According to the International Energy Agency, global data centers are estimated to consume an astonishing 1.5% of the world's total electricity. The average website produces 0.8 grams of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) per pageview. A website with 10,000 monthly page views therefore makes 102kg of CO2e each year – equal to driving around 700km in a car.
Web hosting companies are coming under increasing pressure from governments and customers to reduce their environmental impact, as the effects of the climate emergency take hold. However, going green doesn’t mean we have to pay more or sacrifice performance. In fact, greener options are often more efficient and help to lower costs and increase the utilization of resources. The best green web hosting providers can save the planet without compromising the essential features as the best web hosting services. Here is our roundup of the best green web hosting companies for 2024.
The best green web hosting services of 2024:
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Best green hosting overall
There is a reason that GreenGeeks features at the top of our list as the best green web host. Where other companies deliver their green credentials as a part of their marketing, it's at the core of GreenGreeks’ DNA. It claims to be the 'world's leading eco-friendly web hosting provider' and it's hard to argue with that. Founder Trey Gardner decided that he would make his eco credentials second to none when he set up the company in 2008.
As we can see from its official website, GreenGeeks has been recognized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency since 2009 as a Green Power Partner, and is a partner with One Tree Planted to plant one tree for every new hosting account which is created. GreenGeeks also works with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) in Portland, Oregon ("BEF" is a Green-e Partner). BEF helps calculate their yearly energy consumption, and it purchases three times as many energy offsets (RECs - or renewable energy certificates) as it consumes, a feature it calls 300% Green Website. It's a strong demonstration of the company's commitment to the environment, since that's not a cheap proposition.
GreenGeeks offers an excellent range of shared and VPS hosting services at great prices. The annual plans start at just $2.95 a month (rising to $11.95 a month from year two), which comes with 50GB web space, a free domain name in year 1, unlimited databases and free nightly backups. We particularly highlight the offer of managed WordPress sites, because that's an increasingly popular platform for startup businesses nowadays and this will take the headache out of keeping them running. It should be mentioned that the server provisions are also very respectable in terms of performance. Even the lowest plans feature free caching and CDN, plus unmetered bandwidth. Impressive!
They also provide managed VPS hosting plans for those who need some added capacities for their websites. The two features which most smaller web owners will be grateful for are the free website migration and the 30-day money back guarantee. Both of these should give peace of mind to people thinking of switching.
From the name downwards, it's clear that GreenGeeks is serious about its focus on the environment. There's only so much that any web hosting supplier can do to tackle the emissions problem in the IT industry, but GreenGeeks has taken enough of a stand to show it matters.
Read our full GreenGeeks review.
Best green investment
InMotion Hosting is a private company which launched in 2001, and boasts 170,000 customers across the globe. The company offers a wide range of services, from basic shared and WordPress hosting all the way through to VPS and Dedicated hosting for large scale clients. The base level Core plans for shared and Wordpress are both available in monthly, yearly, and three yearly plans each with their own price. The monthly plans are the standard rate of $13.49 a month, yearly plans are $2.49 a month, and three year plans are $2.99 a month. It’s worth noting that while buying the three year plan is more expensive each month, you never know what price increases will come in the subsequent years. If you’re confident that you’ll be staying with InMotion Hosting for a long time, it’s possibly worth paying the extra now.
The top Power and Pro shared hosting plans include live US based chat and phone support from helpful humans, which is something you don't often see in this market. We also like the company's refreshing approach to the environment. The website states that 'our core belief is that it's better to reduce than simply offset', which is a very powerful and valid approach. To prove this, the company cut cooling costs by nearly 70% and reduced its carbon footprint by more than 2,000 tons per year since 2010 at its first-ever Green Data Center in Los Angeles.
What sets InMotion Hosting apart from others is its high quality US-based tech support around 24/7/365. Each member of the tech support team must undergo 280+ hours of training, and the company's expert team averages more than four years of professional hosting experience. The result is a raft of awards, ranging from A+ Better Business Bureau, G2 Leader to a Great Place To Work certification. This focus on quality is something that's not generally a part of the budget hosting market, so it's great to see it in action here.
The 100% satisfaction guarantee and unprecedented 90-day money back guarantee on the shared hosting plans say a lot about the confidence InMotion Hosting has in its technology and people. The company’s data centers sit directly on the Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Amsterdam IXPs, but that's as far as geographic coverage goes.
Finally, it's hard not to be impressed with the sheer scope of the company's dedication to eco policies, ranging from Super insulated data centers, high efficiency cooling systems, a move towards 100% renewable energy, ISO27001 to a commitment to future-proofing its infrastructure. All these help minimize carbon impact.
Read our full InMotion Hosting review
Best green sponsorship
SiteGround uses Google servers which have a 100% renewable energy match. If you want to have the green credentials, SiteGround is a good choice. The company was the winner of one Gold and one Bronze Stevie® Award in the Green Event and Customer Service category of the 20th Annual International Business Awards., which made it a 4-time Stevie Award Winner for Customer Service Excellence. It won the awards for supporting the Shackleton Mission which called for a new marine wildlife protected area of 4,000,000 km² in Antarctica.
SiteGround provides attractive web hosting options starting with the base level StartUp Plan which offers: one website, 10GB of storage, an approximately maximum number of 10,000 web visits, free email, SSL, daily backup and unlimited databases. Some of the add-on features are genuinely valuable, such as the free email migrator, which allows you to transfer over your old email system to the SiteGround platform, or the free WooCommerce set up option. The enhanced security of the web firewall and anti-bot technology is also very impressive.
Another nice essential feature is Add Collaborators, the ability to add extra people as website admins. This gives you the ability to assign extra tech and design support as you build and run your site, which is pretty rare in the shared web hosting space.
What's a little surprising is the fact that the promotional annual pricing offer of $3.99 a month on the base plan, flips back up to a hefty $17.99 a month after the 12 months is up. That's a large step up for users trying to manage their cash flows efficiently.
The higher level plans offer more sophisticated features, as you'd expect, which include on-demand backups which the customer can create instantly, plus staging sites for testing new changes before pushing them live to the public. Premium plans also use the Google Cloud platform - good news for WordPress sites which are notorious performance hogs.
One nice difference with SiteGround is the use of a custom user friendly admin panel. Anyone who's struggled with cPanel or DirectAdmin will definitely appreciate the simplicity of the SiteGround dashboard. It's a dangerous thing for a hosting provider to do because it can alienate a large number of tech snobs who revel in complex server settings and configurations, but it's perfect for those people looking for a quieter life.
There is the usual roster of default features on offer, including 24/7 tech support with a 98% satisfaction rate, and domain and WordPress management for those who need extra hand holding.
Read our full SiteGround review.
Best green policies
Ionos is a modest hero of the green hosting world, formerly known as 1&1 Internet founded in Germany in 1988.. This full featured web host offers a complete set of services, including the bestselling Plus shared hosting from $1 a month with a 1-year term. We're also impressed with the Essential hosting plan with a promoted price $4 a month for a 1-year term, which comes with features like high speed page loading of 1.23 seconds. The company also boasts 99.9% uptime, using mirrored geo-redundant servers, as well as protection against DDos attacks. All of the shared hosting plans offer free SSL, a free domain, free daily backups and recovery, free 24/7 support, and easy WordPress installation. Some features may sound modest, but it's clearly optimized to the max with those page load figures. One really useful feature is a tweakable performance dashboard which lets you increase your server RAM on demand for a small extra fee. Great for coping with a viral post or special customer offer which is exploding your site traffic.
As well as providing a range of WordPress plans from entry level to WooCommerce Agency hosting, Ionos devotes 5% of its resources towards helping the open source roots of the WordPress community. It's a great way to demonstrate care for the planet, as developing more efficient code helps reduce energy impacts in the long run. It’s indeed a solid initiative.
What makes IONOS outstanding as well is their commitment to sustainability. IONOS keeps their infrastructure climate-neutral and free of environmental trade-offs. . The US data center runs entirely on wind power, and in Europe 100% of the electricity is from renewable sources. Not only that, priority is given to local and regional suppliers wherever possible. The company uses carbon offsets to maintain carbon neutrality in its operations.
There are more eco positives. Ionos employs a sophisticated equipment recycling program, which helps re-use old equipment and improves energy-efficiency The use of A.I. systems and new technologies like evaporative cooling help reduce the company's carbon impact significantly. For example a recent new air conditioning system resulted in a 15% increase in energy efficiency.
IONOS operates a fully eco-friendly culture and encourages the employees to do their part. Remote working for employees and fossil fuel free travel are encouraged. All of its offices have high end video conferencing for collaboration to reduce travel needs. Trains are the recommended means of transport. Car-pooling, cycle commutes and EV chargers are also a standard part of the corporate culture.
Ionos strikes us as the kind of solid, no nonsense web hosting service which may not be as glamorous or showy as its neighbors, but which gets the job done.
Read our full IONOS review.
Best green host for business
For companies running mission critical business, it's crucial to choose the best web host possible to ensure the required security, performance and value. HostPapa is one of such best web hosts. It is an award winning Canadian based operation which was founded in 2006, and now operates worldwide across fourteen countries.
HostPapa is committed to reliable hosting as well as high-quality customer support, even as it delivers competitively priced shared hosting plans. The base Start plan starts at $2.95 (renews at $8.99 a month) for a 3 year lock-in term, which provides 100GB storage, a two page website builder, one-click WordPress install and 10 email addresses.
Unusually, the company also offers a fully fledged email platform, including spam protection, autoresponders support, webmail and 10 forwarding accounts. This makes it an ideal choice for any business wanting to set up an online email marketing operation without breaking the bank.
The Start plan also provides a full range of ecommerce shopping carts, including Paypal and Presta Cart, as well as one hosted domain and 10 subdomains. It's solid value all round. One thing to note is there's no guarantee of server performance at this price point, and the plan explicitly states that your business is likely to be sharing the server with a lot of other sites. But this is pretty standard for the budget end of the market.
For web hosting and WP hosting accounts, HostPapa also provides the featured PapaCare service for website owners who want to focus on their business without worrying about the IT side of their websites.PapaCare starts from €8.95 per month. which customers can purchase for $9.95 a month. The service includes setup support, priority security, and ensured peak performance. Things can break while you run online business, from plugins to major security hacking emergencies. Having this kind of deeply integrated support is worth the peace of mind.
In terms of green credentials, HostPapa was one of the first web hosts to promote and practice green hosting. It is powered by renewable green energy such as wind and solar energy resources. Since they started purchasing green energy, they have offset thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases.. The company buys Green-eⓇ certified RECs from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to cover its annual electricity usage.
Read our full HostPapa review
Best green work culture
DreamHost is a US hosting provider dedicating to host business for 27 years,and now hosts over 1.5 million websites for more than 400,000 customers across the world. What sets it apart from most of its peers is a focus on utilizing the best technology it can deliver.
DreamHost continues to provide best-of-breed hosting services in a range of areas. The Shared Starter scheme which is only available for new account registration starts at a standard price of $7.99 a month (the product has an introductory price of $4.95 for the first 3 months) reducing to $5.99 on the 3 year lock-in. For this you get one website and unlimited traffic, along with free automated WordPress migration, a website builder and a free SSL security certificate, and 97 Day Money-Back Guarantee. However, you'll have to pay extra for an email account as low as $1.67/mo.
A big feature is the offer of 100% uptime guarantee, which is a testament to the company's faith in its redundant server policy. Your website will also be running on state of the art solid state disks (SSD) servers, which makes them faster and cooler-running than legacy hard drives (HDD). Besides, SSDs consume less power, which is good for the planet.
Unusually, DreamHost can supply a complete custom website design and development service. If your budget permits, just $1499 will deliver an SEO optimized, five page WordPress website, complete with analytics, blog page and custom homepage. This is a great way for serious business professionals to present a top quality online presence from the get-go. Other professional services range between $59/month for website management to $399/month for social media marketing. https://www.dreamhost.com/pro-services/design/custom-web-design/
DreamHost uses renewable energy power sources, and employs power-efficient processors, and high-efficiency cooling infrastructures. These are all for reducing carbon impact and costs, but the green scene doesn't stop there. The company deliberately encourages environmental actions from employees. Remote-first working, extensive use of teleconferencing, a paperless office culture and no dress code add to the overall green approach.
DreamHost also supports open-source software such as OpenStack and the Ceph storage system. By supporting the open source coding community, DreamHost can improve its efficiency and resilience, which helps to reduce carbon impacts.
Read our full DreamHost review.
Green web hosting FAQs
What is green web hosting?
Green web hosting is web hosting service provision with a commitment to environmental integrity. This can take the form of using renewable energy in data centers, or deploying more efficient technology and so on. Moreover, the best green web hosts cultivate an eco culture throughout the company, which can include fossil free travel, videoconferencing options and no commute policies such as remote working.
How can I tell if a hosting provider is really green?
Mostly, dedicated green hosts feature a special section on their site which outlines their green policies. The sections are displayed on the main page, or can be found by clicking green-related key words at the bottom of the main page. On the section, web hosts detail their carbon mitigation efforts, with stats if possible. The very best will demonstrate sincerity by displaying their eco credentials and awards on the site.
Does green web hosting really make a difference?
The fact is that web hosting services consume a huge amount of the world's electricity production, around 1.5% or more. Every little bit that can be done to reduce that huge number also reduces the carbon emissions that come from fossil fuel electricity generation. The problem is made worse by the remorseless increase in the number of data centers we need. The current A.I. revolution is not helping, as more and bigger data centers come online to deal with demand.
Is green web hosting more expensive?
It doesn't have to be. Green web hosts apply computer racks that are more energy-efficient, better software and intelligent air-conditioning reduce costs, which in turn can be passed on to the customers. As with much of the environmental movement, going green typically leads to more efficiency as well as lower prices. Certainly our overview of the best green web hosts doesn't show any price premium that comes from a green shift.
What is the future of green web hosting?
Many of the largest data centers are being relocated to cooler climates such as the North of Sweden and other Scandinavian locations to tackle heating costs. We're also seeing an increase in data center consolidation to improve efficiencies. Probably the biggest change we're going to see over the next few years is a rise in the use of automated A.I. systems. These systems will manage and optimize all parts of the data center ecosystem, to ensure the lowest possible costs and carbon footprint.
Why do we need green web hosting?
Every time we use a service on the internet, we connect to a computer located in a data center somewhere in the world. Every single email, web chat, smiley, video, and Facebook comment consumes server electricity to store and transmit. Energy is also needed to keep these server farms cool. Imagine the heat coming from your laptop, and then scale it up to a huge warehouse level. This energy is mostly generated using fossil fuelled power stations, which means that the CO2e emissions are staggering. A 2021 report from the Helmholtz Centre in Germany put the global emissions from data storage and transmission at 97 million tonnes of CO2e a year, roughly equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of Sweden and Finland combined. The upshot is that ensuring your web hosting service uses green clean electricity is a great way of helping to reduce carbon emissions. And every bit helps our planet and future!
How we tested the best green web hosting services
Testing the best web hosting services is far less complex than testing these same providers on just how eco-friendly it is. There's a green web check tool created by The Green Web Foundation where we put the URL of a web hosting company into its search directory, which then gives an instant result on the site's green status.
Although not all web hosting providers on our list passed this test, it's a great tool to start off with when looking to make a quick decision about which green web hosting service to choose.
We found that providers such as GreenGeeks and HostPapa use green energy or compensation for its services.
We also carry out our tests on features and compare pricing as we do for the best web hosting and best website builder services on the market. We choose the top one based on the providers that tick the most boxes in terms of affordability, ease of use, customer support and useful add-ons.
