Best Dedicated Web Hosts

If you’ve perused some of the other reviews on our site then you probably know that we are BIG fans of SiteGround.

We’ve been using them for more than 7 years and during that time, we’ve witnessed the company’s evolution from your average “ho-hum” hosting company into one of the highest level services on the market.

Unlike some of the more well known names (cough Bluehost cough) they don’t rest on their laurels and are one of the only companies that regularly upgrade their datacenters and servers to ensure the highest levels of speed and security.

GREAT UPTIME: 99.95%

Coming in hot with a 99.95% uptime, SiteGround will ensure that your website stays up and running (almost) every minute of the year.

Free SSL and Backups

A great bonus that will save you $60/year (minimum) and ensure that you can rest easy knowing that your website is completely secure and regularly backed up in the unlikely event of a breach.

Unbelivable Customer Support

In an industry that is notorious for for providing shoddy customer service and half-assed support, SiteGround stands heads and shoulders above other hosting companies, providing some of the most responsive and efficient customer service on the planet.

Seriously… We aren’t impressed by much, but SiteGround’s customer support damn near blew our socks off.

Speed

Kinsta is obsessed with creating the fastest hosting architecture for their customers. They use top-level technology to make sure your webpage loads at ridiculous rates.
They use a next generation infrastructure - from server hardware to the software they use.

Google Cloud Platform powers the whole operation and they have 19 data centers around the world. Everything is on their premium network which is specifically designed to minimize distance and hops.

No Worry Hosting

The best thing about Kinsta besides their speed is their ridiculous security processes. They check the status of every single one of their websites every two minutes. Your website will be checked 720 times every single day to make sure it is up and running.

Kinsta backs up your website every single day and has the capability of backing your website up every six hours. They also have a hack guarantee with constant monitoring. If any attack does happen they guarantee a fix with immediate priority.

Customer Support

When paying for a premium service you better receive premium support. Kinsta delivers to the extreme with 24/7 support no matter where you are, WordPress experts, an 100% solve rate, and fast response times.

Kinsta uses Intercom which is the best support platform to ensure you get help with what you need help with. If your website is down for whatever reason they might even have it back up and running by the time you message in.

Support

After sending a slew of complicated support tickets and inquiries, we were impressed (to say the least) by how quickly and efficiently A2’s customer support was able to handle our “issues”.

While they aren’t quite as responsive as SiteGround, the difference is nominal (it might take you an extra 20 minutes max) and their support is top notch.

Great Security & Free SSL

Like SiteGround, A2 hosting comes armed to the teeth with an abundance of security features and (of course) a free SSL certificate.

With a free Cloudflare CDN, New Relic Server Monitoring Setup, and ‘Perpetual Security’, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more feature rich hosting service for the price you pay.

Great Uptime & Lighting Fast Data Centers

With 99.91% uptime and 601ms site speeds, A2 Hosting provides some of the fastest and most reliable dedicated hosting services at the most affordable prices. Dedicated hosting is expensive, there’s no denying it.

But at only $141/month (more than $1,200/year less than SiteGround) A2 provides some of the best bang for your buck. Their speeds and uptimes aren’t quite as impressive as SiteGround; however, considering the price you’re paying, you’d be hard pressed to find a provider that offers more value.

Great Uptime, Wicked Fast

As with every host we’ve recommended so far, HostGator offers customers impeccable 99.99% uptimes with wicked fast load speeds. At only $119/month, they are, by far, the cheapest (high quality) dedicated hosting service on the market and they will ensure that you get the most value for your investment.

Good Security & Free SSL

Although they don’t have quite as many goodies and free features as SiteGround or A2, HostGator still provides a plethora of advanced security features including: a free SSL (duh), DDoS protection, a fully redundant network, and 3-5 dedicated IPv4 IPs.

Customer Support

Like SiteGround and A2 hosting, HostGator offers some of the best customer support in the business. Even when we reviewed their more basic hosting services (which you can check out here) the customer support was top notch.

But with a dedicated hosting package, their customer support is next level. In the unlikely event that you have any issues with your service, their effective support team will help you get back up and running in no time flat.

SSL – Secure Socket Layer Protection

I know this sounds like some futuristic Star Trek crap but an SSL is actually a pretty simple concept.

An SSL, or secure socket layer, creates and encrypted “tunnel” from your visitor’s computer to your server. Inside of this tunnel, all communication and data is safely protected and free from prying eyes.

It’s kind of like writing a letter in a coded language before sending it to a friend.

If you wrote the letter in plain English, anyone who intercepted the message could easily see and use what you wrote. However, by “encrypting” your letter, you guarantee that no one on the outside will be able to decrypt and understand your message.

With Google’s recent updates, these certificates are all but mandatory if you want to stand any chance of ranking your website for competitive keywords. And if you process payments on your website, this is an absolute MUST (most reputable processors won’t even accept payments without an active SSL certificate).

Luckily, with a high quality web host (dedicated or otherwise) an SSL certificate comes free of charge. If a company attempts to have you pay for your certificate (like the disreputable GoDaddy) then you should run for the hills.

There’s absolutely NO need to pay for an SSL certificate and any company that pretends otherwise is ripping you off like a bandaid. All good web hosting companies will offer to set up your SSL for free using a service called Let's Encrypt.

Free Backups

Cyber attacks are on the rise and they don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

However, by using a web host that offer daily backups, you can ensure that, even if your website is targeted by a ransomeware attack, you’ll be able to quickly get your content back online without missing a beat. (Trust us, you do NOT want to manually backup your website everyday.)

Uptime and Downtime

Uptime, as the name implies, is simply a measurement of the amount of time that your website is online. Anything above 99% is decent, and, ideally, you want a hosting service that can provide 99.95% uptime or better.

Downtime (again, as the name implies) is a measurement of the amount of time that your website is down or unable to be accessed.

If you want to maintain a professional appearance with your users, this is one of the biggest things that you’ll want to avoid. Luckily, if you opt for one of the services we’re about to recommend, this will be a thing of the past and you can enjoy lighting fast speeds, high security, and nominal downtime.

Data Center

Data centers are the physical location of the server you’ll be using. The closer the data centers are to your end users, the less distance the information will have to travel and the faster your website will be.

As such, it’s important to ensure that the data centers you’ll be using are close to your end users (e.g. in Toronto or Montreal).

Customer Support

Unless you happen to be a coding wizard or technical genius, you’re going to need amazing support to ensure that your website stays up and running and avoids any potential hiccups.

For those of you who don’t have 22 years to comb through FAQs or watch lengthy YouTube videos, this means you’ll want a hosting service that provides high quality 24/7 customer support. You’ll want to avoid any companies that outsource their support to India or who only offer their users online tickets or email support.

A dedicated server is going to cost you a pretty penny so you want to make darn sure that you have access to chat or over the phone support so that you can get your money’s worth.

Security

If you’re the type of person who thinks that using a wide variety of strong passwords for your online activities is “Unnecessary” then this part if for you.

High quality server level security will greatly reduce the risk of your website being breached by a DDoS or brute force attack and will help ensure that your own lackadaisical security standards don’t result in the abject destruction of your entire online infrastructure.

Be sure to opt for a web host that provides you with DNS protection, active website monitoring, and other advanced security features.

Although dedicated hosting certainly isn’t for everyone, the above services will help you stretch your budget and maximize your investment so that you can rest easy knowing that your website is operating at peak capacity.

While there are plenty of other dedicated hosts that are ‘good’, at Hosting Canada, we prefer to recommend only the greats.

We hope this guide has been helpful and, as always, if you have any questions, concerns, or snarky remarks (actually, let’s leave that to the American hosting review sites )... feel free to drop them in the comments section below!