Best Linux Hosting Providers for 2024
If you are looking for a Linux web hosting provider but have no idea where to start, no worries, as today, we will provide you with all you need to know to get the best Linux hosting.
While it may feel like Linux is not a niche operating system, you would be shocked to know that about 96% of the top 1 million websites run on Linux-based servers. This free and open-source (FOSS) operating system also powers 70% of all known websites.
So, it makes sense that most of the hosting is actually Linux hosting whether you need shared or VPS hosting. Additionally, using cPanel to manage the hosting platform makes it easier to handle the Linux platform.
Now, let’s see what this is all about.
Our Picks for the Best Linux Hosting Services
- Hostinger
- Cloudways
- SiteGround
- HostPapa
- A2 Hosting
- DreamHost
- Bluehost
- Liquid Web
- InMotion
What is Linux Server Hosting?
Much like Windows and macOS, Linux is just another operating system that acts as an interface between computer hardware and a human user. The OS also acts as a virtual environment for applications and programs.
The world’s top 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world use Linux.
Linux server hosting meanwhile is any type of web hosting using Linux as its operating system. Due to being more flexible, reliable, and secure than other operating systems, Linux is popular for web hosting. Additionally, Linux hosting is the only hosting service that supports cPanel web hosting.
Not just organizations but also individuals can access Linux web hosting due to it being one of the cheapest types of hosting services for small businesses.
Linux server hosting is user-friendly and offers a high level of security that allows its users to share between multiple servers. Its users often rely on cPanel to manage web development tasks. That’s why hosting providers offer this third-party application in their packages.
Why use a Linux Hosting Provider for Your Business
Linux is the most common server choice for most people, especially if you are running a small business or simply blogging. As stated above, it is a free, open-source OS that is simpler to maintain and requires less upkeep.
As such, whether you’re looking for a simple shared web hosting or a powerful dedicated server, you’ll get a Linux-based option first.
This means, Linux web hosting is a cheaper service compared to a Windows Server, which is owned by Microsoft requiring web hosting services to license it, who then pass this additional cost onto users. So, if you’re looking to save money, Linux is the best choice. But of course, if you need Windows Server-specific features, the extra cost may be necessary.
Not only is it better with stability, but Linux also handles more functions without issue and doesn’t require reboots nearly as often. Linux hosting further offers easier access to site-creation tools, such as HTTP web server Apache, the Python programming languages, and the Node.js JavaScript environments.
There are numerous applications available to get the best of Linux, which is particularly suitable for PHP, Perl, or MySQL. Not to mention, it is highly secure against malware and cyber threats.
While there is no one-size-fits-all solution as your hosting decision depends on your needs, if you’re just starting your web hosting journey or creating a blog, you’ll do just fine with Linux server hosting.
What to Look for in a Linux Hosting Service
Different providers offer different plans and packages, starting from shared hosting to dedicated servers, to accommodate both beginners and experts with varying storage and bandwidth, as well as additional features.
Uptime Guarantees: Stay Online Always
Many Linux hosting companies provide an uptime guarantee, usually between 99.9% and 99.99%, that showcases their reliability. Extensive outages are not good for your business and can cost you customers and revenue. Some hosting providers often reimburse you for your downtime with a free month of hosting.
Resources: Bandwidth that Grows
A lot of Linux web hosting plans offer unlimited resources in terms of bandwidth and disk space that can be beneficial in case of sudden and unexpected spikes in traffic. But just because it says unlimited, doesn’t mean there isn’t any limit at all. As your website starts to grow, you may need to upgrade to a VPS or dedicated server plan, which are more expensive but provide allocated bandwidth and disk space exclusively for your use.
Additional Features: Domain, Email, and More
When considering hosting providers for Linux, it’s crucial to consider what else you’re getting with their hosting packages, such email features, and eCommerce functionality. Some even offer a free domain or the option to purchase one separately. A registered domain is needed before you put up your website online.
Control Panel: Say YES to Ease-of-use
Not everyone who has a website is experienced in this area, especially if you are a blogger or a small business owner. As such, the host you go for must provide a user-friendly control panel. This feature allows you to select tools, manage your websites, view statistics, access your email accounts, and conduct numerous other critical tasks.
Customer Support: Availability is Key
Another factor to look for in a provider is qualitative customer support, which is available for free and 24/7 via phone or live chat. It will be particularly helpful if you are completely new to hosting and don’t have much technical knowledge. An organized knowledge base of help articles and FAQs can be of great help too.
Best Linux Hosting Providers
Let’s look at some of the best Linux hosting service providers.
Hostinger
One of the cheapest ways to host your website, Hostinger’s shared plans start at just $2.59 per month, while the most expensive is still $3.99/month. Despite low prices, it has an uptime of 100% and an average response time of 511ms, making it a reliable hosting provider.
With its servers located worldwide, you can pick any of the seven server locations based on how close it is to you, and the closer the server, the better the performance of your site.
For enhanced performance, Hostinger uses a technology called LiteSpeed Web Server, which also delivers caching solutions so that your site is speedy. By combining LiteSpeed with the ability to choose the best location that Hostinger can offer the best possible performance.
All of its plans get you a free SSL certificate, email accounts, automatic backups, GIT access, and LiteSpeed Cache. While the entry plan comes with 30GB SSD storage and offers 100GB bandwidth, the premium plan allows you to connect up to 100 websites and has 100GB SSD storage which further increases to 200GB SSD storage in its business plan.
Pros
- Affordable – low promotional prices
- Many scalable options
- Free backups
Cons
- No live chat or phone support
- No dedicated hosting plan
- Free domain not included with entry-level plan
Cloudways
Cloudways is a great managed hosting service for non-technical users. You essentially get a professional and reliable 99.99% uptime website without needing a full team to manage it. Whether you are starting from scratch or migrating a previous site, Cloudways makes it easy with 1-click deployment, a strong customer support team, and free first-site migration that they guarantee won’t break upon moving. At $10 per month for the base plan, you get 25GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, 1TB of bandwidth, and 1 core processor.
Along with regular security patching, they offer various strong security features including OS-level firewalls, Bot Protection, IP Whitelisting, two-factor authentication, and free built-in SSL encryption. Cloudways also provides server monitoring of key site metrics like incoming traffic, idle CPU, and reads per second, helping you assess your site performance needs. Once you’re ready to scale your operations, be sure to opt for their Cloudflare Enterprise add-on to receive Cloudflare’s Web Application Firewall and advanced DDoS protection.
Cloudways gives you access to a global network of 150+ data centers with the additional option to use the StackPath CDN (content delivery network) for extra access to the global network of 65+ PoPs (points-of-presence). Loading times for pages are remarkable fast due to the combination of Apache, Memcached, Varnish, and Nginx technologies. Cloudspace focuses on many kinds of clients but is particularly great for eCommerce and WordPress based sites, with many tools built specifically for those niches. Their entire managed cloud hosting infrastructure has been optimized for speed, security, and reliability.
Try it for 3 days without a credit card and see if it’s a good fit!Pros
- Strong security features and performance
- Great for beginners looking to scale
- Easy 1-click deployment
- Pricing is pay-as-you-go (cancel anytime)
- Try it for 3-days without a credit card
Cons
- Managed hosting doesn’t allow root access
- No root access
SiteGround
SiteGround’s Linux shared hosting plan starts with $6.99/month and there is a 30-days money-back guarantee for you to try and see if the service works for you.
Its Linux hosting plan gets you unlimited emails and databases, cPanel, SSH access, Cloudflare integration, HTTP/2-enabled servers, and 24/7 technical support via live chat, phone, and a ticket system.
By prioritizing security, SiteGround offers a free auto-renewing SSL certificate and a Let’s Encrypt integration along with constant monitoring to ensure your server is free from any malicious attacks. Free automatic daily backups are also offered with a button within your control panel to restore your site’s older versions with just one click.
Pros
- Powerful features
- Technical expertise provided
- Free automatic daily backups
Cons
- A pricey option
- No VPS or dedicated hosting plan
- Limited storage space on starter plans
HostPapa
Hostpapa is a Canadian hosting company that has expanded into the US market and offers shared, reseller, and VPS hosting services.
It has a three-tiered pricing scheme for its shared hosting plan starting at $5.99 per month but needs a 36 months commitment. After that, the prices go up to $18.99 per month. You can, however, take advantage of its 30-day money-back guarantee.
Each shared plan includes free domain registration, access to their own website builder, Panda Cloud AntiSpam Protection, 1-click installs on over 300 common web apps via Softaculous, and cPanel control panel.
The starter package gets you 100GB disk space, unlimited bandwidth, SSD drives, 2 domains, 25 subdomains, and 25 MySQL databases, as well as $225 in marketing credits. While its business plan makes all your resources unlimited along with SEO and marketing assistance, it is the Business Pro plan that gets you domain privacy protection, domain SSL certificate, automated backup, SiteLock Basic, and dedicated IP address.
Pros
- Unlimited disk space and data transfer
- Free domain name and SSL
- 24/7 available support team
Cons
- Comparatively pricey option
- Limited data center locations
- Automatic backups only available as a premium service
A2 Hosting
The shared hosting plans of A2 Hosting start from just $2.99 and come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. In this plan, you get to host unlimited websites, free site transfer, free HackScan with restore options, and optimized plugins, as well as pre-installed OPcache and Memcached caching.
Through its Turbo hosting platform, which boasts fewer users per server, pre-configured caching options, and twice the allocated physical memory, it promises page load speeds up to 20 times faster than average.
Its cheap Linux hosting package further includes a free Cloudflare content delivery network and multiple SSD speed boost solutions. In its cPanel control panel, you will find Softaculous, featuring 1-click installations of popular web applications.
A2 further promises a 100% uptime, a knowledgeable support team that is available 24/7/365, as well as virus scanning and defense against brute-force attacks.
Pros
- Unlimited bandwidth and disk space
- 24/7 personal help and support
- Free site transfer, website migrations, and data backup
Cons
- Restrictions on its cheapest plan
- Turbo servers available only in higher-tier plans
- No domain name is available
DreamHost
There are only two plans that DreamHost offers; the starter one costs $2.59/month while unlimited is for $3.95/month. While these plans require 3-year subscriptions, monthly plans are still cheap at $1.99/month and $2.99/month, respectively.
These plans come with a free domain for a year, unlimited traffic, domain privacy, automated backups, free automated WordPress migrations, a website builder, and free SSL certificates. But while in the starter pack, you can only host one website and have 50GB SSD storage, in the unlimited pack, as the name suggests, you don’t have a limit on resources. In addition, you can create as many email accounts as you want at no extra charge, while in the entry plan it would cost you $1.67/month per account.
One of its biggest advantages is its ease of use, and even a beginner can handle its native control panel just fine. This is where you get access to the one-click installs, WP website builder, emails, backup and restore tool, as well as domain management.
DreamHost’s protective measures consist of domain privacy, Web Application Firewall, and automated backups to help you defend against the most common threats.
Pros
- Cheap renewal plan
- Scalability options available
- Easy to use
Cons
- No support via live chat or phone
- No cPanel
- Expensive dedicated servers
Bluehost
Bluehost is particularly known for hosting WordPress websites and is a great beginner-friendly provider through its user-centered tools. There are four plans for you to choose from. The Basic will cost you $2.95/month, while Pro is for $13.95/month. Both Plus and Choice Plus have an initial price of $4.95/month.
All four plans come with unmetered bandwidth, free SSL certificates, one domain free for one year, and free CDN. But while in Basic, you get 50GB SSD storage compared to unlimited in Plus, which also includes free Office 365 for 30 days. For privacy, Choice Plus is a good one thanks to domain privacy and automated backups free for one year.
Bluehost also offers a staging area to test any new features or changes you want to implement without making them live for your visitors. As a Linux hosting provider, Bluehost promises an uptime of 99.99% and an average response time of 361ms.
Its simple native management panel is easy to navigate, install WordPress, and manage your sites from there. cPanel further allows for more advanced changes like changing PHP versions or accessing databases but is still just as easy to navigate.
Pros
- Low prices
- WordPress-specific features
- Support across email, phone, and live chat
Cons
- Free SSL is only available with higher tier plan
- No free site transfer
- Beginner-friendly native dashboard and cPanel may be too simple for some
Liquid Web
Liquid Web is known for flexibility via its in-depth low-level control over your server specifications. Its plans meanwhile consist of self-managed, core-managed, and fully-managed variations.
Because all of the available Linux hosting options on Liquid Web are fully managed, it is an expensive option whose VPS server hosting starts from $25/month, and the most expensive one for Linux can go as high as $105/month.
Here, you also get to choose just how many daily backups you’d like to retain as you have the option to squeeze all the backups into a defined amount of disk space. Both the options will cost you $0.08 per GB per month, which means you pay for whatever you use. To administer your server, there’s a cPanel while Plesk offers cleaner and an easy-to-navigate interface.
If you choose Liquid Web for Linux hosting, you get round-the-clock support and an average uptime of 100%. Their average response time meanwhile has been 241ms.
Pros
- Choice of OS
- Server protection
- Fully-managed cloud hosting
Cons
- Above-average prices
- No shared hosting
- Limited data center locations
InMotion
For Linux hosting, InMotion offers you impressive shared and VPS Linux hosting plans. At $4.99 a month for the three-year plan, it is pretty cost-effective for small websites.
The shared hosting plan includes features like free website migration, a bundled website builder, and regular backups for beginners, while support for MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, PHP 7, Ruby, Perl, and Python, and SSH access will surely make it attractive to more experienced users.
If you want to upgrade, its optional self-managed cloud VPS hosting starts from $5 a month for the one-year term. Here, you get a choice of OS and a firewall, and once the term is over, you’re able to install, optimize and configure the server however you like. Its managed VPS hosting also gives you root access for low-level control.
Besides the option to have WordPress, PrestaShop, or Joomla preinstalled, there’s WP-CLI to manage multiple WordPress installations from the command line.
Pros
- Unlimited bandwidth and disk space
- Free backups, SSL, and domain
- Excellent support
Cons
- An expensive option
- Only US servers
- Uptime guarantee of just 99.9%
Do You Need to Understand Linux before using a Linux Hosting Provider?
No, you do not need any prior knowledge of the complex Linux operating system before using a Linux hosting provider. And even if you have used a Windows or MacOS computer to build your site, you can choose a Linux server.
Your hosting provider will be the one doing all the work for you regarding updates, security, backup, and technical and administrative maintenance, while other tasks like integrating your content can be performed via a special management interface with ease.
Does Linux cPanel Work on WordPress?
cPanel is an online Linux-based graphical interface (GUI) that you can use to manage WordPress websites. This popular control dashboard can simplify website and server management and is used by web hosts to help users manage their hosting panel. cPanel is a third-party application that requires no advanced technical knowledge and allows you to publish websites, manage domains, organize web files, and create email accounts, as well as manage MySQL databases and generate site backups.
What’s the Difference Between Linux Hosting and Windows Hosting?
Linux hosting is the most popular hosting service in the industry, which is compatible with PHP and MySQL and supports scripts like WordPress, phpBB, and Zen Cart. Because Linux is a free, open-source system, unlike Windows, which is sold by a for-profit company Microsoft, it is much cheaper than Windows hosting.
Windows hosting meanwhile uses Windows as the servers’ operating system and offers Windows-specific technologies such as .NET, ASP, Microsoft Access, and Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL).
Final Word: Low Costs and Great Security Features
Due to its security, Linux hosting is a good option if you’re starting a blog or have an eCommerce website. So, people who set up a website for the first time will enjoy the cheap services offered by Linux web hosting providers. Some hosts even throw in features like a firewall, mail server, and private DNS, along with quality support to keep your site up and running.
Overall, Linux server hosting is a low-cost web hosting service that is perfect for those with simple hosting needs. Besides choosing an account with allocated web space and bandwidth for your simpler needs, Linux hosting also caters to experienced users through a preferred distro or control panel that provides more control over the server and its components.
