How to Choose the Best Joomla Hosting in 2024

Hey guys, we are going to discuss the best hosting for Joomla users, and we will try to make this article very newbie-friendly. By making this article newbie-friendly, we aimed to explain almost all you need to know about Joomla CMS and hosting itself in plain language. Almost everyone knows that starting to develop a website from scratch has never been an easy process. 

A bad hosting provider for your website is a wrong way to start, knowing the best hosting providers for whatever CMS platform you want your site to be hosted on is a great way to start. Since we are focusing this article on the Best Joomla hosting for Joomla users, let us first discuss what is Joomla content management system.

What is Joomla?

Joomla is one of the leading tools in the creation of websites, and it is among the most awarded Content Management System (CMS) worldwide. There are more than 30 million web pages created with Joomla. You have more than 10,000 components at your disposal that will allow you to expand the functionality of your website with options such as a virtual store, newsletters, forums, image galleries and endless possibilities that do not stop growing.

Joomla allows you to manage all your website efficiently, create a new section, modify the current ones, add new images, create new menu options and almost anything you need you can do quickly and without technical knowledge. If you have just basic knowledge of Word (Microsoft Word) or any other text editor you can efficiently manage your website.

Joomla is an Open Source, that means you can use it for free, and almost 95% of the components for Joomla are also free; that is why it is among the top CMS today.

Let's look into what hosting is all about and the best type of hosting available.

What is Web Hosting and Why You Need That?

A web host is mostly called a space in which you purchase on a web server to store your site files. Think for example your computer and the folders and files in them; every file has a folder in which it is saved and can be accessed easily from, that is just the concept of web hosting.

For any website to become live, it needs to be located, that is hosted on a web server. By buying a hosting plan from any web hosting company, you are only renting space from their web server. So in the situation, someone decides to visit your website by entering your domain name, the person will be directed to your website.

When you hire the services of a web host provider, all backend concerns would be managed by them, repair and maintenance of the server are included. Generally, a web hosting company is there to make life easier by saying webmasters from lots of hassle.

If you have in mind to start a Joomla web project and have been evaluating different options to host it, you will have discovered that there is an excellent variety of hosting types. We explain briefly what each one consists of:

Shared Hosting

Since web hosting can be simply said to be a computer (server) that allows you to store and publish your files on the internet for everyone to see. A web hosting company most times called web host can decide to rent its computer (server) space to customers.

A shared hosting can then be explained as type of web hosting service where many websites that differs share one physical server. This however reduces the cost of hosting effectively. Even though shared hosting means shared resources like the disk space, ram, CPU and bandwidth, all your files are safely protected from others.

Pros

• It is budget friendly
• It is very convenient

Cons

• ​You have limited resources
• You don't have full control

Use Case

Shared hosting is mostly used by these category of websites

• ​Low traffic website
• A new growing website
• A personal blog
• A forum

Virtual Private Server (VPS)

A Virtual Private Server is simply explained as a virtual machine that takes care of the individual needs of a user, and it is carried out as an isolated physical computer dedicated to one particular user. Virtual servers mostly consist of a file transfer protocol software, web server software, a mail server program, and different other types of software for e-commerce, blogging, etc.

You should also note that is this type of hosting; you will be responsible for catering for the server. In summary, a Virtual Private Server is partitioned/mapped out part of a physical server.

Pros

• ​You have full control over it
• It is more protected and secure
• You can run scheduled task and maintenance.

Cons

• It is more on the expensive side

Use Cases

• Advanced users
• Companies and businesses

Dedicated Server

A dedicated server is the easiest of all to understand, imagine this scenario: You purchased a PC from a store and connect it to your home network, then installed and connected the webserver software and DNS respectively and correctly. This PC would be able to make your website go live and handle all requests from all over the globe.

However, the question to be asked remains, how will it cope with power outages, theft, crashes, the rise in traffic, security breaches? Web hosts take upon themselves all these risks and solve these issues. In summary, you rented a server situated at a web host's data center.

Pros

• It is easy to use
• More capabilities
• It is flexible
• High performance
• More secure
• More reliable

Cons

• More expensive 

Use Cases

• This is mainly used by Larger companies or corporations 

Hosting for Newbies

Maybe you've lost yourself with so much technicality: hosting, web hosting, hosting, VPS, RAM, CPU ... Do not worry, it all happened to us. Some hosting companies think that we are all computer scientists and that we understand what they say and it is not always the case.

To make the article more newbie friendly with a good taste and understand perfectly the types of hosting that exist, I have to try and summarize these hosting packages.

Types of Hosting Summarized

• Shared hosting is like a co-working space, where you rent a table and start working. You'll find other startups in the same floor sharing internet, water, electricity, elevator etc.
• The VPS hosting is comparable to urbanisation of townhouses with which you share some services, such as the community pool. You enjoy considerable autonomy.
• The dedicated server is a single-family house in which you live alone and do what you want. The neighbours are several tens of meters away, and they do not bother you. It is more difficult to manage (more expenses, more paperwork, more time) but it is worth it when you need it, and you can pay it.

What Makes a Host Great + Why

When we work online on projects that generate money and expenses. It is vital to have an excellent hosting service nearby. Unfortunately, a large number of people opt-in for hosting services of low quality. Fortunately, today we will see some of the characteristics of an excellent hosting service that are compared in best Joomla hosting. For you as a webmaster, you can identify if the company you have hired, meets the quality guidelines that we will mention or if it lacks some details.

Apparently, in the Joomla hosting services discussed below, they can fulfill everything and assure you a high-quality hosting service. So, without further ado, let's see the characteristics of a good Hosting.

What Features Should You Look out for When You Shop for a Hosting?

Optimized Servers

When it comes to a hosting service dedicated to electronic commerce, one of the main things that are needed, is that the servers are optimized for what they are going to be used. For this, we must see the operating system they handle, which is optimum for the project we are going to undertake.

For example. If you are about to install Joomla, take care that the server has Windows and Apache. Otherwise, if you use one with Linux or another operating system, you will see complexities and really strange things that in a serious project you will not want to find. Mainly for the loss of money that you can generate.

Great Support

Imagine a situation in which your website crashes, the server is not online, or you suffer some mishap with the platform on which you work. For any of these cases, good technical support is of vital importance. Moreover, for example, in these cases, in these discussed hosting companies below, they have technical support in high quality.

Customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but mainly, having trained personnel, who know how to meet the needs of customers and that are not the typical ones that they tell you, wait later to solve it. It really is a point that must be analyzed in detail.

Scalable infrastructure: As a third important factor in the quality of a hosting service. We have scalability. What do you mean by scalable Infrastructure? When we talk of being scalable, we refer to the possibility of increasing the capabilities of a server, according to the required needs. That is we need more RAM; the scalable server allows more RAM to be added.

We need more disk space; the scalable server allows more storage space to be added without generating major problems. This type of thing guarantees a great quality in the web hosting service and will surely make you satisfied.

High Performance

Not all companies can afford to have the acronyms of high performance. However, if you see a company that has this feature, then approach them, because they will surely provide the performance that you and your business need. Obviously, note that it also complies with the rest of the features that we have just mentioned so that you are much calmer.

I would not dare to recommend a Joomla hosting service, giving the adjective of the "best" market, what I have done is giving you the features every best hosting services should possess, so in general, I would say that before buying any hosting service evaluate the following:

• Acceptable load time, data transfer, and user-friendly and intuitive interface.
• With the possibility that within your plan you can migrate to your hosting to another, keeping your data.
• Unlimited email when you buy a paid service, although at this point it would be important that you evaluate the use of what you are going to give it, be it personal, corporate, or for a startup.
• 24/7 quality technical support, with additional forums to the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), video tutorials, etc.
• Backups (backups), daily, automatic, and programmable.
• In case you are going to sell the service, you must have unlimited domain hosting for the clients and have a wide bandwidth (at least 50 GB).
• An open and flexible infrastructure to host different E-commerce platforms and CMS (content management systems) such as WordPress that I usually use.
• For the other options and if you are a customer, a disk space of at least 1GB to have sufficient minimum power.
• The hosting must be updated regarding security (viruses, Trojans, spyware, Anti-Spam filters, etc.) and spam filters (essential).
• Support programming languages such as HTML, PHP, JQuery, AJAX and even, databases at least in MySQL and Javascript language although for some it is already sent to collect.

Bluehost

Bluehost.com has the trust of over 1,000,000 domain owners. Bluehost is known to be the best in the web hosting industry offering a unique value proposition. We have written by this review Bluehost to say exactly how Bluehost hosting stands out from the crowd of other hosting providers. When you choose Bluehost web hosting, you would surely find it for yourself.

About Bluehost Hosting

Bluehost is among one of the first 20 website hosting companies to hit the web. From the time when the hosting industry itself was in its infancy. Bluehost delivered far more than expectations and thus preserved its authority between the competition and its credibility among customers.

Bluehost is a top-quality symbol in the hosting industry that is demonstrated by its expanding consumer base and customer retention. The company is headquartered in Utah and employs most up-to-date technological know-how within its data centres to provide top-notch service to its customers. Bluehost accommodates both individuals and businesses alike.

Bluehost Web Hosting Features

This company offers an awesome web hosting plan at a nice price as its solo plan that includes everything you need to develop a website. This plan includes unlimited disk space, a free domain, unlimited monthly download, unlimited email accounts, unlimited MySQL databases and unlimited domains in a single account. Some key features of this plan are described below.

Unlimited Domain Hosting

Here you have unlimited domains with a hosting account. This is an impressive capability that not all hosting providers will offer for you. This gives you the ability to manage all your sites with just one hosting account. You'll be happy to know that Bluehost was among the first hosting companies to bring this idea of multi-domain hosting.

Site Builder Free - Just Drag and Drop

Bluehost has launched a new feature - the drag-and-drop website builder, which come across as a great way to develop a website by itself. You do not need to be a website design expert in order to take advantage of this tool. This free website builder is primarily a mix of templates and tools of a website builder with easy and simple drag and drops icons that you can actually mix with your personal creativity to generate a custom look for your website.

Other Features of the Bluehost

• ​Money back guarantee in first 30 days
• Multimedia support
• Scripting support
• Nice Control panel

Pros

• ​ Joomla and other CMS friendly
• Lots options with low prices
• Very easy to use
• Top reliable security
• Lots of Add-on Integration

Cons

• ​Strict storage rules
• Customer support is not top-notch

Performance and Reliability Analysis Bluehost

Bluehost pays close attention to ensuring the accessibility of your website to your audience. It uses UPS and heavy-duty diesel generators to secure power back to the servers in an effort to end disruptions in their sites. Consequently, they are able to guarantee a 99.99% uptime for your website.

They use modern quad-servers and first-class equipment, in addition to mirrored backups and 24/7 supervision of their qualified staff. All this make sure that your service remains perfect at all times.

Bluehost Support Analysis

Bluehost offers its customers a variety of options with regard to technical support. First of all, you have the fantastic online help centre where you can look through or search a huge knowledge base of content in a diverse selection of themes, which really is the fastest and most convenient way to solve a problem. The help centre also gives you the ability to open a support ticket directly with Bluehost support staff.

In case you need actually to chat with live human support, Bluehost provides a 24 hour/7day technical support phone number. You also have the option of email and chat. Regardless of how small, how trivial or how complex your problems are.

Inmotion

 InMotion Hosting is one of the most used hosts in the world. Thanks to many years of experience, IMH has become a pioneer in the field of website hosting. The innovative solution, sophisticated hosting technique, are offered to customers thanks to the business offer.

History of the Hosting Company 

The deployment of innovative hosting solutions has enabled InMotion Hosting to gain a foothold in the IT and cloud market. Unlike other companies, it offers a wide choice of Data Center distributed throughout the North American territory. In addition, it offers various services such as the shared solution, the VPS server for all applications available on the market.

Founded in 2001, its headquarters are based in the United States primarily in two states, California and Virginia. Like all existing hosting companies, it also offers domain name management, but in a more optimal way.

InMotion Review

Business Class Hosting Offers

Among the InMotion Hosting offers, this one seems to be the most popular.

The business hosting offer, offers three services: The Launch offer, reserved for those who want to break into the market, that is to say, small businesses. It is offered at $4.89/month and gives access to a two-site hosting without e-commerce solution and an unlimited transfer volume.

The Power solution provides the customer with 6 domain names at $6.29/month with the possibility of using 50 SQL databases. For the most professional, the Pro offer is the most recommended option. With a price of $10.49/month, they can host 25 websites and more than 200 SQL databases, with unlimited use of subdomains.

The Dedicated Servers

For dedicated server offerings, InMotion Hosting allows users to choose between three proposals. First, there is the "Essential" offer at $119.99/month including 2 GHz and 4GB of RAM, a 7.2TB SATA 1TB disc. For those who need a greater volume of space, the "Advanced" offer is able to satisfy them. Offered at a price of $159.99/month with a Raid-1.2 × 120Gb SSD or Raid-1.2 × 1Tb 7.2K SATA drive with 8GB of RAM, it's the solution for high-performance sites.

Finally, there is the high end with "Elite" whose disc comes in three versions: the SSD of 250Gb, the Sata of 1Tb and Data Backup of 2Tb of 16GB of RAM. This solution costs $229.99/month.

InMotion Dedicated VPS InMotion Hosting Offers

Hosting company InMotion Hosting also has many VPS server offerings. The entry-level VPS-1000HA-S server at $29.99/month offers the option of having 4 GB of RAM, a 60 Gb drive for 2TB traffic. For the VPS-2000HA-S, the user will benefit from a disk of 130 GB, a traffic of 3 TB and 6 GB of RAM. This option is available at $49.99/month. 

The high potential server VPS-3000HA-S, meanwhile, costs $74.99/month. The offer includes the use of 200Gb of the disk with a traffic of 4TB to 8GB of RAM.

Top Two Features Of The InMotion

Value For Money: Of course, the costs depended on the type of plan you choose but compared to the other popular web hosting providers I've studied, I must say that InMotion is affordable and indeed offers you top options. The Value Class plan starts at $ 3 a month, and you can pay an extra $ 1 - $ 2 for more options and more hard drive space - my basic plan cost $ 1 more.

If you are about to set up an online store, you should consider adding $ 2 since Online Shopping Baskets, and Shared SSL are not included in both Basic Plans. For $ 4 a month, I had to subscribe for 24 months and prepay for the duration of my subscription. I got a free domain, and if you want to buy other domains, they cost $ 11.95 more per year.

Support: As I always do when I test a web host's customer support, I asked him three questions - one easy, one moderately easy, and the last a bit more complicated. I was put in touch with the support team in just a few seconds. It's always a good point.

My counsellor had no problem helping me with the first two questions. The third, however, seemed to embarrass him a little and I did not get a very clear answer. However, after a few exchanges, I must admit having all the information I needed. So, overall, it's a good support team.

• Live Chat
• phone
• E-mail

You can easily contact the InMotion support team - try any of the above three ways.

Other Features

• ​Top notch software bundles
• ​Optimized and pre-built software configuration
• Its drives are in a solid state
• Server management
• Easy website migration
• Protection against DDOS attacks

Pros

• Their plans are very budget friendly
• Easy to install CMS like Joomla, WordPress etc
• Their services are very easy to use.
• ​InMotion Hosting is very reliable
• Great customer technical support 

Cons

Doesn't cover up more languages except for English

InMotion Hosting Conclusion​

InMotion Hosting practices the lowest rate regarding web hosting. Concerned about the well-being of its customers, it proposes a service of assistance on its various services. The practice of a "satisfied or refunded" policy gives it a good image among users. This is why it has become one of the most widely used hosting solutions.

In addition to these advantages, InMotion Hosting wants to be intuitive, because a site hosted on one of its servers can perfectly develop. The only problem is at the language level because all the services offered and the packs are in English; not very practical for other non-English speaking customers.

InMotion Hosting, despite the fact that the company tends to break through the English market, opens to all users. With impeccable service, she has left to become a key pillar in terms of web hosting.

SiteGround

Founded in 2004, SiteGround is a major player in the web hosting around the world. Present on 3 continents, Europe, the United States and Asia, the web host already has over 3200 employees with five data centres around the world. 

Renowned for its speed, the company stands out thanks to fast and efficient equipment always thinking of customer safety. SiteGround's services are highly targeted for ever more performance, and the host offers accessible and scalable packages.

SiteGround has a very wide choice of packages and services, making it ideal for everyone. Beginners or professionals are sure to find a formula that suits them and meet their needs. The host offers shared web hosting packages, dedicated servers but also specially optimized formulas for Joomla. Each formula is detailed and very complete with a library of themes and a series of tutorials to get started.

Joomla SiteGround Accommodations

• ​If you prefer Joomla to WordPress, less popular, but equally powerful, SiteGround offers the same type of complete pack with themes and step-by-step tutorials for creating your website with Joomla, from $3.95/month.
• ​Free pre-installation
• Multisite Joomla
• Up to 30 GB of disk space
• 1-click installation
• Joomla SuperCacher (dynamic caching based on Nginx)
• Daily backups
• PHP 7
• cPanel and SSH
• E-mail account
• jHack Guard plugin
• Unlimited Traffic
• Free SSL Certificate
• Free Cloudflare CDN
• Automatic update Joomla

SiteGround Dedicated Servers

SiteGround offers dedicated servers to choose according to its continent. The prices vary between $179/month and $336/month.

• ​WHM and cPanel
• Auto-install Softaculous
• MySQL 5 and PostgreSQL 5
• PHP versions
• Apache/Nginx and CentOS
• Mail server
• Configuring private DNS servers
• Free domain name
• 5 dedicated IP addresses
• Free Cloudflare CDN SSH access
• WordPress, Joomla, and Magento included

Top Notable Features of the SiteGround Host

Price

The prices of SiteGround allow to have a site for ten euros per month for shared hosting offers or for Joomla. For dedicated servers, cloud etc. Rates are much higher, up to a hundred dollars a month.

Support and Assistance

SiteGround support is accessible by technical ticket 24/7 and the response time is 10 minutes maximum. Otherwise, the support is accessible by Live Chat and by phone 24/7 and the answer is immediate. To avoid the need for support, the host provides you with complete tutorials to install your site, webinars, and a configuration wizard.

Other SiteGround Features

• Offers data backup services
• Great email functionality
• Top E-commerce capabilities
• Offers website services
• Control panel included

Pros

• ​Beginners friendly due to its wide choice of packages and services
• Good security compared to other hosting companies
• Very fast due to its presence in Europe, Asia, and the United States
• Very reliable thanks to its great customer support
• Does a good job in sharing resources among many customers

Cons

• ​It has a relatively higher price compared to other companies in the hosting niche.
• Its storage is lesser when compared to some other hosting company of same or lower prices.

HostGator

Let's start with a simple question; What is Hostgator? It is nothing more or nothing less than a great hosting service that has extensive features that gives you an excellent web hosting service. Maintaining, in turn, a perfect balance between the quality of their products and their prices. It also has completely customized services. Currently, Host Gator hosts more than 9 million web pages on its servers. 

Main Features of Hostgator​

One of the features that most webmasters identifies Hostgator.com among Joomla hosting users is the fact that it has unlimited services, such as bandwidth, storage spaces and so on. It also has a service to create free email accounts, with extensive customization with the name of your domain.

It has an application manager, the well-known Quick Install that allows you to install scripts and applications with just one click. It also includes personalization tools such as Site Builder, a tool that allows you to design, from Hostgator hosting for free each of your websites.

Speed

Another of the aspects praised by Hostgator is the speed it has over the loading of the sites and their operation. It is not just a myth since, in the analysis carried out by professionals, it has been concluded that the sites hosted on Hostgator, load 2.5 times faster than the sites hosted in the competition.

Domain Transfers

Although, from the Hosting Hostgator you can insert new domains, you also have the possibility to make a transfer of your complete websites, clarifying that during the transfer (which is done quickly) the site remains active at all times.

Technical Support

Both the technical support team and the customer service team are available 24 hours a day so you can contact them through their customer service channels.

• Phone call.
• Online chat in real time.
• Email.
• Tickets from the web.

It should be noted that Hostgator is not available in other languages, since it is not a multilingual platform, but operates only in English. However, it does not represent a great inconvenience because it has a fluid design that allows an easy use.

Other Features of the Hostgator

• Dedicated and VPS servers
• Wordpress and Joomla support
• Ability to manage multiple domains
• Easy to use site builders
• Cpanel

Pros

Without a doubt, we can conclude that Hostgator is a highly recommended hosting service to use, and among the main advantages are:

• Hostgator cPanel.
• Access coupons discount Hosts.
• 45-day guarantee
• Installers of 1 click applications.
• More than 4,500 templates to use in the design.
• Technical support 24 hours a day.
• $ 100 bonus to promote your sites.

Cons

• Hostgator is not multi-lingual

Rochen

Having the aim of offering the best service, this company is one of the few companies in the web hosting industry that manage their own storage infrastructure.

With its automatic failover feature, controlled backups and its tech support always available 24/7. Shows why it is a top hosting company offering premium hosting services.

It might also interest you to know that they're the Joomla's official web host; also the contribute to open-source projects and also Drupal project premium hosting supporter.

Here are the other services offered by Rochen.

Rochen Offered Services

Rochen Offers the Shared web hosting, VPS, dedicated, Cloud Hosting.

Rochen delivers its shared hosting in different plans in which the reseller and the premium hosting is among. There is such an option for application managed, and cloud server managed hosting specifically for Joomla, WordPress, Magento and Drupal CMS.

They offer two choices in the web hosting plan. The multi-site and single site is the mainly offered premium web hosting. In the single package, Just like the name, you will only receive a single site support with SSD hosting storage of about 20gb and a free SSL certificates, and a free domain that comes unmetered bandwidth.

The cost of this plan is $4.95/month, but that is if you pay for 3 years advance payment else you pay $7.95/month, and your account will be activated instantly. If your page views per month are not exceeding 25000, this plan is the best fit for you. You will receive SSD storage, and server access will be fast.

If your interest is in a larger pack, you are covered by their multi-site plan. You are offered a 60GB storage to host unlimited websites. Its bandwidth usage is unmetered this plan is able to handle 100,000 views per month. Also included is SSL certificate for a year and a free domain.

This plan is available for $8.95/month (on 3 years advance payment) but $13.95 per month on the normal payment. But that for 3 years advance payment is best if you plan to host multiple sites with low profit.

In each of these Rochen hosting plans, you will receive other benefits named Rochen Essentials, and that contributes to making them a premium package service. Incorporated is free email accounts, 24/7 tech support, unlimited MYSQL database, cPanel, one-click app installer, daily backups and much more.

Key Features of Rochen Hosting

• Server location: They have their servers located in UK and USA. This is great for SEO purposes; it is always recommended that your server is hosted in the region where your visitors mostly from. This makes your website load faster and also you rank better in search engines. If you target visitors from regions like the USA or the UK. This hosting company is the best choice for your site hosting and making it one of the best hosting for Joomla content management system.
• No Overselling: It is one of the awesome features you will get with this hosting company that the resources are being utilized with limited clients.

Other Features

Rochen supports vast different applications including Joomla and WordPress.

Their physical server is being owned by them and it's also controlled by them.

Litespeed Web server tech usage.

They provide Vault for easy backup and restoration

Pros

• Data centers in UK and US
• SSD storage with fast speed
• Rochen shield to ensure top-notch security
• 1 click easy installation for, Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress.
• Fused hosting with domain registration service.

Cons

• Best suited for low traffic sites or personal blogs.

Cloudaccess

Cloudaccess is a hosting company that offers its services mainly to Joomla's CMS although more recently WordPress has been added. Even though there are other hosting services being offered by this company, Joomla and WordPress are just their main focus.

You are really in luck if you use Joomla on this hosting company as it uses cloud-hosted and optimized servers to ensure top performance of your website thereby giving this company a place among the best web hosting for Joomla. This company hosting plans provides support and extend more beyond the core features of Joomla and WordPress, though it's dependent on your subscription type.

Also, they have their very own Cloud Control Panel as opposed to using cPanel and it is integrated with an API that manages the hosting needs. Even though it might take time to get used to these features, but it's worth the user experience.

Key Features

• cPanel: This is just one of the most loved features that are most loved about Cloudaccess is its Cloud Control Panel. However, there are some improvements yet to be implemented that I wish were already incorporated as baselines from cPanel.
• Trial Before Buying: This hosting company offers a free 30-day trial of Joomla websites hosted on their platform before you decide to pay, once you start your free trial, Joomla would be installed for you since there isn't any need to create a database and link to your site.

Other Features of Cloudaccess

• Easy Joomla install
• Cloud Control Panel
• Phpmyadmin
• Email integration

Pros

• Fast cloud servers
• Control panel is easy to use
• Tech support is excellent

Cons

• Phone support not available.

Buying Guide

We have known the best web hosting for joomla users, it is required to know how best to make your purchase of the hosting service for your website. Here is our guide:

Know Your Hosting Needs

You can never get the right host without knowing what you need. So before going any further set aside everything (including this guide that you read) and think carefully about your own needs.

• What kind of website do you build?
• Do you need something simple and unique (a Joomla blog, for example)?
• Do you want Windows applications?
• Do you need a special version of the software (eg PHP)?
• Does your website require special software?
• How big is the volume of web traffic?

Here are some of the main questions you really need to answer on your own, allowing you to get a quick picture of what you want to do with your website now and for the next 12 months.

If You are Totally New...

For beginners, the basic rule is to always kick-off small with an excellent shared hosting account. Shared hosting accounts are always easy to maintain, cheap, and sufficient for most new sites. In addition, you can always upgrade to a VPS or dedicated hosting at a later stage as your site grows larger.

What to look for in a host?

1. Server Reliability/Availability Scores​

Nothing is more important than having a 24 × 7 web host. You need a good web host running on a powerful server and whose network connections are stable. 99.5% and above is the recommended availability score; anything less than 99% is unacceptable.

There are several ways to get information about the uptime of the host. One way to do this is with server monitoring tools; many of these tools are free to test and are very good to use, such as basic state, host tracker, site uptime etc...

2. Server Upgrade Options

On a rough estimate, a shared hosting account should be enough to support a properly optimized Joomla website with 30,000 - 40,000 unique monthly visitors. You should manage a shared host if you can limit your simultaneous database connections below 20 (that's why I said it's always better to start with shared hosting if you're new).

However…

If you expect your website to grow over the next two to three years, you should consider choosing a web host with room to grow. By growth, I mean upgrading your web host, from shared hosting to private or dedicated virtual servers, for more memory capacity, processing power, disk storage, and better security features.

3. Add-ons domains (additional domains)

Domain names are so cheap that it's hard to resist having more than one. Personally, I have more than 10 domain names in my accounts. And I'm not the only one.

To accommodate these additional domains, we need additional hosting space. And that's why it's important to have a web hosting account that allows you to add multiple domains.

Generally, most budgeted shared hosting companies allow at least 25 addon domains in a single account today, but you can never be sure. A few years ago, I was carefree, and I registered on a host that allows only one domain. And, I owned more than 10 domains parked at that time. Do not repeat my mistake - be sure to check the domain's capacity before making a purchase.

4. Price: Hosting Registration vs. Renewal Cost

Hosting offers especially shared hosting, are generally very cheap on registration fees but charge a lot more for renewals.

It is an industry standard.

Unless you're ready to circle between two or three hosts every two years, there's no way to avoid costly renewal costs.

In general, any shared hosting that is priced below $ 10 / month is acceptable, but you may have a lower tolerance. So, to avoid any unpleasant surprises, you should check the TOS and make sure you agree to the renewal prices before registration.

5. Refund Policy

• If you choose to cancel your host during the trial period, does the company provide a full refund?
• What is the refund policy of the hosting company after the trial session?
• Is there a cancellation fee?

Here are some fundamental questions to ask before registering.

It's important to know that your hosting provider is managing customer repayments, so you do not have to waste too much money when things go wrong.

Some hosting companies charge a high cancellation fee when users decide to cancel their account during the trial period. Avoid these hosting companies at all costs. On the other hand, some hosting companies provide money back guarantees whenever you can request a prorated refund after your trial period.

6. Cron Jobs, Auto Script Installer, .htaccess and SSI

I'm always surprised that some web hosts still do not offer these basic hosting features these days. You need Cron for daily operations, Auto Script Installer (like Simple Scripts, Fantastico, Quick Installer, Installatron, Softaculous etc.) to facilitate installations and updates of web applications; .htaccess access for security / page / etc redirects, Server Side Include (SSI) for a quick and less stressful site maintenance (most especially when creating a static site), and FTP access for easy file transfer.

Unless you register on a specialized web host like WP Engine and Presidium, otherwise these basic features are essential. You should not choose hosting companies that do not provide them. Ignore disk space and data transfer capacity (for now). Disk space and data transfers are hardly a significant comparison factor for buyers, especially if you are new today.

First, if you check, almost all shared hosting providers offer "unlimited" storage and data transfers. While the term "unlimited" is nothing more than a marketing incentive; web hosting receives a lot more than enough in data transfer and storage capacity. (In most cases, RAM and CPU power limit the use of an unlimited hosting account.)

Secondly, if you think about it, disk storage and bandwidth matter little for an average website owner these days. Images can be stored on Flickr; files and documents on Google Doc, videos on YouTube and Vimeo, big data files on the cloud.

So in conclusion, you do not need to worry so much about your hosting storage or bandwidth yet.

7. E-commerce Service Features

• Do you have an e-commerce website?
• Do you use a specific shopping cart software?
• Do you need to process business transactions on your website?
• Do you need special technical support?
• If so, it is important that you choose a web host with enough e-commerce features.

SSL certification, dedicated IP and one-click basket software installation are just some of the essential features/media you'll need.

8. An easy-to-use hosting control panel

A friendly and functional hosting control panel is very, very important. No matter whether it's a cPanel or Plesk control panel or a third party, everything is fine as long as it is user-friendly and has all the necessary functions. Without an adequate control panel, you will be left at the mercy of the hosting technical support staff; even if all you need is some basic server changes.

9. Account Suspension: What are the Limitations?​

Here's a tip that most evaluation sites will not tell you: Hosting companies will pull the plug and will suspend your account if you use too much processor power (yes, unlimited hosting is limited) or break the rules. So, before registering on a web host, it is important that you read the rules.

Knowing the limitations of your account helps you understand two things:

• How generous (or miserly) is your preselected web host - should you go with this web host or another host with looser restrictions?
• How transparent is your hosting company; Can you trust the words that come out of your hosting company? The honest hosting company will normally have very clear guidelines on account limitation.

10. Environmental Friendliness

Having an eco-friendly web host is the main concern of some webmasters. According to scientific studies, a web server produces on average more than 630 kg of CO2 (which is a lot!) And consumes 1,000 kWh of energy a year. A green host, on the other hand, theoretically produces zero CO2. There is indeed a huge difference between a green host and a non-ecological host.

If you care about the environment and want to reduce your carbon footprint, choose a host that runs on renewable energy (or at least one host that compensates for its energy consumption via green certificates).

11. Branded Email

If you want to host email accounts with your website, you must check the email feature before signing up. Most hosting companies will come with the option of hosting your own email (something like This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In case the messaging feature is not provided, no problem. There are many ways to own an email account on your own domain. Google Email Apps, for example, is free and simple: you receive the first 10 email accounts for free and $ 5 / account/month.

12. Backup of the Site (Backup)

There are times when a site crashes; maybe a hacker has entered your website and replaced your index.php file, or your entire database has been affected, or the server has had a serious hard drive failure.

If your hosting provider performs regular site backups, there is nothing to fear when these incidents occur. Your hosting provider should be able to restore your website completely (or at least a large part) in no time.

On backups, here are some key questions to ask your web host:

• Does your hosting provider regularly provide full backups?
• Can site backup be easily done via the control panel?
• Can you create an automatic backup of your site easily via a cron job or another program?
• Can you easily restore your backup files (so you do not have to wait for support staff to do it for you in the event of a disaster)?

13. Online Assistance 24/7?

Personally, I prefer live chat or even better the phone call; and I prefer the web hosting company with full documentation (so I can just read and solve the problems myself). However, it's just me. You may prefer support by e-mail or phone. What you want is someone who can throw you a lifeline instantly when you press the SOS button and all that is really important.

Conclusion

We have seen the companies having the best hosting for Joomla, there pros and cons, and what makes them unique in their own way. We hope this article would have you make better decisions about the best web hosting for joomla.