For many years, building a personal website or blog was a complicated process for beginners especially. But now, everything is easy and you can get the best hosting services for your site with auto-install software, clear steps, and lots of tools like the file manager, etc… You can make your own website and host it at cheap prices if you choose the right service.
All that comes with site optimization systems to make it load fast and even rank higher in search engines. However, not all the web hosting companies you see online offers what you expect as features, server speed, and support.
Today, I’m going to show you the top-rated personal website hosting plans from trusted providers. I’ll base my guide on my own experience first. And second, I’ll use the feedback that I’ve received from my readers who wanted to give a real experience with these popular web hosts.
Cheapest options to host your own personal website
1. Gator site builder
This is a reliable service offered by HostGator when users get one of the best personal website builder tools in the world, it’s also easy to use, optimized for speed, and work well. Moreover, when building your own personal website with Gator, there are multiple options and customization ways like templates, colors, codes, and more.
Everyone can create his website for individual use thanks to the free website designs to choose from, the web page creator is optimized for mobile devices and you can use it on the go. Also, there is a free SSL certificate to secure the site and make it look professional without paying lots of money for web hosting.
Now, because Gator is an easy website maker tool, even a child can build a web page faster than other software. From the dashboard area, there will be all the options like layouts, font size, shapes, images, etc to drag and drop with one click of the button.
2. Weebly
When it comes to starting a website for personal uses, Weebly is the right option to accelerate the process and get good quality hosting at once. In fact, Weebly allows users to create and host their own personal web pages in a few minutes, there is a well-coded drag and drop page builder tool, and that means no coding skills required. What you get as layout and styles is what you see on the live web page, and thus, getting reliable hosting for your personal sites won’t take more than a few minutes after signing up.
The free website creator comes with basic features and 500 MB of disk storage, however, if you want to get your own domain and hosting, then, the premium plan comes with no ads and more customizations. Additionally, when hosting a personalized website with Weebly, there is customer assistance, so, users get help anytime they ask for it.
With this tool, students and individuals can create their own websites with the help of the system, all they need to do is choosing a template after setting up the domain name, and then, everything will be just a drag and drop. Later, users can add their own content like text, images, and videos with easy to follow steps.
3. GoDaddy
GoDaddy offers one of the best website builder tools for personal sites and also for blogs, in addition, it’s the most popular shared web hosting provider in the U.S and around the world. They have thousands of servers and huge data centers. The web host provides a good quality plan for your personal website and blogs.
That web hosting plan gives you lots of resources and services that help you to get the most of your hosting plans. For example, you get a great WordPress hosting with up to 100 Gigabytes of disk space, and unlimited monthly bandwidth that serves up to 25.000 monthly visitors. Thus, everyone gets the best WordPress website hosting at an affordable cost and fully managed services.
By the way, a personal website will never achieve that huge number of visits. Or, it will be a business website instead. Later, you can upgrade to the next level plans if you want.
Now, every web host has its Pros and Cons, personally, I don’t like the company’s promotional emails. They sent them to promote their other services like the domain names and the SSL. So, I’ve opted out from their email list, just to stop their extra offers.
On the other side, if you don’t have any idea about web hosting, website building, etc… Their offers will help, as you get tips also. But, if you’re an expert and you know what you do, you can unsubscribe from their list after registration.
4. HostGator
If you really care about your website, and you want to try a web hosting plan for one month, then, HostGator is the right hosting solution for you. It’s a high-quality hosting, especially, for WordPress blogs. Every server is optimized for speed and performance with its new Solid State Drive features.
This personal web host offers one-month trials for just $0.01 and of course, if you don’t like their services, you have nothing to lose, just end your account. However, it’s a good web host that I liked and recommend for those who need to build personal Blogs.
Also, I should mention the fast servers in my test. For people who are looking for reliability, this not a 100% uptime guarantee web hosting, but, it’s a reliable shared, and cloud web host that works. Some of these great hosting features are:
- WordPress optimized hosting
- Auto installer software
- Unlimited domain hosting
- SSD hosting
- Unlimited resources
- Unlimited email accounts
- The latest cPanel control panel
- FTP access
- SSH access
- Website builder software
- User-friendly site-building tools
HostGator is a trusted company that hosts millions of websites and blogs. They have been hosting domains and sites for decades, and that’s a good signal of experience and trust. Furthermore, they have the resources and the great in-house customer support to help and support, by live chat, or tickets.
The first time I used this hosting, I thought the support will be slow and nothing, compared to the others. That’s simply because I couldn’t find the phone customer support on their website. But later, I wanted to try the live chat, to see how things work, and they amazed me with the friendly and fast support.
Their servers were a little overloaded in the past. Luckily, they have added the new SSD, and that’s what makes their servers super fast now. Even more, the web host added thousands of templates, guides, and tips on what to add to your site.
The company has different hosting services including:
- Share site hosting
- Managed WordPress hosting
- VPS hosting
- Dedicated servers
- Cloud hosting
All of the above services are fully optimized, to save bandwidth and speed up your website like never before.
5. CloudWays
CloudWays is a premium quality web hosting on the cloud. It’s hard to find their super-fast shared servers that come with unlimited website hosting and professional customer support. Also, they have a free daily backup service with good uptime and amazing features.
This is one of the best web hosts for personal websites with a good reputation. Lots of universities in the United States and other countries are hosting with them. At the same time, they have an award winner customer support available by phone, live chat, and tickets.
For speed, this host has different data centers in North America, Europe, and Asia. Thus, every website gets a speed boost, because visitors get the website version from their nearest location.
Hosting a website for personal purposes on this web host will be faster, easier, and even faster thanks to the cloud infrastructure. In fact, this web host uses the best cloud providers such as Amazon, Google Cloud, Digital Ocean, Linode, and others. For the cost, the monthly hosting plan starts at $10 and comes with 1 GB Of RAM dedicated, lots of SSD storage, and premium bandwidth.
6. WP Engine
WP Engine is the highest level of website hosting quality and performance that WordPress deserves, unlike other providers, this one is specialized in WordPress optimize hosting, so, it means fast loading time, better performances, and a fully managed service. Thus, when hosting a personal WordPress site with WP Engine, users get everything they need in one place. without looking for add-ons, there are premium themes to use for free and amazing plugins.
7. InMotion Hosting
InMotion is another recommended personal website hosting service on this list, it’s that type of web host that takes care of your website security, speed, backups, and optimization without letting you alone when you need help.
They have been doing good services, and thousands of people recommend them through their personal website hosting reviews. The company uses an SSD infrastructure, and that’s great for speed and uptime. Personally, I found the web host one of its kind, not only because they have fast shared servers at low cost, but also, because they have one of the best customer support departments in the web hosting industry.
The main features are:
- A free domain name
- Free website/ blog migration
- SSD servers
- US-based customer support
- Unlimited bandwidth and disk space
- Free auto-installer software for hundreds of applications
- Over $300 of free advertising credits
- Free daily backup
- Premium website builder
- Email accounts with a spam filter
I hosted with dozens of web hosts in the last decade, and none of them offered what InMotion Hosting provides as good quality service and amazing features. There is a shared web hosting plan for your personal website, reduced blog hosting plans with automatic installation software, and lots of themes, tutorials, guides, and instructions to solve any problem.
In addition, there is a good and active support forum with expert web hosting engineers. All that comes with friendly customer support that you can contact using the phone, live chat, or emails.
The cost of this great web hosting is $4.19 per month, and that’s a 56% discount from their regular prices.
8. iPage
iPage is a low-cost hosting provider for personal blogs and websites, in a matter of minutes, you get a full installed blog with all the tools and the options that you need. The great thing here is not only the cheap prices but also, the reliable hosting, which means, good uptime, and speed, at the same time.
This is not super fast hosting as it’s shared hosting, but, it works well for personal websites for a simple reason. Personal websites need a few resources, like bandwidth and disk space, and all that is offered for unlimited with this company. So, the result will be a fast loading time for your site and a better user experience.
Another good feature is that this is a fully green web hosting service, they use 100% wind energy to aliment the infrastructure and their servers.
For website creation, you can use one of these tools:
- The auto-installer software: It lets you install all the open-source applications such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and also others.
- The website builder: This is Weebly’s great Drag and Drop builder software. You can use it, even with no skills or experience.
The prices of this cheap hosting are incomparable with the others. For just $1.99 per month, you get unlimited hosting with professional customer support. Please note, this is a 75% OFF web hosting discount just because you’re reading this web hosting review post. So, bookmark this page for a letter use, to keep the huge discount.
9. Bluehost
For many years, Bluehost as a trusted hosting has been developing its own infrastructure, and now, they have a powerful load balancer system. That means more stable servers, and no one can affect the others when one website receives lots of traffic.
The load balancer divides the same resources between all the shared hosting accounts. Then, if something happens like an extra boost in traffic, the system stabilizes the server smartly, without affecting any other domain.
This is one of the best and the cheapest website hosting services, especially, for small blogs and sites. Everything is well-organized in the control panel. So, you can use the installer software to build an instant WordPress site or any other kind of website. Even, there is an eCommerce application to choose from, and build an online store if you want.
10. FatCow
FatCow is another green hosting provider that lets you build a cool personal website easily, they offer an easy to use control panel and optimized WordPress hosting. Recently, the company has invested lots of money and work, to offer an SSD server for your website.
That means more reliability and also, speed. For WordPress, for example, they will install default plugins and themes. So, you get all in one tool and features, at once. Moreover, this web hosting service for personal websites come with 60% OFF. That means you can host a personal website at $49 per year.
What’s personal website hosting?
A personal website hosting is a type of web hosting service dedicated to individuals who want to build a website for personal use and keep the cost reduced. That includes a Blog, a static website that showcases the person’s’ portfolio, a simple site that showcases an idea, etc…
The common thing with all these personal sites is that all of them need small disk space, fewer server resources, little maintenance, and of course, they’re building for personal purposes.
Unlike professional hosting plans, personal site hosting is cheaper, easier, and saves a lot of money for you. So, if you don’t sell products online and you expect a few visits t your blog or site, then, choosing one of the above recommended personal web hosts will be the best solution for you.
The average cost to host your own personal website
Without talking about add-ons and extra features, choosing a basic web hosting plan for your personal site will cost around $4 per month. I’m talking about a yearly web hosting plan that you need to pay at once. That’s the average personal site hosting cost with good servers and customer support.
Here is a good tip, some web hosting providers offer good features, but if you want the best, you have to choose cPanel. It’s that all in one web hosting management tool that comes with dozens of apps, tools, and options. You can manage your site file with one click, add a new file, move folders, optimize the site, and make it faster, etc…
In cPanel, there is a tool called “optimize website” or things like that depending on your web host, when you click on that tool, make sure you select, compress all the website content. That way, you’ll save a lot of bandwidth and make your site load faster.
Paid vs free web hosting for personal websites
No matter if you have an idea that you want to convert into a website, blog, or even big project, choosing a free web host is a way you should avoid all the way. A free web host will never help you when you need assistance, in addition, they have slow servers due to the few maintenances, bad quality server, no technical support, and so on. So, letting your website with such bad quality web hosts will never help you.
Now, let’s talk about uptime, these free web hosts have the worst servers with lots of downtimes, no support, and of course, if a problem happens, you’ll lose your website and all its files forever. There are no things like daily site backups with these services, that cost a lot of money, and because they don’t have the resources to invest, you as a customer will get no backups and restore for your website.
On the other side, paid website hosting services have the money to upgrade their servers, pay their support staff, and make the service better. So, you’re in good hands if you choose the right web host that offers the best features for your exact website software or Blog app like WordPress. Some paid web hosts have better server optimizations, while others offer cheaper plans with acceptable server configurations, optimizations, and hardware upgrades.
Conclusion
You don’t have to waste the time browsing thousands of web hosting companies. Instead, use one of the above list, this hosting guide is based on the service features, speed, reliability, the monthly and yearly price. But, also, using other factors, like customer support, and availability.
