
When upgrading to recent versions of WordPress you may run in to several issues with your website or it might break completely. For example: Sliders, load more links, popups, bootstrap and other interactive Javascript based features can all stop working.
Don’t freak out – this is because in WordPress 5.5, the jQuery Migrate plugin has been removed and in WordPress 5.6 the jQuery plugin has been updated to the latest version.
Luckily the fixing these problems is simple, there is a plugin you can install to easily manage the jQuery version and enable the jQuery migrate plugin on your website again.
You simply need to play around with the jQuery manager plugin and you should be able to fix all of the issues you are facing. The exact version and settings you require with this plugin will vary depending on the cause of your issues, but you can experiment with the jQuery version and other settings until things start working again on your website.
If this article helped you, please consider sharing on social media or leave a comment if you have any questions about your website related to upgrading WordPress to version 5.5 or 5.6.
We have tested many services and researched each provider in detail so you can make an informed decision. Introducing our top 3 picks for the best WordPress web hosting providers in the UK…
Krystal started in 2002 with the ambitious goal of achieving the best possible web hosting service. Indeed they provide an exceptionally good level of service. For many years Krystal have offered UK based servers specifically for WordPress hosting. Their Trustscore of 9.9 on Trustpilot from 1000+ reviews surpasses any other hosting company. No other provider comes close to the level of customer satisfaction provided by Krystal. This company really does go above and beyond to provide the best possible service and experience for their customers.
What is most impressive about Krystal is they have a 9.9 Trustscore from 1000+ reviews on Trustpilot. That is the best review average of any hosting provider on this list by a wide margin. However this is based on a lower total review count in comparison to most others. The main reason for this is their support is world class. They really go above and beyond to help you.
With their basic hosting package you get a free SSL certificate with each website, weekly backups with an option to pay a small amount for extra daily backups, unlimited bandwidth and 5GB of SSD disk space with the most basic package. There is no contract required and you get the first 2 months for free if you pay annually. Plus there is a 60 day money back guarantee. That’s double the length of time any other hosting company offers. This demonstrates a lot of confidence in their service and it solidifies their place at the top of this list.
Managed website hosting is also available, recommended as being an excellent service and good value for money. So if you value your website and your time or if you have no technical knowledge, this is the service for you.
There were no issues with Krystal except for being slightly more expensive than I could justify for some websites. For profitable websites or paying clients however this is undoubtedly the best service at the best price. Particularly if you have the time and knowledge necessary to use their hosting service yourself and can also justify the monthly pricing for each website. Their Onyx service needs improvement at the time of writing, however there have been updates since then.
Pricing for basic unmanaged shared cloud hosting starts at £3.99 + VAT, per month, for 2 unique websites. Krystal also offer professionally managed hosting options with their Onyx packages starting at £14.99 + VAT, per month, per website.
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5/5 Stars. Siteground is a great alternative to Krystal with a similar Trustpilot score of 9.4/10 from 1000+ reviews. It is also the more expensive service, but all of their hosting packages are managed as standard.
The reviews of Siteground speak for themselves – at least 94% of people are delighted with the service and company in general. All of Siteground’s services are managed solutions offering full support, fast updates and strong security as standard for all of their hosted websites. They also offer free SSL certificates for all websites as well as free managed migrations from any other hosting service.
The main issue I had with the service is the 128MB upload limit and the fact that modification of php.ini is not allowed on the shared hosting environment. Which for the price, I would have expected. Furthermore you will need to upgrade to an even more expensive cloud server to get around this restriction. However the reason for this is to resolve performance issues on the shared environments. This provides a better overall experience than with other similar shared hosting services.
Some customers with little or no technical knowledge have complained that the transfer process from a non-cPanel based hosting provider was challenging for them. However Siteground support staff have publicly responded in a helpful and understanding manner. They have done this with every negative review, attempting to find a resolution.
Pricing for basic managed shared hosting starts at £2.95 + VAT per month for 1 website for the first invoice on an annual or monthly subscription, this increases to £8.95 per month thereafter. Alternatively there is a £14.95 per month package with unlimited websites and 20GB of data storage space.
5/5 Stars. Started in 2013, WPX Hosting has a similar backstory to Krystal and offer a similar high quality WordPress hosting service. Focused on providing fast page load speed, simplicity in use and live 24/7 experienced customer support claiming an average response time of 5 minutes. The company is based in Bulgaria, but with servers located in both UK and USA. Their Trustpilot score is 9.7/10 based on 500+ reviews is second only to Krystal in terms of their positive feedback ratio.
WPX aims to provide the fastest possible page loading speed and have experienced support staff available 24/7, where they claim to have a 5 minute average response time. There is also an emphasis on simplicity which means you don’t need to be an expert in hosting to understand and manage your websites. Similarly to Krystal and Siteground, WPX offers unlimited free SSL certificates for every website, host on SSD for optimal performance and free website migrations – all as standard. You should have more than enough bandwidth with 100GB/Month with the standard package and 10GB of storage which is around 20GB/Month bandwidth and 2GB of storage per website.
No web hosting company is perfect and out of hundreds of reviews there are 3 negative reviews for the company on Trustpilot. At the time of writing, 2 people in total reported receiving a bad service and were ultimately let down by customer support. However in these cases the owner has personally replied to the person and admitted honestly that they had failed the customer, while also offering solutions to any issues that had occurred, plus a refund. They do not offer a service for a single website which may or may not be ideal depending on your requirements.
Pricing for basic hosting starts at $24.99 per month for up to 5 websites with no long term contract requirement.
Krystal provide the best unmanaged shared hosting service at the best price for a single website, but if you want managed hosting and a lot of websites to host then you may want to go with Siteground or WPX instead. All hosting providers listed in the top 3 have an average review rating of over 9/10 on Trustpilot. This means more than 90% of their customers were delighted with the service provided to them and is exceptional, particularly in the web hosting industry.
Please note if you have little or no technical knowledge or simply don’t have the time to manage your WordPress updates and security yourself, you should go for a managed hosting package. However this will increase the price, how much will depend on which provider and service you choose.
When researching this article we noticed that a lot of popular blogs and authorities on web hosting seem to promote Bluehost as the best web hosting for WordPress. For example, WordPress.org has Bluehost listed on their recommended hosting page and the company is also Techradar’s Editor’s choice for best WordPress hosting. Yet Bluehost has the worst review average of any service on this list with just 1 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot and furthermore require you to agree to a 3 year minimum contract.
For these reasons we would strongly urge you to avoid this hosting service based on what the majority of their customers have reported, you can see this for yourself on Trustpilot. If you are currently a UK Bluehost customer, please consider moving to one of these top 3 hosting companies when your contract expires.
Continuing the list we have some alternate provider suggestions for you to try, depending on your situation and requirements…
5/5 Stars. The best value for money shared hosting, a UK based company and servers offering UK based WordPress hosting with a rating of 9.2/10 on Trustpilot from 3000+ reviews. This is the company I would recommend if you want a hosting service for the best value. If you are a developer like me or just want the best value for money and have more than 1 website, I would recommend Tsohost as they provide the cheapest hosting with a developer-friendly environment.
This is the company I would recommend for most people as it provides the best service for the lowest cost. The support is good and so is the quality of the hosting and long term contracts are not necessary. Their service allows you to modify php.ini
settings by uploading your own custom php.ini
settings file to the root of your hosting, there appears to be no restrictions. The cPanel interface is well designed and simple to understand and navigate, but the interface may be overwhelming for less tech savvy users. You will find no contact form issues or similar relating to the PHP mail function that are common among less reputable hosting providers.
Performance can be an issue on the shared hosting. This is because the database servers are shared which leaves performance availability to chance depending on the overall server load. There are many database servers available with new ones added every week or so. Adding a new database to the newest server yourself or requesting a transfer to a different server is simple. Their support are happy to help if needed. SSL is available and is provided free for every website with LetsEncrypt. Signed SSL certificates issued by the provider will cost extra.
The cPanel interface I’ve found has some minor issues and if you have separate hosting services and accounts. For example account usernames are generated for each service follow a predefined format. You are unable to change this which is a bad security practice (not for WordPress however). Their system for generating WordPress admin accounts could be improved.
Uptime could be better. However unless your project specifically requires perfect uptime and performance with the best possible support, you may want to consider Krystal instead. As a developer who needs great hosting for a lot of different websites and projects, not all of them are profitable enough to sustain themselves financially. So I will always have some websites hosted with Tsohost for this reason.
Pricing for basic unmanaged shared cPanel hosting starts at £3.82 + VAT per month for up to 3 unique domains. This service includes unlimited WordPress installs and no long term contract required. You can get the hosting for as little as £2.92 + VAT per month if you pay biannually.
5/5 Stars. In my opinion American based hosting provider DreamHost provides the best WordPress web hosting (besides Krystal for UK websites). I would recommend DreamHost if you’re looking to host a WordPress website with a large volume of international traffic. DreamHost is ideal for websites and companies expecting global or traffic mostly originating from the USA, but unfortunately is not ideal for UK based websites. There are some excellent UK based services in the top 3 of this list and unfortunately for us they do not provide UK based servers at the time of writing.
My own experience with DreamHost in 2013 was fantastic. DreamHost were one of the first and best providers of WordPress. They have since released a cheaper version that I haven’t yet tried for myself. Their Trustpilot average review score is 9.3/10 based on 1200+ reviews which places it in the top 5 web hosting companies by Trustpilot’s score. DreamHost are also recommended on the official WordPress.org hosting page.
I found no issue with Dreamhost’s service apart from the lack of availability of UK servers. However I used the fully optimized package for $19.95 per month per website and there have been some bad reviews relating to their cheaper service. Some of their bad reviews have gone unaddressed by support staff. Other companies in my top 3 have provided concise and detailed responses publicly to all of their bad reviews. This shows Dreamhost (like all WordPress web hosting providers) are not perfect. However they are a good alternative particularly for international or US based customers.
Pricing for unmanaged shared hosting starts at $4.95 per month per website with no long term contract requirement.
Being UK based this was our top 5 recommended WordPress web hosting providers. Indeed there may be other hosting providers in other countries more local to you not mentioned here. Following on from our top 5, here are some other providers you might want to avoid…
4/5 Stars. 1&1 Ionos have servers based in 5 different countries, but their European data centers are based in Germany, not in the UK – meaning that their service is not as optimised as with UK companies. From my experience they provide adequate WordPress web hosting for most use cases and have achieved a name as a powerhouse of the hosting industry, but with notably poor customer support and annual contracts with no option to pay on a monthly ongoing contract. The provider has a review rating of 6.6/10 on Trustpilot with most customers complaining about poor customer service. Their independent reviews rating is average for a large hosting company with many satisfied customers, but there are several better alternatives available that are also cheaper in the long term.
The hosting is easily scaled with standard options for extra features plus a managed hosting tier of package options with their “pro” service. They have been providing specialized WordPress hosting for several years now and have always been a large player in the web hosting game. There is a lot of focus on user interface improvement which is good, but the review on the user interface are mixed.
Many of their reviewers complain of poor customer support. Unfortunately I have also found to be the case in my past experience, first back in 2010 and then again in 2016. Worse was being tied to a 12 month contract and being unable to change to an alternative provider during this time. There is no UK based web hosting available, however they do have multiple data center locations. Their own competing website builder service is also cause for concern. They are keen on pushing you towards their own platform, rather than an open source platform such as WordPress.
Pricing for unmanaged basic WordPress hosting starts at £1 per month for the first 6 months and £6 per month thereafter on an annual contract with no monthly payment option.
4/5 Stars. Based in USA, but Namecheap offer UK based servers specifically for WordPress hosting, however the UK server option costs £1 extra per month per website. Managed hosting options are available for extra cost, but the service offers automated installation and everything else you would expect for WordPress hosting.
The best reason for choosing Namecheap is not only is their service very good value for money (similar to Tsohost). They are also by far the best for buying and holding domains in terms of price. Also the ease of use and the range of available domain name extensions is second to none. The control panel interface is good, however some things can be difficult to find.
Their hosting service has an average review rating of 4.6/10 based on 300+ reviews although this does not reflect the quality of the WordPress hosting package, it is cause for concern. Also LetsEncrypt is not available via. the interface and setting up SSL will require contacting support where other alternatives offer these as standard.
Pricing for basic unmanaged shared hosting starts at £3.69 inc. VAT per month for up to 3 domains and unlimited WordPress installs with no long term contract.
Fasthosts were late to the WordPress hosting market, but have been a big name in UK hosting since I began commercial web design work in 2007. Since 2017 they have offered specialized WordPress hosting packages, so I gave it a try in April 2019 and unfortunately my requirements were not met and customer support were unable to provide a solution for me, but were able to provide a full refund thanks to a 30 day money back guarantee.
As expected from a brand with the reputation of Fasthosts, this is a polished service with telephone support and intuitive beginner friendly interfaces. There are people who have a good experience with Fasthosts and have for many years.
The interfaces are not without their minor faults. For example I struggled to find the e-mail settings and was lead to believe from the interface that email was an optional extra service. Thankfully this was not the case and my payment for the extra email service was refunded. I eventually managed to find the tab for setting up an email forwarder. There is a more serious issue with the service that developers should be aware of: Fasthosts are restrictive over php.ini
settings. Furthermore you are unable to change the settings on the shared environment, even temporarily. This means some premium WordPress themes simply do not work. Luckily you get a 30 day money back period so you can determine whether or not their restrictive settings will be a problem for you or not. If so you can get a full refund.
I would conclude that this service would be worth the price if the restrictive settings could be modified, even temporarily. To be able to run intensive scripts without any extensive development required at least. Thankfully for 70 – 80% of users of the service this is most likely not going to be an issue. Developers should beware however, ensure you research the restrictions by using phpinfo()
. Their reviews could be better with an average of 5.2/10 on Trustpilot from 1600+ reviews. However I found that their WordPress hosting and service in general did not reflect this. When I used the service in April 2019 (aside from the few issues I found) the basics of the WordPress hosting is not too bad. The service provided perfect uptime and there were no major issues during this time. Additionally being good value for money.
Pricing for basic unmanaged shared hosting starts at £3.89 inc. VAT per month per website domain with no long term contract. It costs less for each extra website down to £2.39 per month per website if you have 5 or more websites.
2/5 Stars. InMotion hosting seem like a good option at first glance, but their Trustpilot score is 2.4/10 with the most recent reviews all complaining of inexperienced technical support. InMotion are a USA based provider and do not have UK based data servers.
You get a free SSL certificate signed by InMotion Hosting as standard and there is a 30 day money back guarantee. The standard package allow up to 20k monthly website visitors and 40GB of disk space.
There have been many experiences of poor technical support being reported recently by customers on Trustpilot. Support staff have offered no public responses to any of these. This puts the trustworthiness of the hosting provider in doubt. Also one of the more expensive services on this list. They provide much less value for money than many other hosting providers.
Pricing for basic unmanaged shared hosting starts at $7.65 per month per website.
1/5 Stars. HostGator are one of the original web hosting providers based in USA and are one of the more well known brands in web hosting. In the UK HostGator has a Trustpilot review score of 1 star out of 5 based on around 500 reviews which is one of the worst ratings of any web host, however to their credit the support staff have responded to every negative review.
You get a free SSL certificate signed by Hostgator with a free migration and unlimited storage and bandwidth as standard. There is a 45 day money back guarantee. However the refund can be delayed for up to 90 days according to their terms and conditions.
Their Trustpilot score is one of the worst of any web hosting provider. Page loading times average over a second for USA based visitors which is even worse for UK hosting. Many reviews complain of technical issues and problems with support staff.
Pricing for basic unmanaged shared hosting starts at $3.95 per month per domain, managed options are also available.
1/5 Stars. Bluehost are recommended by the WordPress.org official hosting page and they have UK based servers – which is the only reason we have listed them on here at all. Buyers should beware they have 1 star out of 5 on Trustpilot based on 190 reviews and the reviews are no better in the US either with HostAdvice average rating of 4.1/10.
You get a free SSL certificate signed by Bluehost as standard and there is a 30 day money back guarantee. Recommended on the WordPress.org official hosting page.
With many bad experiences being reported on Trustpilot and a minimum 3 year contract, this certainly does not inspire trust and is not ideal for everyone. I would advise against using this service when there are other more reputable options available, despite the WordPress.org endorsement.
Pricing for basic unmanaged shared hosting starts at £3.13 + VAT per month per website on a 3 year minimum contract.
If you have any suggestions, corrections or would like us to add a specific web hosting provider to this list, please leave comment below or contact us. If this helped you please consider donating any amount of Ether to webkraft.eth or sign up to hosting with one of our affiliate links. Thanks again and we hope this information was valuable to you.
WebKraft Studios is a home for creative digital media services and have an expert team to provide them. We are primarily specialists in WordPress website design and hosting for WordPress websites.
We are a small team of digital media experts based in Norwich, UK. Proficient in a range of creative services such as development, design, maintenance of unique WordPress websites, plugins and other bespoke web applications.
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Introducing the first WordPress theme release by Higher Coding: AlienScience and the premium version AlienScience Declassified.
AlienScience is a responsive and semantic HTML5 theme perfect for science or space related websites with some great features such as a responsive layout, semantic markup, support for a jQuery content slider, custom header icons and more.
A recent update to the Facebook SDK has caused issues with some older versions which causes the following error:
PHP Fatal error: Cannot use object of type stdClass as array in FacebookRedirectLoginHelper.php on line 191
To fix this issue, go to FacebookRedirectLoginHelper.php
then find $response['access_token']
You will see this code:
if (isset($response['access_token'])) { return new FacebookSession($response['access_token']); }
Replace it with this:
if (isset($response->access_token)) { return new FacebookSession($response->access_token); }
Seacon design and manufacture undersea connectors used for connecting the many undersea pipelines responsible for internet connectivity across the globe. They are a worldwide corporation headquartered in the USA and in 2010 we worked with the Seacon Europe Ltd. management team in Great Yarmouth to develop the new WordPress website for the multi-national corporation. Seacon’s underwater connector products are built to very specific technical requirements which meant they were realistically unable to offer a retail service for their products at the time. However we built the website with background ecommerce functionality for if they are able to work out a process for detailing the technical specifications during the order process.
The Seacon website content includes over 100 different pages in total, some general information pages on the types of services they provide and more than 50 products, each featuring a description, HD product image and a list up to 30 downloadable PDF files detailing the technical details and options for each product. The contact us page featured a state of the art interactive HTML5 map showing all Seacon and their partner companies locations on the world map which were linked to the relevant contact information. In addition to all of this the website included dynamic SEO friendly lists of both company news and their upcoming exhibition events.
Their website had extensive content requirements most of it had to be imported to WordPress manually from their existing website which was originally created using static HTML files in 2008 by a different web design company. WordPress revolutionised the management team’s process for updating content as previously the content updates had to be done by the web design company for a significant fee, however with WordPress they are able to add or update any and all of their content at no cost and without requiring the services of the web developer. In addition to this we modernised the design and coding to provide semantic structure and updated to HTML5 standards, a technology that was still in experimental phases at the time.
During the years 2010 – 2012 we met frequently with Seacon management staff in Great Yarmouth and in later years we added new features to the website, this included a secure PDF document management system featuring an internal back end login system for their staff built in to WordPress where the staff could log in to contribute or download existing PDF documents associated with various different products and categories. In addition to this in 2012 we added marketing features for the website for promoting their new physical product catalog DVD and the accompanying request form for this.
As a worldwide company the website received worldwide traffic, a significant amount of it with Seacon staff, potential clients and other interested parties from all over the world, add to that an impressive marketing budget and you have a high volume of daily traffic hitting the website. The website hosting was our responsibility to manage for several years and global traffic is notoriously difficult to handle efficiently due to network latency and because of this we had to implement advanced hosting techniques directly in development WordPress with use of a global array of servers commonly referred to as a CDN or content delivery network at around the time this was becoming a viable technology, but before the time WordPress or anyone but high end hosting providers had implemented a solid solution for this type of content delivery.