Key highlights
- Understand the difference between shared hosting vs WordPress hosting. Your choice depends on budget, traffic and technical tasks.
- Choose shared hosting as a starting point, as in 2025, around 37.64% of websites still rely on it.
- Leverage WordPress hosting for CMS-specific advantages like optimized performance, one-click installations and many more.
- Simplify your workload with managed WordPress hosting that ensures expert handling of updates, security, caching and support.
- Trust Bluehost to keep pricing equal and accessible, whether you go with shared or WordPress hosting; both begin at $3.95/month.
With 43.3% of websites built on WordPress, it’s no secret the platform has carved a large segment for itself in the digital world.
But does that mean you should choose a WordPress hosting plan? Or would shared hosting be a better option for your WordPress website? This shared hosting vs WordPress hosting comparison often comes down to your goals, budget and technical expertise.
Whereas the reality is that the best choice will be different for everyone. Your traffic and experience with web development will guide you in your decision.
We’d like to keep it simple. Here’s how to find the hosting option that best suits your needs, whether you’re running a small business website, eCommerce store or blog.
TL’;DR: Shared vs WordPress hosting in 2025
- Shared hosting: Good for beginners, blogs, small sites.
- WordPress hosting: Optimized for WP sites with updates, caching, and better support.
- Bluehost Shared hosting: From $3.95/mo with NVMe SSD.
- Bluehost WordPress hosting: From $3.95/mo with expert WP support, updates & Jetpack Security.
What is shared hosting?
Shared hosting is a type of hosting plan where multiple websites share server resources. That includes their RAM, storage and bandwidth. One major benefit of shared web hosting is its affordability. However, it’s prone to slower speeds depending on the hosting infrastructure.
Think of shared hosting like a highway. There’s a lot less traffic late at night. But the road turns into bumper-to-bumper traffic during the day, resulting in a slow ride. And in this example, the road represents your website.
As of 2025, shared hosting vs WordPress hosting remains one of the most common comparisons for beginners. Shared hosting remains the top choice for small businesses, bloggers and personal websites due to its affordability and ease of use.
Over 37.64% of websites are hosted on shared web hosting platforms, making it the most common entry point.
Compared to WordPress hosting, shared hosting is more budget-friendly, while many growing sites eventually explore managed WordPress hosting vs shared hosting for better performance and security.
Key features of Bluehost shared hosting include:
- Prices starting from $3.95–$6.95 per month
- 10GB–100GB NVMe Storage
- Support for multiple websites on higher-tier shared hosting plans
- Free security and marketing tools
- One-click WordPress installations
Note: The prices listed here are as of August 25, 2025. For the latest pricing, please visit the Bluehost shared hosting.
What is WordPress hosting?
While WordPress hosting is similar to shared hosting, it’s slightly different because it’s optimized for websites built with the WordPress platform. Your WordPress hosting provider may take care of WordPress-specific security measures, speed optimizations, updates and backups.
With this level of specialization, Bluehost WordPress hosting offers a more reliable and smoother experience for users. It’s important to know which type of hosting you’re getting: shared, dedicated, VPS or cloud hosting vs WordPress hosting.
Bluehost dedicated hosting offers the most exclusive benefits, including lightning-fast response times and unmetered bandwidth and scalability. Shared hosting offers enough resources for lower-traffic websites, while Bluehost VPS hosting serves as the middle ground between the two.
Lastly, cloud hosting uses a server network that allows for higher scalability based on real-time fluctuations. You can lean on other servers when you need more resources.
Some WordPress hosting services are almost identical to shared hosting, with added benefits like automatic backups and updates. But dedicated, VPS and cloud hosting come with premium features.
You also choose from shared vs managed WordPress hosting plan. The latter can take all maintenance and upkeep off your to-do list.
Looking for the best hosting? Explore Bluehost’s Shared Hosting for simplicity, or Bluehost’s WordPress Hosting for performance.
Shared hosting vs WordPress hosting: A full comparison
To recap, shared hosting is a user-friendly, reliable hosting option. WordPress hosting is sometimes costlier than shared hosting. But it comes with features designed specifically for WordPress, such as:
- Customization: tailored settings and tools for WordPress sites
- Automation: automatic updates for the WordPress core, themes and plugins
- Optimization: performance enhancements like caching and speed improvements
Let’s compare shared hosting and WordPress hosting across several crucial factors:
| Feature | Shared hosting | WordPress hosting |
| Cost | $3.95-$6.95/month (2025 avg) | $3.95-$6.95/month (2025 avg) |
| Performance | Ideal for limited traffic sites | Optimized for WordPress with advanced caching |
| Security | Basic security features | WordPress-specific security measures |
| Ease of use | General control panel, multiple CMS options | WordPress-focused interface, pre-installed |
| Website management | Managed WordPress hosting updates | Managed WordPress hosting updates |
| Support | 24/7 chat support | 24/7 chat support (phone support included) |
| Scalability | Limited, may need to upgrade plans | Better scalability options for growing sites |
| Server configuration | Standard server setup | WordPress-optimized server environment |
| Backup systems | Basic or manual backups | Weekly Website Backups |
| Resource allocation | Shared with many websites | Often more dedicated resources per account |
As you can see, shared hosting vs WordPress hosting differs across key areas like cost, performance, security and scalability. Many businesses even compare managed shared hosting vs WordPress hosting when deciding on upgrades.
Let’s look at each factor in more detail to help you choose the best fit for your website.
1. Ease of use
Shared hosting typically has a user-friendly control panel (like cPanel). Whether you want to upload files, manage domains or set up email accounts, shared hosting providers keep it simple.
Overall, it’s a great fit for beginners and non-tech-savvy individuals. WordPress hosting takes it one step further, especially for those using WordPress as their content management system (CMS).
As a WordPress user, you might need to update your themes or plugins, monitor website performance, optimize images or manage comments on the WordPress dashboard. If you’re new, check out this step-by-step guide on how to install WordPress using Bluehost.
WordPress hosting typically offers one-click installations and auto-updates for the WordPress core, themes and plugins. It may provide built-in page caching for faster load times and automatic data optimization, making it suitable for all experience levels.
WordPress hosting is a great choice for easy, reliable web hosting, especially if you already use the CMS. In fact, many comparisons like web hosting vs WordPress hosting highlight these platform-specific benefits.
2. Website management
Most website management tasks depend on the WordPress hosting providers you choose. And in the end, you want control and customization when managing your website. Depending on the type of hosting you choose, you might have limited control and customization.
With shared WordPress hosting, the control panel makes it convenient to manage your website. It centralizes tasks like domain management, applications and basic web administration.
While you’re given freedom, it’s somewhat of a one-size-fits-all situation. Shared hosting doesn’t cater to any specific platform. This means you lose out on the benefits of website optimization, better performance and added security against malware.
In contrast, WordPress hosting is a specialized hosting environment. You use the WordPress dashboard to manage everything and all your data is centralized, making it easy to manage your website.
When you choose managed WordPress hosting, it’s like having a pit crew of WordPress experts beside you, providing the tools and support you need.
With managed WordPress hosting, your hosting company handles WordPress-specific tasks like updates, security patches and performance optimizations. That way, you can focus on your business without worrying about technical issues.
Performance
3. Performance
As we’ve already established, your website’s responsiveness, speed and stability all affect user experience. According to Portent, your website’s speed directly affects your conversion rates. A website that takes one second to load has a 3x higher conversion rate than one taking five seconds to load.
Shared hosting can be a mixed bag, depending on your host and traffic. Because you share resources with multiple servers, you may experience slower speeds and more downtime during high-traffic periods.
If someone’s using a large slice of the pie, you’ll get less for your website. Additionally, shared hosting isn’t optimized for your website. You’ll get basic functionality but not advanced customization features like plugins or platform-specific security enhancements.
Conversely, WordPress hosting maximizes your website’s capabilities. Advanced customization features like WordPress plugins, caching and configuration can enhance your website’s speed, performance and security.
For businesses weighing WordPress hosting vs VPS hosting, the decision often comes down to whether you need platform-specific optimization or the broader flexibility of a virtual private server.
Regardless of which type of hosting you go with, make sure the hosting provider offers a content delivery network (CDN) and solid-state drive (SSD) storage. These features will help your website run smoothly and reliably.
To ensure ongoing performance, use monitoring tools like GTmetrix, Pingdom and Google PageSpeed Insights to regularly test speed, uptime and overall site health.
While shared hosting may work fine for smaller websites with lower traffic, WordPress hosting best suits websites with moderate traffic looking for optimal performance.
This is why many businesses compare managed WordPress hosting vs shared hosting before upgrading.
Also Read: CDN benefits and alternatives
4. Customer support
Customer support is another area where the difference between shared hosting vs WordPress hosting becomes clear.
Imagine you’re creating a new blog post and trying to upload an image but continue seeing an error message. Each time you try, you get more frustrated. If only you could contact customer support to resolve the issue.
The level of customer support will mostly depend on shared or managed WordPress hosting providers you choose. However, there is a difference in customer support for shared hosting and WordPress hosting.
Shared hosting customer support reps provide general advice when you encounter problems. They might suggest updating your system, troubleshooting the control panel or checking your files. But with some providers, the rep might not be well-versed in a WordPress CMS problem.
In contrast, WordPress customer support is typically in-depth about hosting, CMS and general website issues. Whether you need help troubleshooting plugins and errors or have a specific question, the customer support team will be happy to help.
Bluehost’s shared and WordPress hosting plans come with 24/7 support, meaning you get access to website experts whenever you need them.
5. Pricing
When you launch a website, you primarily focus on specific features and pricing. In other words, how much bang can you get for your buck? And with WordPress and shared hosting, it’s hard to go wrong.
Shared hosting plans can start at a few dollars per month, making them reliable for new website owners or those running low-traffic websites. Plus, you can always upgrade the Bluehost shared hosting plan later on if you need to.
On the other hand, WordPress hosting plans typically cost a little more than shared hosting. However, they offer enhanced features and WordPress-specific optimizations, in-depth customer support and access to automatic WordPress updates.
However, you don’t need to worry about the price difference when you go with Bluehost. Our shared and WordPress hosting packages both start at $3.95/month for a 12-month plan.
6. Security
Security is a major consideration when choosing a hosting plan, especially with WordPress sites continuing to be a prime target for hackers in 2025. When comparing shared hosting vs WordPress hosting, this is one of the areas where the difference becomes clear.
With shared hosting, you’ll get standard protections such as Free SSL, free malware scanning, web application firewall and DDoS protection. These features are fine for smaller websites but may require more hands-on monitoring.
By contrast, WordPress hosting is designed with CMS-specific safeguards such as free domain privacy (first year), WordPress-tailored firewall rules, and advanced malware detection/removal. This makes it the stronger option in shared hosting vs WordPress hosting comparisons.
Bluehost further strengthens this with CodeGuard for automated backups and quick restores, along with Jetpack Security for real-time protection and monitoring. This makes it the stronger option in shared hosting vs WordPress hosting comparisons.
7. Scalability
Scalability is another key factor when comparing shared hosting vs WordPress hosting.
With shared or regular web hosting, resources are fixed and upgrades are limited. This can lead to constraints during periods of high traffic and scaling often requires manual intervention or migrating to a new plan.
WordPress hosting is built with growth in mind. It offers elastic resource scaling, traffic spike management and seamless upgrade paths that adjust automatically as your site expands.
With Bluehost, businesses also benefit from a scalability journey starting with shared hosting and smoothly upgrading to VPS hosting or even dedicated hosting as website grows.
For businesses comparing managed WordPress hosting vs shared hosting or even evaluating WordPress hosting vs VPS hosting and cloud hosting vs WordPress hosting, scalability is often the deciding factor.
Need further guidance on how to choose the right web hosting plan? Here are some factors worth considering.
Shared hosting vs. WordPress hosting: How to choose
It’s crucial to consider the following questions about your expectations from a web hosting solution:
What’s your budget?
Both WordPress and shared web hosting plans are quite reliable. But shared hosting may be a better fit if you’re beginner.
How much traffic do you expect?
WordPress hosting will be more capable if you anticipate a large number of monthly visitors or plan to grow rapidly. And if you want to upgrade your shared hosting plan, you can do that, too.
How much technical expertise do you have?
If the mere mention of “cPanel” or “FTP” sends a shiver down your spine, you might be most comfortable with the ease of managed WordPress hosting. Not to mention the added customer support to assist with any technical issues.
It’s crucial to consider the following questions about your expectations from a web hosting solution:
Do you plan to use WordPress?
If you intend to use WordPress as your CMS, you might enjoy the benefits of WordPress hosting. One-click installations and automatic updates make website management simple.
How much time will you allocate to website management?
A managed WordPress web hosting plan is more suitable if you’re more interested in growing your business and creating content. But shared web hosting will work well if you enjoy tinkering with your website or being responsible for occasional updates.
Common misconceptions about hosting
When researching hosting options, you’ll likely run into some doubts. Here are a few myths worth clearing up:
Misconception 1: Shared hosting is always slow
Shared hosting or regular web hosting has come a long way. In fact, when optimized, many small WordPress sites run smoothly on shared plans. So, while shared hosting vs WordPress hosting does show performance differences, shared hosting can still be a solid choice for smaller projects.
Misconception 2: WordPress hosting is only for big sites
Even smaller sites can benefit from the optimizations WordPress hosting provides. If you’re comparing web hosting vs WordPress hosting, you’ll find WordPress-specific features can make management easier no matter your WordPress site size.
Similarly, when looking at cloud hosting vs WordPress hosting, the choice often comes down to scalable cloud resources or WordPress-focused tools and support.
Misconception 3: You can’t run multiple sites on WordPress hosting
Many modern plans support multiple WordPress installations especially higher-tier or managed ones. This makes shared vs managed WordPress hosting relevant for freelancers, agencies and anyone juggling more than one project.
In fact, comparing WordPress hosting vs VPS hosting can also help in deciding whether you need platform-specific convenience or the broader flexibility of a virtual server.
Real world examples
1: Bucha Brewers – Artisan-Style Kombucha Kits
- Company: Bucha Brewers
- Website Type: eCommerce site offering kombucha-brewing kits and resources
- Choice: WordPress hosting with Bluehost
Overview
Inspired by a family kombucha tasting, founder Kristie Burritt launched Bucha Brewers to simplify home brewing with signature kombucha kits.
Why WordPress Hosting?
Bucha Brewers chose WordPress hosting with Bluehost, leveraging the platform’s robust plugin marketplace, seamless WordPress integration and user-friendly features.
Results
With their WordPress-powered site, Bucha Brewers successfully showcased their products, brewing tips and stories to growing audiences. It brings the art of kombucha right into customers’ homes. They’ve grown significantly using Bluehost’s WordPress solutions.
2: Kings Avenue Tattoo
- Company: Kings Avenue Tattoo
- Website Type: Artistic portfolio + merchandising website
- Choice: WordPress hosting with prominent visual storytelling and dynamic content features
Overview
Founded in 2005 by Mike Rubendall, Kings Avenue Tattoo set out to redefine the tattoo experience with a stylish, artistic approach. With studios in Long Island and Manhattan, their website became essential for showcasing portfolios, in-studio videos and merchandise.
Why WordPress Hosting?
They chose WordPress hosting to match their creative vision. The flexible layout highlights tattoo art and supports a “Merch” page with books and apparel, giving the brand a strong digital presence.
Results
Powered by Bluehost WordPress hosting, the WordPress site delivers fast performance, seamless eCommerce and an authentic online experience that grows their reputation.
3: Midfield Lavender Farm
- Company: Midfield Lavender Farm
- Website Type: Seasonal farm site with eCommerce, event booking and storytelling
- Choice: User-friendly WordPress hosting with Bluehost’s AI-powered tools and WooCommerce integration
Overview
Starting as a family retreat, Midfield Lavender Farm in Tennessee has grown into a fragrant destination featuring handmade lavender products, U-pick events, weddings and summer concerts.
Why WordPress Hosting?
Using Bluehost’s AI-powered setup (WonderStart and WonderBlocks) and responsive WordPress integration, the Millers built a beautiful, mobile-friendly site that highlights their farm’s story without any coding.
Results
With Bluehost’s support, Midfield Lavender Farm turned its digital presence into a growth engine:
- Sales growth: Online sales jumped by 300% over five years
- Reliability: No website interruptions, letting the Millers focus on farming
- Community: Visitors can book events, shop products, follow seasonal updates and stay connected year-round
Final thoughts
All in all, shared hosting and WordPress hosting each offer unique features that cater to similar, yet different, needs.
A typical shared plan is a cost-effective solution for newcomers or smaller websites with modest traffic. On the other hand, WordPress hosting offers extra personalization, scalability and security that benefits larger websites and established businesses.
As your website grows, evaluating the pros and cons of shared vs managed WordPress hosting becomes a key step in choosing the right plan.
At Bluehost, our shared hosting and WordPress hosting solutions offer the same low pricing and great features. We’ll install and update WordPress for you and provide a suite of plugins and tools designed to optimize your website.
With our 24/7 customer support and fast load times, your website will be envied by competitors and adored by customers.
Ready to choose the right plan for your site? Get Started with Bluehost today and choose between shared or WordPress hosting based on your needs!
FAQs
Absolutely. Shared hosting can host any type of website, including WordPress websites. But unlike WordPress hosting, many shared hosting plans won’t come with WordPress-specific optimizations.
It depends. If you’re a small business owner or this is your first website, shared hosting will work perfectly because it’s easy and reliable. But if you already use WordPress CMS or want more website customization, WordPress hosting is the way to go.
WordPress hosting is typically the best for a website using WordPress CMS. It’s specifically optimized for WordPress software, offering you WordPress hosting benefits such as automatic updates, increased security, WordPress support, and platform-specific performance enhancements.
Yes, shared hosting is sufficient for search engine optimization (SEO). While you may not achieve optimal SEO results with shared hosting, it’ll get the job done on a small scale. Page speed, reliability and uptime are key factors that influence SEO. And these are often better with WordPress, VPS or dedicated hosting.
Yes, you’ll need hosting if you use WordPress. WordPress is simply a platform to build your website. You’ll need a hosting option to make it live via a domain and public server.
Shared hosting is a service where multiple websites share server resources, managed through a control panel (like cPanel). WordPress hosting, on the other hand, is optimized specifically for WordPress with automatic updates, better performance tuning, and platform-focused support.
Managed hosting services take care of things like core WordPress updates, automated backups and extra security features for you. With shared hosting services, you still get a cost-effective way to run your site, but you’ll need to handle more of the maintenance yourself.
Yes, most WordPress hosting plans from a trusted hosting company include a free domain for the first year and a free SSL certificate. These basics highlight some of the WordPress hosting benefits, making it easier to launch your site quickly while keeping it secure from day one with no extra cost needed.
A dedicated server gives you full control over one physical server, which is great for high-traffic websites that need maximum power. VPS hosting splits that server into virtual sections, giving you better performance than shared plans without the cost of a full machine.
At a minimum, look for essentials like malware scanning, firewalls, automated backups and a free SSL. In a shared vs managed WordPress hosting comparison, managed options usually go further with advanced security features like domain privacy and WordPress-specific protections which can help keep your website files safer in the long run.
WordPress optimization helps your site load faster and run more smoothly. Things like caching, smart use of disk space and built-in tools to install WordPress all make a difference. If you’re looking at cloud hosting vs WordPress hosting, keep in mind that cloud hosting shines for scalability.
Yes. Bluehost makes it easy to upgrade from shared to WordPress hosting without downtime.
WordPress hosting has built-in optimizations and works well with tools like Yoast SEO, giving it an edge.
Yes, Bluehost WordPress plans integrate with CodeGuard and Jetpack for automated backups.
For high-traffic websites, WordPress hosting is the better choice than shared hosting because it offers optimized performance, enhanced security, and scalability. Shared hosting often struggles with speed and reliability when traffic spikes.
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