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What is WordPress Hosting?

WordPress began in 2003 as a branch of a popular blogging application. It was then rigorously developed into a blogging platform, which soon overtook its parent. Of recently, that blogging platform has exploded into a full-featured web content system for websites of all types, offering dynamic solutions to the masses.

Currently, over 70 million websites are built on WordPress, and developers cite several reasons for the popularity of this platform. For starters, the software is free and open-source, which allows developers to contribute unique and creative themes, widgets and plug-ins to customize webpages and provide powerful and easy-to-use administrative tools.

What are the Best WordPress Hosting Options?

To understand WordPress hosting let's first understand web hosting. All of the world's websites are operated from servers. Although you can yourself own and operate a server, the money and time investments required, make it inefficient for most of the individuals businesses. To tackle this problem these companies operate dozens, hundreds or even thousands of servers from a central location. They then rent their servers and resources to individuals and businesses at prices that they can afford.

WordPress hosting is nothing but a variant of web hosting. The only difference being the minimum server hardware and software requirements to run this hosting platform. This standardization of servers allows the platforms to integrate seamlessly into the server and process requests through the Internet quickly and effectively. Since the demand for WordPress hosting is so high, nearly every known company offers WordPress hosting. Moreover, several options are available to cater to a range of requirements and budgets. Someone who just wants to put a personal blog online may choose to opt for a shared WordPress plan while large businesses would rather opt to lease one or more servers.

WordPress Hosting Compatibility

To install and operate WordPress Hosting, the host server must meet a few standard prerequisites. To run the 3.1 version of WordPress, servers must meet the following software requirements: PHP version 4.3 or later and MySQL version 4.1.2 or later. For 3.2, the requirements are PHP version 5.2.4 or later and MySQL version 5.0.15 or later.

In addition to the above software, experts recommend using either Apache or NGINX Web servers running the optional Apache mod_rewrite module.

How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting Provider?

Choosing a WordPress Hosting provider is a very important step in your business journey because your website will rely on and be constrained by the host server's capabilities and host's services. Several factors should be evaluated when choosing a host, most important ones are as follows:

  • Reliability – First and foremost, the host should guarantee at least a 99.9% website uptime, and page load times should be less on all browsers.
  • Ease of use – Accessing your website and account remotely should not be a crytpic and time consuming process.
  • Customer support – The host should also be available to address your queries and solve your problems virtually 24 hours of the day and that thorugh via multiple channels, such as phone, email and online chat.
  • Hosting packages – There should be a number of packages available so that you can choose one that closely matches your requirements.
  • Price – The prices of plans can vary widely among different platforms. While determining which provider to go with, you should consider the features you require and your corresponding budget. Most providers give useful comparison allows you to quickly evaluate each package offered. Some of the common packages are explained below:
  • Shared hosting – This is the lowest available tier, but for an average user, it's all that is needed. In this kind of package, a single server is shared by several clients who also share the server's resources as needed. This type is the least secure and the least reliable, but it is also most affordable.
  • E-commerce hosting – It's a specialized package developed for users who plan to conduct sales through their WordPress website. It includes several features, such as an e-shopping cart and payment processing.
  • VPS hosting – A virtual private server (VPS) is similar to shared hosting as the server is still shared by multiple users. However, the shared server has its resources fully partitioned for two or more clients. This ensures that a certain amount of resources is always available for your service, and no crossovers occur between clients. VPS hosting is best for businesses and websites that experience heavy traffic and websites that require unique software installations.
  • Dedicated hosting – This is the top tier of packages. With this package type, you get an entire server for your own use. The server can be managed by your own IT team, or it can be managed by the provider itself for an additional fee. Hence, this type is the most expensive, but also the most flexibile.