9 Best Web Hosting for Beginners: Tried & Tested in 2024

Finding the right web host can feel like a daunting task for beginners. It’s easy to fall for a host that promises the best tools for new website creators yet fails to deliver in unseen, yet critical, areas. After all, an AI website builder, a pretty control panel, and a big discount are incomplete without good customer support and reliable performance.

And that’s where I come in. In my extensive search for the best web hosting for beginners, I’ve tested and evaluated leading hosting services to see how well they meet beginners’ needs. The best hosts provide a blend of user-friendliness and value for money, and that’s what I prioritized in my search.

In my tests, Hostinger proved to be the best overall option. It offers a balance of cost-efficiency, novice-friendly features, and performance. With an AI website builder, AI content creator, free domain and SSL, one-click WordPress installation and optimization, and more (for less), it’s a top choice for anyone.

For more insights on why Hostinger tops this list and to discover my other recommended web hosting services for beginners, continue reading.

What We Look For in the Best Web Hosts for Beginners

Here’s what I focused on when evaluating hosts to ensure a smooth start to your online journey:

• Ease of use. The best hosts for beginners offer a straightforward sign-up process and intuitive control panels. You should feel confident and stress-free while creating and managing your site, even with limited technical knowledge or assistance.
• Website builder. Some hosts on my list provide an easy-to-use website builder. This tool makes web design accessible by helping you create a professional-looking site without the need to know how to code. AI website creators and content creator tools are another big plus.
• Performance and reliability. I prioritized hosts that offer stellar uptime, fast loading speeds, and consistent global performance. All of these factors ensure your website remains accessible and loads quickly for your visitors.
• Helpful support. Reachable and helpful support is crucial. Whether you need assistance troubleshooting a tech issue or have a question about your account, you deserve prompt and effective support.
• Affordable pricing. I looked for hosts that offer transparent pricing and a money-back guarantee. A first-term discount and low renewal rates were also an important factor. However, I also balanced pricing with features to find hosts offering the best value.

1. Hostinger: An All-Around Host for Beginners With Strong Performance and a Free AI Builder1

For those venturing into web hosting as a beginner, Hostinger strikes the perfect balance between features, performance, and price. I found its hosting services incredibly accessible for anyone starting out​ thanks to its intuitive user interface. In our independent testing, this host returned some of the fastest loading speeds in the US and internationally as well. Moreover, Hostinger’s first-term discounts are very generous.

Hostinger further sweetens the deal with a free domain name on all shared plans – which means a hassle-free way to connect your domain to your hosting account. Hostinger Website Builder, included on all shared hosting plans for free, is another plus. So are Hostinger’s AI content creation tools, included in some plans. These allow you to create a professional-looking site without prior design experience​​.

Hostinger’s benefits for beginners are also evident in its intuitive control panel, hPanel. Through this portal, you can easily manage your plan, websites, and billing information. You can even log in to your WordPress interface from here. Although Hostinger’s support could be slightly more responsive, I can’t otherwise fault it. Its offering makes it the best budget host for beginners.

Features

• AI tools. You can generate a unique website within minutes with Hostinger’s proprietary drag-and-drop website builder, available on all plans. There’s also an AI copywriter, AI SEO tool, and AI heatmaps tool, although some of these are only available on select higher-tier plans.
• In-house control panel. hPanel is Hostinger’s proprietary control panel. Unlike many third-party control panels, it’s not hosted on your server, leaving more resources for your website. It’s free and easy to use, even for beginners.
• Easy to understand performance and security metrics. You can access performance and security information for your websites directly from hPanel. Here you’ll be able to see your traffic data, test site loading speed, view security threats, and manage your SSL certificates.
• WordPress features. Optimized for WordPress, Hostinger’s shared hosting plans feature 1-click WordPress installations, multi-site compatibility, and performance optimizations. Once you’re ready to upgrade, higher tier plans get even better built-in WordPress tools, such as website staging, Object Cache, and automatic updates.

Read our full review of Hostinger for performance results and more.

2. IONOS: Affordable Plans for Beginners With Dedicated Support1

IONOS stands out as a top choice for beginners seeking affordable web hosting. Its low fees and generous first-term discounts – and the fact that most of its plans come with a free domain for the first year – can ease initial start-up costs. Additionally, if you opt in for extra support, you can access a dedicated support representative who will be your main point of contact for all of your queries.

IONOS also has a proprietary AI website builder available through the website builder plans, which include free hosting. It’s perfect if you want to get online quickly but don’t want to install a somewhat skill-intensive CMS like WordPress to do so. This tool, as well as IONOS’ first-term discounts, features, and range of hosting, places this host high on our list.

Beginners don’t always stay this way so if you’ll eventually want something a little more powerful, you should know that IONOS offers some of the cheapest unmanaged VPS and Windows ASP.NET hosting on the market. That said, it’s more suited to experienced users comfortable with managing a server​. For beginners, IONOS’ affordable shared and website builder plans are best.

Features

• Free daily backups. IONOS ensures your data is always secure with daily backups. With one click, you can quickly restore your site to a previous state in the event of data loss or a hack.
• Dedicated resources. Unlike many other hosts, IONOS offers dedicated resources like RAM (512 MB all the way up to 19 GB on its Ultimate plan) for its shared hosting plans. Having dedicated RAM means your site remains speedy and responsive, regardless of other shared resources.
• SiteAnalytics tool. With IONOS’s SiteAnalytics tool, you can easily track your website’s performance statistics, such as for visitor counts, visit durations, and bounce times. This information is essential for growing your website and optimizing its content.
• Free Wildcard SSLs. Security is a top priority for IONOS. It offers free Wildcard SSL certificates to secure your site, enhancing its credibility and safety. Wildcard SSLs are more secure than Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates, which are what most other hosts offer for free.

For more helpful features, read our expert IONOS review.

3. A2 Hosting: Great Combination of Budget-Friendly Plans and Fast Loading Speeds1

In our tests, A2 Hosting managed loading speeds of around 0.6-0.9 seconds in the US and Europe. Impressive! Our testing achieved these results with its unique Turbo shared hosting plan, which provides enhanced performance by leveraging advanced caching technologies and the latest server technology​. While Turbo plans are a bit pricier than A2 Hosting’s standard shared hosting offerings, they’re still an affordable option.

Regardless of the plan you choose, A2 Hosting’s “anytime” refund policy is particularly generous. It offers you a full refund on any unused services even after your 30-day money-back guarantee has expired. Additionally, A2 Hosting eases the transition for new users with free website migrations (one for shared hosting users, up to 25 for other hosting plans), as long as it’s via cPanel.

The overall value provided by A2 Hosting’s high-performance plans and customer-first approach makes it a strong candidate if you need a robust yet budget-friendly web hosting solution. But while A2 Hosting is great for what it can offer you as a beginner to website building, prepare for potentially longer wait times for support via live chat or ticket. Still, it has a pretty decent knowledge base and blog for DIY solutions.

Features

• Optional website builder. Like IONOS, A2 Hosting has a proprietary site builder excellent for beginners. For a small fee, you can add it to your shared hosting plan. You’ll get customizable modern templates as well as interactive elements like forms.
• Generous storage. A2 Hosting includes a minimum of 100 GB SSD storage on its entry-level StartUp shared hosting plan. All other shared hosting plans from A2 Hosting include unlimited SSD or NVMe SSD storage.
• WordPress plugin. Using A2 Hosting’s plugin, you can easily analyze your site, plugins, security, and theme performance in one place. You also get useful suggestions for site improvement with detailed explanations.
• Managed shared WordPress and VPS plans. While costlier than shared plans, A2 Hosting also offers fully managed WordPress and VPS hosting. These options are here in case you want to upgrade to a managed plan if you need more resources but also want to keep things easy.

See our comprehensive A2 Hosting review to learn more about Turbo hosting.

4. InterServer: Unlimited Shared Hosting With Plenty of Free Features for Beginners1

InterServer is unique in that it offers one cheap, all-inclusive, unlimited shared hosting plan for $2.50. This plan includes unlimited SSD storage, bandwidth, as well as unlimited database/website and email account quotas, so you can grow your passion projects without worrying about limits or overage fees​. There are no nasty surprises – what you sign up for is what you get.

This plan is also available month-to-month, providing risk-free flexibility. This can be particularly appealing if you’re starting out and unsure about future needs​. Additionally, this package gets built-in protection from InterServer’s security suite. InterShield features various tools to protect your site, including a machine learning firewall, DDoS protection, and a malware scanner.

It’s worth noting that the quality of support does vary depending on your plan tier and a free domain name isn’t included. Luckily, InterServer supports the 1-click installation of over 460 (and counting) popular and niche web apps and CMSs, making it super-easy to set up websites with popular platforms like WordPress, Drupal, Magento, Joomla, and more​.

Features

• Free website migration. InterServer offers free site migration as part of its service. However, do note that you need to give time for the transfer before canceling your existing plan.
• Inter-Insurance. On top of free migration, InterServer will clean up your compromised, hacked, or exploited site. This service forms part of its Inter-Insurance website recovery policy, offered free of charge to both new and existing customers.
• Free performance optimizations. InterServer’s shared hosting plan comes with page speed optimization, a content delivery network (CDN), LiteSpeed servers, SSD caching, Raid-10 storage, and more. Automatic weekly backups are also included.
• Free managed services. If you want to eventually upgrade your plan but don’t have too much experience with a VPS, you can get server management for free when you purchase a VPS plan with 4 cores or more. While costlier than the shared hosting package, it’s definitely one of the cheaper managed VPSs out there.

Our detailed review has more on InterServer’s ease of use.

5. SiteGround: User-Friendly Dashboard With Semi-Managed Features for Beginners1

SiteGround distinguishes itself with its accessible Site Tools dashboard. Designed to simplify website management, I found this proprietary dashboard especially suited to beginners. Plus, Site Tools is not hosted on your server. This enhances security and performance while freeing server resources.

SiteGround’s customer support is excellent. Fast, responsive, professional, and available 24/7/365, you can get help whenever needed. It also covers a wider scope than what many other hosts offer, extending to hands-on support like domain and email configuration. Paid support for more advanced tasks is also available on a case-by-case basis, should you opt in.

That said, SiteGround doesn’t have an in-house website builder. Instead, it will redirect you to the Weebly site builder, which is already free but has very basic tools. It’s also important to note that storage and traffic limits are low. On the bright side, SiteGround provides generous discounts for new customers and enhanced website security for free, including a web application firewall, DDoS protection, and monitoring.

Features

• Out-of-the-box caching. All sites hosted on SiteGround’s servers benefit from its NGINX-powered SuperCacher technology. Activated by default on all plans, it significantly speeds up loading times.
• Add Collaborators feature. If you work with a team of web designers, developers, content creators, writers, and editors, you can assign individual login details to your collaborators. This way you can all collaborate on one SiteGround account.
• WordPress optimizations. All SiteGround plans, including general web hosting, offer WordPress optimizations. These includes site migration, security and speed optimization plugins, WordPress support, managed auto-updates, and more.
• Automated Email Migrator tool. Not only can you migrate a WordPress website to SiteGround using its free website migration tool but you can also migrate your email accounts using its Email Migrator tool.

See our expert SiteGround review to learn more about its performance.

6. GreenGeeks: Beginner-Friendly and Eco-Friendly Hosting With Stellar Support1

GreenGeeks caters to customers who prioritize environmental responsibility. For every hosting plan sign-up, GreenGeeks will plant a tree. That’s on top of a commitment to match every amperage of energy usage with a 300% investment in renewable energy. This thoughtfulness also extends to GreenGeeks’ support, which is frequently lauded as among the best available, particularly for shared hosting. Its team delivers quick and knowledgeable assistance 24/7​​.

I’m a big fan of shared hosting plans with unlimited resources, and GreenGeeks offers this in abundance. You’ll get unlimited SSD storage, bandwidth, and email accounts. Additionally, all plans include built-in caching, as well as advanced Memcached and Redis caching on its Premium plan for better website performance.

GreenGeeks no longer offers a free CDN. Since its performance in Oceania, Europe, and South America is slower, this is a concern. However, you can easily remedy this by adding a third-party CDN like Cloudflare. If your audience is in the US or Canada, you won’t need one, as GreenGeeks’ performance in North America is excellent.

Features

• Free nightly backups. GreenGeeks automatically backs up your site and its data every night. With Pro and Premium shared plans, you can also create on-demand backups.
• Fully managed VPS plans. Should you need more power but lack the experience to run a VPS server, GreenGeeks’ managed VPS plans include full management of your server and website’s optimizations, backups, software installations, security, and more.
• Advanced security for your site. GreenGeeks offers several ways to keep your site safe, including account isolation for shared plans, real-time malware scans, and proactive monitoring to catch vulnerabilities before they become problems.
• Dedicated IP address and AlphaSSL. On GreenGeeks’ most expensive shared hosting plan, you get a dedicated IP address and AlphaSSL for free. Both improve security, adding an extra layer of protection against hackers attacks and malware.

Read our full GreenGeeks review to learn more about its eco-friendly hosting.

Other Notable Web Hosts for Beginners

7. InMotion Hosting1

InMotion Hosting offers a host of novice-friendly features, including free marketing tools and a complimentary security suite. Moreover, InMotion Hosting’s shared hosting service offers a 1-click installation for over 400 applications via Softaculous on cPanel, streamlining the setup process. Higher-tier shared hosting plans even come with unlimited NVMe SSD storage, email accounts, and websites.

However, despite its generous offerings, InMotion Hosting may present some challenges. Specifically, InMotion Hosting’s shared plans – particularly the lower tiers – lack important features, including domain privacy, backups, phone support, and monthly payment terms.

8. Liquid Web1

Liquid Web offers both unmanaged and fully managed cloud VPS hosting that’s suited to larger sites or e-commerce stores. Its plans start at $5.00 per month for a basic 1 core, 1 GB RAM, and 30 GB storage server setup, and go all the way up to 8 cores, 32 GB RAM, and 640 GB.

If you add on partial or full hosting management – which you’ll want if you’re new to server management – you’re looking at an extra $19-39 per month. The limited bandwidth allowances may be an issue, especially for sites expecting high traffic volumes. Although you can customize your server resources, increasing traffic limits necessitates purchasing costlier plans.

9. FastComet1

Staring at $1.79/month, FastComet stands out for its exceptionally low starting rates for shared hosting plans, making it perfect for beginners looking to start off economically​. FastComet also has a lengthier-than-usual 45-day money-back guarantee, giving you ample time to assess its service.

However, if you want to scale your site, do note that FastComet’s shared hosting plans come with limited storage quotas, with the most expensive one capped at 40 GB. Additionally, you’ll have to opt for more expensive plans to get advanced performance optimization (caching, Performance Boost, LiteSpeed) and security features (backups, restore manager, malware scanner).

Choose the Best Beginner-Friendly Host for Your Needs

Whether you’re starting your hosting journey or switching from a less user-friendly service, finding the right host matters.

Hostinger is the best overall option for beginners1, with affordable plans packed full of features. Hostinger plans come with a control panel that’s extremely easy to use, a free AI website builder, an AI content creator, and more, making it a fantastic starting point. Our independent tests have also revealed that Hostinger has great uptime and loading speeds worldwide.

Similarly, IONOS is an excellent budget-friendly choice1. For beginners, its dedicated support, reliable performance, and generous discounts for new customers is hard to beat.

As a beginner-friendly host, A2 Hosting also stands out1. As far as price and performance go, its affordable high-performance plans and an anytime refund is a great place to start. Its Turbo shared hosting plans offer loading speeds second to (almost) none, and you can add an AI website builder (for a fee).

FAQ

What is the best type of web hosting for a beginner?

Shared web hosting is generally the best option for beginners due to its affordability and simplicity. You do need to share server resources with other sites, but this is fine for a basic site. Shared plans often come with more beginner-friendly features as well, such as a free control panel, domain name, domain privacy, and email accounts. For example, Hostinger’s shared plans are low cost and provide a free, easy-to-use hPanel control panel.

What features should beginners look for in a web host?

Beginners should prioritize ease of use, reliable customer support, and performance. Look specifically for hosts offering intuitive control panels, 1-click installs for WordPress and other web apps, and a money-back guarantee. You should also consider opting for a mid-range or premium plan instead of the cheapest if you’re happy with the host. For example, A2 Hosting’s Turbo shared plans offer a big boost in loading speeds for just a few dollars more per month.

What should beginners know about the cost of renewing a hosting plan?

Beginners must be aware that the initial low pricing offered by some hosts will increase upon renewal. It’s important to check if there are any discounts for the plan and what the renewal rates and terms are before signing up. Both Hostinger and A2 Hosting are transparent about this. Even better, IONOS offers some of the lowest renewal rates.

How much should beginners expect to spend on web hosting?

You can expect to spend anywhere from $1 to $25+ per month. The cost depends on the hosting provider, your plan, and if there are any discounts or sales when you sign up. Keep in mind that renewal rates are often much higher than what you’ve signed up for. Look for hosts that offer an affordable renewal rate. Opting for a longer contract can also help cut costs. For more beginner-friendly deals, take a look at our list of the cheapest WordPress hosts.