The number 1 open source free blogging software.
Highly extensible with lots of plugins and themes.
There are lots of Wordpress hosting providers ranging in price.
Check out:
- Wordpress.org's Hosting Recommended Providers
- Top10.com's Wordpress Hosting Comparison
- Google Search
Watch out for intro deals that are cheap in the first year and then jack the price up on you in the second year.
- BlueHost - the open source Wordpress.org's recommended provider
- Hostarmada
- Verpex
- Hostinger
- NamedCheap
- IONOS - very cheap initially but becomes pricier upon automatic renewal
- SiteGround - same as above, cheap initially, then more expensive
- DreamHost
- GoDaddy
- Wordpress.com - expensive and not recommended since they deplatformed a well known men's blog, which means it's a censorship platform rather than a freedom of speech platform
- WP Engine - expensive
You can also use cloud hosting like AWS LightSail or Digital Ocean droplet but I don't recommend this as it's harder to operate and control costs (eg. bandwidth).
You should use a CDN to speed up web page loading and take pressure off your wordpress installation.
This guy has done an interesting comparison video on hosting providers in late 2025:
- Advanced Custom Fields - Customize WordPress with powerful, professional and intuitive fields
- Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection - Used by millions, Akismet is quite possibly the best way in the world to protect your blog from spam. Akismet Anti-spam keeps your site protected even while you sleep. To get started: activate the Akismet plugin and then go to your Akismet Settings page to set up your API key
- All-In-One Security (AIOS) - All round best WordPress security plugin!
- All-in-One WP Migration and Backup - All-in-One WP Migration makes moving your entire WordPress site simple. Export or import your database, media, plugins, and themes with just a few clicks
- All in One SEO - SEO for WordPress. Features like XML Sitemaps, SEO for custom post types, SEO for blogs, business sites, ecommerce sites, and much more. More than 100 million downloads since 2007
- Antispam Bee - Antispam plugin with a sophisticated toolset for effective day to day comment and trackback spam-fighting. Built with data protection and privacy in mind
- Better Search Replace - A small plugin for running a search/replace on your WordPress database
- Broken Link Checker - Easily find and fix broken links on your entire site with our Local Link checker or the new Cloud Link scanner, absolutely free! Improve user experience and SEO by ensuring all your links are working
- Contact Form 7 - Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible
- Copy & Delete Posts - The best solution to easily make duplicates of your posts & pages, and delete them in one go
- EWWW Image Optimizer - Smaller Images, Faster Sites, Happier Visitors. Comprehensive image optimization that doesn't require a degree in rocket science
- Flamingo - A trustworthy message storage plugin for Contact Form 7
- Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights - The best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. See how visitors find and use your website, so you can keep them coming back
- HubSpot All-In-One Marketing - Forms, Popups, Live Chat - HubSpot’s official WordPress plugin allows you to add forms, popups, and live chat to your website and integrate with the best WordPress CRM
- ImageMagick Engine - Improve the quality of re-sized images by replacing standard GD library with ImageMagick
- Instant Images - One-click image uploads directly to your media library from Unsplash, Openverse, Pixabay and Pexels
- Jetpack - Security, performance, and marketing tools made by WordPress experts. Jetpack keeps your site protected so you can focus on more important things
- Jetpack Boost - Boost your WordPress site's performance, from the creators of Jetpack
- Joli Table Of Contents - The most customizable & user friendly Table Of Contents for your website. Works with Gutenberg Block / Shortcode / Auto-insert
- Kirki Customizer Framework - The Ultimate WordPress Customizer Framework
- Limit Login Attempts Reloaded - Block excessive login attempts and protect your site against brute force attacks. Simple, yet powerful tools to improve site performance
- LuckyWP Table of Contents - Creates a table of contents for your posts/pages. Works automatically or manually (via shortcode, Gutenberg block or widget)
- Media Cleaner - Clean your WordPress! Eliminate unused and broken media files. For a faster, and better website
- OptinMonster - OptinMonster is the best WordPress popup builder plugin that helps you grow your email newsletter list and sales with email popups, exit intent popups, floating bars and more!
- Persistent Login - Keep users logged into your website securely, and allows you to limit the number of active logins
- Simple Share Buttons Adder - A simple plugin that enables you to add share buttons to all of your posts and/or pages
- SimpleTOC - Table of Contents Block - SEO-friendly Table of Contents Gutenberg block. No JavaScript and no CSS means faster loading
- Smart Post Show - Filter and display posts, pages, taxonomy (categories, tags, & post formats), in beautiful layouts (carousel, grid) easily without coding! Highly customizable and developer-friendly with free active support
- Statify - Compact, easy-to-use and privacy-compliant stats plugin for WordPress
- Sticky Posts - Switch - This plugin adds a sticky post switch functionality to the admin list post/custom post type pages
- TablePress - Embed beautiful and interactive tables into your WordPress website’s posts and pages, without having to write code!
- The Post Grid - Fast & Easy way to display WordPress post in Grid, List & Isotope view ( filter by category, tag, author..) without a single line of coding
- W3 Total Cache - The highest rated and most complete WordPress performance plugin. Dramatically improve the speed and user experience of your site. Add browser, page, object and database caching as well as minify and content delivery network (CDN) to WordPress
- Wordfence Security - Wordfence Security - Anti-virus, Firewall and Malware Scan
- WP-Optimize - Clean, Compress, Cache - WP-Optimize makes your site fast and efficient. It cleans the database, compresses images and caches pages. Fast sites attract more traffic and users
- WPCode Lite - Easily add code snippets in WordPress. Insert scripts to the header and footer, add PHP code snippets with conditional logic, insert ads pixel, custom content, and more
- WP External Links - Open external links in a new tab or window, control "nofollow" and "noopener", set font icon; SEO friendly
- WP Fastest Cache - The simplest and fastest WP Cache system
- WP YouTube Lyte - Lite and accessible YouTube audio and video embedding
- Yoast SEO - The first true all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more