Let’s face it. For some of us, the bottom line when picking from the top 10 web hosting companies is the price. It doesn’t matter what the trade-off is, as long as the price is the cheapest, that’s the company to go for if that’s all the money you have to spend. To that effect, here’s a list of the top 10 cheap web hosting companies and what you can expect from them organized by price. These are, in fact, the most affordable web hosting companies that won’t rip you off when it comes to service. Click on their link to view more details about each hosting company and get user submitted reviews and ratings.
- InMotion Hosting: This is where the price point takes a jump, because the rest of our cheap web hosting companies are going to be $6.95 a month. At this point, it all comes down to the better features and better customer service. InMotion is ranked higher, because they offer what is called ‘Business Class’ shared hosting, which comes with a lot more features than some others on the list. Of course, you get the unlimited disk space and bandwidth, free domain name and site builder, but you also get 1,000 FTP accounts, multiple MySQL databases, PHP 4 or 5, and most important – a free shared SSL certificate.
- Web Hosting Pad: For a few pennies more, namely four to be exact, you can enjoy the services of Web Hosting Pad. At $3.96 per month, there is only one package available, but you still get unlimited disk space and bandwidth along with the free domain name and free site builder. There’s not a whole lot more, but you do get unlimited MySQL databases, which can be helpful if you are trying to create a database driven web site on the cheap. You also get the option of unlimited POP and IMAP email, along with unlimited parked domains.
- BlueHost: BlueHost, who also charges $6.95 a month, gives you 1,500 GB of disk space and 15,000 GB of transfer, but also gives you 50 MySQL databases and 1,000 additional FTP accounts. If you want to beef up your server side scripting with PHP, Blue Host also offers FastCGI which makes all PHP applications perform better.
- IX Web Hosting: Another good hosting company for only $4.95 a month. The great thing about IX Web Hosting is that their parent company Ecommerce has a state-of-the-art data center located in Kentucky. The uptime alone is worth the money, and they also have the unlimited bandwidth and disk space you are looking for, along with a free domain name.
- Globat: Rounding out the 10 web hosting companies by their price is Globat. This is absolutely one of the cheapest hosting company on the Internet. At $3.90 a month, you can’t beat Globat’s price and the features are great as well. Their basic shared hosting package comes with unlimited disk space and bandwidth, and you also get quite a few freebies. This includes a free domain name and a free site builder as well as all of the standard bells and whistles. They do have higher priced packages available with more features, so if you like their service, you can always trade up.
- PowWeb: PowWeb is still a good price at $5.77 a month, but they do have sales sometimes, and with a year contract and a coupon you can get it for less. You get a standard 1,500 GB of disk space and 15,000 GB of traffic, and a free domain name with the basic shared hosting plan. The other main feature that you get is advertising credits with Google and Yahoo!
- 1&1: 1&1 hosting claims to be the #1 hosting company in the world. This may or may not be true, but they do have the next cheapest shared hosting plan on the list. For $3.99 a month, you only get 10 GB of disk storage and 300 GB of bandwidth, but for that price who cares? Seriously though, this plan is only for newbies, but 1&1 has a lot of other great plans available for more money.
- LunarPages: The monthly price goes up sometimes, but right now, LunarPages’ basic shared plan is only $4.95 a month. LunarPages is a great affordable web hosting company because they bridge that gap between having a premium customer service department and still being cheap. You get unlimited bandwidth and disk space, but here you get some better features. This includes a free domain name for life with a year contract, and PHP 4+ and MySQL 4+ and Fantastico with over 35 scripts. For a little bit more per month, the shared business plan is also a great deal.
- HostMonster: For $6.95 a month, they give you 1,500 GB of disk space and 15,000 GB of data transfer per month and a free domain name for life with a one year contract. HostMonster has lots of unlimited features like parked domains and subdomains, FTP accounts, and MySQL databases.
- Dotster: Rounding out the top 10 in the top 10 web hosting companies is Dotster. At $5.25 a month, you are still looking at a great deal. Dotster is a smaller company and their customer service is a little more personal than some other budget web hosting companies, so if you need some hand-holding, they are good for that. They have their own control panel, and disk space is small at 5 GB per month with bandwidth at 250 GB per month.
NOTE: This top 10 hosting list is subject to change and is based on the latest information provided by hosts in early 2009.
