Summary
If you are a beginner, we recommend a hosting provider that is affordable and easy to start with. Consider:
| Web Hosting | Starting Cost | Highlights |
|---|---|---|
| Hostinger | $1.99/mo | Free domain name, user-friendly control panel, and a built-in website builder. |
| TMD Hosting | $2.74/mo | Reasonable price, spoon-feed technical support and 60 days risk-free trial period. |
| GreenGeeks | $2.95/mo | 300% green, cPanel hosting with an easy free SSL Certificate installation tool. |
* Want more choices? We have tested and reviewed over 70 web hosting services in the past 20 years. See our Best Web Hosting Picks of the Year or the full list of our hosting reviews.
What Makes a Web Host Great for Beginners?
While price is essential, new web hosting users often have other notable needs. Unfortunately, many don't realize this at the time of purchase. Most of these needs are often usability-oriented. A host that can compile the most attractive packages covering these areas is worth noting.
Here are the five critical factors you need to look into when choosing a beginner-friendly web host.
User-Friendly Interface
Users who have yet to use a web hosting plan often need something familiar. That means an intuitive interface that shares similarities with other applications or services. Web hosts that can provide an interface that doesn't confuse new users will stand out above the rest.
Affordable Pricing (Preferably Cheap)
Many beginner website owners focus highly on cost. It's understandable since, to them, there is no active revenue from their new website. Many websites won't commercialize well even after lengthy periods, making low web hosting prices even more vital.
Comprehensive Knowledgebase
The best first line of assistance for new website owners is often a knowledge base. Having one that answers as many basic questions as possible can significantly help. That's especially since many new users will have multiple queries that support staff will find too basic.
Helpful Customer Support
Having customer support teams that can deal with new users is important. Technical support staff are often impatient with new users – it's simply a common characteristic. Because of this, tiered support is often beneficial to new users and web hosts.
Good Hosting Performance
While performance isn't often the primary need for web hosting beginners, web hosts should meet some minimum requirements. At the same time, web hosts that overly stress shared hosting performance can confuse or distract new users with less important issues than are necessary.
Below are the three recommended web hosts for beginners and non-technical persons.
1. TMDHosting
Website: https://www.tmdhosting.com
TMDHosting first emerged in 2007 as a provider of open-source web hosting. Since then, it's grown through various milestones and won multiple awards. The company was an early adopter of CloudLinux in 2010, provided global data center access by 2016, and made Let's Encrypt available on all plans by 2017.
Over the years, TMDHosting has become a recommended host for many web applications. That includes Drupal, OS Commerce, and PrestaShop. It gained these achievements even before celebrating ten years of success in 2017.
TMDHosting Special Discount – Promo Code “WHSR7”
You can now get an additional 7% discount on top of the discounted signup price with coupon code “WHSR” or “WHSR7”. Shared hosting starts at $2.74 per month instead of the usual $2.95.
Click here to order TMDHosting now
TMD Beginner Hosting Plans
- Shared Hosting Starter: $2.95 per month
- Shared Hosting Business: $4.95 per month
- Shared Hosting Enterprise: $7.95 per month
Key Features
- Drag-and-drop builder powered by Weebly
- 99.99% uptime guarantee
- All-SSD storage
- 60-day money-back guarantee
- Cloud-based VPS
Read our full review on TMDHosting.
What Makes TMDHosting Tick for Newbies?
TMDHosting is a good choice for newbies since it offers many features, including the free Weebly Website Builder, at extremely attractive prices. The broad range of plans here also means lots of room for customers to grow. Particularly attractive for beginners is its use of Weebly as their built-in site builder, easing up the website creation and management process for both newbies and non-technical persons.
Built-in Weebly Website Builder
Responsive Customer Support
My experience with their customer support team has been excellent. Whether it’s their 24×7 live chat team, forum, and their phone support, I’ve managed to consistently receive fast responses. They even offer to help transfer web files and databases for those with existing websites for free!
TMDHosting Pros & Cons
Pros
- Low cost of entry
- Free domain name and SSL
- Weebly website builder
- 60-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- Limited backups
2. Hostinger
Website: https://www.hostinger.com
Established in 2004, Hostinger is a budget hosting company running on multiple data centers worldwide.
Hostinger went through rampant growth and expansion over the years. They achieve a huge milestone of having 1 million users, just 6 years from the day that they started. Today, the company manages over 29 million users and has established worldwide localized offices with 150 people working across 39 countries worldwide.
Hostinger Beginner Hosting Plans
- Single Shared: $1.99 per month (discounted price)
- Premium Shared: $2.99 per month (discounted price)
- Business Shared: $4.99 per month (discounted price)
Key Features
- One of the cheapest hosting providers in town
- Drag-and-drop builder powered by Zyro
- All-SSD storage
- Cheap .xyz domain
Learn more in our full Hostinger review.
Why Hostinger Hosting for Beginners?
For those primarily concerned about cost, there are few better options than Hostinger. It offers some of the best beginner-friendly prices around. That's coupled with a decent feature set that can meet the needs of most new website owners.
Cheap Signup Price
Hostinger isn’t just one of the cheapest hosting providers around but it offers excellent bang-for-buck. You’ll find what you pay for to be more than competitive; integrated caching even on shared plans and support for over 10k visits even on most entry-level. This value-packed goodness is what makes it one of the most worthwhile platforms for newbie website owners.
Cheap .XYZ Domains
Compared to popular domain registrars such GoDaddy, Hostinger's prices for popular extensions, such .com and .net are, much cheaper. For less popular domain extensions like .xyz or .tech, you can get it for as low as $0.99, compared to GoDaddy which offers it at $1.17 and $10.17 respectively.
Hostinger Pros & Cons
Pros
- Very attractive prices
- Good localization for services
- Simplified control panel
- Easy WordPress access
- Zyro (advanced site builder) is included in all plans.
Cons
- Weekly backups only
- Price increase after initial term
3. GreenGeeks
Website: https://www.greengeeks.com
GreenGeeks has been in the web hosting business for over 14 years now. Helmed by Trey Gardner and Kaumil Patel, the company specializes in eco-friendly web hosting services. It's one of the pioneers in this area and something they still proudly do today.
Though its history GreenGeeks has won numerous awards and gained global recognition. That success sees them now hosting over half a million websites. Most notably, the company has replaced over 615,000 KWH/Year in energy consumed.
GreenGeeks Beginner Hosting Plans
- GreenGeeks Lite: $2.95 per month
- GreenGeeks Pro: $4.95 per month
- GreenGeeks Premium: $8.95 per month
Key Features
- 300% Green energy matching
- Trees planted for each new customer
- Nightly backups
- Full-SSD storage configuration
- HTTP/3 and PHP8 ready
Why do We think GreenGeeks is Right for Newbies?
Despite it being an eco-friendly web host, GreenGeeks manages to keep entry-level pricing highly competitive. While not priced as low as Hostinger, it does offer better features that compare well against industry standards.
Easy SSL Installation
Free Site Migration Assistance
GreenGeeks Pros & Cons
Pros
- Eco-friendly web hosting
- Free domain name and SSL
- Good performance with caching
- Nightly backups
Cons
- High price hikes on renewal
Final Thoughts – Price and User Friendliness Are Essential to Newbies
New users should be concerned about prices, especially once the initial sign-on contract expires. However, signing on with a hosting provider that offers a user-friendly platform is equally important. Ideally, any plan should have comprehensive documentation and a readily accessible customer support team.
