5 Best Hosting for High Website Traffic
An increase in visitors is a dream come true for every online business. It means that you’re doing something right, your SEO efforts are paying off and people are interested in your products and services. It would be really misfortunate if amidst this increase of website traffic, your site would suddenly go down. Just when you thought that you were riding on the waves of success, your web hosting fails you. If you’re on a subpar shared hosting plan, this scenario is probably all too familiar to you, and it’s a clear indication that it’s time to move on to a better hosting plan if you’re serious about high online availability. While a dedicated hosting plan is usually the ultimate hosting plan with all the necessary muscle for high traffic websites, you may not need to go quite that far. A good VPS plan can also provide the dedicated server resources needed to withstand traffic spikes and ensure that your website operates at peak performance.
VPS hosting is a hybrid hosting, viewed by many as a transition between shared hosting and dedicated hosting, and there is some truth to this view, because a VPS hosting comes with the benefit of dedicated server resources, but without the hefty price tag of dedicated hosting. Several VPS accounts may run on the same physical server, but resources are kept separate and allocated exclusively for each account without any interference from other VPSs. This keeps prices lower than having a full server at one’s disposal, and gives your website that extra zip it needs to perform without problems.
| Company | From | ||
|---|---|---|---|
# 1 |
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$19.99 / mo |
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# 2 |
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$14.99 / mo |
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# 3 |
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$19.95 / mo |
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# 4 |
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$39.95 / mo |
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# 5 |
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$22.00 / mo |
How to Choose Web Hosting for High Website Traffic?
If you owned a small to medium traffic blog, which was hosted on a shared hosting account, you may not have anticipated that one of your articles will go viral for example, and that would lead to a high influx of visitors. But if you’re in the phase of launching an online store, you can reasonably expect higher website traffic than what a simple blog would have, especially if you’re planning to run marketing campaigns and promotions. It’s important to plan ahead for website traffic spikes because there is nothing worse than a well-executed marketing strategy that falls flat on its face when met with server downtimes. This is why it’s better to choose a flexible VPS plan from the start that allows you to dynamically scale your resources, and easily deal with high website traffic.
What to look for in a VPS plan? A good VPS plan will dedicate plenty of RAM, storage and bandwidth for your needs, it will enhance the performance of your website and provide more security and availability. Good VPS hosting plans will also include cPanel, dedicated IPs, root access, free server management and dedicated support. Some will offer a free domain(s), free backups, and several software licenses. It’s also important that the hosting provider makes it easy for you to upgrade your account or expand your resources preferably on the fly.
In our next point, we’re going to take a quick look at the best VPS hosting providers for websites with high traffic.
5 Best Hosting for High Website Traffic
In our reviews, we’ve chosen to focus on VPS plans alone, however, the majority of hosting providers covered in this article will also have dedicated hosting plans to meet even the most complex of server resource requirements.
InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting is another amazing full-service hosting provider with a broader appeal to business users. InMotion features in many ‘top best hosting providers’ lists, whether for their feature-packed shared hosting plans or reliable and performance-driven hosting services. InMotion’s cloud-powered VPS plans are nothing short of amazing providing free SSD, free server management, free cPanel license, real-time redundancy, CentOS and LAMP stack included, free backups, eCommerce optimization and 90-day money-back guarantee.
InMotion users can choose from three VPS plans starting from $19.99/month to $74.99/month. These too, are discounted prices. All 6 and 12-month plans come with a free domain name, and all plans include SSH access, optional root access, redundant hardware clusters with virtually zero downtime, reseller access with WHM, unlocked CPU cores, resource monitoring dashboard, up to 3 dedicated IP addresses, up to 4 TB bandwidth, 200 GB storage, and 8 GB RAM.
InMotion’s VPS plans are suitable for users who want to start an eCommerce business, for those who need multiple IP addresses, or users who need root access for running third-party applications.
BlueHost
BlueHost is one of the biggest web hosting providers, currently offering hosting services to over 2 million websites. BlueHost provides the whole spectrum of hosting plans to its users, and it’s particularly loved by WordPress users as WordPress.org has been endorsing BlueHost since 2005. But WordPress users are not the only ones that should take notice of BlueHost’s hosting plans, because BlueHost supports several other CMSs as well.
Their VPS plans offer plenty of resources in the way of RAM, CPU, storage and bandwidth. The flexibility of their plans is supported by the fact that users can add additional storage on the fly, without admin assistance. Soon, BlueHost will implement the option to expand CPU and RAM as well.
BlueHost has four VPS plans with prices ranging from $14.99/month to $59.99/month. Bear in mind that these prices are discounted prices available for an initial promotional period only, and regular prices are higher, so you should check those out too. All VPS plans include a free domain name and up to 2 IP addresses, enhanced cPanel, root access, SSH access, CentOS full access. VPS plans come with KVM hypervisor, thus, server resources are guaranteed to be available at all times.
HostGator
With an experience that spans over more than a decade, HostGator has featured in many best hosting provider rankings throughout the years. HostGator’s VPS plans come with dedicated functionality, but without the expenses of a dedicated hosting. Their VPS plans are some of the most affordable and full-feature plans on the market.
All HostGator VPS plans come with the following features: cutting-edge hardware (AMD Opteron 6000, Fault Tolerant RAID Disk Arrays, DDR3 ECC RAM), CentOS Linux with full root access, fully managed VPS, cPanel and WHM included, free IPTables Firewall, possibility to install and customize applications, free website/domain transfer, free reseller account, access to 52 free scripts easily installable on the account, fully redundant network, multiple bandwidth providers, multiple layers of security, 4,500 free website templates, etc.
HostGator’s three VPS plans are called Snappy (2000, 4000 and 8000) as a reference to their speed and performance. All plans include 2 IP addresses, and monthly prices range between $19.95 and $39.95. Prices are discounted for the first term, recurring prices range between $89.95 and $159.95.
GreenGeeks
We continue our review of the best VPS plans with GreenGeeks, a hosting provider famous for its environmentally conscious approach to web hosting. GreenGeeks is a word-leading 300% renewable energy web hosting provider. They provide all types of hosting plans including VPS and dedicated hosting.
GreenGeeks also provides multiple VPS plans in different configurations, which are fast, scalable and reliable. There are 5 VPS plans in total with the following features in common: SSD RAID-10 Storage, 4 cores CPU, premium bandwidth, provision in the USA, cPanel & WHM license included, free migration service, free nightly backups, full root access, free eNom domain reseller account, proprietary VPS management control panel, 99.9% service uptime, CSF Firewall, LFD, Mod Security, etc. Monthly prices range from $39.95 for 25 GB SSD RAID-10 Storage, 1,000 GB bandwidth, 4 cores CPU to $159.95 for 125 GB SSD RAID-10 Storage, 3,000 GB bandwidth, 4 cores CPU. Users can seamlessly upgrade/downgrade their accounts by contacting customer support, which is available 24/7.
GreenGeeks offers fully managed VPS hosting with a state-of-the-art hosting infrastructure to meet all the performance and security related requirements of your website.
ASmallOrange
ASmallOrange was launched in 2003, and it caters to all hosting needs from small personal websites to enterprise level hosting needs. ASO has the biggest VPS plan variety in our list of best hosting for high traffic sites, with 8 different VPS plans to choose from. If you opt for an annual plan, ASO will give you a free domain name and 2 months for free.
All 8 cloud VPS plans are characterized by a secure hosting infrastructure with redundant data protection, automatic failover protection, near 100% uptime, multiple bandwidth providers, configurable hosting environment with the possibility to seamlessly upgrade server resources, free cPanel and WHM, full root access, SSD caching technology, free backups, free migration assistance, state-of-the art firewalls, Kernel Virtual Machine technology.
ASO Cloud VPS plans start at $20/month and can cost up to $150/month, and range from a 1 core CPU plan with 30 GB storage, 1024 MB RAM and 500 GB bandwidth, to 8 core CPU plan with 250 GB storage, 10240 MB and 5 TB RAM.
Conclusion
The VPS hosting plans featured in our reviews are robust and powerful enough to respond to the needs of high traffic websites. If you’re looking to host an online store, if you need to run third-party applications or you just simply want to have peace of mind that your website is up and running without problems, the VPS hosting providers reviewed in our article are able to offer that to you. Given that all these providers also have dedicated hosting plans, you’ll be able to upgrade your account even to a dedicated hosting, if you’ll ever need to.
