WordPress.org's Officially Recommended Hosts in 2026: Bluehost, DreamHost, Pressable, SiteGround
WordPress.org's Hosting page lists four officially recommended hosts. Here is what the recommendation actually means, what each host charges, and how to choose between them.
What WordPress.org's Hosting page lists
WordPress.org maintains a public list of officially recommended hosts at wordpress.org/hosting. As of 2026-04-30, four hosts appear: Bluehost, DreamHost, Pressable, and SiteGround. The list is maintained by the WordPress Foundation and is updated periodically. Three of the four (Bluehost, DreamHost, SiteGround) are in our comparison set; Pressable is a managed-WordPress host owned by Automattic and is not in our shared-hosting comparison because its tiers start at the managed-WordPress price band.
What "recommended" actually means
Recommendation is not endorsement. The WordPress Foundation requires recommended hosts to meet documented criteria — WordPress-specific support, current PHP/MySQL versions supported, automatic WordPress core updates, etc. — but does not warrant performance, pricing, or service quality on any specific tier. A vendor's appearance on the list means it has documented WordPress support, not that it is necessarily the right host for your specific use case.
What each recommended host charges
Bluehost shared: Basic intro $2.95 / renewal $11.99, Choice Plus intro $5.45, Online Store intro $9.95, Pro intro $13.95 / renewal $28.99 (per bluehost.com/pricing). DreamHost shared: Starter intro $2.59 / renewal $10.99, Unlimited intro $3.95 / renewal $10.95; DreamPress (managed WordPress) starts $19.95/mo annual-only (per dreamhost.com/hosting). SiteGround shared: StartUp intro $2.99 / renewal $17.99, GrowBig intro $4.99 / renewal $29.99, GoGeek intro $7.99 / renewal $44.99 (per siteground.com/web-hosting.htm). Pressable: managed-WordPress entry tier higher than DreamPress (per pressable.com/plans).
How to choose between them
Bluehost is the lowest intro price. DreamHost has the smallest intro-vs-renewal jump (~2.8×–4.2× vs Bluehost's 4.1× and SiteGround's 5.6×–6×) and publishes a 100% uptime guarantee at dreamhost.com/legal/100-uptime-guarantee. SiteGround's GrowBig and GoGeek tiers add staging environments, on-demand backups, and more storage — features that justify the premium for buyers who will use them. Pressable sits in the managed-WordPress price band and competes more directly with Kinsta and WP Engine than with the other three shared hosts on the WordPress.org list.
Why the WordPress.org list still matters
The list is the closest thing to a vendor-neutral signal in the hosting category. Other 'best WordPress host' rankings are typically affiliate-driven — sites earn commissions when you click through and purchase, which biases the rankings. The WordPress Foundation does not earn affiliate revenue from its recommendations. The list is therefore a reasonable starting filter when shopping shared hosting; the next filter is intro-vs-renewal price math, which we cover at /hosting/learn/renewal-pricing-trap.
Sources
WordPress.org Hosting recommendations: wordpress.org/hosting. Bluehost pricing: bluehost.com/pricing. DreamHost pricing: dreamhost.com/hosting. DreamHost 100% uptime: dreamhost.com/legal/100-uptime-guarantee. SiteGround pricing: siteground.com/web-hosting.htm. Pressable plans: pressable.com/plans. All URLs accessed 2026-04-30.