2016 WordPress Hosting Survey Results

1. SiteGround: 5.0
2. WP Engine: 4.8
3. Digital Ocean: 4.6
4. DreamHost: 4.2
5. HostGator, Godaddy, & Site5: 3.5
6. Bluehost: 3.4

1. SiteGround & WP Engine: 5.0
2. DreamHost: 4.7
3. GoDaddy: 4.6
4. Digital Ocean: 4.4
5. Hostgator: 4
6. Bluehost: 3.75
7. Site5: 3.2

1. Digital Ocean, SiteGround & WP Engine: 4.8
2. Bluehost, DreamHost, GoDaddy & Site5: 4.2
3. Hostgator: 3.6

1. SiteGround: 5
2. WP Engine: 4.5
3. Digital Ocean: 4.4
4. DreamHost: 4.2
5. Hostgator & GoDaddy: 3.8
6. Bluehost: 3.4
7. Site5: 3.2

1. SiteGround: 4.91
2. WP Engine: 4.77
3. Digital Ocean: 4.5
4. GoDaddy: 4.22
5. DreamHost: 4.36
6. Hostgator: 4.0
7. Bluehost: 3.68
8. Site5: 3.62

We’d like to take the liberty to share a a few points of interest about these hosts:

• Again this year, SiteGround and WP Engine are leading the pack for best WordPress hosting all around. While GoDaddy seems to have improved significantly since 2015.
• Unfortunately InMotion Hosting, Liquid Web, and a few others were excluded from the lists above, because we didn’t receive enough responses. Full results can be viewed here.

• Collectively, Uptime (4.64/5) and Features (4.49/5) received the highest average scores, while Support (4.24/5) and Overall Value (4.32/5) received the lowest average scores.
• On average, respondents are spending about $55/mo on hosting. That seems to be up $5 from last year’s survey results.

Over the past 7 years, we’ve struggled with our own hosting issues. We’ve also seen our customers struggle with low cost/cheap hosting the most; while customers that have spent a little more on WordPress hosting from the start have had much better success with ticket sales and up-time.

With the right hosting environment your ticket sales can really soar. For example, our hosted ticketing service, Event Smart, is able to process over 1,000 registrations per hour on Amazon Web Services hosting. Of course there’s no way we could do that with a shared hosting provider, or even some dedicated servers.

Unedited responses from our 2016 WordPress Hosting Survey:

• When it comes to hosting YOU really do get what you pay for. We use and highly recommend WP Engine. Why, because they listen to their customers.They are NOT the cheapest hosting provider and that’s OK cause were not interested in cheap We are interested in keeping our website up and an ensuring that the Security Side always taken care of by professionals. The range of tools they offer for User and Developers alike is cutting edge. No CPanel..what they have built is more intuitive and easier to understand and use. Above all their Customer support is experienced with WordPress and have the technical background to support their clients. IN the end run this means more money in my pocket as I don’t have to chase down security issues and if I have a question, I get someone with the knowledge to answer it.
• I actually use all three of your top contenders: InMotion VPS, SiteGround, and WPEngine. InMotion was great several years ago, but service and overall value have dropped since they grew so fast. Their higher priced VPS accounts you would think would come with more support, but just the opposite is true. SiteGround is very attentive. They answer the phone and chat straight away, but we have experienced more than one serious screw-up due to the language differences and their haste to get tickets completed. WPE has its own set of issues, of course. No cpanel there. You have to play by their rules, but when you do everything just flows smoothly. It is also comforting to know whoever you contact there probably knows more about WordPress than you!
• I have tried a some of the hosts in the list and they are AWFUL: Arvixe, HostGator, Small Orange. Arvixe and Small Orange used to be good when they were small, but once they got to be a certain size, the customer support, speed, and reliability all went downhill. I have found this to be the case with nearly ALL webhosts, and have found that the only thing that can really be done when you are in the $50-100/month hosting range is to move around every few years to a host that is big enough to be fast, and small enough to still provide great technical support.