3 Best Green Web Hosting Companies

It's no secret that the internet is an integral part of our lives. We rely on it for communication, entertainment, business, and more. However, all this internet usage requires massive computing power and energy to keep it running. Data centers and servers consume huge amounts of electricity, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.

Through this lens, it seems the internet has become a necessary evil in our modern world, where businesses need an online presence to thrive. Yet, there are ways we can reduce its environmental impact. Choosing a green web hosting company is one impactful step businesses can take.

These providers actively offset their carbon emissions through renewable energy partnerships and other sustainability measures. Beyond benefiting the planet, going green presents a great branding and marketing opportunity for companies wanting to showcase social responsibility.

We will highlight the best green web hosting providers that allow you to run an eco-friendly online presence without compromise.

Read: How to Compare Software

What Makes the Best Green Web Hosting Service

Going green is more than slapping a cute little leaf logo on a website or using green backgrounds. When researching green web hosting companies, we examined several criteria to determine the best options. As you would expect, eco-friendliness tops the list. However, it's not the only consideration for our top choices.

Eco-Friendliness

Effective sustainability practices are the top priority when evaluating a green web host. We favored options that actively reduce greenhouse gas emissions through renewable energy use, efficient data centers, and robust offset programs. The top contenders have all received environmental certifications for their efforts to prove their claims.

Price

Just because a company is "green" doesn't mean it has to charge an arm and a leg. You might be surprised at how much prices vary for the same service.

While some niche green hosts cater to higher-end customers, we focused on competitively and reasonably priced options that don't break the bank and offer all the core features you need.

Features

Speaking of features, we looked at which hosts offer things like free SSL and a staging environment, whether there are traffic limits and how high they are, as well as if it's possible to host domain-based email addresses directly through the host along with other security and CMS-related features. The best green web hosting companies must provide robust features without tradeoffs.

Performance

Similar to the features, the performance of the hosts is also critical and needs to be seen in relation to the price. Here we evaluated the CPUs, RAM, storage space and medium used, available hosting types, as well as the bandwidth and uptime, to classify the value of each offer. The better these technical aspects, the higher a green hosting provider ranks.

Customer Support

Problems can occur at any time and can take on different levels of complexity. Therefore, it stands to reason that fast and competent customer support can be very important. Especially if your website suddenly goes down, your web host needs to be available quickly and able to help you find a solution. For this reason, we have analyzed the accessibility, contact channels, quality, and speed of the companies and considered them for our ranking.

In addition to these main criteria, we have also included others. For more information on our whole approach, visit our overall Best Picks for Web Hosting Services.

Top 3 Green Web Hosting Companies

With a solid evaluation methodology in place, we analyzed which companies truly make an effort for our environment and how they compete. The best options provide an optimal balance of sustainability, value for money, features, and good service.

1. GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks is one of the most renowned green hosting companies. Since its founding in 2008, it has maintained an eco-friendly focus. The Canadian provider continues to lead in the renewable energy space, offsetting a large amount of its electrical usage through wind and solar energy credits.

That's not all, as they also partnered with One Tree Planted. For every new customer account created, GreenGeeks plants a tree to counterbalance resource use. These efforts have earned them recognition by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for their commitment to sustainability.

GreenGeeks sustains such robust green programs while also focusing on the customer experience. Its multiple North American, Asian, and European data centers run on proprietary, purpose-built server technology for optimal speed and reliability.

On the service side, GreenGeeks offers 24/7 support via live chat, phone, and help desk tickets. It also provides automatic daily backups and one-click installs for many CMS platforms such as WordPress.

2. HostPapa

HostPapa is another Canadian-based green web hosting provider doing its part to build a sustainable future. While it seems Canadians just love nature, it rings true for the Toronto-based company as it offsets 100% of its electricity usage through renewable energy credits in the form of solar, wind, and hydropower.

Since initiating these carbon reduction programs as one of the first hosting companies, it has mitigated thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions to date.

On the hosting side, HostPapa is similar to GreenGeeks. It aims to provide an easy, budget-friendly entry point for small businesses to establish an online presence. Its intuitive control panel allows for effortless management of domains, emails, backups, and more.

If you're considering going green, HostPapa provides complimentary site migration services to help you switch from another provider. The company offers hundreds of professional site templates and has its own website builder in place for those wanting to launch a brand-new site as fast as possible.

HostPapa has data centers in three locations – Toronto, Los Angeles, and Amsterdam making it appealing for those who primarily have their audience in North America and Europe to deliver quick load times.

3. DreamHost

Last but certainly not least, we have DreamHost. With nearly 25 years of web hosting industry expertise, it is likely a name you've heard before. The company uses a multi-faceted approach to sustainability, supporting various eco-friendly initiatives.

For instance, it relies on 100% renewable energy from wind and solar power across its data centers. The company also implements high-efficiency cooling systems and power-saving hardware components whenever feasible.

Despite having green DNA embedded in its backbone, DreamHost doesn't compromise on functionality and offers a larger range of hosting options compared to the previous companies we discussed.

DreamHost offers a large array of hosting plans, which can be both good and bad. On the one hand, it means there's an option for every budget and needs. On the other, it can be hard to figure out which plan is right for you.

Their shared starter plans can be compared with the standard hosting solutions of GreenGeeks and Hostpapa, offering unmetered bandwidth, free SSL, automatic backups, and a flexible choice to include unlimited email inboxes or not. For those needing more power, DreamHost also provides cloud, VPS, and dedicated hosting options.

Deciding on the Right Green Web Hosting Service

Choosing eco-friendly web hosting that also performs well in other categories provides a win-win-win – benefiting your brand, customers, and the planet. As outlined in this guide, stellar green hosts indeed exist without compromise on key functionality, support, or budget.

With 3 of the most eco-friendly and accessible web hosting services available, deciding on the best provider for your needs can still feel overwhelming.

To make your decision easier, we can summarize the following recommendations.

• If eco-friendliness is your absolute top priority and you are looking to host a small to medium-sized website via standard shared or VPS hosting, then GreenGeeks is your best choice.
• If better customer support is important to you and you are willing to spend a little more overall due to the additional fees for SSL, and automated backups after the first year, then HostPapa is a good alternative.
• If you are looking for the best value for money or additional hosting types including cloud and dedicated hosting, then DreamHost is your best green choice. While their commitment to sustainability is not quite on the same level as the other two companies, they offer the best value overall. In theory this would allow you to actively use the price difference to additionally support environmental programs by yourself and at the same time support a web hosting company that is also committed to a fair extent.

Keep in mind to select a plan that meets your current and near-future needs. While it's wise to provide room for growth, overspending on unused resources equates to waste, and in the world of sustainability, we should try to avoid waste whenever possible. That said, you can always upgrade to larger resources later or change the host again at any time.

You might also want to dive into some of the basics of web hosting to learn more before making your decision.

Good luck!