$51-100/Month WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks 2022

$51-100/Month WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks 2022

Please read the Methodology to fully understand the scope of these tests.

Note: Please check company profiles for summary of performances across multiple tiers. Some companies also offer promotions or coupon codes for a discount as well.

Cloudways competed with a VULTR HF 8GB.

The Companies and Products

CompanyPlan Monthly PricePlan Visitors AllowedPlan MemoryPlan Disk SpacePlan BandwidthPlan Sites Allowed
Cloudways $100Unlimited8 GB256 GB4 TBUnlimited
DreamHost $79.951 million+ (Recommended) but not enforced4 GB120 GBUnlimited 1
MechanicWeb $79.25Unlimited12 GB200 GB NVMe2,000 GBUnlimited
Pressable $90150,000512 MB / Process50 GBUnlimited10
Presslabs $99150,000 page viewsDinamically allocated, up to 4G5 GBUnmetered1 site
raidboxes 50€Unlimited4 GB20 GBUp to 10Gbit1
SaveinCloud BRL 510UnlimitedUp to 8 GiB Based on usage.Up to 20 GBUnlimitedUnlimited
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo $99Unmetered8 GiB15 GiBUnmeteredBased on cluster resources
Servebolt $99Dynamic Requests are set per planUmetered6 GBUnlimited5
WPX $99.00Unlimited256 MB per PHP process, 3 PHP processes per website40 GBUnlimited (reasonable use)35
View Full Products Table

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:

Results Table

CompanyTotal RequestsTotal ErrorsPeak RpsAverage RpsP95Page Cum AvgAsset Cum AvgLogin Cum AvgWp-login Average Response Time
Cloudways 5008282440.082721103638304620492
DreamHost 61797021318653.83336100472573151637683522
MechanicWeb 5321150448.17289759272274281145
Pressable 6374600536.3334631719672230219
Presslabs 6589790567.8335826717736184158
raidboxes 72291838696743.423931273557974421135111810
SaveinCloud 4889736418.75266254314136215111544
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo 5644787475.7530627117420254173
Servebolt 7268741629.6739526322619229209
WPX 5360913445.75291103166116740500

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

CompanyRequestsErrorsPeak RpsAverage Response TimeAverage RpsP95
Cloudways 77939801710.83156856301
DreamHost 71401301423.5262784523
MechanicWeb 72061401589250788555
Pressable 89554201971.675.998219
Presslabs 8658480190740953187
raidboxes 71597301576.17258786575
SaveinCloud 732805301615.17230806431
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo 89232261962.339.597828
Servebolt 76930531696.17171818289
WPX 887518301955.671597387

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

CompanyUptime RobotHetrix
Cloudways 99.99899.8701
DreamHost 10099.9995
MechanicWeb 99.99899.9977
Pressable 99.998100
Presslabs 10099.9996
raidboxes 10099.9991
SaveinCloud 99.85199.8521
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo 100100
Servebolt 10099.9644
WPX 99.906100

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

CompanyVirginiaCaliforniaSalt Lake CityLondonFrankfurtCape TownSingaporeMumbaiTokyoSydneyBrazilDubaiAverage
Cloudways 0.1810.3190.3560.4890.5381.1891.1031.0520.811.0050.6921.0430.7314166667
DreamHost 0.2030.4210.4070.5180.7691.2151.371.0980.9361.1190.6911.0520.8165833333
MechanicWeb 0.6260.820.8620.1610.1930.8341.4190.7361.361.4821.0540.6670.8511666667
Pressable 0.3030.2360.280.4850.2230.2330.2540.2640.3110.2250.3470.4340.2995833333
Presslabs 0.1630.1370.2610.1630.1810.240.1570.4450.2160.620.1470.5350.2720833333
raidboxes 0.6170.920.8650.260.2240.8840.9050.8021.281.571.190.7030.8516666667
SaveinCloud 1.1221.0490.9751.0811.5781.8222.0212.2541.8442.0570.281.8751.4965
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo 0.3010.1970.2790.2360.2360.2810.220.220.3080.150.2480.9530.3024166667
Servebolt 0.3770.3270.4280.6160.6030.9690.910.9210.8351.0010.7260.9870.725
WPX 0.1860.190.2020.1240.130.8420.1430.150.1260.1620.1280.2370.2183333333

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

CompanyPHP BenchWP Bench
Cloudways 6.3521445.086705
DreamHost 10.199928.5051068
MechanicWeb 4.9522958.579882
Pressable 9.9361355.01355
Presslabs 6.9421180.637544
raidboxes 10.954952.3809524
SaveinCloud 10.613711.7437722
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo 10.4591144.16476
Servebolt 5.8482197.802198
WPX 7.0942597.402597

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

CompanyQualsys SSL Grade
Cloudways A
DreamHost A+
MechanicWeb A
Pressable A
Presslabs A+
raidboxes A+
SaveinCloud A
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo A
Servebolt A
WPX A

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

Cloudways handled the Static test with ease. Cloudways ran into the same issue across every server this year where Hetrix Tools showed a short downtime but Uptime Robot did not. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test proved too much for the server.
Visit Cloudways Website
DreamHost had perfect and near perfect uptime. Unfortunately, both load tests caused some issues. The Static test went mostly ok but did show signs of slowing down a little towards the end. The Load Storm test did overwhelm the server though.
Visit DreamHost Website
MechanicWeb had the fastest wp-login speed on the Load Storm test. MechanicWeb had excellent uptime with both above 99.99%. MechanicWeb also stood out on the PHP and WP Bench scores where it had the fastest scores. While MechanicWeb may not have the global CDN reach as some of their competitors, it's shown it has some seriously fast infrastructure powering their servers which earned this new comer a Top Tier award.
Visit MechanicWeb Website
Pressable had the fastest average (5.9ms) and p95 (19ms) in the Static test. Pressable had the third fastest login and page cumulative averages on Load Storm. Pressable had perfect and near perfect uptime. A consistently fastest performance earns Pressable another Top Tier award.
Visit Pressable Website
Presslabs had the fastest login cumulative average and second fastest wp-login, p95, page response times on the Load Storm test. Presslabs had perfect and near perfect uptime. Presslabs had the second fastest WPT average response times. It's always a good sign when you're using the word fastest a lot when analyzing these results - A Top Tier performance from Presslabs.
Visit Presslabs Website
Raidboxes had perfect and near perfect uptime. Raidboxes also handled the static test without issue. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test overwhelmed the server.
Visit raidboxes Website
SaveinCloud handled the Static test without issue. Unfortunately SaveinCloud fell below the 99.9% uptime threshold and the Load Storm test slowed the server down quite a bit.
Visit SaveinCloud Website
Scaleforce had the fastest page load speed on the Load Storm test. Scaleforce had the second fastest average (9.5ms) and p95 (28ms) in the Static test. Perfect uptime was nice to see. Undoubtedly a Top Tier performance for Scaleforce.
Visit Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo Website
Servebolt had the fastest P95 and second fastest asset and login cumulative average on Load Storm. Servebolt had the second fastest PHP Bench. It also handled the Static test with ease and had perfect uptime on one monitor. Overall, another Top Tier showing from Servebolt.
Visit Servebolt Website
WPX had the fastest asset load times on the Load Storm test. WPX had the third fastest average and p95 in the Static test. WPX Had the fastest WPT average and location scores in 8/12 locales. Overall, WPX had an excellent performance, and the adjustment for accepting P95 scores slightly above 1000ms was added this year was precisely to recognize companies like WPX. Congrats on another Top Tier award.
Visit WPX Website

About the Author

Kevin Ohashi

Kevin Ohashi is the geek-in-charge at Review Signal. He is passionate about making data meaningful for consumers. Kevin is based in Washington, DC.

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3 thoughts on “$51-100/Month WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks 2022

    1. That looks like a mistake, I think the data from disk space must have been put into the form. I will get updated and accurate memory spec when I hear back from them.

    2. So it was the disk space, I’ve updated they offer 512MB/PHP Process. The servers have 256GB ram and there is no specific amount of ram allocated per plan because of the architecture.

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