Here’s our handpicked list of the best WordPress products and services to take your WordPress website to the next level. We’ve done the hard work for you, narrowing this list down to the top WordPress hosting companies, themes, and plugins. Even though we earn a small commission when you buy some of these products, we only recommend products and services we’ve used and can vouch for, with a history of stellar customer support. We hope you find this helpful!
Managed WordPress Hosting Companies We Trust and Recommend
You’ve got better things to do than keeping your WordPress site up to date, backed up, and secure. So we only recommend Managed WordPress hosting companies who specialize in hosting WordPress sites, offer innovative features you can’t get anywhere else, and deliver better speed and support than cheap shared web hosts. Be sure to also read: Why We Only Recommend Managed WordPress Hosting
EasyWP is the easiest and most affordable managed WordPress hosting we’ve ever seen. Your first month is free, then it’s just $4.88/month. But EasyWP is also really fast! You can create a brand new WordPress site in less than two minutes!
Pressable is a world-class managed WordPress hosting provider built on the same data network as WordPress.com and WordPress VIP. With automatic scaling, Pressable is perfect for small business websites, with plans starting at $19/month.
The first managed WordPress host to be exclusively powered by Google Cloud Platform, Kinsta has data center locations around the globe and enterprise-level DDoS protection. Perfect for business sites, plans start at $35/month.
We trust Cloudways to host this site, because they provide managed cloud hosting, with your choice of underlying hardware and more control over your server, when you’re ready to step up your game. Plans start at just $10/month. Bonus: Includes Astra Pro!
WP Engine is great for business and ecommerce websites that need fast speed, scalability, and security. Their award-winning support is second to none. Plus, you’ll also get premium themes and block tools. Plans start at $25/month.
Nexcess is perfect for business and ecommerce sites, with their unique performance monitoring, automated testing for WooCommerce, and automatic plugin updates with visual comparison. Plans start at $13.30/month.
The Very Best WordPress Themes
Don’t get stuck with a poorly-coded theme and no support! WP101 recommends these talented, highly-reputable WordPress theme companies…
Astra is the most popular theme for all time, and for a good reason. It’s fast, very lightweight (less than 50kb), fully customizable and perfect for a blog, personal portfolio, business website, or WooCommerce storefront. Built with SEO in mind, Astra comes with Schema.org code integrated and is Native AMP ready so search engines will love your site. It works perfectly with page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, and Visual Composer. Astra is fast, fully customizable, and WooCommerce-ready, so you can build any kind of website you can imagine!
Pro Tip: Get Astra Pro free for one year with a Cloudways WordPress hosting account!
Kadence was built from the ground up for lightning-fast performance, while it’s also filled with modern features that will make building websites fun again. The Kadence theme follows accessibility standards and features an intuitive drag-and-drop page builder so you can create beautiful headers, footers, and page layouts without the need for additional page builder plugins. Plus, they have an impressive library of no-code, ready-to-use starter site templates to help you get started in minutes.
Blocksy is one of the most intuitive WordPress themes you’ll find for creating beautiful, fast-loading websites. Build an entire website visually in minutes—including custom headers—without any coding skills. Blocksy is lighter and faster than most similar WordPress themes, and is 100% compatible with the Gutenberg editor and blocks. Plus, you’ll get a full library of starter sites that are easy to customize and make your own. Just replace the content and go live!
GeneratePress is a lightweight WordPress theme that focuses on speed, stability, and accessibility. At just 7.5kb page size, 2 HTTP requests, and zero dependencies, GeneratePress can help your site hit those coveted 100% PageSpeed scores! And with the free GenerateBlocks plugin, you can visually build every aspect of your website without touching a line of code. Total design freedom to create whatever you need!
The Best WordPress Page Builders
Stop being limited by your WordPress theme! Build any type of site you can imagine using one of these WordPress page builder plugins.
Check out Spectra 101, our brand new, 14-part course for this plugin!
Spectra is a free WordPress page builder plugin that enables you to quickly build beautiful, fast-loading WordPress websites—without touching a line of code. Spectra includes the largest library of pre-built websites, wireframes, and patterns you can import with just one click. And, unlike other page builders, Spectra also works with the default WordPress block editor.
Check out Elementor 101, our popular 14-part course for this plugin!
Elementor is by far the most popular website building plugin for WordPress, powering more than 7% of the Internet with over 11 million active installs. Whether you’re a designer, developer, marketer, or entrepreneur, you can create stunning landing pages, design a blog, or customize your online store in an intuitive visual builder… without touching a line of code.
Check out Beaver Builder 101, our 45-minute course for this popular plugin!
Beaver Builder is a complete design system that includes a WordPress page builder plugin and a framework theme. Beaver Builder’s intuitive WordPress website builder works in real time on the front end of your page, so what you see is what you get! Live, front-end editing. No more guesswork.
WordPress Customizations, Maintenance, and Support
Whether you just need a small tweak to your WordPress site, a purpose-built feature, or a completely custom WordPress theme, these companies can help you take your WordPress site to the next level.
Need a custom feature for your WordPress site? Or a small tweak to your theme? From customization to full-blown custom WordPress design, get help from 400+ handpicked WordPress experts from the US and Europe. Get a reply in less than 10 minutes!
SiteCare is the all-in-one WordPress maintenance and digital marketing solution for businesses looking to grow. Do you want more traffic, better rankings, more sales, or more leads? SiteCare offers a full suite of digital marketing services that includes search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, email lead generation and more.
Is your WordPress site slow? Speed it up in 3 minutes!
Did you know that 53% of website visitors will leave your site if it doesn’t load within three seconds? Page speed is also an important factor in search engine rankings. If your site is slow, it’ll rank lower… and that means fewer visitors to your site. Speed up your WordPress site in about 3 minutes with this plugin…
For an instantly faster WordPress site, we recommend WP Rocket. It’s the easiest way to make your WordPress site load faster… with just a few clicks. And unlike other plugins, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to get up and running. In fact, you can set up WP Rocket in less than 3 minutes!
Be sure to check out our 30-minute course on how to speed up your WordPress site with WP Rocket!
Ready to get more traffic from Google?
Search engine optimization (SEO) can be really challenging. And even the best SEO software can be confusing without a step-by-step process. That’s why we recommend guided SEO instead. You’ll get a series of easy lessons, with specific homework assignments so your site can begin ranking with just a few hours a week. Plus, you’ll also get an SEO coach who will guide you and answer all your critical questions. You don’t have to become an SEO expert in order to get your site ranked in Google!
Built by seasoned SEO professionals, Pathfinder SEO distills decades of experience into tools and task that get results. Guided SEO cuts down the cost of hiring an expert to do the work for you, while providing step-by-step lessons and accountability so you don’t have to waste time trying to figure things out on your own!
Easy eCommerce for WordPress
Ready to start selling products and services from your WordPress site? These popular plugins make it a breeze!
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform for building an online store. No other eCommerce platform allows you to start for free and then grow your store as your business grows.
Check out the official WooCommerce 101 course we created for them, right here on this site!
From eBooks to WordPress plugins, to PDF files and more, Easy Digital Downloads makes it a breeze to sell digital products. Easy Digital Downloads is simple to use and free to download. Get started today!
Orderable is the best restaurant plugin for WooCommerce. Take online orders with Orderable, the WooCommerce plugin designed to help you manage your restaurant, your way, with no added fees!
Add a Custom Form to Your Site
One of the missing features in WordPress (in our opinion) is an easy way to create custom forms. Every website should at least have a contact form! Thankfully, these companies have stepped up to the plate and filled this much-needed void:
In our opinion, WPForms is the most beginner-friendly WordPress contact form plugin on the market. Join the 2 million site owners who use WPForms to build easy, drag-and-drop forms and surveys in seconds!
Check out our easy, 1-hour course on how to use WPForms!
One of the most powerful, flexible, and easy-to-use form builder plugins for WordPress. Build custom forms in minutes with their simple, drag-and-drop form builder.
Check out our 18-part course in how to use Ninja Forms!
Gravity Forms was one of the very first plugins to create contact forms, email signup forms, and event registration forms for your WordPress-powered website. Check out what’s new!
WS Form is easily the most robust form builder plugin for WordPress, with an extensive array of no-code integrations to connect your forms with just about any service you can imagine.
Backup Your WordPress Site
Most of the Managed WordPress hosts we recommend automatically backup your WordPress site every night. But if you don’t have Managed WordPress hosting, these plugins will take care of that for you, giving you peace of mind.
One of the most popular choices for backing up (or moving) your WordPress site.
Probably the most reliable WordPress backup, staging, and migration plugins, trusted by over 5 million websites!
Backup and security monitoring for your WordPress site from the makers of WordPress.com
Build a Membership Site Just Like This One
Over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to experiment with just about every membership plugin out there! Here are the ones we recommend…
Here’s why we chose LifterLMS to power this site. We feel it’s the best LMS plugin for building an online learning site or membership site just like this one!
One of the most popular and trusted WordPress LMS plugins, LearnDash powers online courses for Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide.
MemberPress will help you build astounding WordPress membership sites, accept credit cards securely, control who sees your content and sell digital downloads… without the difficult setup.
Powerful, Professional Video Hosting
Since WP101 launched in 2008, we’ve trusted Vimeo to deliver our video tutorials to students all around the world. Video hosting for professionals with powerful privacy options to protect your videos. Here are 10 reasons you’ll love Vimeo.
Translate Your Site into Other Languages
Translate your WordPress website into 100+ languages and reach a wider audience with Weglot. Weglot automatically works with all WordPress themes and plugins, and offers machine translations with the option for human editing for an incredibly efficient translation workflow. Read: “How to Translate your WordPress Website in 5 Minutes with the Weglot Plugin”
Note: We participate in affiliate programs with many of the companies listed above because we believe in them. We may receive a small commission when products are purchased through the links on this website. You can rest assured that we only recommend products we’ve used ourselves and where we have a personal relationship with the developer(s).
