Web Hosting for Developers with SSH Access

As a fresh-faced student learning how to code table-based designs and using this new-fangled contraption called WordPress, finding the best web hosting for developers was nowhere on my radar. I barely understood what the service did, just that I needed to have it to get my projects online. I signed up with the cheapest, most well-known provider, and called it a day.

The Importance of Finding the Right Web Hosting

As I learned more and better understood the criteria of what makes a decent website great, I became an increasingly discerning hosting consumer. Now it’s my job to match others with the hosting plan that best serves their specific needs. Understandably, developers have much different hosting needs than first-time site owners who prioritize usability and affordability over attributes such as root access or solid-state drives.

No matter your programming language or server configuration of choice, we’ve compiled a list of the providers most worthy of hosting your portfolio, side project, or application. Click the links below to skip ahead to the section that is most relevant to you.

Best “Overall” Hosting for Developers

Although taking a gamble on a little-known, newly launched hosting company can end up being a jackpot, most developers should stick with a tried-and-true provider that provides plenty of stability. Sleep well knowing the company won’t suddenly go out of business or be acquired by a conglomerate that moves your files to lower-quality hardware and support services. Those reputable hosts are also more likely to provide prompt around-the-clock support, top-notch performance, reliable uptime, increased security, and added perks such as a free domain registration, automated backups, or solid-state drives.

Although many developers are perfectly served by high-end, upgraded shared hosting plans, we recommend the scalability and dedicated resources that come with a virtual private server, or VPS. You’ll get more control over a larger slice of a better server — that means getting exactly the coding environment you want with guaranteed resources and improved page load speeds.

Our favorite VPS host below makes server management exceedingly easy with the ability to add and allocate computing resources and featuring high rates of availability-boosting redundancy. Be sure to read our full review to get the full picture of the managed services, security systems, and developer-friendly tools included to help your project succeed.

1. Kamatera.com

• Monthly Starting Price $4.00
• Cloud VPS that’s more flexible and affordable
• Load balancer, firewall, and managed services
• Premium Intel CPUs with 300% more power
• Choose between monthly or hourly billing
• Sign up today for a 30-day FREE trial

Best “Cheap” Hosting for Developers

It’s OK. We know that no matter the programming languages or features you need in a hosting plan, affordability is ultimately king — especially for individual developers starting projects with razor-thin margins. Finding a bargain on a high-performing host enables developers to more readily reinvest in their project, whether the money goes toward more computing resources or another pizza to fuel the late-night coding sessions.

Although plenty of free hosting options exist for risk-free experimentation with new ideas, we tend to be a little leery. Here, we’ve balanced with might-as-well-be-free companies that offer upgraded services, support, and a surprising number of features for less than $5 per month.

If your new idea for a website or application has any traction, you’ll want to sign up for a hosting plan that can grow along with you. Doing so eliminates the hassles of searching for another host and migrating from substandard free hosting infrastructure.

For just a few dollars per month, developers can enjoy added support for languages, higher uptime guarantees, 24/7 technical assistance, extra computing resources, and plenty of add-on or included services, including free domain registrations, unlimited email accounts, and access to upgraded security protections or a content delivery network. Here are our three favorite hosts based on affordability; all the companies listed below offer a prime cost-benefit ratio.

4. Hostinger.com

• Monthly Starting Price $1.99
• Unlimited everything, from storage to databases
• FREE site builder & WP performance upgrades
• FREE daily or weekly backups
• Custom control panel and auto-installation scripts
• SSH access & unlimited FREE SSL certificates

5. IONOS.com

• Monthly Starting Price $1.00
• $1/month for 6 months
• No hidden costs or fees
• Easy setup and 24/7 expert support
• FREE domain or transfer, plus FREE SSL certificate
• Unlimited storage and databases with most plans

6. HostArmada.com

• Monthly Starting Price $2.49
• FREE cPanel integration and Softaculous apps
• Auto daily backups and web application firewall
• Reliable and redundant cloud servers
• FREE SSL encryption and website migration
• 99.99% uptime guarantee

Best “WordPress” Hosting for Developers

Even though WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system, developers have a strongly polarized love/hate relationship with the open-source publishing platform. According to StackOverflow’s 2017 developer survey, only 35.5% of developers said they loved WordPress, compared to 64.5% who dreaded using the system.

Despite the perceived security concerns and bloated code, the WordPress platform offers a no-brain-required installation and setup process and is among the best at providing a fast and efficient way to launch complex websites. What’s more, countless developers can make money by crafting and selling themes and plugins.

The powerful system is available for free and comes with one of the internet’s most vibrant online user communities for support and inspiration. The key to a successful WordPress experience is finding hosting providers that are best equipped to handle the platform’s quirks. For example, SSDs mitigate any performance concerns while free SSL certificates and automatic backups reduce most worries about security. The hosts below cover these features and more, occasionally even being endorsed by the team behind the core WordPress code.

7. Bluehost.com

• Monthly Starting Price $2.95
• Recommended by WordPress.org since 2005
• Automatic WordPress updates and initial install
• FREE WordPress themes in the Bluehost Marketplace
• 24/7 support via live chat, phone, and email
• Get exclusive discounts on WordPress plans

8. SiteGround.com

• Monthly Starting Price $2.99
• Officially endorsed by WordPress.org
• FREE migration plugin or automated installation
• Pre-installed Git, 3 caching levels, and FREE CDN
• FREE WP setup wizard, staging, and auto-updates
• Fast, 24/7 support via custom chat system

9. Hostinger.com

• Monthly Starting Price $2.99
• 1-click WP install, PHP 7+, HTTP/2, and NGINX
• All-in-one security protections from BitNinja
• WordPress optimizations boost performance
• No price markup for WordPress services
• Daily backups and FREE SSL certificate

Best “Cloud” Hosting for Developers

A close cousin to VPS hosting, cloud hosting involves virtualized server space and computing resources that come from a wide network of machines, as opposed to one physical server. As such, availability and rapid scalability are vastly improved in cloud hosting. Users pay only for the resources consumed, as opposed to the flat rates in VPS plans.

Business research firm Gartner expects the worldwide cloud industry to grow 18% in 2017, with cloud adoption strategies and decisions predicted to influence more than half of organizations’ IT outsourcing decisions. The flexibility, scalability, and cost benefits of cloud hosting make the service particularly appealing to developers and startups looking to maximize innovation and business growth.

Perhaps surprisingly to some, developers don’t need to turn to the massive and often difficult-to-understand Amazon, Google, or Microsoft cloud platforms to capitalize on the same advantages. Many traditional hosting providers actually build their VPS services using cloud-powered infrastructure. By choosing one of the companies below, you’ll be able to enjoy the personal support and included perks not typically found with the massive cloud platforms.

8. Kamatera.com

• Monthly Starting Price $4.00
• Ultimate scalability with limitless customizations
• Create and deploy servers in 60 seconds
• Easily add load balancers and firewalls
• Stellar 99.95% uptime guarantee
• Sign up today for a 30-day FREE trial

9. IONOS.com

• Monthly Starting Price $4.00
• Auto scaling with premium Intel processors
• Customized operating systems (Linux or Windows)
• Deploy Linux instances in less than 1 minute
• SSD infrastrucutre optimized for your software
• Transparent costs and by-the-minute billing

10. Cloudways.com

• Monthly Starting Price $7.50
• Managed cloud hosting with 24/7/365 monitoring
• Choose from 5 popular cloud providers
• Auto-healing cloud servers with FREE backups
• 3-day free trial with no credit card required
• Host unlimited apps with no contract lock-in

Best “ASP.NET” Hosting for Developers

Much of the hosting realm consists of server-friendly, Linux-based operating systems, as only about a third of all sites use Windows. However, Microsoft’s open-source, server-side programming language ASP.NET is second only to PHP in terms of usage.

Although Windows hosting plans might be harder to find, their presence is usually a sign of a knowledgeable hosting provider willing to go the extra mile to provide the services its customers are seeking. Keep an eye out for which frameworks and versions the host supports, in addition to the standard uptime, storage, bandwidth, and memory metrics. The best providers, especially the one we are featuring below, will give developers’ dynamic sites plenty of storage and database resources to grow and thrive.

Best “Java” Hosting for Developers

Although rumors constantly swirl about the decline of Java, the object-oriented programming language still remains at the forefront of Android mobile development and enterprise applications. Java has topped the TIOBE Index, which measures the popularity of programming languages, for more than 15 years.

Although most hosting platforms support Java, developers will appreciate hosts that offer special features and compatibilities that demonstrate experience in providing the best environment to run dynamic Java websites and applications. For example, look for companies that support Java Servlet Pages (JSP) and/or Apache Tomcat, as well as access to server resources, ample RAM, and several application and service frameworks. Our favorite host for Java, listed below, meets the criteria and adds on high-powered servers and responsive, reliable support.

10. Hostinger.com

• Monthly Starting Price $3.99
• Tomcat and JSP support on all VPS plans
• Full-service hosting on Windows or Linux
• Full root access with dedicated IPv4 and IPv6
• Deep knowledgebase of guides and how-tos
• Launch your app for less than $4 per month

Best “PHP” Hosting for Developers

Far and away the most popular server-side scripting language, PHP helps developers create everything from dynamic web content to client-side graphical user interfaces, often by interfacing with relational database management systems. As long as LAMP stacks continue to enjoy a stranglehold on the web hosting industry, PHP — alongside Linux, Apache, and MySQL — will be well represented and supported with optimized servers and solutions.

When looking for the prime PHP host to house your website or application, keep an eye out for which versions of the language are supported, and how seamlessly you can switch between the various options.

We appreciate hosts that regularly update their services to provide the latest technologies, while still giving customers the option to choose the configuration that works best for their specific needs. The hosting company below excels at this, while also including ample MySQL databases and a wide range of PHP-powered content management systems and other applications.

11. Hostinger.com

• Monthly Starting Price $1.99
• Support for Laravel, Symfony, and CodeIgniter
• Easy PHP version control makes updating simple
• Access manager lets you work with other devs
• Deploy applications directly from Git repository
• High-performance servers with 99.9% uptime

Managed Services: Skip Server Maintenance and Get Back to Coding

Interestingly, the more I learn about web hosting, the less I actually want to do. That’s not to say I’m signing off from the hosting world — rather, I’m much more inclined to work with hosts that offer top-tier managed services and hands-on attention. The extra support gives me more time to develop and less time updating the software and applications powering my hosting environment.

As your project grows, consider upgrading to managed services to capitalize on your host’s technical expertise, which often leads to improved reliability and increased security. Many of the top managed service providers will optimize your infrastructure and software configurations to eke out precious page load time savings. Managed hosting is particularly useful — and almost necessary — at the dedicated server level, though virtual and cloud server options are available if you look hard enough.

Across the industry, we’ve also noticed a particularly strong uptick in the number of hosting providers offering managed WordPress hosting services. We’re huge managed WordPress fans when the host makes a genuine effort to optimize a user’s WordPress experience with high-performing SSDs and added security measures, along with multiple caching layers and plugins. However, be sure to watch for hosts looking to capitalize on the WordPress buzz and popularity by offering so-called managed services that essentially repackage the same features as the standard shared plans.

Regardless of whether you choose a managed or unmanaged service, kick your feet up and settle in behind your computer for the long haul of developing your next big website or application. The right provider and plan will take care of the rest.