When choosing from the best web hosting services, if your business is globally-focused then providers offering the best European web hosting are worth a look. By this, we mean that it's highly recommended to choose a host with data centres close to your customers, as server location can play a significant part in determining your site's overall performance.
If you have a customer base largely situated in both the EU and the UK, or one or the other, it's wise to find a provider among the best European web hosting services, because they will have data centres based in the region. What this means for your site is that it will perform better for European and UK customers, because when they visit the site, the regionally-based servers will load the site quickly.
As a consequence, there are a large range of options available, and below we've reviewed and listed the best European web hosting providers either based in or possessing data centres in the region, evaluating them on hosting performance and overall quality as well as their location.
The 3 best European web hosting providers
Hostinger
Hostinger: affordable, EU-based host
Hostinger is one of the most popular and affordable web hosts, with pricing starting at less than £2. Its range of advanced tools and competitive prices are rounded out with package benefits including unlimited websites, email accounts, and bandwidth; a native control panel; and a wide array of other top features.
Hostwinds
Hostwinds: top choice across hosting types
Hostwinds' quality plans cover all hosting types, and as the master of dedicated hosting, its servers boast powerful configuration features for both general and high-demanding power users. Its highly-customisable products mean that it's an attractive option for those looking for scalability, while even cheap packages are filled with strong features.
Wix
Wix: best website builder with hosting
Wix isn't a web host per se, but is our choice for the best website builder. Alongside industry-leading templates and an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, the free plan and three paid plans include the full builder, with attractive pricing seeing benefits added including unlimited bandwidth, one free domain for a year, ad-free sites, and a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Which are the best European web hosting providers?
For us, the best European web hosting provider is Hostinger, which is also our top pick for a wealth of other hosting categories such as the best web hosting for small business and the best VPS cloud hosting. Its top features and competitive pricing rank it top, alongside the fact that it's a European-based provider of hosting services.
Hostwinds also places highly thanks to its large range of quality web hosting plans and packages, across dedicated hosting, shared hosting, WordPress hosting, and much more. Wix, the best ecommerce website builder and the best small business website builder, also features due to its high-spec builder, and its great hosting offerings packaged with the site creator.
UK-based tsoHost is ideal for users based in the UK or who want a UK base, with a legacy in web hosting bolstered by powerful, affordable pricing. For professional hosting, Liquid Web is a top pick, with European data centres offering high-level security and monitoring.
GoDaddy's European data centres embolden its leading performance levels across secure, competitive packages; while Bluehost's UK presence and competitive pricing, alongside speed and security, ensure it's included.
The best European web hosting services available
Hostinger
Affordable, EU-based web host
REASONS TO BUY
- Excellent performance
- Decent support resources
- A great selection of hosting products
REASONS TO AVOID
- SSL installation can be confusing
- Prices could be clearer
Score: 4.5/5
Hostwinds has a huge range of quality plans, making it a good choice for almost any kind of hosting. As the master of dedicated hosting, its servers boast powerful configuration features for both general and high-demanding power users.
Offering high levels of customisation, even its cheapest packages are packed with strong features, with shared hosting starting at £1.99 a month. The provider also offers the Zyro website builder, if you're looking to tie in hosting and site creation.
Read our comprehensive Hostinger review, and our interview with Zyro CEO Giedrius Zakaitis about the company's biggest successes, challenges, and plans for the future.
Wix
The best website builder with web hosting
REASONS TO BUY
- Tons of flexibility
- Great searchable knowledgebase
- Drag-and-drop simplicity
REASONS TO AVOID
- No template switching
- Some third-party apps are expensive
- Wix Editor can be daunting for newbies
Score: 4.5/5
Wix isn't a true web hosting provider, but it's the best website builder out there, and if that's something you need, they'll make a great choice.
It offers one free plan and seven paid plans ranging from £4 a month to £27 a month, personal and business plans offering such features as unlimited bandwidth, 10GB of storage space, the Visitor Analytics and Site Booster apps, and one free domain for a year.
Read our comprehensive Wix review and our interview with Head Product Manager Michal Bignitz.
tsoHost
One of the longest-running UK hosts
REASONS TO BUY
- Transparent pricing
- Good range of plans for any UK business
REASONS TO AVOID
- Cheaper options exist
- Lacks 24/7 live support
Score: 4/5
tsoHost is a good pick for UK users, especially if they use WordPress, as the provider has some powerful plans.
It's one of the longest-running UK web hosts, offering everything from affordable cloud hosting to high-end dedicated server across versatile plans. Transparent pricing and stable performance anchor well-specified packages.
Liquid Web
Best choice for professional users
REASONS TO BUY
- Excellent high-end option for larger businesses
- Leading uptime and performance metrics
- Friendly, knowledgeable support services
REASONS TO AVOID
- Quite expensive
- No budget hosting options
Score: 4/5
Liquid Web offers top-notch quality and advanced features more suited for professional users across its wide range of web hosting plans.
It provides various expert managed hosting services for all types of users and requirements, and its European data centres provide professional-level virus and spam defense systems, deep system monitoring, key software installation, updates, support, and free external migrations. If you're looking for website creation too, it offers WordPress plugin add-ons and WooCommerce plans for ecommerce.
Read our full Liquid Web review.
GoDaddy
Web hosting mainstay offering a European base
REASONS TO BUY
- Very competitive prices
- Beginner-friendly user interface
REASONS TO AVOID
- Deceiving pricing structure
- No email support
Score: 4/5
GoDaddy is a web hosting giant with a wide range of products and great quality support. It often ranks among the best web hosting providers, offering a range of solutions for businesses of all sizes.
It’s known for great performance backed by data centres in Europe, as well as the US and Asia, with competitive prices, a range of extra features, and good security.
Read our GoDaddy web hosting review and our hosting comparison pitting Bluehost vs GoDaddy.
Bluehost
Leading hosting provider with a UK presence
REASONS TO BUY
- Feature-rich shared hosting plans
- Beginner-friendly cPanel control panel
- Impressive 24/7 support
REASONS TO AVOID
- Deceptive introductory prices
- Terrible performance
- Underpowered VPS and dedicated server plans
Score: 3.5/5
Bluehost is regularly found to be one of the best web hosting services generally, and since it has a UK presence, it's only natural to put the company on our list.
It continues to impress in almost every aspect in a competitive market, delivering the complete package of speed, security, versatility, and not least superb reliability for just £2.43 a month. Its 60-day money-back guarantee also lets you trial the service before you commit.
Read our Bluehost review, and our comparisons of Bluehost vs HostGator and Bluehost vs DreamHost.
Advantages of using the best European web hosting
In terms of the advantages of hosting a website in Europe, firstly it's worth noting that no matter where your customers are based, you'll want to be able to reach them quickly. Choosing one of the best European web hosting services is one way to ensure that, as such providers will have a data centre close to your audience.
This is important, because the closer a data centre is to the user, the faster that data can transfer between the server and the user's browsers. This, consequently, means that your webpages' loading speed will be quicker. All of this ensures that your site provides a better user experience, which will make it more likely that visitors and customers will continue to use the site (which can also rank higher in search results).
While data centre location isn’t a significant SEO ranking factor, it can help search engines determine which local SERPs your site should appear on. Specifically, if your IP address points to a location in Europe, users in the region will most likely find your webpages, and this goes as far as city-based searches too.
Since May 2018, all websites targeting EU audiences have to abide by GDPR, or EU’s data protection laws. If you don't comply, you can face non-compliance penalties. Luckily, the best European web hosting services will uphold the GDPR, and while choosing hosting based in the EU doesn't automatically make a site GDPR-compliant, it can go further towards ensuring customers' personal data is protected.
Even when you know everything there is to know about web hosting, choosing the right provider can be tricky. Luckily, all the providers mentioned in this guide have servers based in Europe, and are very capable web hosts for a range of needs and uses, ranking them among the best European web hosting services available.
Several providers offer a wide range of hosting products, so depending on your needs (you might need WordPress, VPS, managed, or dedicated packages, for example), some may be more suited to you than others. In any case, you can hardly go wrong no matter what you choose: take your pick, and enjoy your new provider.
How we review the best European web hosting
First of all, we look to see if the host has European or UK data centres: beyond that, as with reviewing any web hosting provider, we build a site and sign up to a plan. Once the site is live, we then test server response times and uptimes over a two-week period: these factors are integral to site performance. An unresponsive or offline website can mean a loss of trust in and revenue for your business.
We'll test out the site builder too if it's included: if not, we'll examine a platform-specific tool or feature, and create a site elsewhere that we can then host with the service. We test how easy setting up an SSL certificate is, as part of a wider examination of how comprehensive web security is with that service.
In the event of an issue you can't solve, customer support is vital. That's why we test the responsiveness of customer support and service teams, and how knowledgeable they are. Finally, we study pricing in detail, because large, initial discounts for your first term can balloon into very expensive packages down the line.
Further reading on web hosting and website builders
Read our ranking of the best cheap web hosting, and learn how to choose a domain name for your website, and why domain privacy is important, and what it means for your business. It's also worth looking into the best anonymous hosting solutions to protect your privacy.
Check out our guide to managed vs unmanaged hosting to find out which is best suited to your needs, and discover the best VPS hosting or best cloud hosting services. If you're looking to create a new website, make sure you look over the best website builders before making your choice.
