You’ve made the decision to launch your own internet store. Hooray! But how can you pick the best e-commerce hosting provider for you when there are so many available?
Selecting the incorrect e-commerce host may leave you frustrated or with a website that performs poorly.
Fortunately, if you know what to look for, the decision is rather straightforward.
What is ecommerce hosting? And how does it compare to an ecommerce platform?
Hosting refers to where you store the code files necessary to make your ecommerce website work. The code files themselves are called the ecommerce platform.
The best way to picture this is to imagine a car in a garage. The car is the platform, and the garage is the host. You can put any vehicle model in your garage—BMW, Mustang, Chevrolet, Ford, Mercedes, Fiat.
The platform is your ecommerce vehicle. It provides the functionality through programming code that enables typical ecommerce features such as:
- Displaying products
- Uploading products to sell and changing their descriptions and prices
- Accepting credit card payments
- Sending transactional emails
- Shopping cart functionality
- Login and user accounts
The host is where those code files are stored.
ASPHostPortal
ASPHostPortal is a specialist Windows ASP.NET hosting provider that also provides Linux shared hosting plans plus cloud hosting, reseller hosting, email hosting, and associated services such as domain registration.
This company markets itself as the “#1 Recommended Windows and ASP.NET Spotlight Hosting Partner in the United States,” and it hosts more than 50,000 websites. It has been in business for over a decade, and it has 12 data centers across Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia. Its website is in English.
I love that ASPHostPortal is an all-in-one solution for web hosting. If you’re starting a new website from scratch, you can get everything you need under one roof from ASPHostPortal.
Plans also come with a one-click WordPress installation, a free SSL certificate, and 24/7 support. ASPHostPortal is known for providing some of the best support options among web hosting providers—you can always connect with a real human whenever you have questions.
Look, WordPress is the best platform for building a site, adding and managing site content, and customizing the look and feel of your home on the web. We always recommend WordPress over other options if you’re looking for freedom and reliability.
So, with ASPHostPortal you get a drag-and-drop WordPress builder (which is easier to use if you’re not already acquainted with building on WordPress) and more than 300 templates. You can get up and running on day one with no technical experience required.
Nexcess
Nexcess has the high-performance features you need to build and scale an online store. It offers managed hosting, VPS, and dedicated servers, but for e-commerce, the managed WooCommerce hosting is a particularly attractive option.
All managed WooCommerce plans come with website staging, no traffic limits, and plenty of premium features to help maximize your sales. You can even take advantage of a no-credit-card-required 14-day free trial before you commit to a plan.
Although slightly more expensive than the industry average, Nexcess’s managed e-commerce plans deliver outstanding value. Its premium features are worth hundreds of dollars and make managing your online store easy.
What’s more, Nexcess guarantees 100% power and network uptime, which is higher than the industry standard. When we tested it, it scored really highly for reliability, too. You can also create as many collaborator accounts as you need, which is useful if you have a team working on your site.
Kamatera
Kamatera’s versatility allows you to create an e-commerce hosting environment perfectly suited to your needs. If you want complete control of your server and resources, Kamatera should be your top pick. Its hosting plans are cloud-based, delivering the speed and reliability you need for an online store.
With Kamatera, you can design affordable, high-performing cloud hosting plans with however much storage, RAM, and CPU you need. This way, you’re not paying for resources you don’t use. There’s a 30-day free trial available, too.
While it has many interesting features, one downside with Kamatera is that it doesn’t include managed services in its base prices. This means you will have to pay extra if you want Kamatera’s team to maintain and monitor your e-commerce infrastructure.
How to choose the best ecommerce hosting solution
To decide which ecommerce hosting solution is best, you need to consider:
- Costs
- Scalability
- Your level of technical expertise
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Your level of design skills
