10 Best Web Hosting UK for 2021

SiteGround was founded in 2004 and had been steadily moving up the ranks ever since. The company’s strive for technological innovations and impeccable support has won the trust of the owners of over 2,000,000 domains worldwide. A strong supporter of the WordPress project, SiteGround packs a ton of features for WP users and websites built with the most popular CMS. 

SiteGround Features

SiteGround offers three shared hosting packages, coming with 10 GB, 20 GB, and 40 GB, respectively. The entry-level deal is optimized for a single website, while you can host unlimited projects on the other two. 

SiteGround’s feature set is particularly robust. Every new client can take advantage of a free SSL certificate, daily backups, and a free email account. Cloudflare CDN is available for anyone that needs an optimized content delivery solution. 

The GrowBig and GoGeek plans add even more exciting features like dynamic speed caching, priority support, and white-label services to the mix. 

Performance

Siteground undoubtedly gives out some of the best web hosting in the UK in 2021 in terms of server performance. The provider has optimized its services so much that websites feel like flying. The 0.34s time-to-first-byte and 0.83s full onload speeds shared the top spot for best test results. SiteGround was flawless when it came to uptime as well, and our monitoring tool revealed zero downtimes during the month of revision.

Customer Support

Customer care is an area where SiteGround strongly excels. The provider is famous for its well-trained and friendly operators who can resolve most web hosting issues within minutes. 

SG offers 24/7 support via live chat and technical assistance via internal ticketing. Both options are clearly visible on the company website, and you can easily reach an available operator with a couple of mouse clicks. 

We always get connected to a real person in the chat within seconds, and the ticket responses rarely exceeded a few minutes. No wonder SiteGround proudly advertises a 90% resolution rate during the first support contact. The representatives are well-versed with how websites function and even a sales operator might be able to help with some minor technical issues. 

Hands down, some of the best value UK web hosting when you take everything into account. 

Pricing

There is no free trial with SiteGround, but the 30-day moneyback guarantee should give you enough time to test around and see if the package fits your needs. 

• StartUp — from £5.99/mo — 10 GB SSD space, 10,000 monthly visits, one website
• GrowBig — from £8.99/mo — 20 GB SSD space, 25,000 monthly visits, unlimited websites
• GoGeek — from £12.99/mo — 40 GB SSD space, 100,000 monthly visits, unlimited websites

You can add the SG Site Scanner service for an additional £15.60/year. It monitors your website at all times and sends you daily reports with notifications about hacking attempts, malicious code, and other suspicious activities. 

Verdict

SiteGround is definitely one of the best UK web hosting sites for a reason. Although not the cheapest, the provider fully compensates with feature abundance and industry-leading support. Geared toward speed, SiteGround utilizes lightning-fast servers and advanced caching customizations to ensure the best performance for all client websites.

Hostinger has been around since 2004, supporting over 29 million customers in 178 countries. This is easily one of the cheapest web hosting in the UK, with plans starting from just under £1/mo. Despite the amazingly low prices, Hostinger still manages to give every client plenty of server resources and an optimized environment for fast-running websites. 

Hostinger Features

As with similar providers, Hostinger presents shared hosting users with a choice between three plans — one for a single website, and the other two — for 100 projects. 

The Lithuania-based host gears all its account for maximum speeds, which includes isolated CPU and RAM, LiteSpeed Cache, SSD disk space, and WordPress acceleration via LSCWP. This confirms Hostinger is very well aware of the trends and understand the fundamental importance of a fast website.

To be fair, the entry-level deal is not that feature-packed. You’ve got the SSL certificate, Cloudflare protection, and possibly for Github integrations. But some of the resources seem rather limited — 1 MySQL database, 2 subdomains, 1 FTP account, and only 100GB bandwidth.

Moving up, the Premium and Business deals are much more robust. They add perks like a free domain name, daily backups, and root access, which can prove invaluable in your day-to-day operations. 

Performance

The speed tests reaffirm Hostinger’s position among the best web hosting in the UK. The average TTFB we measured was around the 0.4s mark, and it took around 0.9s for our page to fully load. It was an impressive display, which showed that Hostinger is not just about empty promises. We’ve also had an almost-perfect uptime, having our website up and running 99.97% of the time. 

Customer Support

Managing millions of customers is no easy task, especially if you want to give personal attention to each case. Hostinger tries to make a real effort in properly supporting its users, offering 24/7/365 assistance via multiple channels.

Our email and ticketing tests established Hostinger’s operator as a very talented bunch. We got prompt responses to each question, carrying enough information to resolve the case without much hassle. 

The only thing that bothered us — Hostinger has a Chat button on the contact page, but that only seems to redirect you to submit a ticket. That might be a little annoying to new visitors who are just browsing the site and wanting to get quick contact with a live person.

Pricing

Most of the UK web hosting providers give out some kind of moneyback guarantee. This reduces the risk for a new client signing for an extended period, only to realize the package is not what they actually need. Hostinger fixes that grace period at 30 days.

• Single — from £0.99/mo — 10 GB SSD, 100 GB bandwidth, one website
• Premium — from £2.89/mo — 20 GB SSD, unmetered bandwidth, 100 websites
• Business — from £3.99/mo — 100 GB SSD, unmetered bandwidth, 100 websites

The extra features you can purchase upon signup are quite affordable as well. The daily backup solution is just £0.95/mo, and the lifetime Cloudflare protection comes for a one-time fee of £9.95. All advertised prices are without VAT.

Verdict

Hostinger knows precisely what’s needed to become one of the best web hosting companies in the UK. The host rents some high-speed servers, optimizes them to perfection and releases them at mouthwatering prices. Any business on a budget will find the Hostinger plans affordable, even come renewal time.

HostGator was founded in 2002 and quickly became one of the fastest-growing companies in the industry. That caught the attention of tech conglomerate EIG, which splashed the cash and acquired the host for a reported fee of nearly $300 million. Today, over a million individuals and businesses trust HostGator with their online projects. Two US data centers house all client websites — in Provo, UT, and Houston, TX.

HostGator Features

There are three shared plans to choose from with HostGator — Hatchling, Baby, and Business. 

The first two lack any significant differences — the only distinction is the number of hosted websites (one vs unlimited). Apart from that, both will get a free domain for the first year and an SSL certificate to secure data passing through your website. 

The Business plan looks much more versatile. HostGator upgrades your security certificate and throws in a free dedicated IP in the mix. Additionally, the provider helps with your website promotion, giving you some valuable SEO tools to help search engines find you more easily.

Overall, not a particularly rich feature set, but just enough to secure quality website hosting in the UK for a small-scale website.

Customer Support

HostGator is big enough to afford 24/7 support to all users. You can easily reach an operator through live chat and phone, and for technical issues, you have the internal helpdesk. 

The problem is all EIG brands share the same data centers and support representatives. This means the operators often serve multiple brands, giving out very basic assistance. There is no in-depth analysis of the client issue — most of the time, you’ll be getting templated responses and barely relevant links. 

Still, the company maintains a well-updated knowledge base of text and video tutorials, covering many essential hosting topics. If you’re into self-learning, that’s the way to go. 

Performance

HostGator’s tests are impressive enough to rank them high for the best web hosting in the UK, especially if you consider only EIG-owned hosts. The company falls somewhere in the middle in terms of time-to-first-byte, and they still manage to keep their onload time below one second (0.96s to be exact). 

What about the uptime? Simply perfect. No issues were detected over the month of monitoring, which outlines HostGator as a highly reliable hosting provider.

Pricing

One of HostGator’s significant advantages is the extended moneyback guarantee. Unlike many other UK hosts, HostGator gives you 45 full days to play around with your shared account and see if it would be enough to suit your needs. 

• Hatchling — from $2.75/mo — 100 GB HDD space, unmetered bandwidth, one website
• Baby — from $3.95/mo — unlimited space, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited websites
• Business — from $5.95/mo — unlimited space, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited websites

It’s good to keep in mind that all prices tie you to a three-year prepayment. Shorter billing cycles are a bit more expensive, and you can expect the same from the renewal rates.

HostGator might not give you a lot of free features, but there are plenty of paid extras you can add upon signup, You’ve got:

• Private SSL certificate — $3.33/mo (billed annually)
• SiteLock tool — $1.99/mo (billed annually)
• Microsoft365 emails — $6.00/mo (billed monthly)
• Site backups — $2.00/mo (billed annually)
• SEO tools — $2.95/mo (billed annually)

All in all, an affordable solution, but you can find better if you’re strictly looking for the cheapest website hosting in the UK.

Verdict

HostGator is one of the most popular hosting providers for a reason. Reliable uptime and affordable pricing often lure startups and SMBs in choosing HG as a house for their online projects. Still, it’s good to have some technical knowledge as HostGator’s support is rather limited.

A2 Hosting is an independently-owned company, which has its roots in Ann Arbor, Michigan (hence the name). The company put its long experience to good use, securing the best hardware and software environment for all client projects. A2 Hosting supports the latest versions of PHP and MySQL, making it ideal for hosting CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and more. 

A2 Hosting Features

Starting off your journey into website building, A2 lets you take a pick between four shared plans. This allows you to have enough upgrade options as your project grows and secures a dedicated set of resources just for you.

A2 is very generous with its disk space allocation. Even clients on the Startup plan get the whopping 100 GB SSD storage for a single website. The list of free features is quite impressive as well, securing things like a drag-and-drop site builder, Cloudflare CDN, and a security certificate. 

But that’s not the main reason users choose to trust A2 for getting the best web hosting in the UK. 

If you choose one of the two Turbo options, you’re looking at unmatchable server performance and page load times. You can also enjoy up to 5x more resources than a standard shared account and utilize the ultra-fast NVMe storage for extra speed. No wonder so many high-traffic websites in the UK are delighted with A2 Hosting’s solutions.

Customer Service

Being an independently-owned host allows you to harvest a company culture and train your staff into the ins and outs of hosting on a regular basis. A2 seems to take full advantage of that fact, connecting clients with helpful and skilled operators whenever the need arises. 

Every time we got a hold of an operator in the live chat or the helpdesk, we got timely assistance and clear, straightforward explanations. This can prove particularly useful for novice users who are not yet familiar with the hosting slang. 

Apart from the live messenger and internal tickets, A2 Hosting has a company blog and knowledge base, which get regular updates. 

Performance

A2 proved itself the fastest among all UK web hosts on this list. Our WP page with the host stopped the clock at 0.36s for TTFB and 0.76s for onload time. All that, without even having physical servers in the Albion. 

A2 Hosting promises a 99.9% uptime, but we still had to put that to the test. We got a score of 99.95%, which is an excellent achievement that further reaffirms this host’s reliability. 

Pricing

Regardless of the billing plan you choose, A2 Hosting is ready to secure your full experience with an anytime moneyback guarantee. Even if you decide to leave the company after a year, you can still get a pro-rated refund of the unused time.

• Startup — from £2.29/mo — 100 GB SSD space, unmetered bandwidth, one website
• Drive — from £3.82/mo — unlimited SSD space, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited websites
• TurboBoost — from £7.66/mo — unlimited NVMe storage, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited websites
• TurboMax — from £11.49/mo — unlimited NVMe storage, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited websites

The introductory rates are promotion and available if you opt-in for a three-year plan. The one and two-year UK web hosting deals still carry a discount but a much smaller one.

As for account customizations, you will find plenty upon checkout. A2Hosting offers you a choice of data center location, advanced SSL protection (£54.86/year), dedicated IP (£4.57/mo), DropSuite Offsite Backups (from £1.52/mo), Barracuda Spam Firewall (from £2.29/domain), and more. 

Talk about versatility. 

Verdict

A2 Hosting is a very strong contender for the best web hosting in the UK because of its stellar server performance and cost-effective shared plans. The company enjoys an excellent online reputation as well, with clients happily sharing their positive experiences with the host. Very useful for high-traffic websites or image-heavy pages.

InMotion Hosting came to be in 2001 and established itself as a reliable and well-supported provider. The company has won numerous awards since then, including prestigious accolades from industry leaders like CNet, WebHostingGeeks, and WPBeginner. Even though the provider doesn’t have data centers in Albion, InMotion offers great UK website hosting to both beginners, developers, and web agencies of any size. 

InMotion Hosting Features

InMotion Hosting is one of those companies that like to pamper clients with a rich feature set, regardless of the plan they picked. Just look at the entry-level package — two websites, 50 GB SSD space, unlimited bandwidth, free domain and SSL certificate, marketing tools — what more can you ask for?

The Power and Pro plans look to satisfy the needs of growing businesses and eCommerce projects. You get 2-3 times faster server performance than the Launch deal, plus sweet extras like priority support and unlimited email accounts. 

To top it all off, InMotion comes up with some unique offerings to gain some competitive advantage. The BoldGrid website builder, UltraStack servers, and QuickStarter site development are the most notable features here. 

Customer Support

When talking about customer support availability, InMotion is always there for you, day and night. The company’s Contact Us page is one of the most comprehensive we’ve seen, giving you ways to reach any of the departments — Sales, Tech Support, Billing, Abuse, Marketing, and more. 

Even though InMotion doesn’t offer website hosting in the UK per se, every British client can easily contact a live person whenever the need arises. Whether it’s by live chat, phone, or even Skype — skilled support is on the way. 

Our contacts with InMotion’s operators were fruitful enough, and there weren’t any alarming signs during our conversations. Some little hiccups here and there, like the inability to understand the case at first, but nothing bothersome. In the end, all issues were resolved in due time.

Performance

InMotion flaunts a lot of speed-related features and optimizations, so you would expect your project to get the best possible load times. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with InMotion. A TTFB of 0.58s and an onload time of 1.10s place the US host in the bottom half of the performance ranking. In fact, the time-to-first-byte was rock bottom on our list. As for uptime, 99.95% is satisfactory enough to prove InMotion’s long-term reliability. 

Pricing

InMotion Hosting is one of those companies that offer a moneyback guarantee on all its UK shared hosting plans. The Launch deal sets the grace period at 30 days, while the Power and Pro extend that to 90 days. 

• Launch — from $5.99/mo — 50 GB SSD space, unlimited bandwidth, two websites 
• Power — from $5.99/mo — 100 GB SSD space, unlimited bandwidth, up to 50 websites
• Pro — from $14.99/mo — 200 GB SSD space, unlimited bandwidth, up to 100 websites

With its current introductory discounts, InMotion is giving an amazing deal on the Power package, offering it as cheap as the entry-level deal. If you decide to prepay for three years in advance, the prices go down even further.

The catch is, come renewal, the monthly rates will be quite different, so you need to plan how to up your hosting budget in the long term. 

Upon signup, you can find premium add-ons like daily backups ($24/year), dedicated IP ($72/year), and QuickStarter site-building service ($99 one-time fee).

Verdict

InMotion Hosting might be a US-based host but still makes it into the top web hosting lists of many local markets. UK clients, in particular, get a great share of system resources, an optimized website environment, and helpful support at all times. You can safely go and test InMotion — the extended money-back guarantee will cover you up.

GreenGeeks was founded in California but quickly started gaining international recognition. Nowadays, the company hosts 40,000+ clients and their 500,000+ websites, offering the full range of shared, VPS, and dedicated server solutions. GreenGeeks have always been aware of technology’s impact on the environment, so it gives back 300% of its consumed power in the form of renewable energy.

GreenGeeks Features

GreenGeeks’ three shared plans represent some of the best web hosting in the UK market. All clients get uncapped disk space and bandwidth plus the ability to scale system resources on-the-go. If you’re looking to host a single website, the Lite plan might fit your needs ideally, while the other two let you build as many projects as you wish.

GreenGeeks utilizes LiteSpeed servers and SSD storage technology, giving websites great performance opportunities. Additionally, the host includes proactive server monitoring, real-time security scanning, and automatic app updates.

The wildcard SSL certificate is a particularly impressive feat, allowing you to protect not only your main domain but all associated subdomains as well.

WordPress users also have it easy. GreenGeeks offers a free WP installation plus core and plugin updates, optimizing their website management to the fullest. 

Customer Support

Getting assistance from a skilled professional is surprisingly easy with GreenGeeks. The eco-friendly host supports a live chat solution, phone lines, emails, and helpdesk tickets. You can also find an extensive knowledge base, full of insightful tutorials and hosting articles. 

The GG operators were always as polite as they come, patiently answering the ton of questions we had for them. What’s more, they were completely honest and open about delicate topics like the similarity between their shared and WordPress deals. This kind of openness inspires trust, especially in first-time customers. 

Performance

GreenGeeks’ server setup carries some remarkable feats, but the quantitative tests should always have the last word. In this case, we have a 0.56s TTFB and 1.14s full load times, which aren’t satisfying enough, compared to other UK web hosts. A much better display in the uptime tests, GreenGeeks proved to be extremely reliable in 99.99% of the time during the month of monitoring.

Pricing

GreenGeeks give out some highly affordable hosting packages for first-time customers, starting at just $2.95/mo for the Lite deal. It’s a different story come renewal time, and the same plan would then cost you $9.95/mo. 

• Lite — from $2.95/mo — unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, one website
• Pro — from $5.95/mo — unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited websites
• Premium — from $11.95/mo — unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited websites

Surprisingly, there aren’t any extras upon signup, letting you concentrate on the task at hand — securing the best web hosting in the UK. That doesn’t mean GreenGeeks doesn’t have any premium features — the host just doesn’t like shoving them in the client’s face. Instead, you can find them in your user area once signed or ask a support operator to help you get an upgrade. 

Verdict

GreenGeeks is a well-rounded hosting provider with a strong presence in the UK. The eco-friendly solutions pack loads of system resources and a ton of features to match every need. The support operators also managed to impress, proving the host as an ideal partner for beginners and startups.

Bluehost is one of the many hosts under the EIG consortium. The company is a preferred partner for over 2 million people worldwide, placing it firmly in the Top 10 in terms of market share. One of the main reasons behind this success, Bluehost easily offers some of the cheapest and best UK web hosting for WordPress sites, packing services like automatic WP installations, updates, and data security monitoring.

Bluehost Features

Right off the bat, you will notice that Bluehost prioritizes robust resource allocation rather than an extensive feature set. Even if you sign up with the most affordable plan, you get a whopping 50 GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth. The disk space is SSD as well, ensuring optimal speeds and better reliability for your website. 

As for features, the best you will find is the option to install SSL certificates at no added cost. Bluehost clients get a bunch of free marketing credits as well, allowing them to promote a website on Google Ads ($100) and Microsoft Advertising ($100).

Going up the ladder, BH adds other exciting feats like domain privacy protection, CodeGuard site backups, and SpamExperts mailbox protection.

Overall a good display feature-wise, but doesn’t really match what the other best UK web hosting providers can offer.

Customer Support

Regrettably, if you’re looking for skilled and knowledgeable support, Bluehost might not be the best choice. Being a part of the EIG group of companies, BH operators usually rely on templated replies and links instead of actually hearing out the visitor and trying to understand their questions better. 

To be fair, the support team is helpful enough with basic queries, but anything out of the ordinary is often too much for them. 

As for finding live assistance, you have plenty of options at your disposal. You have the chat, phone lines, emails, and internal ticketing system. A rich database of articles awaits if you’re willing to learn more about the ins and out of web hosting. 

Performance

Bluehost’s speed test results fall somewhere in the middle compared to other best web hosting providers in the UK. Our research revealed a TTFB of 0.50s and full load time of 0.93s — certainly not slow, but far from the best performance-wise. You can’t fault Bluehost when it comes to uptime, though. Our monitoring tool detected an uninterrupted 99.98% online activity during the review period. 

Pricing

Bluehost follows the EIG model, and all advertised discounts are only available with a three-year prepayment. There is also a 30-day moneyback guarantee so you can test the Bluehost services risk-free.

• Basic — from £2.10/mo — 50 GB SSD space, unlimited bandwidth, one website
• Plus — from £4.17/mo — unlimited SSD space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited websites
• Choice Plus — from £4.17/mo — unlimited SSD space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited websites
• Pro — from £10.66/mo — unlimited SSD space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited websites

If you’re not prepared to commit long-term, Bluehost also offers 1-year and 2-year billing options. Sure, the discount is lower, but still beats many other competitors on this list. 

Signing up for the first time, you can choose to add a few boosters to your account. CodeGuard (£27.43/year) is a wonderful solution for automatic offsite backups and SiteLock Security (£27.43/year) is sure to harden your account against web attacks and pesky malware. 

Verdict

Bluehost is a solid choice if you’re looking to get a domain and hosting in the UK. The provider allocates plenty of server resources while still keeping its prices low, a good enough combination for student projects, startup businesses, and SMBs. On the other hand, the lack of advanced features and unsatisfactory support definitely leaves room for improvement.

GoDaddy is one of the oldest players in the hosting market. Started back in 1997, the Arizona-based provider already has 20+ million clients and 7,000+ employees worldwide. The GoDaddy name is everywhere — online ads, search results, Super Bowl commercials. Regardless if you’re looking for Linux or Windows hosting in the UK — GD should always be a choice to consider. 

GoDaddy Features

There are four shared server plans if you’re looking to host a smaller-scale online project. Apart from the Economy deal, all others give you uncapped storage space and bandwidth for an unlimited number of websites.

GoDaddy starts you off with a free domain name or helps migrate your website if you already have one. Scalability is not a problem as the provider lets you up your CPU, RAM, or disk space at all times. The CageFS virtualization guarantees every client utilizes an isolated environment with dedicated system resources.

GoDaddy is one of the few providers in our UK web hosting comparison that caters to both Linux and Windows users. You can enjoy optimized servers and a safe environment regardless if your project is built on PHP or employs a .net technology.

Still, the feature set is rather unimpressive. Lower-tiered deals offer nothing more than a domain name and Office 365 Email license. Only when you reach the Ultimate and Maximum plans, you can get more exciting perks like premium DNS and a free private SSL certificate. 

Customer Support

When you have so many customers, there are plenty of support cases you have to deal with every day. GoDaddy ensures you have enough means of contact — live chats, tickets, and emails are all available. Phone support is definitely in focus as GD gives out local numbers for clients in over 50 countries, including a toll-free one for all UK users.

The level of assistance is not quite up to par, though. 

GoDaddy has a bad reputation for treating customers in a rather robotic manner, and you will get what we’re saying even from the first support contact. The operators can help with the most basic questions only, often failing to understand the nature of the issue.

Reading through the online tutorials and watching the video guides in the knowledge base can often provide more help than the live representatives. 

Performance

Our speed tests for TTFB with GoDaddy stopped the clock at 0.40s, a score that many of the best web hosting packages in the UK struggle to match. But by the time your page fully loads in the visitor’s browser, you’re already over a second, which is not exactly a great result. We detected no faults when it came to uptime, though, and we got the perfect 100% for online availability. 

Pricing

If you expect to find a free trial or moneyback guarantee with GoDaddy, think again. It’s the only provider on our list, which didn’t have clear information about this subject. Digging deeper, we found out you can request a full refund within 48 hours. If you miss your chance, you’re only due for a pro-rated compensation. 

• Economy — from £3.99/mo — 100 GB HDD space, unmetered bandwidth, one website
• Deluxe — from £4.99/mo — unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited websites
• Ultimate — from £7.99/mo — unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited websites
• Maximum — from £9.99/mo — unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited websites

New clients get discounts if they decide to sign up for a full three years. The price cuts vary from 33% to 50% of the standard rates.

Automated backups (£1.99/mo), SSL certificates (£5.00/mo), and daily malware scans (£3.99/mo) are the available extras upon signup, strengthening your website against outside breaches. 

Verdict

GoDaddy is a great place to secure some of the best web domain and hosting in the UK at affordable prices. The provider has optimized hardware and network connectivity to ensure the fast and uninterrupted performance of both personal and business websites. Customer support is the area that needs the most reworks with this host, but some more clarity about the billing and account policies wouldn’t hurt as well.

TSOhost has been in the web hosting business for over 15 years and has a strong and loyal following behind its back. A few years ago, TSO was acquired by GoDaddy. The company continued to operate independently, betting on low prices and robust packages for UK individuals and businesses. 

TSOhost Features

As with similar hosting providers, TSOhost has options for both single and multiple online projects. You don’t need to worry about resource allocation because, apart from the entry-level deal, you get unlimited-everything — space, bandwidth, subdomains.

Looking closer, the feature list is not something to brag about. The entry-level package offers nothing more than a professional data migration and a domain name, free for the first year only. The SSL certificates come with a 50% discount instead of giving out at least one for free, as many providers do. 

Even if you opt-in for the Ultimate and Maximum deals, you don’t get much apart from the basics. The security certificate is now cost-free, and TSOhost throws in a couple of eCommerce store migrations if you’re already hosting somewhere else. 

It certainly seems TSO needs to add more perks if they want to compete for the best UK web hosting in 2021.

Customer Support

TSOhost is one of the few reviewed UK hosts that don’t offer 24/7 assistance to its clients. Only the tech support ticketing is available round-the-clock, while the live chat and phone support are online between 7 am-midnight GMT. 

Even though TSO operates under the GoDaddy hat, it seems they kept their operators in-house, which is already a step in the right direction.

The live chat always took no more than a few seconds to find us an available operator, and the help we got was very prompt as well. There were a couple of hiccups in our conversations, but still much more efficient than the average hosting assistant.

A flattering display overall.

Performance

The speed tests rank TSOhost somewhere in the middle — not bad, but nothing impressive. Still, if your project isn’t too big or getting loads of traffic, this is one of the UK web hosts that will secure optimal page load times. In terms of availability, TSO promises a 99.9% uptime in its SLAs, and our tests confirmed that — 99.95% over the month of review.

Pricing

At first glance, TSOhost is fairly affordable for the local crowd. Starting from £3.99/mo (VAT excl.) for a single website, the prices are competitive, and the 30-day moneyback guarantee reduces the risk of trying out this host.

• Economy — from £3.99/mo — 100 GB HDD space, unlimited bandwidth, 1 website
• Deluxe — from £5.99/mo — unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, 5 websites
• Ultimate — from £8.99/mo — unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, 10 websites
• Maximum — from £14.99/mo — unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, 200 websites

One of the great things about TSO’s pricing is the ability to get the advertised discount with a shorter prepayment — only one year required. You can choose to go with a month-to-month plan, which generally raises the rates by £1-£2 depending on the selected package.

Still, considering the overall lack of features, the plans aren’t that cost-effective. We asked around for some basic features, like a CDN or daily backups, but the operators explained we need the whole Sucuri Security Suite and prices there started from the whopping £12.99/mo on top of your hosting bill.

Verdict

TSOhost puts a lot of focus on its premium Flockmail services, so if you’re looking for the best web and email hosting in the UK — this should be one of your prime picks. A reliable service that is well-supported by trained experts, TSO is an excellent solution for emerging businesses. No data center located in the UK, though, the closest one is in Strasbourg, France.

iPage did not start as a web host, but rather as a full online service provider. It officially rebranded as a hosting company, and today is part of the huge EIG conglomerate. iPage is responsible for over one million websites, the majority being small businesses and freelancer projects. 

iPage Features

iPage asks the question — why offer many different shared plans when you can give out the best web hosting service in the UK in an all-in-one package?

There are no caps on your storage space or monthly traffic, as long as they are all utilized by your websites. You can set up any of the hundreds of apps in the one-click installer or choose to go with an even simpler solution. iPage gives beginners a drag-and-drop site builder with over 1,000 free templates for the visual outlook of your pages. 

What do we have inside?

A free domain name for the first year, a no-cost SSL, and the detailed site statistics are the things that raise the most attention. If you’re looking to build an eCommerce store, iPage can help with a shopping cart installation and PayPal integration.

Customer Support

You can easily find 24/7 support with iPage, the live chat and phone contacts are clearly visible on top of the company homepage. 

We tested the live chat on several occasions, and we got mixed results. The connection to a live person was pretty quick, but the actual operators — not so much. We often waited for more than a couple of minutes between responses, and half of them were definitely copied from a template. 

The biggest setback, though, is the contact with the technical staff. iPage does not offer ticketing or email like similar UK hosting companies. Instead, you have to contact the sales department via chat, and if they can’t help, they escalate the case and give you a reference number.

Getting technical assistance is a process that could certainly use some rework. 

Performance

iPage might be fast enough for the average user, but they don’t score as well when it comes to comparing them to other hosting companies reviews. The time-to-first-byte was 0.50s on average, and our pages took an entire 1.40s to load. Remember, we are talking about one-pager installation with nothing on it, a fully-built website will surely take much longer. 

Still, you can be sure your web project will get the uninterrupted uptime it deserves as iPage scored 99.97% in that department. 

Pricing

You can clearly tell iPage aims for affordability — the introductory rate is only £1.50/mo, and you’ve got a 30-day moneyback guarantee when you can cancel and request a refund.

• Web Hosting Plan — from £1.50 — unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited websites

The price carries over an 80% discount, meaning your standard rate can jump to £8.35/mo come renewal. The promotion applies to all one, two, and three-year prepaid deals. 

There is an entire step dedicated to account customizations when you first sign up. You will find advanced website security (£23.88/year), daily backups (£35.98/triennial), and full WordPress optimization (£36/year) among many premium extras. 

Verdict

We can easily rank iPage on any list for the best business web hosting in the UK. The company’s robust shared package and low starting price bring a lot of new clients in, allocating them plenty of server power. If the company improves its performance and support, it will easily extend its client base to new heights.