Tag Archives: awards

WordPress.com VIP Review (2018)

WordPress.com VIP participated for the second time in our WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks (2018). This review is based off the results of that test. This year WordPress.com VIP entered in the same Enterprise price tier again.

In the previous test, WP.com VIP aced the Enterprise test and earned the Top Tier WordPress Hosting Performance award from Review Signal. Considering who is behind it, the expectations behind WP.com VIP are enormous.

The Product

Plan Name Plan Monthly Price Plan Visitors Allowed Plan Memory/RAM Plan Disk Space Plan Bandwidth
Plan Sites Allowed
WordPress.com VIP $5,000 Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited 5

Performance Review

Load Storm

Plan Tier Total Requests Total Errors Peak RPS Average RPS Peak Response Time(ms) Average Response Time (ms) Total Data Transferred (GB) Peak Throughput (MB/s) Average Throughput (MB/s)
Enterprise 1,749,966 3 1,400.53 972.2 7,484 108 147.94 118.68 82.19

The Load Storm test is designed to simulate real users coming to the site, logging in and browsing the site bursting some of the caching mechanisms typically found on managed WordPress hosts.

Three errors out of 1.75 million requests. VIP also had the fastest average response time at 108ms. Simply astonishing.

Load Impact

Plan Tier Requests Errors Data Transferred (GB) Peak Average Load Time (Seconds) Peak Average Bandwidth (Mbps)
Peak Average Requests/Sec
Enterprise 2085775 6 119.88 0.102 1860 3960

The Load Impact test makes sure static caching is effective so that if a page gets a lot of traffic the site will keep responding without issue.

Six errors in over 2 million requests is another top notch performance. VIP also had the lowest average response time of any company.

Uptime

Plan Tier UptimeRobot StatusCake
Enterprise 99.95 100

The uptime results were great. 100 and 99.95% is very respectable.

WebPageTest / WPPerformanceTester

Plan Tier Enterprise
Dulles 0.334
Denver 1.112
LA 0.649
London 0.444
Frankfurt 0.353
Rose Hill, Mauritius 0.874
Singapore 0.395
Mumbai 0.544
Japan 0.358
Sydney 0.506
Brazil 0.363

I rarely comment about WebPageTest results but WordPress.com VIP deserves a special mention here. There were 11 test locations and VIP was the fastest in 9/11 and was 22 ms and 9 ms behind the fastest in the other two test locations. I've never seen any company be so dominant across the globe in terms of performance.

Plan Tier PHP Bench WP Bench
Enterprise 9.18 798.084597

The WPPerformanceTester results were normal.

Conclusion

WordPress.com VIP's sophomore performance didn't experience a slump. In fact, they seemed to have stepped up their game. Not only did they put on a better Load Storm performance, their response times across the globe were fantastic. WordPress.com VIP earned themselves a second Top Tier WordPress Hosting Performance award this year and was quite a stand out in many regards in a very crowded and well performing field.

WP Engine Review (2018)

WPEngine [Reviews] participated for the fifth time in our WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks (2018). This review is based off the results of that test. This year WPEngine entered in the Enterprise tier again. In the previous test, WPEngine struggled with the load tests. They returned this year and entered with the most expensive offering in the Enterprise tier and earned themselves a Top Tier WordPress Hosting Performance award.

The Product

Plan Name Plan Monthly Price Plan Visitors Allowed Plan Memory/RAM Plan Disk Space Plan Bandwidth
Plan Sites Allowed
Premium Dedicated $5,400 Capable of 10M+ (no hard limit, depends on site) N/A 1TB Unlimited 150

Performance Review

Load Storm

Plan Tier Total Requests Total Errors Peak RPS Average RPS Peak Response Time(ms) Average Response Time (ms) Total Data Transferred (GB) Peak Throughput (MB/s) Average Throughput (MB/s)
Enterprise 1,914,457 786 1,564.62 1,063.59 11,541 509 115.54 95.23 64.19

The Load Storm test is designed to simulate real users coming to the site, logging in and browsing the site bursting some of the caching mechanisms typically found on managed WordPress hosts.

WPEngine's Load Storm test was good. Minimal errors and stable response time.

Load Impact

Plan Tier Requests Errors Data Transferred (GB) Peak Average Load Time (Seconds) Peak Average Bandwidth (Mbps)
Peak Average Requests/Sec
Enterprise 1461819 0 78 0.665 1210 2780

The Load Impact test makes sure static caching is effective so that if a page gets a lot of traffic the site will keep responding without issue.

Zero errors, that's the magic number we love to see. WP Engine aced the Load Impact test.

Uptime

Plan Tier UptimeRobot StatusCake
Enterprise 99.95 99.96

WPEngine [Reviews]  maintained above 99.9% uptime on both monitors.

WebPageTest / WPPerformanceTester

Plan Tier Enterprise
Dulles 0.436
Denver 1.155
LA 0.948
London 1.155
Frankfurt 1
Rose Hill, Mauritius 2.109
Singapore 1.536
Mumbai 1.891
Japan 1.062
Sydney 1.428
Brazil 1.238

The response times on WPT were normal.

Plan Tier PHP Bench WP Bench
Enterprise 10.766 418.4100418

The WPPerformanceTester results normal.

Conclusion

After a disappointing 2016 showing, WPEngine [Reviews]  stepped up their game and earned a Top Tier WordPress Hosting Performance award from Review Signal. It's always good to see companies working to improve their service offering. WPEngine is one of the oldest companies in the WordPress hosting space and they are showing they can support even the largest clients as many new competitors spring up. Great performance from WP Engine.

Presslabs Review (2018)

Presslabs participated for the fourth time in our WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks (2018). This review is based off the results of that test. Presslabs entered a plan into the Enterprise category, one level up from last year's $201-500 range. Last year Presslabs earned an honorable mention in the $201-500 price tier.

The Product

Plan Name Plan Monthly Price Plan Visitors Allowed Plan Memory/RAM Plan Disk Space Plan Bandwidth
Plan Sites Allowed
Enterprise $2599 USD + $0.1/1000 page views 0 included, all traffic is charged with $0.1/1000 page views Unmetered Unmetered Unmetered
up to 25 (depending on traffic and requirements)

Performance Review

Load Storm

Plan Tier Total Requests Total Errors Peak RPS Average RPS Peak Response Time(ms) Average Response Time (ms) Total Data Transferred (GB) Peak Throughput (MB/s) Average Throughput (MB/s)
Enterprise 2,012,822 56 1,576.23 1,118.23 10,099 208 116.54 90.85 64.75

The Load Storm test is designed to simulate real users coming to the site, logging in and browsing the site bursting some of the caching mechanisms typically found on managed WordPress hosts.

An excellent performance on Load Storm from Presslabs. No signs of load and minimal errors.

Load Impact

Plan Tier Requests Errors Data Transferred (GB) Peak Average Load Time (Seconds) Peak Average Bandwidth (Mbps)
Peak Average Requests/Sec
Enterprise 1991403 0 104.96 0.184 1980 4580

The Load Impact test makes sure static caching is effective so that if a page gets a lot of traffic the site will keep responding without issue.

Zero errors and sub 200ms average response time. Excellent.

Uptime

Plan Tier UptimeRobot StatusCake
Enterprise 100 100

Perfect.

WebPageTest / WPPerformanceTester

Plan Tier Enterprise
Dulles 0.378
Denver 1.352
LA 0.85
London 0.49
Frankfurt 0.381
Rose Hill, Mauritius 1.335
Singapore 0.485
Mumbai 0.721
Japan 0.66
Sydney 0.551
Brazil 1.336

Presslabs' WPT results were good.

Plan Tier PHP Bench WP Bench
Enterprise 7.215 823.0452675

The WPPerformanceTester results had the fastest PHP Bench and second fastest WP Bench.

Conclusion

Presslabs stepped up a price tier and improved from honorable mention last year to earning Top Tier WordPress Hosting Performance award in 2018 at the Enterprise tier. It's nice to see another worthy competitor in the Enterprise space that can handle large sites.

WP Oven Review (2018)

WP Oven participated for the third time in our WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks (2018). This review is based off the results of that test. This year WP Oven moved up a tier to the $51-100 price tier.

In the previous test, WP oven achieved perfection and earned themselves Top Tier status from Review Signal. They had zero errors on every test and perfect uptime.

The Product

Plan Name Plan Monthly Price Plan Visitors Allowed Plan Memory/RAM Plan Disk Space Plan Bandwidth
Plan Sites Allowed
Professional $79.95 Unlimited 8GB 80GB 8 TB Unlimited Sites

Performance Review

Load Storm

Plan Tier Total Requests Total Errors Peak RPS Average RPS Peak Response Time(ms) Average Response Time (ms) Total Data Transferred (GB) Peak Throughput (MB/s) Average Throughput (MB/s)
$51-100 438,758 1 342.95 243.75 10,051 370 30.96 25.71 17.2

The Load Storm test is designed to simulate real users coming to the site, logging in and browsing the site bursting some of the caching mechanisms typically found on managed WordPress hosts.

WP Oven had a whopping single error on Load Storm and kept a sub 400ms response time. This was the fewest of any company in the price tier. An excellent showing.

Load Impact

Plan Tier Requests Errors Data Transferred (GB) Peak Average Load Time (Seconds) Peak Average Bandwidth (Mbps)
Peak Average Requests/Sec
$51-100 675881 0 36.07 0.398 619 1380

The Load Impact test makes sure static caching is effective so that if a page gets a lot of traffic the site will keep responding without issue.

WP Oven had zero errors and kept a sub 400ms response time. Perfect.

Uptime

Plan Tier UptimeRobot StatusCake
$51-100 99.98 99.97

Both monitors were above 99.9%, which is good.

WebPageTest / WPPerformanceTester

Plan Tier $51-100
Dulles 0.406
Denver 1.118
LA 0.739
London 1.124
Frankfurt 1.206
Rose Hill, Mauritius 2.04
Singapore 2.103
Mumbai 2.221
Japan 1.421
Sydney 2.099
Brazil 1.316

The WPT results look normal.

Plan Tier PHP Bench WP Bench
$51-100 9.634 211.1040743

The WPPerformanceTester results are normal.

Conclusion

WP Oven proved they could step up a price tier in 2018 and still earn itself Review Signal's Top Tier WordPress Hosting Performance award. It's nice to see a relatively unknown company do consistently well in our benchmarks. Another year, another great performance, keep up the great work WP Oven!

Kinsta Review (2018)

Kinsta participated for the fourth time in our WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks (2018). This review is based off the results of that test. This year Kinsta participated in the 25-50, 51-100, 101-200, 201-500, and Enterprise price tiers.

In the previous test, Kinsta earned Top Tier status in all four price brackets it entered.  In 2018, Kinsta started offering cheaper plans and has competed in an additional, lower price tier.

The Products

Plan Name Plan Monthly Price Plan Visitors Allowed Plan Memory/RAM Plan Disk Space Plan Bandwidth
Plan Sites Allowed
Starter $30 20000 - 5GB Unlimited 1
Pro $60 40,000 - 5GB Unlimited 2
Business 1 $100 100,000 - 10GB Unlimited 3
Business 2 $200 250000 - 20GB SSD Unlimited 10
Enterprise 1 $600 1 Million - 80GB SSD Unlimited 60

Performance Review

Load Storm

Plan Tier Total Requests Total Errors Peak RPS Average RPS Peak Response Time(ms) Average Response Time (ms) Total Data Transferred (GB) Peak Throughput (MB/s) Average Throughput (MB/s)
$25-50 294,176 3 225.5 163.43 10,036 355 21.38 17.58 11.88
$51-100 425,597 1 332.65 236.44 10,017 377 30.98 25.62 17.21
$101-200 556,007 48 436.15 308.89 10,101 375 40.45 32.44 22.47
$200-500 688,856 0 543.12 382.7 4,407 358 50.08 40.47 27.82
Enterprise 1,720,465 0 1,391.42 955.81 3,906 417 112.7 91.9 62.61

The Load Storm test is designed to simulate real users coming to the site, logging in and browsing the site bursting some of the caching mechanisms typically found on managed WordPress hosts.

Kinsta aced the Load Storm tests across every tier. Zero errors in multiple price tiers and minimal errors in the others. The response times were kept fast and stable. It scaled up from the smallest test to Enterprise test without issue.

Load Impact

Plan Tier Requests Errors Data Transferred (GB) Peak Average Load Time (Seconds) Peak Average Bandwidth (Mbps)
Peak Average Requests/Sec
$25-50 337031 0 18.05 0.41 304 694
$51-100 672240 0 36 0.416 583 1300
$101-200 1016163 0 54.42 0.395 863 1920
$200-500 1014718 0 54.34 0.411 866 1930
Enterprise 1367747 0 73.4 0.802 1120 2540

The Load Impact test makes sure static caching is effective so that if a page gets a lot of traffic the site will keep responding without issue.

Perfection. Zero errors across 5 separate tests.

Uptime

Plan Tier UptimeRobot StatusCake
$25-50 100 100
$51-100 100 100
$101-200 100 100
$200-500 100 100
Enterprise 100 100

Perfect. 100% across 5 plans and two separate monitors.

WebPageTest / WPPerformanceTester

Plan Tier $25-50 $51-100 $101-200 $200-500 Enterprise
Dulles 0.387 0.373 0.377 0.396 0.382
Denver 1.287 1.163 1.411 1.134 1.245
LA 0.833 0.79 0.81 0.832 1.154
London 1.076 1.104 1.073 1.177 1.331
Frankfurt 1.014 1.009 1.01 1.031 1.103
Rose Hill, Mauritius 2.436 2.446 2.433 2.439 2.444
Singapore 1.902 1.729 1.728 1.712 1.774
Mumbai 2.114 2.279 2.221 2.119 2.108
Japan 1.186 1.183 1.234 1.268 1.281
Sydney 1.609 1.766 1.763 1.772 1.611
Brazil 1.513 1.364 1.384 1.508 1.404

WPT test results looked normal.

Plan Tier PHP Bench WP Bench
$25-50 8.853 1036.26943
$51-100 8.783 1173.70892
$101-200 8.974 1100.110011
$200-500 9.048 1047.120419
Enterprise 8.787 1207.729469

The WPPerformanceTester results looked normal. The WP Bench results stood out though. The database connections are consistently very fast compared to their competitors at higher price tiers when plans tend to run separate and/or multiple database servers.

Conclusion

Kinsta earned itself five Top Tier WordPress Hosting Performance Awards in 2018. It had perfect uptime across every plan. It had zero errors on Load Impact. It had 2/5 Load Storm tests without any errors and only 52 errors total from 3.685 million requests. No signs of stress showed on any test. Kinsta has consistently brought their A game to WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks, this year was no exception. It's nice to see them offering newer, cheaper plans that allow people on smaller budgets access their offerings. A huge congratulations to them for earning the most Top Tier Hosting Performance awards of any company in 2018.

Review Signal’s Best Web Hosting Companies in 2016

2016 Year in Review

I like to take this opportunity to look back at the year and see how Review Signal has changed. This past year we added ~36,000 new reviews. Added one new company: WebFaction. 49.6% of reviews were positive overall. 52.1% of unique reviews were positive. What is interesting about the difference is that people with negative things to say were more likely to send multiple negative messages, but as a whole more individual people said positive things than negative.

This year was also full of interesting articles that took advantage of our unique position in the web hosting review space. The WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks (2016) was the biggest hit as usual. It grew massively in size/scope and tested companies across multiple price tiers up to Enterprise WordPress Hosting.

I also wrote about the Dirty, Slimy Secrets of the Web Hosting Review Underworld. I also tracked some major changes with The Rise and Fall of A Small Orange and The Sinking of Site 5 which tracked Endurance International Group acquisitions and how their ratings fell post-acquisition. A Small Orange's fall from grace even caused the first ranking algorithm update on Review Signal's history.

Best Shared Hosting 2016 – SiteGround [Reviews] (74.2%)

Best Specialty Hosting 2016 – FlyWheel [Reviews] (83.7%)

Best Managed VPS Hosting 2016 – KnownHost [Reviews] (80.9%)

Best Unmanaged VPS Hosting 2016 – Digital Ocean [Reviews] (71.3%)

Best Support 2016 – SiteGround [Reviews]  (80.81%). KnownHost [Reviews], LiquidWeb [Reviews], WiredTree [Reviews] all tied for second at 80% (WiredTree was acquired by LiquidWeb in 2016).

A big congratulations goes out to all of this years winners.

Review Signal’s Best Web Hosting Companies in 2015

Another year, another mountain of data added to the largest web hosting review site. This year we added over 49,000 new reviews (a slight increase from the 45,000 last year). We added two new companies in Arvixe and Site5, both of which are now owned by EIG. We published our first WordPress Plugin WPPerformanceTester. WPPerformanceTester was built for our WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks which we performed yet again with our largest batch of companies ever. We even got some outside validation from LiquidWeb which published its internal NPS benchmarks which matched very closely to their Review Signal Rating.

But the year ended on a somewhat sour note with The Rise and Fall of A Small Orange. It tells the story of ASO and how they've played such a huge role on this site. Including winning at least one of these awards every year since inception. But not anymore. So without further ado...

Best Shared Web Host: LiquidWeb [Reviews]

2015-best-shared-hosting-liquidweb

 

Best Web Hosting Support: SiteGround [Reviews]

2015-best-hosting-support-siteground

 

Best Specialty Web Hosting: FlyWheel [Reviews]

2014-best-specialty-flywheel

Best Unmanaged VPS: Digital Ocean [Reviews]

2014-best-unmanaged-vps-digitalocean

Best Managed VPS: LiquidWeb [Reviews]

2015-best-managed-vps-liquidweb

 

For the second year in a row FlyWheel [Reviews] has set the bar in terms of how high a company's rating can be. They won the best specialty web hosting award with their managed WordPress hosting.

For the first time ever someone besides A Small Orange [Reviews] has won the best shared web hosting. A huge congratulations to LiquidWeb [Reviews]! They also managed to pickup the Best Managed VPS hosting award.

Digital Ocean [Reviews] continues its massive growth and popularity, they have won the Best Unmanaged VPS provider for the third year in a row.

Finally, SiteGround [Reviews] returned to our awards and won Best Web Hosting Support, an honor they last received in 2013.

The Best Web Hosting Companies in 2014

It's always interesting to look back at a year and analyze what happened. 2014 was the second full year of operation for Review Signal. Four new companies were published on Review Signal: Azure, FlyWheel, Pagely, WebSynthesis. We added roughly 45,000 new reviews (oddly enough about half as many as last year). We ran two massive performance testing reviews of managed WordPress hosting companies (1, 2).

So I finally got around to slicing and dicing the data exclusively looking at data collected in 2014 and here are the awards:

 

Best Shared Web Host: A Small Orange [Reviews]

2014-best-shared-asmallorange

Best Web Hosting Support: FlyWheel [Reviews]

2014-best-support-flywheel

Best Specialty Web Hosting: FlyWheel [Reviews]

2014-best-specialty-flywheel

Best Unmanaged VPS: Digital Ocean [Reviews]

2014-best-unmanaged-vps-digitalocean

Best Managed VPS: KnownHost [Reviews]

2014-best-managed-vps-knownhost

New comer FlyWheel [Reviews] has set the bar in terms of how high a company can fly (I'm sorry!). When I introduced FlyWheel they had the absolute highest numbers I've ever seen and continue to be in a tier of their own. They do WordPress hosting and that is it, so maybe there is some advantage to specialization. They took the best specialty hosting and support awards this year.

For the third consecutive year in a row, A Small Orange [Reviews] has the best shared web hosting.

Digital Ocean [Reviews] has become the fourth largest web hosting company in under two years according to netcraft. It's easy to understand why when they take home the best unmanaged VPS provider for a second year in a row.

Finally, a new-comer into our awards list, Known Host [Reviews] managed to take the Best Managed VPS award this year beating out last year's winner, A Small Orange.

 

The Best Web Hosts of 2013 – Reflections and Awards

2013 was the first full year of operation for Review Signal. It has been an exciting year and a successful year. We've added roughly 90,000 new reviews in 2013. We added two new companies this year. One was a company we struggled with to get listed because of their vast size and scope: Amazon. The other has been possibly the fastest growing new web hosting company of 2013: Digital Ocean. While proud that we added these two companies, it isn't enough. We're tracking over one hundred companies and there are a more that should be added soon. Adding a new company does take some extra work, but we need to find that time and make sure it gets done. Without further ado...

The Best Web Hosting Companies of 2013

Best Shared Web Host: A Small Orange

asmallorange best shared webhost

Best Web Hosting Support: SiteGround

siteground best hosting support

Best Unmanaged VPS Provider: Digital Ocean

digitalocean best unmanaged vps

Best Managed VPS Provider: A Small Orange

asmallorange best managed vps

A Small Orange continues to be the top web host that offers a broad range of hosting options. It was only beat out by newcomer, Digital Ocean, which provides very specific unmanaged SSD backed VPSes. And SiteGround is a new comer to our best of the year category. They eked out a less than 1% edge over A Small Orange in support rating. We would like to congratulate all of these companies on an excellent 2013 and hope that they continue their stellar performance in 2014.

I would also like to thank Cat Robinson for designing this year's awards. My favorite part of working with her was 'I don't know what a cute symbol is for VPS provider.' Me either. Thank you Cat.

*The way these scores were calculated were the same as last year. We only look at data collected in the 2013 calendar year, so there may be some differences in what you see on the site live, which keeps all data from all years versus this years rankings.

The Best of 2012 – Reflections and Awards

It's been an exciting year at Review Signal. We launched in September. It's been going well and we have really enjoyed the feedback from our users. Thank you to everyone who has visited, reached out and help us along the way.

We wanted to end the year with a look back through our data and recognize some exceptional companies that stood out this year.

Best Overall Web Host: A Small Orange

A Small Orange 2012 Best Overall Web Host

A Small Orange have consistently had the highest rating of any company all year. Their rating for the year ended at a 77% Overall Rating. Their customers have been simply raving about them.

However, one new specialty hosting company did eclipse them in November.

Best Specialty Web Host: WPEngine (WordPress Hosting)

WPEngine 2012 Best Specialty Web Host

WPEngine was a late addition to our system and it got a huge number of reviews very quickly. The consensus was that WPEngine is pretty good with an Overall Rating of 80%.

One of the biggest differentiators for hosting companies these days is the support. We wanted to recognize two companies that had the best service ratings. We separated them into managed and unmanaged because of the very different nature of each offer. We ran into some issues where some companies had high ratings but very few actual reviews related to it. To normalize for volume we applied a Wilson Score interval, so some companies may appear to have higher support scores but the confidence in those is lower because there were only a few reviews making up that rating.

Best Managed/Unmanaged Hosting Support: LiquidWeb / Linode

LiquidWeb Best Managed Support HostingLinode Best Unmanaged Support Hosting

Both LiquidWeb and Linode have very passionate customers and are near the top in Overall Rating as well as having the highest Support Ratings in their respective categories. Linode has a passionate fanbase in the developer community who seem more than happy to manage their own VPSs. LiquidWeb's customers are generally in the managed Dedicated and VPS categories.

We congratulate each of these companies on an excellent 2012 and hope their performance only continues to improve in 2013.