WordPress.org Sites Require Hosting
For people building sites on WordPress that are not hosted on the WordPress.com platform WordPress Hosting Services will be needed for you site. There are many different options for hosts and it is important to find the right WordPress hosting service for your particular situation.
Managed WordPress Website Hosting
My favorite Managed WordPress hosting service is through WP Engine. WP Engine provides managed hosting which means that they take care of your daily back-ups and they do a great job of keeping your site up, fast and scalable as needed. What I like most about WP Engine is the staging environment that you receive free with your WP Engine account. This allows you to pull your full site into a staging area, update the new plugins, software, or brand new version of WP without affecting the live site. Once updates are made and verified on the staging site, they can then be made to the live production site with confidence in knowing that there will be no conflict with plugins, themes or the core WordPress software.
WP Engine also has daily back-ups as a part of the service. These daily back-ups are automatically scheduled and executed. Users can also create “manual restore points” in addition to daily back-ups. The back-up system has a very simple to use restore feature that allows you to restore a site to a previous version with one single click.
WP Engine site customers also receive as a part of their service, access to Sucuri website security services. Sucuri is the premier website security company for WordPress websites. They both monitor sites proactively to detect security risks and they also clean hack sites and restore them. Having Sucuri coverage on your website, gives a greater piece of mind. Lastly, because WP Engine exclusively hosts WordPress websites, their technical support staff is second to none. They know WordPress and provide a level of support not found at other standard hosting companies.
For WordPress Hosting Services, my pick is:
Other WordPress Hosting Companies:
Standard Hosting Companies
There are many other WordPress hosting services that can host WordPress websites. The standard companies do not offer the level of service as described above and they are not my first recommendation for hosting. However, they are hosting companies with a good reputation and are very affordable. It is important for those who choose this option to realize that you must spend the time and energy to go into your site and update all WordPress, themes and plugins as well as set up your own back-up system. It is highly recommended that people who choose this option be familiar with FTP programs and the directory structure of a web server. These are just a few of the many options available.
*Please note for the purpose of transparency, some of these links are affiliate links, however, I am only an affiliate for services that I stand behind 100% and use for my own site.