At Upfront Digital, we use a range of online services and tools to keep our business running smoothly. We also recommend products & services to our clients all of the time. One of the key services we recommend to our clients is web hosting
The Best Web Hosts
Your web hosting is the environment your website lives in. It’s the server that all your lines of code run on.
Over the years, two web hosting companies have consistently shown us that they provide great value services as well as stellar support. Both companies have Ireland based support teams, so you are always getting through to someone you can communicate with clearly and quickly.
Hosting Ireland
Hosting Ireland is an Ireland based provider of web hosting solutions and domain names, providing Shared Website Hosting, Cloud Hosting, VPS Hosting and Email hosting. We strongly recommend Hosting Irelands WordPress hosting plans for local business websites generating leads. We have worked with them over the course of 3 years with a wide range of clients with varying needs, and have been consistently happy with their support team.
For more dynamic websites that generate a lot of content, online courses, or E-Commerce functionality, check out our other recommended host below.
WP Engine
WP Engine are our go to for larger sites, or any E-Commerce project. They are a WordPress specific host, meaning their entire infrastructure is geared around making your WordPress website run as efficiently as possible.
They are a high-quality host with great uptime, WordPress-specific security, daily backups, real-time threat detection, cloud platform flexibility, and many more great features.
WP Engine also have a useful development and staging area, allowing you to safely update aspects of your website before moving them over.
WP Engine is the best option if you want to ensure that your website is optimised, safe, and fast-loading without having to do a lot of work yourself. This company aren’t exactly cheap, but they are by far the best WordPress web host we have ever dealt with.
WP Engine have plans starting from €30 per month
The Worst Web Hosts
Do yourself a favour, and stay well away from the web hosting companies below. At Upfront Digital, one of our first moves would be to move you away from one of these companies should you already be hosted with them:
Bluehost
Bluehost are recommended by thousands of youtubers, bloggers and more across the web.
So why are they on our “worst hosts” list?
Commissions.
Bluehost pay one of the highest commission rates of any web hosting company to affiliates and marketers, and some would argue that Bluehost treats its affiliates better than it’s actual customers. The Bluehost hosting system is lacking in quality and you get much less than what you are advertised in terms of performance.
Bluehost are also part of the EIG network of web hosting companies. EIG are a conglomerate renowned for buying up hosting companies and reducing service levels by outsourcing support and overcrowding public servers.
GoDaddy
Godaddys hosting is slow, and unpredictable. You have very little control over your sites load speed once it’s on GoDaddys servers. They have the name & brand recognition to be plenty of peoples default choice for hosting, but have the worst reputation among web professionals.
