Web Hosting India: My Favourite Hosting Solutions for Indian Blogs and Web Properties

In this article titled web hosting India, I will tell you everything you need to know about the best web hosting companies in India where you can host your blogs and websites for competitive prices.

I am sure by the end of this article you will have a clear picture of what to look for when choosing the best host for your online business in India.

Not all of these companies are located in India, but they all offer great service and support for Indians. Most of these hosting companies I mention below are popular worldwide.

We the Indians are a bit choosy than our western blogger friends when it comes to selecting the best web hosting service for our blogs and websites. Most of the newbie bloggers in India want a cheap hosting provider, which gives good performance and great support.

But we should always remember that ‘we get what we paid for’. If we are only keen on buying cheap hosting in India, we may end up getting only that and may miss out on the quality and performance that we expect from a good web hosting company.

So in the web hosting India list below I have tried to manage a proper balance between the prices and the performances.

These are all great web hosting solutions available in India which are especially useful for beginner and intermediate level bloggers and webmasters.

A Word of Caution

Now before proceeding further, I want you to remember one thing about the pricing structure of the hosting plans that are being mentioned below. Most hosting companies usually show you the pricing per month basis, which usually is very minimal. The plans appear cheaper at first glance.

But what I want you to know is that the cheapest price will only be applicable for you, if you sign up for one or two years or more, of their hosting plan. If you decide to pay on a monthly basis, the per month price may change accordingly. BTW this rule doesn’t apply to the Kinsta hosting mentioned below.

Web Hosting India: Here Are My Favourite Web Hosts in India

Kinsta Hosting

Kinsta is at the top of my web hosting India list. Most of the Indians may not be aware of this company. But Kinsta is presently one of the top hosting companies in the world (for WordPress only).

Kinsta is powered by the Google Cloud Platform. So they are well known for their blazing speeds and performances. Their support too is excellent. In fact, I am planning to switch my websites to Kinsta hosting very soon.

Kinsta isn’t your typical shared hosting plan. It’s a managed WordPress hosting. Earlier their plans were considered out of reach for the newbie bloggers with a limited budget. But recently they introduced a new plan that is best suited for new bloggers with less than 20,000 visitors per month, to their web properties.

Kinsta Pricing

Kinsta’s starter plan may cost you around $30 per month. One more amazing feature about Kinsta web hosting is that all the plans come with a similar feature set but in different capacities. What it means is that you don’t have to upgrade to a higher plan just to get a feature. That’s just awesome.

You can have a look at their complete pricing structure and features from here.

Data Centers Around the Globe

Kinsta has 20 data centers around the globe. So you can choose a data center near to your target audience. If you are planning to target the visitors in the US choose one of the many data centers in the US or if you are planning to target the Indian audience choose the data center in Mumbai for faster speeds.

Excellent Security and Performance Features

The state of the art technologies like Nginx, PHP 7.3, LXD software containers, and MariaDB load your WordPress websites at lightning speeds.

Kinsta also offers free site migrations, free SSL and CDN, staging areas for developers, protection against hacking and more. They also provide free daily backups for your sites. So you don’t have to worry about paying for third-party services to back up your sites.

But if you are searching for a cheap hosting plan in India this may not be for you because the base plan itself will cost you around $30. In such a case I suggest you have a look at the other web hosting plans we have mentioned below.

Negatives

The only drawback of Kinsta hosting for some maybe it’s pricing. Then again if you are planning to build a real online business that pays you back for many more years to come, an investment of $30 per month shouldn’t bother you much.

Hostinger

If you want a cheap hosting in India which provides amazing speed Hostinger should be your choice. Hostinger is relatively a new player in the field of web hosting who have gained immense popularity very fast. Hostinger has special hosting deals for Indians too.
You can either sign up on their international website or choose to sign up on their Indian website.

As far as I know, the only difference is in the currency of transaction and the methods of payment. You can pay in Indian rupees and even choose the net banking option to pay the hosting fees on the Hostinger India website.

Plans, Pricing, and Features

Hostinger provides three types of hosting plans for their customers. Shared web hosting, cloud hosting and VPS hosting plans.

Their shared hosting plan is the cheapest of all the hosting services I mention on this page. Their basic plan is called Single Shared Hosting which at present costs $0.80 per month or ₹45. I am sure a standard hosting plan can’t get any cheaper than that. This plan allows you to host only one website and gives you 10GB of disc space and 100 GB of bandwidth.

If you want to host unlimited websites on Hostinger you can either choose the Premium plan, which costs $2.15(₹119) per month or the Business plan, that costs $3.45(₹189) per month. Both these plans offer you 20GB and 30GB disc space respectively.

But please remember that none of the shared hosting plans offer free SSL for your websites. They also don’t back up your site. If you want to avail all these features and some more, along with excellent speeds, go for Hostinger’s cloud hosting plan.

You have 3 plans to choose from their cloud hosting services. Cloud Startup which costs $7.45(₹409) per month, Cloud Professional that costs $14.95 (₹815) per month and the cloud enterprise that costs $27.45 (₹1,495) per month. All of these cloud hosting plans come with dedicated IPs and free SSLs.

All the discounted prices are only applicable when you sign up for a year or two. If you want to pay monthly, the pricing may vary.

Hostinger has data centers or servers in the US, Asia, and Europe. You can also chat with their support team in your local language if it is one of the 20 languages which Hostinger supports. With the Premium and the Business shared hosting plans you also get a free domain registration. Oh, and one more thing. You also get a free website builder with your hosting plan.

Negatives

One thing I noticed about Hostinger web hosting plan is that they don’t have the traditional cPanel. To be fair to the Hostinger team I don’t think it is a negative point. But as each person thinks differently, not having the classical cPanel may be a cause of concern for some. However, I also want to point out that the Hostinger provides you with a unique hPanel which is equally effective and easy to use.

SiteGround Web Hosting India

Siteground is currently in third place in my web hosting India list. [SiteGround lost the 2nd spot to Hostinger in my list of the best web hosting in India is only because it doesn’t have the payment option for debit cards. If you have a credit card or an international debit card and can afford to pay for SiteGround, this should be your 2nd choice, not the 3rd]

This is a premium quality hosting solution at a competitive price. If you can’t afford Kinsta hosting plan or if your website uses a CMS other than WordPress, SiteGround can be a good hosting solution for you. BTW Siteground is one of the few hosting companies that is recommended by WordPress itself.

This is a Bulgarian company which serves to customers around the globe and has data centers in many countries. SiteGround is one of the most popular web hosting companies among newbie and intermediate bloggers around the world right now. It is easy to use and pocket-friendly. It also offers great speed and support.

Siteground Plans and Pricing

At present Siteground offers 4 types of hosting solutions. They are Shared web hosting, managed WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting and cloud hosting.

If you are a beginner what you will be looking at is SiteGround’s shared hosting plan or managed WordPress hosting (For managed WP solutions I recommend Kinsta).

Pricing for shared hosting plans starts at $3.95/mo for the StartUp plan which supports only one website and can handle up to 10000 visitors per month.

Next level plan is the GrowBig plan that costs $5.95/month and can support unlimited websites and up to 25,000 visits monthly.

If you want to opt for the top end shared hosting plan choose the GoGeek plan which costs $11.95/month and can handle traffic up to 100,000 visits monthly. The GoGeek plan is also great for web developers because of its awesome developer-oriented features like PCI compliant servers, more server power, one-click Git Repo creation, etc.

Siteground’s cloud hosting plans can empty your wallet fast, with the basic plan starting at $80 per month. So I recommend you to choose the shared hosting plan if you decide to go with SiteGround.

Unique Features

If you are hosting WordPress sites on SiteGround, you get access to the dynamic caching feature that makes your site really fast.

Similar to the Kinsta hosting plan, you get access to the easy staging tool in SiteGround as well. But this is only available with the GrowBig & GoGeek plans.

Siteground’s hosting plan is well known for its security features. They manage the security of your sites at server and application levels. They also offer free Let’s Encrypt SSL for all your sites.

Data Centers

SiteGround has data centers spread across three continents. two in the US, two in Europe and one in Asia. So if your target audience is in India you can choose Asia’s data center for faster loading times. The Asian data center is situated in Singapore.

Negatives

The two main drawbacks of Siteground hosting plan according to me are the following.

No Monthly Plans

Yes, there are no monthly plans. You will have to buy the subscription for a year or more.

Renewal Costs May be Higher

The renewal costs are surprisingly higher. For example, the popular GrowBig plan that cost you $5.95/month will cost you $19.95/month at the time of renewal. Please keep this in mind while choosing the SiteGround hosting for your website.

A2 Hosting for India

A2 Hosting company is in operations since the year 2001. It may not be a very popular company but is a good one. They offer good hosting solutions with solid performances at a competitive price range.They have 4 data centers around the globe. 2 in the US, one in Europe and one in Asia.

If you want great speed and performance A2 Hosting is a good choice. They have the industry-leading numbers when it comes to the speed of websites hosted on their shared hosting plans.

Let’s have a look at the plans and the pricing for A2 Hosting.

Plans and Pricing

A2 Hosting company provides a range of hosting solutions. They are the shared hosting, VPS hosting, WordPress hosting, reseller hosting and dedicated hosting. We will have a look at only the shared hosting and WordPress hosting plans here.

The shared hosting plan has 3 tiered pricing structures which are the Lite, Swift and Turbo plans. The Lite plan may cost you around ₹203.45 per month, the Swift plan ₹254.37 per month and the Turbo plan ₹483.53 per month. The discounted prices may be only applicable when you sign up for a year or two. If you want to pay monthly, the pricing may vary.

The Lite plan supports only one website whereas the Swift and the Turbo plans can host unlimited websites. As the name suggests the Turbo plan also gives you access to the TURBO servers which can make your websites 20x faster.

The managed WordPress hosting plan on the A2 Hosting may cost you somewhere around 825 INR for one site. If you want to host 3 websites on the managed WordPress hosting plan it will cost you around 1306 Indian Rupees. For unlimited websites, it is around 2545 INR per month.

Salient Features of A2 Hosting

• Excellent speed and performance
• Free SSL certificates and SSD with all the plans
• Good customer support
• They also offer ANYTIME MONEY BACK GUARANTEE although I am not very sure about what that exactly means. I mean the terms and conditions.

Negatives

UpTime Issues

A2 Hosting is a good hosting company, but they have had issues with their UpTimes recently. Many customers had had problems with their servers going down for some time. I am sure they have resolved the problem until now.

Confusing pricing structure

I found their pricing structure a bit confusing. For example, the Turbo plan on the shared hosting plan should cost me around ₹1306.84 per month, if I choose to sign up for a monthly plan (Its ₹483.53 per month if I sign up for 2 years).

But when I went to the check out page for signing up for the Turbo plan the amount that was shown to me was ₹1719.75. I am not sure why they increased the price by around ₹450 per month on the billing page.

Overall A2 Hosting is a good company. If you are after speed and performance you can choose this hosting provider for India. But please make sure that you understand the pricing plan properly. You can always contact their support staff which by the way are known to be very responsive.

HostGator

This was one of my (and many others) favorite web hosting platforms until a few years back. Right now this may not be the best hosting provider on the net but is decent enough to make into my web hosting India top 6 list.

In fact, I host many of my niche websites on Hostgator shared hosting plan till today. But I am planning to migrate this website Vishicastle.com to KINSTA hosting in the near future.

HostGator is currently owned by EIG or the Endurance International Group which also owns many other hosting companies such as BlueHost, iPage and more. EIG is an IT service company that specializes in web hosting.

It has acquired numerous hosting companies recently and is currently a big player in the field of web hosting solutions (not necessarily the best?).

All of the hosting services we mentioned above (the top 4) are independent companies and are not a part of EIG.

Ok, let’s have a look at the plans and pricing offered by Hostgator.

Plans and Pricing

Shared Hosting Plans

HostGator International

The names of the HostGator plans are quite popular among the blogger community. I am sure you have heard at least a few of them in the past. Yes, they are the Hatchling Plan, Baby Plan, and the Business plan.

The Hatchling plan starts at $2.75/month, the Baby plan starts at $3.95/month and the Business plan starts at $5.95/month. I have hosted my niche websites currently under the Business hosting plan.

HostGator India

The HostGator also has special plans exclusively for Indians. The Hostgator India offers Linux and Windows shared hosting plans.

The Linux shared hosting has the starter, hatchling, baby and business plans. They cost ₹199, ₹399, ₹499 and ₹699 respectively. If you plan to sign up for 1 year or more, you can get a discounted plan up to 99 Indian Rupees per month. That’s really cheap.

You can also avail more discount using these HostGator India Coupon codes.

The windows hosting plan may cost you ₹299 /month for the starter plan, ₹459/month for the personal plan and ₹559/month for the enterprise plan.

Cloud Hosting

Their cloud hosting plans with similar plan names as shared hosting, start at $4.95/month, $6.57/month and $9.95/month respectively. For HostGator India, the pricing for the same plans is ₹559/month, ₹699/month, and ₹979/month when you sign up for two years.

Managed WordPress

HostGator International

HostGator also provides managed WordPress hosting. The starter plan starts at $5.95/month and can handle up to 100k visits per month. It can host 1 website.

The Standard Plan starts at $7.95/month and can handle up to 200k visits per month. This plan can host 2 of your websites.

And the last one is the Business Plan. It starts at $9.95/month and can handle up to 500k visitors per month. You can host up to 3 websites under this plan.

HostGator India

HostGator India offers 4 plans under the managed WordPress hosting. The starter plan for ₹499/month, performance plan for ₹599/month, business plan for ₹799/month and the professional plan for ₹999/month.

This is what I like about Hostgator

• They have outstanding uptimes. I haven’t experienced any downtimes with their hosting. Even the basic plans give you the greatest of uptimes.
• All the plans offer unmetered bandwidth. Even the basic ones. That’s just awesome
  One of the oldest players in the hosting game. And because of that, I am very familiar with their dashboard, cPanel and billing portals. I find it very easy to navigate and use.
• Straight forward billing

This Is What I Don’t Like About HostGator

• Pretty Average Support: I don’t know about the recent changes in this regard but I had an unpleasant experience when I contacted them around a year back asking for some technical help. The customer executive was highly ignorant even about the basic terms and technologies of hosting.
• Average speeds: Their loading speeds are good but not great. Other hosting companies we mentioned above have better speeds than the one you get with the HostGator shared hosting plan.

Verdict

When it comes to the HostGator cloud hosting, performance is great. The speeds have greatly improved too. I suggest you check out their cloud hosting plans if you are interested in using HostGator for your web hosting needs.

BTW when it is about HostGator shared hosting, I feel they are pretty decent and will not allow your website to go down. It’s a good hosting solution when you are at the beginning stages of your online business-building process. Ones you start to grow you can shift to a premium host if you want.

BlueHost Hosting in India

BlueHost hosting is another company that is owned by the EIG or the Endurance International Group. This is the last company in this web hosting India list that I recommend for your hosting needs. BlueHost is a good hosting company that can be especially useful for beginners.

BlueHost is a hosting company that is recommended by WordPress itself. Other two being SiteGround and DreamHost. BTW we don’t recommend Bluehost India hosting. If you want to sign up for BlueHost hosting please do so at the BlueHost international website.

Plans and Pricing

BlueHost offers three types of hosting plans. Shared hosting, VPS hosting, managed WordPress hosting and dedicated hosting.

The shared hosting plan has four plans to choose from, which are the basic plan, plus plan, choice plus plan, and the pro plan. They will cost you $3.95/month, $5.85/month, $5.95/month and $9.95/month respectively.

BlueHost also has a managed WordPress hosting plan which is offered as the basic plan for $3.95/month, as the plus plan for $5.45/month and as the Choice Plus plan for $5.45/month respectively.

Salient Features of BlueHost Hosting

• They are a good hosting platform for WordPress websites. And don’t forget that they are recommended by WordPress itself.
• BlueHost is very popular for its wide range of security features. Your websites can be very secure on their servers.
• All the plans offer you free SSL certificates.
• Cheaper pricing for initial plans
• Extensive collection of tutorial videos and a large knowledge base.
• BlueHost is known for its fast setup. You can be up and running within minutes after buying their hosting plan.

What I Did Not Like About BlueHost

• Average speeds
• Not a great uptime
• Average customer support
• Renewal charges may be higher
• At times, a lot of upsells.

Conclusion

I have included only the standard web hosting plans available in India, in this web hosting India list. I have deliberately eliminated many web hosting companies from this list which I thought were cheap but not up to the mark with regards to the quality of their hosting speed, performance, and customer support. BTW the one hosting I will be trying next for my websites is Kinsta. All the best to you.