Whether you’re thinking of putting your creativity to use on a personal blog, launching an online startup, or upgrading your business with a professional website, you’ve probably heard of WordPress – and if you’ve heard of from WordPress, you I also discovered WordPress hosting.
WordPress Hosting is a kind of web hosting service created with WordPress in mind, which means its packages are preconfigured to amplify its power. Although there is no industry standard for WordPress hosting and packages may differ from provider to provider, they all share one main goal: to make using WordPress simple, fast and secure. .
Although you don’t need to purchase any WordPress-specific package to use WordPress, choosing a top-notch WordPress host will enhance your website with higher performance, stronger security, and some time-saving features. , such as a WordPress installation (or pre-installation) and automatic updates for WordPress.
So, if you are thinking of choosing WordPress hosting and want to know more about it, you have come to the right place.
We’ll look at the inner workings of WordPress, its overall cost, the benefits of making it your site-building tool of choice, as well as tackle the curious confusion people have about the different types of hosting that encompass the most popular content. management system (CMS) under the digital sun.
How Does WordPress Hosting Work?
While you can build a successful WordPress site without purchasing a WordPress-specific hosting solution, these often come with handy features that will support your site’s performance in the long run.
Simply put, the WordPress hosting solution is similar to the standard shared hosting package, but powered by a few WordPress-specific features such as superior security (since WordPress as an open-source software requires it), configuration fast, fast performance, one of the updates, improved plugin functionality, easy-to-add SSL certificates, and knowledgeable customer support specializing in WordPress.
However, sooner or later, you will come across a web hosting provider that markets its shared hosting packages as WordPress hosting but offers nothing WordPress-specific beyond one-click installation. And since most of the popular hosts offer cPanel which comes with a one-click WordPress installer, this is nothing but an unfortunate upsell.
The cost of WordPress hosting
Although WordPress itself is free open source software, you will need to spend a few dollars for a domain name and a web hosting service.
Fortunately, there are plenty of user-friendly entry-level hosting services on the market that don’t lack features or compromise on performance.
For example, Bluehost’s entry-level WordPress-specific hosting plan starts at $2.75 per month and comes with a free domain for one year, free SSL certificate, free CDN, and 24-hour customer support. 24 hours – all of which are important to have when starting out.
With HostGator you can start at $3.98, with Hostinger at $3.99, and with InMotion Hosting at $4.99 per month slightly more expensive – and all of these hosts offer excellent value for money.
WordPress Hosting vs Web Hosting
The main difference between these two is that web hosting is a more general term than WordPress hosting, as it refers to any type of hosting service that rents out a portion of a company’s server space to store the site’s files and allows it to live on the Internet. .
On the other hand, WordPress hosting refers to a specialized service created for WordPress sites. While it can also use a shared server to host multiple sites at once, unlike standard web hosting, each site on this server is built with WordPress.
Additionally, WordPress hosting comes with CMS-optimized resources (like increased PHP memory), access to themes, extensions, and plugins, and additional services that aim to simplify the build and run process. of a WordPress site.
Benefits of WordPress Hosting
While the benefits of WordPress hosting vary slightly depending on which provider you opt for, the ones we almost always see are super-fast speed, superior level of WordPress-specific security, and up-to-date software.
Plus, if you’re not particularly tech-savvy, you’ll appreciate the simplicity of setup, expert customer support, and overall user-friendliness of such a solution.
Who Should Use WordPress Hosting
Since WordPress was created with all sorts of users in mind, from non-techies to tech wizards, even if you had little to no experience, you’ll understand how everything works in no time. Just check out some step-by-step guides and don’t forget to contact the support staff if you get stuck in the process.
However, if you don’t have time to handle everything on your own, a WordPress-specific hosting solution can take some of that burden off, saving you time and hassle – and for a few bucks a month.
And if you want to avoid managing your site altogether, you can opt for fully managed WordPress hosting – however, be prepared to pay a pretty penny.
Do you need WordPress hosting to run WordPress?
No, you don’t need WordPress-specific hosting to run WordPress – you can install WordPress from a cPanel or do it manually via FTP by downloading its latest version from WordPress.org and following a how-to guide official.
However, there are a few recommendations for a WordPress server that you should look for when choosing your web hosting provider. These include support for PHP version 7.4 or higher, MySQL version 5.7 or higher (or MariaDB version 10.2 or higher), HTTPS support, and Nginx or Apache with the mod_rewrite module.
Also make sure that the storage space is at least 1 GB, you have at least 512 MB of RAM and the processor is 1.0 GHz or higher.
While these two options are the most popular for WordPress sites, if you’re new to building a WordPress site, you might be confused about them – so let’s clear that up.
As the name suggests, managed WordPress hosting includes a set of services that free users from the endless task of site maintenance, giving them the freedom to focus on other tasks. However, this form of freedom comes at a high price.
At a minimum, a managed WordPress solution should cover installations, updates, security checks, and regular backups of your site.
Besides being considerably cheaper, standard shared WordPress hosting falls short when compared to its managed counterpart – that is, unless you like to tackle technical issues.
Is WordPress Hosting Right For You?
Since WordPress hosting is customized to simplify site creation, enhance security, and speed up a WordPress site, if you’re considering building one, you should check out the best WordPress hosting solution currently on the market.
If you’re just starting out, one of the unmanaged WordPress hosting solutions should be exactly what you need – and it’s as cheap as some of the shared hosting packages.
If you already own a business site and want to free yourself from site maintenance and focus on growing your business, managed WordPress hosting might be your safest bet.