Sponsored by LoadStorm. The easy and cost effective load testing tool for web and mobile applications.
2018 WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks is now live.
This is the fourth round of managed WordPress web hosting performance testing. You can see the original, 2014 version , and 2015 version.
Go Directly to the Results
<$25/Month Tier$25-50/Month Tier$51-100/Month Tier$101-200/Month Tier$201-500/Month Tier$500+/Month (Enterprise) Tier
Companies Tested
A2 Hosting [Reviews]
BlueHost [Reviews]
CloudWays [Reviews]
Conetix
DreamHost [Reviews]
FlyWheel [Reviews]
GoDaddy [Reviews]
Incendia Web Works
Kinsta
LightningBase
LiquidWeb [Reviews]
MediaTemple [Reviews]
Pagely [Reviews]
Pantheon [Reviews]
Pressable (Formerly ZippyKid)
Pressed.net
Pressidium
Pressjitsu
PressLabs
Hosting Agency (German)
SiteGround [Reviews]
Traffic Planet Hosting
WordPress.com VIP
WPEngine [Reviews]
WP.land
WPOven.com
Companies that didn't participate this round but did on previous rounds: WebHostingBuzz, WPPronto, Nexcess, A Small Orange [Reviews] and WebSynthesis [Reviews].
Every plan was donated by the company for testing purposes with the strict stipulation that it would be the same as if any normal user signed up. There is a notes section at the bottom that details the minutiae of changes made to plans at the end of this post. Nearly every single company had security issues that I had to get around, so they worked to make sure my testing went through properly. Load testing often looks like an attack and it's the only way I can do these tests.
The Products
This year is a bit different than years past where every company and plan competed against one another. When I started the price gap was from $5/month to $29/month. Last year the gap was $5.95 to $299. I was only testing entry level plans but the market has dramatically changed since I first got started. Today, there is demand at many different price points and lots of companies have gone upscale with WordPress.com VIP at the top of the price bracket starting at $5,000/month. The only logical way to break things up was by price brackets. So below you will see the brackets and which companies participated. Specific details will be included on each bracket's write up.
| <$25/m | $25-50/m | $51-100/m | $101-200/m | $201-500/m | $500+/m |
| A2 Hosting | A2 Hosting | LiquidWeb | A2 Hosting | Kinsta | Kinsta |
| Bluehost | Conetix | Bluehost | Bluehost | Media Temple | Pagely |
| DreamHost LLC | Lightning Base | Cloudways (AWS ) | Conetix | Pagley | Pantheon |
| Flywheel | Pantheon | Cloudways (Google) | Kinsta | Pantheon | Pressable |
| GoDaddy | Pressable | Kinsta | Liquid Web | Pressable | Pressidium |
| Incendia Web Works | Pressjitsu | Lightning Base | Pressable | Pressidium | WordPress.com VIP |
| Lightning Base | SiteGround | Media Temple | Pressidium | Presslabs | WP Engine |
| Media Temple | WP Engine | Pagely | Pressjitsu | SiteGround | |
| Pressed | WP.land | Pantheon | |||
| Hosting Agency.de | Cloudways (DigitalOcean) | Pressable | |||
| SiteGround | Cloudways (Vultr) | Pressidium | |||
| Traffic Planet Hosting | WPOven | SiteGround | |||
| WP.land |
See The Results
<$25/Month Tier$25-50/Month Tier$51-100/Month Tier$101-200/Month Tier$201-500/Month Tier$500+/Month (Enterprise) Tier
Methodology
The question I tried to answer is how well do these WordPress hosting services perform? I tested each company on two distinct measures of performance: peak performance and consistency. I've also included a compute and database benchmark based on a WordPress plugin.
All tests were performed on an identical WordPress dummy website with the same plugins except in cases where hosts added extra plugins. Each site was monitored for approximately two months for consistency.
1. LoadStorm
LoadStorm was kind enough to give me resources to perform load testing on their platform and multiple staff members were involved in designing and testing these WordPress hosts. I created identical scripts for each host to load a site, login to the site and browse the site. Logged in users were designed to break some of the caching and better simulate real user load. The amount of users varies by cost.
2. Blitz.io
I used Blitz again to compare against previous results. This tests the static caching of the homepage. I increased the number of users based on monthly cost this time.
3. Uptime (UptimeRobot and StatusCake)
Consistency matters. I wanted to see how well these companies performed over a longer period of time. I used two separate uptime monitoring services over the course of a month to test consistency.
WebPageTest with 9 runs, first view only, native connection. I tested from Dulles, Denver, Los Angeles, London, Frankfurt, South Africa, Singapore, Shanghai, Japan, Sydney, Brazil.
5. WPPerformanceTester (free plugin on WordPress.org)
I created a WordPress plugin to benchmark CPU, MySql and WordPress DB performance. The CPU/MySql benchmarks are testing the compute power. The WordPress component tests actually calling $wpdb and executing insert, select, update and delete queries.
Notes - Changes made to Hosting Plans
A2 - VPS Servers can't install WordPress out of the box without extra payment for Softaculous. Disabled recaptcha.
Conetix - disabled WordFence and Stream plugins.
SiteGround - fully enable SuperCacher plugin
GoDaddy - 24 database connection limit increased if you notify them of heavy load
CloudWays - disabled WordFence
See The Results
<$25/Month Tier$25-50/Month Tier$51-100/Month Tier$101-200/Month Tier$201-500/Month Tier$500+/Month (Enterprise) Tier
Kevin Ohashi
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Good service LoadStorm
Awesome breakdown Kevin, I admire your quest for transparency —
If you’re ever interested in testing LittleBizzy, we’d be happy to provide you with a test account to benchmark the consistency of our plans — from $20 to $160, every site we host is on a dedicated VPS (and IP address).
Cheers and best regards!
If you’re interested in participating next year email me kevin at reviewsignal.com. Ill add you to my list.
I can’t say how much I appreciate not just the time and care you put into building your tests but also the very helpful way you’ve ranked them by pricing tier.
It’s particularly helpful seeing where hosting companies rank in multiple tiers. Most of my clients are small to midsize, mostly local businesses who’s online presences may grow but probably won’t have to worry about scaling up multiple tiers. But for clients with more aggressive ambitions, and marketing budgets, it’s really nice being able to see at a glance which hosts are likely to be able to handle lots of growth.
Genuinely impressive review, Kevin. Thank you!
Thanks David!
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Kevin,
I am so glad I found your site! I have never seen anyone put the care you have into testing hosting companies. This is excellent work, and you’ve certainly done your homework. I have been a long time Bluehost customer, but as I grow I am considering other options. Thanks so much for this!
Thanks James. Hope this helps you if you decide to move 🙂
Good work Kevin. Appreciate your efforts in bringing these WordPress hosting benchmarks. Cloudways has released its public API. Would love to know your feedback
I haven’t used it and don’t have any comment at the moment.
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Would love to see how my host Nexcess stacks up in this comparison.
They participated last year but didn’t opt-in this year. See last year: https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2015/07/28/wordpress-hosting-performance-benchmarks-2015/
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Good, information, but still I am confused about the best host, Dreamhost is Good, when I have hosted my sites on Dreamhost, rank of my websites in Google was really nice but when I moved to Hostgator, it fall badly… I need something like hetzner.
Any chance of adding platform.sh to reviews?
Everything is opt-in. If you represent them or are a client, tell them to contact me.