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Hosting media is hard because it requires a lot of storage space, bandwidth, and computational power. It’s necessary to get a plan with the power to host your media. Below, we discuss the best media hosting companies in detail.
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For new WordPress sites
Starts at $2.95 per month
- Guided onboarding
- Recommended by WordPress
- 24/7 support
Best security and scalability
Starts at $3.75 per month
- All types of hosting
- Enhanced security tools
- Affordable as you grow
The easiest option
Starts at $2.75 per month
- Great for absolute beginners
- Drag-and-drop website builder
- 150+ free templates
Best Media Hosting: Our Shortlist
Bluehost is our top-rated web host for its industry-leading hosting technologies, support, and top-notch features. But HostGator, A2 Hosting, SiteGround, and GreenGeeks could be good choices depending on your needs.
Our Top Picks
Best Media Hosting Bandwidth
Best Media Hosting For Beginners
Best Media Hosting Security
Best VPS Media Hosting
Best Eco-Friendly Media Hosting
Digital.com dives deep into every topic it covers to offer trusted and reliable recommendations for the best business tools. See how we review media hosting services.
The Top Media Hosting Services of 2023
Features
- Free cloudflare integration
- Advanced security options
- 99% uptime guarantee
#1 Top Pick for 2023
Why it’s best: Offers hosting solutions with unmetered disk space or data transfer (bandwidth)
Price
$4.95 per month
Free SSL
Yes
24-7 Support
Yes
Free Domain
Yes
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Reasons to choose Bluehost
- Flexible hosting solutions
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Free anti-spam solutions
Reasons to avoid
- No automatic daily backup
- No monthly billing on shared hosting
Bluehost has cloud plans starting at $4.95 a month. The plans come with unmetered bandwidth, which is particularly appealing if you want to run a streaming site. There’s also a CDN for fast streaming. Storage space is unmetered on the higher-tiered cloud plans. This is especially appealing since media files can be quite large.
Bluehost is a reputable provider offering shared and VPS hosting. The company is easy to use, affordable, and has great uptime. It is geared toward entrepreneurs and small online startups. Billing might be confusing, but they have solid customer service for any issues.
Features
- Free 1-year domain registration
- Free website builder
- One-click WordPress installs
Price
$2.64 per month
Free SSL
Yes
24-7 Support
Yes
Free Domain
Yes
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Reasons to choose HostGator
- Free 1-year domain and SSL
- Premium support
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Reasons to avoid
- Poor uptime
- Higher renewal rates
HostGator is an ideal option for entry-level websites because you can get high-quality hosting at affordable introductory rates. It is easy to scale and switch between the various hosting options and offers the perfect support in terms of domain names and bandwidth. All of its plans have unlimited bandwidth and disk space, so you’re not charged based on how much bandwidth or disk space your websites consume.
HostGator is a good fit for beginners seeking a web host with various features. The customer service and prices are favorable but avoid paying for unnecessary extras. Note there are limitations to the SEO capabilities.
Features
- Free email hosting
- Daily backups
- Free CDN, Domain and SSL
Price
$2.99 per month
Free SSL
Yes
24-7 Support
Yes
Free Domain
Yes
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Reasons to choose SiteGround
- CDN Included on all hosting packages
- Easy-to-use admin Interface
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
Reasons to avoid
- Limited hosting packages
- Limited disk space on some packages
SiteGround has an entry-level cloud plan with 40 gigabytes of storage and five terabytes of transfers at $100 per month.
You won’t be able to stream nearly as much as Netflix at that level, but you do get 24/7 support to get your site back online if there are any problems. SiteGround also has a free CDN for efficient throughput.
SiteGround is a reliable web hosting company with fast speeds, a user-friendly interface, and solid customer service. Some customers are not thrilled with the price increase and back-end support.
Features
- 24/7 customer support
- Easy-to-use cPanel
- High-speed servers
Price
$2.99 per month
Free SSL
Yes
24-7 Support
Yes
Free Domain
No
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Reasons to choose A2 Hosting
- Outstanding speed
- Premium support
- 30-day money back guarantee
Reasons to avoid
- Free domain not included
- Higher monthly pricing
A2 Hosting has unlimited bandwidth but only 20 gigabytes with its VPS option. This unlimited bandwidth is useful for a popular media site. Despite the limits on storage space, the performance will be very good since A2 uses SSD drives across its entire range. This will help improve performance when downloading or streaming media.
A2 is a reliable, affordable hosting company that has fast speeds. The customer service is generally responsive but could use more updated tutorials and documentation.
Features
- Advanced custom security rule
- Customizable dashboard
- Solid State Drive (SSD) storage arrays
Price
$2.95 per month
Free SSL
Yes
24-7 Support
Yes
Free Domain
Yes
Read More
Reasons to choose GreenGeeks
- Eco-friendly hosting
- Free CDN, domain and SSL
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Reasons to avoid
- Limited support
- Higher cost plans
GreenGeeks is a perfect, efficient, and affordable solution for small businesses looking for a comprehensive web hosting package. It is best known for its commitment to using 100% renewable energy, including the power required for the data center and servers. GreenGeeks upgraded to a fully RAID-10 SSD for storage, which is faster and more reliable.
GreenGeeks is a Canadian eco-friendly hosting company with friendly customer support. The pricing and performance are favorable, but watch out for hidden fees and policies.
Compare Media Hosting Services
Media Hosting Service
Best Features
Pricing
Best Media Hosting Bandwidth
- Free cloudflare integration
- Advanced security options
- 99% uptime guarantee
$4.95 per month
Best Media Hosting For Beginners
- Free 1-year domain registration
- Free website builder
- One-click WordPress installs
$2.64 per month
Best Media Hosting Security
- Free email hosting
- Daily backups
- Free CDN, Domain and SSL
$2.99 per month
Best VPS Media Hosting
- 24/7 customer support
- Easy-to-use cPanel
- High-speed servers
$2.99 per month
Best Eco-Friendly Media Hosting
- Advanced custom security rule
- Customizable dashboard
- Solid State Drive (SSD) storage arrays
$2.95 per month
What You Need to Know
What is media hosting?
The internet started out as a way to share documents — text documents. But, it wasn’t long before people wanted to share other forms of content including pictures, music, and video.
Today, a website is as likely to carry non-text media as it is likely to carry text content. If you’re planning a media-heavy website, you should choose your web host accordingly.
What’s the difference between onsite or offsite media hosting?
Offsite media storage refers to storing media files with a third-party website or host. Onsite or local media storage means you are storing video, images, or audio files directly with your own host or on your server. This gives you complete control — for better or for worse.
Why use a third-party media hosting provider?
It can often be advantageous to host your media content somewhere else, with a service provider other than your own web hosting account.
The biggest reason is to save on bandwidth and storage. If you are on a VPS plan, you likely pay for both of those or have a monthly quota.
Am I safe if I have unlimited bandwidth and storage?
On so-called unlimited shared hosting, you might not be told what your bandwidth limit is, but you almost certainly have one. If your site gets a lot of traffic, and those visitors are watching a lot of videos, you’ll hit your limit pretty quickly. The terms of service for your hosting agreement will undoubtedly have some point that says that your site can only use a reasonable amount of storage.
Is there a hybrid option for media hosting?
You can host content on your site and post content on YouTube. In this case, you can use YouTube as a kind of preview for the content on your site.
Can you integrate CDN with your hosting?
If you integrate your CMS or hosting plan with a CDN, you can manage your media as if it were hosted on your own site, but actually have it delivered via CDN. This provides some of the benefits of third-party hosting (speed and bandwidth savings) while letting you keep control of your media.
Can you build your own CDN?
Building a CDN network requires you to acquire dedicated servers and place them in the relevant data centers in exchange points and in ISPs. That takes a lot of time, money, and negotiation skills. Hosting companies that specialize in media are going to be a lot more experienced with this than a site that’s just getting started in media. You can build a CDN over a cloud network to get rid of some of the overhead since you won’t have to wire up physical servers. It’s still better to start smaller and then build your network gradually as your site gets more popular, whether you use dedicated servers or cloud servers.
How We Review Media Hosting Services
Media hosting is more important than ever, as people expect webpages to be interesting with images, music, and videos. A web host should be up to the task of hosting all of your media.
From our database of hundreds of hosting plans, we selected hosts that offer the kind of bandwidth, storage, and computational power necessary to host a media-heavy website. Then we ranked them based on our thousands of expert and user reviews to come up with the top media hosting companies.
With a media site, bandwidth and storage are the main considerations. You want the most transfers and storage for the least money possible. If you’re building your own network, you’ll want more control over your environment than shared plans will give you.
Cloud plans are ideal for media hosting. If the cloud is good enough for Netflix, it should be more than good enough for your media-heavy site. Keep these factors in mind as you choose a web host:
Whether you plan on using one server or creating a content delivery network (CDN) — A CDN improves the performance of media streaming by locating servers that are geographically close to the user using sophisticated location algorithms. If you specialize in streaming media, you’ll want to build a CDN of your own or contract with a provider like Akamai that has experience with CDNs. A hosting provider with a CDN is cheaper than building your own network.
Learn more about our review methodology.