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WordPress.org keeps a page of recommended hosts, and for a beginner it looks like the end of the search. The software itself is pointing at a shortlist, so the shortlist must be safe.
The page is more candid about itself than most readers notice. It states that some listed hosts return part of your payment to WordPress.org when you click through from there. It calls its own selection process arbitrary, in that word. And one of the criteria it names is contribution to WordPress.org — a criterion the listed hosts meet very unevenly — 2,099 pledged hours a week at the top of the list, 50 at the bottom, as of 31 August 2026.
Which Hosts Does WordPress.org Recommend?
As of 31 August 2026, the page names Pressable, Bluehost and Hostinger. Bluehost has held a place on it since 2005, longer than anyone else. The list is short, it changes without announcement, and the page says it is reviewed several times a year. Our page on Bluehost for WordPress covers measurements that outran the reputation.
| Host | Owned by | Pledged to WordPress |
|---|---|---|
| Pressable | Automattic | 2,099 hours a week |
| Hostinger | Hostinger International | 164 hours a week |
| Bluehost | Newfold Digital | 50 hours a week |
Pledge figures read from each company’s Five for the Future page on WordPress.org, 31 August 2026. Pressable’s pledge is filed under its parent, Automattic.
What the Page Says About Itself
Read the bottom of the page before the top. Under the heading about being listed, WordPress.org writes that listing is completely arbitrary, then gives a list of things it considers anyway: contributions to WordPress.org, size of customer base, ease of auto-install and auto-upgrades, avoiding GPL violations, design, tone, historical perception, using the correct logo, capitalizing WordPress correctly, not blaming them for your security issues, and up-to-date system software.
Some of those are engineering criteria and some are etiquette. Capitalizing WordPress correctly sits in the same list as GPL compliance.
Higher up, the page says something more concrete. If you go with one of the listed hosts and click through from that page, some will donate a portion of your fee back. The outbound link to Bluehost carries the parameter siteid=46165037.
The Three Hosts, and What Each One Is
1. Bluehost
The longest-serving name on the list, and the one most beginner tutorials point at. Bluehost belongs to Newfold Digital, which also owns HostGator, Network Solutions and Yoast SEO — we traced that ownership in our piece on who owns Bluehost.
The Starter plan advertises at $3.99 a month on a 36-month term and renews at $9.99. Bluehost is midway through moving customers onto Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, announced in November 2025, with roughly a million accounts migrated and 4–5× median response improvements claimed in Newfold’s own release.
Choose it if you want the most documented onboarding path in WordPress. Skip it if the ownership overlap on your shortlist matters to you.
2. Hostinger
The newest of the three on the list and the cheapest to start. The Premium plan renews at $10.99 a month after the introductory term, which runs up to 48 months.
Hostinger also carries the second-largest pledge of the three by a wide margin: 25 contributors and 164 hours a week across 13 teams. Whatever else the listing is, on the stated contribution criterion Hostinger is not the weak link.
Choose it if entry price and contribution record both matter. Skip it if you need phone support, which Hostinger does not offer.
3. Pressable
The odd one out, and the one most readers skip. Pressable is managed WordPress hosting built on Automattic’s WP Cloud platform, aimed at agencies rather than first-time site owners. Its pricing starts well above the other two.
The page states Pressable’s ownership openly, linking to Automattic’s Five for the Future page. That is worth noticing: the list discloses the Automattic connection for Pressable while WordPress.com, Automattic’s own flagship, does not appear on the page at all.
Choose it if you manage many sites and want the platform closest to the project. Skip it if you are launching your first blog.
The Criterion Worth Checking
Contribution to WordPress.org is the first item on the stated criteria list, so it is fair to check it. All three pledges are public on WordPress.org, and anyone can read them in a minute.
On 31 August 2026 the pages showed Automattic sponsoring 90 contributors for 2,099 hours a week across 21 teams, Hostinger sponsoring 25 contributors for 164 hours across 13 teams, and Bluehost sponsoring 10 contributors for 50 hours across 8 teams.
Bluehost’s number has a history behind it. In March 2025, The Repository reported that Newfold cut its combined pledge across Bluehost, Yoast and YITH from 329 hours a week to 20, consolidating everything under the Bluehost page. Newfold confirmed the consolidation to the publication and did not explain the cut. The listing did not change.
There is a second wrinkle. Bluehost’s own blog, on the same date we read the pledge page, describes that pledge as 20 hours rather than 50. Two pages, one company, two numbers — so we publish both instead of picking the tidier one.
Who Has Been Removed, and Why Nobody Knows
The list is not stable, and removals arrive without explanation.
SiteGround was dropped in 2023. DreamHost was delisted on 17 January 2024, reinstated, then removed again later that year; the changeset carried the note “rm dreamhost, per matt.” Back in 2016, Bluehost and SiteGround were both removed and relisted within days, which Review Signal covered at the time under a headline about nobody knowing the selection criteria.
Additions are equally quiet. When SiteGround was added, the company wrote that it had filled in a detailed survey and was later told by email that hosts on the page are reviewed regularly with no guarantee of future placement.
So the list is a snapshot, not a standard. A host on it today may be off it next quarter, and the reason may never be published.
What This Should and Should Not Change for You
Treat the listing as one signal among several, weighted low. It tells you a host has been around, handles auto-install competently, and has not annoyed anyone at WordPress.org lately. Those are real things, but they are not the things that will cost you money.
What will cost you money sits elsewhere: the renewal multiplier, the add-ons that are not optional in practice, the limits behind the word “unlimited”, and whether two names on your shortlist share an owner. None of that is on the recommendation page, and none of it is what the page claims to measure.
Read it as a starting shortlist, then check what WordPress actually needs from a host. That is the same advice we would give about any editorial list, including ours.
How We Research
The listing, the criteria wording and the affiliate parameter were read directly from the WordPress.org hosting page on 31 August 2026. The three pledge figures came from each organization’s Five for the Future page on the same day, not from secondary reporting. Removal history came from named publications, and we say which one carried which claim.
We do not run our own speed or uptime tests, so the Oracle migration figures above are Newfold’s claim, labeled as such. Our method and the five criteria behind every score are published on our About page.
Frequently Asked Questions
As of 31 August 2026, WordPress.org lists Pressable, Bluehost and Hostinger on its hosting page. The list changes without announcement and is reviewed several times a year, so check the page directly rather than trusting a review site’s copy of it.
The page states that some listed hosts donate a portion of your fee back to WordPress.org when you click through from there. The outbound link to Bluehost carries an affiliate parameter. WordPress.org discloses this on the page rather than hiding it.
No public reason was given. SiteGround was dropped in 2023, and DreamHost was removed in 2024 with a changeset note reading “rm dreamhost, per matt.” The absence of stated reasons is a long-running complaint about the page within the WordPress community.
Yes, and it has been listed since 2005 — longer than any other host. That reflects longevity and platform integration rather than price. Bluehost’s Starter plan renews at $9.99 a month, and the listing says nothing about renewal costs.
Treat it as one weak signal. The listing indicates competent WordPress integration and a long track record, but it does not evaluate renewal pricing, add-on costs, or ownership overlap between brands — which are the factors most likely to affect what you actually pay.
The Verdict
WordPress.org recommends three hosts today, describes the selection as arbitrary, earns a referral on at least one of them, and names a contribution criterion its listed hosts meet very unevenly. All of that is published on the page itself.
None of it makes the three bad hosts. Bluehost, Hostinger and Pressable are all serviceable, and two of them are genuinely cheap to start. But the endorsement is worth less than the renewal price you will pay in year two, and only one of those two numbers is easy to find.