Best Website Hosting in the UK — Go Global or Stay Local?

UK2 offers enough versatility and hands-on support to top the ranks for best UK website hosting in 2022. The provider has a long experience in web services and certainly puts it to good use. A suitable choice for both startups and more complex enterprise projects.

UK2 Hosting has registered over 1 million domains and powers thousands of websites for clients from 200+ countries.

UK2 Hosting Features

UK2 Hosting divides its shared plans to best answer the needs of various businesses:

• Essential — for startups and small blogs.
• Business — for multiple websites.
• Business Premium/Cloud — for complex setups and resource-heavy projects.

I found the UK2 packages pretty robust in terms of features.

The company provides UK unlimited hosting space and bandwidth plus the ability to host ten websites even on the lowest plan. That comes with no limits on the number of mailboxes (up to 10GB each) and subdomains.

Should you choose one of the yearly billing plans, you can also secure a free domain name. And yes, that one remains cost-free as long as you renew the hosting account.

Support

You can get sales assistance from UK2 via live chat and phone. The problem is they are not 24/7 — help is available only between 9-17 GMT, Monday to Friday.

At least you can contact Tech Support at any time, but you can only use the phone and the ticketing system for them. Live chat is a no-no.

I gave the sales chat a spin a few times with some questions.

It never connected me instantly — I was always first in the queue but still waited for a good couple of minutes before getting through.

It was smooth sailing from there on, though.

Every time I got a pleasant, patient operator, ready to clear the air about pretty much everything — data centers, server specs, billing policies.

Such an attitude tells me the guys at UK2 are straight-shooters, which is good enough for me.

UK2 Hosting User Reviews

There is a surprising wealth of web hosting UK reviews about this provider. Strictly local hosts usually serve a much smaller audience, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with UK2.

• Trustpilot score — 3.4 / 5 (1,158 reviews)
• HostAdvice score — 3.2 / 10 (6 reviews)

So much for the good news, though.

Most of the online reviews are on the negative side, with clients citing shady billing practices and unhelpful support as the main culprits.

On a positive note, UK2 seems very attentive to unhappy clients, and always tries to find a possible resolution (often directing you to Escalations via ticket).

UK2 Hosting Plans and Pricing

Essential Hosting — from £2.99/mo
Business Hosting — from £5.99/mo
Business Cloud — from £7.79/mo

The UK2 prices are some of the most affordable I’ve found in my research of the UK market. Accounts start at just £2.99/mo, and you can secure the rate for up to three years.

As with most hosts, renewal prices are steeper than the introductory deal, and with UK2, you can expect a bill of around £4.99/mo.

A couple of extra add-ons complement the cheap web hosting deals. UK2 lets you get an SEO Guru package for £9.95/mo and a SiteLock malware detector for £1.25 (purchased annually).

You will often stumble upon the tsoHost name when searching for UK website hosting. The company is known for its stellar services and enough resource allocation for small and medium businesses. Online reviews reaffirm the excellent impressions of tsoHost and help rank the provider among the best in the niche.

One of the most popular UK WordPress hosting providers first appeared 15 years ago as a domain registrar. Gradually adding new products and services, the company is now present in the VPS, Cloud, Dedicated, and Reseller hosting niches.

The tsoHost team operates from two offices in the UK and Bulgaria. The focus on the local audience is apparent, as the company utilizes a single data center in Slough.

tsoHost Features

This provider lets you choose between four distinct plans. They allow you to host up to three, eight, or twenty websites, respectively.

The packages seem very well-rounded.

Fast servers and data center connection ensure optimal performance.

Firewalls, 24/7 monitoring, and daily backups enhance your security.

Prompt customer service and free service migrations make your life easier.

In short, you’ve got your bases covered.

Support

So how can a service win the title Best Web Hosting in the UK?

For starters, providing excellent local support wouldn’t hurt.

You can contact the tsoHost team via chat, phone, and tickets, but only the latter is available 24/7. The other two channels are present only between 7 am GMT and midnight.

My first live chat contact hit a quick bump. I got connected quickly, but then the whole tsoHost website went down and took some time to recover.

Not the best first impression.

The second time around, things went way smoother. The operator was quick to connect and reply, answered all my queries, and pointed out the best plan for my needs.

GoDaddy owns the tsoHost brand, so it’s even more surprising this UK provider still manages to provide reliable customer support.

tsoHost User Reviews

At first glance, things are looking terrific for tsoHost — the provider frontlines a lot of top UK host reviews and a flaunts whopping 85% excellent ratings on Trustpilot.

• Trustpilot score — 4.5 / 5 (6,190 reviews)
• HostAdvice score — 3.8 / 10 (43 reviews)

There are a lot of new reviews coming every day, but everything points to the host offering users incentives so they can leave a positive comment.

In the meantime, not everyone seems to be happy.

A lot of negative reviews are coming tsoHost’s way, and they often concern the below-par support services. That’s much easier to believe, knowing the company is under the GoDaddy reign, and the latter has never been famous for great customer care.

tsoHost Plans and Pricing

• Economy — from £3.99/mo + 20% VAT
• Deluxe — from £5.99/mo + 20% VAT
• Ultimate — from £8.99/mo + 20% VAT
• Maximum — from £14.99/mo + 20% VAT

The price tags for such feature-rich accounts are actually quite affordable with tsoHost. Starting at £3.99/mo (VAT excluded), it might not be the cheapest solution out there, but it’s certainly one of the most cost-effective.

All advertised prices are tied to a one-year contract. Should you choose to pay month-by-month, the rates will jump with about £1-£2, which is still budget-friendly.

I did not find any paid add-ons upon signup, but there was an option to request a free website transfer if you’re moving to tsoHost from another provider.

Fasthosts provides one of the best website hosting in the UK, especially if you are looking to host a single project. The servers are fast and secure, and the accounts are reasonably-priced.

Two decades after its inception, the numbers are more than impressive. Fasthosts provides first-class hosting for 411,000+ websites and 1.4+ million domain names. Nearly 260,000 customers trust the company and make it one of the most recommended hosts in the UK.

All the magic happens in Gloucester, where Fasthosts house both their offices and data centers.

Fasthosts Features

FH clients enjoy a lot of benefits, starting with the web servers. The machines utilize a clustered architecture with no single-point-of-failure, so your website can remain online even during maintenance and upgrades.

All plans include SSD storage space, which is great for speeding up your website. Performance-wise things are looking even better when Fasthosts adds intelligent load balancing. This setup helps spread your site across multiple servers and load it from the fastest possible path.

The actual accounts are not too shabby either.

You’ve got everything needed to start and grow an online business — unlimited mailboxes, SSH access, subdomains, one-click WP install, the works.

One unusual setback is the 100MB limit on mailboxes, which is pretty low. But as far as I understood from support, I can upgrade a few of them to 2GB.

Support

Looking at the website, it seems that apart from the tutorial archive, Fasthosts offer phone and email assistance. Yet, on some pages, they also mention a live chat. As I failed to find it myself, I had to resort to Google and stumbled upon an article in their knowledge base.

“You can start a chat session through the support site, but you must be logged in to Fasthosts to do so.”

Alright then, let’s send a few sales questions over email.

My replies arrived within the hour.

Frankly, I was not overly impressed. While the operator answered every query, the info did not contain any details and just raised more questions.

For example, I asked where their data centers were. After all, I needed excellent connectivity to the United Kingdom.

The answer? In the UK. Plain and simple.

I had to send yet another email to get a proper response.

Same went for renewal pricing and support communication channels — five-word replies without much effort to help the client and a lot of emails going back and forth.

An unnecessary hassle.

Fasthosts User Reviews

Judging by the online reviews in Trustpilot, Fasthosts offers some of the best personal website hosting in the UK.

• Trustpilot score — 4.1 / 5 (2,512 reviews)
• HostAdvice score — 3.9 / 10 (11 reviews)

Something doesn’t quite add up, though. Just like with other UK providers, there seems to be a massive influx of excellent reviews in a short period of time, sometimes even reaching 10+ a day. If this was a one-time occurrence, then it wouldn’t be so suspicious, but it does raise an eyebrow in this case.

Fasthosts is always quick to respond to user reviews. The company often replies within 24 hours, and this goes for both positive and negative comments.

Fasthosts Plans and Pricing

• Ignite — from £5.00/mo (VAT excl.) (£1.00 for first 12 months)
• Ignite Boost — from £7.00/mo (£1.50 for first 12 months)
• Momentum — from £10.00/mo (VAT excl.) (£5.00 for first 6 months)
• Ultimate — from £20.00/mo (VAT excl.) (£10.00 for first 6 months)

Building your first website with Fasthosts is quite an affordable experience. All shared accounts come with discounts for new customers, which means that the first-tier package will cost you as low as £1.00/mo.

One thing to consider — even the best website hosting in the UK is subject to VAT, so you often have to add 20% to the final bill.

The Boost option looks useful and is just an extra £0.50/mo, but Fasthosts literally shoves it in your face, adding an unnecessary extra step to the checkout process.

eUKhost is a formidable provider with long experience and powerful web servers. Some reviews find it the best web hosting for small business owners in the UK, but I think there might be better choices out there. Still, you can find it suitable for testing purposes and small personal projects.

eUKhost is one of the oldest and well known UK hosts. The company takes care of 35,000+ clients and their 150,000+ domains on a daily basis.

The prominent UK provider is present in all major niches in the industry — shared hosting, email hosting, VPS and Dedicated servers, Cloud services. You can choose between a Linux and Windows environment for each of those offers.

eUKhost avoids putting all eggs in one basket and rents servers in three datacenter locations — Maidenhead, Wakefield, and Nottingham.

eUKhost Features

Let’s take a look at the eUKhost Linux cPanel packages:

First thing you might notice is they don’t offer a lot in terms of storage capacity, especially compared to other hosts, like tsoHost or Fasthosts. 2GB for the Basic plan is not nearly enough in the long run, even if you are just starting off.

Some lucrative features are coming with every package, though.

One good example is the spam filtering tool, ensuring your mailboxes stay clean, and your business communication is up to the latest cyber security standards.

Among the other free perks, you can find SSL certificates, daily backups, and website transfer.

Definitely one of the more noteworthy UK website hosting providers.

Support

eUK host is present across-the-board with live chat, phone, ticketing, and contact forms.

All available 24/7 and easy to find.

The live chat queue prepared me for a five-minute wait, but luckily, I got connected in less than one. The operator did well with my basic queries, but when I threw him a curveball, his replies quickly started losing sense.

Still, the support knowledge base is quite robust, and, surprisingly, the company forums seem fairly active.

eUK host User Reviews

Here we have another one of those web hosts in the UK that looks to boost its online reputation in a rather unnatural way.

• Trustpilot score — 4.8 / 5 (2,217 reviews)
• HostAdvice score — 7.9 / 10 (18 reviews)

If you read more than a few reviews, you will see they follow an obvious pattern — the client writes a short 1-2 sentence comment, praising the excellent customer support and mentioning one of them by name. Surely not every client has nearly the same things to say, right?

You can see eUKhost representatives are rather active on review websites, which is a good thing to know if you weren’t able to find proper support another way.

eUKhost Plans and Pricing

• Basic — from £3.49/mo
• Intermediate — from £5.22/mo
• Advanced — from £10.45/mo

Price-wise, eUKhost is definitely one of the cheap web hosting solutions in the UK. Starting from just £3.49/mo, the price is great. But do note that it excludes VAT.

A few exciting add-ons pop up at the last step of the checkout process:

• Spam filter — £9.00/year
• PCI-compliant servers — £10.00/year
• Site builder — £20.00/year
• Dedicated IP — £33.60/year

Nothing too expensive here, eUKhost is definitely trying to keep its services budget-friendly.

Few can come close to SiteGround when it comes to competing for the best website hosting in the UK. The host is a perfect choice for WordPress users or any business with a long-term growth plan. The SiteGround team is always there when you need assistance. Servers are performance-optimized with unique account isolation.

What more can you ask for?

SiteGround has a strong presence in the UK market. Part of it is because the provider has servers in London. The other part is because, given the features, all SG accounts are very cost-effective.

The result is over 2 million hosted domains and 500+ trusted employees in five international offices.

SiteGround Features

SiteGround aptly named its shared hosting plans StartUp, GrowBig, and GoGeek.

The first tier is suited for a single project, while the latter two can host unlimited websites within the confines of a single account.

You get а superfast SSD storage, a free CDN, and a unique account isolation setup so bad neighbors can’t bring troubles to your doorstep.

SiteGround solidifies each server with anti-spam and malware software solutions, anti-hack systems, and constant security patches.

Very rarely you can get so much on such a simple website hosting plan.

Support

There isn’t enough praise in the world to describe SiteGround’s level of support services.

I’ve never waited to connect to a chat with them, and it always felt more like speaking to a friend than a corporate representative.

Technical support is available only via phone and ticketing, but even the sales operators are knowledgeable enough to provide first level support.

All channels are open 24/7, so you won’t be left on your own, regardless of the time or date.

SiteGround User Reviews

SiteGround is one of the biggest and most popular hosting providers, so it’s no surprise you can find thousands of reviews about the company.

• Trustpilot score — 4.7 / 5 (5,330 reviews)
• HostAdvice score — 9.7 / 10 (2,224 reviews)

The impeccable customer support is a big part of the client satisfaction, and you can often hear praises about their level of knowledge and issue resolution process.

The rare negative comments mostly target SiteGround’s renewal policy, which, to be fair, is a standard with many hosts in the industry.

SiteGround Plans and Pricing

• StartUp — from $3.99/mo
• GrowBig — from $6.69/mo
• GoGeek — from $10.69/mo

Quality comes at a price, but with SG, it seems well worth it.

You can get Siteground UK Web Hosting at prices starting from $3.99/mo, which carries a discount of over 70%. Come renewal, you can expect a $14.99/mo rate for the StartUp deal.

Advertised prices are without VAT.

If you’re looking to add more security, the SG Site Scanner is available upon signup, for an extra fee.

FastComet is one of the most reliable website hosts in the UK for a reason. It’s a one-stop-shop where you can get hosting, domains, servers, and add-ons like an SSL certificate.

FastComet didn’t need more than a few years to make a name for itself. The company already had a core team with combined decades of experience working for other hosts.

In just five years, the provider grew to 70 employees and 50,000 active clients.

UK and worldwide coverage is no biggie for this host — FastComet has servers in Chicago, Dallas, Newark, Toronto, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, Singapore, Tokyo, and Mumbai.

FastComet Features

Packed with the ultra-fast SSD technology, FastComet’s shared accounts give a lot more than your run-of-the-mill hosting solution.

I mean, not many other providers can say they add daily backups, CDN, SSL, and BitNinja security for free in each package.

We are talking about a complete solution from the get-go.

I was delighted to find out the resource limitations for each plan were clearly stated on the website, not just cleverly hidden in the Terms of Service. Such honesty speaks volumes to many potential clients.

Support

The policy of honesty and personal relations with the client reflects on FastComet’s support services as well.

The company takes pride in its team, and you can meet them all on the website About Us page.

I got connected to the live chat immediately and started shooting questions like a complete newbie. The operator showed a lot of patience and didn’t just give me two-word replies.

He sounded sure in his answers and didn’t take time to check each bit of info.

FastComet advertises 24/7/365 support via phone, chat, and tickets. The level of quality of technical assistance is the same I got from Sales, so it’s no surprise most FC clients are happy campers.

FastComet User Reviews

Apart from SiteGround, FastComet is the other company that looks to offer the best web hosting in the UK. At least that’s what most existing users have to say.

• Trustpilot score — 4.8 / 5 (975 reviews)
• HostAdvice score — 9.6 / 10 (877 reviews)

Customers seem to be getting excellent all-around service, a safe environment for growing projects, and extreme support dedication.

FastComet is also present on all major review platforms, ready to defend the company reputation and to prove this host has a lot to offer.

FastComet Plans and Pricing

• FastCloud — from $2.95/mo
• FastCloud Plus — from $4.45/mo
• FastCloud Extra — from $5.95/mo

If you are on the market for the best website hosting in the UK performance-wise, the FastCloud Extra plan may very well be a crowd favorite. Starting at $5.95/mo, it gives you a ton of server optimizations, like Varnish, Memcached, APC, and OPCache.

If you feel that’s overkill, you can start with a single project on the $2.95/mo plan and grow from there.

The introductory discounts are 70% and available regardless of your contract length.

You’ve got a 45-day money-back guarantee to make the initial FastComet performance absolutely risk-free.

1&1 IONOS Features

IONOS maintains a geo-redundant infrastructure where the two data center locations mirror the user’s data. What this means for you are greater data security and uninterrupted uptime.

But that’s not even half of it.

Scalability is not a problem with the shared Linux packages, coming with at least 10 GB space, 10 email accounts, and utilizing up to 512 MB RAM. A domain name complements every user account, but this one is only free for the first year.

IONOS is very keen on securing its clients.

Here you have reliable web hosting with SSL as part of the service. It’s a wildcard certificate, meaning you can protect not only your domain but all associated subdomains as well.

Support

1&1 IONOS is 24/7 available should you need any help. The provider’s main channel of communication are the phone lines, but you also have internal ticketing for technical issues.

IONOS puts great efforts in maintaining an extensive self-help center, which packs tons of useful articles, FAQs, and video guides. There are separate sections where you can get more information about server status or GDPR compliance policies.

You really get the feel that help is around the corner when needed.

1&1 IONOS User Reviews

IONOS’s online reviews are rather controversial, alerting us to think twice before we choose them as the best website hosting in the UK.

• Trustpilot score — 3.8 / 5 (6,034 reviews)
• HostAdvice score — 3.3 / 10 (26 reviews)

You can find a lot of excellent but just as many negative reviews about the German provider. From what I can gather, the service works well enough for low-demand clients, but the hidden limitations and rising fees don’t sit well with startups and businesses on a tight budget.

1&1 IONOS Plans and Pricing

• Business — from $4/mo for first year, then $6
• Pro — from $0.50/mo for first year, then $10
• Expert — from $8/mo for first year, then $16

1&1’s web hosting prices might not appear impressive at first, but the provider holds an amazing promotion for new clients. You can get the Business or Expert packages for just $1/mo. The introductory deal is available for an entire year on the Business plan, and six months on the Expert plans.

The paid features pop up on the second step of your checkout process, offering local listing, cloud storage space, and SiteLock malware removal.