How to Select the Best Joomla Hosting Company
Finding the right hosting company for your Joomla may be the single biggest factor to the sites success.
A hosting company with quality tech support will save you time and money while reducing headaches.
This guide asks you several questions getting you on the right tack to find the best host.
1. Monthly Hosting Budget?
Determine how much money you want (or able) spend each month. By having a max amount you can remove the plans that are out of your budget from your search.
Each Joomla hosting plan type has a typical price range:
- Less than $5/month: Budget Hosting your options are really pretty limited and the level of support and uptime is going to be disappointing. There are several free options and super discounted options available, Joomla Hosting Reviews has not spent much time looking into these because they mainly lead to frustration.
- Up to $10/month: Shared Hosting The majority of sites will fall into this plan.
- $10 to $30/month: Business Hosting If you site is for a business that makes money online or offline this is a good fit for you. The servers generally have fewer accounts and the support level is better. Plans often include extras such as more frequent backups or dedicated IP addresses. Read our Joomla Business Hosting Editor Top Picks.
- $30 to $250/month: VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting VPS gives you the control and reliability you need with out the cost of a dedicated server.
- $100 to $500/month: Dedicated Server Hosting If you have the money these are the best plans you can get. The entire server is yours do setup and modify any way you like. Since you are the only customer on the server ther are no concerns with misbehaving neighbors.
2. Hosting Resources Required?
UNLIMITED, UNLIMITED, UNLIMITED you have seen the sites that are unmimited everything and it not usually the case. Hosting companies typically fall into two categories those who provide unlimited everything and those who provide more reasonable limits. Both types fo companies work well.
Disk Space, Data Transfer (bandwidth), Number of Sites Hosted, and MYSQL Database are the main variables to pay attenion to. You do not want to run out of disk space or bandwith. The number of sites hosted and MYSL database only become a factor if you plan on hosting multiple sites on one account.
If you are working with an existing site you current hosting company should be able to tell you the amount of disk space and data transfer you are currently using.
Email, Forwarders, mailing lists etc...
I typically do not worry about this because I use Google Apps and the Google mail servers to handle the email. It is free, fairly easy to setup, easy to use and is more reliable than your hosting companies email. Some hosting companies like Rochen will automatically set up Google Apps for you.
If you plan on using your hosting company email services then I would look into the larger more reputable companies plans.
3. Level of Tech Support Required?
Do you need lots of hand holding or are you and expert and self sufficient? Email only of do you need to an engineer on the phone?
All hosting plans will come with email support and a ticketing system. Some of the better shared plans will include live chat suport (HostGator, Site5). When you move up to the more expensive plans phone support becomes more of a standard option. customer support forums are also another excellent place to get help and not all hosting companies offer them.
When deciding between hosting companies check the user reviews for comments about tech support. All servers and websites have issuse from time to time. When you have a question or problem you want it answered quickly and correctly.
4. Hosting Company Size?
This is more of a personal choice. Do you like having the resources and economy of scale from a large company like hostgator or Bluehost? Or do you prefer the personal touch of a smaller company like JOomlaport or simple source solutions?
There is also a group in the middle like Site5, Rochen and BuyHTTP these companies are not the huge mega companies but large enough to have excellent processes, resources and tech support while maintianing the small company feel.
I personally like the medium or large companies, this is not to say the smaller companies do a poor job, I just like knowing that a company will have several staff members on duty 24 hours a day. Check out our Joomla Hosting Company Size Guide.
5. Joomla Support Required?
If you are a joomla expert then any good hosting company will be work for you. If you are newer to Joomla or like having a knowledgable person available to answer questions then consider one of the more joomla centric hosting companies.
The first in this list is Rochen. Why? For starters they host the main joomla website, all of there staff is very knowledgeable and active in the Joomla community. Other Joomla knowledgable companies include BuyHTTP and simplweb.
If you are a Joomla expert then any hosting company will work because you wil be able to solve most of your problems and
If you are new to joomla consider a more Joomla focused company. Such as Rochen, BuyHttp, or Simplweb
6. Physical Server Location?
The physical location of your web server does plays a factor in Search Engine Rankings.
Matt Cutts from Google talking about SEO and physical server location (video).
If your website is US based has a US based audience then any of our top picks will work. All Joomla Hosting Companies with US Datacenters
If your target audience is outside of the US you may want to consider hosting your site with hosting company located in the country where your Audience live. Check out these lists of Joomla Hosting companies with datacenters located in:
7. Additional Tips
Look for a hosting company that use cPanel
cPanel is a very common control panel among hosting companies. It is not the only control panel, but it is one that typically has fewer issues running Joomla. The other big advantage to using cPanel is your web developer has most likely worked with it before.
Don't Get to caught up in the monthly cost
In the big picture your are paying relatively little for the services that are being provided. Your time is much more valuable that the money spent for hosting. What is your time worth to you? $15/hr, $25/hr or $100/hr?
What are you paying for hosting per month? $4/month, $6/month, $10/month?
As you can see issues with a cheap hosting company quickly become very expensive when you have a problem with your hosting company
Be wary of Free or super cheap hosting options.
Further Reading
