What Exactly is WordPress Hosting and Is It Worth the Extra Costs?

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]WordPress hosting is very popular both due to its association with the WordPress platform and due to how cheap it has become. But WordPress hosting plans are still a little more expensive than other types of hosting like shared web hosting.

So is it really worth the extra cost? Let’s find out.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row el_id=”What is hosting?”][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Contents

What is hosting?

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Hosting refers to a service that makes your website available over the internet. You can map your domain to your hosting so that visitors are able to access it via a URL. There are many types of hosting such as Shared web hosting, Managed WordPress hosting, Virtual Private Servers (VPS), and Dedicated Servers. I’ll be talking about WordPress hosting in this article. It’s not the cheapest out of the four types of hosting mentioned above. Also, different vendors have pricing plans that vary from a few dollars up to hundreds of dollars. So I’ll be taking a special look at whether it is worth the extra cost.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row el_id=”What is WordPress hosting?”][vc_column][vc_column_text]

What is WordPress hosting?

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]This is a type of hosting that is specialized in hosting WordPress websites. These plans come with the environment pre-configured to allow easy set up of your website. They are different from the other types of hosting in that they offer specialized support for WordPress websites. Other than that, they can be found in many flavors such as shared or dedicated servers, with and without managed support, and support for one or many websites.

To truly assess whether WordPress hosting is worth the extra cost, it is essential to study its pros and cons and see how they affect your individual needs.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Advantages of WordPress hosting

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Pre-installed WordPress and automatic updates

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]This is the main advantage of choosing WordPress hosting – the fact that you can simply get down to building your website with almost no background configuration. You won’t need to worry about WordPress updates with most web hosts as they offer free and automatic WordPress updates. WordPress updates are of the utmost importance to keep your web site up to date and safe.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Free website migration

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Most web hosts will also support free migration of existing websites to their own platforms. This means that you won’t need to spend any time or effort to transfer your websites from their existing platforms.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Better performance and caching

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]WordPress hosting is provided on servers that are configured specially for WordPress websites. So they are fine-tuned for WordPress and will be able to give you the best possible performance in their category. Caching is another feature that can make your website pages load faster. Some vendors offer caching directly at the webserver level making it much more effective than using plugins.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Managed WordPress Support

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Managed Support is an important feature offered by many WordPress hosting providers. It is essential if you have no development experience. The hosting provider will provide specialized support in case you have any difficulties setting up your website or any other queries.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

WordPress specific Security measures

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Many vendors offer some level of security from malware and other threats like brute-force attacks. Some do this in the form of native features of their platform or as free subscriptions to reputed plugins. In either case, this is a benefit provided only for WordPress hosting and can make your website more secure.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

User-friendly Control Panels and Dashboards

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Most vendors provide specialized control panels along with their WordPress hosting plans. This is not possible with other types of hosting as they are meant for many different uses. A specialized control panel means that you will be able to easily configure your website and many other things email addresses from a central interface.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Disadvantages of WordPress hosting

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Additional Cost

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]For the context of this article, the additional cost of WordPress hosting is its main disadvantage. Pricing is considerably higher than shared hosting and there is also a big discrepancy in pricing between WordPress plans of different vendors. I’ll be talking more about this in the next section.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Loss of Flexibility

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]This is an inherent flaw of WordPress hosting right in its design. Because it is designed to be simple and straightforward even for someone without development experience, there is little or no space for customization or configuration. While this may not affect the majority of users, it may lead developers and those with experience away from this type of hosting.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row el_id=”Is WordPress hosting worth the extra cost?”][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Is WordPress hosting worth the extra cost?

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]It’s obvious, the advantages of WordPress hosting outweigh its disadvantages. With all of these advantages, it makes sense to go for a WordPress hosting plan unless you really don’t have the budget.

If you are looking to host a new website, then WordPress hosting will make the most sense to you because they offer the most features at the best possible rates. So the extra cost is justified. You’ll be able to find WordPress plans starting at a few dollars and going right up to hundreds of dollars. It all depends on the features and type of server offered. Some vendors offer virtual or dedicated servers with WordPress support. These suit larger websites that have higher performance needs.

The price difference can also mean that some vendors offer more in terms of performance. This is very important for page loading times and especially for SEO. So it would definitely make sense to find a vendor that offers great specifications, even at a comparatively higher cost.

Now if you’re a developer or have a lot of experience with setting up WordPress and want to host one or more sites, then WordPress hosting may not be the most suitable for you due to the extra cost. But if the cost is not an issue, many vendors offer reseller hosting plans at very competitive rates.

So it ultimately comes down to the type of website you are planning on hosting. For the right person, the extra cost may be justified by the extra features and the ease of setting up a website.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row el_id=”Conclusion”][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Conclusion

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]While WordPress hosting comes at an additional cost, finding the right vendor and the right plan could make it almost negligible. You may even find a vendor that offers WordPress hosting for almost the same price as shared web hosting. That’s where a good comparison of hosting plans comes in handy. But not everyone will have the time to visit a few dozen websites and find a good hosting plan. So try our Hosting Finder tool to find the WordPress hosting plan that is right for you.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]