For a blog or a brochure site in France, LWS and o2switch offer the best balance of renewal price, protection and support in French. For a demanding store, choose Kinsta or PlanetHoster; to have nothing to maintain, IONOS; for data in Switzerland, Infomaniak. We compared 15 hosts on their documented security, real renewal price, WordPress tools, data location and support, plus seven local hosts for targeting another European market.
This ranking is published by the WP Masquerade team, the publisher of a security plugin for WordPress: we do not sell hosting, none of the hosts mentioned pays us and this page contains no affiliate links. Criteria and weighting are detailed in the methodology.
Our picks at a glance
One host per profile, based on our five criteria; each profile below details the caveats.
- Small budget LWS €3.99/month excl. VAT at the regular price, firewall on by default.
- Several sites, agencies o2switch Unlimited sites and 30 to 90 days of backups.
- Demanding store Kinsta Cloudflare WAF, one container per site, free cleanup.
- Hands-off maintenance IONOS Core, plugins, themes and PHP updated automatically.
- Isolation and backups PlanetHoster Isolated projects, 45 days of encrypted off-site backups.
- Data in Switzerland Infomaniak Firewall, antivirus and Patchman on with no setup.
Comparison table of the 15 hosts
The price shown is the regular price, the one you will pay after the welcome promotion. Click a name to read the profile.
| Host | Best for | Regular price from | Strength | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| o2switch | Agencies, multiple sites | €7/month excl. VAT | Unlimited sites, 30 to 90 days of backups | Annual payment only |
| LWS | First site, small budget | €3.99/month excl. VAT | ModSecurity on, staging | 1 GB databases, inodes |
| PlanetHoster | Small businesses, stores | €7.99/month | Per-project isolation, 45 days of backups | Contract under Quebec law |
| Infomaniak | Data in Switzerland | CHF 10.91/month excl. VAT | Server protection on by default | 7-day backups |
| OVHcloud | Developers, small budgets | €2.59/month excl. VAT | Full range, anti-DDoS | Non-contractual backups |
| EasyHoster | Non-technical freelancers | €3.29/month | WordPress help included | Very small company |
| Kinsta | Stores, critical sites | $35/month excl. tax | Cloudflare WAF, free cleanup | High price, no email |
| IONOS | Beginners who delegate | €5/month excl. VAT | Full automatic updates | 7-day backups |
| Amen | Small sites, French-speaking contact | €5.56/month excl. VAT | Managed option at no extra cost | Office-hours support |
| GoDaddy | Delegating everything | €13.99/month excl. VAT | 30 days of backups, malware handled | Past security incidents |
| Hostinger | Small budgets, English speakers | €9.99/month excl. VAT | LiteSpeed, servers in France | 48-month commitment |
| DreamHost | North American audience | €10.99/month excl. VAT | Renewal prices displayed | English, paid malware scanning |
| Bluehost | Several small sites | €9.99/month excl. VAT | 10 sites, servers in Paris | Courtesy backups |
| HostGator | US audience | $10.99/month excl. tax | SSH and staging from entry level | Servers in the United States |
| Scaleway | System administrators | €3.99/month excl. VAT | Dedibox, 24/7 support | Web security not documented |
The most common trap is the introductory price: it only applies to the first period, sometimes with 36 or 48 months paid upfront. The second table puts both prices side by side, with the term they depend on and the server location.
| Host | Plan | Regular price | 1st period | Term | Servers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| o2switch | Grow. | €7 excl. VAT | No discount | Annual payment | Clermont-Ferrand |
| LWS | Perso | €3.99 excl. VAT | €1.49 excl. VAT | 1st year | France |
| PlanetHoster | Standard | €7.99 (taxes not specified) | No discount | Not specified | Paris, Lausanne or Montreal |
| Infomaniak | Web Hosting | CHF 10.91 excl. VAT | 30 days free | Annual by default | Geneva |
| OVHcloud | Perso | €5.99 excl. VAT | €2.99 excl. VAT | 12 months | Gravelines or Beauharnois |
| EasyHoster | Light | €3.29 (taxes not specified) | €2.49 over 36 months | 12 months | France (OVHcloud) |
| Kinsta | Single | $35 excl. tax | 1st month free | No commitment | Your choice, including Paris |
| IONOS | WordPress Start | €5 excl. VAT | €3 excl. VAT (6 months) | 12 months | Not specified |
| Amen | WordPress Start | €5.56 excl. VAT | No discount | 12 months | Europe, country not specified |
| GoDaddy | WordPress Basic | €13.99 excl. VAT | €2.79 excl. VAT | 12 months | Not specified |
| Hostinger | Premium | €9.99 excl. VAT | €2.49 excl. VAT | 48 months | Your choice, including France |
| DreamHost | Launch | €10.99 excl. VAT | €2.89 excl. VAT | 12 months | United States, Amsterdam, Singapore |
| Bluehost | Débutant | €9.99 excl. VAT | €3.99 excl. VAT | 36 months | Your choice, including Paris |
| HostGator | Hatchling | $10.99 excl. tax | $3.75 excl. tax | 36 months | United States |
| Scaleway | Web Hosting Mini | €3.99 excl. VAT | No discount | No commitment | Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw |
French-speaking shared hosting: the best price-to-protection ratio
Shared hosting is enough for the vast majority of WordPress sites. Among these six plans, the difference lies in what is active with no setup (firewall, scanning, isolation), in backup retention and in the regular price.
France Servers in Clermont-Ferrand
o2switch
The most generous shared hosting for several sites, paid yearly
cPanel shared hosting From €7/month excl. VAT Agencies, multiple sites
- Server LiteSpeed and PowerBoost (Nginx)
- Backups 30, 45 or 90 days, remote
- Security TigerProtect, ModSecurity, ImunifyAV+
- Support 24/7 tickets in French
Unlimited sites and “moons”, which partition resources, let an agency keep each sensitive client apart. The in-house TigerProtect firewall can be tuned for WordPress (blocking xmlrpc.php, login rate limiting) and WPTiger adds staging and integrity checks. Watch the renewal: Grow. has no discount, but Cloud. and Pro. lose theirs after the first year, and TigerGuard real-time scanning only comes from Cloud. up.
Strengths
- Unlimited sites and moons to separate clients
- Remote backups kept 30 to 90 days
- Data centers owned in France
Limits
- Annual payment only
- No VPS or managed WordPress
- No TigerGuard on Grow.
Who it is for: agencies, freelancers and small businesses hosting several sites in France.
Our take: the best resources-to-protection ratio in French shared hosting, if the annual bill does not bother you.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at o2switch
France Servers in France
LWS
The entry price that stays low after the first year
WordPress shared hosting From €3.99/month excl. VAT First site, small budget
- Server Apache, Nginx for static files, LWS Cache
- Backups Daily, self-service restore 1 month
- Security ModSecurity on by default
- Support 7 days a week in French
LWS shows €3.99 excl. VAT per month at renewal (€1.49 excl. VAT for the first year), one of the lowest regular prices on the list, with 100 GB NVMe and WP Manager (staging, cloning, automatic updates to enable). The limits are in the quotas: 1 GB MySQL databases and one million inodes, which a WooCommerce store with a large catalog will quickly reach. Then move to Starter, with SSH, or to o2switch.
Strengths
- Discount limited to the 1st year, excl. and incl. VAT shown
- ModSecurity by default, staging included
- Servers in France (Adista, Equinix)
Limits
- 1 GB databases and inode quotas
- No SSH on Perso
- Isolation between accounts not documented
Who it is for: a first site, a blog, a nonprofit, a few brochure sites.
Our take: the safest choice on a small budget, to leave for Starter or o2switch when the database grows.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at LWS
Canada Servers in Paris, Lausanne or Montreal
PlanetHoster
Each site in its own bubble, in the data center of your choice
Isolated shared hosting (N0C) From €7.99/month Small businesses, stores
- Server LiteSpeed (Enterprise on Ultra), HTTP/3
- Backups Daily, encrypted, 45 days, another data center
- Security CloudLinux, CageFS, ModSecurity OWASP
- Support 24/7 in French
Each “Web Project” is isolated by CloudLinux and CageFS: a hacked site cannot see the files of the others, a good basis for a store or for separating clients (packs of 10 or 100 projects). The data center is chosen project by project. Check before signing: the contract is governed by Quebec law, prices do not say whether they are excl. or incl. VAT, and Ultra costs €19.99 per month without the promotion (€5.49 on promotion, with a 24-month commitment).
Strengths
- Documented per-project isolation
- Encrypted off-site backups kept 45 days
- Renewal prices shown next to promotions
Limits
- Quebec contract, taxes not specified
- One primary domain per project
- WordPress updates not managed
Who it is for: small businesses, WooCommerce stores, agencies, sites also targeting Switzerland or Quebec.
Our take: one of the best combinations of isolation and backups in French-speaking shared hosting, if you accept an in-house panel.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at PlanetHoster
Switzerland Servers in Geneva
Infomaniak
Server protection on by default and data that stays in Switzerland
Shared hosting From CHF 10.91/month excl. VAT Data in Switzerland
- Server Apache, PHP-FPM up to 8.5
- Security ModSecurity, antivirus, Patchman, anti-DDoS
- Backups 7 days, in another data center
- Support 7 days a week, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., in French
Infomaniak enables ModSecurity, antivirus and Patchman with no setup, in its own data centers in Geneva: it is the natural choice when data must stay in Switzerland, and the 20 sites included make the Swiss franc price reasonable for a small portfolio. The WordPress tooling needs completing: a caching plugin, an external backup beyond the 7 days provided, and two-factor authentication on the account, offered but not enforced.
Strengths
- ModSecurity, antivirus and Patchman by default
- 20 sites and 250 GB from entry level
- Human support 7 days a week from Geneva and Zurich
Limits
- 7-day backups
- No staging or server cache
- Prices in CHF excl. VAT, billed yearly
Who it is for: small businesses, nonprofits and freelancers who want Swiss hosting.
Our take: among the best default server protections, with WordPress tooling to complete.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at Infomaniak
France Servers in Gravelines or Beauharnois
OVHcloud
The widest range, from €2.59 shared hosting to dedicated servers
Shared, managed, VPS, dedicated From €2.59/month excl. VAT Developers, small budgets Non-contractual backups
- Shared Starter €2.59, Perso €5.99, Pro €9.99 excl. VAT
- Server Apache 2.4, PHP 5.3 to 8.5
- Security Anti-DDoS, ModSecurity to enable
- Backups Files 2 weeks at most, databases 30 days
OVHcloud lets you start on shared hosting then move to a VPS (from €3.81 excl. VAT) or to Managed Hosting for WordPress (from €9.99 excl. VAT, updates tested on a clone of the site) without changing provider. On shared hosting, almost everything is up to you: ModSecurity must be enabled and file backups are not contractual; the Strasbourg fire in 2021 showed the risk of a copy stored in the same building. At renewal, Pro costs €9.99 excl. VAT (€1.99 excl. VAT the first year).
Strengths
- Full range, from shared to dedicated
- Anti-DDoS included, PHP up to 8.5
- Managed offer that tests updates
Limits
- Non-contractual file backups
- No staging or SSH on Starter and Perso
- No WordPress help from support
Who it is for: developers, small budgets, projects likely to move to a VPS.
Our take: solid and cheap outside promotions, provided you enable the firewall yourself and back up elsewhere.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at OVHcloud
Hong Kong OVHcloud servers in France
EasyHoster
A small host that fixes WordPress without charging for it
cPanel shared hosting From €3.29/month Non-technical freelancers Very small company
- Servers OVHcloud in Roubaix, Gravelines, Strasbourg
- Security Imunify360, CloudLinux, CageFS
- Backups JetBackup5, weekly copies on S3
- Support Tickets in French, 4 h response advertised
EasyHoster advertises WordPress troubleshooting, optimization and cleanup at no extra cost, something most hosts charge for or refuse, on servers rented from OVHcloud in France. The downside is size: about 2,000 customers, a company and a contract in Hong Kong, prices with no excl. or incl. VAT mention, and no VPS or dedicated server to grow into.
Strengths
- WordPress help and cleanup advertised at no extra cost
- Imunify360 and CageFS isolation
- Incidents explained in detail
Limits
- Company and contract in Hong Kong
- Ticket support only
- Backup retention not documented
Who it is for: non-technical freelancers who want help with their brochure site.
Our take: rare hands-on help at this price, with a continuity risk tied to the size of the company.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at EasyHoster
Managed WordPress: delegating updates and security
Managed hosting shifts part of the work to the host: updates, caching, staging, sometimes cleanup. The four plans below do not delegate the same things, and their regular price ranges from €5 excl. VAT to $35 excl. tax per month.
United States Google Cloud, data center of your choice including Paris
Kinsta
Premium managed WordPress, entirely behind Cloudflare
Managed WordPress From $35/month excl. tax Stores, revenue-generating sites
- Server Nginx, one container per site
- Security Cloudflare WAF, free cleanup if hacked
- Backups Daily, 14 days
- Support 24/7 chat in 8 languages
All traffic goes through Cloudflare (WAF, anti-DDoS, edge caching), each site has its own container and a hacked site is cleaned for free: for a store where an hour of downtime costs more than a year of subscription, it is the best-protected plan on the list. The trade-off is lock-in: no self-service .htaccess or Nginx configuration (rules go through support), caching and backup plugins banned, overages billed.
Strengths
- Cloudflare WAF and free cleanup
- One isolated container per site
- Mandatory 2FA, SSH, WP-CLI, staging
Limits
- $35 excl. tax per month for a single site
- No email or .htaccess
- Backups on the same machine
Who it is for: WooCommerce stores, agencies and businesses whose site generates revenue.
Our take: the most complete managed security on the list, paid for at a high price and in configuration freedom.
Our detailed review: managed WordPress hosting at Kinsta
Germany French contract, hosting country not specified
IONOS
The most complete automatic maintenance for a single site
Managed WordPress From €5/month excl. VAT Beginners who delegate 6- or 12-month promotion
- Updates Core, plugins, themes and PHP by default
- Tools SSH, WP-CLI, Git, .htaccess
- Backups Daily, 7 days
- Support 24/7 in French, personal consultant
IONOS updates core, plugins, themes and PHP by default, and checks the site against the WPScan vulnerability database every day: for anyone who will never keep up with updates, it is the most useful protection. But Start costs €5 excl. VAT per month once the promotion ends (€3 excl. VAT for 6 months), Expand €10 excl. VAT (€1 excl. VAT during the promotion), and with no documented staging, an update that breaks the site is fixed from a backup no more than 7 days old: keep another one elsewhere.
Strengths
- Full automatic updates
- Daily vulnerability scanning
- 24/7 support with a personal consultant
Limits
- Price up to ten times higher after the promotion
- 7-day backups
- No documented staging or WAF
Who it is for: beginners and small businesses who want a site maintained without thinking about it.
Our take: the best automatic maintenance for a single site, to budget at the regular price.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at IONOS
France Servers in Europe, country not specified
Amen
A clear WordPress pack, with the managed option at the same price
Managed WordPress as an option From €5.56/month excl. VAT Small sites with modest traffic
- Cap 5,000 visitors per month on Start
- Managed option Updates, staging, shield
- Backups 3 days on Start, hourly from Business up
- Support Weekdays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Amen sells the “managed WordPress” version at the same displayed price as the basic pack: updates, test environment and security shield (SQL injection, brute force, malware). Always take it. Each pack hosts a single site with a visitor cap, which is enough for a brochure site; the page still shows PHP 8.1, which no longer receives fixes, and no data center in France is documented.
Strengths
- Public price list excluding promotions
- Managed option at no displayed extra cost
- Hourly backups from Business up
Limits
- One site and a visitor cap per pack
- PHP 8.1 displayed, thin documentation
- Office-hours support
Who it is for: a blog, brochure site or nonprofit with modest traffic that wants a French-speaking contact.
Our take: simple and honest on pricing, to take in the managed version and for a small site only.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at Amen
United States Servers not specified for the managed offer
GoDaddy
Everything is delegated, but the price quintuples from the second year
Managed WordPress From €13.99/month excl. VAT Beginners Incidents in 2020, 2021, 2022
- Included 30-day backups, updates, CDN
- Security Malware removal, Patchstack
- Server Nginx, no subfolder .htaccess
- Support 24/7, French number advertised in English
The managed offer ticks many boxes with no setup: 30 days of backups, updates, malware removal, Patchstack alerts and a WAF with the CDN for eligible sites. But the regular price is €13.99 excl. VAT per month (€2.79 excl. VAT as an introductory price), and GoDaddy disclosed incidents in 2020, 2021 and 2022, including access to its old managed WordPress platform affecting up to 1.2 million customers, before an FTC order in 2025.
Strengths
- 30-day backups and updates included
- Malware removal and Patchstack
- 7-day free trial
Limits
- Regular price nearly 5 times the introductory price
- History of security incidents
- Locked-down configuration
Who it is for: beginners who want to delegate everything and accept the regular price from the second year.
Our take: complete on paper, but IONOS maintains for less and Kinsta protects better.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at GoDaddy
International hosts: well equipped, support in English
These four hosts are often highlighted by English-language comparisons. They are well equipped, but their support answers in English and three of them base their introductory price on a long commitment.
Lithuania Data center of your choice, including France
Hostinger
A lot of features for the price, if you pay four years upfront
LiteSpeed shared hosting From €9.99/month excl. VAT Tight budgets, comfortable in English 48-month commitment
- Server LiteSpeed, hPanel, PHP 8.2 to 8.5
- Security ModSecurity, file scanner
- Backups Weekly on Premium
- Support English with machine translation
For €9.99 excl. VAT per month at renewal (€2.49 excl. VAT with 48 months paid upfront), Hostinger brings together LiteSpeed, CDN, firewall, file scanner, SSH, WP-CLI and Git, with a data center in France. Renewal costs four times the introductory price, and Premium is limited to weekly backups: aim for Unlimited for an active site. A breach affected a table of about 14 million users in 2019.
Strengths
- LiteSpeed, CDN and scanner included
- Data center in France
- SSH, WP-CLI, Git, 2FA on hPanel
Limits
- Introductory price tied to 48 months prepaid
- Weekly backups on Premium
- Human support in English
Who it is for: blogs and brochure sites on a tight budget, developers comfortable in English.
Our take: very well equipped for the price, provided you calculate the cost over the real length of the commitment.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at Hostinger
United States United States, Amsterdam or Singapore
DreamHost
An independent host that shows its real renewal prices
Shared and managed WordPress From €10.99/month excl. VAT North American audience
- Shared Launch, 25 sites, Apache
- DreamPress Nginx, Redis, Bunny CDN, from €19.99 excl. VAT
- Security mod_security, DreamShield at €3/month
- Support 24/7 in English
DreamHost shows the renewal price next to each promotion (Launch: €10.99 excl. VAT per month at renewal, €2.89 excl. VAT the first year). DreamPress, its managed WordPress, adds staging, Nginx caching, Redis and 14 days of backups on Amazon S3, off the server. The Amsterdam data center brings data closer to Europe, but the company remains American and everything happens in English.
Strengths
- Renewal prices displayed
- DreamPress: staging, S3 backups
- mod_security on by default
Limits
- Paid malware scanning
- Panel and support in English
- Shared hosting without staging
Who it is for: sites targeting North America, agencies comfortable in English.
Our take: transparent and well equipped on DreamPress; for a French site, European hosts do just as well.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at DreamHost
United States Data center of your choice, including Paris and Frankfurt
Bluehost
Ten sites from the entry plan, but courtesy backups
cPanel shared hosting From €9.99/month excl. VAT Several small sites Courtesy backups
- Included 10 sites, 10 GB NVMe, cPanel
- Server Apache 2.4, Redis, Cloudflare CDN
- Backups One week, paid restore
- Support 24/7 chat in English
Bluehost, long recommended by WordPress.org, gives 10 sites, cPanel, SSH and staging from Débutant, with servers in Paris or Frankfurt. Its “courtesy” backups (one week, paid restore) make an external copy essential, and the regular price is €9.99 excl. VAT per month (€3.99 excl. VAT as an introductory price, over 36 months).
Strengths
- 10 sites, cPanel, SSH and staging
- Servers in Paris or Frankfurt
- Replicated WordPress Cloud
Limits
- Courtesy backups
- Account 2FA by email only
- Support in English, prices vary by page
Who it is for: English-speaking freelancers who handle their own backups.
Our take: fine for several small sites, provided you add a real external backup.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at Bluehost
United States Servers in Provo and Atlanta
HostGator
Well-equipped American shared hosting, for an American audience
cPanel shared hosting From $10.99/month excl. tax Sites targeting the United States Servers in the United States
- Included 10 sites, SSH, WP-CLI, staging
- Data centers Provo and Atlanta, no choice
- Backups Courtesy, one week
- Support 24/7 chat in English
SSH, WP-CLI, staging and Cloudflare CDN from Hatchling: for an American audience, server proximity is a real asset. For a European site, it is the opposite: servers in the United States with no choice, hence data transfers outside the EU, courtesy backups and a renewal at $10.99 excl. tax per month, nearly three times the introductory price ($3.75 over 36 months). Not to be confused with HostGator Brasil, a separate business.
Strengths
- SSH, WP-CLI, staging from entry level
- Cloudflare CDN included
- 24/7 chat
Limits
- Servers in the United States, no choice
- Courtesy backups, limited SiteLock
- English and dollars
Who it is for: English-language sites targeting North America.
Our take: to rule out for a European site that processes personal data.
Our detailed review: WordPress hosting at HostGator
VPS, dedicated and cloud: when shared hosting is no longer enough
A VPS or a dedicated server makes sense for a heavy site, a large number of sites or a custom stack. It isolates your site better, but maintaining the system, PHP, the firewall and backups becomes your job, unless you choose a managed offer.
Useful options from the hosts on this list: OVHcloud VPS from €3.81 excl. VAT and Infomaniak VPS Lite from CHF 2.70 excl. VAT (unmanaged); LWS VPS from €9.99 excl. VAT (managed or root access); Infomaniak managed Cloud Server from CHF 38.41 excl. VAT and PlanetHoster HybridCloud from €40 (managed system); o2switch Managed Bare-Metal from €149 excl. VAT (managed, no root access). In English, DreamHost sells a Managed VPS from €31.99 excl. VAT. The word cloud thus covers very different things: check who manages the system before comparing prices.
France Paris, Amsterdam or Warsaw
Scaleway
Cheap servers for those who know how to administer them
Cloud, Dedibox, shared From €3.99/month excl. VAT System administrators
- Web Hosting cPanel, Apache, €3.99 to €24.99 excl. VAT
- Dedibox From €4.99 excl. VAT, anti-DDoS included
- Backups Add-on at €2.99/month excl. VAT
- Support 24/7 in French
Scaleway (formerly Online.net, Iliad group) mainly sells cloud and Dedibox servers, with anti-DDoS included, 24/7 support in French and prices with no first-year discount. Its Web Hosting suits a small simple site, but firewall, isolation and malware scanning are not documented and backups are an add-on; on a Dedibox, everything else is up to you.
Strengths
- Stable prices, no introductory discount
- Dedibox with anti-DDoS included
- 24/7 support in French
Limits
- Web Hosting security not documented
- Optional, short backups
- Server administration up to you
Who it is for: developers and system administrators.
Our take: an excellent base for a server you manage yourself, not for turnkey WordPress.
Our detailed review: hosting WordPress at Scaleway or on a Dedibox
Hosting for another European market
For a site that mainly targets Spain, Germany or the Netherlands, a host from that country is not required. It makes sense in five cases:
- Latency: servers close to the audience speed up dynamic pages (cart, customer account), which a CDN does not cache.
- Data and GDPR: an American company, even with servers in Europe, involves a data transfer that needs a legal framework (the 2020 Schrems II ruling tightened this point); a European company with servers in the EU avoids the question.
- Support: the country’s language and business hours, useful when a local client calls during an outage.
- Billing: currency (pound, Swiss franc), the country’s VAT and local payment methods such as iDEAL in the Netherlands or Pix in Brazil.
- Domain name: some national extensions require a local presence (.com.br requires a Brazilian tax number); a host that is also a local registrar simplifies registration.
Otherwise, a large host with several data centers is enough: Hostinger (France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Lithuania, Brazil), Kinsta (London, Frankfurt, Belgium), Scaleway (Amsterdam, Warsaw) or PlanetHoster (Lausanne, Montreal). Choose the data center closest to your audience. Of 21 local hosts studied across seven markets, these are worth recommending:
United Kingdom Servers in the United Kingdom
Krystal
The UK shared host with the best-documented security
cPanel shared hosting £7/month excl. VAT UK audience
- Stack cPanel, LiteSpeed cache, CloudLinux
- Security Firewall, real-time scanning, 2FA
- Certifications ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials Plus
On Amethyst (1 site, 10 GB NVMe), Krystal brings together a firewall, real-time scanning, DDoS protection and two-factor authentication, with verifiable security certifications. It is the most reassuring base we found in the United Kingdom. Prices in pounds, VAT not included in the default display.
Our take: the first choice for a UK site on shared hosting.
Plan reviewed: Krystal, WordPress hosting (external link, opens in a new tab)
Spain Own data center in Madrid
Raiola Networks
A data center in Madrid and a complete security stack
cPanel shared hosting €8.95/month excl. VAT Spanish audience
- Stack LiteSpeed, cPanel, CloudLinux
- Security Imunify360, CageFS, anti-DDoS
- Support 24/7 in Spanish
Raiola Networks runs its own data center in Madrid, as close as possible to the Spanish audience, with Imunify360, CageFS isolation and daily JetBackup backups. Hosting Inicio para WordPress (2 domains, 10 GB NVMe) costs €8.95 per month excluding IVA with monthly payment.
Our take: the local choice when latency in Spain matters.
Plan reviewed: Raiola Networks, WordPress hosting (external link, opens in a new tab)
Spain Data center in the EU or the United States, your choice
Webempresa
The Spanish-speaking WordPress specialist with one-year backups
WordPress shared hosting €70/year excl. VAT Small Spanish-language sites
- Stack Apache, Nginx, Varnish, CloudLinux
- Security ModSecurity (WordPress rules), Imunify360
- Backups Last 30 days and last 12 months
Webempresa stands out with free staging and backups covering the last 30 days and the last 12 months, rare at €70 per year excluding tax. The data center can be chosen in the EU or the United States: for GDPR, pick the EU. The Plan Micro is limited to one site and 5 GB.
Our take: the best safety net among the Spanish hosts studied.
Plan reviewed: Webempresa, WordPress hosting (external link, opens in a new tab)
Germany Servers in Germany
Raidboxes
German managed WordPress, staging and WAF included
Managed WordPress €18/month excl. VAT German-speaking audience
- Security WAF, Exploit Detector, 2FA
- Backups Nightly, 7 days
- Support German and English
Raidboxes is a cheaper German alternative to premium managed WordPress: WAF, DDoS protection, Exploit Detector, two-factor authentication and one-click staging on the Mini plan (1 site, 5 GB). Data stays in Germany. The regular price is €18 excl. VAT per month; a €9 promotion targets new customers until December 30, 2026.
Our take: the choice for delegating a German-language site without leaving Germany.
Plan reviewed: Raidboxes, pricing (external link, opens in a new tab)
Italy Data center location not documented
Serverplan
Developer tools and a backup in another data center
Managed cPanel WordPress €76/year excl. VAT Italian audience
- Tools SSH, WP-CLI, Git, staging
- Security Hardware firewall, BitNinja
- Backups Daily, another data center
On Startup WordPress (1 domain, 20 GB NVMe, €76 per year plus IVA), Serverplan offers tooling that is rare at this price, with a daily backup stored outside the production data center. If data must stay in Italy, Aruba runs its own data centers in the country (Hosting per WordPress, €49.99 per year plus IVA), but documents its backups less.
Our take: the best tooling we found in Italy; Aruba if data must stay in the country.
Plan reviewed: Serverplan, WordPress hosting (external link, opens in a new tab)
Portugal Servers in Portugal
Dominios.pt
LiteSpeed, CloudLinux and Imunify360 in a Portuguese data center
cPanel shared hosting €7.70/month excl. VAT Portuguese audience
- Stack LiteSpeed, CloudLinux, WordPress Toolkit
- Security Imunify360
- Commitment 12 months
Dominios.pt offers the most consistent stack we found in Portugal: LiteSpeed, CloudLinux isolation, Imunify360 and JetBackup backups with several restore points, in a Portuguese data center. Startup (1 domain, 3 WordPress installs, 15 GB NVMe) costs €7.70 per month excluding IVA. The phone line only answers on weekdays during office hours.
Our take: the most solid local choice for a Portuguese site.
Plan reviewed: Dominios.pt, WordPress plans (external link, opens in a new tab)
Netherlands Two data centers in the Netherlands
Antagonist
A backup every two hours and one container per account
WordPress shared hosting €10.99/month excl. VAT Dutch audience
- Isolation Container per account
- Security Patchman
- Backups Every 2 h over 24 h, then 7 and 14 days
Antagonist isolates each account in a container, adds Patchman anti-malware and backs up every 2 hours over the last 24 hours, then every 12 hours over 7 days and weekly over 2 weeks: the tightest backup schedule in this comparison. Slim + WP (1 site, 50 GB SSD) costs €10.99 per month excluding VAT. No phone support.
Our take: the Dutch choice for being able to roll back a few hours.
Plan reviewed: Antagonist, WordPress (external link, opens in a new tab)
Brazil: none of the three hosts studied documents its security well enough to be recommended without reservation (manual backups at UOL Host, WAF not detailed at Locaweb, paid restore at KingHost). For a Brazilian audience, choose an international host with a data center in Brazil instead: Hostinger offers one. If a local contract is required, KingHost is the best documented (ModSecurity, malware detector, 7 days of backups).
How to choose your WordPress hosting
- Blog or brochure site, small budget: LWS, because its regular price stays at €3.99 excl. VAT with ModSecurity on; o2switch as soon as you manage several sites.
- Nobody will keep up with updates: IONOS or the managed version of Amen, because core, plugins and themes are updated without you; add an external backup.
- WooCommerce store with real revenue: Kinsta, because WAF, isolation and cleanup are included; PlanetHoster if the budget is tight.
- Agency hosting its clients: o2switch (one moon per sensitive client) or PlanetHoster packs, because each project is isolated there.
- Data in Switzerland or protection with no setup: Infomaniak, because ModSecurity, antivirus and Patchman are on by default.
- Developer who wants control of the stack: an OVHcloud VPS or a Scaleway Dedibox, because they are the cheapest, provided you count the administration time.
- Audience outside France: the nearest data center at a large host, or a local host if language, billing or the law require it.
Shared, managed, VPS or cloud: who manages what
The more managed the plan, the more the host takes care of the system, updates and part of security, at the cost of a more locked-down configuration (no .htaccess on the Nginx platforms of Kinsta, DreamPress or GoDaddy, banned plugins). On an unmanaged VPS or dedicated server, everything is yours except the hardware. The word “cloud” covers instances to administer (Scaleway) as well as a server with a managed system (Infomaniak, PlanetHoster) or premium shared hosting (Hostinger’s Cloud Startup).
What the host secures, and what is left to you
- Host side: network and DDoS, web application firewall (WAF: ModSecurity, Imunify360, TigerProtect or Cloudflare depending on the plan), malware scanning, account isolation, backups from 3 to 90 days.
- Your side: enable what is not enabled, keep a copy outside the host, test updates on a staging site, protect the WordPress login with unique passwords and two-factor authentication.
- Both sides: o2switch blocks xmlrpc.php in TigerProtect, Kinsta closes it by default, LWS provides LWS Hide Login. Configure each feature in one place only, so you know what blocks what.
Costly traps
- The introductory price. Hostinger (48 months), Bluehost and HostGator (36 months) base their introductory price on a long prepayment; at renewal, the gap ranges from two to ten times depending on the host. Compare the regular price over the lifetime of the site.
- The single backup. Courtesy backups (Bluehost, HostGator), on the same machine (Kinsta) or non-contractual (OVHcloud): in 2021, the Strasbourg fire destroyed backups stored in the same building as the servers. Keep a copy elsewhere, following the 3-2-1 rule.
- Protection never enabled. ModSecurity must be enabled at OVHcloud, scans must be run at LWS and on o2switch Grow. Protection that is “offered” is not necessarily applied.
- An end-of-life PHP version. Choose a maintained version in the panel; Amen still shows PHP 8.1 (PHP version schedule).
- The neglected VPS. An unpatched system or overly broad file permissions expose you more than good shared hosting.
- Confusing the two logins. Two-factor authentication on the hosting account protects that account, not the WordPress admin.
What the host does not protect: WordPress itself
Even the best host protects the server, not what bots see of WordPress or the door to the admin. WP Masquerade works on that layer, alongside the host’s firewall and backups, without replacing them.
Security
Bots spot a WordPress site, look for its login page and plugins, then try passwords and known vulnerabilities. The free version, Masquerade Security, makes the site look like another CMS, moves the login page and blocks XML-RPC; Pro adds login attempt limiting, role-based two-factor authentication and banning of trapped bots. It is neither a firewall nor an antivirus: for that role, see the best security plugins.
Durability
Based on how the plugin works, on Apache and LiteSpeed (OVHcloud, o2switch, LWS, PlanetHoster, Hostinger) its folder returns 404 to bots with no setup; on Nginx (Kinsta, DreamPress, GoDaddy managed), one configuration line has to be requested from support. Pro checks core integrity and alerts on vulnerable plugins, useful when the host does not manage updates. Details: compatibility with hosts and caches.
SEO
A hacked site is often used to relay spam and can be deindexed. Hiding WordPress changes neither the content nor the tags Google reads (real effects on SEO). After activation, purge the host’s caches (Varnish, Nginx cache, LWS Cache, CDN), which the plugin does not clear, and exclude the new login address from each cache.
GEO
Answer engines cite sites they can crawl and consider reliable (GEO). WP Masquerade’s traps target bots probing for vulnerabilities, not crawlers. Behind Cloudflare (Kinsta, Bluehost or HostGator CDN), Pro restores the visitors’ real address, otherwise rate limiting would count everyone together (Cloudflare and real IP). To measure your presence in these answers: our GEO tracking tools.
The free version can be downloaded from our site; WP Masquerade Pro costs from €59 per year. Requirements: WordPress 6.4 and PHP 7.4 minimum, single site (no multisite). Test on a staging site first.
Methodology and transparency
Criteria and weights: documented security (web application firewall, malware scanning, isolation, backups, two-factor authentication on the account, public incidents) 30%; real renewal price 20%; WordPress tools (staging, SSH and WP-CLI, caching, managed updates, PHP versions) 20%; data location and GDPR 15%; support (language, channels, hours) 15%. The weights break ties between two hosts for the same profile; we do not publish a numerical score.
What we did not measure: we opened no accounts and measured neither speed nor uptime. Everything comes from the hosts’ official pages and documentation. “Not documented” means the information does not appear there, not that it does not exist.
Prices: excluding promotions unless stated, in the currency and with the excl. or incl. VAT mention displayed. The total may include VAT, setup fees, add-ons and a domain name: check the order summary.
Selection: 15 hosts that French-speaking WordPress users often come across, each analyzed in a dedicated article, and 21 local hosts studied in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Brazil and the Netherlands, of which seven were retained. The others (20i, Fasthosts, Dinahosting, ALL-INKL.COM, STRATO, Aruba, Register.it, PTisp, Webtuga, Locaweb, KingHost, UOL Host, TransIP, Hostnet) document their security or backups less, or overlap with a retained host.
Transparency (articles L111-7 and D111-7 of the French Code de la consommation): this ranking is published by the WP Masquerade team, the publisher of a security plugin for WordPress, which does not sell hosting. No host pays to be mentioned or ranked higher: no paid placement, no partnership, no affiliate links, no commission, no contractual or financial ties. Profiles are grouped by type of plan, not by score. Spotted an error or a price change? Write to us and we will fix it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best WordPress hosting in France?
There is no single one: for a blog or a brochure site, LWS and o2switch offer the best balance of renewal price, protection and support in French. To delegate maintenance, choose IONOS; for a demanding store, Kinsta or PlanetHoster; for data in Switzerland, Infomaniak.
What is the cheapest WordPress hosting?
At the regular price, OVHcloud Starter (€2.59 excl. VAT per month, 1 GB), EasyHoster Light (€3.29), LWS Perso and Scaleway Web Hosting Mini (€3.99 excl. VAT) are the cheapest in this comparison. The lower prices shown up front only apply to the first period, sometimes with 48 months paid upfront (LWS Perso €3.99 excl. VAT, €1.49 excl. VAT the first year; Hostinger Premium €9.99 excl. VAT, €2.49 excl. VAT over 48 months).
Why does the price go up at renewal?
Because the introductory price is a first-period discount: at renewal, it is multiplied by two to ten depending on the host. Hostinger, Bluehost and HostGator also base this price on 36 or 48 months paid upfront. Our price table gives both amounts.
Shared hosting or managed WordPress?
Shared hosting costs less and leaves more freedom (.htaccess, any plugins you like), but updates and part of security remain your job. Managed hosting automates updates, backups and caching, often at the cost of a locked-down configuration. If nobody keeps up with your site’s updates, managed hosting is the safest.
Does a host protect my WordPress site from hacking?
Partly: it filters the network and, depending on the plan, requests and files, but an outdated vulnerable plugin or a reused password can still be exploited. Kinsta and EasyHoster advertise cleanup at no extra cost; elsewhere, cleaning up a hacked site is paid or up to you.
Do you need a French host for GDPR?
No: GDPR does not require a French host, but servers outside the European Union involve data transfers that need a legal framework. An American company with a data center in Paris (Bluehost, Kinsta) is still a different situation from a European company. For a site that processes personal data, look into the question with your legal advisor.
Does WP Masquerade work with my host?
Yes, the free version works without any server rule. On Apache or LiteSpeed, the plugin folder is hidden automatically; on Nginx, one configuration line has to be added or requested from support. Only Pro’s file aliases require pasting a block generated by the plugin.
Sources and method
Information gathered from each host’s official pages (plans, pricing, technical documentation, terms of service, legal notices); each detailed review linked from a profile lists its pages. Legal references: French Code de la consommation, articles L111-7 and D111-7 (version in force since July 9, 2024); judgment C-311/18 (Schrems II), Court of Justice of the European Union, July 16, 2020.
The names and trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners; they are used only to identify the hosts compared. None of these hosts has reviewed or approved this page.