# hosting reviews · comparison
WordPress hosting comparison 2026: five hosts ranked by real use case.
A five-way comparison of Kinsta, WP Engine, Cloudways, SiteGround, and Fasthosts. Not a top ten list, a decision table. Which one to pick if you are a UK freelancer, an in-house team, an ecommerce store, or a first-project hobbyist.
affiliate disclosure: this post contains affiliate links to Kinsta, WP Engine, Cloudways, SiteGround, and Fasthosts. If you sign up through one, we may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Verdicts are based on our own testing; see /affiliate-disclosure/.
The verdict per use case
| Use case | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| UK-audience client site, agency-scale | Kinsta | London GCP C2, best first-touch support |
| WordPress SaaS with Genesis themes | WP Engine | EverCache, Genesis bundled, mature dev tools |
| Cost-conscious multi-site freelancer | Cloudways | £12-£15 per DigitalOcean droplet, mix-and-match sites |
| First WordPress site, entry-level budget | SiteGround GoGeek | £8-£12/mo, includes SG Optimizer, UK support |
| UK-owned hosting on a small budget | Fasthosts | UK support, UK data centre, £5/mo entry |
The full comparison table
| Feature | Kinsta | WP Engine | Cloudways | SiteGround | Fasthosts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | £28/mo | £16/mo | £12/mo | £8/mo | £5/mo |
| UK data centre | Yes (London GCP) | Yes (EU-west) | Yes (LON1) | Yes (London) | Yes (UK) |
| SSH + WP-CLI | Yes, all plans | Yes, all plans | Yes, all plans | GoGeek+ only | No |
| Free SSL + CDN | Yes + Cloudflare | Yes + Global Edge | Yes + Cloudflare | Yes + Cloudflare | Yes |
| Free staging | 1 env | 1 env (2 on Business) | No (add-on) | GoGeek+ only | No |
| Backups | Daily + on-demand | Daily + on-demand | Daily (add-on) | Daily | Daily |
| Object cache | Redis (add-on) | Redis included | Redis included | Memcached | None |
| Managed WP updates | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Manual |
| Support quality | Excellent | Good (Great on Business+) | Good | Mixed | Basic |
The decision tree
Question 1: What is the client budget?
- Under £10/mo: Fasthosts or SiteGround StartUp.
- £10-£20/mo: SiteGround GoGeek or Cloudways DigitalOcean 1GB.
- £20-£50/mo: Kinsta Starter or WP Engine Startup.
- £50+/mo: Kinsta Business or WP Engine Growth.
Question 2: Do you need SSH and WP-CLI?
- Yes: Kinsta, WP Engine, Cloudways, or SiteGround GoGeek.
- No: Fasthosts, SiteGround StartUp, or a hobbyist plan is fine.
Question 3: What is the traffic profile?
- Under 10k monthly: any host on this list will serve.
- 10k-100k monthly: SiteGround GoGeek (30k limit) or above; Cloudways starts to shine here.
- 100k-1M monthly: Kinsta Business, WP Engine Growth, or Cloudways Vultr High Frequency.
- 1M+ monthly: talk to Kinsta or WP Engine Enterprise sales; run a benchmark on both.
Question 4: What is the stack?
- WooCommerce: Kinsta or WP Engine (both handle Woo cart writes well).
- Membership site (MemberPress, Restrict Content Pro): WP Engine (EverCache respects cookies well).
- News/media with heavy read traffic: Cloudways with Cloudflare in front, or Kinsta.
- Simple brochure site: SiteGround GoGeek or Fasthosts.
Where each host is honest and where it stretches the truth
Kinsta: honest on price and TTFB, honest that Redis is an add-on, honest that overage fees kick in. Stretches the truth on “unmetered CDN” (there is a soft cap around 5TB/mo before conversations start).
WP Engine: honest on EverCache performance, honest on the prohibited plugins list, honest on staging environments. Stretches the truth on the “visits per month” metric (bot traffic counts; agencies frequently need to file exclusions).
Cloudways: honest on the underlying cloud provider, honest that backups are an add-on. Stretches the truth on “24/7 support” (Level 1 is quick, Level 2 can queue during EU business hours).
SiteGround: honest on the intro price, less honest on the renewal price (typically 3-4x the intro). GoGeek is the only tier we would recommend for a client site.
Fasthosts: honest on price, honest that they are basic. Not marketed as premium; if you buy it expecting Kinsta features, that is on you.