12
votes
Wordpress hosting
My girlfriend has started a small business and is looking into a blogging platform. What she has tried so far hasn't been great. She has decided to go the WordPress route and this is where I am involved.
Any suggestions for hosting providers? What features should I be considering or anything else I should be aware of when it comes to picking a provider?
Right now I am looking at Bluehost vs Hostinger. Bluehost just seem to be the most advertised. Hostinger seemed to offer more for the same cost.
If you aren't technical and actually want to enjoy life, don't host Wordpress yourself.
Why not just use squarespace.com like sane people? Wordpress is cute for blogs, but if its a business that is actually selling something, I wouldn't get involved with it.
Host email for free or cheap with Zoho, too. This is the combo I use for small businesses I start up.
To offer an opposing voice, I will say that WordPress is a powerhouse, and definitely capable of far more than blogging. WordPress is used by many more businesses than SquareSpace is, including eCommerce and media publishing. It powers some 40% of the web today.
Of course, that doesn't mean I'd recommend it in all scenarios. Complex data types and input fields might be better suited to a more agnostic CMS like Joomla or Drupal. And both SquareSpace and Shopify offer very polished and targeted experiences in their own respective niches. If those niches suit OP's needs, they're still a valid and good option.
I would just caution against discounting WordPress for business. Between its extensive use of hooks and plugin ecosystem, you can mold it to fit almost any situation. And businesses often do!
getting wp hosted by someone who will manage it isn't the worst. I like wp, but it takes time to maintain it -- and when it comes to 'my significant other has a business...', nobody should take on a technical support role.
It’s hard to answer without knowing your technical background. Are you capable of doing Linux sysadmin tasks? Are you a PHP developer? What parts of the process are you going to be handling and what parts do you want to be managed by your hosting provider?
I can get by on Linux but I don't want to rely on my skills. I'm looking for a click install on a hosting provider.
What features are you looking for in that blogging platform? If all you want is to put up some nice web-pages on the front-end with HTML/CSS/JavaScript, then a static hosting platform like Github Pages is all you need as it's safe and secure, noob friendly and cost-effective (zero hosting costs) all at the same time!
You can use a static generator like Jekyll if you wish to generate those pages based on specific layouts in blog posts format. Github has built-in support for Jekyll.
Even if you want to add some basic addons like commenting and contact forms, there are all kinds of options like disqus, github comments, etc. Full WP or a PHP CMS is only needed for e-commerce or other kinds of transaction processing which I don't think every blogger needs.
I host my own programming blog with the Github Pages platform like millions of others, this is much like a minimalist and progressive version of what a Wordpress.org blog once was many years ago.
If it's just a website and blog, most will do. As soon as you add something like WooCommerce your hosting will suddenly matter.
For absolute basic Wordpress hosting, HostCheap cPanel works and is cheap as chips. It also has a bunch of features and the mail works fine.
Anything more than that and I like 20i, which I buy from a reseller called https://wefix-pc.com/. Just email and say you're after hosting and you'll get the same service cheap as chips, but branded with WeFix-PC instead.
What changes with wooCommerce? It's not something needed today, but I can see it being used in the future.
WooCommerce is quite heavy on system resources, requiring more ram and CPU. Your average cPanel shared hosting restricts and load balances across lots of instances so you end up with a sluggish and barely useable experience.
As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. One joy of Wordpress is that it's easy to pick up and move between hosts so you can start off cheap and cheerful and then move if required.
If you have development skills, I'd recommend some kind of all-in-one container environment (Docker, TurnKey Linux) and hosting somewhere like AWS or DigitalOcean. If you don't, find a host that offers a one-click WordPress install with auto-updates. I've always been partial to DreamHost, where you could get shared hosting for like $15 a month.
Personally I'd go with Flywheel or WPEngine (I think the two might be merging soon?). They're purpose built for hosting WP and offer a lot of tools for managing WP installs. Imo, as someone who has done a lot of both agency and enterprise web development, setting up a VPS or containerization for a small business site is major overkill. You'd just be creating more work for yourself and expense for your client going those routes.
My favorite thing about Flywheel/WPEngine is that they make spinning up dev environments and deployments super easy/fast:
Semi off topic, but depending on what type of business she's doing maybe she might look at shopify. They run POS systems and website hosting and ALL of that stuff. And of course you can do blogging on that site as well.
Kinsta, Dreamhost and WPEngine have all worked well for me but now use WPEngine as it has a number of unique features, such as local hosting for dev work.
On the spectrum from bare-metal VPS to fully-managed WordPress, I really like Opalstack (the same people behind what used to be Webfaction). They give you a VPS plus a bunch of one-click installers so you can tinker, add a storefront, etc., but still have auto-updated WordPress that you don't have to set up on your own.
Agree with the other commenter that Shopify may honestly be a better choice if the focus is ecomm and not actually blogging. It's so turnkey.
Linode can spin up a Wordpress site for you, never tried it however.