Shared hosting is what most website owners (~38%) 1 rely on when first launching a WordPress site. But for many people – including probably you – shared hosting eventually starts to feel limiting. You reach a point where maybe you need to make server-level adjustments or export a large database, but you also don’t want to upgrade to a dedicated server or a VPS.
SSH access provides a nice middle ground solution, but unfortunately, many shared hosting plans don’t allow it for security reasons – so they say.
On the flip side, there are some that do – and I’ve rounded up five of my favorites with all the details for you right here.
Let’s begin with a top-level comparative overview. Then I’ll give you a quick primer on what SSH access in shared hosting environments looks like, followed by a more detailed look at each company.
Best WordPress hosting with SSH access overview 🖥️
| Host | cPanel | WP-CLI | Composer | Node.js | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Namecheap | $1.58 ($4.07) | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Hostinger | $2.69 ($7.99) | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | |
| InMotion | $2.79 ($10.99) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| A2 Hosting | $1.99 ($12.99) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| GreenGeeks | $2.95 ($12.95) | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
TL;DR 😎
- Namecheap: Best “bang-for-your-buck” option in the long-term.
- Hostinger: Very wide selection of data centers and best DIY choice.
- InMotion / A2 Hosting: Most comprehensive customer support with SSH access turned on by default.
- GreenGeeks: Comprehensive features with a 300% green energy match and one tree planted for every account opened.
Understanding SSH limitations on shared hosting 🛑
Getting SSH access on shared hosting is a bit like getting backstage passes to a concert. You receive a lot of privileges that regular ticket holders don’t get, but you’re still not running the show.
When a shared host advertises SSH access, here’s what you’re actually getting (and not getting):
No root access ❌: Unlike a VPS or a dedicated server, SSH access on shared hosting gives you limited user-level access, not root privileges. You can run commands in your own account directory, but you can’t install system software or change server configurations. This is probably a “duh” limitation to point out for many people, but nonetheless, not everyone might be aware of it.
Restricted commands ✋: Hosts may disable certain commands they deem risky. If you run into any command issues, ask customer support for more information.
Resource limits 📉: Just because you can run commands doesn’t mean you’ve escaped your hosting plan’s CPU and memory restrictions.
Why all these guardrails? Simple: on shared hosting, one server houses hundreds or even thousands of websites. If every user had unrestricted access, chaos would reign.
Despite these limitations, SSH access on shared hosting opens up possibilities that point-and-click interfaces can’t match. You just need to know what you’re working with! 🔧
My top 5 picks (and what I love about them) 🏆
And without further ado, here are what I consider to be the best SSH hosting options for WordPress sites. I compiled this list based on a blend of direct personal experience and online research.
1. Namecheap
Namecheap holds the top spot for me for a very good reason – I’ve been on their mid-tier shared hosting plan for more than a year now (with all WordPress sites) and have the most amount of direct experience using their services. And they make it really easy to enable SSH access via cPanel:
They even provide an en-suite Terminal right in the cPanel dashboard so you can run your commands there if you prefer.
Namecheap has three shared hosting plans – all of which support WordPress installations and let you active SSH access through cPanel. Contracts are available as month-to-month, one year, or two year, with the best prices on the two-year deals. Prices shown below are for two-year contracts.
- Stellar: $1.58 per month and renews at $3.83 per month. Support for up to 3 websites, 20 GB SSD, 30 mailboxes, and AI tools.
- Stellar Plus: $2.24 per month and renews at $5.45 per month. Support for unlimited websites, unmetered SSD, unlimited mailboxes, automatic backups, and AI tools.
- Stellar Business: $4.45 per month and renews at $9.37 per month. Support for unlimited websites, 50 GB SSD, unlimited mailboxes, automatic backups, cloud storage, and AI tools.
- 30-day money back guarantee on all plans.
Additional features ⚙️
- Choose from four data centers when signing up: United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, or the European Union.
- Free SSL in the first year.
- Unmetered bandwidth.
- Free CDN (capped at 50 GB per month).
- Free website migration.
- Competitive domain pricing with domain privacy included for free.
- Free domain in the first year (on ).
- Simple and advanced DNS zone editor.
| Dev Tool | Has | Does Not Have |
|---|---|---|
| Cron Jobs | 2 | |
| WP-CLI | ❌ | |
| Git Access | ✅ 3 | |
| Composer | ✅ 4 | |
| Command-line MySQL Access | ✅ 5 | |
| PHP Version Selection | ✅ 6 | |
| Python Support | ✅ 7 | |
| Node.js Support | ✅ 8 |
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
As long as you’re okay with no phone support, I can tell you from numerous interactions that Namecheap’s chat support is exceptionally good. They respond quickly (less than a minute usually), are genuinely helpful and friendly, and solve your issues.
At Themeisle, we have purchased basic shared hosting plans with over 20 different hosting companies and we conduct monthly speed tests on them from locations across the globe. We also monitor their uptime. Here are the most recent results:
| East Coast USA: 0.82s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 0.67s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 0.64s ⭐ | London, UK: 1.40s |
| Paris, France: 1.48s | Mumbai, India: 4.08s |
2. Hostinger
Hostinger comes in at number two for similar reasons to Namecheap, namely, personal experience. I’ve used Hostinger a handful of times over the years and have generally enjoyed their services. Although on their baseline shared hosting plans, they have their own in-house version called hPanel. It comes with many features and one of them is SSH access:
They also give you multiple options to use it – your own Terminal or an SSH client like PuTTy. And they have helpful tutorials to help you get started – this is probably the one you’d be most interested in.
Hostinger has two shared hosting plans. They also make it very easy to install WordPress and give you a semi-custom version of the WordPress dashboard with some nice features. Contracts are available as month-to-month, one year, two year, or four year, with the best deals on the four-year contracts. Prices shown below are for the four-year contracts.
- Premium: $2.69 per month and renews at $7.99 per month. Support for up to 25 websites and 25,000 monthly visitors. Includes 25 GB SSD, 25 mailboxes (free for the first year), weekly backups, and AI tools.
- Business: $3.59 per month and renews at $8.99 per month. Support for 50 websites and up to 100,000 monthly visitors. Includes 50 GB NVMe, 50 mailboxes (free for the first year), daily backups, and AI tools.
- 30-day money back guarantee on all plans.
Additional features ⚙️
- Choose from multiple data centers when signing up, including United States (North Carolina, Massachusetts), United Kingdom, Lithuania, Brazil, France, Germany, and Singapore.
- Unlimited Free SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt.
- Unmetered bandwidth.
- Free CDN (on the Business plan only).
- Free domain in the first year (on ).
- DNS zone editor.
| Dev Tool | Has | Does Not Have |
|---|---|---|
| Cron Jobs | ✅ 9 | |
| WP-CLI | ✅ | |
| Git Access | ✅ 10 | |
| Composer | ✅ 11 | |
| Command-line MySQL Access | ✅ 12 | |
| PHP Version Selection | ✅ 13 | |
| Python Support | ❌ 14 | |
| Node.js Support | ❌ 15 |
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
Hostinger’s main first-line of support is an AI chatbot – which typically doesn’t come with high expectations. However, after having interacted with it multiple times, I have to admit that it’s way better than probably any other AI chatbot I’ve had “conversations” with. They programmed it well, but if for some reason it gets stuck, then it will escalate you to a human to assist further.
| East Coast USA: 1.35s | West Coast USA: 1.98s |
| Central USA: 1.71s | London, UK: 0.43s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.56s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.84s |
3. InMotion Hosting
Third on the list is InMotion hosting, which not only has a dedicated SSH hosting page, but comes with a who slew of unique benefits that you won’t get elsewhere. For example, they offer an industry-leading 90-day money back guarantee, which is triple what most hosting companies offer.
As another bonus, many SSH hosts – even the ones I’ve listed here – don’t enable SSH access by default. You have to request it or toggle it on. Granted, this isn’t some huge hurdle to cross, but nonetheless, InMotion removes any of that friction from the get go. They also have helpful tutorials related to using SSH on your account so if you get stuck on something, you can start there.
InMotion’s SSH plans are their shared hosting plans, but when you go to the dedicated page they are presented in a way that places more focus on the SSH features. You can choose to pay by the month, by the year, or every two or three years. As with the others, the best deals are on the three-year plans. There are four plans in total, with the first three shown below:
- Core: $2.79 per month and renews at $10.99 per month. Support for up to 2 websites, 100 GB SSD, and 10 mailboxes (1 GB of storage per mailbox).
- Launch: $4.59 per month and renews at $13.99 per month. Support for 25 websites, unlimited NVMe storage, and unlimited mailboxes (5 GB of storage per mailbox).
- Power: $4.59 per month and renews at $17.99 per month. Support for unlimited websites, unlimited NVMe storage, and unlimited mailboxes (10 GB of storage per mailbox).
- 90-day money back guarantee on all plans.
Additional features ⚙️
- Choose from three data center regions when signing up, including United States West, United States East/Central, and European Union Central.
- Free SSL certificates.
- Unmetered bandwidth.
- Automatic backups.
- Free domain in the first year.
| Dev Tool | Has | Does Not Have |
|---|---|---|
| Cron Jobs | ✅ 16 | |
| WP-CLI | ✅ | |
| Git Access | ✅ | |
| Composer | ✅ 17 | |
| Command-line MySQL Access | 18 | |
| PHP Version Selection | ✅ | |
| Python Support | ✅ | |
| Node.js Support | ✅ |
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | ✅⚠️ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
InMotion has arguably one of the most comprehensive customer support systems of any hosting company. They meet you wherever you want to meet them and every support channel is covered (as you can see above). ⚠️ Although phone support is only available on the third and fourth tier plans.
| East Coast USA: 0.25s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 0.60s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 0.50s ⭐ | London, UK: 0.79s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.81s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.87s |
4. A2 Hosting
Similar to InMotion, A2 Hosting has a dedicated SSH hosting page and they also turn on SSH access by default when you sign up – no requesting and no toggling required.
Their library of SSH tutorials will get you started and their other useful dev tools will let you take control of your WordPress site in all sorts of ways. Plus they are one of the few SSH hosts that give you access to both MySQL and MariaDB databases.
A2’s SSH plans are a repositioned version of their first two shared hosting plans and their first two Turbo upgraded plans – meaning they are the same plans but the SSH hosting page focuses on the SSH aspects of them. You can pay by the month, by the year, or every two or three years. The cheapest per-month rate is on the one-year plan, but you’ll save more overall by going with the three-year plan. The first two tiers on the three-year plan are shown below:
- Ignite: $1.99 per month and renews at $9.99 per month. Support for 1 website and 10 GB SSD. Includes unlimited mailboxes and cPanel.
- Accel: $5.99 per month and renews at $12.99 per month. Support for unlimited websites with unlimited SSD. Includes unlimited mailboxes and cPanel.
- 30-day money back guarantee on all plans.
Additional features ⚙️
- Choose from four data centers when signing up, including Michigan, Arizona (both in the U.S.), Amsterdam, or Singapore.
- Free SSL certificate.
- Website staging.
- Free site migration service.
| Dev Tool | Has | Does Not Have |
|---|---|---|
| Cron Jobs | ✅ 19 | |
| WP-CLI | ✅ | |
| Git Access | ✅ 20 | |
| Composer | ✅ 21 | |
| Command-line MySQL Access | ||
| PHP Version Selection | ✅ | |
| Python Support | ✅ | |
| Node.js Support |
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | ✅ | ❌ |
A2 Hosting’s support rivals InMotion in terms of support channels. The only thing they don’t have that InMotion brings to the table is a support forum, but they make up for that by offering phone support on all plans. Not to mention that everything runs 24/7 so no matter what time zone you’re in or what time of day it is, you can reach someone.
| East Coast USA: 0.97s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 1.33s |
| Central USA: 1.05s | London, UK: 1.70s |
| Paris, France: 1.63s | Mumbai, India: 2.97s |
5. GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks automatically disables SSH access by default on shared hosting plans, but they offer an easy-to-follow guide that shows you how to activate it.
Their plans also come with some attractive features and if you care about the environment, then their eco-friendly hosting model is an added bonus.
GreenGeeks lets you pay by the month, by the year, or every two or three years. Unlike the other options though, the best deal here is on the one-year plan. The two-year and three-year plans have the non-promo rate built into them from the start so the smartest option is to choose the one-year option (shown below). All three shared hosting plans let you install WordPress and let you activate SSH access. Here are the first two:
- Lite: $2.95 per month and renews at $12.95 per month. Support for 1 website with 25 GB of storage, unmetered bandwidth, and up to 50 mailboxes.
- Pro: $4.95 per month and renews at $17.95 per month. Support for unlimited websites with 50 GB of storage, unmetered bandwidth, and unlimited mailboxes.
- 30-day money back guarantee on all plans.
Additional features ⚙️
- Choose from four data centers when signing up, including United States, Canada, Europe, and Singapore.
- Free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt.
- Free daily backups.
- Free CDN.
- Free domain in the first year.
- Free website migration.
- WP-CLI.
- Git access.
- Drush.
- Perl and Python.
| Dev Tool | Has | Does Not Have |
|---|---|---|
| Cron Jobs | ✅ | |
| WP-CLI | ✅ 22 | |
| Git Access | ✅ 23 | |
| Composer | ❌ | |
| Command-line MySQL Access | ||
| PHP Version Selection | ✅ 24 | |
| Python Support | ✅ | |
| Node.js Support |
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
GreenGeeks has a comprehensive support system that includes all the main channels you’d want support on. The only minor caveat is that phone support is not 24/7. It’s available from 9 in the morning until midnight (EST timezone), which is still a fairly large service window – even if you’re outside of EST.
| East Coast USA: 2.16s | West Coast USA: 1.87s |
| Central USA: 1.21s | London, UK: 0.48s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.39s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.37s |
Final quick recommendations 👨🏻💻
If you landed on this page, it’s most likely because your current hosting company doesn’t offer SSH access on your shared hosting plan and you don’t have the need or funds to upgrade to VPS.
Luckily, you have this beautiful thing called freedom of choice at your disposal and the market is full of shared hosting providers that aren’t afraid to let their customers access their shared servers.
I shared five of my favorites with you and I think you’ll be pleased with any one of them if you decide to transfer your account (or open a new one). Each one has its own nuances that might make it a better fit – depending on what you’re looking for. As a recap, here are the quickie recommendations once more:
- Namecheap: Best overall value and price in the long-term.
- Hostinger: Widest selection of data center choices and best for DIY solutions.
- InMotion / A2 Hosting: Most comprehensive customer support options with SSH access turned on by default.
- GreenGeeks: Well-rounded feature set with a 300% green energy match and one tree planted for every account opened.
💡 You might also enjoy our beginner’s guide to using WP-CLI.
Have you taken advantage of SSH access on your shared hosting account? Share your experience in the comments.
References
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