Krystal Hosting

Krystal Hosting

Company Profile & Results

Krystal was created in 2002 to be an “honest, reliable and personal” alternative to large, faceless web hosting corporations. We offer thousands of ambitious, discerning businesses master-crafted technology and intelligent support, backed by an ethical approach to business. Krystal also exists as a vehicle for positive change. We’ve pledged 1 billion trees by 2030 and offset the lifetime carbon footprint of our entire workforce. We’re founders of the Million Tree Pledge, run on 100% renewable energy and are currently B Corp Pending.
Disclaimer: Descriptions are provided by the company.

Historical Performance Summary

Year<$25$25-50$51-100$101-200$201-500Enterprise ($500+)Woo Commerce
2023
2022
2021
2020
- Top Tier - Honorable Mention - No award

2023 WordPress Results

<$25/Month Summary

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.

$25-50/Month Summary

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.

LoadStorm

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

K6

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

WebPageTest

WebPageTest fully loads the homepage and records how long it takes from 12 different locations around the world.

Uptime

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.

WPPerformanceTester

WPPerformanceTester performs two benchmarks. One is a WordPress (WP Bench) and the other a PHP benchmark. 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. WP Bench is red in the chart, PHP Bench is blue.

SSL

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

CompanyQualsys SSL Grade
Krystal Hosting 2023 25A
Krystal Hosting 2023 50A

2022 WordPress Results

<$25/Month Summary

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.

$25-50/Month Summary

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.

LoadStorm

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

K6

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

WebPageTest

WebPageTest fully loads the homepage and records how long it takes from 12 different locations around the world.

Uptime

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.

WPPerformanceTester

WPPerformanceTester performs two benchmarks. One is a WordPress (WP Bench) and the other a PHP benchmark. 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. WP Bench is red in the chart, PHP Bench is blue.

SSL

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

CompanyQualsys SSL Grade
Krystal Hosting 2022 25A
Krystal Hosting 2022 50A

2021 WordPress Results

<$25/Month Summary

Krystal is back for it's second time. The positive was maintaining 99.9%+ uptime. The Load Tests both seemed to slow it down at this price tier though. There's definitely room for improvement and they've shown they can deliver it before.

$25-50/Month Summary

Krystal's second year, this product was named Onyx last year and run under a separate brand which has been brought back into the parent company. Krystal earned Top Tier status. It was above 99.9% threshold for uptime. It handled the load tests without slowing down at all. It didn't stand out amongst its Top Tier peers but delivered a solid performance which may because of the UK focus, as the tests from outside European locations weren't as fast as some more globally focused brands.

LoadStorm

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

K6

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

WebPageTest

WebPageTest fully loads the homepage and records how long it takes from 12 different locations around the world.

Uptime

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.

WPPerformanceTester

WPPerformanceTester performs two benchmarks. One is a WordPress (WP Bench) and the other a PHP benchmark. 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. WP Bench is red in the chart, PHP Bench is blue.

SSL

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

CompanyQualsys SSL Grade
Krystal Hosting 2021 25A
Krystal Hosting 2021 50A

Internet.nl

The tool is available at https://internet.nl/test-site/.

Mozilla Observatory

The tool is available at https://observatory.mozilla.org/.

CompanyMozilla Observatory
Krystal Hosting 2021 25F
Krystal Hosting 2021 50F

2020 WordPress Results

<$25/Month Summary

A second year entrant that almost earned honorable mention status last year, got over the hump and earned honorable mention status this year. The struggle was the Load Impact test again where last year it seemed to cause a bit too much stress, this year it was nearly under control with a spike keeping it just out of Top Tier status. The continued improvement from Krystal is excellent to see and I hope to see them be Top Tier next year.

$25-50/Month Summary

This UK brand (owned by Krystal Hosting) earned itself their first Top Tier honors ever. Dedicated to Managed WordPress Hosting, the new offering really showed off well with near perfect uptime of 100 and 99.998%. It was also the fastest in London and Frankfurt on WebPageTest.

LoadStorm

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

K6

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

WebPageTest

WebPageTest fully loads the homepage and records how long it takes from 12 different locations around the world.

Uptime

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.

WPPerformanceTester

WPPerformanceTester performs two benchmarks. One is a WordPress (WP Bench) and the other a PHP benchmark. 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. WP Bench is red in the chart, PHP Bench is blue.

SSL

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

CompanyQualsys SSL Grade
Krystal Hosting 2020 25A
Onyx (Krystal Hosting) 2020 50A

About the Author

Kevin Ohashi

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

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