Web design & hosting forum: What is the best overall small business web hosting?

> There are so many host with the features being to vast to compare

While hosts love to advertise features and whatnot, there's really only a handful of things that matter:

- Up-time: the availability of your website in a given year e.g. 99%.
- Response time: how quickly the site responds to requests e.g. 112ms.
- Backups: how often the host backs up your server and backup retention e.g. 1/day; 30 days.
- Support: how and when can your host be reached for support e.g. 24/7 via phone and email.
- Hardware specs: how much disk space and bandwidth you get e.g. 15GB/1TB.
- Software specs: what kind of control panel do you get e.g. cPanel.

> As you read reviews you see how uncontent users are with just about every host.

Unless you're paying a good amount for hosting ($50/mo) that isn't on a shared server (VPS/dedicated) or receive above and beyond incredible support, users usually don't take the time to write positive reviews. They only think of writing something when things go wrong. In some cases this resulted in poor handling of the initial complaint by the host, but in some cases users just want to rant. This is why you can always dig up negative reviews.

> Things i am looking for are

Quick uptime: For a small business website, up-time and response time are important.

Web Design tools: For a small business website that you expect to grow, I would advise against using such tools. You'd be much better off starting with something like WordPress or Drupal, depending on your requirements.

Email capability: Most hosts today offer the ability to setup email accounts.

Social media integration: that really has not much to do with the host, but rather how you build your website.

Overall functionality: that's pretty generic.

Lastly, there are several threads here on this forum that discuss a similar situation. Please take a look at the following posts and let us know if you have any more follow-up questions:

- WHO IS THE BEST LOW PRICED WEBHOST COMPANY IN 2012?
- Low cost hosting that offers support for multiple domains
- Which Web Hosting Site?

~Sovereign

This just seemed like the right discussion to throw this question out there. I'm exploring it as a result of my positive experiences with VistaPrint (Webs is a web hosting service owned(?) by VistaPrint). I've worked with Joomla! and PHP, but I'm looking for a quick solution as well. Thanks.

Hi,

There might be many hosting services out there, among the few I have tried are Bluehost, Hostwinds, Godaddy and others. However, I'm most happy with HostWinds..... why?

Just to share with all of you who are in search of a reliable and good support hosting company. I have been using HostWinds for approximately 3 months already and I'm very pleased on the support they gave me from the start until present.
I still remember I was rather non-technical savvy in hosting or IT related subject; whenever I require any technical advice, they are able to reply promptly. I still can recall that they have a setup/install service to help me get the hosting up and running! It only cost $10 but it helped me save all the trouble and time in setting it up. Otherwise, for those who are not IT savvy like me, you may also checkout their knowledgebase page under support on articles guiding you every steps on how to use the features. Very helpful!
Best of all, they have 3 amazing Guarantees aimed to hold us to higher standards of providing the best hosting possible for every client. Their 3 guarantees are as follows:
1. 60 Days Money Back Guarantee.
2. 99.9% Uptime.
3. 100% Customer Satisfaction Guarantee.

Note: This post was edited by a forum moderator to remove promotional url on 02/02/2013 at 8:48 AM PT

What one person may consider good may not be to another, so when it comes to web hosting it's hard to say.

When considering a web host, most experienced webmasters/designers suggest staying away from the hosts you typically find in "Top 10" lists when searching Google and instead get reviews regarding companies from reliable sources like WHT instead of affiliate sites that suggest hosts based on the highest bidder.

The best hosting plan is the plan which contain all the following features like
Web Design
Web Hosting
At least 20+ email id
More space
Good Designing
Social Media Integration
24*7 Chat
all this thing who contain that is the best hosting plans