The Best Shared Hosting Services for 2025

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Web hosting is a requisite if you want a dedicated presence for blogging or selling products. Shared hosting should be your starting point if starting small. The category has lightweight resources, but it makes up for it with inexpensive rates (it's the cheapest web hosting you can commit to besides free hosting). We'll help streamline your search. We've tested web hosting services for more than a decade, and update our reviews as services add or remove features. Editors' Choice winner A2 Hosting excels at WordPress hosting, but offers a money-back guarantee if its uptime dips below 99.9%. InMotion Hosting has free marketing tools and unlimited monthly data transfers, making it a great choice for SMBs. We’ve selected 10 web hosting services for this list, all excellent. Read on to see our top picks, followed by the key factors to consider when shopping for shared web hosting.

What Is Shared Hosting?

Unlike a dedicated hosting server that powers a single site, a shared web hosting server houses multiple sites. The upside to shared hosting? It's cheap web hosting. In fact, it's sometimes free web hosting. Shared web hosting is extremely wallet-friendly; you can host a website on a shared server for under $10 per month in most cases. Dedicated hosting, however, can cost hundreds of dollars per month.

The downside to shared hosting? Potential website instability, as your site shares server CPU resources with other sites. For example, if you're sharing a server and one of the sites on that server has a traffic spike, your pages might load slowly—or not at all. Still, shared web hosting is a super-affordable way to get a site up and running.

That said, not all shared hosting plans are created equal. Sure, all web hosting companies let you store files on their servers, but they offer varying monthly data transfers, storage, and other features. Even how you pay (month-to-month vs. annual payments) can be radically different, too. Most shared web hosts offer plans representing their low-, medium-, and top-tier products.

Naturally, you'll pay more for an upper-level service but get more features. Web hosts typically offer a discount if you sign up for a multi-month plan.

Is Shared Hosting Good?

Many shared web hosts offer unlimited monthly data transfers and storage, so other factors may help you decide which service is best for your business. Note, however, that if you rely on "unlimited" anything, read the small print to ensure there aren't any gotchas. Make sure your definition of unlimited matches the hosting service's.

Then there's the operating system question. Do you need Windows servers? Linux servers? It's best to shop around. Regarding server operating systems, Linux is typically the default option. Still, some services offer a choice of Linux or Windows hosting. If you have specific server-side applications requiring Windows, such as SQL Server or a custom application written in .NET, you must ensure your web host has Windows hosting. But don't let the idea of a Linux host intimidate you. For more information, check out Linux vs. Windows: How to Pick the Best Server OS for Your Website.

Nowadays, most web hosts offer a graphical interface or a control panel to simplify server administration and website management. You'll click easily identifiable icons instead of typing at the command line.

You may not find some specs while browsing a web host's site. For instance, many web hosts don't list the amount of RAM their shared hosting plans offer. In such instances, you can safely assume that the RAM total is less than 1GB. A few web hosting services offer premium shared plans with 1GB of RAM or slightly more. If you want dependable-under-pressure performance without spending hundreds of dollars per month, look into virtual private server (VPS) hosting. Signing up for a VPS plan gives your future site significant computer resources.

You'll also want a web host with responsive 24/7 customer support. Forums, knowledge bases, and tutorials are useful tools, but there's nothing like getting another human being on the horn (or at least in a web chat).

On the other hand, check out reseller hosting if you want to start a web hosting company without the associated frustrations.

Shared Hosting vs. WordPress Hosting

An alternate form of shared web hosting is WordPress hosting. This option is for people who want to build their sites on the back of the popular WordPress content management system (CMS), but don't want to bother with backend stuff, such as updating the apps, plug-ins, and CMS, and enabling automatic backups. Managed WordPress plans typically have security features to protect the CMS from ne'er-do-wells.

Some web hosts offer managed WordPress as just one of their many hosting packages. Others specialize in WordPress hosting and don't offer additional hosting plans.

Which Is the Best Shared Hosting Service?

Starting a website isn't easy, but our chart gives you a solid foundation to begin your journey. Ready to select a great shared web hosting service? Click the links for our in-depth reviews of the category's best services.

If you're just getting started with web hosting, make sure to check out our primers, How to Create a Website and How to Register a Domain Name for Your Website. The Best Courses for Learning How to Build Websites is another informative starting point.