WordPress hosts tend to be of two types. The popular mass-market hosts and the premium gourmet ones.
The first category often has aged setups. I was surprised to find out that many big WordPress hosts still do not offer full native SSD servers, or Nginx as an option. The greater annoyance with them though are their robotic customer support and the add-ons and bloatware they tend to add to their hosting setups.
The other end of the spectrum are the more premium managed WordPress hosts. Think of them as the ‘gourmet’ option. They fix many of the problems that the big hosts have, but they are expensive. Paying upwards of $25 a month for hosting a simple blog is not exactly cheap, although you do get what you pay for. In my opinion, these hosts did make WordPress great again. However, many of their features like ‘collaborative dashboards’ tend to be geared more towards larger startups.
I had been looking for a WordPress host that checks both the boxes. A modern setup that is not too overpriced. I found Hustly – a WordPress host for individual and small website owners.
Hustly seems to fit the best of both worlds quite well. They include most of the core features of the premium hosts – such as Nginx servers, a dedicated CDN, cloud backups, plugin management, and security notifications. And yes, all their servers are native SSD. While I haven’t had the need to contact their support yet, I was surprised to find out that their setup was absolutely free of any bloatware.
The best part? – their cheapest WordPress hosting plans start at only $4.78 per month (paid annually).
While the larger hosts might appear cheaper sometimes, a lot is often hidden in the details. I started with a well-known host at $4/month, but as soon as the special promo period ended, I got a surprise bill over $15. You see – large hosts play a pricing trick. They discount the promotional period heavily and hit you with a larger bill later. Something pleasant about Hustly is that they promise to not engage in this practice.
So is there any catch? Not really. The reason Hustle is so cheap is that they focus on offering a great WordPress service. Unlike the big mass-market hosts, they don’t bundle add-ons such as email. After all, do I really want my WordPress host to provide email when I have Google and Microsoft for that?
Overall Hustly has a very simple easy to use interface, with a 1-click website launch feature. There’s also an advanced hosting panel for those who need under-the-hood access. However, they do lack some of the team collaboration features of the premium hosts. But hey! I don’t have a large team of web developers here. I am on my own.
Overall, if you are a solo website admin, and are looking for a simple easy to use WordPress hosts, I will highly recommend giving Hustly a shot.
