A perfect e-retail solution is impossible without hosting services. While Magento provides immense support for its users, as a platform it is still limited by its own features.
To help you transform these limitations into positives, there are a host of online hosting services on the Web. While most big businesses have an IT department to tackle the problems of slow Internet, caching, etc., it is very unlikely small business owners have the same luxury.
There are a mindboggling number of factors to keep in mind when selecting a hosting service, however. These include, but are not limited to, ease of installation, bandwidth limits, Magento theme integrations, customer support and caching systems. If that sounds like a daunting challenge, take a look at these top five hosting solutions available for small businesses that use Magento.
LiquidWeb
A hosting service provider that deals with every single aspect of an ecommerce company's online presence, LiquidWeb has some unique features such as log storages and sonar monitors. Here is a comprehensive guide to what LiquidWeb has to offer:
- Software Services: Crafted to perfection for the benefit of blogs, CMS, and more, they are beneficial for managing projects. They help to customize the working environment on your website to a very great extent.
- Customer Support: With a dedicated 24/7 customer service system, LiquidWeb offers reliability that many other hosts lack.
- Greater Options: While the smaller ones from the "small business" categories may make do without dedicated servers, as the site grows, it might be necessary to get a dedicated server instead. With LiquidWeb, you have the option of "Upgrading" to a slightly higher package with PCI support and dedicated servers.
- Compatibility: LiquidWeb is completely compatible with Magento, therefore you have nothing to worry about when it comes to theme integrations.
- Pitfalls: LiquidWeb, in its most basic package, lacks PCI support and dedicated servers which may be offered as basic provisions from other software providers.
Arvixe
Arvixe provides one of the most popular solutions to hosting Magento stores. With free installations of the Magento shopping cart with every purchase, there are some immensely beneficial facets of Arvixe dedicated to serving small businesses.
- Arvixe brings its most basic package at a price of just $4, making its hosting services extremely affordable for home-sprung businesses and individuals without too many resources.
- It also provides unlimited space and bandwidth so customers have nothing to worry about in terms of size.
- The 60-day free trial is a great feature, allowing potential customers to get the hang of the service before they make the leap.
- There is one free domain registration available via Arvixe; but six (paid) name changes are available to the customer.
- Arvixe provides you complete access to your cPanel (and therefore, your website). Effectively negating the need for any third-party FTP service or database provider in the process.
FinestShops
FinestShops is the hosting service that offers premium rack-space datacenter for at least 60 percent of today's Fortune500 companies but can work for small businesses too.
- It offers a pro-active monitoring system, which can detect any errors and trigger a warning signal to the customer support center. Since the customer doesn't have to detect the error and then call for support, this automated response system ensures that there's hardly any downtime or failed orders.
- FinestShops also offers hourly backup for all the data on its server; this is done to a remote location so that the customer's data is safe from any mechanical failures of any kind.
- There's also a managed PCI compliant system for not just installation of the server, but for the entire store as well.
- FinestShops also has installation services for Magento extensions, DDOS-attack mitigation services, functionality and design modification services, etc.
HostGator
One of the more affordable solutions available for small business ecommerce companies, Hostgator is more impressive than its website appears. With regional support, this is one of the most prominent hosting service provides around the world.
- Plans start at $3.96 and can go up to $10.36 per month. Affordability wise, they aren't exactly as cheap as they claim to be, considering that a lot of other service providers give more features at the same price.
- At the most basic level, HostGator provides a single domain name. However, for the best pack, you can get unlimited domain names - no questions asked.
- All of the packages come with unlimited bandwidth and unlimited diskspace, which should be a plus point for any small business owner. After all, a small business doesn't always mean a small content amount.
- There's a dedicated IP and free SSL connection provided by HostGator, which can help stores cash in better - literally. And yes, it is safe-harbor certified.
- HostGator also provides unlimited MySQL database access, cPanel control systems, 24/7 support, its own "Spam Assassin" feature, etc.
SiteGround
This website is one of the most well-established names in the hosting world. Offering dedicated optimizations for every type of Magento website, Siteground has an incredible number of small business owners using its services.
- SiteGround, like many of its competitors, offers a one-click installation and a free, 30-day trial of its services for most customers.
- The base package starts at extremely affordable prices such as $3.95/month, but there are various packages available for different customers.
- Features of Magento optimization of SiteGround include free transfers, optimized servers for better speeds, free backups (note that these are done daily, rather than hourly), and free domain names.
- SSD technology is available on SiteGround, via GoGeek package. But for StartUp packages, there's only SAS available under the MySQL category.
- To prevent downtime, SiteGround offers account isolation, support for hardware redundancy, etc.