5 of the Best WordPress Hosting UK Options Compared ??

? What to look for when thinking best WordPress hosting UK?

There’s a handful of things you have to keep in mind when picking a WordPress host for a website serving UK readers:

? Not all hosts are viable:

The sole fact that your audience is in the UK means that you should find a quality server / data center that’s also in the UK. Simple!

And yes, while you can always help yourself to some quality CDN, it’ll only take you so far. CDNs are great if you want to serve diverse audiences across the globe or the continent, but if you want to serve an audience in a single country, you’re still (usually) going to be better off with a host that has servers in that country.

Location, location, location!

? UK pricing:

I’m going to assume you’re building the site for a business purpose. Therefore, two likely scenarios:

(a) If your business is based outside of the UK, ignore this point.
(b) If you’re based in the UK, it’s always better to be billed according to UK rules, laws and regulations.

It’s always going to be easier for you, tax-wise, if your hosting provider can issue you a local invoice, in local currency (GBP, in this case).

Granted, paying for hosting in a foreign currency is not game-ending, just a bump, but depending on your business legislation, it can be a significant one. Especially with Brexit out there looming in the dark.

Of course, the price itself is a factor as well. You probably don’t want to overpay for a host that you could get a lot cheaper in the US.

And, as much as I’d love to promote managed WordPress hosting solutions to you and say how superior those are, I know that most users want to pay ~£5 a month or less, and that’s okay.

⏰ Support in the local timezone:

Timezone differences can sometimes be inconvenient. For instance, consider the following:

If you’re in the UK and your host is based in the US, this means that you might not be able to get support for the first half of your workday. If you’re with a host like Flywheel, for example – their phone support hours are 9 am – 6 pm EST, which is late afternoon in the UK, basically after working hours.

Ideally, you want phone and chat support, and you want to be able to contact that support during standard work hours.

? UK-based user reviews:

Again, the issue of location.

This time, this is about user reviews and ratings. Basically, the problem is that while a certain host might have good reviews overall, when you start looking into just the portion of the reviews coming from UK-based customers, you might discover a different story.

Always look for local user reviews.

? Bandwidth / traffic allowed:

Many shared hosts will tell you that they’re not limiting your traffic / bandwidth in any way.

This is partly true. On the one hand, yes, as long as your usage is “normal,” you won’t experience any problems. But if some of your content goes viral or you get a spike in traffic for whatever reason, your site might still go down.

It’s therefore better to get specific estimates or limits from your host as to what volume of traffic your setup can handle.

Being able to receive 5,000-10,000 visitors in a month is a good starting point for new sites.

? Number of websites allowed:

This seems simple, but it’s not actually something that people pay a lot of attention to when picking their WordPress host.

As you’re comparing your options in the WordPress hosting UK market, you’ll find out that some of the firms will allow you to have 2-5 sites, while others will allow only one site. All for roughly the same price.

Make sure you get what you need.

? Free domain name:

Some hosts give you a domain name free of charge for the first year. This is a good bonus and a nice way to save £15.

?️ WordPress preinstalled:

The cheapest shared hosts will give you access to cPanel and some script installers there. While it’s not particularly difficult to install WordPress through that, you might like a more user-friendly solution – a host that pre-installs WordPress for you, so that you just walk into a fresh, blank instance of WordPress.

Taking the above into account, let’s now get to the meat ? and potatoes ?. Here’s our look at what the WordPress hosting UK market has to offer:

?? Best WordPress hosting UK

Here are the hosts that we’ve decided to feature in this comparison of the best WordPress hosting options in the UK:

SiteGround (www.siteground.co.uk)
123 Reg (www.123-reg.co.uk)
1&1 IONOS (www.ionos.co.uk)
Bluehost (www.bluehost.com)
GoDaddy (uk.godaddy.com)

The list is short, that’s right, but that’s for a good reason. We’ve only decided to feature the companies that check out on the items mentioned in the list above – the things to look for in a WordPress host for the UK market.

Also, we’ve taken into account the results of the survey we did a while back. In it, we asked our users about who was hosting their sites and how happy they were with the service. We’ve filtered out the results of that survey to focus only on UK-based users. The companies featured here came up more than once in that survey.

1. SiteGround (www.siteground.co.uk)

From: £2.95 / month
Traffic allowed / bandwidth: 10,000 visits monthly
Websites allowed: 1
Domain name: not included
WordPress preinstalled: yes
UK server location: yes
UK survey user rating: 3.9

SiteGround is a company that has taken the WordPress hosting market by the storm. They’re the no.1 usual suspect on every WordPress hosting ranking, and for a couple of very good reasons:

First, they’re one of just three hosting firms recommended by WordPress.org. Second, they get very good ratings from users and offer great performance. They also give you 24/7 support via phone, chat, and online tickets.

During setup, you get to select your server location to be in London, which is probably the best choice for UK-based websites.

The only downside is that SiteGround doesn’t include a new domain name free of charge. If you want to register a .co.uk domain during setup, that’s going to be £14.95 / year.

? Go to SiteGround

2. 123 Reg (www.123-reg.co.uk)

From: £5.49 / month
Traffic allowed / bandwidth: unmetered
Websites allowed: 5
Domain name: 2 free domain names included
WordPress preinstalled: yes
UK server location: yes
UK survey user rating: 3.3

123 Reg is the most popular domain name registrar (more than 3.5 million domains registered) and web host in the UK (over 1 million UK websites hosted). Established in the year 2000, the company has been making its mark and expanding their infrastructure constantly – now boasting about using the latest hardware with load balancing and a “rock solid” network.

When it comes to their WordPress offering, we have to admit that parts of it are really impressive. Chiefly, the fact that you can host up to five websites and get not one but two free domain names for the first year!

The support options are also good – you get FAQs to answer most of your questions, a UK-based phone number you can call 24/7, plus an online ticket system. Naturally, being the primary host in the UK, 123 Reg has data centers in the country.

? Go to 123 Reg

3. 1&1 IONOS (www.ionos.co.uk)

From: £1 / month *
Traffic allowed / bandwidth: unmetered
Websites allowed: 1
Domain name: 1 free domain name included
WordPress preinstalled: yes
UK server location: yes
UK survey user rating: 3.8

*This is a promo price. As part of the offer, you get £1 / mo. for the first six months and then £6 / mo. after that.

1&1 IONOS is another very popular host in the UK, and it’s not hard to see why. Being able to pay as low as £1 / mo. for the first six months plus a free domain name is something not seen anywhere else! This gives you more than enough time to test out your website idea in the wild.

Also, this is said to be a managed WordPress hosting plan, which means that you don’t have to trouble yourself with any of the technical setup. With 1&1 being a UK company, you get a data center in the UK as well. As for the customer support options, you get online support, a help center, and a UK-based phone number to call.

Additionally, the interface is also very user-friendly and makes configuring everything really easy. For instance, there’s a WordPress assistant that guides you through everything step by step. It asks about the purpose of your site and suggests some themes and plugins that could be beneficial.

? Go to 1&1 IONOS

4. Bluehost (www.bluehost.com)

From: £2.98 / month
Traffic allowed / bandwidth: unmetered
Websites allowed: 1
Domain name: 1 free domain name included
WordPress preinstalled: yes
UK server location: yes
UK survey user rating: 3.1

Bluehost is the mainstay of the WordPress hosting market and another company that is officially recommended by WordPress.org.

Though they did have some rocky periods in the past, they’ve made huge improvements over the last couple of years, and are now offering one of the easiest to use interfaces out there in the WordPress hosting market overall.

Each WordPress hosting plan comes with WordPress preinstalled, automatic updates, a free domain name for the first year, 24/7 support (via phone and chat), and even staging (for WordPress development). Bluehost also has a data center in London.

? Go to Bluehost

5. GoDaddy (uk.godaddy.com)

From: £2.97 / month
Traffic allowed / bandwidth: 25,000 visits monthly
Websites allowed: 1
Domain name: 1 free domain name included
WordPress preinstalled: yes
UK server location: no
UK survey user rating: 3.8

GoDaddy is the true behemoth of the hosting market – not just for WordPress, but overall! While the company hasn’t always had the best press over the years, they’ve been engaging with WordPress users quite heavily lately – with a strong presence on WordPress conferences and in the community.

Their new hosting platform was built specifically for WordPress with the goal to optimize for speed, reliability, and security.

Add to that, there’s also 24/7 support and phone support with a UK number, and they tend to be really helpful (tested). Also, they have top-of-the-line tools for backing up and restoring your site in case of trouble (also tested).

The only downside is that GoDaddy currently doesn’t have a data center in the UK. The nearest one is in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

? Go to GoDaddy

? Which of these top UK WordPress hosting options to choose?

As with most things, there’s no clear winner here. All these platforms have gathered a sizable customer base that’s happy with their services. We do realize that you might have your favorites just glancing over this list, but that’s okay.

Here’s a bird’s eye view on the comparison between these top five WordPress hosts in the UK:

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5 of the Best WordPress Hosting UK Options Compared ??

? What to look for when thinking best WordPress hosting UK?