When choosing the fastest WordPress hosting provider for your website, speed is a crucial factor to consider. A slow website can negatively impact your website’s performance in several ways. Firstly, a slow-loading website could lead to losing potential customers, a risk no business owner wants to take. High bounce rates, as measured by website metrics, often indicate a slow-loading website.
Additionally, a slow website can hurt your search engine rankings. Google uses core web vitals such as speed index, time to first byte (TTFL), and more to evaluate the quality of websites and determine their placement on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Because of these factors, ensuring your website loads quickly is crucial to avoid these common problems. In this post, we’ll provide you with our top three fastest WordPress hosting providers so you can decide which company to choose. Let’s dive in.
The Key Factors That Define the Fastest WordPress Hosting
When it comes to WordPress hosting speed, several factors come into play. Firstly, the hardware running the hosting service must be top-notch. This usually includes ample amounts of RAM, high-end central processing units (CPUs), solid-state drives (SSD), or advanced technologies such as LiteSpeed, all of which work together to create a blazing-fast hosting experience.
Additionally, it’s crucial to consider whether the host employs a content delivery network (CDN), which can speed up content delivery to your site’s visitors by storing multiple copies of your files in the cloud. Lastly, the fastest web hosts typically offer speed-enhancing features such as object caching, CSS, HTML, and javascript minification, and load balancing.
The WordPress Hosting Providers We Tested
Aside from the three fastest WordPress hosts featured in this post, we tested a dozen other providers. While they all performed relatively well in our tests, their results weren’t as impressive as our top three.
Some of the other hosts we tested were:
- Green Geeks: Check out our in-depth Green Geeks review
- WP Engine: Check out our WP Engine managed hosting review
- DreamHost: Our overall best VPS hosting pick
- HostGator: Read our HostGator managed hosting review
- GoDaddy: a well-known, cheap WordPress hosting provider
- Flywheel: A managed WordPress host that specializes in reseller hosting
- Hostinger: One of the best cloud hosting providers
- Bluehost: Read our overview and review
- Ionos (1&1): A big name in dedicated WordPress hosting
- Kinsta: Read our review for this managed hosting provider
- InMotion Hosting: Read our in-depth overview for a highly-regarded budget hosting option
- WPX: One of the best managed WordPress hosting providers you’ve probably never heard of
For this post, we focused on the top three rather than all, primarily because we wanted to showcase scores for the highest-rated, most popular web hosts. Plus, having too many choices can be overwhelming.
The Tools We Used to Measure the Fastest WordPress Hosts
To evaluate the speed of each host, we employed the WordPress Hosting Benchmark plugin. This tool, executed from within PHP, allowed us to determine the processing time of each host’s server by measuring CPU and memory speed, data retrieval time from the filesystem and database, and testing the object cache and network speed. However, we opted not to enable the object caching metric, as the author of the plugin has experienced mixed results. That said, we spoke directly with the plugin’s developer, who assured us that he’s aware of the issues with object caching and plans to address these issues in upcoming updates.
Additionally, we relied on the WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks website, which conducts a comprehensive assessment of each host’s setup. This assessment includes load testing, uptime monitoring, K6 static testing to evaluate server caching by repeatedly testing the home page, a web page test to measure how long it takes to load the home page from 12 different global locations, and the WPPerformanceTester, which measures how many WordPress queries and PHP database operations a site can handle per second.
3 Fastest WordPress Hosting Companies
Aside from the two benchmarking tools we used, we also considered a couple of other factors, including the number of positive reviews and the number of features you get with their WordPress hosting plans. So, without delay, let’s dive into our top picks for the fastest WordPress hosting your hard-earned money can buy.
1. SiteGround
Coming into the top spot on our list of fastest WordPress hosts is SiteGround. Overall, the scores were quite impressive. This is primarily due to how SiteGround’s servers are configured.
Some of the more notable performance features of SiteGround are:
- Based on Google Cloud
- Latest version of PHP, Brotli compression
- Custom PHP that reduces TTFL (available on Grow Big and GoGeek plans only)
- Utilizes the SG Optimizer plugin
- Custom MySQL setup
- Nginx server
- Free CDN
SiteGround offers a premium Google Cloud hosting setup customized to optimize website speed. This unique setup utilizes custom implementations of PHP and MySQL, resulting in an impressive average time to first byte (TTFL) that is 30% faster than its competitors. To further enhance site speed, every website hosted on SiteGround comes equipped with SG Optimizer, a robust site caching plugin that provides dynamic caching to store your content on the Nginx server’s memory, enabling faster access. SiteGround also offers file-based caching, which generates static HTML versions of your site that are displayed to users. Additionally, the Memcached object caching feature stores frequently executed database queries and reuse them to speed up your site.
To top it all off, SiteGround offers minification of CSS, javascript, and HTML, customizable settings to fit your preferences, Brotli compression – a faster alternative to Gzip, and a free Cloudflare CDN.
These features are evident in our testing, providing some impressive scores. Let’s dive into SiteGround’s test results so you can see for yourself.
WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmark Results
SiteGround has impressive performance numbers, with a P95 response time of just 126ms and no HTTP failures, even when subjected to a high peak RPS of 303.75 requests per second based on 351,276 requests, good enough for the top spot on our list.
The K6 static test pushed SiteGround further with 442,044 requests. Yet, it still delivered a fantastic P95 response time of only 67ms and no HTTP failures.
SiteGround’s uptime is close to perfect, hovering around 99.99%. However, its WebPageTest results were mixed. If you access a site hosted on SiteGround from the United States, London, or Germany, you’ll see a full page load in under one second. But SiteGround struggled in other locations, such as Cape Town, Singapore, and Tokyo, with an average load time of 1.5 seconds. While not terrible, this is slower than Pressable.
Regarding the WPPerformanceTester, SiteGround scored a slightly better PHP Bench result than Pressable, with a score of 10.006. However, it didn’t perform as well as Pressable in the WordPress Bench test, with a score of 1295.3.
WordPress Hosting Benchmark Plugin Results
For our testing with the plugin, we used a simple setup with the Twenty Twenty-Three theme and no active plugins. We created 20 blog posts and 5 pages using the FakerPress plugin to simulate a simple informational website.
After conducting five tests with the benchmarking plugin, it’s evident that SiteGround is built on a speedy infrastructure. In fact, it outperformed all other hosting providers on our list when importing large quantities of data into the database and matched them evenly in all other categories. As a result, when we combined the scores from the benchmarking website and plugin, SiteGround emerged as the undisputed champion on our list of fastest WordPress hosts.
➡️ Read Our Complete SiteGround Hosting Review.
2. Pressable
The second host on our list, Pressable, had the second-best overall score of our top three on the WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks website. This is no surprise considering the performance features available through them:
- 100% uptime guarantee
- Free global CDN
- Managed, optimized hosting for WordPress
- Cloud-based platform
- Automatic failover
While most web hosts offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee, Pressable takes it up a notch by providing an impressive 100% uptime guarantee. It also utilizes an automatic failover process that switches to a backup server or network in case of any issues. Additionally, Pressable offers managed hosting that’s tailored specifically for WordPress. Since WordPress is built upon PHP, hosting requires a different setup than standard HTML hosting. Pressable’s cloud-based server, robust performance monitoring, and optimized WordPress hosting make it an excellent choice for hosting your WordPress site.
Let’s break down the results from both of our testing platforms so you can gain insight into how fast Pressable really is.
WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmark Results
Pressable performed exceptionally well during a LoadStorm test, which simulated uncached users hitting the website, logging in, and browsing. The test generated 425,398 requests over just over thirty minutes, with peak requests per second of nearly 360, yet there were zero HTTP failures. Pressable also achieved an impressive P95 response time of just 321ms, demonstrating its ability to simultaneously handle a high volume of visitors.
Pressable aced the K6 static test, which involved repeatedly requesting the website’s home page for 15 minutes. It handled 447,740 requests without any HTTP failures, with a peak RPS of 986 and an incredible response time of only 19ms. Overall, Pressable performed impressively, showcasing its robustness and ability to handle any challenge.
We conducted a performance test on Pressable to evaluate its ability to handle WordPress functions. The test included stress-testing PHP, MySQL, and WordPress databases to determine the queries per second. Pressable demonstrated an impressive PHP bench score of 10.0006 and a robust WordPress bench score of over 1349. This test showcased Pressable’s ability to handle tons of queries efficiently, making it a viable option.
We also evaluated Pressable’s uptime and conducted a web page test, which fully loads the home page and measures the loading time from different global locations. Pressable received a perfect uptime score of 100 and loaded the home page in less than a second, regardless of the location.
WordPress Hosting Benchmark Plugin Results
To further examine Pressable’s performance, we conducted several tests. Firstly, we installed the benchmark plugin to assess its CPU and memory performance, filesystem response, and database. Additionally, we conducted a network download speed test.
Overall, Pressable performed exceptionally well. Its network speed test showed an impressive 1.7-second response time. Simple queries on the database were speedy as well. However, importing extensive data took 4.2 seconds, which could be improved. Despite this, Pressable scored 8.2 out of 10, showcasing its strong performance.
➡️ Read Our Complete Pressable Hosting Review.
3. Cloudways
Cloudways rounds out our top three fastest hosting providers. While it scores highly in most categories, we did observe some struggles when over 300 virtual users accessed the site simultaneously. However, it’s worth noting that WPHostingBenchmarks conducted their tests on Cloudways’ lowest-tiered plan, which may explain this issue. Additionally, their test server had only 1GB of RAM, which is generally insufficient to support a WordPress website. To address this, we further tested the next highest-tiered plan to level the playing field.
Let’s take a deeper dive into Cloudways and the performance attributes it offers:
- Varnish cache onboard
- Redis object caching
- Build on cloud infrastructure
- Dynamic caching through Memcached
- PHP caching with PHP-FPM
Cloudways stands out from other hosting providers by offering customizable features you can add as needed. With options like Varnish, Redis, and Memcached, your websites can perform at lightning-fast speeds. You can choose from five cloud-based web hosts – Google, AWS, DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr – to find the best fit for your business. And you can personalize your WordPress environment by setting the RAM, bandwidth, and storage to your unique specifications.
Our tests used a Cloudways plan that included 1GB RAM, 25GB hard drive space, and 1TB bandwidth. This is equivalent to 75% of the other providers we tested. So, let’s delve into the results so you can see how Cloudways fared against other hosting providers on our list.
WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmark Results
As previously mentioned, these results are skewed due to the lowest-priced plan being used. However, it’s still a good indication of what you can expect with Cloudways, especially if you choose their bargain basement setup. During the LoadStorm test, Cloudways struggled a bit. Unfortunately, it recorded 229 HTTP failures throughout the test, with failures popping up once the server gained more than 300 virtual users. With the 160,790 requests made, the average P95 response time was 21,119 ms, which could be better.
However, Cloudways did much better on the K6 cached testing, with zero failures out of 368,873 requests, with a P95 response time of 467ms, which is much better than the uncached LoadStorm test conducted. This goes to show how beneficial good caching can be. For the uptime test, Cloudways fared quite well, with an overall score of 100% through Uptime Robot and 99.8342% on Hetrix, which is pretty darned good.
Finally, the PHP bench results were slightly better than Pressable and SiteGround, with a score of 7.523, good enough for the top spot on our list. However, the WordPress bench scores were the worst, coming in at 1007.
WordPress Hosting Benchmark Plugin Results
When testing with the benchmarking plugin, we opted for a slightly different setup than the lowest-priced plan. For this test, we chose the next highest (recommended) minimum plan for WordPress, which consists of 2 GB RAM, 50GB hard drive storage, and 5TB of bandwidth on a DigitalOcean cloud server. With these specs, Cloudways sailed through testing with an attitude. The only score under acceptable levels was the database import metric. Still, some of our other hosts also struggled with that. Of the top three hosting providers, Cloudways scored the best on the plugin benchmarking test.
➡️ Read Our Complete Cloudways Hosting Review.
Which is the Fastest WordPress Hosting Provider Overall?
As a result of our testing, we can confidently say that SiteGround deserves the top spot on our fastest WordPress hosting list.
| SiteGround | Pressable | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $14.99/month | $25/month | $12/month |
| Number of Requests | 442044 | 447740 | 368873 |
| HTTP Failures | 0 | 0 | 229 |
| LoadStorm | 126ms | 321ms | 21 119ms |
| K6 Static | 67ms | 18ms | 467ms |
| Uptime | 99.9% | 100% | 99.8% |
| PHP Bench | 9.757 | 10.006 | 7.523 |
| WordPress Bench | 1295.3 | 1349.5 | 1007 |
| Trustpilot Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Read SiteGround reviews |
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Read Pressable reviews |
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Read Cloudways reviews |
| Visit | Visit | Visit |
Our findings indicate that SiteGround outperformed the competition in multiple essential areas, including scoring the highest on the LoadStorm test, maintaining an impressive uptime record, and recording zero HTTP errors during our testing. While we acknowledge the impressive capabilities of Pressable and Cloudways, SiteGround’s exceptional performance establishes it as the clear winner in the fastest WordPress hosting category.
Are you looking for more hosting reviews? Check out our picks for the 10 best WordPress hosting options for 2023.
The post 3 Fastest WordPress Hosting Companies in 2023 (Tested) appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.