Today, I will talk about the slowest and the fastest web hosting companies. I recorded the performance of 22 different web hosting companies for 90 days and today I am going to show you who had the fastest page speed and the best uptime.
In this article, we are going to discuss best Web Hosting for WordPress in 2021.
I will break this tutorial down into three sections; companies I don’t recommend, companies that performed on average and companies that are very fast and I recommend.
If you’ve checked a few web hosting companies and you’re not sure if they’re fast or reliable, go through the tutorial and choose the hosting you need.
Before I start, let me show you how I got these results and let me answer a common myth with web hosting. I purchased web hosting accounts from each of these companies and I installed the same size WordPress theme.
I monitored the page speed of each of these websites every 30 minutes for 90 days straight. I then recorded the uptime of the server and recorded every time the server went down for 90 days using Pingdom.
Pingdom is a web hosting monitor that records everything about your website and is known as the best resource for monitoring web hosting.
Now I will be focusing on two specific categories; page speed and downtime. Page speed is the time it takes for a website to load. The lower the number the faster the server is. Next is downtime. Downtime is how long the website went offline or was unavailable due to server issues. The more downtime the less reliable the server is.
Here is the server response time, which is the amount of time it takes for a web browser to receive a response from the web host. But I will mainly be focusing on the page speed and the downtime in this test.
Now I want to say that most companies today offer packages. You see terms like unlimited storage space and a meter bandwidth. This is simply not true. These companies do have a limit when it comes to web hosting.
You should always ask the web hosting company how much bandwidth or space is included in the package. Most of these companies offer a reasonable amount of space and bandwidth and I will talk more about this in this tutorial.
I will also be talking about renewal fees. It’s important to know when you sign up for a web hosting company that you’re only paying the first to your sales price then your plan renews at a higher cost. So that’s just something to consider when you’re shopping for web hosting.
First, let’s talk about companies you should avoid. If you are using any of these companies I highly recommend switching now. Google recommends that your website should be loading in under three seconds. So these next companies failed the basic Google standard of web hosting.
Number one is Hostgator. Hostgator’s performance over the years has been notoriously bad. Hostgator had an average load time of 5.5 seconds to load a website. It had an hour of downtime with 35 outages over 90 days.
Hostgator is owned by EIG which has a long reputation of buying mom and pop shops of web hosting and watering them down in return for a profit. I would avoid any web hosting company that is owned by EIG
Next is Inmotion hosting. Inmotion hosting had the slowest speed on the list. Loading at around 6.7 seconds and it also had 24 hours of downtime which is just crazy. Avoid this one at all costs.
Next is Bluehost. Yet another one from EIG company. Bluehost had an average load time of 4 seconds but they had an average downtime of 23 minutes which actually isn’t that bad. This is probably the least slow company that is owned by EIG but I would still not recommend it.
Next is Hostpapa. Sadly this company used to be a lot faster earlier and I did recommend them. Hostpapa had an average load time of 3.4 seconds with 33 minutes of downtime which is not that bad yet.
Next is Ipage; another EIG company. Ipage had an average load time of 4.67 seconds with 20 hours of downtime. They do have dirt cheap prices but that’s probably because their service is terrible. Avoid this one at all costs if you can.
Next is mediatemple.net. This company had a long history of being slow. Mediatemple’s average load time was around 4.85 seconds with three hours of downtime over 90 days.
Lastly TMD Hosting. This one really pains me because I used to promote this company a few years ago on a lot of my past WordPress tutorials. TMD’s average load time was 3.93 seconds with more than 7 hours of downtime over 90 days.
These are the companies I do not recommend. Now we are going to talk about the companies that barely met the Google standard of site loading at around three seconds. With these next companies I am personally neutral. Although I don’t recommend them I am not really against them. If you want to try them out go for one.
First is Chemicloud. Chemicloud barely met the Google standard of a load time of around 2.94 seconds. But it actually had some small downtime of around 10 minutes over 90 days.
The pricing is decent as their middle WordPress pro plan is around $100 for the year. They also have some pretty low renewal fees.
Next is Fastcomet. Known for their dedicated hosting, Fastcomet’s average load time on average was 2.5 seconds.
They had two hours of downtime over 90 days which is a little bad in my opinion. The prices are quite impressive you can get a year of hosting for as little as $70.
Fastcomet does offer a lot of pointless extras like search engine optimization for six dollars and fifteen dollars for a simple Google site map which you can simply upload yourself for free. Personally, I think Fastcomet is better for dedicated servers.
It actually has some very good dedicated server specs and deals that are worth your time.
Next is Godaddy. What would a web hosting test be without Godaddy. Godaddy barely met the Google standards with low tides of 2.98 seconds and had a terrible amount of downtime with 16 hours. Godaddy recently changed its logo.
I am not really sure what that’s all about but I think everyone knows them for their previous logo.
If you look at the ultimate plan it costs around $12.99 but there is no difference from the maximum plan costing $19.99. Godaddy has always had somewhat of a bad reputation but that also might be because they do have a large user base.
Next is Greengeeks. Two years ago this was the fastest web hosting available but they have definitely slowed down with speed over the years. Green geek’s page speeds were around 2.9 seconds on average with around 43 minutes of downtime over 90 days.
Greengeeks does offer some pretty good deals you can get a year of hosting for around $100 and 2 years of hosting for around $160. They also have some pretty low renewal fees. So it’s not bad if you’re on a budget.
Lastly, we get Flywheel. I am a little bit disappointed in this one. Last year, this company performed really well. But this year, the company’s speed lacked. I was very sceptical about putting Flywheel in this category. But I think I should and I will explain why the average load time I had with Flywheel was around 2.5 seconds.
They also had some good uptime at only 26 minutes. But for the price you’re paying and the limits they give you I think these results should be a lot better to host 10 websites.
You’ll have to pay $115 a month without any upgrades. You also need to migrate your website to get Flywheel as they don’t sell domains. The results aren’t bad but for the price I think you can find something much better.
These next 10 companies I personally, recommend. They perform better than every other hosting company on this entire list. They showed great speeds and good uptime. So for these next 10 companies, I will talk about why I like them and things I didn’t like about them as well. Welcome to the winners’ lounge.
Coming at number 10 is Kinsta. Kinsta has always been just a rock solid web hosting company. If you go to any Facebook group or a poll, Kinsta is usually going to be like on the top 10 list somewhere.
They had an average load time of 1.27 seconds with only five minutes of downtime which is very impressive. Now the only downside about Kinsta is that they are expensive.
They are the most expensive company on this entire list. So for a hundred dollars a month you get about five WordPress installs. A hundred thousand visits which I think is the equivalent of around 200 gigs of bandwidth and you get around 30 gigs of disk space. So although they are expensive the performance definitely makes up for it.
Now if you are brand new to WordPress or hosting I do not recommend Kinsta. It’s more suitable for developers. It’s more geared for people who have been in the game for a while. You will have to migrate your website and even sometimes you will have to change some settings yourself. The support can be questionable.
Personally, I think their support is not the best but again that’s my personal experience but performance wise this company is amazing.
Number nine is Cloudways. Now Cloudways performed really well.
They had an average load time of 1.37 seconds with only seven minutes of downtime over the last 30 days. Now Cloudways is a little different than the other typical hosting companies.
They work as a middleman for companies like Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Vulture even Digitalocean. They are a little bit expensive and a lot more technical. So Cloudways is like more of the middleman to make sure everything goes easier. So Cloudways can get a little pricey but the performance again makes up for it.
I would only recommend Cloudways for people who have been in the game for a while. If you’re brand new to WordPress, I do not recommend Cloudways. But for people who have been in the game for a while, Cloudways is a very good choice for web hosting.
Next, we have A2 Hosting and this is a suitable company for people who are brand new to WordPress. Now A2 Hosting performed at around 2.18 seconds with only an hour of downtime.
Let’s see the last. For the last 30 days and 90 days, they had about an hour of downtime.
The pricing for A2 Hosting is a little bit expensive than other hosting companies. The renewal fees are decent though. When you look at the hosting plans you might want to look at their renewal fees.
On average people usually get their turbo boost plan and that’s the one I used for this specific test. So for about the year you’ll pay around $180 and when it’s time to renew you’ll pay around $20. The renewal fees for A2 Hosting are not bad at all.
If you do want to try out A2 they are definitely a website to check out.
WPX Hosting is coming at number seven. This company is fast and I got a lot of requests to review this company. So I figured I would add it to my list.
WPX had an average load time of 643ms which is probably the top three fastest companies on this entire list. They have a problem with their downtime.
We had a problem with listing their IP address but we got it fixed obviously but they did have around I want to say three hours of downtime over the last three months. So all these red marks are downtime.
They didn’t have a lot of spikes of downtime except for ours which was this right here. But they had around three hours of downtime over the last 90 days that is a little bit too much. But again their speed definitely makes up for it.
Let’s take a look at their monthly plans. The monthly plans are not a bad deal. So for the professional, you do get 15 websites 20 gigs of storage and 200 gigs of bandwidth which is pretty much what Kinsta is offering. In the elite plan, you can hold 35 websites with 40 gigs of storage and unlimited bandwidth.
I am not really sure if that’s really unlimited. They all say that but there’s usually always a catch for the price you pay. It’s not bad. The downtime is a little alarming to me in my book even though the speed is very fast.
You can try out WPX. The speed of this company really surprised me. I do wish they just had better uptime. Unfortunately, they just did have a lot of spikes of downtime over the last three months for just some amazing speed.
Next, we have Siteground. Siteground is a company that I have recommended over the years. They are a reliable company.
Let’s talk about their specs. They had an average load time of 2.24 seconds which is very similar to A2 Hosting and they had around 11 minutes of downtime which really is not that bad at all.
Let’s go ahead and take a look at their 90-day mark. So we have the 90 days I think they had an hour or 30 minutes of downtime over three months that’s really not that bad.
This company recently raised their prices and I am very aware of that. People were saying they’re going to leave Siteground because of that. However, their prices are still cheap when you compare them to other companies. Siteground is still cheaper than A2 Hosting. If you want a year of hosting on the GrowBig account you’ll pay around $150 for the entire year. A2 Hosting charges around $180 for that.
Their renewal fees are higher than A2 Hosting. So A2 Hosting’s renewal fees are $20 a month and Siteground’s are $25 a month. So that’s something that you might want to consider. But what you’re really paying for with Siteground is you’re paying for the support. Their support is just number one. It’s just unbeatable.
If there’s a problem with your website these guys will usually fix it within the hour. They are really fast with the support because I have used other companies. Siteground is definitely a website worth checking out. I personally, use Siteground on my website and I do recommend them. The renewal fees can be a little expensive so that’s just something to consider.
Next, we have WP- Engine. WP Engine performed one of the fastest on this whole list but again they are the most expensive company on this list.
It performed on an average of a load time of 642ms with only six minutes of downtime that is extremely impressive.
The plans with the WP Engine are very expensive. So they are pretty much neck and neck with Kinsta. For a hundred dollars a month you get around 100, 000 visits which is 200 gigs of bandwidth. We get 20 gigs of storage, which is really not that much.
They had just amazing speeds. They are a little bit expensive and you have to keep that in mind.
Next, we have Knownhost. This company just kind of came out of the blue.
They had an average load time of 1.13 seconds with no downtime over the last 30 days, which is very impressive. Their support was really not that good as I had a problem setting up my hosting account and it took around a few days. Almost gave up on them but I went a step further and I said no we’re going to test you out.
The package that I chose for my specific test was the standard shared hosting. Their performance was amazing. Their back end is a little old school.
When you buy hosting through them and go to the back end you can definitely tell this is a mom-and-pop shop hosting company. However, their speeds are incredible. So definitely check out Knownhost; they are one website to consider.
Next is the liquid web. I guess they call it Nexcess or Liquid Web. This is the best managed hosting on this entire list and I will explain why.
Their performance was around 963 ms which is under one second. I know that WP Engine performed faster but you’re not going to ever see 200 ms. It’s like you are going to see a website load and say oh that was 250 ms oh that was 400 ms like you’re never going to see the difference.
At this point, you want to see what you’re getting with your money. They had an average downtime of 1 minute over the last 90 days, which is impressive. Now the reason why this company blows the other ones out of the water is because that you get a lot more with Nexcess or Liquid Web than other managed hosting companies.
Let’s take a look at their designer package which is the newest package they created recently. For a hundred dollars a month you get 60 gigs of storage. Let’s compare that to WP Engine. So for $100 a month you only get 20 gigs of storage. You get three times more storage with this company than you do with WP engine paying the same price now this is where Nexcess or Liquid Web just wins everything.
Four terabytes of bandwidth is like pretty much 2.5 million monthly visits every single month. But with these guys you only get around 200 gigabytes. A thousand gigabytes is one terabyte. So you get 20 times more bandwidth with liquid paying the same price.
I just can’t really argue that you’re not getting your money’s worth. If you are looking for managed WordPress hosting and you have a lot of traffic and you need a lot of space, this company is definitely I think the number one company to go with.
We have Namehero in number two. Namehero is the most cost-effective company on this entire list. If you’re looking for fast web hosting that’s cheap, Namehero was probably one of your best bets.
Their average load time was 1.98 seconds and they only had 14 minutes of downtime over the last three months which is pretty good.
Let’s just take a look at their plan. Just look at their turbo cloud. Now one thing I do recommend is if you are going to sign up for Namehero try to sign up for a long period because there is a renewable fee. There is a renewal fee but that renewal fee will not be applicable until your three years is over. You want to try to go as long as possible.
For three years of hosting with Namehero, you’re only going to pay around $218 which is again the most cost-effective on this entire list and their performance is amazing.
If you want to try Namehero, you can check them out. They use lightspeed servers, they are known for having just good uptime and they are very fast. So Namehero definitely is worth checking out.
Hostinger is coming in at number one. Hostinger performed one of the best and they also offer a lot more than typical web hosting companies.
Their load time on average was 1.15 seconds and they had only about one minute of downtime. Now I am going to explain why I rank Hostinger number one compared to other web hosting companies. I use their WordPress hosting plan.
If you go to hosting and you go to WordPress hosting, you will get the plan I used for this specific test. You get a hundred gigs of disk space which is pretty much. That’s more than the companies on this entire list. You also do get unlimited bandwidth.
This plan is very cost-effective. It’s also a light speed server known to be the fastest and you can tell just by looking at the statistics.
Their plans are amazing. What they give to their customers is very good. They speak in 40 languages and if you’re looking for cheap hosting I mean $139 for a year of WordPress hosting for these results, I would have to say is the best value for your money.
So again I rank Hostinger your number one this year. Their performance is great.
I think that their uptime was amazing and their prices are super cheap.
Let’s go take a look at their other plans. If you want to go ahead and go to their cloud for even faster hosting that coupon code again works for their cloud hosting.
If you are looking for very fast hosting, I definitely recommend Hostinger. They are my number one recommendation this year.
So people I hope this review will help you out. I spend thousands of dollars and a lot of time making this tutorial. I know it can be a little bit expensive when you will pay for web hosting. So make sure you have chosen the right hosting and save money without compromising on performance.