5 Best eCommerce Hosting Providers in 2023 (Server Speed Tested)
The best eCommerce web hosts offer outstanding speed and reliability, as well as robust security features to keep your site safe. It’s also important they are compatible with major eCommerce platforms or content management systems (CMSs), can be scaled up as your business grows and provide essential features at a competitive price. Finding a host that meets this criteria will help you keep your online store running smooth and your customers happy.
Today, we’ve shortlisted 5 hosts that do this best. We’ll dive into each host’s server performance, their key unique selling points, any limitations to keep in mind, and their plans and pricing. We’ll also touch on some popular eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce and Magento that can be paired with them to get your store up and running quickly.
We’ve shortlisted Hostinger as the best eCommerce host for how well they excel in the above criteria.
1. Hostinger
https://www.hostinger.com/
Overall Uptime
99.9%
Server Speed
A+
Price
$3.49/mo
Key Features
- 20GB SSD
- 1TB bandwidth
- 1GB RAM & 2GB Burst RAM
- 100 MB/S Network
- IPv6 Support
“A brilliant well-balanced hosting solution that’s great for eCommerce owners, even those just starting out.”
Hostinger has managed to make it on our ‘best eCommerce web host’ list for a few years in a row. They first caught our attention for their affordable plans, but it’s in recent years that they’ve really outshone the competition in other areas too.
Hostinger’s performance
To test their server performance, we set up 3 premium accounts on Hostinger (with test sites on their Singapore, Netherlands and US datacenters, read our in-depth Hostinger review here for details).
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 75 ms | 21 ms | 92 ms | 244 ms | 136 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 211 ms | 265 ms | 172 ms | 37 ms | 107 ms |
When put through our speed test tool, Hostinger scored an A+ ranking – the highest grade there is! And because they have 10 data centers for you to host from around the world, your customers can expect seriously fast speeds regardless of the region they’re based in.
eCommerce owners will also appreciate Hostinger’s very own, recently launched, flexible drag-and-drop website builder.
In short – expect fast server speeds, a great global support team and industry-leading premium eCommerce features, at an affordable price point.
In all – nicely well-balanced hosting.
What we didn’t like about Hostinger
- The lowest introductory price requires a commitment of 48 months. But their 12-month price is also very reasonable.
- No phone support, they only offer a ticket system.
Hostinger plans and features
Their VPS hosting plans start from $3.49/mo. We’d recommend their VPS 2, which starts at a very reasonable $4.99/mo – though mind that’s for the 4-year plan.
2. DreamHost
https://www.dreamhost.com/
Overall Uptime
100%
Server Speed
A+
Price
$2.95/mo
Key Features
- Unlimited SSD
- Unlimited traffic
- Free domain & SSL
- 100% Uptime Guar.
- 97-day money back
“A beginner-friendly and experienced hosting solution that plays fantastically with WordPress.”
DreamHost is one of those big-name hosts with more years of experience than most. If that’s not indicator enough that these guys know what they’re doing – they’ve also got an official endorsement from WordPress themselves!
DreamHost’s performance
This vote of confidence makes sense when you look at DreamHost’s speed performance. They’ve continually invested a lot into optimizing their SSD servers (said to be twice as fast as HDDs), and have impressive response times to show for it.
To check, we set up 2 test sites on DreamHost and ran them through our trusty speed checker. The results blew us away: not only did they score an A+ ranking, they were officially the host with the fastest average response time on this list! Just take a look.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 70 ms | 2 ms | 77 ms | 242 ms | 117 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 194 ms | 210 ms | 169 ms | 16 ms | 87 ms |
Since their datacentres are both in the US, speeds are particularly zippy if you’re accessing the site nearby – we recorded 2-3ms from the East Coast. As expected, speeds got slower in regions further away, with the slowest location being Singapore at 242 ms.
But they’re not just speed demons. They offer features that are ideal for eCommerce – from a great range of security features, to an impressive 100% uptime guarantee (outshining most hosts who promise 99.9%) to help make sure your store stays online and earning. They even throw in a free drag-and-drop WordPress website builder, so even total beginners can get their business online fast. Score! Feel free to read our complete DreamHost review.
What we didn’t like about DreamHost
- DreamHost only has data centres within the US, so may not be the best choice for those with audiences in Asia or Oceania.
- Live Chat support time is limited to 5:30AM – 9.30PM Pacific Time. However, they do have a round-the-clock ticketing system.
DreamHost plans and features
All accounts come with unlimited bandwidth. We’d recommend their Shared Unlimited account, which comes packed with value and allows you to manage more than 1 website. However, if you’ve just the one website – the Shared Starter should suit you fine.
3. Kinsta
https://kinsta.com
Overall Uptime
100%
Server Speed
A+
Price (USD)
$35/mo
Key Features
- Google Cloud
- 25,000 visits /mo
- Daily backups
- WP expert as support
- Hack fix guarantee
“A fully-managed Google Cloud-based host that’s great for owners serious about growing traffic and willing to pay a premium price”
Next, meet Kinsta – a managed WordPress host that’s been around since 2013.
Kinsta’s performance
The first thing you need to know about it is that it’s powered by Google Cloud.
This gives it an interesting edge over most of the competition, and helps put Kinsta near the top of our list of favourite ecommerce hosting.
Even better, Kinsta runs off Google Cloud’s Premium Tier. This lets users tap into the highest levels of performance, speed and security of what’s already a leading brand in cloud hosting. It also gives them 29 data centre locations to pick from!
So, it came as no surprise to us that it’s extremely FAST.
We played around with a test site and put it through our speed checker. It scored an A+ rating, with an average response time of 179.5ms (you can read our full Kinsta review here). Very respectable!
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 130 ms | 95 ms | 10 ms | 287 ms | 203 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 487 ms | 266 ms | 221 ms | 83 ms | 13 ms |
And that’s before implementing their very impressive KinstaCDN, for which they partner with Cloudflare – one of the largest content delivery networks in the world! You’ll be able to turbocharge their media to audiences around the world, at no extra cost.
It’s this same cloud architecture that puts Kinsta’s no-downtime technology in a league of its own.
Big traffic surge? No problem. With Kinsta, your website’s container simply scales dramatically to as many CPUs as needed. Your site should stay up and running and you just need to pay the overage fee.
Compare this to shared or VPS hosting, where a sudden traffic spike can bring down your site. No wonder Kinsta also has a SLA-backed 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Their Google Cloud infrastructure also makes Kinsta super scalable. If you need more bandwidth, you can seamlessly upgrade your plan. No complicated migrations to another server or host. Simply pay the next tier up.
With such speed and scaling advantages, we think Kinsta is a great option for large or fast-growing enterprises who want to make sure they’re always open for business.
What we didn’t like about Kinsta
- It’s quite a lot more expensive than many competitors.
- No email registration or domain registration included.
- No phone support.
- As Kinsta is a managed WordPress host, you’ll only be able to use WordPress e-commerce plug-ins such as WooCommerce
Kinsta plans and features
Kinsta’s plans start from $35 a month (1-year rate) for their Starter plan, and go up considerably by tier.
4. A2 Hosting
https://www.a2hosting.com/
Overall Uptime
99.9%
Server Speed
A+
Price
$10.99/mo
Key Features
- Unlimited NVMe storage
- Unlimited transfer
- 4GB RAM & 4 vCPUs
- Node.js & TLS 1.2
- cPanel or Plesk
“Good performance, security and a TON of unlimited features at fair prices, but potentially slower support.”
For a relatively unknown web host, A2 offers a striking value proposition.
The more we read into the long lists of features it offers, the more we became sure it deserves a place on this list.
A2 Hosting’s performance
Out of all their plans, A2’s Turbo plan was the one that caught our eye. It’s supercharged for speed in every way.
As of a 2021 update, this plan proudly utilises cutting-edge Turbo AMD EPYC Servers web hosting servers, said to load sites up to 20x quicker than standard servers. When we put this to the test, our test site on their Turbo plan also scored an A+ on our speed test, with an average response time of 169.5ms.
Fast – but admittedly not the fastest out of the hosts we tested (read up on all the juicy details in our full review here)
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 63 ms | 10 ms | 129 ms | 234 ms | 145 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 433 ms | 214 ms | 147 ms | 13 ms | 110 ms |
Still, A2 certainly seems to offer a LOT of things under the Turbo plan.
The 3 different options of caching are just the beginning. Not to mention you’ll get Hackscan (a very decent all-inclusive security protection), or the fact their e-commerce apps come A2 Optimized, meaning they’re configured to load pages faster and more securely.
Now, what we loved most about A2 was its very impressive list of ‘unlimited’ offerings under a low price tag.
We’re talking unlimited email addresses, websites, total databases, storage and transfers – as well as unlimited subdomains, parked domains and addon domains. You won’t even need to pay for SSL as they include a free Let’s Encrypt SSL option.
That’s a ton of unlimited value and a decent amount of room for you to grow.
All this, at a reasonable price, makes A2 a feature-rich solution for owners of small to medium e-commerce sites.
What we didn’t like about A2 Hosting
- ‘Unlimited’ resources do have a caveat – they’re not necessarily consistently ‘unlimited’. In reality, the shared host environment is divided virtually to make sure that sites don’t use more than their fair share of resources and affect the performance of other sites. If your site starts drawing more resources than it should, the host may impose some restrictions which can affect your site performance.
- Support can be slow. In the past, we’ve waited between 5 – 40 minutes to connect to their live chat. We read other reviews reporting similar slowness, or that it took multiple attempts to connect to live chat.
A2 Hosting plans and features
Introductory prices for their shared hosting options start at $2.99 (36-mo contract) for their Startup plan.
They also offer VPS hosting (managed and unmanaged), dedicated hosting and reseller hosting.
5. SiteGround
https://www.siteground.com/
Overall Uptime
100%
Server Speed
A+
Price
$6.69/mo
Key Features
- Google Cloud
- cPanel & SSH access
- Free daily backup
- GIT Integrated
- Nginx & CentOS
“Excellent speed, support & compatibility at great prices; a true value buy for small, medium and new e-commerce sites”
SiteGround is one of our absolute favourite hosts, hands-down.
Founded in 2004, they’ve won plenty of accolades since. Most notedly, an endorsement by WordPress themselves!
SiteGround’s performance
Though it’s tricky to decide which standout USP to shout about, we feel SiteGround’s biggest strength is that they offer premium hosting that’s perfect for growing business websites.
To test the speed of SiteGround’s servers (which run on speed-enhancing SSD disks), we set up a separate test site hosted on their GrowBig plan and put it through our trusty Bitcatcha speed tool.
The result: an A+ rating with an amazing average response time of 136.9 ms!
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | Sao Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 68 ms | 33 ms | 96 ms | 233 ms | 181 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 243 ms | 203 ms | 165 ms | 29 ms | 118 ms |
In practice, loading times would be sped up even more by activating their Cloudflare CDN and premium SuperCacher (built by their own engineers and said to boost load times up to 4x).
Fellow users on the GrowBig plan also enjoy premium priority support by chat or ticket. We’ve always been very impressed by the promptness of their support team, who can be contacted 24/7 by phone, chat and ticket.
On top of that, SiteGround offers 99.9% uptime guarantee, and our test sites suggest that they do walk the talk.
We’d say SiteGround is a great pick for sites that have a slightly bigger budget, or require more premium features. They’re an excellent host, and if you can afford SiteGround, you really can’t go wrong with them. To learn more, read our full SiteGround review.
What we didn’t like about SiteGround
- Expect to fork out a little more cash for domain registration.
- SiteGround’s renewal prices can easily catch people by surprise!
SiteGround plans and features
We’d recommend their GrowBig shared hosting plan, and then later scaling up when necessary.
Why Does Speed Matter So Much For eCommerce Sites?
We at Bitcatcha are always stressing the importance of website speed. But for e-commerce sites, this is ultra important!
Good speed translates to a better user experience for your customers. Better UX, happier customers. Better UX also helps to build brand credibility. Customers who have a good time on your site are much more likely to return in the future, or recommend your business to others. Not many visitors will tolerate a slow-loading site, let alone browse through product pages until they find something they want to buy. With today’s standards, every millisecond counts.
And another important thing – speed also affects your site’s SEO. In the e-commerce realm, ranking higher than your competitors on Google makes all the difference. In July 2018, Google added a “Speed Update” which now factors mobile speed into its ranking algorithm. The faster your mobile website speed, the better your SEO rankings.
So just to summarise, a slow website means poorer retention, greater page abandonment and lower SEO rankings. A fast website means better visibility, lightning-quick transactions and higher conversions.
Why Aren’t All Web Hosts Good Enough For eCommerce?
There are many famous web hosts out there but only some of them are good enough to serve for an eCommerce type of website. That’s because eCommerce sites have special needs and require a provider that’s more than a barebones hosting service.
It’s not just about finding a physical server for your site. What you should be looking for is a partner in technology. Like any good partner, you want someone dependable through the highs and lows.
Here is what a good web host for eCommerce needs to provide:
- Provides dependable customer support
At times of crisis, you’ll often be turning to third-party support. You need to know your host support team is dependable 24/7, and can be easily reached via a method you’re comfortable with. - Keep your site online
Even the biggest online stores can be taken offline by an unexpected surge of traffic. You need to ensure you have the resources to survive your busiest days or you will miss out on a lot of potential sales. - Secures your website from malicious attacks
E-commerce sites are the #1 targets for malicious attacks and cybercrime. Just as you have a responsibility to protect your customers, so your host should be looking out for you by providing a solid line of defence and helping you protect yourself online.
What Should You Look For In An Ecommerce Host Plan?
When choosing the best eCommerce host plan for you, make sure to look at the features and functions that they offer you. We’ve used 6 pillars to choose our favourite 5 ecommerce hosts.
| Pillar | Description |
|---|---|
| Host speed | A good host prioritizes speed through distributed data centers, CDN services for faster content delivery, and proprietary caching technology. Our Bitcatcha Speed Test Tool measures server responsiveness globally for efficient access. |
| Reliability | Reliable hosting includes 24/7 customer support through various channels and a qualified team for prompt issue resolution. A good host should guarantee at least 99% uptime, validated by third-party reviews or independent monitoring. |
| Security | A good host ensures a strong security framework with SSL certificates, proactive monitoring for vulnerability detection, and automatic daily backups for data safety and easy restoration. |
| Software compatibility | Hosts should support the required software for specific website needs, including popular e-commerce platforms like Magento, Prestashop, or WooCommerce. cPanel with the Softaculous installer provides convenience and flexibility with a wide range of 400+ software applications. Alternative installers and robust app support are also important factors to consider. |
| Scalability | A good host supports scalability for website growth. Shared hosting is cost-effective for smaller sites, while options like VPS, dedicated servers, or cloud solutions offer enhanced performance as traffic increases. Easy plan upgrades for more storage and bandwidth are vital for future growth without switching hosting providers. |
| Value for money | Consider the value offered by the host for the price, including email hosting for professional domain-matching addresses. Assess features like free domain registrations, extra storage or bandwidth, and value-added services. A trial period allows risk-free testing before committing. |
Should I Use WooCommerce For My eCommerce Business?
WooCommerce is a free and open-source WordPress plugin that allows users to build and manage online stores. The needs of eCommerce businesses include speed, easy management tools for inventory management and checkout features, scalability and affordable tools. WooCommerce is able to meet these eCommerce needs by providing a speed-optimized customizable platform that makes it easy to design an attractive storefront, integrated management tools and scalability options, all while remaining cost-effective.
To optimize your WooCommerce store speed further, choose the best WooCommerce hosting. So yes, using WooCommerce for your eCommerce business is an excellent choice and it currently powers 23% of the top 1 million ecommerce sites.
Should I Use Magento To Build My eCommerce Store?
Magento is a fantastically feature-rich and customizable eCommerce platform that enables businesses to create and manage online stores. Magento can help meet the needs of eCommerce businesses by being speed-optimized, highly customizable thanks to page builder extensions, highly scalable and budget friendly. Check our shortlist of the best Magento hosting to find the web hosts that will help you get the most out of this platform. So yes, using Magento to power your eCommerce store is another great choice.
Verdict: Picking the right ecommerce hosting
If you’re looking for a great all-rounder, Hostinger is our top pick. If you’re serving audiences around the Americas, DreamHost is a fantastic option, especially for WordPress websites. And if you’d like a premium managed WordPress solution – Kinsta is our go-to.
Here’s a final recap of our top 5:
Of course, your hosting provider isn’t something your customers see. However, it has everything to do with how they experience your business.
There is no clear cut best eCommerce host for everyone. It always depends on your priorities and what kind of eCommerce website you wish to build and the CMS you plan to use. No matter what, remember that your host host should be fast, reliable, secure, offer compatibility with your choice of eCommerce software, be scalable, and offer great value for money.
