Stage 1 – Comparing Web Hosts

There are a nearly endless choice of domain hosts you can use. A few of the more popular UK examples are listed below for you.

Pros of Godaddy:

1. Their pricing – is decently cheap for the actual hosting. Also they are always having sales on their services, therefore you could get a website for £1 for an entire month. This is an excellent price.
2. They estimate how many people you will get to see your page and if you don’t have that many people then the company will boost your website until you have the estimated value, which most company’s wouldn’t do unless more money was involved.
3. Scale and resources are big, because they are such a big company. If they get attacked by hackers then they have things they can throw at them to keep them at bay.

Cons of Godaddy:

1. Customer protections and politics – Godaddy are against internet freedom bills. This only changed when they lost thousands of domains to competitors. This is why they went on air to say sorry to so many people.
2. Hosting Features Limitations – Godaddy’s WordPress hosting plans have tight limits on features, so several competitors have better deals than Godaddy.
3. Account lock-in and Diversification – It’s pretty big time commitment. And as we all know Godaddy never makes it easier for people to leave.

Pros of DreamHost:

1. Pricing & Plan Simplicity – Anyone who has shopped for shared hosting knows that plans can be confusing to say the least. One host will cap disk storage space, another will cap the number of websites and yet another will cap the number of databases you can use, and still another will offer zero “bonus” features.
2. Although DreamHost offers a spectrum of specialised hosting services, their main shared hosting offering is one single plan.
3. At least with DreamHost there are no tiers or upgrades. It’s one plan at a single price based on how many years you sign your website up for.
4. Core & Developer Feature Set
5. DreamHost provides unlimited access to the “core” feature set of any good web host. That feature set is –
6. The ability to point your domain to a server
7. The storage of website files on a server
8. The installation of a database/software to manage your website
9. DreamHost also provides a solid assortment of more advanced functionality – like full CGI access, raw server logs, cron jobs and subversion repository.
10. (Nearly) Full Spectrum of Hosting Services – DreamHost provides full-spectrum of hosting services for growing or specialised hosting needs. Most sites start off on a shared server since that makes the most sense based on traffic levels and budget. However, if your site ends up growing or expanding in ways that you hadn’t planned for, it helps to be able to expand with a company that you already have experience with.

Cons of DreamHost:

1. Pricing – DreamHost is more expensive than competitors (like HostGator, InMotion or Web Hosting Hub) for small website owners.
2. Not every website owner needs unlimited websites or unlimited databases. Tiered pricing allows customers to only pay for what they need. If you are trying to run a single site on a tight budget, paying more for unlimited everything is nice but not necessary. The deep discounts at other hosting companies save website owners real money.
3. Custom Backend – Most companies use cPanel as the server backend/dashboard. cPanel is where you go to do anything with your hosting server. DreamHost does not use this setup they instead use proprietary backend for both your account administration and your server administration. They end up creating more work for their customer support system.
4. Lack of Apps & Auto-Installs – Most websites have Auto-Installs which have hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of software apps that you can use on your hosting server. However DreamHost does not have that. They have a custom application that links to a few applications, and will get them ready. But they don’t install them for you.

Pros of HostPresto:

1. Comprehensive features and resources: This means that they use state of the art features and resources that some other hosting companies might not use/have.This could help your website if the features and resources are good.
2. Simple, Straightforward website and plans: As we all know, some website hosting does not have the simplest ways. But thankfully for HostPresto, this is a really good admin control panel also their plans are easy to understand as well.
3. WordPress Plugins – HostPresto allows WordPress plugins to be installed, making it simple for developers to use and simple to create the website of your dreams.
4. Pricing: really cheap pricing plans, perfect is you just want to build one website.
5. Support – make a ticket, and someone from Support will be with you momentarily. It’s quick and simple to get help, and their tech guys make sure they get to the bottom of any issue.
6. They use cPanel so migrating an account to HostPresto is simple with the cPanel Migration Tool.

Cons of HostPresto:

1. We couldn’t find any! Although some pricing bands may appear to be higher than other companies, when you consider the services and support overall we felt this was the best domain host out there for UK websites at the time of writing this article.

We strongly recommend HostPresto. – Excellent services, great value for money, and allow WordPress to be installed with other plugins that make it work better.