Posts Tagged ‘hosting survey’

2016 WordPress Hosting Survey Results

Back in April, we invited our community to participate in a WordPress website hosting survey. This WordPress hosting survey is intended as a public service to the Event Espresso and WordPress communities. Our only interest is to provide these communities more information so they can choose the best WordPress hosting given their needs.

We are pleased to share the (not-statistically-valid) results of our 2016 hosting survey. Of the 115 total results, we only included results for hosts with four or more complete responses, but you are free to look at the full results yourself.

What is web hosting?

Definition: Web hosting is the activity or service of providing storage space to individuals or organizations, for the websites that are accessible via World Wide Web. Learn more about web hosting

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the hosting links and signup for their hosting services, we may receive monetary compensation.

WordPress Hosting Survey Results

Hosting Support

  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

Hosting Uptime

  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

Hosting Features

  1. Digital Ocean, SiteGround & WP Engine: 4.8
  2. Bluehost, DreamHost, GoDaddySite5: 4.2
  3. Hostgator: 3.6

Hosting Value

  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

Average Scores for Website Hosting

  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

Closing Comments:

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.

WordPress Hosting in General

  • 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.

Our Perspective

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.

Notable Respondent Comments

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.

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2016 WordPress Hosting Survey

TL; DR
We want you to take our 2016 Web Hosting Survey (below).

Siteground - web hosting survey featured image

Siteground’s Jenga game

When we asked the Event Espresso community if they love their hosting company in our 2015 web hosting survey, the responses we received were somewhat enlightening. As far as Hosting Support, Server Uptime, and Hosting Features were concerned Siteground clearly came out on top. While WP Engine put up a great fight, they came in a very strong second place. InMotion did pretty well overall, coming in third.

Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many members of their respective support and development teams in real life. We’ve played oversized Jenga games, shared meals and talked shop with many of these folks at many WordCamps over the years.

Not only do all three of these web hosting companies come highly recommended, but they’re all really nice folks. I’ve seen first hand that they truly love their customers and the WordPress Community.

Are You Happy With Your Web Host?

Take the 2016 Web Hosting Survey!

Now the time has come to ask once again, who has the best web hosting in 2016?
(survey ends May 9, 2016)

This survey has expired.


Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means we may receive monetary benefits if you make a purchase after clicking one of the links.

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