What is WordPress hosting? Is it the same as other hostings? Is it worth investing in? If these questions keep you up at night, like your favorite Netflix series, then it’s time we put your questions to rest.

In this guide, we’ll talk about the nitty-gritty of WordPress hosting.

Below are crucial elements you need to know about WordPress hosting and how it impacts your business.

What is WordPress hosting, anyway?

In layman’s terms, WordPress hosting is website hosting built and designed for the WordPress content management system (CMS). Because its orientation and features are geared towards the WordPress CMS, the hosting’s users can quickly install the WordPress software, run automatic updates, etc.

For the most part, the WordPress hosting provider’s support team is well-versed in operating the WordPress CMS. Because the support team specializes in the WordPress ecosystem, they are better equipped to address your technical questions about the WordPress software.

To help you figure out which WordPress hosting is ideal for your business, check out the best web hosting solutions for WordPress by Neil Patel. The guide covers in detail what several hosting providers offer so you can match them with your business’ dynamics.

Several types of WordPress hosting

Depending on the type of business you’re running, your monthly traffic, and your website’s features (among other things), one type of WordPress hosting might be ideal for you over the other.

Below are several types of WordPress hosting you can use for your WordPress website:

1. Free hosting. While you can avoid paying for hosting when you choose the free WordPress hosting, it comes with significant drawbacks. First, you’ll have minimal control. Second, you get subpar performance. Third, chances are, you’ll get poor customer support. These are just some of the many drawbacks of using free WordPress hosting. Some website owners even reported that their emails were sold to third-party groups.

If you are dead serious about the business you’re running, don’t settle for free hosting. Choose the shared hosting or anything above it. You can use a free host if you’re just creating a website as a hobby, don’t deal with sensitive customer information, etc.

2. Shared hosting. This is the most common WordPress hosting used. Several sites share this type of WordPress hosting. When a website owner consumes a substantial amount of the server load, the hosting service provider will ask the site owner to upgrade to a higher tier account.

3. VPS hosting. With virtual private server (VPS) hosting, you get partitioned or isolated on a physical server. That means, although you share a physical server with other website owners, you won’t be affected by their sites’ performance because your site is isolated/partitioned from theirs.

4. Dedicated server hosting. If you think VPS hosting is awesome, then you’ll love dedicated server hosting. With this type of hosting, you have an entire physical server leased only to you. That means you have control even over the hardware, the operating system, etc. You essentially have full control over your physical server.

5. Managed hosting. With managed WordPress hosting, the hosting provider will optimize your site, keep it secure, run updates, even do installs, etc. This is the most convenient WordPress hosting you can have since you pretty much don’t have to worry about maintaining or managing your server hosting — the hosting provider does all this for you. You get the best support from your hosting provider. Managed WordPress hosting is the best option for anyone who is a beginner and doesn’t have the IT knowledge that is required to run a website.

As you can probably imagine, you’d have to spend more when using this server hosting over the other four that we discussed.

Why choose WordPress hosting over other hostings?

Better performance

By using a WordPress host over other types of hosting, your WordPress site runs better. It’s easier to build/develop your site, you get better site performance, and the pre-installed plugins make your life easier as the person managing the site.

Perhaps one of its most important benefits is you get faster site speed. Considering how a website’s load speed is now a major ranking factor when search engines rank sites, you can’t afford to downplay this benefit.

Support

As mentioned previously, working with a WordPress hosting provider allows you access to a support team that specializes in WordPress. The customer support staff are highly knowledgeable about everything WordPress, making them highly effective in giving you the best possible answer you need to address whatever technical problems you might have.

Also, because WordPress hosting is popular among website owners and hosting providers, there are countless resources, FAQ pages, knowledgebase, and even online communities that talk about WordPress.

Software update

It’s easier to run WordPress updates to your website when you’re using WordPress hosting. It gives you the option to turn on automatic WordPress updates, making it easier to stay on top of your updates.

This bit is crucial because WordPress often releases new improvements and bug fixes to its platform. If you don’t update your WordPress site, you miss out on all the upgrades.

Security

WordPress hosting providers afford your site protection against WordPress-specific attacks.

Also, since you can turn on automatic WordPress updates, your site is less susceptible to external threats because of the continuous bug fixes and patches.

Should you invest in WordPress hosting?

If you’re running a WordPress site, don’t think twice about using WordPress hosting. There are going to be some rare cases where using regular hosting will work to your advantage. However, for the most part, you’d be better off using WordPress hosting.

If you have questions, suggestions, or ideas that you’d like to share, feel free to share them in the comments section below.