Anybody have experience with both WordPress hosting and normal shared hosting for WordPress? Is there any difference? Is it worth the extra fees? Thanks for your help
yes wordpress hosting is specially created for only wordpress site. he works better then shared hosting for wordpress. and wordpress hosting price is beat costly than shared hosting.
If you have a website based on Wordpress, then a managed Wordpress hosting would work like a charm because it'll be relatively fast, secure, and would have a dedicated support for all your queries. But, there are downsides too. Like I was using a WordPress managed hosting service provider (won't name it for now) who wouldn't allow me to install certain plugins because those plugins were on "Host's restricted list", but nonetheless, if your site's traffic is just normal, then stick to shared hosting, but if the traffic on your website increases, then you can upgrade to a dedicated WordPress hosting provider.
If you can find a Shared Host who runs LiteSpeed, then you will get very good WordPress performance. You can install their LiteSpeed plugin and your site runs like lightning.