9 Best Hosts That Offer Free SSL Certificates (2023 Update)

Busy? No problem. Here is a summary of the top 9 best web hosts with FREE SSL certificates:

• A2 Web Hosting (Editors Choice).
• SiteGround Web Hosting (Reader’s Favorite).
• BlueHost Web Hosting.
• DreamHost Web Hosting.
• PlotHost Web Hosting.
• CloudWays Web Hosting.
• PlanetHoster Web Hosting.
• HostPoint Web Hosting.
• HostPapa Web Hosting.

Now, if you’ve made is past this smart summary (by way of a list), it indicates that you can actually afford to spare some time; let’s now proceed to see why these hosting options made the list in the first place.

First, however, an introduction…

With companies like Let’s Encrypt, the basic HTTPS protocol made possible by an SSL certificate is now completely free to implement on a hosting plan – no matter the type.

Given the huge benefits an SSL certificate ensures on a website or blog, you’d imagine that all the major hosting companies in the world today will be deploying free SSL to their customers.

Sadly, this is not so.

As a matter of fact, way less than 10% of hosting companies today offer this service to their customers: the rest simply prefer to resell expensive certificates that essentially perform the same job as the completely free variant issued by Let’s Encrypt and made open to participating (and serious) hosting companies.

The crux here is, why pay for an SSL certificate for your blog/website when you can get one for free – and importantly, are certain that the benefits are the same (or even better)?

Doesn’t make much sense, you see.

We saw that too – and decided to compile a list of the top 9 best hosting companies that also offer COMPLETELY FREE SSL, powered by Let’s Encrypt.

If you’re looking for these hosting companies yourself, you’re in luck: this is the task we choose to busy ourselves with today.

Let’s find out which hosting companies truly have your interest at heart and are interested in seeing you save some couple of bucks in the process 🙂

Top 9 Best Hosting Companies With Free SSL

Below are the top 9 best hosting companies that provide free SSL for customers like you.

The list, however, is random – and not classified or ordered in a hierarchy.

Accordingly, you’re completely free to choose any hosting company on the list: they’re all awesome, by the way.

Now, let’s fire and do what we know how to be best: rank.

1. A2 Hosting (Editor’s Choice)

A2 Hosting is one of the better-known US-based hosting companies.

As a matter of fact, there is no top 10 list of awesome hosting companies that A2 does not make it – irrespective of who is actually compiling up the list.

Aside from the fact that the hosting company deploys free SSL from Let’s Encrypt for all its users irrespective of their hosting plans with it, there are other things that make it super attractive to customers and have ensured that it stays right on top of the game when it comes to retaining old customers and gaining new ones.

One of such features is its speed.

Deploying solid-state drives across all plan types, turbo servers, and the much-acclaimed A2 site accelerator, sites that are hosted with A2 are given a serious boost over others that are not so optimized and are hosted elsewhere.

That is not all: the support system of the company is made up of options that include tickets, chats, and phone calls.

Aside the customer service options, the service packages of the company range from the simple shared hosting plans right up to the dedicated plans (which of course, also includes everything else in-between).

For special users who need something a bit special like control panel hosting, CRM, customer support, dating, etc, custom solutions are available and are at the disposal of the customers/clients just for the asking.

Taking a look at what A2 offers won’t hurt: kindly take a look here.

2. SiteGround (Reader’s Favorite)

SiteGround is one of the web’s most loved hosting service providers – and the personal favorite of many bloggers and internet marketers.

As a matter of fact, there is no list of the top 10 best hosting companies on the planet today that will not involve this reputed hosting company.

The attraction to the company is however not based primarily on its provision of free SSL service: many other things have actively gone into making the company and its products loved, respected, appreciated, and importantly, patronized.

The greatest of the attractions of this company remain its world-class customer service: it has three (3) standard routes/options: the ticketing system, live chat, and the phone option which are all available 24/7.

However, the impressive thing about SiteGround’s support is that, unlike other hosting service providers, SiteGround’s support actually works and is damn functional.

For instance, phone calls and online chats are answered INSTANTLY: a feat that has proved itself too much for most hosting service providers.

For the other channel, the ticketing system, the company actually guarantees that the very first response to your query will come after the first 10 minutes of submitting the same to them.

Now, that’s something.

Other impressive features of this hosting company include:

• FREE SSL certificates for all plans.
• SSD drive for all plans.
• User apps auto-updates.
• Own firewall rules.
• Importantly, a positive review rating of 4.99 out of 5 points from just under 1000 independent reviews.

As for the offers of SiteGround, shared hosting, dedicated hosting, managed WP hosting, cloud hosting and enterprise hosting are all available – and can be chosen by users at will.

You can click here to find out more about SiteGround and sign up for free SSL, badass hosting.

MORE: Payoneer Review: The Best PayPal Alternative Today

3. BlueHost

BlueHost is currently one of the most loved and respected hosting providers in the world.

Founded in 2003, the company has grown very powerful over the years and with this power, has mastered the very art of hosting in an awesome manner.

This is not mere talk: there are numbers to substantiate this almost too good to be a true claim.

For instance, at present, the company has the trust of over 2 million domains!

You got that right: BlueHost currently hosts over 2 million websites from customers all over the globe.

This, however, is only the beginning of its allure as there are well many factors that make this company the preferred choice for hosting for many website and blog owners like you.

First of all, there is the free SSL certificate that is included with every hosting plan – and made available for each website, the number not being a challenge at all.

Second, the company offers a free domain name with every account that you maintain with them.

What, however, endears website owners to the company is the fact that it is beginner-friendly and has the most helpful support staff, perhaps in the whole of the hosting world.

These awesome support guys are abreast with the latest developments in the world of hosting and importantly, are abreast with WordPress – and are masters at helping newbies startup with the best, smartest, and most popular CMS in the world.

It is no wonder that the company is very famous – and a popular destination for those who are interested in awesome hosting.

Want to start up your site with an awesome host, get a free domain name, and importantly, top off the freebies with a free SSL certificate?

Then, there is just one way to ensure that: sign up for BlueHost web hosting here.

4. DreamHost

The DreamHost name is quite an alluring and inspiring name – especially for creative minds, bloggers, and all those who make something out of nothing on a daily basis.

Like a dream, the hosting company has also made bold a statement that is very rare in the world of hosting: a 100% uptime guarantee.

Clients who are attracted to the hosting company on the ground that they offer free SSL are further impressed to know that the company also hates downtime and will never let their sites be offline even for a split second.

For websites that are created primarily to make money, this is an inspiring and motivating factor to switch over and give DreamHost a trial – even without the free SSL icing.

Free SSL from Let’s Encrypt and a 100% uptime guarantee is not all that characterize this hosting service provider: hosting plans that suit the reality of clientele from all works of life and actual need also come standard.

This includes dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting, and importantly, an option that gives you the leverage to earn some side bucks yourself: reseller hosting.

Other pecks and features include free automated malware scans, Cloudflare integration, and the deployment of solid-state drives.

You should check out the 100% uptime guarantee of DreamHost by signing up here.

MORE: Top 10 Laptops With The Longest Battery Life

5. PlotHost

PlotHost is one of the lesser-known hosting companies currently plying the hosting space. You’ll thus be pardoned if you’ve never heard about it at all in all your professional blogging or webmaster life.

Officially floated in 2008, PlotHost serves clients all over the world already, with a thick concentration in the US, UK, Canada, India, and Pakistan.

The comparative advantage of PlotHost is the singular fact that the company offers one of the cheapest hosting plans that can be found in the market at the moment.

Shared hosting plans with this service provider start as cheap as only $2.95 a month – which is about the cheapest one can find anywhere online today.

It is however important to note that, this is a relatively small hosting company.

While this has its own unique and distinct advantages (more time for customers/clients, more space on the servers to serve customers, etc), it also comes at a cost that you should be aware of.

First, the services offered are limited.

As of press time, the company only caters to the needs of customers who are looking only for either shared hosting or reseller hosting.

If your needs are beyond this, then, as regards PlotHost, you’re currently out of luck 🙂

Second, support options are limited to only the ticketing system and the not-so-fast email.

This leaves out the more popular and hugely appreciated live chat.

If you love support to be at your service and are generally not great at waiting, you’ll be disappointed in this regard with this hosting company.

In summary though, if what you’re looking for is an awesome hosting company that deploys free SSL to its customers/clients, you’ll find one in this hosting company.

You can sign up for PlotHost here.

6. CloudWays

CloudWays is the first cloud hosting dedicated solution provider that we’ve featured on this list of the best hosting companies that offer free SSL certificates to clients and customers.

The advantages of experiencing hosting the cloud way are as many as they are varied.

However, the major advantages include increased speed, iron-clad security, and flexibility – which usually translates to running your hosting plan exactly as you need it and as demanded from your actual hosting needs.

CloudWays is almost the home of free things – in an awesome and positive manner.

From completely free SSL inspired by Let’s Encrypt to services that start at a free trial point ($0), this hosting company is the deal if you’re looking to host your site the cloud way or would simply love to see how the service works.

The greatest selling point?

The free trial periods do not need you to either disclose/input your credit card details or log into your Paypal.

It’s a true trial period that is completely obligation-free.

Now, which sad/incompetent hosting company offers this sort of impressive reality when it is not very sure of the deal or what it is offering?

Aside from free SSL and the ability to test run the service completely free of cost (and without the use of credit cards or a Paypal account), CloudWays also offers per hour, per month or yearly billing – something that is completely rare in the web hosting world.

For eCommerce sites, agencies with top-tier clients, developers, startups, designers, and bloggers, this certainly is the deal when it comes to hosting with the clouds.

Other features that make CloudWays an interesting cloud hosting provider include:

1. 1 click cloning.
2. 1 click backup and restore.
3. 1 click scaling.
4. Team collaboration reality.
5. Staging areas and URLs.
6. 1 click domain mapping.
7. Platform-level firewalls.
8. Git deployment etc.

If you’re interested in Cloud hosting (as you should), the smartest thing to do at the moment is to sign up with CloudWays directly.

7. PlanetHoster

Many bloggers, agencies, developers, and webmasters generally prefer their hosting service providers to be in the same geographical entity as they are.

Why the reasons for such a preference are many and diverse, what is undeniable is that such preferences do, in fact, exist.

If you have such preferences for the EU and generally appreciate that your hosting providers come from that part of the globe, you’re in luck – PlanetHoster is just what you need.

PlanetHoster, from its homepage, is primarily concerned with domain registrations and transfers.

Don’t let that scare you off.

The company is very much into smart hosting of websites and blogs and has data centers all around the world, especially in France and Canada.

If you’re thus a Canadian or a French citizen, this should serve as a further stimulus especially if you love to be patriotic and are excited when you have to pay for services and you’re doing it in Euro and not Dollars or Pounds.

However, kindly note that PlanetHoster is awesome only when you’re interested in shared hosting plans – as other plans are not offered.

If this is what you’re looking for, kindly sign up for PlanetHoster here.

8. HostPoint

HostPoint is a Swiss hosting company that somehow, manages to serve the whole world in the distinct languages that each major region actually speaks.

To its local Swiss audience, French, Italian, German, and the more widely spoken and written language, English is available.

This is thus a truly impressive ‘host without borders’.

However, aside from the facts above, the selling point of HostPoint remains the fact that the company offers a free 30-day obligation free trial to customers to test their services and decide for themselves if it is the deal that they need and are comfortable with.

In our experience, this only happens when a service provider is completely sure of the services it offers.

Or, who would rather make a wild claim that will in the end only ensure that money is lost?

Click here to take a look at HostPoint offers.

9. HostPapa

It is often said that specialization is what breeds efficiency and ensures perfection in business.

However, it is sad that very few hosting companies have the simple common sense to actually focus on a niche in the hosting world and ensure that they dominate that niche with majesty and service.

This is where HostPapa comes in and teaches all the other hosting companies a business lesson or two.

The American company focuses it operations only on the hosting of small sites for small businesses and startups in the US – providing services that ensure that they get to focus on what truly matters to them: impact and getting their foot right into the business world.

This is achieved by ensuring only the following services: shared hosting, VPS, and reseller hosting.

Aside from the free SSL that comes standard with every account type purchased from HostPapa, there are other awesome and impressive closing points that ensure that as a small business owner, you opt-in with this hosting company without batting an eyelid.

These include:

1. Free website transfer (from another host).
2. Free Cloudflare CDN (to boost your site’s site and enhance basic site security).
3. cPanel control panel.
4. 30-day money-back guarantee.
5. 24/7 support.
6. Rocket fast servers that ensure a 300% boost in your website speed (you can measure this yourself and independently verify this claim).
7. SiteLock detect and
8. Free domain privacy.

As can be seen thus, a free SSL certificate that ensures the HTTPS protocol without actually expending any money is not all that HostPapa has to offer.

The company’s options for clients/customers is really impressive and worth taking seriously.

If you’re an American citizen (who is patriotic, a small business owner or blogger/webmaster, and would love to patronize made in US products and services), you can certainly start with signing up with HostPapa.

What Is An SSL Certificate?

There are different ways to define an SSL certificate, all of which are a bit technical and implicate some unnecessary jargon that is often quite challenging to beginners.

Accordingly thus, those definitions will be discarded and the most simple and straightforward of definitions used instead.

An SSL certificate is a small online data file that digitally links a security key to the details of the organization or site on which it is installed.

When installed, an SSL certificate activates the green padlock and HTTPS protocol and further allows/ensures secured connections from a web server to the requesting browser so that a third party finds ‘information in transit’ extremely difficult to intercept or comprehend.

This way, sites that have a functional and correctly signed SSL certificate installed on them ensure the integrity of the sites they’re installed upon and importantly, ensure that communications between the site and users (especially communications of a sensitive nature) are encrypted and out of the reach of anyone who might be eavesdropping or interested in intercepting it.

MORE: NameCheap SSL Certificates Review

Advantages Of An SSL Certificate

An SSL certificate has numerous advantages that accrue to the site owner, the site itself, and the users of the website or blog.

Here are the major advantages worth taking note of:

1. SSL certificates encrypt sensitive information when shared on a blog or website that has an active certificate installed. This means that such information is safe – and very unlikely to land in the wrong hands.
2. Because of number one (1) above, users of a site, blog, website, or eCommerce portal are more likely to transact with their details if a site is powered by such a certificate. This means an increase in conversions and overall, ROI.
3. Google and a plethora of other search engines have made it clear that SSL is now a ranking signal. This means that all other things being equal, sites that deploy the secure protocol will naturally rank over and above their cousins that do not.
4. Finally, an SSL certificate makes things extremely difficult for hackers who are looking to compromise the security of a website – since it basically obscures all the sensitive login details and other credentials. In other words, SSL ensures a safer and more secure site that is hacker-proof to a large extent.

Having seen the beauty and power of the secure protocol, HTTPS, why choose a free SSL certificate instead of investing serious money into a premium option?

Or, is premium not always best?

Why You Should Choose A Free SSL Certificate For Your Blog/Website (Instead Of A Premium Option)

This shouldn’t be a hard question to answer – as the reason is basic common sense already.

However, seeing the benefits an SSL certificate offers, many webmasters are confused why anyone will offer an SSL certificate free of charge and whether there’s any catch to it, hence the hesitation by most.

However, there’s no catch to it and as a matter of fact, the company that offers this service, Let’s Encrypt makes far more money from donations and premium sponsorship than it would have made selling basic $10 – $100 SSL certificates to users who are ready and willing to pay.

So, with this bit of information now at your fingertips, the real question now is: with the fact that there is no catch for this free SSL and the fact that the certificate offers all that a premium cert offers (and in some cases/instances, way more), why should anyone pay for basic SSL again to ensure basic encryption, security and the activation of the HTTPS protocol?

We’re interested in your answers 🙂

What If Your Preferred Host Doesn’t Deploy Free SSL?

As can be seen from the reality of this article, not many hosting companies at the moment, support free SSL as offered by Let’s Encrypt.

Now, what if the hosting company you’re in love with goes way ahead to ignore the free SSL reality?

What’s your best bet in such a situation?

Your options are limited; however, these are the choices you have:

1. Ignore your choice and instead, sign up with any of the options on this page. We personally recommend A2 Hosting, SiteGround or BlueHost. This way, you’ll certainly save yourself a tonne of stress and a truckload of head and heartaches.
2. Request that such a hosting company contact Let’s Encrypt and make this function easy to implement via cPanel like all the other hosting options mentioned in this article have. The actual outcome of such a task is yet unknown as the hosting management will need to decide as they deem fit.
3. Finally, if you’re no techie to the hosting environment and are comfortable playing with code, you can implement the certificate on your own, even without the help of anyone and in such a ‘low-level environment’ as the shared hosting environment. In such a case, you’ll need all your (basic level) coding badassery – and this guide.

Now, we’ve got to round up!

Wrap Up

The advantages of an SSL certificate on your website and the attendant secure protocol it ensures far outweigh any perceived challenges or disadvantages.

As a matter of fact, we have not been able to point out any cons of using an SSL certificate on either your website or your blog.

Now, you can get all the power and glory that an SSL certificate ensures for free, without raising any hand or breaking a sweat if you simply host with any of the above hosting companies offering the free HTTPS protocol as an incentive to its customers.

Now, why would you pay for oxygen when it’s free and abundant around you?

What do you think?