WordPress is a ubiquitous program used by millions of websites worldwide.
This free, open-source content management system provides users uncanny flexibility regarding design, functionality, and customization.
Consequently, WordPress hosting for colleges is a popular website platform because it’s cost-effective and easy to use.
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An Overview of WordPress Hosting
WordPress and its hosting providers are skilled in login capacity, speed, and cloud storage.
They ensure that your website is always accessible to anyone.
Some producers are better suited to handle educational institutions and their specialized needs.
What Is WordPress Hosting?
WordPress hosting supplies resources and uniquely optimized servers for WordPress websites.
After opting for WP hosting service, it includes features like automatic software updates, customer support knowledge about WordPress, and one-click-install.
Why Is WordPress Hosting Important?
Websites built with WordPress happen to integrate seamlessly with WP hosting, and it will serve to improve your site’s security and functioning, and it offers automatic updates.
WordPress hosting is an optimizing agent for your site by performing various administrative tasks that keep it secure and working optimally while maintaining your file caching system.
Best WordPress Hosting for Colleges
Thanks to WordPress hosting, there’s no need to install or configure any software on your computer.
You can utilize the web-based control panel and your hosting plan to manage your site from a single location.
Below you’ll find the top selections for WordPress hosting for colleges:
1. Bluehost.com
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Overview
Bluehost improves WordPress websites’ design, speed, and optimization performance and has supported WordPress users as early as 2005.
Our Rating: 5/5
Best For: User-friendly platform
Notable Features
- Top-notch security: One of the best security measures out there.
- Fast sign-up: Simply name your website, choose a layout and begin building by selecting a relevant hosting package.
- Get quick results: Reap optimization benefits through the tools to sell, scalable growth, and the freedom to design.
Pros:
- Reputation: Reputable web hosting company that provides quality services.
- Various hosting options: Offers many hosting options, including VPS, server, and shared plans.
- Accessible customer support: Offers 24/7 customer support by email, live chat, or telephone.
- Feature-rich: Offers many features, including unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, and a free site builder and domain name.
- User-friendly: Advanced students will enjoy this provider.
The platform is user-friendly, and the plans are very scalable with 50GB.
Cons:
- Pricey: A bit more expensive than other web hosting companies.
- Limited customer service: Doesn’t offer 24/7 customer service.
- Limited credit: The least expensive plan only offers $50 in marketing credit.
Is Bluehost.com Hard To Use?
Bluehost will also make setting up your website simple and easy to manage.
The cPanel interface is enhanced and a breeze to use.
Pricing & Plans
Every plan features a certain number of websites, a free domain, a marketing credit, and SSD storage.
Each plan allows you to get more access to essential features.
- Basic Plan: Costs $2.75/month for the first year, then increases to $7.99/month once you renew your plan.
- Bluehost’s Plus Plan: Starts at $5.45/month for the first year, increasing to $10.99/month once you renew your plan.
- Bluehost Choice Plus Plan: The first year costs $5.45/month, increasing to $14.99 once you renew.
- WordPress Pro Plan: Costs $13.95/month, all features are unlimited, and you also have extra security and analytics add-ons.
Our Take
Bluehost is an excellent choice for beginners, as it has you need to get started with WordPress.
Features such as automatic WordPress installation, free drag-and-drop page builder, and automatic WordPress installation are readily available.
They also offer a 30-day guaranteed refund to all users.
2. SiteGround.com
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Overview
Whether you have an established or new WordPress application, SiteGround is an excellent host for both.
SiteGround’s service is dependable and expedient.
They provide budget-friendly shared WordPress hosting options.
Lastly, they provide free student hosting for educator sites.
Our Rating: 4/5
Best For: Small businesses and bloggers
Notable Features
- Build a site: Build a website easily and swiftly using WordPress site builder.
- Migrate a site: SiteGround allows you to expand your company’s online presence by transferring your WordPress website to SiteGround.
- Sell Online: With e-commerce hosting, you can increase your online sales; it’s uniquely developed for online stores.
Pros:
- Various packages: Many hosting packages, including cloud hosting, dedicated servers, and hosting.
- Good track record: Reputable and has been operating since 2004.
- Consistent customer support: 24/7 customer service.
- No risk: They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Anti-bot software: They have an anti-bot artificial intelligence system.
Cons:
- Expensive: Web hosting packages are more costly than some other competitors.
- No live chat: Site doesn’t offer live chat services, which is inconvenient.
- Only shared hosting: No managed hosting in the basic plan.
Is SiteGround.com Hard To Use?
SiteGround is very easy to manage.
They boast an award-winning technical support team that’s responsive and dedicated to getting your site established and running as swiftly as possible.
Pricing & Plans
Each plan comes with a free site transfer for a limited period.
Additionally, you’ll get a certain amount of storage, websites, visits, free domain, free email, and more.
- The StartUp plan: $14.99/month for 10GB of storage.
- GrowBig Plan:$24.99/month with 20 GB of storage.
- GoGeek Plan: $39.99/month with 40 GB of storage.
Our Take
Despite the higher renewal costs, SiteGround is the perfect hosting platform for students and educators to create ePortfolios and blogs.
3. WP Engine
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Overview
WP Engine is the perfect scalable hosting site already managed for your convenience.
It’s an ideal solution for large agencies hosting dozens of sites at once and individual educators.
WP Engine offers a more customized experience that allows instructors to host hybrid learning practices.
Our Rating: 5/5
Best For: Customer Service
Notable Features
- Excellent technical service: Offers tech health assessments, a personalized onboarding experience, and business reviews.
- Website security: Get scheduled, routine updates and a daily automated backup.
- Mobile-friendly website: Setting up a mobile-friendly website takes just a few minutes.
You can easily migrate it to WP using their developer tools and custom themes.
Pros:
- Reliability: Offers fast load times for a WordPress hosting platform.
- Enhanced security: Features malware scanning and other precautions to ensure that your site(s) is always secure and protected.
- Large community: Numerous developers and users are always willing to help.
- Versatile plans: Offers various plans tailored to your needs and budget.
- User-friendly: Intuitive interface is easy to use.
Cons:
- No free domains: Won’t get any free domains with their packages.
- Expensive: Costly compared to other hosting platforms.
- Not the best for smaller sites: Small sites might not feel like WP Engines plans are worth the money.
Is WP Engine Hard To Use?
WordPress Engine may not be the easiest to use for beginners unfamiliar with the program.
It is more suitable for those with multiple WordPress sites and some experience with technology.
Pricing & Plans
- Startup Plan: $25/month
- Professional: $49/month
- Growth: $96/month
- Scale: $242/month
Our Take
WP Engines is a managed hosting site that offers reliable customer service, security features, and advanced tools, making it worth the extra money you have to pay monthly.
Each plan comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee.
4. Kinsta
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Overview
Kinsta functions on powerful servers, allowing you access to RAM and CPU in abundance.
Kinsta also uses Google Cloud Platform, with excellent network connections and lightning-fast loading speed.
Our Rating: 4/5
Best For: Reliability and a Fast Hosting Solution
Notable Features
- Almost entirely hands-free: You don’t have to worry about managing your website; you can dedicate your efforts to expanding it.
- Monitoring: Provides a built-in tool that monitors the application’s performance.
If your site is slow, Kinsta can pinpoint the problem quickly.
- Worldwide content delivery: You can cache all of your assets to any of their over 200 locations to deliver content closer to users.
Pros:
- Excellent customer service: Reliable customer service team addresses concerns promptly.
- Speed: Faster loading equates with higher conversions, lower bounce rates, longer user interaction sessions with your site, and more.
- User-friendly dashboard: The dashboard layout is modern, clean, and easy to navigate.
- Multilingual support: Customers get support in various languages.
- Flexible price plans: Offers many pricing plans to suit your budget.
Cons:
- Big price jumps: Some users feel like there’s a big price gap between the plans, but the features are not vastly different from one level to the next.
- No email: Have to sign up for a separate email service.
- Limited customer service: No phone support.
Is Kinsta Hard To Use?
Kinsta is easy to use, and they’ve worked hard to make their domain modification
and the control panel layout is simple to navigate and manage.
Pricing & Plans
- Starter Plan- $35/month
- Pro Plan- $70/month
- Business 1 – $115/month
- Business 2 – $225/month
- Business 3 – $340/month
- Business 4 – $440/month
- Enterprise 1 – $675/month
- Enterprise 2 – $1000/month
- Enterprise 3 – $1350/month
- Enterprise 4 – $1650/month
Our Take
If you’re going for innovation with an intuitive design, Kinsta is an excellent choice.
Even without phone support, the tech staff walks you through every step, or they’ll handle it.
That aspect of their service, coupled with the speed, makes them a top contender as a WordPress hosting site.
5. DreamHost
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Overview
Small businesses and individuals can greatly benefit from DreamHost’s shared hosting platform.
While the features they offer are the same as other hosts, their prices are more affordable.
This platform is best for course creators and bloggers who want to take their site to the next level.
Our Rating: 4/5
Best For: Budget-Friendly Hosting
Notable Features
- Focus on WordPress: Gives you a pre-installed WordPress copy.
If you already have one, freely transfer it with their automatic migration plug-in.
You get a WP site builder as well.
- Low monthly rates: The basic plan only costs $4.95.
- Unlimited traffic: No limit on how many visitors can frequent your site.
Pros:
- Zero downtime: Receive an excellent uptime percentage with outstanding server performance.
- Unlimited domains: Allows you to host unlimited domains with plenty of extra features.
- Domain name: Get a free domain name with sign-up
- No risk: Offers a 97-day money-back guarantee.
- Various plans: Choose between the three-year, yearly, or monthly plans.
Cons:
- Limited support: No phone representative to speak to in case of problems.
- Difficult layout: Control panel is somewhat confusing and difficult to navigate.
- Extra fees: Too many of the dashboard options come with additional fees.
Is DreamHost Hard To Use?
While DreamHost is easy to understand and provides a good user experience overall, certain aspects of the site don’t offer the same one-click usability as others.
The control panel is particularly tricky.
Pricing & Plans
- Starter – $2.95/month
- DreamPress – $16.95/month
- VPS – $13.75/month
Our Take
The best part about DreamHost is that you can use the platform for over three months before you commit.
It’s an affordable solution for small business owners that we recommend to take the next step to grow your site.
6. iPage
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Overview
Get your website ready to debut in less than ten minutes with iPage.
You get all the best features for only a small amount.
The site has a well-thought-out site.
Our Rating: 3/5
Best For: Personal Websites or Blogs
Notable Features:
- iPage is one of the oldest and most established providers of affordable hosting services on the Internet.
- 24/7 client support: Get help any time with their accessible customer service.
- Scalable platform: Continue scaling and adding resources after launching your website.
Pros:
- Guaranteed uptime: Excellent server performance with less time down.
- Unlimited bandwidth: No limit to how much you can use.
- Better security: Offers enhanced security features to keep your investment safe.
- Free domain and SSL: You get a free domain name and an SSL certificate for encrypting online communications.
- Website builder: Gives you a free website builder with every subscription.
Cons:
- Slow servers: The server speed is slower than it should be, even for pricier plans.
- Slow response times: Customer support takes too long to respond to issues.
- Upsell: There are too many instances of upselling from when you sign up until your monthly subscription with add-ons.
Is iPage Hard To Use?
The drag and drop editor is easy to use.
However, other aspects are more challenging to use, like the dashboard.
Pricing & Plans
- Go Plan: Starts at $1.99-$2.99/month, increasing to $7.99/month after one year when you renew your plan.
*Though the option is inexpensive, you must commit to this platform for three years.
Our Take
iPage is a comprehensive hosting provider with a committed response team that should act faster to address customer complaints.
Aside from that, the VPS hosting is perfect for small websites.
Features To Look for In WordPress Hosting for Colleges
Here are the features you should keep in mind and why they’re essential for any WordPress hosting platform for colleges:
Storage
Select a plan that offers at least 3 GB of storage with one of their plans.
You need space to expand, but even for large sites, 10 GB is more than enough.
Bandwidth
Get around 50 GB of bandwidth, as you get with Bluehost, for a faster-loading website.
A small website uses around 20 GB, and that’s pretty decent server performance.
VPS/shared hosting tends to offer cheaper bandwidth.
Starting price per month
Determine your needs, find the plan that suits you best and deliver quality tools and features for the price.
Around $4.95-$9.95 is a reasonable starting point that should fulfill your needs, as is the case for Bluehost and DreamHost.
cPanel
The control panel is where you can manage your sites, servers, and accounts.
cPanel is a trusted program known for its reliability and clean interface.
Many sites use this software to make your experience smoother.
SSL
Having SSL encryption is a huge bonus for a WordPress hosting platform, which is the case for over half the options on our list.
It’s critical to secure online transactions and communications and retain site visitors and customers.
Free backups
You need to be able to backup your website data in case something goes wrong.
The Best WordPress hosting providers have a solid backup protocol.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are the responses to the most commonly asked questions regarding WordPress hosting for college:
Is Wix better than WordPress?
Multichannel integration and smaller stores benefit more from Wix, while WordPress is better for selling and online thanks to the scalability and powerful analytics tools.
Is WordPress free for students?
Though you’ll need to self-host or pay for shared or managed hosting, WordPress is free to download.
What is the best free WordPress theme?
With its responsive design that’s perfect for any type of site, the best free WordPress theme seems to be the OceanWP.
Conclusion
The best WordPress hosting for colleges platform seems to be Bluehost.
It offers a ton of features, offers reasonable plans, you get 50 GB of storage with their premium plan, excellent customer service, SSL encryption, and more.
WordPress Engine was the next best platform, primarily due to its versatile plans, tech support, and fast servers.
Managed hosting is the easiest way because it frees up your time to focus on growth and expansion.
With the number of tools available to manage your site, educators can easily provide necessary services without the hassle.
Download Bluehost, WP Engine, or any of the listed WordPress hosts for a better experience.