The Companies and Products

LoadStorm Testing Results

The Load Storm test (in k6) is designed to simulate real users visiting the site, logging in and browsing. It tests uncached performance.

The key metrics are:

• Total Requests - Number of requests k6 made
• Total Errors - Number of error requests
• p95 - The 95th percentile response time
• Page Cum Avg - Cumulative average response time for Pages (html)
• Asset Cum Avg - Cumulative average response time for Assets (css, js, images)
• Login Cum Avg - Cumulative average response time for Login (wp-profile.php)
• WP-Login Avg Response Time - Average response time for login (301 redirect which validates credentials)

Results Table

Discussion

MechanicWeb, Pressable, Presslabs, Scaleforce and Servebolt all handled this test without issue.

WPX handled this test without issue and despite P95 being above 1000ms, was still in Top Tier status because of the geographic bias towards US servers for this metric.

Cloudways started to show signs of load around 1300 VUsers and response times started to spike.

DreamHost started showing signs of load around 800 VUsers and eventually erroring as well.

Raidboxes started slowing down around 500 VUsers and eventually errored as well.

SaveinCloud started showing signs of load around 1200 VUsers.

K6 Static Testing Results

K6 Static test is designed to test cached performance by repeatedly requesting the homepage.

Results Table

Discussion

Cloudways, MechanicWeb, Pressable, Presslabs, Raidboxes, SaveinCloud, Scaleforce, Servebolt and WPX all handled this test without issue.

DreamHost handled this test pretty well but start to show signs of slowing down a little bit towards the end of the test around 1600 VUsers.

It's really impressive to see four companies have average response times sub 50ms.

Uptime Testing Results

Uptime is monitored by two companies: HetrixTools and Uptime Robot. A self hosted monitor was also run in case there was a major discrepancy between the two third party monitors.

Results Table

Discussion

Cloudways had the same error across every tier where one monitor showed a down window while the other still had it resolving.

SaveinCloud fell below the 99.9% uptime threshold.

Everyone else remained above 99.9%.

WebPageTest Testing Results

WebPageTest fully loads the homepage and records how long it takes from 12 different locations around the world. Result are measured in seconds.

Results Table

Discussion

WPX had the fastest average and picked up 8/12 fastest response times in different locations.

Presslabs picked up 2 of the fastest response times with the second fastest average response time.

Pressable and Scaleforce picked up the other two fastest response times and were third and fourth average respectively.

WPPerformanceTester Testing Results

WPPerformanceTester performs two benchmarks. One is a WordPress (WP Bench) and the other is a PHP Bench. WP Bench measures how many WP queries per second and higher tends to be better (varies considerably by architecture). PHP Bench performs a lot of computational and some database operations which are measured in seconds to complete. Lower PHP Bench is better.

Results Table

Discussion

MechanicWeb picked up the fastest scores in both PHP and WP Bench. Servebolt picked up the second fastest PHP Bench and WPX picked up the second fastest WP Bench.

SSL Testing Results

The tool is available at https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/

Results Table

Discussion

DreamHost, Presslabs and Raidboxes picked up A+'s while everyone else earned A's.

Conclusion

There are two levels of recognition awarded to companies that participate in the tests. There is no ‘best’ declared, it’s simply tiered, it’s hard to come up with an objective ranking system because of the complex nature of hosting. These tests also don’t take into account outside factors such as reviews, support, and features. It is simply testing performance as described in the methodology.

Top Tier

This year's Top Tier WordPress Hosting Performance Award goes to the following companies who showed virtually no signs of struggle during the testing.

Honorable Mention

The following companies earned Honorable Mention status because they did very well and had a minor issue or two holding them back from earning Top Tier status.

No company achieved this status.

Individual Host Analysis