CheapASPNETHostingReview.com | Best and cheap Drupal core 8.2.3 hosting. A review of the top Drupal web hosts for self-hosting your own drupal website. Your 2016 guide to Drupal and how to find the best Drupal web hosting.
Finding the best Drupal web host is key to the long-term success of your Drupal website. Most web hosts support Drupal, but performance is often the primary issue because it requires higher server resources than other CMS platforms. In fact, we recommend hosting Drupal on a VPS hosting plan, although it is still of course possible to host it on a shared plan. Regardless of which hosting plan your site may need, here’s a list of the best Drupal web hosting companies that come highly recommended by us and the Drupal community:
The Best Drupal Web Hosts at a Glance
Here’s a quick overview of the top choices for Drupal web hosting. We’ve listed the different purposes we would recommend each one for:
Web Host Starts at : Recommended for: more ASPHostPortal $5.00/mo Best value Drupal hosting for businesses 
HostForLIFE €3.00/mo Cloud based Drupal hosting for uptime & reliability UKWindowsHostASP £3.00/mo Popular choice for Drupal and #1 recommended on Drupal DiscountService $7.00/mo Affordable, Drupal shared hosting for those on a budget WindowsASPNETHosting INR70/mo Fast, high performance Drupal web hosting for developers
ASPHostPortal.com Affordable, Reliable, & High Performance Hosting for Drupal
$5.00/mo VISIT ASPHostPortal ASPHostPortal is top web hosting choice for Drupal and offers the all-around best value for businesses of any size. Their entry level shared hosting plan is quite affordable at $5.00 per month and offers an exceptional mix of performance, features, and value. It comes with PleskPanel and a 1-click install for Drupal . It’s easy to setup, manage, and offers great uptime and reliability. However, since Drupal is typically used for larger, more complex sites and is fairly resource intensive, we’d recommend going with one of their Drupal plans, which start at $5.00 per month.
HostForLIFE.eu Cloud Based Drupal Hosting for Uptime & Reliability
€3.00/mo VISIT HostForLIFE HostForLIFE.eu is is another great web hosting company on our list and offers exceptional uptime and reliability. Their cloud hosting platform is an affordable, yet exceptionally powerful choice for Drupal sites. It comes with Plesk Panel and includes easy Drupal installation. They also offer Unlimited Bandwidth and Disk Space as well for larger, more complex Drupal projects.
UKWindowsHostASP.NET Popular Drupal Web Hosting & Recommended
£3.00/mo VISIT UKWindowsHostASP UKWindowsHostASP.NET is is a Drupal Premium Hosting Supporter and is the #1 recommended host. We’d recommend their shared hosting plan for very small Drupal projects as you’ll most likely need solution for anything else. Their cloud platform is priced only a little higher than shared plans, yet offers double the speeds and better traffic handling. All in all, UKWindowsHostASP offers great performance, reliability, and customer support for Drupal sites.
DiscountService.biz Affordable Drupal Hosting for Those on a Budget
$7.00/mo VISIT DiscountService DiscountService.biz is is one of our favorite choices for hosting small Drupal projects on a shared web hosting account. They only offer shared hosting, their shared hosting plans are very reliable and offer great value. Every plan comes with Plesk Panel and a 1-click install of Drupal via Softaculous. Web Hosting Hub makes everything quick and easy to setup and you’ll get great performance and uptime, along with great customer support.
WindowsASPNETHosting.in Extreme Performance & Speed for Drupal Sites
INR70/mo VISIT WindowsASPNETHosting WindowsASPNETHosting.in is last, but not least on our list and is an exceptional choice for hosting Drupal. They offer a variety of windows based managed and unmanaged web hosting plans for projects of all sizes. Their shared hosting plans are affordable, come with Plesk Panel, and have a 1-click install . We’d recommend starting off with their personal plan (INR70 per month) as it offers extreme speeds and reliability for a shared hosting plan.
Finding the Best Web Host for Drupal
One of the most important decisions for using Drupal is to determine what type of web hosting is required to support its functionality. Some of the main questions that need to be answered are:
- Does the web host meet the minimum Drupal CMS system requirements?
- Does the web host provide Secure Shell (SSH) access?
- What are the custom development requirements of the website?
- What is the expected user traffic the website will need to manage?
- What performance optimization software will be used to run the Drupal site?
Typically, most small business owners start out on a shared hosting account and then move to a VPS or cloud solution if the web traffic increases past the point that the server will permit. Drupal will consume a lot of processing resources on a shared hosting account which becomes more problematic when more simultaneous users are present on the site. Development requirements such as the use of Drush and Git with Drupal require command line access using a Secure Shell (SSH) account, which not every shared host will allow. The Drupal CMS will scale to meet the most demanding user traffic environments on the web, but only if the server architecture is properly configured for resource allocation. Cloud optimization software like Nginx, Varnish, Memcache, and APC are recommended by developers for high traffic enterprise sites and web apps, but invariably will require a server with custom configuration.
Drupal Hosting System Requirements
Drupal will run on both Linux and Windows servers, though the vast majority of sites run on the LAMP stack using Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. The advantage with shared hosting over VPS and dedicated server solutions for small business sites is that the web hosting company will manage the server software, which includes the regular patching of scripts for security upgrades. Thus, shared hosting with cPanel is cost effective in getting started with a Drupal site, as the site owners will not usually be required to employ a dedicated systems administrator to keep the server configured and secure.
Drupal runs on a MySQL database, which is the default standard on almost all shared Linux and Windows hosting platforms. PostgreSQL and SQLite are also options with Drupal, as are the MariaDB and the Percona database frameworks, but these are normally not recommended outside of custom development requirements.
The most important thing to confirm with a shared web hosting solution is the PHP version support. In summary:
- Drupal 8 requires PHP 5.5.9 or higher
- Drupal 7 requires PHP 5.2.5 or higher
We recommend PHP 5.6 or higher as the fine folks who maintain the PHP project have stopped supporting PHP 5.5. With VPS or cloud solutions, developers should easily be able to install and configure the PHP version they prefer with the Linux or Windows install. However, some shared web hosts run PHP as a CGI process instead of as an Apache module, which can occasionally cause performance issues, module conflicts, or other issues such as lack of customization possibilities. It is recommended to confirm that the web host supports the appropriate PHP version required for the Drupal installation before beginning development of the website.