This is one of the articles that I write using email correspondence with my readers. Adam is using A2 Hosting Turbo plan and the server resources are not enough for his multiple websites. He does not know Linux and his budget is below $40/mo.
Shared hosting is too weak, managed VPS is too expensive. Is there a compromise?
Thank you so much for your quick responses.
I have, now, A2Hosting Turbo with added memory, I am looking for something bigger (in resources).
At A2Hosting they recommended a VPS, but it is quite expensive. They don’t have something midways.
I need something in the middle grounds, about $30 to $40 a month (to establish a line)…
The WordPress managed hosts that you recommend in this article are about $100 or more for my needs.
So I can think of WPX Hosting…
I exchanged some emails with you about a year ago, because of my resource problem.
At that point, you gave me some hints, I did them all and also decided to switch my theme, it was all the difference.
So I stayed there for the second year, now I have to renew. The price is going to double but the resources are the same (and I feel they are not enough to me).
BTW: I have 3 WordPress installs, maybe one solution is to split them in different accounts???
Thank you again!
Cheers, Adam
I see your dilemma.
Before all, more expensive host does not necessarily mean more resources.
A2’s renewal prices are indeed high. Although the prices for the first billing period that you can see on A2’s website are simply awesome for the service and twice as little than the promotional prices. And in many cases it makes sense to switch the host when the time comes. It looks like this is your case now.
If your bottleneck is the server resources, then jumping from one shared hosting (or even a WP managed plan) to another is not likely to solve your issue because all of them are targeting one type of users – beginners with moderate server resources requirements. Since you have outgrown the server resources of A2 Turbo, then you need not more expensive host or more luxury one, but the more powerful (in terms of resources) hosting option.
WPX Hosting is basically a similar cup of tea as A2 Turbo or SiteGround’s GoGeek plan in terms of performance.
You do indeed need VPS hosting or a cloud (a technical term, not a marketing term) hosting.
If you are not an experienced Linux user, then you need a fully managed VPS hosting (so that you continue working like you used to with a shared hosting without the need to learn Linux).
Fully managed VPS hosts indeed start from about $50/mo (this is the price that goes after the initial period which can go with a discount price).
By the way, I have the section in which I recommend fully managed VPS hosts that give you a full management service.
However, since you need something in-between a shared hosting and a fully managed VPS hosting in terms of price but the maximum performance, the solution that I can suggest is semi-dedicated or high-resource shared hosting options. I list my preferred hosts which offer these high-performance hosting options in the section. Pay attention to what semi-dedicated plans VeeroTech and MDD Hosting offer. I’d consider them first of all.
Now I’d like to talk a bit about Cloudways. This may seem as a very attractive option in your situation.
However, it has a bit different user interface compared to a shared hosting. Although it is still much easier than unmanaged VPS hosts and can be used by a non-technical user.
Also, Cloudways is the hosting not for everyone because you have more risks getting not satisfactory technical support with this host compared to if you go with a fully managed VPS hosting or with high-performance semi-dedicated plans that some shared hosts offer. But you pay much less price with Cloudways for the same performance as with unmanaged VPS and you do not need to know Linux.
> BTW: I have 3 WordPress installs, maybe one solution is to split them in different accounts???
Since you are using a shared hosting (A2 Turbo is a shared hosting plan, although a very powerful one, see my tests) this is not a very good idea, since it will have no or little effect on your websites performance.
Getting several shared hosting accounts could make sense if you exceed some limits which are set by the hosting itself (e.g. you exceeded the number of page views or number of files hosted). Just using multiple shared hosting accounts to improve performance is not the right strategic solution in a general case.
In most cases if you have outgrown shared hosting server resources, you need a more powerful VPS (or a semi-dedicated or a cloud solution), and not several shared hosting accounts.
Even cheaper alternatives to Cloudways in your case (in order to be within your budget) are cloud providers such as Digital Ocean, Vultr, Linode. They are even cheaper than Cloudways but they require Linux knowledge and more attention. Cloudways is actually the layer above such cloud providers which allows you to get maximum server resources for minimal price without knowing Linux.
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One more alternative is an unmanaged VPS (which is pretty cheap). But it also requires Linux skills as with an unmanaged cloud option like Digital Ocean, Linode etc.
Hopefully, my message is not very complicated 🙂 Feel free to let me know if you have questions!
Cheers,
Michael
The creator of ResearchAsAHobby.com
P.S.: The links for further information and my affiliate links to the mentioned hosting solutions that I recommend as cheaper alternatives to VPS managed hosting:
- Veerotech (see High Resource Semi-Dedicated plans)
- MDD Hosting (see High Resource Semi-Dedicated plans)
- Cloudways hosting (requires more technical knowledge than with other managed hosts and its default support may be not as helpful as the other hosts that I recommend)
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P.P.S.: And here other hosts that I mentioned on this page and recommend:
- A2 Hosting (my short review)
- SiteGround hosting (my short review). Keep in mind that SiteGround has quite big renewal prices (that’s why I wrote this article about SitGround’s alternatives)
- Kinsta hosting (my short review)
- Liquidweb hosting (my short review)
- Digital Ocean hosting (requires Linux skills, but it’s the cheapest option that provides the best performance)
BTW, I respect your privacy, and of course I don't send spam, affiliate offers or trade your emails. What I send is information that I consider useful.