I’ve been working in WordPress for just under a decade and have recommended a lot of website hosting providers. These are some I’ve struggled with and ones I recommend and why. Personal experience.
Hosts I recommend
WP Engine: regardless of the drama that wasn’t caused by them, they’re the most profitable host in WordPress. I’ve seen low to no issues for my clients on WP Engine. No news is good news. Just remember this is a host that LOVES auto updates. So don’t build anything too breakable. Somewhere in the $30/month range for starting out.
TangibleXP: As a developer this host is 10/10. If you need premium web hosting that’s developer friendly. Made by developers for developers, this is your choice. I’ve put many clients on TangibleXP in the last year and have had 0 complaints or emergencies.
Hosts I’m not recommending currently
If you’re on GoDaddy, Bluehost, HostGator, Network Solutions, or any strange companies associated with these businesses, consider your life choices carefully. If you want an LMS or membership website, you may have made a complicated and support-intensive decision. If you’re doing simple eCommerce or a static website, you’re mostly going to be fine. Just don’t get complicated with it. These hosts in my experience struggle with complexity. (Pagely excluded owned by GoDaddy. I’ve heard good things from Pagely premium subscribers)
Hostinger: I use Hostinger as of the time of writing this post. I experienced complications with my site while migrating that the support can’t explain to me. So if you’re migrating to Hostinger (not building from scratch), I might consider an alternative. But for the price point, it’s hard to do so. It’s one of those $100/year for your first year kind of deals and then year 2 it turns into somewhere in the ballpark of $470.40/year which is maybe outside the scope of what you’re looking for on budget hosting.
SiteGround: I work with LMS platforms and membership websites. SiteGround has been bad every time I’ve worked with any LMS on SiteGround. Maybe if you’re doing just a blog you could survive. I have 1 client left on SiteGround and she has a simple eCommerce + LifterLMS site but we hit up their support once a quarter with something gone wrong and she’s willing to take every single upgrade deal they offer (malware protection, etc). Those constant upgrade offers annoy me. And they have a similar pricing model to Hostinger.
Pressidium: I used to recommend Pressidium highly, but I’ve been frustrated lately by how I can’t edit the wp-config.php file which is important as a developer for troubleshooting. They have their own wp-config-pressidium.php and you can’t edit it. As a developer I’m not bringing clients onto Pressidium now-a-days due to the complications with LMS on their lower tier packages and how it’s harder as a freelance developer working on troubleshooting. They do offer very fast support, just not always in the right direction.
Conclusion
I recommend a simple website on simple hosting. If you want your life to be easy, then focus your business efforts on creative things outside of the tech. You don’t want your website to be your biggest pain the a$$ when you’re trying to build or scale a business.
You’re going to have many pains to deal with, don’t let your website be one of them.
These should be your pains: https://wpcourseguide.com/what-you-should-be-worried-about/