Solopreneurs and web design agencies have a tough job convincing customers about the crucial role of web hosting. Unlike a theme or a plugin, the impact of hosting isn’t as visible, so customers are reluctant to invest money in it.
From our experiences, we believe that comparing the host to the foundation of a house and the site to the house itself simplifies understanding the role of hosting. A strong foundation is the base of a good house, in the same way that a reliable web host is the foundation of a successful site.
Web hosting is even more important for online stores. Finding the proper hosting platform for your online store isn’t rocket science, but it can take some time. We want to help you and extensively researched the best hosting platforms. Here are seven of the best e-commerce hosting platforms to launch your fantastic online store.
How to Choose the Best E-Commerce Hosting
The cheapest plan is not necessarily the worst solution, nor is the most expensive plan always the best. Money is pivotal when purchasing a host’s services, but it’s not the only factor. Consider the following factors to select your store’s best e-commerce and email hosting platforms.
E-Commerce Hosting Uptime
It’s a huge waste of resources to invest in paid advertising to drive people to your site if it is down due to poor hosting. While 100% uptime isn’t realistic, you can’t afford considerable downtime because you lose money whenever your site is down.
The most popular hosts ensure somewhere between 99% and 99.99% uptime, which is reasonable. Cloud hosting comes with superior uptime, amongst other significant advantages, so stick to it if you want to maximize your uptime.
Security – Important, Important, Important
An online store generates revenue and requires dealing with sensitive data. No one wants hackers to break into their site. A hacked online store is a webmaster’s worst nightmare. The host is a significant factor in a site’s security equation. Check in advance how the host deals with security. A secure server gives you the peace of mind to focus on your store’s growth.
Performance – Checkout The Hosts Server Configuration
Server performance influences the online store performance. A poor server configuration can’t be the base of a stable, well-performing site. Check the server configurations the host offers. Is the host using content delivery? Which caching tools are used? Does the host create daily backups? It would help if you had clear and complete answers to these questions to make an educated decision.
E-commerce Features
If it’s called e-commerce web hosting, it should include particular features of an online store. For instance, some hosts come with the WooCommerce plugin installed by default. Most platforms include one-click e-commerce apps. Others include shopping carts and payment gateways. These extra features might be included by default, while others require extra money.
Best E-commerce Web Hosting Services
Consider all the above suggestions while you check the following e-commerce web hosting providers. Each one suits particular online stores, so there is no universal no.1 provider. Please don’t rush to decide because it affects the store’s growth in the long term. We previously wrote a few articles helping people to choose the best host provider. Take a look at these articles:
- Green WordPress hosting providers
- The price of WordPress hosting (useful tips included)
SiteGround
SiteGround is one of the three hosting companies recommended by WordPress.org. This fact alone convinces you about the quality of SiteGround’s services. The large array of hosting types and pricing plans cover all users’ needs. The superior uptime, high-performing infrastructure, and helpful customer support are the major points that make SiteGround one of the best companies in the hosting industry.
SiteGround offers special hosting for e-commerce websites running on the WooCommerce plugin. The plans include unmetered traffic, unlimited databases, daily backups, free SSL, free CDN, and free email. Besides these, the users benefit from WordPress installation, WooCommerce preinstalled, and site migration free of charge.
If you are interested in keeping our planet clean (and you should be), SiteGround is a good option because the entire infrastructure runs on renewable energy.
The only major detriment is the renewal prices. The introductory prices are quite attractive thanks to the huge discounts, but it’s not pleasant once you renew the subscription. So go for a 3-year commitment to getting the most from the discounted prices.
Kinsta
Do you have a high budget and want a top-class host for your online store? Kinsta should be your first choice, and several reasons justify this decision.
First of all, it’s about speed and performance. Google Cloud Platform powers Kinsta infrastructure, so you benefit from one of the leading cloud platforms. Google infrastructure ensures unparalleled speed and performance. Kinsta is partnered with KeyCDN – an excellent CDN – to deliver your site even faster at no additional expense. Scalability is a distinctive cloud hosting particularity, and it’s golden for online stores. Maybe you don’t care about the technical viewpoint on scalability, but what matters is that traffic spikes won’t ever bring down your store. Cloud hosting allows instant scaling up and down. Rest assured that your site will run smoothly round the clock on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or other shopping events.
Second, Kinsta maintains the site’s security. It checks the site availability every two minutes and protects the sites against even the most sophisticated hacker attacks. In addition, Kinsta security experts will clean up your site from malicious codes for free as long as you host it on Kinsta servers.
Third, Kinsta has a few more noteworthy features, such as free site migration and SSL certificate, automated daily backups, staging areas, SSH access, and helpful 24/7 support.
Cloudways
Like Kinsta, Cloudways is a cloud hosting platform that doesn’t suit tight budgets. Unlike Kinsta, Cloudways has multiple cloud platforms, requiring technical knowledge to configure the site hosting. You have to select one of the following cloud platforms:
- Google Cloud Platform
- Amazon Web Services
- Digital Ocean
- Vultr
- Linode
Regardless of the cloud platform and pricing plans selected, you get real value for your money. Don’t worry about site migration because Cloudways experts will do it for you for free. The site is monitored 24/7, and engineers constantly work to make the store almost unhackable. There’s no need to mention each plan because Cloudways comes with all possible features.
UltaHost
UltaHost offers online payment services, SSL certificates, shopping cart software, and e-commerce hosting.
There are a variety of e-commerce web servers to choose from, and your choice depends on how much money you will have to spend, how much traffic your site receives, and how much experience you have with website development.
Choosing UltaHost is the first step in making money from your business.
There should be a place to keep and store your files and website content. Hosting companies charge a fee for this, but with UltaHost, you take it without additional fees, and the quality is significantly different from others.
HostGator
Paradoxically, HostGator is featured in a list of the best e-commerce web hosting platforms, but it doesn’t have a specific plan for online stores. Hostgator plans don’t come with WooCommerce or other e-commerce plugins preinstalled. Altogether, its WordPress hosting is perfect for small to medium online stores.
The prices are suitable for all types of budgets. The cheapest WordPress plan starts at $5.99/month, which isn’t the most affordable on the market but cheaper than the above hosts. Surprisingly, Hostgator cloud hosting is even cheaper than WordPress hosting. You pay only $4.95/month for cloud hosting, which is a real bargain. Of course, it works for e-commerce sites, so consider this offer for your business.
No matter which plans you purchase, HostGator gives you a free SSL certificate, email hosting, and a domain name for a year. HostGator is one of the oldest hosts in the industry, and it couldn’t survive unless it delivered quality services year after year. It gets good ratings and testimonials from customers on most review sites.
Liquid Web
Liquid Web has joined forces with Nexcess and promises to provide better services. You will probably agree with this idea by looking at the hosting plans. I am 101% satisfied with the complete and simple explanations about e-commerce hosting. Unlike other e-commerce web hosting platforms, Liquid Web underlines the particular features of e-commerce hosting. And, yes, it packages many added benefits for online stores.
Performance is a crucial aspect for Liquid Web engineers; consequently, the host quality is top class. The stores hosted on Liquid Web run on a high-speed infrastructure, and customers will appreciate the fast loading speed of your online business. Liquid Web puts on the market a 360-degree solution for online stores. For instance, e-commerce hosting encompasses an abandoned cart technology, 20 built-in performance tests, a store management platform, and unlimited staff accounts. On top of that, you are free to use one of the hundreds of themes and the mighty Beaver Builder.
The prices are above average, but weighing the investment against the value provided, it’s a real deal for you, and they offer once in a while.
A2Hosting
A2Hosting doesn’t sacrifice performance even though the pricing plans are affordable for everyone. The Startup plan, the cheapest tier, is $2.99/month for a 3-year commitment, $4.39/month for a 2-year commitment, and $6.99/month for a 1-year commitment. Additionally, you get a free SSL certificate, unlimited email accounts, and a built-in website builder for a single website. Surprisingly, even the cheapest plan includes a staging site; most hosts offer this feature to superior plans or ask for extra money. The positive news doesn’t stop there – A2Hosting takes security seriously and has implemented plenty of proactive measures to eliminate data breaches. 2-factor authentication, DDoS protection, virus scanning, and 24/7 uptime monitoring are just a few of the crucial security enhancements.
A2Hosting is one of the best cheap e-commerce web hosting companies, so it’s a good alternative for running small online shops.
Wrapping Up
The above seven best e-commerce web hosting platforms cover all online businesses. Kinsta, Cloudways, and Pressable aren’t frequently mentioned in host roundups because of their prohibitive prices. Altogether, the quality of the services is undeniable. SiteGround, HostGator, and Liquid Web are more affordable and are recommended by most reviewers (especially SiteGround and HostGator). A2Hosting targets tight budgets, but it has enterprise plans too.
Despite our good intentions, the decision is entirely yours. You know your expectations and resources. These are our picks, and we genuinely want to help you by sharing our impressions. It’d be great to know if this article helps you in this respect, so share your experiences with setting up online stores and what host you select for your shop.
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