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I know we are not supposed to talk about certain topics, but I think it is important to understand why WordPress no longer recommends one of the 3 companies where people house their sites on.
I just feel it is a bit weird because I use all 3 companies and others for my line of work and honestly, I feel the one that they no longer recommend, is actually the better one of the old 3 list. It starts with an S and has ground in it.
Is this because this company is not paying them anymore ? Or is something else going on behind the scenes ?
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It’d help if you linked a source. Where did WordPress say they’re not recommending which host?
>Listing is completely arbitrary, but includes criteria like: contributions to WordPress.org, size of customer base, ease of WP auto-install and auto-upgrades, avoiding GPL violations, design, tone, historical perception, using the correct logo, capitalizing WordPress correctly, not blaming us if you have a security issue, and up-to-date system software.
I definitely wouldn’t use any of those three to host a WordPress site. It’s likely completely arbitrary why any of them were listed there to begin with. It takes a little technical knowledge (though not a lot) to host on your own VPS somewhere, and things like AWS Lightsail make it really easy to get launched. But if a company doesn’t have someone technical who can do that stuff, I’d suggest a managed hosting solution- they’ll pay more monthly, but avoid many problems and have someone they can rely on for help that’s actually useful.
Money.
Always use a smaller bespoke Web host, these big companies come and go changing hands regularly like domain name regsitrars.
Don’t read into it too much, these are only reccomendations and they’re paying for the opportunity to be reccomended anyway.
Not sure what the problem is supposed to be with SiteGround. I have or have had support clients on everything from GoDaddy “Economy Linux” to Pantheon with various commodity, premium, managed, and VPS hosting in between. I’ve got quite a few clients on SiteGround, one or two left on Bluehost, and one or two left on Dreamhost too.
My take on the remaining names on that list — Bluehost and Dreamhost — is that it’s better not to be on that list. Back in the early 2000s Dreamhost was awesome, and in the late 2000s they were the first to offer low-cost “mini” VPS service. They (and SiteGround) were also the first hosting companies who cared enough about their customers to give everyone free SSL.
Bluehost… is…. I dunno. I think Matt Mullenweg lost a bet or something. I’ll just say I have an informal standing offer to move site owners off of both GoDaddy and BlueHost, free of charge, even if they’re not my clients.
Meanwhile SiteGround’s single-site “StartUp” package is good for small to midsized, low-to-mid traffic business sites. $15.00/month (after the too-low signup discount) is competitive and performance and options are very good. Their containerized sites are more secure than standard shared hosting, though containerization also puts hard limits on disk space. That’s fine in my book because if a client’s business outgrows SiteGround it’s probably time to move them to a real VPS.
I don’t recommend SiteGround (or any other shared hosting) for multiple sites and don’t recommend them (or any other shared hosting) for “VPS” services. I like to compare SiteGround hosting to premium car brands like, say, Lexus or Prius. A Lexus is a great car for commuting and maybe taxi service. But if you need to deliver pianos, or shuttle 20 passengers you need a truck or bus. It’s the same with hosting. If you’ve got a ton of traffic or if you’re hosting sites for clients you need VPS hosting (managed or not) from a company that specializes in it like Vultr, Linode, AWS, etc., or for a single site maybe a company that specializes in performance like Kinsta or Pantheon.
I don’t think there is a particular reason aside from partnerships and money. Bluehost has always been a big sponsor at pretty much every WordCamp (and they pay people to work full-time on WordPress core). I don’t know much about Dreamhost, but I’d imagine it’s something similar.
Siteground quality had dropped pretty sharply while prices doubled practically overnight – it’s what made me switch to AWS a few years ago. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Siteground, Bluehost, or even GoDaddy if it works for you, they just aren’t companies developers typically like because of resource restrictions and shared hosting issues. Good (managed) hosting is getting a bit more expensive, but you can host a relatively active site for $10/month in Amazon Lightsail with just a little bit of research.