In whatever business field you venture into, you will require an appropriate electronic image or personal brand. However, it should be noted that this social media-oriented era of ours demands a business website even for professional photographers seeking to maintain a unique profile among their competitors. To get photography jobs and sell your prints, sharing your photos and style cannot be overstated. At this point, however, not many photographers have enough time to master all the nuances related to modern technologies and server administration. For this article, we shall do all the hard work for you and review some of the best website hosting for photographers in the UK that will set you apart while being easy on your pocket.
A professional online store or portfolio will allow you to spread your work beyond physical interactions with individuals thus they do not have to meet you personally to see your work globally. The selling of the prints is also easy on any one of the photography hosting platforms. So let’s start.
List of the best website hosting for photographers in the UK
Cloudways
Cloudways (Hosting): One of the best options for photographers is Cloudways (Hosting). These provide and maintain web servers for different applications and web pages. Users can just build their website and prepare its content since these applications are included preinstalled to operate instantly. Cloudways supports web applications like WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Laraval, and Drupal for web applications. As a third-party provider, Cloudways can easily install this software.
Technologies: Cloudways managed cloud hosting incorporates many providers such as AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, and many other providers. Their website speeds have been boosted through the application of technologies like Varnish, Redis, and Memcache. The combination of these cloud providers, together with web optimization technology, makes sure that your website runs without a hitch
Server Response Time: Cloudways’ average server response time is 3439ms. Its slowest server response time is around 9296ms while its fastest server response time is about 1039ms
Price:The lowest plans by Cloudway cost approximately $11 per month (standard) and $14 per month (premium) as of November 2023. The prices may change with time.
Key features
- Managed Cloud Hosting
- One-Click Apps
- 3 days free trial
- Multiple Cloud Providers
- Performance Optimization
- Offers Scalability Options
- Provides Robust Security
- Gives 24/7 Support
- Staging Environments
- Transparent Pricing
- User-Friendly Interface
Shopify (Hosting and domain)
Shopify is an eCommerce hosting brand for anyone looking for one. It is seen that many art galleries depend on Shopify for the display of their artworks, and hence a perfect inclusion in our Photography web hosting website listings. Promo codes can be added among other features to help you in advertising your store for instance using Shopify. There are successful art and photography stores that will come in handy when evaluating what benefits there are in making a photographer store using Shopify
When it comes to customer support, you get a fantastic choice of four channels: chat, email, telephone, and community help. We also sent a test question, and after approximately a couple of minutes, we received a full response, and were quite impressed. So according to me, it is an excellent option.
Image source: shopify.com
Technologies: Shopify operates with its proprietary technology stack developed specifically to serve the needs of online-based businesses. It brings together elements for website hosting, content management, and e-commerce facilities into one system. This blend of technologies provides Shopify with a complete solution for exposing images and selling the products to the world wide web
Image source: Just Scout
Server Response Time: The average response time for Shopify is about 0.59 sec which is great
Price– As per latest report, the Basic Shopify store costs $25 per month. They also have another package called Shopify Lite which enables one to sell on Facebook and own blogs for $9 per month
Key features
- 3 Day FREE trial
- No credit card is required for a free trial
- Easy to set up
- 24/7 customer support
- Process payments are smooth
- Lots of handy shop tools
- Plenty of extensions and apps along with Customer Support
- Email & Chat support
- Phone Assistance
- Community Forum
- Unified Platform
- Fast Response
- Affordable Plans
Hostinger (Hosting)
Everything required for the development of a top-level photography website is offered by Hostinger. Hostinger is an affordable, easy-to-use web hosting for photographers for companies of small to medium size. Its proprietary control panel features make it one of the best website hosts for photographers in the UK. It is a user-friendly interface that can be translated into 17 different languages. It has a dedicated Customer Success team that is available round the clock if one faces problems when running. In addition, Hostinger has multiple data centers across the world with a guaranteed uptime of 99.9%.
Hostinger operates within the European Union and fully abides by the GDPR, showing its respect towards users’ privacy. To illustrate, most of the domain privacy protection feature for suitable top-level domains is offered at no cost. Moving your site from another host to Hostinger is easy, fast, and free of charge
Technologies: Among all types of websites that can be hosted, photography portfolios and other common pages can all be hosted using Hostinger as a service provider. These companies use technologies such as LiteSpeed, PHP, and SSD storage for faster page loading times. A high-performance web server called Litespeed coupled with SSD storage makes access to data even faster and more effective. The company uses all of its business services running with LiteSpeed servers and the Linux operating system
Server Response Time – Usually, Hostinger has quick server response times. Hostinger has an average of about 116ms in response time.
Price– Hostinger has a starting price of £ 2.49/month. Additionally, the provider has two shared hosting packages starting from $3.49/month to $8.99/month and one cloud plan
Key features
- Free website transfer and domain
- 24×7 technical support
- Full SSD servers
- Unbounded bandwidth
- Provides 8 different VPS plans
- 99.9% website uptime guarantee
- Extremely professional and cheap
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Excellent for keeping backups
- live chat, email
- Easy Web Builder
- Easy-to-use control panel
Namecheap
Over the past three years, namecheap hosting has been the cheapest web host with reliable uptime and fast load times. Namecheap provides one of the cheapest domains and a decent web hosting package. Although it claims good customer support on its site, it is not all that good as per feedback, so be aware of that. This is a choice if you need a competitive price and package with WHOIS protection and web hosting. Note that the EasyWP plans are quite minimal.
The backend control panel is also extremely basic and contains few features. In fact, on all of the tiers you are limited to just one website, you can only use WordPress, it offers no email and no free domain name, and many other additional features are restricted.
It has fast and knowledgeable customer support. Thus if you are searching for an inexpensive, fast, and reliable hosting service for only one WordPress website and no extras are required, it is a good option. Security enhancements such as SSL certificates, VPNs, and annual premium domain are provided as additional services at Namecheap for your annual fee
Technologies: The cheap host has the cPanel and makes it easy to manipulate your site. They rely on technologies like SSD storage or CloudLinux to boost site speed. One of the most important technologies used in web hosting is SSD Storage
Server Response Time– The server response time averages 2859 ms but with many spikes hence, not so good
Price– As of Nov 2023, the price begins at $1.98 per month. Turbo packs also begin at $7.91 per month. Affordability is one of the reasons that attract many photographers in search of affordable yet good quality solution
Key features
- Free Email Address – 2 Month Trial
- Extra Reliability and Security
- 24/7 Customer Support
- Hosting for 1 WordPress site
- WordPress 1-click installation to simplify the process.
- Free migration of your current WordPress website to Namecheap
- SSL certificate
- 1 SFTP access
- Analytics data
- 24-hour support
A2H Hosting
A2 Hosting is a fully featured web hosting provider that has a variety of hosting packages, including some specifically designed for photographers. You are provided with a lot of high-quality security options, superior photo hosting methods, and also other good items like design portfolios by choosing this photographic website domain. The strong infrastructure makes it easier to control big medical files. Besides that, there is even an option of choosing a particular location for storing the data
One good thing about A2 hosting for photographers is that they do have turbo hosting which is twenty times faster than other providers. A2 Hosting offers several high-powered 1-click solutions for Image hosting including: Likewise, Piwigo, TinyWebGallery, Coppermine, Chevereto, and Lychee. Every alternative comes with a USP and is instantly installable at A2 Hosting. In addition; they give free Cloudflare CDN that increases the velocity as well as safety. The unique software gallery that differentiates A2 Hosting from other photography website hosting. You could, for instance, employ Coppermine to create a photography gallery based on PHP. Also, there are available communities like Piwigo
Technologies– Specifically optimized for speed and performance is what defines the Turbo Servers of A2 Hosting. The supported technologies include HTTP/2, SSD storage, and PHP 7. x. HTTP/2 which is the current network protocol improves the site’s speed while the SSD storage helps in quick data acquisition hence faster loading time
Server Response Time– A2 Hosting usually manages a good server’s speed record. Average Server Response Time in the UK is 129 ms. Your website must remain responsive so that you can easily deliver content to your visitors as they view your projects
Price– Regarding the price, A2 Hosting provides different hosting packages (from $1.99/mo) such as the managed WordPress and also VPS. As a photographer, you can purchase Turbo Hosting at A2 Hosting only for $5.99. The company also has VPS plans from $4.99 to $79.99 per month upon paying annually. This lot of choice is good because you can get very specific in the amount of bandwidth, storage, and other features that you will pay for. This enables you to come up with a customized program for your requirements
Key features
- Maximum speed
- Industry-highest server speeds
- Uptime commitment about lost business due to downtime
- Diversified plans to serve sites of any size
- Free HackScan Protection
- DDoS Protection
- Turbo Hosting
- 99.9% Uptime Commitment
- Lots of choice of plans
- Free SSL
- Unlimited subdomains
- Great security
- Good storage
- 24/7/365 Guru Crew Support
- Different schemes for serving facilities of any size
Price and speed comparison chart
Cloudways | Shopify | Hostinger | A2H | Namecheap | |
Price | Standard- $11/mo Premium-$14/mo | Basic £25/mo Shopify-£65 /mo Advanced- £344/mo | Premium- £ 2.49/mo Business-£ 3.49/mo Cloud start-up-£ 8.99/mo | Shared -$1.99/mo Turbo-$5.99/mo VPS-$4.99/mo Managed wp-$9.99/mo Dedicated server- $79.99/mo | Basic- $1.98 /mo Turbo- $7.91/mo |
Speed-Test | 3.04 seconds on average | 1 sec on average | 0.47 on average | 0.295 on average | 3 seconds on average |
Well, I could recommend Hostinger and Namecheap to you depending on their specific characteristics and prices. Nevertheless, it will be dictated individually by the specific needs and preferences of each case
Consider the needs of your site and budget when you finally decide. However, it is important to consider the fact that the hosting environment is dynamic, and therefore, the price of the service varies at different times. As such, visit their sites for up-to-date price information.
Hence, it is very necessary to opt for a trustworthy hosting and domain provider who will share your common views on goals and other resources you are working with. You can showcase your photography skills to the market and the outside world even when you need it fast, cheap, easy, or everything.
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