11 Best Concrete5 Web Hosting Plans (March 2024)

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.

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’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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.