When it comes to comparing and choosing good blog hosting that’s secure and fast at the same time, there are many options and companies. However, when it comes to real page loading time and testing, only a few web hosts work well for WordPress.
I don’t want to complicate things. I’ve hosted WordPress sites with each one of the following companies. The sites are similar in content and include 120 pages with an average of 1300 word count.
In addition, I inserted 3 photos per page to simulate a typical website that could be a blog or business page, and of course, it was a test for page speed and site performance. So, here are the best 5 options for the other providers; read the following guide.
Fastest web hosting providers for WordPress
1. WP Engine
WP Engine works faster for WordPress because it was built entirely for that, there is no other CMS supported, and the well-configured cloud servers made the web host the preferred solution for hosting any size of website or blog running on WordPress. In addition, there is Woocommerce optimization for those who need to build WordPress sites and sell items online.
There are lots of blog hosting companies that offer an optimized environment for WordPress, and they create special pages for that. But, when it comes to reality, all of them use the same services and similar settings.
No one of them will make your site faster with their shared hosting. On the other side, WP Engine is not only one of the highly recommended WordPress hosting providers but also the most advanced and secure platform in the world.
They have created a special environment for WordPress. So, they’ve added their own technologies with powerful resources and settings.
WP Engine uses super-fast cloud servers that are optimized for speed and well-protected against the latest security threats, malware, and issues. Unlike hosting your WordPress sites with a regular company, this one does not mess with quality or customer support. They have the highest customer satisfaction in the industry, with hundreds of experts in their assistance department, which is not available at any other web host.
For more details about this amazing WordPress hosting, read this section or visit WP Engine and get 3 months of free hosting when paying for a one-year plan at a discounted price and superior quality.
2. Liquid Web
Liquid Web is another company that can make your blog load quicker than your actual web host. In my tests, that’s reliable, secure, and makes websites load quickly at once. If you tried any other managed WordPress hosting and found it fast, then, you still never tested the true power of the WordPress SSD servers and multiple caching systems.
In reality, a fully managed hosting solution comes with enterprise-level hardware and the best software in the industry.
How fast is Liquid Web for WordPress?
We used the fully managed WordPress hosting plan that comes with a great dashboard. And for the speed test, the website load time was:
- 600 ms, on average, is the average page loading time
- The average server response time was 210 to 280 ms on a VPS.
Keep in mind that the server response time may vary depending on the number of pages, plugins, and theme quality, of course. However, on average, expect the same results if you apply WordPress speed optimization and best practices.
That includes compressing images before uploading them and using trusted plugs and themes that have been updated at least in the last 6 months.
Now, Liquid Web-managed WordPress hosting includes automated image compression. It’s a power that the company built to let you have fast hosting without thinking about technical things.
Now the good news for those who think about limitations is that the company doesn’t limit page views like others. So, here is what every WordPress website gets:.
- Unlimited page views and visits
- Automated daily backups, and you get back up for the last 30 days
- Staging area to test your site before deploying to the live version
- The company owns its data centers. So, there is no middleman to fix things and monitor the traffic.
- PHP7, SSL, Nginx, and Varnish caching
- With around-the-clock support, you can contact the support team and get help anytime, 24/7/365, by phone calls, live chat, or emails.
- Full root access
- SSH, Git, and WP-CLI
- No overage change like what other hosts do
- Image compression
- Multiple site management tools
- Plugin updates
Also, you don’t need to learn how to speed up WordPress. You’ll make your site load quickly and faster than your competitors by just hosting it with this company.
By comparing the other few test results we already have, this is the right hosting platform for real estate websites, fashion blogs, eCommerce sites, and high-traffic sites in general.
3. Nexcess
I hosted with the Nexcess company, and it’s one of the most reliable web hosts I have tried. There is a pure SSD infrastructure and server-level optimizations for speed and security.
On the other side, when things may look complicated for beginners, there is friendly customer support that can help 24/7. Moreover, it’s not an option these days to have WordPress-specific hosting with premium data transfer and a wildcard SSL certificate for just $9.5/mo for the first 6 months and a discount of $19/mo.
Here Nexcess is one of the best blog hosting solutions:
- Superfast servers
- Reliable hosting
- Automatic WordPress updates and one-click installs
- Advanced severs cashing technology
- Expert WordPress support
4. Pressidium
When talking about WordPress site performance, Pressidium takes care of speed, security, and user experience altogether. It’s a fully managed web host for blogs that need an extra level of security with exceptional hardware installations and optimizations.
This web host comes with free CDN, SSL, PHP, and, of course, professional customer support. The web host is based in the UK. But they have multiple data centers in the USA, and worldwide. So, it’s a good place to host a website that runs on WordPress, no matter where web traffic is coming from.
5. HostGator
The shared hosting plans from HostGator work well if you really do what should be done, such as site caching and optimizations. However, it’s not as fast as their managed WordPress hosting solution. In fact, HostGator has optimized WordPress hosting that accelerates web page loading time better than many competitors. So, it works, and I highly recommend it for blogs and websites with small to medium traffic.
Unlike the regular hosting plans, the WordPress packages come with a customized control panel that’s easier to use and combines all that WordPress needs in one place. There is a daily site backup, and you can restore the site anytime you want with a few clicks of the button.
6. InMotion Hosting
InMotion is a trusted shared web hosting company based in Los Angeles, California. It’s a great and cheap provider at the same time. The web host uses good-quality SSD servers with PHP optimization and caching.
I’ve tested InMotion Hosting, and it worked well compared to others like iPage, SiteGround, and Bluehost. However, I strongly recommend understanding your website’s needs, as that will affect its performance in the future. In other words, don’t expect a fast page load from a website that has thousands of pages on a shared server. Instead, look for a VPS, and they have a good solution for that.
As you can see, the page loads quickly compared to other regular web hosts on shared environments, however, we installed a caching plugin. Also, we installed an image compression plugin and used a clean code theme.
We don’t add extra code the website doesn’t need, and that’s what helped to make the site faster. But for the server in general, it looks like the company optimized their server better and added SSD storage with better performance.
7. CloudWays
CloudWays is another reliable web hosting provider that’s faster than many popular providers. There is more than regular hosting; their cloud infrastructure comes from the biggest providers like Google Cloud, Amazon, Linode, Digital Ocean, and others. Thus, you can choose your preferred cloud hosting infrastructure and then, deploy WordPress with a few clicks.
For speed, the user doesn’t have to do the optimizations as there is a server-level caching system, multiple accelerators for PHP, and, of course, sophisticated systems for security, daily site scanning, and malware removal.
8. iThemes hosting
iThemes is now offering reliable hosting for WordPress sites that should load in under 2 seconds if you take care of optimization and apply the best recommendations (I’m talking about pages with few images only, as everything in web page speed, may need extra levels of work for beginners).
This is, by default, a company that builds high-quality plugins and theme builders for WordPress, but later, they started looking for an improved performance environment to host sites. So, they built a custom WordPress hosting solution that works faster and more securely. Moreover, there is a complete website-building toolkit that includes security systems, one dashboard to manage all your WordPress sites from a single place, and of course, a daily backup and restore plugin.
All these tools are premium, and you get them for free with their web hosting plans.
9. Flywheel
Technically speaking, Flywheel is a managed cloud hosting that works exclusively for WordPress, however, it’s not cheap compared to other options. So, expect to pay more to get the same level of resources as your actual web host if you have any.
For example, the first hosting plan that costs $15 a month may look attractive, but that handles only 5000 monthly visits, and that’s not enough for medium-sized sites. So, if you’re willing to host a tiny site and accelerate it, then, this plan may work well for you. The other hosting packages are expensive, but good quality, and lots of web design agencies use the FlyWheel hosting plans for their customers.
10. MediaTemple
This is a fully managed web hosting that provides quality service for WordPress sites. It starts from staging sites and lets you test things before going live; then, you can get the power of dedicated hosting but in the cloud for the cost of $30 a month.
For limitations, the maximum number of installs allowed is 10, and the free SSL and the domain name are free for one-year billing only. For speed, it’s a good solution that speeds up the page loading time without doing any further optimization, but I don’t recommend this hosting for small-size blogs as it costs a lot of money in the long term.
Is WP Engine the fastest-managed web hosting for WordPress?
First, let’s talk about this high-quality and premium WordPress hosting; we’ll not only talk about our experience with them but also, we’ll share some screenshots of the portal.
How fast is WP Engine for WordPress?
WP Engine is a fully managed platform with a high level of caching and PHP optimizations. They are proving the speed with every single site added to their thousands of WordPress installations. It’s not a regular hosting company, but a premium and the most advanced host.
It’s like building a server exclusively for WordPress software, that needs extra resources to work properly with every request. WordPress is the CMS that needs a powerful server with advanced settings.
What WP Engine engineers are doing is a good job of web hosting, and you will understand that when you host your WordPress site with them. People hear about this company everywhere on the web. But, remember that they host big companies’ websites, such as Buffer, SoundCloud, and others.
These sites receive millions of visitors, however, they are fast, and they load like sites with a few hundred and not millions of visitors. In our tests, the WP Engine speed is great, but not faster than the above company.
- The web page loads in 850 milliseconds, and it’s one of the fastest WordPress web hosting providers, especially for small-size blogs and medium-sized sites
- The server response tie was 600 ms
Now, let’s talk about some of the features that make WP Engine, a good fastest WordPress host for many small business websites. And also we’ll show you the cons of this web host.
Cons of hosting WordPress on WP Engine servers
In terms of speed, it’s great. However, for pricing, we should say it, is not good, and what they offer as WordPress plans are expensive compared to what you get as resources.
In addition, there are bad surprises with overage fees. They charge $1 per additional 1000 visits.
For limitation, $35 for 25,000 visits is not a big deal. Also, there is no dedicated IP or even a premium-quality SSL unless you choose one of the higher plans.
A CDN is a must-have option in today’s web hosting. However, the company doesn’t offer a CDN on its first shared plan.
Confusing staging area: don’t believe what you read all the time. We tried the WP Engine hosting, and their staging area is not the best.
We found problems updating the site name and even accessing it. In addition, there were serious SEO problems in the last few years when Google indexed the staging sites.
So, if you want to use the staging area of WP Engine, make sure you use it with password protection. Also, remove it completely when you complete the development.
WordPress hosting infrastructure with the best performances
Even if there are bad things about WP Engine, it’s still one of the best WordPress hosting solutions with its powerful infrastructure and all the configurations that make the load balancing better.
It’s the web host with experimental tests. It’s not simply words that many other low-quality companies use on their marketing pages.
WP Engine takes a different approach and proves its speed, instead of talking about it.
If you have a blog that loads in 7 seconds on average, then, expect to reduce that loading time to 1 second with this awesome company.
WP Engine offers a fast, scalable hosting
WPEngine proves that with time, fast WordPress web hosting comes with flexible scalability and easy management. In addition, hosting scalability is not just an advanced technique to make a website load normally, and fast, even, with unexpected traffic.
What will happen if one of your posts is featured on big sites, such as the New York Times or others? Simply, your site will stop loading, until that traffic ends.
This is not the case with WP Engine. They’re one of the top-rated web hosting services. They have created their own caching system and technology called EverCache.
What that does for WordPress is it saves a static copy of the pages, then, serves them to the visitor much faster than using regular server caching.
As you can see, that is the daily backup point for a website; that happens automatically, and there is no need to do it manually. Even better, you can do a manual backup before installing a plugin or theme. They’ll show a notification for that.
There is the error log file and the access-log file, that way, you can see what happens on the site in real time. Also, you can see what errors you got with the exact response code and servers, and trace in Nginx and Apache as they use both of them.
Some other features of this powerful hosting are:
- Page caching management tools
- SSL management
- PHPMyAdmin access
- Custom redirect rules directly from the user portal
- CDN tools available, etc…
How to move your WordPress site to WP Engine?
Unlike other web hosts, WP Engine has its own automated migration plugin, and all this happens automatically. Not only is it fast WordPress hosting, but the site transfer is also smooth and easy.
You don’t even need to download or upload any files between servers. The site transfer plugin sends everything from your actual (old) WordPress site to the new site on their servers.
All you need to do is install their official migration plugin when you sign up. You’ll find the link in your dashboard under the “site migration” link.
When you install the plugin, just add the destination URL and SFTP credentials of your WPEngine account and let the transfer start; that’s it.
So, yes, the migration to WPEngine is free, and you don’t need any third-party service or pay someone to do it for you. In 3 minutes of setup, everything will be configured, and the transfer time will depend on the size of your blog, but in general, in less than a half-hour or so.
Do you need a caching plugin with WP Engine?
WP Engine is on the top list of the fastest web hosts, and it uses its own caching system installed on its fast servers. Popular caching plugins such as W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache work well, but, they also take more time and cause extra requests to your server.
This is why WP Engine disabled them completely after creating their advanced caching system, that not only replaces those plugins but also, makes your blog load blazing faster than any other host.
EverCache is the only caching system that speeds up WordPress. Best of all, it all happens from the server without adding any plugins or codes, and it’s available only on WP Engine.
Fast, but well Isolated and secure WordPress sites with WP Engine
When you want to edit the CSS or anything in your theme or blog in general. Errors can happen, and the result will be a crashed site that needs extra work to find the issue.
Luckily, WP Engine has a service called One-Click Staging. It creates a copy of your blog and allows you to see the changes, but without applying them to the active site.
So, you can play with your CSS, and plugins without affecting the real site because you are testing it in an isolated and safe area.
Here are the WP Engine tools added to our WordPress installation. So, we can manage everything from one place, we can create a staging site as a copy, manage themes and plugins, and then, copy everything into the live chat.
That way, if something wrong happens, we still do that only on the copied version that’s not visible to anyone.
We found issues with updating the site name after deploying the first time after migration. We fixed that by manually changing the site URL in the database.
Just use the PHPMyAdmin tool, then, click the database name, and next, click on the “wp-options” table. You’ll get the site name, address, and you can edit them to the correct ones. Also, there is a direct link to the support center and the user portal.
Faster WordPress hosting with advanced security tools
It’s not easy to configure the server and make it secure all the time. That needs a lot of programs and exceptional coding skills. But what WP Engine offers in security is more than that; it’s top-level security technology.
They filter each request to your site and block every invalid request. So, they have created and developed their own security system that works well with the biggest sites.
Another good feature of this fast web host, it offers free restoration and configuration after a problem happens with your site.
If, for any reason, you made a big mistake and installed a virus in a plugin, for example, the system will isolate your blog from their server, and they will clean and repair your site for free.
That way, you don’t have to worry about the backups; you can create your own backups. But, WP Engine will create daily backups for free, and send them to your Amazon S3 account; it’s a second backup, and no one else uses it except this host.
WP Engine offers expert WordPress support
When it comes to customer assistance, this is one of the best-friendly WordPress hosting companies to get fast support when you need it. In addition, you get full support, no matter what size of site you have.
You have phone support, live chat support, or an email support system. But our advice is to always go with direct phone support.
It lets you explain the exact issue you have or ask them questions in real-time. So, they can look inside your site and look further to fix issues.
How much does WP Engine cost?
As this is a premium-quality and fast WordPress hosting provider, the speed and security will take a website to the next level, but that needs resources and lots of work.
WP Engine prices are not as cheap, as the shared hosting services. But, honestly, they are expensive, especially for the first plan, compared to the services they offer.
Their price ranges from $20 per month for a single WordPress installation, to $293 per month for 30 WordPress installations. (All these costs are for yearly billing at once.) However, they allow their customers to add their own needs, and the price is based on their site usage. They work with expert WordPress coders and programmers. They also, use the latest metal hardware and backup technologies that cost more than any other host.
Is WP Engine worth it?
WP Engine is worth every single cent of the money invested in fast website hosting. It’s better multiple times than any other hosting provider that you’ve tried before.
So, such premium hosting with exceptional resources and technology is worth the money. However, the first plan is not recommended as there is no CDN and enough resources for a professional website unless it receives medium traffic.
So, WP Engine can be a preferred WordPress hosting for many, but it is not the right choice for their budgets. So, choose a bigger plan or use the above-recommended hosting option that we tested that’s faster and better.
What WordPress hosting should you buy?
It’s not just a matter of speed; it’s also a matter of security, performance, and optimization. You can have a fast site loading time. But if you overdo it with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, you’ll make the page broken. Unfortunately, some WordPress hosting companies use outdated versions of caching systems, and they only use the basics.
A good, reliable, and fast WordPress website hosting solution should also have the latest hardware and software technologies. We found the above services have the best infrastructure compared to any other managed WordPress hosting company.
A fully managed WordPress hosting with the fastest servers may work well for you, but don’t just pick any plan, choose the appropriate hosting package that your site needs.
Things to look for in a fast WordPress host
So, to find a good, fast WordPress hosting, look for the following things:
- Fast server response time, no slower than 700 ms
- Customer support by phone, at least
- Don’t count on ticket support; you can’t fix urgent problems that way
- The web host should offer tutorials and guides
- We recommend a migration tool all the time
- With fully owned data centers, everything will be better
- It’s best to choose a registered web-hosting company
- A good caching system
- High level of security
- Daily WordPress monitoring system against malware and virus
- The staging area is not needed all the time, especially for established websites. However, it’s something that you can use to test plugins and changes. But make sure you always protect it with a password to prevent Google from indexing it.
- A good web host should not hide extra fees you don’t know about, so read the full pricing details
- Look for the server specifications; fast WordPress hosting should have minimum requirements; and of course, you need to have the latest PHP and MySQL versions.
Note about testing the performance of web hosts
We tried to make things clear and easy for all, there is no need to go deep with details and speed comparison, and that’s not practical. Here is why:
Depending on your website size, traffic, and content, there is no way to compare how fast a web hosting service is by just comparing the loading time. In reality, each web hosting infrastructure has its own technical specifications and needs. So, with some web hosts, you’ll need a caching plugin with the proper configuration to have the fastest WordPress hosting experience.
With other hosting platforms, you don’t have to install a caching plugin, or configure anything, but guess what? If you choose the wrong hosting plan, your site will suffer, because the RAM and CPU you have in the plan do not work with the size of the website. That’s noticeable with a website full of content, images, and media without taking that into consideration when choosing the hosting package.
So, the main idea here is this: don’t count on what others are saying about choosing a fast WordPress hosting service. Their test may not cover all the situations, and it’s just a way to say, that this worked faster for our site than others. Thus, to get the fastest WordPress hosting for your site, take into consideration the following factors:.
4 things to look for when choosing a fast WordPress hosting
Because each blog needs a specific type of hosting plan depending on its needs, there is always a need to understand and estimate how much traffic and bandwidth a site needs. In addition, there are other server specifications and details to look for, so, here is what every site owner needs to do before choosing a web hosting plan.
1. Do you need all these plugins?
If you have a small blog, then choosing fast WordPress hosting will be easy. The majority of services, like HostGator offer the minimum requirements for the latest WordPress version. On the other side, if your WordPress site includes lots of plugins, then, it may be worth investigating the plugin versions and finding if you really need all of them.
2. Having a lightweight theme is better for site speed
The same thing applies to your WordPress theme. Do you really need that design? What if you have articles that any theme can handle, and your theme comes with a long list of features, code, and files that slow down your site, and you never use them?
Now, think twice about your website structure, plugins, theme, and usage. If you have multiple plugins installed, then, you may have all of their functions in one single plugin like JetPack. It’s the official WordPress plugin that does dozens of other plugin functions with one installation.
3. Compress your site photos
If your site is about photography, fashion, or food, then, you already have lots of photos, and you have to compress them to save disk space and speed up your site. Not all web hosting providers compress images, so, the one-time task here will be installing and activating any of the image compression, optimization, and performance plugins available for WordPress.
Then, you have fixed one of the most common issues with WordPress page size and site loading time, the smaller your page size is, the faster it will load in a web browser.
So, if your hosting doesn’t compress images, then, without the image compression plugin, you’ll find it slow, and that’s why choosing a fast WordPress web hosting starts with understanding your site functions, needs, and usage. Next, you can pick the right hosting plan that suits your budget and make the site load super fast.
4. Understand your website audience location
Where do visitors come from when they read your site page? Can you find a specific country or state where the majority of visits come from?
If you have thousands of readers or customers from the East Coast of the USA, for example, then, choosing a web hosting company with servers in that region will make your site load faster naturally.
You don’t have to pay for CDN if you don’t want to; however, if people are reaching your website from different states and countries, then, choosing a managed WordPress hosting with CDN included is what you need. The CDN will speed up the site loading time and fix the majority of issues.
The fastest WordPress web host I recommend
For those who care about quality, features, and security, I found LiquidWeb is the number-one WordPress hosting provider with blazing fast site loading time and secure servers. They own their servers, data centers, and have in-house management services with high-tech engineers.
These people monitor the servers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the full year. So, there is no need to think about uptime, security, and speed if you choose this amazing hosting.
There are different hosting plans for WordPress and Woocommerce sites, and if you want the best of the best, then choose this hosting forget the slow loading time, and focus on your website content and business instead.
So, these are the fastest hosting services for WordPress we found and tried. They work better than other providers, and we strongly recommend them for any website type.
If you want to start a blog, a website, or even a complete e-commerce store on WordPress, you can’t find faster web hosts like the above options. If there is one fast WordPress hosting provider that we should choose, it will be Liquid Web without a doubt.
