Today, irrespective of whether you have a full-fledged business or are a freelancer, the important question is do you or your company have a website? Word of mouth publicity is passe today every business, whether brick-and-mortar or online, needs to be discoverable via the internet. The first step, in order to set up a website, is to find a web host, i.e. the platform which will store and deliver details and information about you and/or your company.

HostGator : At a starting street price of $9, the feature-rich HostGator offers plenty of tools to webmasters at wallet-friendly prices . The web hosting platform has excellent virtual and dedicated and private server packages, along with inimitable shared plans as well. The advantages of HostGator are that it has a pretty useful and nifty site-building software of Weebly and offers great customer service. The only negatives are that the e-mail feature lacks enough security, there isn’t any one-step WordPress import and it also lacks Windows-based VPS hosting.

1&1 : At a starting street price of $ 6 , 1&1 offers a wide variety of packages, including dedicated, VPS and shared hosting. What makes it stand out, however, is the fact that it features WordPress support. 1&1 has the added benefit of offering users its 1-month plan without asking them to choose any packages. 1&1’s advantages are that it offers both basic and advanced hosting packages, great customer support, both Windows/Linux based servers, great testing uptime and easy-to-use website creation tools, all at the cost of no setup fee. Its cons are that its moneyback guarantee period is shorter than that of its competitors.

InMotion : At a starting street price of $ 8, the Linux-based InMotion allows users to create professional and personal websites , boasting of both virtual, dedicated and shared hosting, as well as numerous free e-commerce tools. The advantages of InMotion are that it offers a lengthy moneyback guarantee period, unlimited e-mail across all plans, excellent WordPress options and good uptime. The disadvantages are that the software is basic and maybe a little dated, and the platform lacks Windows servers.

DreamHost : At a starting street price of $ 11, DreamHost satisfies all business and personal-related web hosting needs via its dedicated, virtual private server and shared plans that offer users numerous tools to build flexible, striking web sites. DreamHost has a generous moneyback guarantee, Cloud storage plans, unlimited data transfers, and good VPS offering. However, it lacks Windows-based servers and could be a little intimidating for beginners.