Fastest WordPress Hosting: 16 Hosts – TTFB/Load Times Reports

Looking for the fastest WordPress hosting?

I signed up for 16 hosting accounts and measured speeds/TTFB in Pingdom, GTmetrix, KeyCDN, and other tools. On each hosting account, I installed the same Astra Starter Site with the same 6 plugins, no cache plugin, no CDN, with SSL. I also posted screenshots of the reports.

If someone is doing a hosting speed test, check who they’re using and run their site through GTmetrix to ensure the person walks the talk. I use the test winner (Cloudways) and, depending on the test, can get <1s load times on posts with 50+ images and 500+ comments.

Testing 16 Popular WordPress Hosting Plans: What is the fastest hosting for WordPress?

Pingdom Load Times

In the Pingdom test, each host was added to Pingdom tools which performed 30-minute check intervals to measure load times. Pingdom only shows the average of the last 7 days. But even with 7 days at 30-minute check intervals, each site was tested 336 times.

• Theme Used: Astra Starter Site Installed On Each – Outdoor Adventure
• 7 Day Period w/ 30 minute Check Intervals
• SSL Installed, No Other Changes Made In Accounts

Pingdom WordPress Website Load Time Test Results

The winner was not WPX and not SiteGround. It was Cloudways Vultr HF.

This begs the question:

Why do other tests not show Cloudways in the top results, but they are one of the most recommended hosts in Facebook Groups and one of the fastest WordPress hosts?

Here’s my theory:

Affiliates think Cloudways is too “technical” for the average user (even though they’re not), which might discourage them from recommending Cloudways. That’s why most affiliates promote the most “user-friendly hosts,” such as WPX, SiteGround, Kinsta, and even Bluehost.

But they’re not the fastest.

This blog is dedicated to WordPress speed optimization, and I only recommend the fastest WordPress host, regardless of whether you click my links. Many people (including myself) do these speed tests, hoping you will use our affiliate links, but it should not influence the data.

Isn’t WPX the fastest?

No. In Matthew Woodward’s test, WPX was the winner but had caching and WPX Cloud CDN installed, while other hosts did not. In his other tests, hosts with built-in caching and CDNs were at the top (WPX, Kinsta, GoDaddy). Of course, a host will get better results if they have a clear advantage. Does that mean I can log in to Cloudways and use PHP 7.4, Maria DB 10.3, Varnish, activate their CDN, and configure the Cloudways Breeze caching plugin? No, we need to give each host level playing ground since we’re strictly measuring the speed of their servers.

TTFB

This test took the average of 5 TTFBs: GTmetrix (1), WebPageTest (1), and KeyCDN (3).

GTmetrix only has 1 testing location in the US (Dallas, Texas), while WebPageTest has multiple US testing locations, so I chose the closest testing location to each host’s data center. KeyCDN has 10 global testing locations total, but only the 3 US locations were used in the test.

It is somewhat pointless to test TTFB in other countries since you would probably select a data center that’s in your same country. That’s why only US locations were used in the tests.

These tests will never be 100% perfect because there will always be a variable (the physical distance between a host’s data center vs. the testing locations). But I did my best to make it as accurate as possible by reducing the variable. I still wanted to be transparent about it.

Managed WordPress Hosting Plan TTFBs Testing Results

Cloudways Linode had a slightly faster TTFB, but their data center was also in Texas (close to the GTmetrix and 1 KeyCDN testing location).

This was followed by Cloudways DigitalOcean, whose data center was in San Francisco, CA. Even though the DigitalOcean data center was further away from the GTmetrix location (Dallas, Texas), they still outperformed every WordPress host besides Cloudways Linode.

Server Response Times

Server response times were measured using the WP Hosting Performance Check Plugin for one month. This was the same plugin used in Darrel Wilson’s original “best WordPress hosting” YouTube video when he told viewers that NameHero was the fastest. I can’t entirely agree.

Server Response Times Results

Most results aligned with other tests. However, WP Engine (1753ms) had very slow server response times.

Why does Darrel Wilson recommend SiteGround?

Darrel has been creating YouTube videos on “the best hosting,” which recommends NameHero, SiteGround, GreenGeeks, and a few others (mostly shared hosts). He also recommends WP Engine and Liquid Web over Cloudways. While he creates helpful videos, his results aren’t accurate, especially if you view Backlinko’s PageSpeed Test, where SiteGround’s TTFB was slow.

GTmetrix Load Times

I ran 10 GTmetrix tests on each host and took the average.

While TTFB in GTmetrix’s Timing tab is usually stable, load times can vary on each test. Pingdom is best for measuring load times which is the recommended method by WP Rocket. While GTmetrix can be an indicator, refer to the Pingdom test (#1) for accurate results.

GTmetrix Load Times Results

GTmetrix only has 1 testing location in the US (Dallas, Texas), which may have contributed to why Vultr and Linode were at the top since both of their data centers were in Texas. Again, Cloudways DigitalOcean outperformed all the other hosts even when their data center was far away in San Francisco, CA. Otherwise, the results were pretty much as expected.

Fastest Host for WordPress – The Results

1. Cloudways Vultr High Frequency – just released 8/20/2020 by Cloudways and uses Vultr’s latest technology (3.8 GHz Processors + NVMe storage). It starts at $13/month and can handle more resource-intensive tasks with lower latency.
2. Cloudways DigitalOcean – #1 in most tests, who I use, and highly recommended in Facebook Groups. Rated #1 in numerous Facebook polls with free migration, $10/month, and a promo code that saves you 40% your first 2 months.
3. WPX – #1 in Matthew Woodward’s test because caching and a CDN were used when he tested WPX when other hosts did not have this advantage. They’re still fast, the dashboard is more user-friendly than Cloudways, and support is excellent.
4. Cloudways Linode – starts at $12/month from the Cloudways optimized stack.
5. Cloudways Vultr – starts at $11/month from the Cloudways optimized stack.
6. Kinsta – used by high-traffic bloggers and can handle many simultaneous visitors.
7. Closte – pay-per-use pricing from Google Cloud servers, recommended by Gijo.
8. A2 Hosting – what I use to host low-traffic websites on a user-friendly cPanel. They’re cheap, semi-fast, have decent TrustPilot reviews, and are very user-friendly. Most people looking for SiteGround alternatives either end up at Cloudways or A2.
9. Liquid Web – is by far the best support you will get. I wish their speeds were faster.
10. Flywheel – is owned by the same company as WP Engine. Neither is excellent.
11. WP Engine – didn’t perform great; support went downhill, and it was expensive for value.
12. Hostinger – writes fake reviews and votes for themselves in Facebook polls, no!
13. Bluehost is mainly promoted by affiliates who don’t use them on their site.
14. NameHero – recommended by Darrel Wilson but didn’t perform well in tests.
15. SiteGround – went entirely downhill in recent years and is now very bad.
16. HostGator – the slowest of the slowest, EIG-owned and desperately needs help.

*Ordered by the average placement of all tests.

Host	Server Type	Caching	CDN	PHP
A2 Hosting	LiteSpeed + AMD EPYC	Server-side (Database, Memcached)	Cloudflare	7.4
Bluehost	In-house	None	Cloudflare	7.4
Closte	Google Cloud + LiteSpeed	LiteSpeed	Google Cloud CDN	7.4
Cloudways DigitalOcean	DigitalOcean	Server-side (Varnish, Redis, Memcached)	StackPath ($1 Per 25GB)	7.4
Cloudways Linode	Linode	Server-side (Varnish, Redis, Memcached)	StackPath ($1 Per 25GB)	7.4
Cloudways Vultr	Vultr	Server-side (Varnish, Redis, Memcached)	StackPath ($1 Per 25GB)	7.4
Cloudways Vultr HF	Vultr High Frequency	Server-side (Varnish, Redis, Memcached)	StackPath ($1 Per 25GB)	7.4
Flywheel	Google Cloud	Server-side	Fastly ($10/mo)	7.4
HostGator	In-house	Server-side	Cloudflare	7.3
Hostinger	LiteSpeed	Server-side	Cloudflare (on cloud plans)	7.4
Kinsta	Google Cloud C2	Server-side	KeyCDN (200GB free)	7.4
Liquid Web	Nexcess Cloud	Server-side (Varnish, Memcached)	Nexcess Edge CDN + Cloudflare	7.4
NameHero	LiteSpeed	Server-side	Cloudflare	7.4
SiteGround	Google Cloud	Server-side via SG Optimizer	Cloudflare	7.4
WP Engine	Google Cloud + AWS	Server-side	StackPath	7.4
WPX	In-house	W3 Total Cache	WPX Cloud	7.4

Screenshots Of Reports + Hosting Platform Information

Below are screenshots of the reports used in tests, which data center was chosen, and links to the live test sites (I canceled a few since it was getting expensive). I also included details about each WordPress host, like their speed features, cons, and the pricing of the plan used in the test.

*Price is the yearly rate of the plan I used unless otherwise noted.

A2 Hosting Speed Test Results

• GTmetrix – 297ms
• KeyCDN – 192ms
• WebPageTest – 524ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 301ms
• Search Console – 177ms
• Pingdom – 587ms
• Datacenter: Ann Arbor, MI
• Test site: https://atwoserver.com
• Cons: shared hosting + CPU limits
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Turbo Boost
• Price: $179.88 (renewal prices apply)

Bluehost

• GTmetrix – 800ms
• KeyCDN – 623ms
• WebPageTest – 1048ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 728ms
• Search Console – 485ms
• Pingdom – 1560ms
• Datacenter: Provo, UT
• Test site: https://blhstserver.com
• Cons: slow, unhelpful support, EIG-owned, outages/downtimes, CPU limits
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Plus Plan
• Price: $107.40 (renewal prices apply)

Closte

• GTmetrix – 279ms
• KeyCDN – 152ms
• WebPageTest – 309ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 239ms
• Search Console – 45ms
• Pingdom – 750ms
• Datacenter: Council Bluffs, IA
• Test site: https://clsteserver.com
• Cons: lack of support, no fixed price
• Free migration? No
• Hosting plan used: only 1 plan is available
• Price: monthly (pay per usage)

Cloudways DigitalOcean – Fast WordPress Hosting

• GTmetrix – 130ms
• KeyCDN – 131ms
• WebPageTest – 215ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 157ms
• Search Console – 205ms
• Pingdom – 340ms
• Data center: San Francisco, CA
• Test site: https://cwdoserver.com
• Cons: not always user-friendly, support
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: DO (1 CPU)
• Price: $10/month (no yearly contract)

Cloudways Linode

• GTmetrix – 88ms
• KeyCDN – 99ms
• WebPageTest – 248ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 320ms
• Search Console – 80ms
• Pingdom – 603ms
• Datacenter: Richardson, TX
• Test site: https://cwlndserver.com
• Cons: not always user-friendly, support
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Linode (1 CPU)
• Price: $12/month (no yearly contract)

Cloudways Vultr

• GTmetrix – 141ms
• KeyCDN – 103ms
• WebPageTest – 244ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 330ms
• Search Console – 132ms
• Pingdom – 618ms
• Datacenter: Dallas, TX
• Test site: https://cwvltrhfserver.com
• Cons: not always user-friendly, support
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Vultr (1 CPU)
• Price: $11/month (no yearly contract)

Cloudways Vultr High Frequency

• GTmetrix – 148ms
• KeyCDN – 123ms
• WebPageTest – 160ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 139ms
• Search Console – N/A
• Pingdom – 618ms
• Datacenter: Dallas, TX
• Test site: https://cwvltrserver.com
• Cons: not always user-friendly, support
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Vultr HF (1 CPU)
• Price: $13/month (no yearly contract)

Flywheel

• GTmetrix – 100ms
• KeyCDN – 520ms
• WebPageTest – 229ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 790ms
• Search Console – 201ms
• Pingdom – 1130ms
• Data center: San Francisco, CA
• Test site: https://flywhlserver.com
• Cons: same as WP Engine
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Tiny Plan
• Price: $15/month

HostGator

• GTmetrix – 1500ms
• KeyCDN – 697ms
• WebPageTest – 1606ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 1127ms
• Search Console – 635ms
• Pingdom – 2670ms
• Datacenter: Provo, UT
• Test site: https://hstgtrserver.com
• Cons: same complaints as Bluehost (both are EIG-owned), but even worse
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Standard Plan
• Price: $127.29 (renewal prices apply)

Hostinger

• GTmetrix – 494ms
• KeyCDN – 393ms
• WebPageTest – 653ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 252ms
• Search Console – 353ms
• Pingdom – 1800ms
• Datacenter: Asheville, NC
• Test site: https://hstngerserver.com
• Cons: dishonest – fake reviews
• Free migration? No.
• Hosting plan used: WordPress Premium
• Price: $155.40 (renewal prices apply)

Kinsta

• GTmetrix – 264ms
• KeyCDN – 134ms
• WebPageTest – 393ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 183ms
• Search Console – 72ms
• Pingdom – 628ms
• Datacenter: Council Bluffs, IA
• Test site: https://knstaserver.com
• Cons: no phone support, expensive
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Starter Plan
• Price: $30/month (discount for yearly)

Liquid Web

• GTmetrix – 500ms
• KeyCDN – 442ms
• WebPageTest – 669ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 271ms
• Search Console – 138ms
• Pingdom – 968ms
• Datacenter: Lansing, MI
• Test site: https://liqwebserver.com
• Cons: could be faster, no email
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Spark Plan
• Price of plan: $190.00

NameHero

• GTmetrix – 1200ms
• KeyCDN – 605ms
• WebPageTest – 774ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 993ms
• Search Console – 508ms
• Pingdom – 1400ms
• Datacenter: Lansing, MI
• Test site: https://nmheroserver.com
• Cons: shared hosting + CPU limits
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Turbo Cloud Plan
• Price: $155.69 (renewal prices apply)

SiteGround

• GTmetrix – 1100ms
• KeyCDN – 891ms
• WebPageTest – 1502ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 1104ms
• Search Console – 618ms
• Pingdom – 2280ms
• Datacenter: Council Bluffs, IA
• Test site: https://stgrndserver.com
• Cons: a very long list…
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: GrowBig
• Price: $119.88 (big renewals apply)

WP Engine

• GTmetrix – 186ms
• KeyCDN – 207ms
• WebPageTest – 428ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 1753ms
• Search Console – 431ms
• Pingdom – 1290ms
• Datacenter: North Charleston, SC
• Test site: https://wpengnserver.com
• Cons: servers have gotten slower
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Startup Plan
• Price: $30

WPX

• GTmetrix – 110ms
• KeyCDN – 278ms
• WebPageTest – 238ms
• WPHPC Plugin – 257ms
• Search Console – 206ms
• Pingdom – 436ms
• Datacenter: Chicago, Illinois
• Test site: https://wpxserver.com
• Cons: uses W3TC, no phone support
• Free migration? Yes
• Hosting plan used: Business Plan
• Price: $249.99

Fastest WordPress Hosting FAQs

Based on the comprehensive TTFB/Load Times Reports, it is clear that choosing the right hosting provider is crucial for ensuring optimal performance and speed for your WordPress website. With a wide range of options available, it can be overwhelming to make the right choice. However, our detailed analysis of 16 hosting providers has narrowed down the fastest WordPress hosting options for you.

Whether you are starting a new website or looking to migrate an existing one, these reports provide valuable insights into the top performers. Don’t settle for subpar loading speeds that can frustrate your visitors and hinder your website’s success. Take action now and choose the fastest WordPress server that suits your specific needs. Boost your website’s performance and provide an exceptional user experience by making an informed decision today.