These are the biggest web hosting providers in the world

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By Jacob Maslow

When it comes to web hosting many think of it as just a service where they host their website, however it is so much more than that. The web hosting industry is rapidly growing. 

 

Adriaan Brits the CEO of Sitetrail explains that “bigger hosting companies may have a good CDN reach globally, but that does not mean their pricing policies and overcrowded hosting that is slow, as in the case of Godaddy, is the best for consumers”. He says “that is why Sitetrail has set out to gather more accurate market data to determine the best web hosting providers according to consumer satisfaction and actual side-by-side comparison”. 

How big is the web hosting industry really?

In 2019 the web hosting services market share was valued at an astounding 56.7 billion USD, and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.5% from 2020 to 2027. There are over 330 000 different web hosting companies globally, hosting more than 2 billion different websites. 

 

Who are the big players?

We had a look at the biggest global companies and according to the September 2020 statistics these are the companies with the biggest market share in the hosting industry. Side-by-side comparisons, for example Bluehost VS Siteground will quickly show that size does not really matter. Yet to be factual, these are the market leaders by size:

 

Godaddy

Godaddy has the biggest share in the market with 11.57%. Godaddy has been running for 20 years and they are currently dominating the industry. They boast with a 99.97% uptime. Their site is user friendly and affordable. The only downside of Godaddy is that they do not offer back-ups and SSL certificates with their packages and those features would have to be paid for separately. Clients’ reviews indicate that their customer service can be slow and frustrating.

Google Cloud Platform

Google Cloud Platform has a 4.90% market share. They offer a cloud solution to their customers. Growth in cloud solutions have been noticeable as many opt for a limitless space feature. Google cloud is reliable and easy-to-use and it is known for the affordability of their web hosting packages.

1&1 Hosting

1&1 Hosting has a market share of 4.34%. They provide daily site back-ups and anti spam-protection. 1&1 Hosting has an impressive 99.8% uptime and is really reliable. It is one of the more affordable solutions in the market and support assistance is really good. The downside of 1&1 is that it is not very user friendly, customer reviews indicate that the site might be slightly outdated.

 

AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a market share of 4.01%. They have many different plans to choose from and customers say that the functionality is very dynamic. The biggest pro is that you only pay for what you use for instants if less people visit a website the company will pay less. The cons of AWS is that there are downtimes and customers review that AWS can get complicated for beginners.

 

OVH.com

In fifth place is OVH.com with 2.83% market share. Their customers love their affordability, their cheap multi-domain support and some more advanced features. The downside of OVH.com is that their customer support is critiqued.

 

How to choose the correct hosting company?

With over 330 000 different web hosting companies it can become quite overwhelming when choosing the correct web hosting company. Web hosting can influence many things like the success of online sales and visibility for a business. The importance of choosing the right hosting services company is enormous. Mostly the signing up term is 12 months, so be sure when you choose. Small businesses should look at more affordable packages that won’t experience too much downtime should the traffic on the page grow.

 

We recommend reading hosting company reviews and comparing the features they have to offer. Reviews will reveal exactly how users are experiencing certain hosting companies and their features. Deciding what are the most important aspects and what you would like to achieve with your website, then choose a company that gives you exactly that.

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