Choosing the best WordPress host: 10 criteria

Choose a host for WordPress is a crucial decision that affects the performance, security and management of your sites. Whether you're rolling out new sites or changing your web host, we're going to look at the criteria that are really important if you don't want to be disappointed.

Here's my opinion, both biased and relevant, as a sysadmin expert in secure web hosting for WordPress. Relevant, because being an expert in the field, I know the real important criteria and have very high standards. Biased because, as a web host myself, the conflict of interest is obvious; nevertheless, I apply my own criteria to the services I offer and I host the LRob services myself with this same solution, which is proof that I find it completely relevant.

Difficulty in choosing a hosting provider

The main problem is that most hosting providers are opaque about their infrastructure, their security policy and their management. Their update policy is unknown. The policy for filling machines is unknown. The architecture of the machines is unknown... In short, little relevant information is provided. All that is often provided is the sales pitch.

We're talking about a technical service here, so we need precise technical information.

Without precise information, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to choose your web host with full knowledge of the facts. So you have to dig around until you find the ones that are transparent enough to tick all the boxes. And to help you and at the same time encourage the whole web hosting world to be more transparent, here are the 10 most important criteria to consider in my opinion.

We're off! 🚀🚀

Geographical location and peering

Importance of location

The geographical proximity of the servers to your main audience reduces latency and therefore improves loading times. Hosting located in Europe for a European audience, for example, will guarantee better performance. The closer the better. But that's not all: peering is even more important than raw distance.

Importance of peering

Peering« is the network interconnection between different Internet providers. In other words, the Internet network »pipes«.

Peering is carried out between server and network providers (datacenters, professional network providers, etc.) and Internet service providers (Orange, Bouygues, Free, SFR, etc.).

Good peering, with redundant connections and multiple points of presence (PoPs), provides greater resilience and fast response times, even in the event of heavy Internet traffic. In principle, this is the case for any solution hosted in a datacentre, but in practice it is more or less solid.

Furthermore, peering must be correctly sized to absorb even the biggest peaks in traffic, or even the biggest network attacks: the service must remain fluid in all circumstances.

Whichever web host you choose and where it is located, you need to make sure that it has an excellent interconnection with the major French public networks, to ensure optimum bandwidth both for your visitors' loading speed and for your own administration.

We know that France's interconnection with the United Kingdom is poor overall, but that Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands are very well connected to France.

However, this can vary according to each provider and ISP. In my experience, Free tends to be the least well connected, while Orange tends to be the best. Even between Free and OVH, which are both French, I've seen saturation during my most frequent downloads and back-ups. So even if you stay in France, good peering isn't guaranteed, but for sure, if you choose a server that's too far away like Latvia, latency and reliability will be affected.

Performance

Material resources

Opt for servers equipped with NVMe SSDs in RAID, which offer ultra-fast read/write speeds. The Redis cache also improves database performance.
La performance of your hosting is the guarantee of smooth visits: an asset for your SEO.

The importance of oversize

Oversized servers, which are not overloaded, guarantee constant performance. Avoid web hosts that overload their servers, as this can lead to slowdowns.

Support

Responsiveness and expertise

24/7 technical support is essential. Check response times and support availability. Incompetent support can turn a minor breakdown into a catastrophe.

Continuous monitoring

Proactive service monitoring allows you to detect and resolve problems before they affect your site. Make sure your web host offers this feature.

Ease of use and interface

Intuitive interfaces

A clear and intuitive user interface simplifies site management. Look for tools like the Plesk WordPress Toolkit, which make it easy to manage installations, updates and security configurations.

Automatic installations and updates

One-click installations and automatic WordPress updates reduce the risk of security breaches due to out-of-date versions.

Security

Advanced security measures

Make sure your web host offers firewalls, anti-bruteforce protection, vulnerability monitoring and daily backups. These measures protect your site against common attacks.

Regular back-ups

Regular, automated back-ups are essential if you are to be able to restore your site quickly in the event of a problem.

Improved management tools

Simplified management

Tools specific to WordPress, such as centralised dashboards for managing several sites, site cloning options for testing modifications, and staging tools are very useful.

Optimisation and caching

Caching plugins and optimisations specific to WordPress, such as appropriate server configurations, considerably improve the performance of your site.

Reliability and user experience

Reliability of major hosting providers

Even major hosting companies are not immune to major incidents. For example, OVH suffered a fire that affected a large number of sites. This kind of event underlines the importance of choosing a hosting provider with a good redundancy and disaster recovery policy.

Limits of large hosting providers

Large hosting providers can suffer from inertia, with obsolete systems and general security measures that are often inadequate. Choose a specialist host that offers solutions tailored to the specific needs of WordPress.

Conclusion

Choosing a web host for WordPress requires careful evaluation of a number of criteria: geographical location, performance, technical support, security, management tools and, increasingly, ecological impact.

Take the time to compare offers and check the opinions of other users to make an informed choice.

For an optimised, specialised and reliable solution, a eco-friendly accommodation, Consider web hosts as LROB which offer services tailored to WordPress with a particular focus on performance and security.