The best Linux web hosting services in 2024

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Best Linux web hosting: Jump menu

From shared hosting to dedicated servers, the best Linux web hosting offers plans tailored to accommodate all experience levels and varying levels of hosting resources.

Many hosting providers will leave OSs out of feature lists or comparison tables, leaving users stranded without this information. While for many novices this won't be an issue, those with more experience and technical knowledge will want to take advantage of specific Linux-specific hosting features. 

An advantage of the best Linux web hosting for these users is that you can have more control over your server, such as allowing you to port over a preferred Linux distribution or control panel. New Linux features and distributions appear all the time, such as Rhino Linux. 

Most Linux hosting providers can accommodate requests and often include advanced extras like firewalls, private DNS, mail servers, and high-quality technical support.

We've thoroughly tested the top Linux hosting providers. Below, we've outlined the best Linux web hosting services available, comparing each across their level of included features, pricing, performance, and much more.

The quick list

If you’re short on time, here’s a snapshot of each hosting service’s standout features. For a closer look, you can jump directly to the comprehensive reviews below. 

The top 3 Linux web hosting services right now

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InMotion Hosting: reliable, top-end Linux hosting
InMotion Hosting's reliable, high-quality Linux hosting provides user control, beginner-friendly features, advanced plans and tools, as well as support for multiple databases and the ability to manage WordPress installations: all at reasonable prices.

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SiteGround: leading support and great tools
SiteGround's technical support is market-leading, with custom solutions available if your demands don't fit their plans. Multiple databases are supported, alongside smart Linux containers, and a raft of top features across shared, VPS, cloud, and dedicated hosting plans.

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Liquid Web: Flexible VPS and dedicated servers
Liquid Web stands out for its bespoke server solutions, offering users a myriad of choices from multiple versions of CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora. With options ranging from self-managed to fully managed plans, Liquid Web solidifies its position as a top choice for those seeking advanced server control and reliability.

The best Linux web hosting services of 2024 in full

Best overall

InMotion Hosting logo

(Image credit: InMotion Hosting)
The best Linux web hosting service

Specifications

Entry level price: $2.49 a month
Bandwidth: Unmetered
Storage: 100GB

Reasons to buy

+
Professional features  
+
Excellent support 
+
90-day money-back guarantee

Reasons to avoid

-
Expensive after the introductory discount
-
Average performance in testing

InMotion Hosting is widely known as a reliable Linux web host, offering top-end packages that give users ultimate control over sites. Its shared hosting is packed with features ideal for novices, including regular backups, free website migration, and a website builder. 

Technical users are very well-catered for too, with plans that include support for PostgreSQL and MySQL databases, Ruby, Perl, PHP 7, Python, and SSH (secure shell protocol) access. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

For example, as well as having PrestaShop, WordPress, and Joomla pre-installation options, you also get WP-CLI, enabling you to manage numerous WordPress installations via the command line. And all of this comes at a very reasonable price: InMotion’s plans start at just $2.49 a month on a three-year plan.

The more powerful upgrades are just as reasonably priced—you can get optional self-managed cloud VPS hosting from $4.99 a month for year one. This plan enables you to choose your OS and firewall and then install, configure, and optimize the server in any way you like. 

We were pleased to find that even its managed VPS hosting provided users with root access, enabling a good degree of low-level control. You have a choice of OSs, including CentOS, Debian, or Ubuntu, and if you come across any problems during the setup phase, InMotion’s Launch Assist gives you a two-hour time slot with qualified tech support to help you iron out any issues.

Your Linux hosting experience with InMotion Hosting also benefits from their robust security measures and performance optimizations. Advanced DDoS protection safeguards your site from malicious attacks while the custom Advanced Policy Firewall further fortifies your digital presence. 

To optimize your site's speed, InMotion Hosting has incorporated Brotli Compression—a more effective alternative to gzip—enhancing load times for your visitors. 

InMotion Hosting has recently stepped up its game by introducing NVMe SSDs across its hosting plans, which provide significantly faster data access times compared to traditional SSDs. This technology, once reserved for high-end dedicated servers, is now available on shared and VPS hosting environments at no extra cost, ensuring that your Linux-based website benefits from high-speed storage performance. 

This cutting-edge inclusion underscores InMotion Hosting’s commitment to providing the latest in web hosting technology to its users, solidifying its position as a forward-thinking web host for Linux enthusiasts and professionals alike.

Read our detailed InMotion Hosting review.

Best for technical users

SiteGround logo

(Image credit: SiteGround)
The best Linux web hosting service for technical users

Specifications

Entry level price: $2.99 a month
Bandwidth: Unmetered
Storage: 10GB

Reasons to buy

+
Advanced features 
+
Technical experts on hand 
+
Great support  

Reasons to avoid

-
Expensive shared hosting plans
-
No VPS or dedicated hosting plans

SiteGround takes advanced technical support up a notch. If you don’t find what you’re looking for in its standard products, the company can build you a custom solution. Its website lists a range of the technologies it can support on its platform, including smart Linux containers, bespoke private clouds, database replication, and advanced technical knowledge of MySQL, PHP, WordPress, Drupal, Apache, Nginx, MongoDB, ElasticSearch, Redis, Memcached, Solr, and others. 

Of course, home users can’t expect this degree of support, but SiteGround's shared hosting plan has a lot going for it too, with cPanel and SSH access, free Let's Encrypt SSLs, unlimited emails and databases, Cloudflare integration, HTTP/2-enabled servers, daily backups, and open-all-hours support via phone, live chat, and a ticket system. All this comes at a cost of just $2.99 a month plus tax for year one, then $17.99 afterwards. 

SiteGround's commitment to cutting-edge technology is apparent in its recent transition to Google Cloud infrastructure, ensuring a high-performance platform for your website. You'll benefit from lightning-fast data processing and a high redundancy level, granting stability and speed. 

Moreover, SiteGround’s adoption of LiteSpeed web servers offers a significant performance boost over traditional Apache servers. LiteSpeed is known for its high scalability and ability to handle thousands of connections with minimal memory consumption and CPU usage.

Furthermore, security is a paramount concern for SiteGround. They've developed their own AI anti-bot system that effectively thwarts millions of security threats daily, keeping your site safe from various forms of cyber attacks. 

SiteGround’s cloud hosting includes a well-defined CentOS system, PostgreSQL, MySQL 5, 5 PHP versions, Apache, Nginx, HHVM, an Exim mail server, a private DNS setup, and iptables firewall. Everything is pre-installed and managed for your convenience. These packages begin at $100 a month plus tax.

If you decide a dedicated server would best serve your needs, you’ll get some serious extras, including Nginx-based cache options for WordPress, Memcached, and HHVM to boost performance, along with Git integration.

Even though many of these features may be surplus to requirements, they do give users a good indication of the level of technical expertise SiteGround can offer. So for a Linux-based site that you hope to scale up, this provider definitely has the right tools for the task.

Read our full SiteGround review.

Best for operating system choice

Liquid Web logo

(Image credit: Liquid Web)
The best Linux web hosting services for operating system choice

Specifications

Entry level price: $20 a month
Bandwidth: 10TB
Storage: 40GB

Reasons to buy

+
Pick your OS 
+
Great support 
+
Strong SLA

Reasons to avoid

-
Expensive 
-
No shared hosting

Liquid Web has a proven track record in providing flexible VPS and dedicated servers, and it’s this flexibility that attracts many technical users. Liquid Web creates bespoke solutions, enabling users to have advanced low-level control over their server. 

For example, you don’t just have a single version of CentOS. Instead, you can opt for CentOS 6 (with CloudLinux if you want it), CentOS 7 (with either cPanel or Plesk),  Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04, Debian 8, 9, and 10, and Fedora 30. You can choose from a mix of self-managed, core-managed, and fully managed plans too. 

You’ll find you have even more control over other extras. For example, instead of a regular backup strategy, Liquid Web enables you to choose the number of daily backups you'd like to do, or fit as many backups as possible into a disk space the size of which is up to you to determine. For this feature, you’ll pay a nominal $0.08 per GB a month for the space required. 

Liquid Web provides round-the-clock support, and the team is very quick to respond to any issues you may encounter. If there’s a hardware failure, the provider guarantees it will be dealt with and replaced within half an hour of the issue being identified. 

These claims are underpinned by a comprehensive service level agreement. One clause states that if the company doesn't respond to your ticket within 30 minutes, you'll be credited 10 times the amount by which the deadline was missed. You’ll also find other clauses covering things like network, electricity outages, and more.

Liquid Web's recent enhancements to its Linux hosting capabilities cater to the demands of modern web professionals. With the integration of Acronis backups, you now have the assurance of robust data protection and recovery options, safeguarding your projects against data loss. 

Moreover, the implementation of Cloudflare as a free add-on directly within the hosting management interface offers you the dual benefits of enhanced security and accelerated content delivery. This CDN service not only optimizes loading times for a global audience but also adds an additional layer of protection against DDoS attacks and other online threats.

Read our full Liquid Web review.

Best Linux VPS

Hostwinds

(Image credit: Hostwinds)
The best Linux VPS web hosting service

Specifications

Entry level price: $4.99 a month
Bandwidth: 1TB
Storage: 30GB

Reasons to buy

+
Choose your OS 
+
Value for money 
+
CPanel administration

Reasons to avoid

-
Knowledge base needs improvement
-
Basic Weebly plan

With Hostwinds' unmanaged VPS plans, you are given total control over your hosting. You can take your pick from a wide range of OSs, including openSUSE, CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian. What’s more, it’s possible for you to set up and configure your chosen OS in any way you choose and tweak your backup system. 

It’s important to remember that deciding on an unmanaged package will require you to be more responsible for it—it won’t be the responsibility of your hosting provider. For example, if you stumble across a hard-to-solve software issue it’s you who will have to find a way to fix it. Still, experienced Linux users shouldn’t find this too intimidating. 

But even with these advanced features, many components of Hostwinds' plans are still fairly straightforward and simple to use. For example, site management is conducted through cPanel, while WordPress and other installs are automated via Softaculous. You’ll also find one-click Nextcloud install, and more. 

When selecting a Linux hosting provider, performance and security are often top considerations. Hostwinds distinguishes itself with an impressive 99.9999% uptime guarantee, suggesting high reliability for your web presence. This commitment to uptime is bolstered by the availability of real-time monitoring services, which can be added to your plan for an additional level of oversight.

Another notable aspect is Hostwinds' commitment to flexibility. You have the option to scale your resources with hourly billing rates for cloud servers, which is ideal if you require a server only at specific times. Additionally, the array of value-added features available after account creation, like software licenses and cPanel or Plesk options, allows for significant customization of your hosting environment.

In our testing, we found the Hostwinds knowledge base often had broken links and some of the included features are quite limited. For instance, the included Weebly website builder is limited to 500MB of storage space.

Managed Linux VPS plans start at $8.24 a month for 1GB RAM, one CPU core, 30GB disk space, and 1TB traffic, and go all the way up to $395.24 for 96GB RAM, 16 cores, 750GB disk space, and 9TB traffic.

In contrast, HostWinds' unmanaged packages start at $4.99 and go as high as $328.99 a month. Hostwinds also offers rolling contracts, so you can try the service for a month and change it if you're not satisfied. 

Read our comprehensive Hostwinds review.

Best cloud-based Linux VPS

OVHcloud logo

(Image credit: OVHcloud)

5. OVHcloud

The most versatile cloud-based Linux VPS

Specifications

Entry level price: $4.20 a month
Bandwidth: Unmetered
Storage: 20GB

Reasons to buy

+
Wide range of OS and control panels 
+
Low price
+
Full root access

Reasons to avoid

-
Users report issues with customer support
-
Clunky user interface 

OVHCloud is a cloud provider with a wide range of products from bare metal servers and dedicated servers to public and private cloud solutions.  It offers several virtual private server options that start from just $4.20 a month for a server with a single vCore, 2GB of RAM, a 20GB SSD SATA drive, and a 100 Mbps unmetered connection.

OVHCloud offers a further four VPS plans with increasing power. Choosing a VPS from OVHCloud offers you more flexibility than if you were to choose a Linux shared hosting plan from another provider. You get root (administrator) access to your virtual server and support for Fedora, Ubuntu, and even Windows Server. OVHCloud also offers a 99.9% uptime service level agreement.

Several of OVHCloud's features cost extra, including automated backups, additional disks, cPanel, and Plesk. But with a VPS server, you have the versatility to do things like run a Minecraft server, host a multisite WordPress setup, or test web applications in a flexible virtual sandbox environment.

OVHCloud's Linux environments are fine-tuned to work seamlessly with popular CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla, ensuring that your site runs efficiently and remains stable under various loads. With support for the latest PHP versions, you're guaranteed improved security and performance, which are crucial for maintaining a professional online presence.

Additionally, OVHCloud's dedication to providing robust infrastructural support is evident in its deployment of SSD NVMe storage across its plans. This technology enhances the overall responsiveness of your hosted applications. You'll find that your virtual servers boot up swiftly, and your website's loading times are significantly diminished, contributing to a better user experience and potentially higher search engine rankings.

The best Linux website hosting, compared

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Web hosting serviceEntry level priceBandwidthStorage
InMotion Hosting$2.49 a monthUnmetered100GB
SiteGround$2.99 a monthUnmetered10GB
Liquid Web$20 a month10TB40GB
Hostwinds$4.99 a month1TB30GB
OVHCloud$4.20 a monthUnmetered20GB

Linux web hosting FAQs

What is Linux web hosting?

Linux web hosting refers to a web hosting service that utilizes a Linux operating system to run and manage websites and web applications. Linux, being an open-source operating system, is highly popular and widely used in the web hosting industry due to its stability, security, and flexibility. With Linux web hosting, websites are hosted on servers that run on Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, CentOS, or Debian.

What are the advantages of Linux web hosting?

One of the key advantages of Linux web hosting is its compatibility with various web technologies and programming languages. It supports popular scripting languages like PHP, Perl, and Python, making it an ideal choice for developers who work with these languages. Linux hosting seamlessly integrates with commonly used databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB, enabling efficient storage and retrieval of website data.

Linux web hosting also offers a wide range of software options and control panels, including cPanel and Plesk, which simplify website management tasks. These control panels provide user-friendly interfaces for managing domains, email accounts, databases, and file storage. They also offer one-click installation of popular content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, allowing users to easily set up and manage their websites.

Another notable feature of Linux web hosting is its robust security. Linux has a reputation for being highly secure, largely due to its rigorous permission system, constant community-driven updates, and extensive access control mechanisms. The open-source nature of Linux enables a large community of developers to identify and address security vulnerabilities promptly.

Furthermore, Linux web hosting often offers cost-effective solutions as the Linux operating system is free and open-source. This results in lower licensing costs for web hosting providers, which can translate into more affordable hosting plans for users. Additionally, Linux's efficiency and stability contribute to optimal server performance, ensuring reliable website uptime and fast loading speeds.

How to choose the best Linux web hosting for you

Most providers offer Linux hosting, but usually, unless you opt for a dedicated server, you’ll find that your plan is managed totally by the company. This means your provider will set up, manage, and service the OS and all the other corresponding features for you. 

Look for ease of use. For first-time users, this is a good option, but more technical users might want to have a little more control and get frustrated by the lack of flexibility. Almost every provider aiming to offer the best Linux web hosting will promise top-end technical support. What is hard for users to do is determine which provider is genuine, and which is simply talking the talk.

The best Linux hosting providers offer easy scalability when your site grows. A good way to figure out whether the provider you’re interested in really can deliver on this promise is to do a little research into its most advanced package. Standard plans won’t provide you with the level of support that a pro package will, but it’s very helpful to know what’s on offer should you need it. 

Find a provider that offers the features you need. One of the appealing things about Linux hosting is the amount of control you can have over the separate components that make up your package. But this isn’t something you can expect from every provider. In most cases, you’ll find that you are offered a default OS like CentOS and cPanel as standard, with no other options. 

First-timers might struggle to choose their initial Linux hosting plan, as the range of features and optional extras can be a little overwhelming. One way to test the waters is to sign up with a provider that’s both flexible and affordable.

How we review the best Linux web hosting

When reviewing any web host, including those that rank among the best Linux web hosting services, we follow a set of steps to better judge providers.

First of all, we build a test site, either via the provider itself or with a separate platform, should the host not offer a built-in builder. Once this site is ready, we trial response times and uptimes for it with the host over two weeks. Both are key indicators of site performance, as you can lose custom and revenue should your site be unresponsive or persistently offline.

Beyond this, we test interfaces, specific features, and top tools to see both how the host's offerings add up, and to identify what difficulty level it stands at between easy-to-use to complex. We also test ease of use when setting up or importing an SSL certificate, and explore other security features on offer. This last point is important when it comes to Linux, as users will expect high-quality security.

For long-term site stability, users must establish the level of support and competence a provider will offer should an issue arise. We test the responsiveness of customer support and service, to see how quickly they respond to customer requests, and to outline how knowledgeable and reliable they are.

With web hosting packages well-known for their confusing and opaque pricing, we examine pricing plans in-depth, so that we can summarize them for you, and warn whether monthly costs might increase after the cheaper initial period.

See our testing methodology page for more information.

Next steps with web hosting

Make sure you check out our other specific buying guides for web hosting if you're looking for a particular type of hosting for your website. For more advanced sites and business-level hosting, have a look at the best VPS hosting, the best cloud hosting, and the best unlimited hosting you can find today.

Those with WordPress sites should look into the best WordPress hosting. If you're searching for hosting on a tight budget, our guides to the best free web hosting and the best web hosting for cheap may be helpful, though it's worth noting that we don't recommend free web hosting for business websites.

Kieron Allen

Kieron is a freelance science and technology journalist with more than a decade of experience writing for magazines in print and online. Today, his focus is on cybersecurity, blockchain, and emerging tech. He also has a passion for social affairs, arts and culture and travel writing, and recently launched a new publication covering social activism and the volunteering sector.

With contributions from