Despite website infrastructure playing a continually bigger role than ever in businesses, teams still face regular issues tied to web hosting, as downtime, security threats, and costs create headaches.

Research from Liquid Web based on a survey of over 500 business owners, developers, and IT decision-makers across sectors and company sizes revealed 2025’s biggest pain points when it comes to web hosting in 2025.

Costs remain the top challenge, as 57% of businesses site expenses as their biggest hosting challenge of the year so far. Businesses waste an average of $418 (£310) per month resolving hosting-related problems, adding up to over $5,000 a year.

This was followed by slow website performance (38%), and frequent downtime (34%), which tend to hurt organisation’s intake. Even larger businesses with greater resources cited these issues, showing website infrastructure is key for everyone.

“You can’t scale a business on shaky infrastructure. Fast, reliable hosting ensures your website keeps up as your traffic, customers, and operations grow. It’s the engine behind sustainable digital growth,” Sachin Puri, president of Liquid Web, said.

Liquid Web found that 42% of businesses have been with their hosting provider for one to three years, with 41% regretting after switching providers, indicating that loyalty may pay off.

Most respondents (72%) do say they are at least somewhat or slightly satisfied with their current hosting providers, with only 3% not at all satisfied. About a quarter (26%) were extremely or very satisfied, however.

Still, security threats seem common, with nearly half of businesses facing hacking attempts in the past year. About a third (32%) suffered data breaches due to poor hosting security.

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Downtime is also costing businesses, as one in five are losing over $2,500 (£1,858) a month due to website downtime. Nearly half of all businesses say they are affected by website downtime, with some hit monthly, which can have disastrous financial consequences.

Despite these issues, with website hosting being so essential, nearly half (47%) of businesses are expecting their hosting budgets to rise in 2025. About half (49%) also plan to invest in AI-based tools to better optimise their hosting performance.

“In 2025, businesses should stop viewing hosting as a commodity and start treating it as a critical investment in security, performance, and growth,” Ryan MacDonald, chief technology officer at Liquid Web said.