Magento is a self-hosted platform, which means users may need some third-party assistance to get things done right. However, it can be such a tough time pondering the best web hosting provider since the number comes in a hundred thousand. So, how you can separate the wheat from the chaff and making your optimal choice?
Here, in this post, you will find the way. Right below is a list of 10 things to consider before choosing a Magento 2 hosting provider. Let’s find out!
- Managed hosting
A significant benefit of self-service hosting is users can have complete control over their data. But if you don’t have profound expertise in IT development (most retailers don’t actually), it will be better to pick a hosting provider with managed hosting available, meaning they have the seasoned professionals and experts to ensure your site’s safety. Besides, you will have more time to strategize marketing plans.
- Dedicated server
In terms of pricing, shared service seems more affordable than dedicated. However, it also has more limitations including the likeliness to suffer from downtime in high traffic events, limited cybersecurity space, data’s vulnerability to cyber-attacks.
- Magento 2.0 hosting support
It’s of utmost importance to check if the hosting website keeps updated with the latest version of Magento 2. The following requirements should be included: Linux x86-64, Apache 2.x or Nginx 1.7.x, MySQL 5.6+, PHP 5.4+. If the payment gateway you choose needs support for HTTPS, make sure that the hosting plan offers a dedicated IP address to support an SSL certificate. All things considered, a VPS hosting plan could fulfill these requirements better than a shared hosting account.
- Guaranteed server uptime
Server uptime is the time during which the server is operational. Most retailers would expect the server uptime to be 100%, but this seems impossible. A guarantee of 99% uptime is quite a nice feature, which ensures that your site can be accessible at any time and no order will be missed.
- Fast loading speed
If your site’s load is slow, visitors are likely to navigate away after viewing a page, and you are losing sales. Therefore, it is extremely important to get a server with the fast response time. This will boost the conversion rate and improve the customer’s purchase experience on your site.
- Price and customer feedbacks
When launching a new Magento store, there is a lot to consider besides hosting services like an investment in marketing channels, wage payment for employees, etc. This will force you to think of the most affordable hosting service but do compare its service to others of your shortlist. Cheaper price often comes with less complete service so you need to consider it very carefully. You can research the company’s service by reading reviews from users. Negative reviews about some issues are unavoidable. Depending on your store’s needs, figure out if the issues are really big deals and then you can decide whether you want to trust the company with your site or not.
- Server Location
Server location plays an important role in SEO and loading speed for your targeted country. Therefore, it’s essential to get a server located nearest to your audiences to optimize loading speed for them. This is also served for SEO purposes as the search engine knows exactly who you target.
- Support
It’s necessary for you to know what support channels the hosting company provides: email, forums, phones, etc. and during which hours support is available. Take an example, an error happens on your server on a Friday night and you can’t get in touch with the support team until the next Monday, you will lose a whole weekend of sales. So, always check if 24/7 support is available or at least a few hours at weekends.
- Caching
Caching is also a critical factor in your site’s response time. A “cached” version of your site page won’t require as much time to load as a live version. Caching can significantly speed up your online store’s loading, which accordingly enhances the store’s performance.
- Scalability
A common target of every business perhaps is making their store become successful and ultimately broaden its scale to a larger range of audiences. That’s why scalability is a not-to-miss factor in our list. Once you expand your store, you will need more server power. Whether the hosting provider you are going to choose will give the ability to upscaling your hosting environment in the future? This is a question to ponder before making up your mind.
Still can’t make a decision? Here is our recommendation: top 5 best Magento 2 hosting services in 2019:
- A2 Hosting ($3.92 per month for Lite Plan): 1 website, 5 Databases, Unlimited Storage, Unlimited Transfer, cPanel Control Panel, free SSL&SSD, anytime money, back guarantee.
- SiteGround (3.95 per month for Startup Plan): Free website builder, cPanel & SSH access, free setup, and transfer, tech support, SSD storage, free daily backup, 30 days money back, unlimited email, accounts & DBs, HTTP/2 enabled servers, Free Let’s Encrypt SSLs, free Cloudflare CDN.
- Bluehost ($3.95 per month for the Basic plan): 1 website, 50GB website space, unmetered bandwidth, standard performance, 1 included domain, 5 parked domains, 25 subdomains, 5 email accounts (100MB per account), email storage.
- HostGator ($3.95 per month for Hatchling Plan): Single domain, one-click installs, unmetered bandwidth, email marketing, 24/365 support, instant backups, $100 credit on Bing & Google Adwords, unlimited MySQL, databases.
- Nexcess ($19.95 per month for SIP 100 Plan): Up to 100 daily visitors, Dell Enterprise server, 7.5 GB Disk space, 24 GB 1333Mhz RAM, 75 GB/mo bandwidth, 1 dedicated IP, Memcached, 9 additional stores, 30 accounts per server, email hosting.
Above are summarized features of five winners. If you need more details, click on the name of each hosting provider to be redirected to their page.
I hope you enjoy this post!
