Tried switching hosts and my site crashed for a day

Moved my WordPress site to save money. Didn't check if the new host supported my email plugin. Big mistake, contact forms broke and newsletter signups stopped working. Spent six hours fixing it. Ended up switching back, refund is still pending.

Learned my lesson: always check plugin compatibility before migrating.

Anyone know a reliable host under $20 that plays nice with WordPress plugins?

It has been a minute since I looked into it but I know from the past that DreamHost works great with WordPress plugins and it is on the cheaper side.

I have had this happen too, so I know the pain. Although for me, it took DAYS to sort out the issue and cost me a good chunk of money ☹️

Good to know about DreamHost, I might actually give them a shot. I keep hearing their name come up when people talk about budget hosting that doesn't break everything.

And man, I feel you on the days part. Mine was just one day because I panicked and switched back immediately, but I can imagine how painful it gets when you are stuck troubleshooting for days while your site is down and every hour of downtime is money slipping away. That refund still hasn't hit my account and honestly I am not holding my breath at this point.

Have you had any luck with DreamHost's support when things go wrong?

That is usually where cheap hosts lose me.

When it comes to affordability for performance, Hostinger has become my go-to recommendation, they are a really affordable hosting choice, great for WordPress sites, and their custom control panel is easy to use and their site loading speed is good for the price. They start at $10.99/mo USD regular price, but you can purchase their 48-month plan which, if you can afford it upfront, slashes the price to $2.99/mo for 4 years. That's crazy low for what you get.

If you're looking for a really fast host with great support, but a bit higher cost, check out Kinsta. I have a few clients hosted with them, and they have a fantastic live support chat in their control panel, you can chat right away with expert techs who know systems like WordPress inside and out. Kinsta also monitors your site for malware every 3 minutes with their "Proactive site monitoring". If your WordPress site gets hacked with malware, they clean your site for you and fix it free included in your plan, which is a really great service that other hosts usually charge hundreds of dollars for. Their plans start at $30/mo for 1 WordPress site if paid annually ($350/yr), or $35/mo if paid monthly.

DreamHost, I've had clients that host with them and their sites have loaded ok, but haven't used them personally. They look like a good value choice if you're hosting multiple WordPress sites, as their low tier plans allow for 25-50 sites.

Hosting companies I would avoid from personal experience:

• Hostgator - affordable, but every client I've worked with that host WordPress sites with them that are more than a few basic pages, their site loads very slow, WordPress loads at a snail pace even in the admin backend, just a poor experience overall. You really do get what you pay for, and there are other hosts like Hostinger that are comparable price-wise but offer way better service in my opinion.

• Siteground - they were my #1 recommendation years ago, but I have been really disappointed in them in recent years. Their customer service isn't what it used to be, they make it more difficult to contact them. Their Help area pushes you to their automated AI assistant. I've noticed sites hosted with them loading slower than other competitors I've been using. TTFB (time to first byte) is lower than other hosts, which is important when you're optimizing for PageSpeed and Google SEO.

On 6/13/2026 at 6:57 PM, Chad said:

Hostgator - affordable, but every client I've worked with that host WordPress sites with them that are more than a few basic pages, their site loads very slow, WordPress loads at a snail pace even in the admin backend, just a poor experience overall. You really do get what you pay for, and there are other hosts like Hostinger that are comparable price-wise but offer way better service in my opinion.

This was one of the first hosts I used and while they were great in the beginning, I quickly found out why they were cheaper than a lot of other options.

I had issues with my sites crashing and it was on the host end. It took them nearly 10 DAYS to fix the issue. I moved away from them after that. I bounced around 3 years and ended up doing self-hosting.