How to Compare Web Hosting

The renewal price is the real price

Nearly every host advertises an introductory rate and renews at two to four times that. Before you compare anything else, find the renewal price for each host and compare those instead. A $3 first year that renews at $15 is a $15 host.

What actually matters day to day

• Server location relative to your visitors. Physical distance shows up as load time.
• Included SSL. Should be free and automatic. If it is an upsell, that tells you something.
• Backups. How often, retained how long, and is restoring them free or a paid support ticket?
• Traffic limits. “Unlimited” usually is not. Find the actual fair-use ceiling.
• Migration help. If you already have a site, free migration saves a painful weekend.

Match the host to what you are running

Buying more than you need is the second most common hosting mistake. Buying the cheapest tier for a store is the first.

• A brochure site or blog runs fine on entry-level shared hosting.
• A store needs better uptime and faster database performance than the cheapest tier gives.
• An app needs a VPS or managed platform, not shared hosting.