When you start with web hosting, you probably think it’s quite simple.

There are some large companies that offer great packages to get started with.

However, if you dig deeper and do more research, you might find the smaller hosting providers are much better for your business and needs.

Those big players have lots of limitations in terms of features, performance, support, and pricing flexibility.

Here are 5 reasons why you should avoid the largest web-hosting companies as a small business owner:

You’ll lack flexibility and control over your hosting environment

If you host your website or application with a large hosting company, you might not be able to make changes or customise your hosting environment.

If you’re a developer who wants to be able to control your hosting environment, it can be frustrating to be limited by the large hosting company.

Many large hosting companies don’t give you root access. This means you are unable to customise and make changes to your hosting environment. You would have to contact customer support to make changes that you should be able to do yourself.

This can create a bottleneck in your business if you have to wait for someone else to make changes that you should be able to do yourself.

In addition, many large hosting companies don’t allow you to install or run your own software.

For example, let’s say you want to run a WordPress blog on your website. You can’t install WordPress with a large hosting company because they don’t allow you to run your own software on their servers. They prefer to manage your website for you.

This can be really frustrating for many small business owners who want to have full control over their website.

Since they have so many customers, you’ll have to wait longer for support

Let’s face it, large companies will always have more customers than smaller providers. When you go with a large hosting company, you should expect to wait longer for support. If you’re waiting for an urgent support request, this can be extremely frustrating.

You might even find that the support team is prioritising other customers over you. You should expect to wait longer for support from the large host.

Hosting providers with thousands of customers will have a harder time responding to your support requests.

Large hosting providers probably have support reps answering multiple tickets at the same time. You might find yourself waiting hours or even days to get a response.

If you need urgent support, you might want to look for a smaller hosting provider.

They might not be trustworthy with your data and could expose you to risk

If you’re hosted with a large hosting provider, there’s a good chance they’re hosting thousands of websites and apps. If they’re hosting that many websites and apps, they might not be able to secure and protect your website as well as a smaller hosting company.

If your website or application gets infected with a virus, there’s a chance that virus could spread to thousands of other websites and apps. If your website is infected, it’s a lot more work for the large hosting company to clean up that virus and make sure it doesn’t infect other websites.

Let’s say you’re hosting your website with a large hosting provider, and they have to shut down your website to clean it. That means thousands of other websites hosted on the same server will also be shut down.

The large hosting provider might also be unable to patch a security hole that was found in your application or website. You might also receive a warning from Google that your website is being maliciously exploited.

At this point, you might have to shut down your website or be exposed to risk. A smaller hosting company will be able to patch your website or application faster or potentially avoid this disaster in the first place.

They’re typically more expensive than smaller providers

You might find that the large hosting companies are more expensive than smaller hosting providers. If you want to host your website with a large provider, you might have to pay a little more than a smaller hosting provider.

This can be frustrating because you get less features and service for your money. Large hosting providers don’t typically offer as many features as a smaller hosting provider. If you want extra features, you might have to pay extra with a large hosting provider.

With a smaller hosting provider, you can expect to pay less for the same features. Large hosting providers typically have more basic features. They don’t typically have the more advanced features that smaller hosting providers offer.

They might not offer a lot of options for your budget, either. You might be forced to pay more for a basic hosting plan. They are also able to give you extremely tempting sign up offers for the first year, and then you end up receiving large hosting bill to pay for when you renew. Always be sure to check what the actual monthly price is for hosting.

They offer the same features as the smaller providers but with less quality

If you’re hosting your website or application with a large hosting provider, you might not get the same quality as a smaller hosting provider. You might find that the quality of the websites and apps being hosted with large providers is lower.

You might find that their servers are slower, there’s less up-time, and the support is terrible.

Large hosting providers might not be able to maintain the same level of quality with their service. They might have more trouble keeping the website online with so many customers.

Let’s say you’re hosting your website with a large hosting provider, and they have issues with their servers. Your website could be offline for hours or even days. We see this time and time again from people on Twitter with their websites going offline multiple times per month with no one around to tell them what is going on.

Conclusion

If you’re hosting your website or application with a large hosting provider, you might find that you’re missing out on a lot of benefits. You might find that you lack control over your hosting environment, that your website and applications are less secure, and that the quality of service is lower than you’d get with a smaller hosting provider.

Hosting your website or application with a large hosting provider is not ideal. You might find that you’re paying more for less.

When you’re choosing a web host, it’s important to choose one that meets your needs. The best hosting companies will have features that are necessary for your website. These features will include great customer support, scalability, security, and more.

They’ll also have a variety of hosting plans and packages to choose from so you can find the one that’s right for you.

When you are doing your research, take to Twitter and find out what the larger web hosting customers are really saying about their services, and don’t be tricked by the thousands of affiliates spamming their links to try and make a quick sale through misleading marketing messages.

There are some amazing large web hosting companies out there though, but sadly there are some that are not. Do your own research, stay vigilant and good luck!