Best UK web hosting services in 2023
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Šarūnas Karbauskas
Writer
Are you looking for the best web hosting provider for the UK but still can’t find a clear answer on what’s the top pick? Well, don’t worry because we tested numerous potential options to uncover the leading hosting services for the United Kingdom.
Our selected services ensure near 100% uptime, excellent connection performance, robust security, and other essential benefits at affordable prices. We’ll introduce you to their pros and cons so you can easily pick the best UK web hosting provider for your needs.
So, without further ado, let’s dive into the top picks for UK web hosting companies.
5 best UK web hosting providers: ranked
- Hostinger – Best UK web hosting service overall
- GoDaddy – best business-oriented web host for the UK
- Bluehost – best WordPress website host for the UK
- A2 Hosting – versatile UK web hosting with fast servers
- SiteGround – reliable WordPress-oriented UK hosting company
📢 LIMITED OFFER: Get 78% OFF Hostinger!
Best web hosting in UK compared
| Provider | Hostinger | GoDaddy | Bluehost | A2 Hosting | SiteGround | DreamHost | LiquidWeb |
| Brand |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Load time | 0.8s | 1.5s | 1.8s | 1.4s | 1.8s | 1.6s | 1.2 |
| Starting storage space | 50 GB | 25 GB | 10 GB | 100 GB | 10 GB | 50 GB | 40 GB |
| Uptime | 100% | 99.98% | 99.99% | 99.99% | 99.99% | 99.99% | 100% |
| Data centers in UK | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Free SSL | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Free domain | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Customer support | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | Not 24/7 | 24/7 |
| Starting price | From £1.99/month | From £2.99/month | From £2.12/month | From £2.21/month | From £2.99/month | From $2.59/month | From $15.00/month |
| Review | Hostinger review | GoDaddy review | Bluehost review | A2 Hosting review | SiteGround review | DreamHost review | Liquid Web review |
Best UK web hosting services 2023 – detailed list:
To help you choose the best web hosting service for the UK, we researched and tested multiple providers to get the most accurate recommendations you can trust. Our evaluation process involved reviewing features, functionality, performance, pricing, and more.
1. Hostinger – the best web hosting provider for the UK
| Uptime | 100% |
| Load time | 0.8s |
| UK data centers | Yes |
| Current deal | 🔥 Get 78% OFF Hostinger! 🔥 |
Hostinger is an excellent option if you’re looking for cheap web hosting in the UK. The most basic plan costs under £3. It provides well-rounded services, and it’s easy to use. Most importantly, it offers UK data centers to ensure excellent loading times to your site’s UK visitors.
Features. Hostinger customers gain an impressive array of features for customizing the site to fit their needs
- LiteSpeed Web Server
- AI website builder
- Free domain
- Unlimited databases
- Up to 100 email accounts
Performance. Hostinger has excellent uptime, is fast, and powerful. All thanks to its modern infrastructure. We chose to host the site in the UK-based data center and tested its load speed from different locations, which turned out to be excellent. Besides, Hostinger has also many other data centers across Europe, the Americas, and Asia, not just the UK.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 511ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 0.8s |
Interface. The automatic setup process makes launching a website a straightforward process. It takes care of WordPress installation, domain registration, SSL activation, and more.
Customer support. Hostinger provides excellent customer service – you can reach them out 24/7 via live chat. You can rest assured your issues will be solved in a professional and timely manner.
Pricing. Hostinger has 2 shared and 1 cloud hosting plans – Premium (£1.99/month), Business (£3.99/month), and Cloud Startup (£8.99/month) All of them come with a free SSL certificate and automatic backups. These are some of the most affordable hosting plans in the market for such inclusive plans. Additionally, Hostinger also has a 30-day money-back guarantee in place.
Bottom line. Altogether, Hostinger is one of the best web hosting providers overall, no matter where you or your audience is located. With affordable prices, easy to use interface – it’s the best cheap UK web hosting service.
For more information, check out our Hostinger review.
2. GoDaddy – excellent business-oriented web hosting for the UK
| Uptime | 99.98% |
| Load time | 1.5s |
| UK data centers | No |
| Current deal | 🔥 GoDaddy coupon 70% OFF 🔥 |
GoDaddy is one of the biggest domain registrars on the market, but it also offers good hosting services for the UK. The provider targets business users, which is why you’ll find business-oriented features (and prices).
Features. You’ll have no shortage of feature options if you sign up to GoDaddy:
- 25 GB starting storage
- Free domain
- 1-click WordPress install
- Daily backups
- Unlimited SSL for all websites
As is tradition, the perks are more impressive if you opt for pricier hosting plans, such as GoDaddy Web Hosting Maximum.
Performance. GoDaddy is reliable and fast but not as powerful as it could be. During the full performance testing in the UK, we made a new site that’s hosted in the Netherlands (the only EU-based server location offered by the host). The results prove that EU-based hosting is just as effective and speedy for UK audiences.
| Uptime: | 99.98% |
| Average response time: | 341ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.5s |
Interface. The user interface is simple and intuitive – perfect for beginners. At the same time, GoDaddy provides a complete set of advanced cPanel management tools for those with high mileage on their web development journey.
Customer support. GoDaddy customer service team will help you solve technical issues by 24/7 phone line. Also, there are extensive resources, courses, and a help center.
Pricing. GoDaddy has 3 shared hosting plans – Economy (£2.99/month), Deluxe (£6.99/month), and Ultimate (£9.99/month). No matter which of the plans you go for, GoDaddy throws in a free domain for a year. Storage starts at 25GB. Plus, there are 2 free email accounts and an SSL for the first year.
Bottom line. Altogether, GoDaddy is a great hosting option for small businesses residing in the UK. cPanel is easy to use, websites are loaded fast, and you get a professional domain from one of the best domain name registrars.
For more information, check out our GoDaddy review.
3. Bluehost – WordPress-oriented UK web hosting service
| Uptime | 99.99% |
| Load time | 1.8s |
| UK data centers | No |
| Current deal | 🔥 Get up to 77% OFF Bluehost! 🔥 |
Bluehost is a popular web hosting provider for the UK that offers inclusive plans at affordable prices. Because it’s easy to use and WordPress-focused, Bluehost has always appealed to beginners. Even so, its purpose is to satisfy the needs of users from all experience backgrounds.
Features. Here’s an overview of the perks Bluehost offers to its customers:
- Free domain for the 1st year
- 10 GB SSD starting storage space
- Free SSL and malware scanning
- Free Cloudflare CDN
- Custom WordPress themes
It’s important to note that Bluehost plans vary by use-case, meaning not all include specialized e-commerce features.
Performance. Bluehost is not a performance-focused provider. It does deliver steady and reliable results, but speeds are not the fastest. Additionally, it's the only provider on this list that does not have an uptime guarantee and has data centers in the US alone. To fix that, the host offers a solution to that – a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 361ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.8s |
Interface. Starting with an automatic website setup and continuing over to a modern dashboard with a cPanel interface – it’s smooth and easy to use.
Customer support. Bluehost’s customer service is always fast, and you can reach them via live chat, phone, and email 24/7. Plus, there’s premium Blue Sky customer support available for an extra fee.
Pricing. Bluehost has 4 shared hosting plans – Basic (£2.12/month), Plus and Choice Plus (£3.94/month), and Pro (£6.88/month). The pricing plans don’t seem to be lacking features. What they all have in common are unlimited bandwidth, a free domain, and an SSL certificate.
Bottom line. Altogether, Bluehost is all about user experience, functionality, and ease of use. It sets the standard as to how a hosting provider should function, ultimately winning the title of one of the best UK web hosting solutions.
To find out more, check out our Bluehost review.
4. A2 Hosting – UK web hosting with fast servers
| Uptime | 99.99% |
| Load time | 1.4s |
| UK data centers | No |
| Current deal | 🔥 Get A2 Hosting, now 75% OFF 🔥 |
A2 Hosting focuses on speed and security while remaining faithful to the classic cPanel interface. With multiple server locations (Europe included), it’s a great option for cPanel web hosting UK.
Features. A2 Hosting provides an impressive array of perks to attract users:
- 100 GB SSD storage
- Cloud backups
- Automated SSL certificates
- Anycast DNS
- Cloudflare CDN
As always, the number of perks varies depending on the plan you choose.
Performance. A2 Hosting is fast and reliable, but just like the rest of the good providers. Focusing on the UK web hosting, the closest location to host a site is in The Netherlands. And the results are great. The lowest LCP has been noted in the UK – just 805ms. More so, LCP was still just as impressive even in locations such as the US and India.
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 597ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.4s |
Interface. cPanel interface is just a standard way of managing a website – both experienced and new users won’t have any issues. It just works perfectly.
Customer support. You can reach out to A2 Hosting 24/7. There’s a live chat, phone, and ticket support options.
Pricing. A2 Hosting has 4 plans – Startup (£2.21/month), Drive (£4.43/month), Turbo Boost (£5.17/month), and Turbo Max (£9.16/month). All the perks of A2 are with the Turbo plans. Nonetheless, all plans feature unlimited email accounts, bandwidth, free SSL, strong security features, and an app optimization plugin. Plus, A2 Hosting has a standard 30-day money-back guarantee as well as an anytime refund system for unused services.
Bottom line. All in all, if you’re looking for a fast and reliable hosting service for the UK that uses a straightforward user interface – A2 Hosting is a prime example of how that looks.
For more information, visit our A2 Hosting review.
5. SiteGround – UK web hosting provider with powerful tools
| Uptime | 99.99% |
| Load time | 1.8s |
| UK data centers | Yes |
| Current deal | 🔥 Get up to 83% OFF SiteGround + FREE TRANSFER! 🔥 |
SiteGround offers one of the best premium United Kingdom hosting packages. Focusing on WordPress, the provider has multiple server locations (London included), software optimizations, and powerful tools to make hosting websites easy.
Features. Here are what perks you can expect if you sign up for SiteGround:
- 10 GB starting storage space
- Daily backups
- Unlimited databases
- Unmetered traffic
- Free SSL, CDN, and email
However, some of the most coveted features like staging and priority support are reserved for top-tier subscribers.
Performance. All of SiteGround’s efforts to make websites faster pay off. It nails all the tests – speed, reliability, and power included. The results, especially UK ones, were impressively good – just 303ms to load the Largest Contentful Paint. Additionally, SiteGround’s data centers can be found on 4 continents.
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 217ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.8s |
Interface. SiteGround is beginner-friendly, and its intuitive control panel ensures ease of use. Its staging environment allows you to play around without modifying the original site. You’re basically allowed to screw it up without any real consequences. You can then push those changes live with just a couple of clicks.
Customer support. SiteGround’s support is available 24/7 through live chat, phone, and tickets. The service is professional and friendly.
Pricing. Talking about the plans and their costs, they can be seen at quite a premium price point. SiteGround has 3 shared hosting plans: StartUp (£2.99/month), GrowBig (£4.99/month), GoGeek (£7.49/month). When you purchase a plan, any of them, you’ll get SSL certificates, unlimited bandwidth, daily backups, native CDN, and free email. The host also has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Bottom line. All in all, pick SiteGround if you’re looking for a powerful business hosting option for the UK. With all the tools and power, it will make your job easier.
For more information, visit our SiteGround review.
6. DreamHost – beginner-focused UK hosting company
| Uptime | 99.99% |
| Load time | 1.6s |
| UK data centers | No |
| Current deal | 🔥 Get DreamHost, now 79% OFF 🔥 |
Consider DreamHost if you’re looking for a beginner-friendly hosting service for the UK. Currently, the service offers data centers in Ashburn, Virginia, and Hillsboro, Oregon, which isn’t ideal, but our tests showed results to the contrary.
Features. Here’s a rundown of the boons included in most DreamHost plans:
- Free domain
- Pre-installed WordPress and free migrations
- Unlimited email
- Free SSL certificate
- Automated daily backups
The benefits package varies by subscription, so make sure the plans you’re considering have what you need.
Performance. While hosting a website for two months using DreamHost, we experienced only a mild 1-minute outage, which equates to 99.99% uptime. Meanwhile, the average response time was 231ms and remained stable throughout. Finally, we bombarded the site with 50 virtual users, which didn’t impact performance meaningfully.
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 231ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.6s |
Interface. DreamHost uses a custom-built control panel, which can be considered detrimental if you’re looking for familiarity. However, we found it easy to use no matter the task.
Customer Support. Live chat is available from 5:30 AM until 9:30 PM Pacific time. Outside these hours, you can reach out using email or troubleshoot issues yourself using the knowledgebase.
Pricing. DreamHost shared hosting options are split into two plans – Starter ($2.59/month) and Unlimited ($3.95/month), making the selection process straightforward. Moreover, the provider offers an exceptionally generous 97-day money-back guarantee for risk-free testing.
Find out more by visiting our full DreamHost review.
7. Liquid Web – UK web hosting for experienced users
| Uptime | 100% |
| Load time | 1.2s |
| UK data centers | No |
| Current deal | 🔥 Get Liquid Web, now 75% OFF 🔥 |
Go with Liquid Web if you need a UK hosting solution geared towards tech-savvy users. The service is popular among developers, agencies, and large business companies.
Features. Here’s what Liquid Web brings to the table:
- Free SSL
- 10 TB of bandwidth
- DDoS protection
- Server monitoring
- 40 GB SSD starting storage
There are also numerous other perks included that you can freely customize to fit your business needs.
Performance. We enjoyed excellent 100% uptime while testing Liquid Web for roughly two months. However, the average response time was a whopping 521ms, which is more than we expected. On the other hand, the service had no issues dealing with the 50 virtual users we sent during stress testing. Moreover, Liquid Web offers data centers in the Netherlands for improved connectivity for UK residents.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 521ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.2s |
Interface. Liquid Web employs the unique InterWorx control panel with separate website and server managers (NodeWorx and SiteWorx). Alternatively, you can switch to more familiar options like cPanel and Plesk if the default doesn’t suit your style.
Customer support. You can contact customer support specialists 24/7 via live chat, phone, or email. The service guarantees a response time of less than a minute; our tests confirm that.
Pricing. Liquid Web prices vary based on the technical specifications you need from the server hardware. For example, the Essential plan costs $15.00/month and offers 2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, and 40 GB SSD storage. Meanwhile, upgrading to Elite costs $50/month and unlocks 12 vCPU, 12 GB RAM, and 200 GB SSD storage.
Learn what else is included by reading our Liquid Web review.
How we tested the best hosting providers for UK
Our selection process of the best UK hosting providers involved general feature evaluations and subsequent hands-on testing. Let’s cover the testing process first.
- Setup. The first order of business was setting up rudimentary websites using the UK hosting providers we were considering. This included creating a functional webpage, installing a content management system, and various add-ons.
- Performance tests. We employed various techniques to simulate real-life traffic onto the website. For example, we sent dozens of virtual users simultaneously to interact with the site and test its performance.
- Monitoring. We periodically revisited our sites over the course of two months and took note of various metrics to measure uptime and overall performance. Example metrics include uptime, average response time, and page load times.
And here’s a summary of the general features we took into account.
- Performance. Having near 100% uptime is paramount because everyone wants their online presence to be readily available at all times. This also includes swift loading times and the ability to handle large amounts of traffic. To verify these metrics, we sent around 50 VUs (virtual users) to the sites we were hosting with these services.
- Features. A top-quality web host should grant numerous perks besides housing your website. For example, it must guarantee security against online threats and should provide tools for optimizing your site’s business and search engine ranking performance.
- Interface. Hosting service customers typically aren’t super tech-savvy, which means the user interface and overall experience should be suitable for beginners. Naturally, this means essential tasks like website migration, setting adjustments, and performance monitoring should be easy.
- Customer support. A worthwhile hosting service must have 24/7 customer service so you can immediately reach out about various issues plaguing your site.
- Reasonable price. All the attributes outlined above are realistic and shouldn’t cost a fortune. Plus, our selected UK hosting services offer free trials and money-back guarantees to ensure you aren’t stuck with a service that doesn’t suit your needs.
Choosing best web hosting in UK
In the process of selecting a web hosting provider, you should consider factors such as website type, performance, server locations, and pricing. Since you’re looking for the best web hosting in the UK, that last one is more important than you think.
For a better understanding, we’ll overview all those factors individually.
Website type
Before choosing a web host only based on its data center locations or price, consider what kind of website you'll be running. Depending on your answer, you either need more or less storage space, bandwidth, security, or overall server power. To see which host/plan is best for one or the other hosted website type, check out the list below:
- Personal website or a small blog. This type of site requires a minimum amount of storage and no particularly optimized server performance, meaning shared hosting services are more than enough for it.
- Business landing page. Similar to personal websites, this does not require a lot of storage space or power. However, it is advised to opt for plans that are a little more powerful to handle bigger traffic or leave site expansion options one.
- Small online businesses. If you're planning on running a small business site, chances are you will need a decent variety of features like generous storage, bandwidth, and security tools.
- Growing online stores. eCommerce is a heavy site that is expected to attract masses of users. For that reason, you need a provider with generous storage, a low monthly visitors limit, good performance, and increased security.
- Enterprise website infrastructure. This type of website requires a maximum level of storage, bandwidth, and server power, therefore, a private server hosting solution makes the most sense.
Performance
Performance is one of those factors that must be looked at every single time you want to pick a hosting provider. It’s a must. Otherwise, you can end up with an inaccessible, slow-loading website. What you should be interested in the most are uptime and response time.
- Uptime translates into how much your website is accessible to the public in a given period. Ideally, it would be up as close to 100% as possible. However, due to maintenance checks, problems in the data centers, and so on, you will experience some downtime. Just make sure that you go for a provider that can give you at least 99.9%
- Response time is the amount it takes for your website’s pages to load. The goal here is for your pages to load as fast as possible. In my experience, as long as a provider can give you 600ms at the most, it’s brilliant.
- Page load time – multiple metrics make up this number, but a fully built WordPress website should take less than 3 seconds to load.
So, before you decide, take a quick peek at the performance results of the provider you want. If you’re satisfied with the uptime and response time they can offer, you can move on.
Server location
Since you are looking for the best web hosting for the UK, you should choose a server location close to your target audience. The closer the server to your target audience, the better your website will perform for them.
All providers on this list have servers either in the UK or Europe, so if your audience is there – you'll have no problems. At the same time, several options on the list can help you get closer to audiences all across the globe.
Pricing
When looking at web hosting providers, you need to know your needs and establish a budget. You don’t need the most expensive plan just because you can afford it – it’s just not worth it. So you’ll get the best bang for your buck by choosing a plan that matches your website needs.
For example, some providers are available for less than £3 with relatively good server resources. Resources that can host medium-popularity blogs or informational business websites. Hostinger is a prime example of that.
That’s how you can actually see the value that a hosting plan brings to you. However, there are a couple of other aspects when it comes to the costs:
- Make sure to look at different billing periods. While the fees may be low when you access a provider’s website, they are usually calculated for long-term subscriptions.
- Look at renewal prices. The common practice is that hosting providers offer introductory prices only for the first payment. Once it's time to renew your services, the once-affordable price can double or even triple the initial rate.
- Upselling attempts. you’ll find that when you make a purchase, the provider usually makes a suggestion or two. Some go even further and automatically add products to your cart.
Best web hosting UK: final recommendations
Finding the perfect UK hosting provider is paramount if you want your site’s visitors to have swift loading times and a good overall experience. Besides performance, the service should also ensure you have access to the necessary tools and features to optimize the site to your specific needs.
After extensive testing, we nominate Hostinger as the best hosting company for the UK. It offers servers in the United Kingdom for peak connectivity and a wide array of security and convenience features for customizing your site. Best of all, the service is pretty affordable and includes a 30-day money-back guarantee, allowing you to test it without commitment.
Best web hosting UK FAQs
What is the best web hosting service in the UK?
The best UK hosting provider is Hostinger. The host does not only offer a UK-based server location but it also comes bearing low prices and high quality.
Which UK hosting should I choose for a WordPress site?
The best UK hosting provider for a WordPress site is either Hostinger or Bluehost. Both providers come with an automated one-click installation for WordPress and many WordPress-oriented tools.
How much does it cost to host a website in the UK?
The cost of web hosting in the UK depends on the provider and the plan you select. You can get quality hosting for as low as £0.99/mo, while more advanced options for business websites will cost you around £7-10/month.
Does the country in which your website is hosted matter?
Yes, your site’s hosting location is crucial to overall performance. The closer the server is to your customer base, the better the loading times. So, if the majority of your website’s visitors are from the United Kingdom, you should use a well-performing UK hosting provider.
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