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 DigitalOcean 8GB Premium Droplet.
Everyone handled the static test well. There was literally not an error between all the companies combined. Last year I was impressed to see 4 companies below 50ms, now it's 4 companies below 20ms. The field continues to improve each and every year which is fantastic for everyone.
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
Company
Uptime Robot
Hetrix
Cloudways
100
99.9944
Pressable
100
100
Presslabs
100
100
Servebolt
100
99.995
WPX
100
100
Discussion
Uptime Robot showed every company at perfect 100% uptime. Hetrix Tools had everyone above 99.99%. Basically perfect across the board.
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
Company
Virginia
California
Salt Lake City
London
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Singapore
Mumbai
Tokyo
Sydney
Brazil
Dubai
Average
Cloudways
225
508
401
518
529
1223
1210
1215
918
1147
698
1012
800
Pressable
280
355
410
419
532
1538
664
277
401
294
410
321
492
Presslabs
187
214
343
238
245
945
214
215
215
187
206
273
290
Servebolt
204
456
411
324
391
225
864
235
218
422
326
390
372
WPX
214
233
277
211
217
238
1061
207
502
234
1223
140
396
Discussion
Presslabs had the fastest average at 290ms and 6/12 fastest single location speeds.
Servebolt was the second fastest at 372ms and picked up 1/12 fastest single location speeds.
WPX was the third fastest at 396ms and picked up 5/12 fastest single location speeds.
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
Company
PHP Bench
WP Bench
Cloudways
9.364
285.5511136
Pressable
9.692
1692.047377
Presslabs
6.821
1383.125864
Servebolt
4.226
4830.917874
WPX
7.746
2164.502165
Discussion
Servebolt had the fastest PHP bench and WP Bench scores by a significant margin. Servebolt run a patched version of MariaDB whereas the default version performs AES_ENCRYPT() function slower. I debated changing the plugin before I was aware it was patchable, but considering it is something fixable, I opted not to change it this year.
A's for everyone except Servebolt, who received an A+.
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.
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.
Cloudways handled the Static test without issue. It even was about 25% faster compared to last year which is nice to see. Cloudways' Uptime was 100% and 99.9944% which is excellent. The other test results didn't stand out, and they are maybe hindered a bit by not having a CDN by default like the competition at this price. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test was its Achilles heel again this year with a slow down starting around 1300 VUsers again. The server couldn't keep up with the requests and response times climbed to a point outside of recognition range again.
Pressable had an excellent Load Storm test with the second fastest p95 and third fastest on all the metrics. Pressable took it to near light speed with 5.3ms average response time on the Static test. Pressable had perfect uptime on both monitors. Pressable has been one of the more consistent Top Tier performers year after year, and this year is no exception - congrats on another Top Tier performance.
Presslabs swept the Load Storm metrics with the fastest p95, wp-login, page, asset and login speeds. It had the second fastest Static test in both average and p95 response time. Perfect uptime on both monitors. The fastest WPT average and fastest in 6/12 locations individually. It would be impossible to give Presslabs anything but Top Tier status for their results this year.
Servebolt flew through the Load Storm test again with the second fastest wp-login and third fastest p95. A measly 20ms average response time on the Static test was nothing to scoff at as well. Uptime was perfect and 99.995%. Servebolt also managed the second fastest average on the WPT. It also continued it's benchmark leading results on PHP/WP Bench. It's one of the least shocking statements to say Servebolt earned Top Tier status again this year.
WPX had another good year. The Load Storm test saw it clock in the second fastest Page, Asset and Login speed. The Static test had an blazingly fast 11ms average response time. Perfect uptime on both monitors is always nice to see as well. WPX's home built CDN showed off in the WPT results where they picked up 5/12 fastest speeds in individual locations. Overall, it was another great performance from WPX which earned them Top Tier status.
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 Digital Ocean Premium 4GB droplet.
Stromonic was sold during the tests and the new owner was not prepared to participate in the benchmark. No load tests were run. Some of the other tests were run, and the results are recorded for posterity.
The Static test went well for every single participant. It's very nice to see that trend continue. Delivering static content fast and at scale is becoming a default in the WordPress hosting space, even at the lower price tiers.
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
Company
Uptime Robot
Hetrix
A2 Hosting
100
100
Cloudways
100
100
GreenGeeks
100
99.9935
Krystal Hosting
100
100
Pressable
100
100
Presslabs
100
100
Rocket.net
100
100
SiteGround
100
100
Stromonic
100
99.9931
WordPress.com
100
100
WPX
100
100
Discussion
This group had perfect uptime on Uptime Robot and near perfect with Hetrix Tools, with 2 companies below 100% and above 99.99%. Amazing.
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
Company
Virginia
California
Salt Lake City
London
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Singapore
Mumbai
Tokyo
Sydney
Brazil
Dubai
Average
A2 Hosting
145
140
269
129
183
131
142
227
359
232
445
98
208
Cloudways
212
550
408
527
564
1221
1220
1168
871
1153
712
1017
802
GreenGeeks
256
452
427
536
533
1144
1209
995
862
929
637
926
742
Krystal Hosting
583
1007
820
218
252
852
1288
1344
1549
1857
1043
1146
997
Pressable
268
354
394
522
299
1541
885
496
411
328
273
338
509
Presslabs
211
210
353
219
239
2048
223
506
218
673
211
549
472
Rocket.net
222
242
329
238
218
215
309
215
237
220
228
251
244
SiteGround
368
228
328
225
209
1121
199
611
583
219
191
747
419
Stromonic
6649
1441
863
2945
16135
2338
9899
2630
4740
2447
2573
2000
4555
WordPress.com
284
321
417
285
282
987
657
275
576
284
268
287
410
WPX
199
212
277
189
226
223
616
207
473
205
1343
151
360
Discussion
The chart can be adjusted by clicking on a company. Stromonic stands out here for being the slowest by a wide margin at every location. Once you remove them from the graph, it's a lot easier to see how the field who were actively participating performed.
A2 Hosting had the fastest average and was the fastest in 8/12 locations individually.
Rocket.net had the second fastest average.
WPX had the third fastest average and was the fastest in 2/12 locations.
Presslabs and SiteGround each picked up a fastest speed in a single location.
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
Company
PHP Bench
WP Bench
A2 Hosting
9.24
1766.784452
Cloudways
7.547
376.9317753
GreenGeeks
9.55
1610.305958
Krystal Hosting
9.312
726.744186
Pressable
9.679
1700.680272
Presslabs
7.01
1297.016861
Rocket.net
9.824
1406.469761
SiteGround
9.377
1158.748552
Stromonic
18.794
91.5164272
WordPress.com
9.46
2314.814815
WPX
7.566
1964.636542
Discussion
WordPress.com had the fastest WP Bench at 2314 (queries/second) and Presslabs had the fastest PHP Bench at 7.01 seconds.
A2 Hosting, GreenGeeks, Presslabs and WordPress.com all had A+.
Everyone else had A's. Except Stromonic which had a B.
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.
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.
A2 Hosting had some incredible highs, like the Static test which say it record an average response time of 6.1ms and 14ms p95. A2 Hosting recorded perfect uptime. A2 Hosting also was a force to be reckoned with in the WPT test which saw it earn the fastest average and fastest individual speed in 8/12 locations. It also recorded an A+ grade on the SSL test. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test proved its undoing this year with a slow down starting around 400 VUsers and errors as well. There's some much potential here, I can't wait to see them get the Load Storm test figured out and joining the Top Tier.
Cloudways handled the Static test perfectly, completely flat response time and no errors. Uptime was perfect as well. Cloudways, however, did struggle with the Load Storm test where it slowed down around 700 VUsers and response times shot up. There were relatively few errors, so the requests were still being served, just a lot slower than needed to earn recognition.
GreenGeeks managed to deal with the Load Storm test well and had the fastest wp-login and Login speeds. The Static test also went well with a couple little spikes and zero errors. GreenGeeks had 100% and 99.9935% uptime which is excellent. Overall, GreenGeeks handled the tests remarkably well and earned another Top Tier award this year.
Krystal Hosting handled the Static test effortlessly without a single error and completely flat response time graph. Krystal also had perfect uptime on both uptime monitors. The Load Storm test was mostly great except there was a consistent spike exactly every 5 minutes which increased response times above 1500ms on the p95 graph from it's baseline around ~700ms. I'm not sure if this was a cache clear or some other kind of cron job, but something looks like it was taxing the server specifically every 5 minutes causing a tiny load spike. Unfortunately, the spikes were just a little too large by the end of the test, so Krystal Hosting earned an Honorable Mention this year. I have high hopes Krystal will rejoin the Top Tier next year, they're only one timer away.
Pressable had no issue with the Load Storm test, in fact it had the second fastest p95 and third fastest wp-login and Asset speed. Pressable also blazed through the Static test leading the pack with a 5.2ms average and 13ms p95. Pressable also had perfect uptime. Simply put, Pressable aced all the tests thrown at it and earned Top Tier status.
Presslabs handled the Load Storm test fabulously. It had the fastest p95, second fastest wp-login and Login speed, and the third fastest Page speed. The Static test also went well with a 24ms average response time. Uptime was perfect. Presslabs also managed to have the fastest single speed location on WPT in Tokyo. It also managed an A+ SSL grade and the fastest PHP Bench. It doesn't get old awarding Presslabs another Top Tier award.
Rocket.net handled the Load Storm test without any issues. It also handled the Static test without any issues having a very fast 22ms average response time and 31ms p95 which was the 4th fastest which is always impressive to have average and p95 as close together as possible. Rocket.net had perfect uptime. Rocket.net picked up the second fastest average on the WPT. Overall, Rocket.net took these tests in stride and didn't break a sweat. It didn't stand out in any statistical category, but it was consistently quick in all the tests. Rocket.net earns a well deserved Top Tier award.
SiteGround flew through the Static test with 21ms average response time without a single error. SiteGround also had perfect uptime. It even picked up the fastest speed in a single location in WPT. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test was a little spikey. There were a few spikes going over 1000ms throughout the test and it wasn't just a single location having issues, the spikes were across multiple regions. It could have been network issues or could have been minor server issues. For that reason, SiteGround earns an Honorable Mention this year.
Stromonic was acquired mid-test and the new owner was not prepared or interested in participating. The results are incomplete. They were disqualified from any award consideration.
WordPress.com had no issues with the Load Storm test and even picked up the second fastest Asset speed. The Static test went even better with the second fastest average response at 5.8ms and tied for first with 13ms in p95. Perfect uptime on both monitors. WordPress.com also managed to pickup the fastest WP Bench score and an A+ SSL grade. It's easy to say WordPress.com handled these tests without blinking and earned Top Tier status again this year.
WPX handled the Load Storm test without issue. It had the fastest Page and Asset speed, along with the third fastest p95 and Login speed. The Static test went equally as well with an incredibly fast 11ms average response time. WPX had perfect uptime on both monitors. It also had the third fastest average speed on WPT and was the fastest in 2/12 locations. WPX continues to earn Top Tier recognition year after year with excellent performances like this one.
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.
Due to the increase in participation fees this year, I started a Sponsorship program for new/small/first time participants who wanted to participate in the two lowest price tiers. I asked participating companies if any would be willing to sponsor the participation of other hosting companies that fit this criteria. Only 1 company took advantage of this program, WP Buzz. I want to personally thank and recognize the four amazingly generous companies stepped forward and provided financial support to allow more companies to participate: 20i, Krystal Hosting, Nexcess and Pressable. Thank you.
Cloudways competed with a Digital Ocean Premium 1GB droplet.
ShortPixel Hosting is no longer being offered after the benchmarks finished but before publishing. The results are published for posterity.
Stromonic was sold during the tests and the new owner was not prepared to participate in the benchmark. No load tests were run. Some of the other tests were run, and the results are recorded for posterity.
20i and SiteGround had very good performances with a minor spike or two, but the issues didn't seem to impact the ability of the server to handle the load. Sometimes things happen on the networks out of the control of the server itself and I decided to err in favor of not penalizing the spikes and keep both results as good.
A2Hosting had issues starting around 300 VUsers slowing down and then erroring.
Cloudways started to slow down around 80 VUsers and started erroring towards the end.
Hostgator started to slow down around 425 users and then errored out.
Cloudways had some spikes due to max CPU towards the end of the test.
The remaining companies handled the Static test without much issue.
Last year 3 companies were sub 50ms average response times. This year that number is 10. Those numbers for the p95 metric jumped from 3 to 8 this year as well.
Pressable kept their fastest average response time but A2 Hosting was 0.2ms behind and tied them for fastest p95 this year.
Even at the other end, last year's slowest was 267/575 (avg/p95) while this year was 162/423 (avg/p95). ManagedWPHosting improved roughly 100ms faster average and 140ms faster p95. It's great to see such improvements at both ends.
It does seem like there is a pretty clear line between companies with and without CDNs installed by default.
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
Company
Uptime Robot
Hetrix
20i
100
100
34SP.com
100
99.9954
A2 Hosting
99.975
100
Bluehost
100
100
Cloudways
100
99.9755
EasyWP by Namecheap
100
99.9954
GreenGeeks
99.894
99.9783
Hostgator
100
100
ICDSoft
100
99.9924
Krystal Hosting
100
99.9991
Lightning Base
100
100
ManagedWPHosting
100
99.9991
Nexcess
99.999
99.9873
Pressable
100
100
ROMARG
99.962
99.9372
ShortPixel Hosting
100
99.9964
SiteGround
100
99.9982
Stoute Web Solutions
100
99.9868
Stromonic
99.947
99.99
WP Buzz
100
99.9991
WPX
100
99.9995
Discussion
Only one company was below the 99.9% threshold on a single monitor: GreenGeeks on the Uptime Robot was a borderline 99.894%. Meanwhile HetrixTools showed it having 99.9783%. The error was from the very start of the uptime monitoring and it said SSL-Host Mismatch. Hetrix Tools had no issues recorded during the same time frame. I am erring on an uptime monitoring tool problem versus a GreenGeeks problem since it automatically resolved itself and the other service didn't have any issue.
All the other companies maintained 99.9%+ uptime on both monitors.
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
Company
Virginia
California
Salt Lake City
London
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Singapore
Mumbai
Tokyo
Sydney
Brazil
Dubai
Average
20i
287
223
923
280
223
920
854
1066
193
948
724
876
626
34SP.com
547
884
883
211
280
894
1108
942
1252
1596
1071
702
864
A2 Hosting
209
224
748
237
663
204
215
371
213
276
661
195
351
Bluehost
445
309
851
364
629
293
1022
2042
1006
636
573
319
707
Cloudways
207
523
397
517
560
1198
1225
1206
916
1346
708
1007
818
EasyWP by Namecheap
499
223
399
862
872
1524
1148
1467
773
1190
1011
1374
945
GreenGeeks
202
333
334
492
837
1130
1231
978
662
919
1458
934
793
Hostgator
299
267
546
916
428
242
1835
2140
380
932
884
286
763
ICDSoft
242
502
406
531
596
1188
1541
1319
1239
1188
852
1068
889
Krystal Hosting
321
655
516
533
602
1228
1377
1210
1419
1184
859
1102
917
Lightning Base
284
271
259
493
524
1147
960
1029
852
870
859
1033
715
ManagedWPHosting
719
1212
1009
218
244
1042
1502
909
1536
1825
1245
827
1024
Nexcess
273
488
436
482
663
1026
1001
970
747
1005
625
909
719
Pressable
280
267
472
432
575
1532
1010
279
270
315
416
382
519
ROMARG
854
1300
964
367
359
1056
1252
881
1497
1651
1288
869
1028
ShortPixel Hosting
846
1329
923
333
216
920
1264
807
1697
2257
1152
734
1040
SiteGround
383
232
322
208
223
1138
193
506
577
230
197
750
413
Stoute Web Solutions
566
454
599
537
535
237
1164
220
239
991
260
238
503
Stromonic
6183
1557
942
2109
8616
2298
7277
4641
2334
1984
2134
2155
3519
WP Buzz
208
218
806
213
222
897
672
949
220
931
897
865
592
WPX
232
222
298
218
230
225
214
236
505
219
2320
130
421
Discussion
The chart can be adjusted by clicking on a company. Stromonic stands out here for being the slowest by a wide margin at every location. Once you remove them from the graph, it's a lot easier to see how the field who were actively participating performed.
A2 Hosting had the fastest average speed and was the fastest in 1/12 locations
SiteGround had the second fastest average speed and was the fastest in 3/12 locations
WPX had the third fastest average speed and was the fastest in 2/12 locations
GreenGeeks, WPBuzz, LightningBase, ShortPixel, Stoute Web Solutions, and 20i each picked up the fastest speed in a single location.
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
Company
PHP Bench
WP Bench
20i
9.26
388.9537145
34SP.com
15.623
885.7395926
A2 Hosting
8.922
1295.336788
Bluehost
11.698
920.8103131
Cloudways
15.064
488.997555
EasyWP by Namecheap
9.637
885.7395926
GreenGeeks
10.104
1418.439716
Hostgator
9.982
632.5110689
ICDSoft
13.191
1406.469761
Krystal Hosting
9.089
1672.240803
Lightning Base
9.143
481.9277108
ManagedWPHosting
6.895
1067.235859
Nexcess
6.11
2304.147465
Pressable
9.704
1700.680272
ROMARG
7.918
1937.984496
ShortPixel Hosting
8.006
2092.050209
SiteGround
9.877
993.0486594
Stoute Web Solutions
7.279
1926.782274
Stromonic
19.169
105.1524711
WP Buzz
10.724
409.5004095
WPX
7.658
1869.158879
Discussion
Nexcess had the fastest PHP Bench and WP Bench. ShortPixel had the second fastest WP Bench and ROMARG was third. ManagedWPHosting and Stoute Web Solutions were second and third respectively on the PHP Bench.
20i, A2 Hosting, GreenGeeks, ManagedWPHosting, and Namecheap had A+.
Everyone else earned an A.
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.
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.
20i handled the Static test with ease scoring a quick 48ms average response time. 20i also had perfect uptime on both monitors. It picked up the fastest speed in Tokyo on WPT. It also had an A+ SSL Grade. The Load Storm was extremely borderline, it had a few errors, but well below any concerning threshold, and a spike, but otherwise handled it just fine. I'm erring on the side of not penalizing what could just be random network noise versus a deeper server performance issue. 20i earns Top Tier status for this years performance.
34SP had an good showing in the Load Storm test with the second fastest wp-login, Page and Login speed. The Static test went by without any issues. Uptime was perfect and 99.9954%. It's nice to see 34SP.com delivered a Top Tier result again this year.
A2 Hosting stood out on the Static test with an staggeringly fast 5.4ms average response time, a mere 0.2ms behind Pressable, for second fastest average. It also tied Pressable for fastest p95 in the test. Uptime was perfect and 99.975%. A2 Hosting also had the fastest average speed on WPT and was the fastest in a single location. It also earned an A+ SSL grade. Unfortunately, A2 Hosting struggled with the Load Storm test and started to slow down around 300 VUsers and errored out later. There was a lot to like in the A2 Hosting's performance, but there's a little work left to be done before it earns Top Tier recognition.
Bluehost took a year off after a slightly disappointing performance, but the break was worth it. Last time the Load Storm test proved a bit much for the plan. This year Bluehost handled the Load Storm test without issue. The Static test saw Bluehost score a snappy 18ms average and 25ms p95. Bluehost also had perfect uptime. It's always nice to see engineering efforts pay off, congrats to Bluehost on earning Top Tier status.
It was not Cloudways' best performance. The Load Storm test started having issues early at 80 VUsers and started having errors towards the end. The Static test had some spikes due to CPU usage towards the end of the test. Uptime was perfect on one monitor and 99.9755% on another.
Namecheap experienced no problems during the Load Storm test. The Static test went equally as well, both having zero errors. Uptime was 100% and 99.9954%. Namecheap also had an A+ SSL grade. Overall, the product was Top Tier and handled all the tests without any noticeable issues.
GreenGeeks did well on the Load Storm test and even had the third fastest Login speed. GreenGeeks handled the Static test with a near perfectly flat response time. Uptime monitors showed 99.894% and 99.9783%. The Uptime Robot downtime was attributed to an SSL-Host Mismatch at the very start of the test. The other monitor noticed zero issues during this window, so the decision is erring on the side of tooling problem vs hosting problem. GreenGeeks picked up a fastest WPT speed in a single location. It also earned an A+ SSL grade. GreenGeeks had a Top Tier performance again this year.
Hostgator is owned by Newfold Digital, same parent company as Bluehost, but the products are not the same. Hostgator actually slightly edged it's sister product in the Static test with an impressive 16ms average response time and 24ms p95. Hostgator had perfect uptime. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test exposed the difference in the Hostgator product vs Bluehost. Hostgator started to slow down around 425 VUsers and eventually errored out.
ICDSoft stepped up their game last year and didn't let up. ICDSoft had the fastest wp-login, Page and Login speed on the Load Storm test. It also had the third fastest p95. The Static test went smoothly. Uptime was 100% and 99.9924%. It's great to see ICDSoft maintain consistency and earn back to back Top Tier awards.
Krystal Hosting handled the Static test without a single error. It had perfect uptime on one monitor and the other showed 99.9991%. Unfortunately, Krystal started to slow down around 700 VUsers during the Load Storm test which kept it out of award contention.
LightningBase is one of, if not, the longest continuous participant(s) in the benchmarks. The Load Storm test went well with LightningBase having the third fastest wp-login. The Static test also went well. Uptime was perfect. LightningBase also picked up a fastest single location speed on WPT. LightningBase's streak of longest continuous Top Tier awards continues.
ManagedWPHosting handled the Static test fine, it may have been the slowest in average and p95, but the graph was flatish and slightly speeding up as the test went on with an average of 162ms. They had excellent uptime at perfect and 99.9991%. ManagedWPHosting also picked up the second fastest PHP Bench and an A+ SSL grade. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test had a spike right as it reached 1000VUsers causing a slow down, which it recovered from. However, it caused too much of a slow down and errors to be considered for an award. I'm not sure what caused it because it handled 1000VUsers after recovering for a while, but the product looks about one spike away from award consideration.
Nexcess has been a regular participant in these benchmarks and missed earning any awards the last couple years at this price tier. But this was finally Nexcess's year. It's nice to see hard work and improvements pay off. The Load Storm test went by effortlessly. The Static test saw Nexcess pickup the third fastest average and p95 at 13ms and 20ms respectively. Their Achilles heal had been uptime issues which were finally solved this year with 99.999% and 99.9873% uptime. Nexcess also had the fastest PHP and WP Bench scores. Nexcess finally earned a well deserved Top Tier award for this price tier.
Pressable brought the speed again this year. Pressable had the fastest p95 on the Load Storm test and the second fastest Asset speed. Pressable also had the fastest Static test with an average response time of 5.2ms and 12ms p95. Perfect uptime on both monitors. Another year, another Top Tier for Pressable.
ROMARG was another first time participant in the benchmarks. The Load Storm and Static test went without issue, flat response times and zero errors is always nice to see. ROMARG's uptime was 99.962% and 99.9372%. ROMARG also picked up the third fastest WP Bench score. Overall, ROMARG's performance was Top Tier, it handled all the tests without showing any signs of stress.
Despite no longer offering the product, ShortPixel Hosting had a very good showing. The Load Storm test went well and ShortPixel even managed the third fastest wp-login speed. The Static test also went well with 140ms average response time. ShortPixel also had perfect and 99.9964% uptime. ShortPixel even picked up the fastest speed in one location on the WPT and the second fastest WP Bench. It was a Top Tier performance for ShortPixel's hosting product.
SiteGround's Static test had a quick average response time of 22ms. The uptime was perfect and 99.9982%. SiteGround looked excellent on the WPT where it had the second fastest average and was the fastested in 3 locations individually. The Load Storm test went almost perfect but there was a few spikes that looked like a couple locations had networking issues causing the very small spikes. I've erred on the side of these being networking issues, as the server itself seemed fine and continued to server content fine to the other locations without any impact on loading speed. So SiteGround earns Top Tier status this year.
Stoute Web Solutions is a new GridPane powered participant in the benchmarks. Stoute Web Solutions handled the Load Storm test without issue. While their results in the Load Storm test were somewhat middle of the pack, the Static test saw Stoute Web Solutions deliver a very fast 21ms average response time and 30ms p95. Uptime was solid at 100% and 99.9868%. It even picked up a fastest single location in the WPT. They also picked up third fastest PHP Bench. Stoute Web Solutions was a welcome newcomer that had an excellent first showing - earning themselves Top Tier recognition.
Stromonic was acquired mid-test and the new owner was not prepared or interested in participating. The results are incomplete. They were disqualified from any award consideration.
WP Buzz was a new entrant this year and the only company to take advantage of the sponsorship program. The Static test went very well for WP Buzz with an average response time of 48ms. The uptime was 100% and 99.9991% which is fantastic. WP Buzz even picked up the fastest WPT speed in a single location. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test didn't go very well. There were issues starting around 250 VUsers and then errors. This was due to a security issue which couldn't be worked around. So there may very well be a very strong product underneath, but we weren't fully able to test it which kept WP Buzz from any award contention.
WPX has been a consistent Top Tier performer in these benchmarks. The Load Storm test went very well this year with WPX clocking the second fastest p95 and the fastest Asset speed. The Static test went equally as well with WPX having an blazingly fast average response time of 11ms, good for third overall. Uptime was 100% and 99.9995%. WPX also managed the third fastest average on the WPT with the fastest score in 2 locations. WPX's streak of Top Tier awards won't be broken this year.
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.
The Enterprise tier of these benchmarks is special in that companies are allowed to change configurations to optimize for performance because at this price tier it’s expected for customers paying a lot of money. All other price tiers test default configurations.
Servebolt submitted two plans, the Scale + ACD plan is utilizing their Scale and Accelerated Domains addon which adds performance, scalability and security enhancements.
Cloudways competed with a 4XL plan from Google Cloud.
Starting price allows for 2M http requests per month. Can grow from there at additional costs up to unlimited.
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Starts at 1 application, which can be a multisite with no limits. Additional applications available for extra cost with no limit on how many we can support.
Cloudways ran into issues around 1500 VUsers where login stopped responding and caused errors. The numbers appear artificially low because of this.
Raidboxes started slowing down around 3700 VUsers with errors kicking in around 4600 VUsers.
Overall, it's impressive how fast most of these companies are. With the exception of Raidboxes (and Cloudways gets an asterisk), every host is loading pages under 300ms. More than half the companies are loading assets sub 30ms. At the high end, you really have a lot of high performing globally available options.
K6 Static Testing Results
K6 Static test is designed to test cached performance by repeatedly requesting the homepage.
Every company handled this test very well. It is very clear which companies have CDNs setup though based on the average response times. The P95 of all but two companies being under 60ms is just impressive.
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
Company
Uptime Robot
Hetrix
Cloudways
99.996
99.8335
Performant Websites
100
100
Presslabs
100
99.9951
raidboxes
100
99.9996
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo
100
100
Servebolt (Scale + ACD)
100
100
Servebolt
100
100
WordPress VIP
100
100
Discussion
Every company with the exception of Cloudways had 100% on at least one monitor. Cloudways had very different uptimes as measured by the two providers (happened across multiple plans tested). But the higher of the two uptime monitors showed 99.99%+ which seems to indicate the server was responsive.
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
Company
Virginia
California
Salt Lake City
London
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Singapore
Mumbai
Tokyo
Sydney
Brazil
Dubai
Average
Cloudways
0.26
0.316
0.279
0.556
0.613
1.328
1.047
1.311
0.742
0.992
0.843
1.33
0.8014166667
Performant Websites
0.404
0.159
0.269
0.317
0.388
0.151
0.185
0.318
0.369
0.251
0.654
0.243
0.309
Presslabs
0.155
0.143
0.26
0.141
0.173
0.222
0.154
0.169
0.213
0.155
0.16
0.137
0.1735
raidboxes
0.604
0.908
0.864
0.331
0.169
0.885
0.884
0.771
1.327
1.53
1.156
0.693
0.8435
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo
0.282
0.246
0.292
0.22
0.241
0.274
0.387
0.222
0.329
0.156
0.246
1.051
0.3288333333
Servebolt (Scale + ACD)
0.267
0.317
0.379
0.202
0.319
0.161
0.767
0.303
0.243
0.31
0.445
0.267
0.3316666667
Servebolt
0.347
0.197
0.342
0.393
0.426
0.175
0.654
0.22
0.257
0.397
0.337
0.262
0.3339166667
WordPress VIP
0.215
0.168
0.243
0.22
0.254
0.263
0.226
0.209
0.243
0.236
0.237
0.301
0.2345833333
Discussion
Presslabs is the obvious standout here with 10/12 of the fastest response times alongside the fastest average response time at a snappy 0.1735s.
WPVIP and Performant Websites managed to grab the other two fastest response times. They also managed the second and third fastest averages respectively.
Raidboxes and Cloudways stood out on the slower end because of the lack of CDN setup in this configuration.
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
Company
PHP Bench
WP Bench
Cloudways
9.968
624.2197253
Performant Websites
9.773
1094.091904
Presslabs
6.998
1865.671642
raidboxes
8.185
1402.524544
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo
9.705
400
Servebolt (Scale + ACD)
5.839
2132.196162
Servebolt
5.845
2227.171492
WordPress VIP
8.408
1280.409731
Discussion
Servebolt led the way here. They took the top two spots in both tests. Presslabs was third in both tests.
Scaleforce shows us that raw single threaded speed doesn't make or break an enterprise configuration. Despite having the slowest WP Bench and one of the slowest PHP Bench scores, a clustered configuration can handle massive scale and perform well in real world delivery.
Everyone got an A+ except Cloudways which earned an A.
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.
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.
The one thing Cloudways did well this year was the static test. It handled it without issue. We could add in uptime if we assume it was a glitch on the monitoring end which affected all Cloudways servers being monitored by Hetrix Tools. But Cloudways struggled with the Load Storm test with the login erroring completely. There is some definite room for improvement.
New entrant Performant Websites stepped into the biggest ring and showed they belong. Perfect uptime. The third fastest WPT average including being the fastest in Cape Town. They handled all the tests without any issues, well done and welcome to the Top Tier.
Presslabs absolutely crushed the Load Storm test. They had the fastest P95, Page, Asset, and login times. Presslabs also had the third fastest average response time for the static test at 14ms. Throw in a tour de force of the WebPageTest benchmark where they were the fastest in 10/12 locations and had the fastest average response time. Sprinkle in perfect or near perfect uptime on both monitors and you've got yourself an excellent Top Tier worthy performance.
The bright spots for Raidboxes were it handled the static test effortlessly and the uptime was near perfect at 100% and 99.9996%. The less bright spots were that Raidboxes struggled with the Load Storm test which seems to have overwhelmed the system. Raidboxes also didn't have any sort of CDN integrated which slowed down global response times and averages on many of the tests. I hope with the recent acquisition we see some improvements that brings them back to to Top Tier status.
Scaleforce had the second fastest wp-login, and page speed, along with third fastest asset speeds on the Load Storm test. Scaleforce also had the second fastest average response time and p95 response time in the static test. Throw in perfect uptime for good measure and you've got another well earned Top Tier award.
Servebolt had the second fastest P95 alongside third fastest page, asset speeds and login cum avg. Perfect uptime. It seems to have eked out a slight edge over its sister product in a few tests beating getting slightly fastest response times on an already Top Tier product. Well done.
Perfect uptime. Fastest WP/PHP Bench scores alongside it's sister product. Third fastest p95 in both Load Storm and Static tests. Servebolt Enterprise delivers another Top Tier performance.
WPVIP had the second fastest asset and login cum avg scores on the Load Storm test. WPVIP had the fastest average and p95 response times on the Static test. WPVIP also had perfect uptime on both monitors. WPVIP also picked up the second fastest average response time average on the WPT. WPVIP continues to prove itself year after year as a Top Tier product. Congratulations.
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.
Servebolt submitted two plans, the ACD plan is utilizing their Accelerated Domains addon, which adds performance, scalability and security enhancements.
Every company handled the static test near flawlessly. Zero total errors for all companies. The average and P95 response times show which companies have CDNs (or more relevant CDN locations for our test). The difference between Servebolt and Servebolt with Accelerated Domains is pretty clear here, ACD is adding a lot of speed.
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
Company
Uptime Robot
Hetrix
Cloudways
99.996
99.8954
Nexcess
99.996
99.9926
Pressable
99.994
100
Presslabs
100
99.9955
raidboxes
99.991
99.99
Servebolt
100
100
Servebolt ACD
100
99.9888
Discussion
Everyone except Cloudways had near perfect uptime. Cloudways had an issue across multiple tests where one monitor struggled for a short window but the other was reporting it fine.
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
Company
Virginia
California
Salt Lake City
London
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Singapore
Mumbai
Tokyo
Sydney
Brazil
Dubai
Average
Cloudways
0.179
0.389
0.362
0.47
0.52
1.205
1.136
1.119
0.825
1.064
0.658
1.011
0.7448333333
Nexcess
0.334
0.525
0.469
0.586
1.056
1.701
1.34
1.432
0.903
1.596
1.162
1.821
1.077083333
Pressable
0.215
0.335
0.315
0.231
0.187
0.254
0.244
0.661
0.245
0.174
0.316
0.467
0.3036666667
Presslabs
0.173
0.14
0.262
0.152
0.184
0.21
0.148
0.167
0.17
0.15
0.161
0.14
0.1714166667
raidboxes
0.687
0.93
0.875
0.222
0.226
0.895
0.91
0.801
1.267
1.57
1.155
0.703
0.8534166667
Servebolt
0.356
0.297
0.433
0.577
0.678
0.988
1.017
0.972
0.774
0.842
0.677
0.961
0.7143333333
Servebolt ACD
0.414
0.452
0.49
0.297
0.3
0.277
0.468
0.477
0.498
0.262
0.528
0.279
0.3951666667
Discussion
Presslabs went a perfect 12/12 as the fastest in every region. Pressable was the second fastest with Servebolt + ACD not far behind.
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
Company
PHP Bench
WP Bench
Cloudways
8.993
478.6979416
Nexcess
7.728
1044.932079
Pressable
10.013
1347.708895
Presslabs
6.89
1538.461538
raidboxes
7.971
1466.27566
Servebolt
5.86
2222.222222
Servebolt ACD
5.865
2207.505519
Discussion
Both Servebolt plans stood out as having the fastest scores in both tests which were near identical to one another.
Everyone got an A with Presslabs, Raidboxes and Servebolt+ACD Earning A+.
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.
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.
Cloudways handled the static test without issue. Cloudways had great uptime on one monitor and lower than expected on the other. This seemed like it maybe was a bug and showed on every Cloudways monitor on the Hetrix Tools platform. Unfortunately, the Load Storm caused the server to error out and fail the test. I'm not sure what happened but I hope they figure it out and we see a comeback next year.
Nexcess had stellar uptime with both showing above 99.99%. Nexcess also handled the static and Load Storm tests without issue. While it didn't particularly stand out compared to some of it's peers, it delivered flawless results on everything we threw at it. Top Tier.
Pressable had the fastest average and p95 load times on the static test. Pressable also picked up the 2nd fastest page response time in the Load Storm test. Pressable had perfect or near perfect uptime. Unsurprisingly, yet another Top Tier performance for Pressable - Well done.
Presslabs had the fastest P95, Page, Asset and login response times on the Load Storm test. Presslabs had the second fastest average response time and third fastest p95 on the static test. Throw in perfect or near perfect uptime. Presslabs also went 12/12 as the fastest location for every test on WebPageTest. Overall, a very impressive performance put on Presslabs which saw them at the top or near the top of every test. Top Tier.
Raidboxes had an excellent 99.99%+ on both uptime monitors. The Static test was handled without issue. Unfortunately the Load Storm test was a bit too much and slowed the server down below the acceptable threshold of 1000ms to earn any recognition this year.
Servebolt picked up 2nd fastest P95, asset and login response times in the Load Storm test. Servebolt had perfect uptime. Servebolt stood out as the fastest on the PHP and WP Benchmarks in a virtual tie with its other offering. Servebolt earned yet another Top Tier honor.
Servebolt + ACD really shined over its sister product in the static load test and earned itself the 2nd fastest p95 load time. Servebolt + ACD picked up 3rd fastest P95, asset and login response times in the Load Storm test. Servebolt had perfect and near perfect uptime on the monitors. Servebolt stood out as the fastest on the PHP and WP Benchmarks in a virtual tie with its other offering. The ACD addition didn't slow Servebolt down, it doubled down on a second Top Tier award.
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.
Pressable, Scaleforce and SiteGround stood out with sub 20ms averages and clearly have CDN setup helping them excel in this test.
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
Company
Uptime Robot
Hetrix
Cloudways
99.985
99.8886
MechanicWeb
99.969
99.9603
Nexcess
99.997
99.9932
Pressable
99.998
100
raidboxes
99.991
99.9887
SaveinCloud
100
99.9927
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo
100
100
Servebolt
99.976
99.9884
Simplenet
100
99.9913
SiteGround
99.969
99.944
Discussion
All the companies kept above 99.9% uptime with the exception of Cloudways on the Hetrix Tools monitor. This issue happened on every Cloudways server this year where one monitor showed near perfect and the other had a window of downtime.
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
Company
Virginia
California
Salt Lake City
London
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Singapore
Mumbai
Tokyo
Sydney
Brazil
Dubai
Average
Cloudways
0.164
0.336
0.324
0.494
0.54
1.177
1.115
1.082
0.844
1.01
0.668
1.073
0.7355833333
MechanicWeb
0.313
0.292
0.332
0.615
0.876
1.356
1.164
1.302
0.9
0.939
0.851
1.213
0.8460833333
Nexcess
0.331
0.529
0.426
0.533
0.608
1.668
1.333
1.42
0.98
1.591
1.184
1.809
1.034333333
Pressable
0.312
0.159
0.359
0.29
0.236
0.248
0.241
0.457
0.356
0.197
0.397
1.033
0.3570833333
raidboxes
0.6
0.929
0.868
0.265
0.219
0.901
0.952
0.785
1.304
1.529
1.174
0.699
0.8520833333
SaveinCloud
0.891
0.676
0.709
0.759
1.505
1.208
1.24
1.431
1.125
1.298
0.377
1.54
1.06325
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo
0.309
0.191
0.693
0.221
0.186
0.248
0.396
0.205
0.287
0.202
0.222
1.045
0.3504166667
Servebolt
0.343
0.332
0.368
0.575
0.635
0.969
1.102
0.955
0.813
0.915
0.832
0.969
0.734
Simplenet
0.272
0.576
0.415
0.561
0.594
1.437
1.474
1.649
1.031
1.716
0.841
1.206
0.981
SiteGround
0.484
0.629
0.42
0.841
0.932
1.775
1.547
1.755
1.3
1.545
1.204
1.623
1.17125
Discussion
Scaleforce just barely edged Pressable by a miniscule 7ms for the fastest average LCP speed. They were neck and neck and showing off their global load speeds. Scaleforce took 5/12 fastest with 1 tie with Pressable. Pressable picked up 3 fastest plus the aforementioned tie. Cloudways picked up two of the fastest speeds in Virginia and Salt Lake City. SaveInCloud picked up fastest speed in their native Brazil. Raidboxes got the fastest speed in Dubai.
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
Company
PHP Bench
WP Bench
Cloudways
5.796
1597.444089
MechanicWeb
4.644
3663.003663
Nexcess
8.547
441.1116012
Pressable
10.005
1324.503311
raidboxes
8.038
919.9632015
SaveinCloud
10.031
699.790063
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo
10.474
1117.318436
Servebolt
5.9
2217.2949
Simplenet
8.498
1644.736842
SiteGround
9.846
1538.461538
Discussion
MechanicWeb was certainly a stand out getting the fastest score in both PHP and WP Bench.
Raidboxes, SaveInCloud and Simplenet earned A+ 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.
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.
Cloudways had the 4th fastest average response time on the static test. Cloudways had the fastest WPT test in two locations and were a mere 2ms behind 3rd place for fastest average. Cloudways also had the second fastest PHP bench. The uptime issue where Hetrix Tools couldn't connect to any Cloudways servers persisted across every plan while the Uptime Robot monitor showed them all online. Cloudways earned itself an Honorable Mention because the Load Storm test was extremely borderline. It showed some load spikes and they were averaging over 1000ms, but this was incredibly close. Overall, a great job, one of the closest to Top Tier performances I've had to evaluate.
New entrant MechanicWeb came in with servers blazing. MechanicWeb had the fastest PHP and WP Bench scores by a good margin. They were the fastest and second fastest scores across all price tiers respectively. MechanicWeb also had the fastest wp-login response time on the Load Storm test. It handled the static test with ease. It's nice to see a new entrant earn itself Top Tier status and push some of the fastest scores we've ever seen.
Nexcess handled the Load Storm test without much issue, there was one spike but the average response time stayed below 1000ms. The static test was handled without any problem. Nexcess had excellent uptime. While their numbers didn't lead the pack, they quietly had a solid performance earning Top Tier status. Congrats!
Pressable had the fastest average and p95 response times in the static test at a lightning fast 5.8ms and 18ms respectively. Pressable had the second fastest login cumulative average. Pressable had the second fastest WPT test average and was a mere 7ms behind first. Throw in perfect and near perfect uptime monitors and you've got yourself a Top Tier award. Well done.
Raidboxes had excellent uptime. Raidboxes handled the static load test without issue. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test proved to overwhelm the server and caused it to slow down and eventually error out.
SaveinCloud had the fastest WPT score in their native Brazil. They had perfect and near perfect uptime on both monitors. It handled the static test without issue. SaveinCloud's Load Storm test was pretty good but there were a lot of spikes which went over 1000ms which is why it earned an Honorable Mention this year. They are on the cusp of earning Top Tier status.
Scaleforce had the second fastest average (9.3ms) and p95 (28ms) score on the static test. Scaleforce had the 2nd fastest page, asset and wplogin speeds on the Load Storm test. Scaleforce had perfect uptime on both monitors. Scaleforce had the fastest average on WPT including being the fastest or tied for fastest in 6/12 locations. Yet another well earned Top Tier performance for Scaleforce.
Servebolt had the second fastest P95 in the Load Storm Test. It handled the static test easily. It had the third fastest average on the WPT. Great uptime and the second fastest WP bench score easily put them in the Top Tier again. Well done.
Simplenet had the third fastest WP Bench. Simplenet also had perfect and near perfect uptime metrics. It handled the static test without issue. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test proved too much for the plan and it ultimately ended up erroring with increased response times. For a new entrant they did quite well, hopefully they come back next year and earn some recognition.
SiteGround had the fastest P95 and page load speeds on the Load Storm test. SiteGround had the third fastest average and p95 response times in the static test. Overall an excellent performance from SiteGround has put them back in the Top Tier.
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.
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.
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
Company
Uptime Robot
Hetrix
Cloudways
99.998
99.8701
DreamHost
100
99.9995
MechanicWeb
99.998
99.9977
Pressable
99.998
100
Presslabs
100
99.9996
raidboxes
100
99.9991
SaveinCloud
99.851
99.8521
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo
100
100
Servebolt
100
99.9644
WPX
99.906
100
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
Company
Virginia
California
Salt Lake City
London
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Singapore
Mumbai
Tokyo
Sydney
Brazil
Dubai
Average
Cloudways
0.181
0.319
0.356
0.489
0.538
1.189
1.103
1.052
0.81
1.005
0.692
1.043
0.7314166667
DreamHost
0.203
0.421
0.407
0.518
0.769
1.215
1.37
1.098
0.936
1.119
0.691
1.052
0.8165833333
MechanicWeb
0.626
0.82
0.862
0.161
0.193
0.834
1.419
0.736
1.36
1.482
1.054
0.667
0.8511666667
Pressable
0.303
0.236
0.28
0.485
0.223
0.233
0.254
0.264
0.311
0.225
0.347
0.434
0.2995833333
Presslabs
0.163
0.137
0.261
0.163
0.181
0.24
0.157
0.445
0.216
0.62
0.147
0.535
0.2720833333
raidboxes
0.617
0.92
0.865
0.26
0.224
0.884
0.905
0.802
1.28
1.57
1.19
0.703
0.8516666667
SaveinCloud
1.122
1.049
0.975
1.081
1.578
1.822
2.021
2.254
1.844
2.057
0.28
1.875
1.4965
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo
0.301
0.197
0.279
0.236
0.236
0.281
0.22
0.22
0.308
0.15
0.248
0.953
0.3024166667
Servebolt
0.377
0.327
0.428
0.616
0.603
0.969
0.91
0.921
0.835
1.001
0.726
0.987
0.725
WPX
0.186
0.19
0.202
0.124
0.13
0.842
0.143
0.15
0.126
0.162
0.128
0.237
0.2183333333
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
Company
PHP Bench
WP Bench
Cloudways
6.352
1445.086705
DreamHost
10.199
928.5051068
MechanicWeb
4.952
2958.579882
Pressable
9.936
1355.01355
Presslabs
6.942
1180.637544
raidboxes
10.954
952.3809524
SaveinCloud
10.613
711.7437722
Scaleforce powered by Virtuozzo
10.459
1144.16476
Servebolt
5.848
2197.802198
WPX
7.094
2597.402597
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Raidboxes had perfect and near perfect uptime. Raidboxes also handled the static test without issue. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test overwhelmed the server.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Digital Ocean Premium 4GB droplet.
Krystal Hosting and WPX handled this test without issue and despite P95 being above 1000ms, their results were still in Top Tier status because of the geographic bias towards US servers for this metric.
Raidboxes unfortunately slowed down and errored out on this test.
K6 Static Testing Results
K6 Static test is designed to test cached performance by repeatedly requesting the homepage.
WordPress.com edged sister company Pressable out by .1 ms on average and 1ms on the p95 to have the fastest speeds.
WPX, SiteGround and Presslabs were all under 50ms average as well.
There is an impressive amount of performance in this group.
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
Company
Uptime Robot
Hetrix
Cloudways
100
99.8438
GreenGeeks
99.999
99.9988
Krystal Hosting
99.992
99.9897
MDDHosting
100
99.9949
Pressable
99.996
100
Presslabs
100
99.9987
raidboxes
100
99.9996
SiteGround
99.986
99.9995
WordPress.com
100
100
WPX
99.989
100
Discussion
Cloudways ran into the same issue across every server this year where Hetrix Tools showed a short downtime window while Uptime Robot had them online.
Everyone else did excellent or perfect in the uptime department.
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
Company
Virginia
California
Salt Lake City
London
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Singapore
Mumbai
Tokyo
Sydney
Brazil
Dubai
Average
Cloudways
0.215
0.429
0.358
0.44
0.514
1.174
1.197
1.087
0.872
1.117
0.653
1.042
0.7581666667
GreenGeeks
0.266
0.25
0.261
0.354
0.413
0.819
0.696
0.721
0.557
0.629
0.478
0.695
0.5115833333
Krystal Hosting
0.593
0.833
0.76
0.229
0.258
0.824
1.864
1.693
1.93
2.064
1.114
0.706
1.072333333
MDDHosting
0.368
0.244
0.326
0.644
0.768
1.347
1.14
1.389
0.733
0.952
0.897
1.266
0.8395
Pressable
0.307
0.21
0.353
0.235
0.243
0.269
0.255
0.182
0.32
0.2
0.263
0.403
0.27
Presslabs
0.16
0.158
0.264
0.149
0.184
0.245
0.16
0.403
0.288
0.621
0.179
0.582
0.28275
raidboxes
0.566
0.902
0.835
0.235
0.19
0.882
0.867
0.747
1.253
1.514
1.12
0.677
0.8156666667
SiteGround
0.49
0.642
0.517
0.91
0.95
1.738
1.601
1.764
1.299
1.572
1.229
1.627
1.194916667
WordPress.com
0.29
0.341
0.509
0.313
0.281
0.316
0.285
0.237
0.403
0.265
0.294
0.377
0.3259166667
WPX
0.206
0.138
0.193
0.155
0.131
0.84
0.128
0.124
0.131
0.139
0.137
0.264
0.2155
Discussion
WPX was the fastest average and fastest in 9/12 locations.
Presslabs picked up the other 3 fastest speeds and managed third fastest average. Pressable snuck into second fastest average between those two.
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.
GreenGeeks, Presslabs, Raidboxes and WordPress.com all earned A+.
Everyone else earned an A.
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.
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.
Cloudways had perfect uptime on one monitor while Hetrix Tools showed a much lower number across every plan for some reason. Cloudways had the second fastest PHP Bench. Cloudways also handled the Load Storm and Static tests without issue. Given the overall good performance, the only possible detraction is the uptime monitors which showed very different numbers, my third monitoring system broke so I don't have a tie breaker, I will err on the side of good faith. Cloudways put together a Top Tier performance that handled all the tests well.
GreenGeeks had the fastest wp-login speed on the Load Storm test. GreenGeeks had excellent uptime. They also handled the Static test without issue. It's nice to see GreenGeeks earn itself another Top Tier performance.
Krystal had excellent uptime. Krystal also handled the Static test very well. The Load Storm test also went smoothly and despite a p95 above 1000ms, it earned Top Tier status because of the geographic bias towards US based servers. Congrats to Krystal.
MDDHosting tied for second fastest wp-login on the Load Storm test. MDDHosting had perfect and near perfect uptime. MDD did very well on the Static test. MDD also picked up the third fastest PHP Bench score. It is nice to see a company come back with improved services and excel in these tests. Congrats to MDDHosting for earning their first Top Tier award.
Pressable had the second fastest login cumulative average and third fastest P95 on the Load Storm test. Pressable had the second fastest average (6.1ms) and p95 (19ms) in the Static test only .1 and 1 ms behind its sister company. Pressable had perfect and near perfect uptime. Pressable had the second fastest WPT response time average. Pressable has been consistently excellent earning themselves another Top Tier performance.
Presslabs had the fastest login cumulative average, as well as the second fastest P95, Page and wp-login on the Load Storm test. Presslabs had perfect and near perfect uptime. Presslabs had the third fastest WPT average response time. Throw in an excellent Static test and there's very little left to desire from their performance. A well deserved and earned Top Tier performance for Presslabs.
Raidboxes had perfect and near perfect uptime. Raidboxes handled the Static test without issue. Unfortunately the Load Storm test proved to be too much for the server.
SiteGround had the fastest P95 and Page, along with second fastest asset load speeds on the Load Storm test. SiteGround had the third fastest p95 and fourth fastest average response time in the Static test. SiteGround had excellent uptime on both monitors. A great showing from SiteGround earned them another Top Tier award.
WordPress.com had the fastest average and p95 in the Static test with 6ms and 18ms respectively. WordPress.com handled the Load Storm test easily. WordPress.com had perfect uptime on both monitors. WordPress.com also had the second fastest WP Bench. Unquestionably a Top Tier performance from WordPress.com.
WPX had the fastest asset response times on the Load Storm test. WPX had the third fastest average response time and fourth fastest p95 in the Static test. WPX had perfect and near perfect uptimes. WPX had the fastest global response times on WPT. WPX had the fastest PHP and WP Bench scores. WPX overall did an amazing job, and the adjustment for accepting P95 scores slightly above 1000ms was added this year was precisely to recognize companies like WPX. A well deserved Top Tier status.
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 Digital Ocean Premium 1GB droplet.
VapourHost started to show signs of load around 1000 VUsers.
SiteGround picked up the fastest P95 and page load times.
ICDSoft picked up the fastest login cumavg and tied for fastest wp-login with MechanicWeb.
WPX picked up the fastest asset average.
20i, Eco Web Hosting and WPX all had P95 response times over 1000ms but showed no signs of load increasing and were awarded Top Tier status because their server locations potentially favored US locations over other locations for the P95 metric.
K6 Static Testing Results
K6 Static test is designed to test cached performance by repeatedly requesting the homepage.
ManagedWPHosting had a few minor spikes where load time went up.
Everyone else handled the Static test without issue.
It's truly impressive to see how much performance has come along even from the year before where multiple companies seriously struggled with this test.
Pressable had some very fast average and p95 response times at 5.9ms and 18ms respectively.
WPX and SiteGround were not far behind at 15ms and 19ms average response times. 20i and EcoWebHosting were tied at 55ms average response times.
It's almost unbelievable the slowest average response time was a mere 267ms and p95 was 575ms. That means for <$25, you could pick any of the 25 companies tested and your website would be delivering static homepages within a quarter of a second on average globally or in about half a second for the 95th percentile of users. Incredible.
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
Company
Uptime Robot
Hetrix
20i
99.999
100
34SP.com
99.999
99.9943
Cloudways
100
99.8342
DreamHost
99.997
99.9991
EasyWP by Namecheap
99.961
99.9414
Eco Web Hosting
100
100
GoDaddy
99.985
99.9973
GreenGeeks
99.999
99.994
HostXNow
99.99
99.9406
ICDSoft
99.959
99.948
InMotion Hosting
99.988
99.9707
Krystal Hosting
100
100
Lightning Base
99.998
99.9982
ManagedWPHosting
99.999
99.9969
MechanicWeb
99.998
99.9971
Nexcess
99.875
99.8823
Pressable
99.997
100
raidboxes
99.999
99.9981
RSHosting.com
99.969
99.9651
Sailed.io
100
100
SiteGround
99.99
99.9959
VapourHost
99.806
99.8007
WPCycle
99.688
99.6575
WPX
100
100
Discussion
Cloudways had an issue with Hetrix Tools on every plan tested this year which showed very different result because of downtime which Hetrix Tools reported but UptimeRobot had no issues during the window.
Nexcess, VapourHost and WPCycle fell below the 99.9% uptime threshold.
Every other company was above the 99.9% threshold.
20i, EcoWebHosting, Krystal, Pressable, Sailed.io and WPX all reported perfect uptime on at least one monitor.
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
Company
Virginia
California
Salt Lake City
London
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Singapore
Mumbai
Tokyo
Sydney
Brazil
Dubai
Average
20i
0.373
0.216
0.805
0.144
0.222
0.244
0.325
0.718
0.302
0.84
0.687
0.692
0.464
34SP.com
0.625
0.854
0.838
0.223
0.222
0.866
0.93
0.763
1.457
1.437
1.039
0.738
0.8326666667
Cloudways
0.177
0.422
0.344
0.431
0.515
1.23
1.191
1.085
0.895
1.107
0.67
1.017
0.757
DreamHost
0.22
0.419
0.416
0.521
0.799
1.213
1.295
1.08
0.988
1.124
0.718
1.092
0.82375
EasyWP by Namecheap
0.479
0.236
0.356
0.857
0.877
1.582
1.037
1.368
0.811
1.18
1.007
1.39
0.9316666667
Eco Web Hosting
0.329
0.207
0.522
0.165
0.196
0.213
0.322
0.717
0.211
0.832
0.71
0.708
0.4276666667
GoDaddy
0.303
0.471
0.471
0.459
0.47
1.536
1.124
1.396
0.815
1.242
1.031
1.259
0.8814166667
GreenGeeks
0.258
0.246
0.261
0.319
0.495
0.813
0.699
0.721
0.588
0.641
0.482
0.695
0.5181666667
HostXNow
0.53
0.856
0.877
0.202
0.366
0.865
1.5
0.819
1.366
1.504
1.065
0.688
0.8865
ICDSoft
0.273
0.479
0.47
0.592
0.64
1.231
1.425
1.117
1.02
1.204
0.83
1.088
0.8640833333
InMotion Hosting
0.203
0.52
0.399
0.548
0.818
1.425
1.472
1.262
1.205
1.648
0.849
1.252
0.96675
Krystal Hosting
0.22
0.511
0.485
0.49
0.546
1.348
1.318
1.214
1.21
1.416
0.736
1.241
0.8945833333
Lightning Base
0.317
0.342
0.335
0.601
0.791
1.383
1.035
1.327
0.799
1.035
0.848
1.345
0.8465
ManagedWPHosting
0.641
1.009
0.935
0.225
0.159
1.026
1.355
0.867
1.605
1.748
1.275
0.817
0.9718333333
MechanicWeb
0.605
0.821
0.848
0.122
0.189
0.845
1.501
0.768
1.403
1.467
1.105
0.681
0.8629166667
Nexcess
0.33
0.486
0.454
0.55
1.192
1.669
1.34
1.454
1.009
1.618
1.154
1.845
1.09175
Pressable
0.279
0.336
0.318
0.226
0.205
0.286
0.272
0.449
0.309
0.253
0.248
0.482
0.30525
raidboxes
0.603
0.915
0.824
0.183
0.176
0.878
0.924
0.712
1.285
1.539
1.134
0.673
0.8205
RSHosting.com
0.647
0.265
0.238
0.848
0.901
1.499
1.081
1.372
0.788
0.957
1.069
1.427
0.9243333333
Sailed.io
0.227
0.45
0.375
0.472
0.529
1.22
1.214
1.049
0.822
1.123
0.69
1.003
0.7645
SiteGround
0.564
0.637
0.518
0.886
0.972
1.747
1.621
1.77
1.353
1.517
1.203
1.608
1.199666667
VapourHost
0.718
0.925
0.874
0.27
0.209
0.889
0.889
0.727
1.243
1.56
1.214
0.696
0.8511666667
WPCycle
0.333
0.459
0.412
0.626
0.845
1.344
1.28
1.221
0.911
1.165
0.835
1.131
0.8801666667
WPX
0.17
0.165
0.192
0.126
0.138
0.851
0.129
0.147
0.133
0.17
0.128
0.236
0.2154166667
Discussion
WPX had the fastest average response times and was the fastest in 10/12 locations.
MechanicWeb and EcoWebHosting picked up the other two fastest single location scores.
Pressable had the second fastest average and EcoWebHosting the third fastest average.
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
Company
PHP Bench
WP Bench
20i
9.289
489.7159647
34SP.com
12.977
474.3833017
Cloudways
7.523
1007.049345
DreamHost
10.188
773.3952049
EasyWP by Namecheap
9.465
848.1764207
Eco Web Hosting
11.879
369.139904
GoDaddy
12.715
534.1880342
GreenGeeks
14.119
1392.75766
HostXNow
5.077
4032.258065
ICDSoft
10.106
1221.001221
InMotion Hosting
10.698
1461.988304
Krystal Hosting
8.768
1769.911504
Lightning Base
7.975
749.6251874
ManagedWPHosting
13.23
139.0240512
MechanicWeb
5.08
2777.777778
Nexcess
7.734
985.2216749
Pressable
10.006
1349.527665
raidboxes
11.122
435.5400697
RSHosting.com
8.974
309.5975232
Sailed.io
10.341
635.3240152
SiteGround
9.757
1295.336788
VapourHost
6.081
2398.081535
WPCycle
15.634
698.8120196
WPX
6.893
2347.41784
Discussion
HostXNow had the fastest PHP and WP Bench scores which was the fastest WP Bench of any plan this year.
MechanicWeb was neck and neck with HostXNow on the PHP Bench and a clear second place on the WP Bench.
VapourHost had the third fastest PHP and WP Bench scores.
DreamHost, EasyWP (NameCheap), GreenGeeks, ManagedWPHosting, Raidboxes, and WPCycle all scored an A+.
Everyone else scored an A with the exception of InMotionHosting which scored a B.
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.
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.
20i was tied for 4th fastest average response time and 5th fastest p95 on the Static test. 20i handled the Load Storm test with ease and fell under the new evaluation criteria about P95 scores barely above 1000ms but with stable results. 20i also had perfect and 99.999% uptime. A Top Tier performance for the second year in a row.
34SP handled both the Load Storm and Static test without issue. It had near perfect uptime with both monitors showing in excess of 99.99%. In a crowded field it's hard to stand out, but 34SP put up a Top Tier performance without a single error this year. Well done, after two Honorable Mentions in a row, 34SP finally moved up showing that hard work does pay off.
Cloudways handled the Static test with ease. Cloudways had the same uptime monitoring issue with Hetrix Tools on every plan this year but Uptime Robot showed a perfect uptime. Unfortunately, Cloudways struggled with the Load Storm test which caused the server response times to go very high.
DreamHost handled the static test without issue. DreamHost also had excellent uptime with both monitors above 99.99%. Unfortunately, DreamHost had trouble with the Load Storm test which never errored but did slow down beginning around 450 VUsers.
NameCheap has had a difficult year with much of their staff being based in Ukraine and almost didn't complete the tests this year. They reported that they have been under multiple DDoS attacks and it took an incredible effort to find the resources to participate in the benchmarks. Despite all the adversity, EasyWP had the second fastest login average, third fastest page and fourth fastest P95 on the Load Storm test. EasyWP also handled the Static test without any issues. EasyWP stayed above the 99.9% threshold despite the DDoS attacks. These benchmarks have a no withdrawal policy once the benchmarking is done and NameCheap's situation tested the limit of the policy, but instead of a withdrawal, it is with great pride I can give EasyWP by Namecheap a Top Tier award.
Eco Web Hosting was tied for fourth fastest average response time and had fourth fastest p95 on the Static test. Eco Web Hosting picked up the fastest speed in Cape Town on the WPT benchmark and third fastest average. Eco Web Hosting also handled the Load Storm test without issue. Throw in some perfect uptime on both monitors and you've earned a Top Tier award. Congrats.
GoDaddy handled the Static test without issue. GoDaddy also had excellent uptime. GoDaddy mostly handled the Load Storm test well, the only downside was that the wp-login response times were almost 2000ms which kept it out of award contention.
GreenGeeks had the third fastest wp-login on the Load Storm test. GreenGeeks handled the Static test effortlessly. Both uptime monitors showed over 99.99% uptime. Overall, it was a Top Tier performance from Green Geeks.
First time participant HostXNow had the fastest PHP and WP Bench (the fastest of any plan at any price tier). HostXNow also handled the Load Storm and Static test without issue. The blazing fast PHP and WP Bench scores definitely helped this new comer stand out and earn a Top Tier award on their first attempt. Congratulations!
ICDSoft had the fastest login average and tied for fastest wp-login speed, it also had the second fastest page and third fastest p95 on the Load Storm test. ICDSoft was on the faster end of the spectrum on the Static test as well. They kept their uptime above 99.9%. ICDSoft definitely upped their game from last year where they earned an Honorable Mention; this year ICDSoft deserves the Top Tier recognition for their performance. Well done.
InMotion Hosting handled the Static test well. InMotion Hosting also had solid uptime. Unfortunately, there appeared to be some rate limiting blocks on the Load Storm test which caused 429 errors and kept them from earning any recognition this year.
Krystal had perfect uptime. Krystal also handled the Static test easily. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test caused a little stress on the server and slowed down below award recognition levels.
LightningBase handled the Load Storm and Static test without issue. LightningBase had near perfect uptime with both monitors showing above 99.998%. LightningBase is the longest continuous participating company in these benchmarks and it's nice to see them continually do well. They don't always stand out in having the absolute fastest scores or a brand that everyone talks about, but LightningBase has been a model of quiet excellence. LightningBase has earned Top Tier marks from 2014 onwards and this year is no exception. Congrats again on extending the Top Tier streak.
ManagedWPHosting had excellent uptime with both monitors above 99.99%. Unfortunately, the Load Storm and Static test both stressed the server a bit and caused increase response times which keeps them out of award contention.
MechanicWeb tied for the fastest wp-login speed on the Load Storm test. MechanicWeb had the second fastest PHP and WP bench scores. MechanicWeb also had the fastest WPT score in London. MechanicWeb also had excellent uptime with both monitors showing above 99.99%. MechanicWeb also handled the Static test without issue. This first time participant definitely stepped into the ring prepared and put on a good show, congrats on earning Top Tier status MechanicWeb.
Nexcess had the fourth fastest asset and login average speeds on the Load Storm test. Nexcess handled the Static test without any problems. Unfortunately, the uptime fell just below the 99.9% threshold required to earn recognition.
Pressable had the second fastest p95, third fastest asset and login average and fourth fastest page load speed on the Load Storm test. Pressable had the fastest average and p95 on the Static test at a blazing fast 5.9ms and 18ms respectively. Pressable also had perfect and near perfect uptime. Pressable had the second fastest WPT average response time. Pressable put on quite a show of consistently being one of the fastest, well done, Top Tier.
Raidboxes handled the Static test effortlessly. Raidboxes also had near perfect uptime with both monitors showing 99.99%+. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test overwhelmed the server causing slower response times and errors. I hope to see a bounce back next year from Raidboxes.
RSHosting did well on the Static test. RSHosting also kept above the 99.9% uptime threshold. Unfortunately, the Load Storm test started to slow down around 550 VUsers, I hope next year proves the old adage 'Third Time is a Charm' true for RSHosting.
Sailed.io is a first time participant and a bit different from the competition. Sailed.io offers a free and open source platform/tool for you to use to deploy your WordPress sites onto Digital Ocean. They have a premium option with paid support as well, but you're responsible to deploy Sailed onto your own droplets. Sailed.io asked to participate in the benchmarks to show their performance and after some discussion, I accepted and I'm happy to have them. But I also want to make sure readers are aware that Sailed isn't like a traditional WordPress host.
Sailed had perfect uptime. It also handled the Static test without blinking. The Load Storm test did overwhelm the server starting at 900 VUsers where it slowed down a bit. Overall, it was a pretty good first run. For a tool that's available for free to deploy on your own Digital Ocean machines, it certainly puts pressure on the competition.
SiteGround had the fastest P95 and page load speeds along with the second fastest asset response times on the Load Storm test. SiteGround had the second fastest p95 and third fastest average response time on the Static test. Both uptime monitors showed 99.99%+ which is excellent. A definite Top Tier performance from SiteGround.
VapourHost had the third fastest PHP and WP Bench scores. VapourHost handled the Static test without issue. Unfortunately, VapourHost had some issues with uptime and it fell below 99.9%. It also struggled with the Load Storm test around 1000 VUsers. VapourHost showed some promise with some fast PHP/WP Bench scores, hopefully this new comer earns some awards next year.
WPCycle had the fourth fastest wp-login speed on the Load Storm test. WPCycle also handled the Static test without issue. Unfortunately the uptime fell below the 99.9% threshold and kept WPCycle out of award contention. Definitely looks promising performance wise, just needs to make sure it is stable to get an award next year.
WPX had the fastest asset load times on the Load Storm test. WPX had the second fastest average response time and third fastest p95 on the Static test. WPX had the fastest average response time in WPT and had fastest single location score in 10/12 locales. WPX did very well and earned itself Top Tier status again.
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.
WooCommerce Hosting Performance Benchmarks is spawned off WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks and is designed to create a consistent set of benchmarks showing how WooCommerce specialized web hosting companies perform. The focus of these tests is performance, not support, not features, not any other dimension. These benchmarks should be looked at in combination with other sources of information when making any hosting decision. Review Signal’s web hosting reviews has insights for some of the companies with regards to aspects beyond performance. That said, for the performance conscious, these benchmarks should be a good guide.
The major differences from the WordPress methodology are the following:
Setup
All tests were performed on an identical WooCommerce dummy website with the same plugins except in cases where hosts added extra plugins or code. The Storefront theme was used with the following sample products. The following Plugins were installed: WooCommerce, and WP Performance Tester.
k6 Load Storm
The process for LoadStorm was the unique WooCommerce specific test emulated from last year into k6. There were four different profiles created and given their own user distributions (in % after profile), all with 5-10 second page think time. The test scaled from 4 to 1000 concurrent users over 40 minutes and stayed at 1,000 concurrent users for 20 minutes (60 minute test, 20 minute peak).
Profile 1 (20%): Buyer – Homepage, add item to cart, go to cart, checkout (doesn’t submit order)
SiteGround had good looking tests, just the response time was a little on the slower side with p95 of 1071 and 3/4 profiles loading over 1000ms on average.
Cloudways started slowing down around 200 VUsers with errors kicking in around 450 which is when login stopped functioning.
Nexcess and Raidboxes both started slowing down around 600 VUsers.
SaveinCloud actually had a great run if you removed a 3 minute window where auto scaling started kicking in. The auto scaling caused some errors/load time increases while getting started, but once it was running the performance was solid and completely recovered.
Load Storm Average Response Time by Profile
This takes deeper look at the results and analyzes the performance of loading HTML mime types, to ignore a lot of static assets which are cached and bring down average response times. This tests how fast the initial pages are delivered, which is what a user would experience before loading all the other assets like css, javascript and images.
Results Table
Company
Buyer Profile
Customer Profile
Browser Profile
Home Profile
Cart Response Cumavg
Cloudways
51967
50943
49663
51455
7416
GreenGeeks
727
643
623
607
155
ICDSoft
423
411
419
453
164
Nexcess
7423
7231
3962
6911
2586
Pressable
563
401
250
299
204
raidboxes
7167
6911
6175
6527
3852
SaveinCloud
911
639
607
555
377
Servebolt
495
429
403
369
216
SiteGround
1279
1055
855
1031
805
WordPress.com
987
651
373
431
344
Cloudways is the unfortunate standpoint with their response times nearly maxing out.
Nexcess and Raidboxes also slowed down a significant amount on every profile.
Pressable had 3/4 fastest profiles.
Servebolt was consistent top 3 in every profile.
ICDSoft was the fastest in one profile and top 3 in another.
WordPress.com was in the top 3 twice.
GreenGeeks had the fastest cart response time.
K6 Static Testing Results
K6 Static test is designed to test cached performance by repeatedly requesting the homepage.
GreenGeeks, Pressable, Raidboxes, SaveInCloud, Servebolt, SiteGround, and WordPress.com all handled this test without issue.
Cloudways and ICDSoft started getting a few minor spikes towards the end of the test, but nothing major.
Nexcess struggled towards the end of the test with response times exceeding 2000ms.
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
Company
Uptime Robot
Hetrix
Cloudways
99.985
99.8499
GreenGeeks
99.992
99.9895
ICDSoft
99.957
99.9476
Nexcess
99.89
99.8951
Pressable
99.997
100
raidboxes
99.99
99.9882
SaveinCloud
99.85
99.8476
Servebolt
99.998
99.9657
SiteGround
100
99.9942
WordPress.com
100
100
Discussion
GreenGeeks, ICDSoft, Pressable, Raidboxes, Servebolt, SiteGround, and WordPress.com all had good uptime.
Nexcess and SaveInCloud fell just below the 99.9% threshold expected.
Cloudways showed good uptime on one monitor while the second showed good uptime. The issue seemed to be resolving the hostname from HetrixTools. Unfortunately, I don't a third monitor to tie break in this instance.
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
Company
Virginia
California
Salt Lake City
London
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Singapore
Mumbai
Tokyo
Sydney
Brazil
Dubai
Average
Cloudways
0.574
0.912
0.994
1.019
1.081
2.25
2.239
2.053
1.591
2.053
1.249
2.5
1.542916667
GreenGeeks
0.366
0.393
0.425
0.492
0.586
1.061
1.001
1.03
0.885
0.856
0.693
1.065
0.73775
ICDSoft
0.698
0.901
1.037
0.954
1.152
2.071
2.435
1.901
1.622
1.996
1.274
2.257
1.524833333
Nexcess
0.761
0.87
1.042
1.002
1.542
2.154
1.737
1.817
1.39
2.002
1.537
2.462
1.526333333
Pressable
0.741
0.667
0.933
0.906
0.622
0.91
0.754
1.118
0.886
0.664
0.726
1.403
0.8608333333
raidboxes
1.195
1.552
1.389
0.697
0.57
1.633
1.65
1.25
2.323
2.807
2.117
2.112
1.607916667
SaveinCloud
1.604
1.839
1.676
1.956
2.221
3.038
3.452
3.79
3.087
3.519
0.722
2.977
2.490083333
Servebolt
0.806
0.645
0.946
1.028
0.985
1.54
1.361
1.394
1.125
1.389
1.256
2.448
1.243583333
SiteGround
1.153
0.923
1.218
1.124
1.204
2.274
1.441
1.823
1.383
1.485
1.885
2.935
1.570666667
WordPress.com
0.612
0.551
0.873
0.588
0.608
0.915
0.644
0.602
0.999
0.617
0.638
1.736
0.7819166667
Discussion
GreekGeeks is the surprising standout this year with the fastest average response time globally and notching itself 6/12 fastest response times.
WordPress.com was fastest in 4/12 locations with sister company Pressable just edging it out by 5ms in Cape Town. German company Raidboxes picked up the final fastest location out of their home country with the fastest speed in Frankfurt.
What is impressive is the fastest average time last year was 1.15, this year it was .73 (GreenGeeks) with two more companies - Pressable/WordPress.com - coming in faster than fastest average last year. The second slowest average (1.6) would be the third fastest speed the previous year.
Everyone, especially consumers, looks like a winner given the historical context.
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
Company
PHP Bench
WP Bench
Cloudways
7.568
963.3911368
GreenGeeks
14.88
1148.105626
ICDSoft
10.152
1426.533524
Nexcess
7.732
966.1835749
Pressable
10.13
1356.852103
raidboxes
7.964
737.4631268
SaveinCloud
10.914
560.2240896
Servebolt
5.839
2178.649237
SiteGround
9.406
1468.428781
WordPress.com
9.647
2463.054187
Discussion
Version 2 of the plugin was used, so we cannot compare against previous years.
Servebolt was the fastest by a decent margin on the PHP Bench.
GreenGeeks was the slowest with a score almost 3 times as high as Servebolt. It does show us that raw CPU doesn't necessarily translate to the best performance though.
WordPress.com had the fastest WP Bench with Servebolt not too far behind.
Cloudways, Nexcess, Raidboxes and SaveInCloud had the slowest WP Bench scores, which interesting correlated with who struggled on the Load Storm test (although SaveInCloud's autoscaling handled it). A database heavy system like WooCommerce might have more correlation with WP Bench scores in terms of performance.
In the words of Oprah, you get an A, you get an A, you get an A.
Everyone gets an A.
GreenGeeks, Raidboxes and WordPress.com all got A+.
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.
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.
Cloudways had a pretty good static test, a few bumps but nothing much to complain about there. Cloudways unfortunately struggled tremendously on the WooCommerce (Load Storm) test. I can't help but wonder if the low WP Bench score correlates with difficulty on the WooCommerce test. Would a faster CPU/DB help?
A huge congratulations to GreenGeeks who elevated from Honorable Mention to Top Tier status this year. After being on the edge previously, they continued to improve. GreenGeeks had the second fastest Asset/Login CumAvg and the fastest wp login. However, the biggest surprise was GreenGeeks had the fastest WPT test average and was the fastest in half the testing locations. Well done.
First time participant ICDSoft made quite a splash this year. The WooCommerce test had ICDSoft with fastest Login CumAvg and buyer profile. It was also pretty consistently in the top 4 on most of the other metrics on that test. It did respectably in all the other tests. The only minor issue was the static test, the average response time started go over 1000ms towards the very end of the test. ICDSoft earned itself a very honorable mention.
Nexcess had the third fastest PHP bench score. Overall, nexcess had another difficult year on these bechmarks Both load tests caused some struggles and the uptime fell just below the 99.9% threshold. I hope to see some big improvements next year.
Pressable's third Top Tier performance in a row. Consistent excellence. The fastest p95 and the fastest in 3/4 WooCommerce profiles. The second fastest Static load speeds. 100% and 99.99+% on uptime monitors. They had third fastest WPT average. Undoubtedly Top Tier.
The bright spots for Raidboxes were they were the fastest response time in Frankfurt, Germany. They also had excellent uptime and an A+ rating on their SSL certificate. The static load test was also very good, it was perfectly flat showing zero signs of stress. The less fortunate side was it struggled tremendously with the WooCommerce (Load Storm) load test quite a lot.
SaveInCloud's first foray into the WooCommerce benchmark was a mixed experience. The WooCommerce (LoadStorm) test showed so much promise, if we simply removed a 3 minute window of auto scaling it would have been excellent. But the auto scaling did cause errors and load time increases. There looks to be a lot of potential in SaveInCloud's product, hopefully next year it will come back and earn Top Tier honors.
Servebolt earning Top Tier status shouldn't come as any surprise. They've been one of the most consistent Top Tier performers in these benchmarks. Servebolt had the fastest PHP Bench, the second fastest WP Bench. Their load tests had the strange pattern of actually getting faster as the test sent more users. They were in the top 3 for every different customer profile and had the second fastest p95 in the Woo specific load test. Easily a Top Tier performance.
Overall a great performance from SiteGround this year. It had the third fastest static load speeds. It had 100% and 99.99+% uptime. It had the third fastest WP Bench. The only knock on SiteGround was the p95 and some of the profiles in the WooCommerce test just went over 1000ms. SiteGround has earned itself a very Honorable Mention this year.
The fastest p95 on the static test at 21ms shows WordPress.com's global caching is excellent. WordPress.com also had the fastest Page load speeds (PageCumAvg). The only company with perfect uptime on both monitor. The fastest WP Bench. The second fastest WPT average and fastest in 33% of locations. Another well deserved Top Tier award for WordPress.com.
