optimize performance
  • Get started on Hostinger now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 4.8 Our Review»
Hostinger: Our Expert’s Review

Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com): Behind a mission to make life easier for website developers and their customers, Hostinger provides fast, stable, and streamlined services at a price that is very hard to beat. Founded in 2004, the bootstrapped company hit the 10 million websites mark a decade later, achieving ICANN accreditation and localizing services in 39 countries. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 100 GB SSD – 200 GB NVMe SSD FREE (1 year) 3 minutes

The Premium plan exudes a premium feel, providing ample SSDs, automatic weekly backups, unlimited bandwidth, a top-class website builder with AI features, numerous templates, eCommerce tools, and sturdy security. Unfortunately, this plan doesn’t have a CDN. You will have to pay a bit more for the Business plan to acquire this service.

7. DreamHost

I’ve covered DreamHost extensively lately, and I’ve got to say it’s a superb solution for shared website hosting and virtual private server (VPS) hosting. Its managed VPS plans are affordable, so if you want to upgrade from shared hosting, DreamHost is a dreamy choice. The VPS Basic plan is meant for new and small websites and comprises all the basic features you expect of a virtual private server plan.

DreamHost.com

DreamHost Review

Monthly Starting Price $2.59

  • Unlimited traffic, storage, websites, and email
  • US-based customer support available 24/7
  • 200% faster performance with SSDs
  • Industry-leading 97-day money-back guarantee
  • Enjoy preinstalled WordPress and FREE transfer
  • Get started on DreamHost now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 4.8 Our Review»
DreamHost: Our Expert’s Review

Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com): A top-notch host for those who know what they’re looking for, DreamHost offers nuanced and performant hosting perfect for scaling websites and applications through the ranks of shared, VPS, cloud, and dedicated hosting. We love the company’s features but realize that beginners or hobbyist developers might not want to fork over the extra cash to capitalize on the performance, optimization, and managed services that DreamHost offers. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
97 days Unlimited FREE (1 year) 4 minutes

The VPS Business plan is slightly more expansive and is my preferred selection. Sufficient SSD storage, unlimited websites, traffic, and emails, unhindered performance, and a custom control panel will greet you with open arms. Additionally, you can upgrade your storage and RAM in less than 10 seconds. Now that’s convenient.

8. IONOS

No shared hosting list is complete without a mention of the OG of affordable hosting: IONOS. The Plus plan may just be the cheapest shared plan among the top bracket of web hosts, and boy, is it mighty! Considering large project needs, IONOS bundles unlimited storage, databases, and websites in this plan (the “MSN” of the hosting world — Barcelona fans know what I mean).

IONOS.com

1&1 IONOS Review

Monthly Starting Price $1.00

  • FREE domain and SSL, plus daily backups
  • Drag-and-drop site builder and starter kit
  • Gain exposure with $100-worth of ad credits
  • Packages cater to businesses & personal use
  • FREE custom SEO and marketing tools
  • Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 4.8 Our Review»
1&1 IONOS: Our Expert’s Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): Born in 1988 — at least a decade before many competitors — 1&1 IONOS has maintained its dedication to making technology easy to understand and use. The company got its start in Europe but has since expanded to serve more than 8 million global customers and host more than 12 million domain names. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 10 GB – Unlimited FREE (1 year) 6 minutes

IONOS is optimized for high-traffic websites and can handle hundreds of visitors per minute. It also includes daily backups and recovery and professional email. The Plus plan boasts geo-redundancy with a 99.9% uptime promise, custom server shield technology, and the Click & Build app installer. IONOS is also renowned for its world-class customer service — try its live chat feature if you have any questions!

9. Liquid Web

Liquid Web’s premium managed servers make cloud, VPS, and dedicated server hosting as easy as pouring a glass of water. Your greatest headache is choosing a worthy plan with so many options in your hand. Liquid Web provides multiple managed VPS categories: General, Memory-Optimized, and CPU-Optimized.

LiquidWeb.com

Liquid Web Review

Monthly Starting Price $14.70

  • Heroic Support® and fully managed hosting
  • Linux or Windows options with cPanel, InterWorx, or Plesk
  • Industry leader in customer loyalty and NPS score
  • Servers proven faster than AWS and Rackspace
  • 100% uptime guarantee plus built-in backups
  • Get started on Liquid Web now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 4.8 Our Review»
Liquid Web: Our Expert’s Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): We’ve gotten to know a few key members of the Liquid Web team personally, and let us tell you: The passion they put into talking about their products hints that this is a company worth checking out. Liquid Web boasts supreme uptime, always-there-for-you support, and a constant commitment to building out more functionality for the customer. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 40 GB SSD – 200 GB SSD New or Transfer 7 minutes

In my opinion, the General plan should suffice for most people. But the Advanced plan is fairly priced and includes ample SSD storage space and bandwidth, AlmaLinux operating system (OS), Acronis backup protection, Cloudflare CDN, a firewall, DDoS protection, ServerSecure security, and a 100% network and power uptime guarantee. Automated server maintenance, application deployment, and updates are a blessing in disguise.

10. ScalaHosting

While ScalaHosting offers some excellent shared web hosting plans, its managed cloud virtual private servers are just as appealing, if not more. What impressed me most is each plan includes substantial NVMe SSD storage space (speed for the win!) and can be customized to your liking.

ScalaHosting.com

ScalaHosting Review

Monthly Starting Price $2.95

  • Simple, fast, and reliable hosting services
  • Full-service account management with SPanel
  • FREE domain name, SSL certificate, and CDN
  • Custom-built servers and self-healing cloud setup
  • Unlimited emails, databases, and bandwidth
  • Managed VPS options with top-tier support
  • Get started on ScalaHosting now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 4.7 Our Review»
ScalaHosting: Our Expert’s Review

Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com): Perfect for those looking for the best value for shared or cloud hosting, ScalaHosting offers a soft place to land.  Even if you’re taking your first steps into the world of virtual private servers, the company’s modern hardware and attentive support teams will make your experience enjoyable. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 10 GB SSD – 50 GB SSD FREE (1 year) 6 minutes

Let’s take a closer look at ScalaHosting’s entry-level VPS plan, the Build #1 plan. If you want more CPU cores, RAM, or NVMe SSDs, simply click on the edit symbol next to them and enter the resource allocation you desire. ScalaHosting will calculate the cost for the resource upgrade and update the plan’s price accordingly. ScalaHosting is rated highly by HostingAdvice, Forbes, and Neil Patel for VPS hosting, so do consider it.

11. HostArmada

HostArmada is a relative newcomer in the hosting arena, but it has what it takes to deliver a knockout punch. Its cutting-edge cloud technology is reliable and redundant, not to mention lightning-fast. HostArmada provides three cheap and credible managed shared plans. Your interest should only lie in the high-end Speed Reaper plan. It offers the best features for your money.

HostArmada.com

HostArmada Review

Monthly Starting Price $2.49

  • FREE website optimization with enhanced caching
  • Upgrade quickly with scalable cloud servers
  • Easy-to-navigate cPanel integration
  • FREE web security suite with DDoS protection
  • 24/7 technical support and ticketing 
  • Get started on HostArmada now.
BEST OVERALL
RATING
★★★★★ 4.6 Our Review»
HostArmada: Our Expert’s Review

Lynn Cadet (HostingAdvice.com): Launched in 2019, HostArmada offers cloud-based hosting plans that range from shared to dedicated server services. The web hosting provider cements its services on three pillars: speed, security, and stability. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
45 days 15 GB SSD – 40 GB SSD FREE (1 year) 3 minutes

While the Start Dock and Web Warp plans are effective, they lack the dynamism the Speed Reaper plan offers. This plan encompasses all basic hosting features along with a memory-caching system, app-level caching, HTTP/3, and LiteSpeed web server software. It’s built for speed and performance and is a tremendous Concrete5 hosting choice.

What Is Concrete5 Hosting?

When we say “Concrete5 hosting,” we simply refer to web hosting plans optimized for hosting content management systems. These types of hosting plans should come with support for Concrete5 and one-click installations through tools like Softaculous.

Concrete5 landing page
Concrete5, or Concrete CMS, is an open-source CMS that prioritizes ease of use, making it accessible even for people who aren’t too tech-savvy.

Launched on September 30, 2008, and rebranded to Concrete CMS on July 7, 2021, Concrete5 may not be as popular as the CMS platforms we consider the best in the business, but there’s no doubting its proficiency. After all, the US Army trusts it, as it requires limited training and meets complex security and compliance requirements.

The CMS makes creating, managing, and publishing content on your website easy, be it an eCommerce platform, a blog, or a business website. It eliminates the need for comprehensive technical knowledge or coding proficiency. To this end, Concrete5 website hosting ticks most boxes — it’s a simple, powerful, and effective CMS platform for the hosting solution of your choice.

How Much Does Concrete5 Hosting Cost?

The good news is that Concrete5 is a free and open-source platform! The bad news is Concrete5 hosting isn’t — you will have to purchase an entry-level Linux shared hosting plan (Windows works, too) as a bare minimum to use Concrete5.

The latest version of the CMS, 9.2.4, was released on December 7, 2023, and can be downloaded for free by clicking on this link. You can then upload it to your shared server for use.

We recommend installing Concrete5 by using Composer. More information can be found here.

Concrete5 download page
Composer is typically used with Concrete5 to handle third-party libraries and extensions.

While shared hosting environments support CMS platforms, a virtual private server is more desirable, as it can handle intensive resource usage and includes greater flexibility through full root access. If you go the shared hosting way, Concrete5 hosting will cost around $1 to $10 per month, and a VPS hosting plan may set you back by as much as $50 per month.

Is Concrete5 a Good CMS?

Concrete5 is not just a good CMS; it’s a great one. It has an intuitive WYSIWYG editor that is remarkable, to say the least. The editor makes setting up your website a breeze and includes features like drag-and-drop content, a media manager, easy theme controls, dynamic form generation, in-context editing, auto-saving, and drafts.

More than 1,000 add-ons and a large theme directory are at your disposal. One-click version update support is a nice touch as well. A beautiful website design is guaranteed, as Concrete5 is mobile-optimized and provides all the tools you need to build a modular website. And, of course, it’s entirely free! Check out the full feature list here.

Is Concrete5 Better Than WordPress?

Concrete5 Market Position graph, 2024
Concrete5 is only used by 0.1% of all websites, but the US Army and plenty of Fortune 500 companies depend on it. Source: W3Techs.

WordPress is miles ahead of Concrete5. More than 40% of all websites on the web, or around 810 million websites, are attributed to WordPress. This means approximately two out of every five websites are based on WordPress.

In comparison, Concrete5 is used by just 0.1% of all websites. This doesn’t mean Concrete5 is a slouch — hundreds of thousands of organizations trust the CMS, including the US Army and Fortune 500 companies.

It’s worth noting that Concrete5 has a greater set of built-in features than WordPress and is more intuitive. WordPress has the clear upper hand, though, as it has more plugins, impressive community support, an enormous library of themes, and better security. While Concrete5 has its uses and may even be the preferable option if you’re a web developer, WordPress wins.

Which Web Hosting Type Is Best for Concrete5?

We touched on this in a previous section — a VPS hosting plan is ideal for Concrete5. This is because shared hosting isn’t typically configured for the high-resource demands associated with a CMS.

To put it into perspective, a CMS may make multiple database requests every time a page is loaded. Frequent database calling may slow down your website in a shared hosting environment.

But if your shared host includes extensive caching, a content delivery network, and other speed-related optimizations in its plans, you could go for it. You can also take advantage of third-party caching to hone your site’s performance further. A cloud hosting plan with full root access is another good option — these kinds of plans are pretty rare, though.

The Results Are In: The Best Concrete5 Web Hosting Providers

A2 Hosting has carved a niche for itself by offering hosting plans for unique needs, like Mautic hosting (an able marketing automation software), Dreamweaver hosting (web design software), and Concrete5 hosting. Such attention to detail is what makes it so great. Needless to say, it’s right up there among the best Concrete5 web hosting providers.

While SiteGround is another leading choice, InMotion Hosting just edges it due to its developer-friendliness. Bluehost is a good fit if your website is purely based on eCommerce (the Online Store plan is a gem). If your budget has no limits, we implore you to look at A2 Hosting’s VPS hosting plans — there’s no beating them in terms of value for money and performance.

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